The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White)

by Lynn Shepherd

  “And mine, Mr. George.”

  The trooper looks sideways at Allan’s sunburnt cheek and bright dark eye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to approve of him.

  “Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Bucket took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted with the name, I can help you to it. It’s Tulkinghorn. That’s what it is.”

  Allan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name.

  “Tulkinghorn. That’s the name, sir. I know the man; and know him to have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow.”

  Allan naturally asks what kind of man he is?

  “What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?”

  “I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally, what kind of man?”

  “Why, then I’ll tell you, sir,” returns the trooper, stopping short, and folding his arms on his square chest, so angrily, that his face fires and flushes all over; “he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood, than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man—by George!—that has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more dissatisfaction with myself, than all other men put together. That’s the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!”

  “I am sorry,” says Allan, “to have touched so sore a place.”

  “Sore?” The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of his broad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. “It’s no fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me. He is the man I spoke of just now, as being able to tumble me out of this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won’t hold off, and he won’t come on. If I have a payment to make him, or time to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don’t see me, don’t hear me—passes me on to Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn, Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn passes me back again to him—he keeps me prowling and dangling about him, as if I was made of the same stone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well, loitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing. Just as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He chafes and goads me, till—Bah! nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr. Woodcourt”; the trooper resumes his march; “all I say is, he is an old man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs to my horse, and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that chance, in one of the humours he drives me into—he’d go down, sir!”

  Mr. George has been so excited, that he finds it necessary to wipe his forehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his impetuosity away with the National Anthem, some involuntary shakings of his head and heavings of his chest still linger behind; not to mention an occasional hasty adjustment with both hands of his open shirt-collar, as if it were scarcely open enough to prevent his being troubled by a choking sensation. In short, Allan Woodcourt has not much doubt about the going down of Mr. Tulkinghorn on the field referred to.

  Jo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his mattress by the careful Phil; to whom, after due administration of medicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and instructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast; and then, without seeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his discovery.

  With him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him that there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed; and showing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats in substance what he said in the morning; without any material variation. Only, that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a hollower sound.

  “Let me lay here quiet, and not be chivied no more,” falters Jo; “and be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sweep, as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving on right forards with his duty, and I’ll be wery thankful. I’d be more thankful than I am aready, if it wos any ways possible for an unfortnet to be it.”

  He makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the course of a day or two, that Allan, after conferring with Mr. Jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook’s Court; the rather, as the cart seems to be breaking down.

  To Cook’s Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an Indenture of several skins which has just come in from the engrosser’s; an immense desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place of a few large letters, to break the awful monotony, and save the traveller from despair. Mr. Snagsby puts up at one of these inky wells, and greets the stranger with his cough of general preparation for business.

  “You don’t remember me, Mr. Snagsby?”

  The stationer’s heart begins to thump heavily, for his old apprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to answer, “No, sir, I can’t say I do. I should have considered—not to put too fine a point upon it—that I never saw you before, sir.”

  “Twice before,” says Allan Woodcourt. “Once at a poor bedside, and once—”

  “It’s come at last!” thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection breaks upon him. “It’s got to a head now, and is going to burst!” But, he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the little counting-house, and to shut the door.

  “Are you a married man, sir?”

  “No, I am not.”

  “Would you make the attempt, though single,” says Mr. Snagsby, in a melancholy whisper, “to speak as low as you can? For my little woman is a-listening somewheres, or I’ll forfeit the business and five hundred pound!”

  In deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back against his desk, protesting:

  “I never had a secret of my own, sir. I can’t charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my little woman on my own account, since she named the day. I wouldn’t have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn’t have done it, I dursn’t have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a burden to me.”

  His visitor professes his regret to hear it, and asks him does he remember Jo? Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, O don’t he!

  “You couldn’t name an individual human being—except myself—that my little woman is more set and determined against than Jo,” says Mr. Snagsby.

  Allan asks why?

  “Why?” repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump of hair at the back of his bald head, “How should I know why? But you are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married person such a question!”

  With this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal resignation, and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to communicate.

  “There again!” says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his feelings, and the suppressed tones of his voice, is discoloured in the face. “At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little woman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that other certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam, sir!” says Mr. Snagsby.

  But it is better than he expected, after all; being no explosion of the mine below him, or deepening of the pit into which he has fallen. And being tender-hearted, and affected by the account he hears of Jo’s condition, he readily engages to “look round” as early in the evening as he can manage it quietly. He looks round very quietly, when the evening comes; but it may turn out that Mrs. Snagsby is as quiet a manager as he.

  Jo is very glad to see his old friend; and says, when they are
left alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Snagsby should come so far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half-a-crown: that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds.

  “And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?” inquires the stationer, with his cough of sympathy.

  “I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am,” returns Jo, “and don’t want for nothink. I’m more cumfbler nor you can’t think. Mr. Sangsby! I’m wery sorry that I done it, but I didn’t go fur to do it, sir.”

  The stationer softly lays down another half-crown, and asks him what it is that he is sorry for having done?

  “Mr. Sangsby,” says Jo, “I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yit as warn’t the t’other lady, and none of ’em never says nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good and my having been s’unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me yesday, and she ses, ‘Ah, Jo!’ she ses. ‘We thought we’d lost you, Jo!’ she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don’t pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don’t, and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he’s allus a-doin on day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby.”

  The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve his feelings.

  “Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby,” proceeds Jo, “wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p’raps?”

  “Yes, Jo, please God,” returns the stationer.

  “Uncommon precious large, p’raps?” says Jo, with eagerness.

  “Yes, my poor boy.”

  Jo laughs with pleasure. “Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and cou’dn’t be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p’raps, as to write out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to do it; and that though I didn’t know nothink at all, I knowed as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he’d be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it wery large, he might.”

  “It shall say it, Jo. Very large.”

  Jo laughs again. “Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It’s wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more comfbler nor I was afore.”

  The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown—he has never been so close to a case requiring so many—and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. No more.

  For the cart so hard to draw, is near its journey’s end, and drags over stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps, shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise, and behold it still upon its weary road.

  Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse and works as armourer at his little table in a corner; often looking round, and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap, and an encouraging elevation of his one eyebrow, “Hold up, my boy! Hold up!” There, too, is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always; both thinking, much, how strangely Fate has entangled this rough outcast in the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure, and, from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down temporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in answer to his cheerful words.

  Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor today, and Allan Woodcourt, newly arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a while, he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards him—just as he sat in the law-writer’s room—and touches his chest and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little more.

  The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr. Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and attention on his face, and, glancing significantly at the trooper, signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next used, there will be a speck of rust upon it.

  “Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don’t be frightened.”

  “I thought,” says Jo, who has started, and is looking round, “I thought I was in Tom-all-Alone’s agin. Ain’t there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot?”

  “Nobody.”

  “And I ain’t took back to Tom-all-Alone’s. Am I, sir?”

  “No.” Jo closes his eyes, muttering, “I’m wery thankful.”

  After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very near his ear, and says to him in a low, distinct voice:

  “Jo! Did you ever know a prayer?”

  “Never knowd nothink, sir.”

  “Not so much as one short prayer?”

  “No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. Sangsby’s and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin’ to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn’t make out nothink on it. Different times, there was other genlmen come down Tom-all-Alone’s a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t’other wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t’others, and not a-talkin to us. We never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about.”

  It takes him a long time to say this; and few but an experienced and attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong effort to get out of bed.

  “Stay, Jo! What now?”

  “It’s time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir,” he returns with a wild look.

  “Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?”

  “Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he wos. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be berried. He used fur to say to me, ‘I am as poor as you today, Jo,’ he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now, and have come there to be laid along with him.”

  “By and by, Jo. By and by.”

  “Ah! P’raps they wouldn’t do it if I wos to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?”

  “I will, indeed.”

  “Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They’ll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it’s allus locked. And there’s a step there, as I used for to clean with my broom.—It’s turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin?”

  “It is coming fast, Jo.”

  Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end.

  “Jo, my poor fellow!”

  “I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I’m a-gropin—a-gropin—let me catch hold of your hand.”

  “Jo, can you say what I say?”

  “I’ll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it’s good.”

  “OUR FATHER.”

  “Our Father!—yes, that’s wery good, sir.”

  “WHICH ART IN HEAVEN.”

  “Art in heaven—is the light a-comin, sir?”

  “It is close at hand. HALLOWED BE THY NAME!”

  “Hallowed be—thy—”

  The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead!

  Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.

  CHAPTER 48

  CLOSING IN

  The place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house in town is awake. In Lincolnshire, the Dedlocks of the past doze in their picture-frames, and the l
ow wind murmurs through the long drawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In town, the Dedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed carriages through the darkness of the night, and the Dedlock Mercuries, with ashes (or hair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic of their great humility, loll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. The fashionable world—tremendous orb, nearly five miles round—is in full swing, and the solar system works respectfully at its appointed distances.

  Where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where all the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and refinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has scaled and taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of old reposed in herself, as one able to reserve whatsoever she would under her mantle of pride, is beaten down; though she has no assurance that what she is to those around her, she will remain another day; it is not in her nature, when envious eyes are looking on, to yield or to droop. They say of her, that she has lately grown more handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of her that she’s beauty nough—tsetup Shopofwomen—but rather larming kind—reminding-manfact—inconvenient woman—who will getoutofbedandbawthstablishment—Shakspeare.

  Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing; looks nothing. Now, as heretofore, he is to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat loosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage from the Peerage, and making no sign. Of all men he is still the last who might be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of all women she is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him.

  One thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in his turret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared to throw it off.

  It is morning in the great world; afternoon according to the little sun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are reposing in the hall; and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous creatures, like overblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to run to a deal of seed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester, in the library, has fallen asleep for the good of the country, over the report of a Parliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room in which she gave audience to the young man of the name of Guppy. Rosa is with her, and has been writing for her and reading to her. Rosa is now at work upon embroidery, or some such pretty thing; and as she bends her head over it, my Lady watches her in silence. Not for the first time today.