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

by Lynn Shepherd

  But I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley, or any one; and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person entrusted with the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me this, and also explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr. Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian’s candle, read to me, in the hall, a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and, I suppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused, I was sitting beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets.

  His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to me that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These were, chiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom he only referred as Lady Dedlock); when and where I had spoken with her last; and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. When I had satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to consider—taking time to think—whether, within my knowledge, there was any one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to confide, under circumstances of the last necessity. I could think of no one but my guardian. But, by and by, I mentioned Mr. Boythorn. He came into my mind, as connected with his old chivalrous manner of mentioning my mother’s name; and with what my guardian had informed me of his engagement to her sister, and his unconscious connexion with her unhappy story.

  My companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation, that we might the better hear each other. He now told him to go on again; and said to me, after considering within himself for a few moments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. He was quite willing to tell me what his plan was: but I did not feel clear enough to understand it.

  We had not driven very far from our lodgings, when we stopped in a by-street, at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr. Bucket took me in and sat me in an arm-chair, by a bright fire. It was now past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any attention.

  A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised together, while one wrote from Mr. Bucket’s subdued dictation. It was a description of my mother that they were busy with; for Mr. Bucket brought it to me when it was done, and read it in a whisper. It was very accurate indeed.

  The second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it out, and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an outer room) who took it up and went away with it. All this was done with the greatest dispatch, and without the waste of a moment; yet nobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out upon its travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing with neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire.

  “Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?” he asked me, as his eyes met mine. “It’s a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out in.”

  I told him I cared for no weather, and was warmly clothed.

  “It may be a long job,” he observed; “but so that it ends well, never mind, miss.”

  “I pray to Heaven it may end well!” said I.

  He nodded comfortingly. “You see, whatever you do don’t you go and fret yourself. You keep yourself cool, and equal for anything that may happen; and it’ll be the better for you, the better for me, the better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”

  He was really very kind and gentle; and as he stood before the fire warming his boots, and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt a confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a quarter to two, when I heard horses’ feet and wheels outside. “Now, Miss Summerson,” said he, “we are off, if you please!”

  He gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out, and we found at the door a phaeton or barouche, with a postilion and post horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in, and took his own seat on the box. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage, then handed him up a dark lantern at his request; and when he had given a few directions to the driver, we rattled away.

  I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with great rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets, that I soon lost all idea where we were; except that we had crossed and re-crossed the river, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, waterside, dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares, chequered by docks and basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships. At length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which the wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my companion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several men, who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I could discern the words, “FOUND DROWNED”; and this, and an inscription about Drags, possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in our visit to that place.

  I had no need to remind myself that I was not there, by the indulgence of any feeling of mine, to increase the difficulties of the search, or to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I remained quiet; but what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still it was like the horror of a dream. A man yet dark and muddy, in long swollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat, and whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some slippery steps—as if to look at something secret that he had to show. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after turning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared!

  After some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to know and defer to) went in with the others at a door, and left me in the carriage; while the driver walked up and down by his horses, to warm himself. The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it made; and I could hear it break at the end of the alley, with a little rush towards me. It never did so—and I thought it did so, hundreds of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and probably was less—but the thought shuddered through me that it would cast my mother at the horses’ feet.

  Mr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. “Don’t you be alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here,” he said, turning to me. “I only want to have everything in train and to know that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!”

  We appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken note of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging from the general character of the streets. We called at another office or station for a minute, and crossed the river again. During the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion, wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single moment; but, when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be more on the alert than before. He stood up to look over the parapet; he alighted, and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted past us; and he gazed into the profound black pit of water, with a face that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look, so overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat lines of shore: so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of substance and shadow: so death-like and mysterious. I have seen it many times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free from the impression of that journey. In my memory, the lights upon the bridge are always burning dim; the cutting wind is eddying round the homeless woman whom we pass; the monotonous wheels are whirling on; and the light of the carriage-lamps reflected back, looks palely in upon me—a face, rising out of the dreaded water.

  Clattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at length from the pavement on to dark smooth road
s, and began to leave the houses behind us. After a while, I recognized the familiar way to Saint Albans. At Barnet, fresh horses were ready for us, and we changed and went on. It was very cold indeed; and the open country was white with snow, though none was falling then.

  “An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Bucket, cheerfully.

  “Yes,” I returned. “Have you gathered any intelligence?”

  “None that can be quite depended on as yet,” he answered, “but it’s early times as yet.”

  He had gone into every late or early public-house where there was a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being then much frequented by drovers), and had got down to talk to the turnpike-keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business tone, “Get on, my lad!”

  With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o’clock and we were yet a few miles short of Saint Albans, when he came out of one of these houses and handed me in a cup of tea.

  “Drink it, Miss Summerson, it’ll do you good. You’re beginning to get more yourself now, ain’t you?”

  I thanked him, and said I hoped so.

  “You was what you may call stunned at first,” he returned; “and Lord! no wonder. Don’t speak loud, my dear. It’s all right. She’s on ahead.”

  I don’t know what joyful exclamation I made, or was going to make, but he put up his finger, and I stopped myself.

  “Passed through here on foot, this evening, about eight or nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but couldn’t make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she’s before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, Ostler. Now, if you wasn’t brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half-a-crown in your t’other hand. One, two, three, and there you are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!”

  We were soon in Saint Albans, and alighted a little before day, when I was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the night, and really to believe that they were not a dream. Leaving the carriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready, my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home.

  “As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see,” he observed, “I should like to know whether you’ve been asked for by any stranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce has. I don’t much expect it, but it might be.”

  As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye—the day was now breaking—and reminded me that I had come down it one night, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and poor Jo: whom he called Toughey.

  I wondered how he knew that.

  “When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know,” said Mr. Bucket.

  Yes, I remembered that too, very well.

  “That was me,” said Mr. Bucket.

  Seeing my surprise, he went on:

  “I drove down in a gig that afternoon, to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your little maid going up, when I was walking the horse down. Making an inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he was in; and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him, when I observed you bringing him home here.”

  “Had he committed any crime?” I asked.

  “None was charged against him,” said Mr. Bucket, coolly lifting off his hat; “but I suppose he wasn’t over-particular. No. What I wanted him for, was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome, as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn’t do, at any sort of price, to have him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he was away, and go farther from it, and maintain a bright look out that I didn’t catch him coming back again.”

  “Poor creature!” said I.

  “Poor enough,” assented Mr. Bucket, “and trouble enough, and well enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure you.”

  I asked him why? “Why, my dear?” said Mr. Bucket. “Naturally there was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a yard and a half of it, and a remnant over.”

  Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me. With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that he had in view. He still pursued this subject, as we turned in at the garden-gate.

  “Ah!” said Mr. Bucket. “Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker-tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They’re early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what you’ve always got to be careful of with servants, is, who comes to see ’em; you never know what they’re up to, if you don’t know that. And another thing my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the kitchen door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a dwellinghouse with an unlawful purpose.”

  We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely at the gravel for footprints, before he raised his eyes to the windows.

  “Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room, when he’s on a visit here, Miss Summerson?” he inquired, glancing at Mr. Skimpole’s usual chamber.

  “You know Mr. Skimpole!” said I.

  “What do you call him again?” returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his ear. “Skimpole, is it? I’ve often wondered what his name might be. Skimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?”

  “Harold,” I told him.

  “Harold. Yes. He’s a queer bird is Harold,” said Mr. Bucket, eyeing me with great expression.

  “He is a singular character,” said I.

  “No idea of money,” observed Mr. Bucket.—“He takes it though!”

  I involuntarily returned for answer, that I perceived Mr. Bucket knew him.

  “Why, now I’ll tell you, Miss Summerson,” he rejoined. “Your mind will be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and I’ll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where Toughey was. I made up my mind that night, to come to the door and ask for Toughey, if that was all; but, willing to try a move or so first, if any such was on the board, I just pitched a morsel of gravel at the window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I have had a look at him, thinks I, you’re the man for me. So I smoothed him down a bit, about not wanting to disturb the family after they was gone to bed, and about its being a thing to be regretted that charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I pretty well understood his ways, I said, I should consider a fypunnote well bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, ‘It’s no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because I’m a mere child in such matters, and have no idea of money.’ Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and looks as innocent as you like, and says, ‘But I don’t know the value of these things. What am I to do with this?’ ‘Spend it, sir,’ says I. ‘But I shall be taken in,’ he says, ‘they won’t give me the right change, I shall lose it, it’s no use to me.’ Lord, you never saw such a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find Toughey, an
d I found him.”

  I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole towards my guardian, and as passing the usual bounds of his childish innocence.

  “Bounds, my dear?” returned Mr. Bucket. “Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, I’ll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it, if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you ‘In wordly matters I’m a child,’ you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable, and that you have got that person’s number, and it’s Number One. Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a company, but I’m a practical one, and that’s my experience. So’s this rule. Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. I never knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business.”

  I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be doubted that this was the truth.

  “Then, Miss Summerson,” said my companion, “we can’t be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries there I leave to you, if you’ll be so good as to make ’em. The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own way.”