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

by Lynn Shepherd

  Tulkinghorn bows, the faintest possible colour in his grey cheeks. “I am obliged to you, sir. Indeed, the circumstances could hardly be more propitious. I caution, as always, against the slightest complacency on our part, but I am perfectly easy in my own mind. I do not think my Lady will be troubling us again.”

  THREE

  Hester’s Narrative

  I HAVE A great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. Even when I was a very little girl I knew that, and I would confess it to my doll when we were alone together, and ask her to be kind and patient with me. And she would sit there in her little chair, with her bright smile and bright cheeks, and I would sit by her and chatter on, telling her all my childish secrets, and knowing she would understand and never blame me. I would run up to my room as soon as I came home from school, and tell her all that I had done, and all that I had said, in that great expanse of hours since I had left her there that morning. Though I rarely had much to tell of what I had said, because I never said very much at all. I was always a very diffident child, very shy, and fearful of putting myself forward, though perhaps I had, in consequence, a rather observant way about me—not a clever way, or a quick way, no indeed!—but a quiet way of noticing things, and events, and people, especially when they are people that I love. Though it is possible that I flatter myself even in that.

  The first person I loved so tenderly as this was my mother. My earliest memory is of our tiny up-and-down cottage with a trellis of honeysuckle around the door, and a pretty little garden where cherry trees would blossom in spring, and snowdrops nestle among the snow in the winter of the year. Though when I think of this little house now, it is always summer, the sky blue and the view of the meadows hazy in the heat, and a sweet warm breeze. I would sit in the sunshine on the tiny veranda, playing with my dear old Dolly, while my mother sat in her own chair at the little tea-table, with its white cloth and its delicate china pot, all wreathed with jasmine and roses.

  My mother was, I think, the prettiest lady I ever saw, with her beautiful golden curls and the loveliest eyes in her gentle tender face. People have told me since that I resemble her, and sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass and think I see my mother’s face. But even if I am not so pretty as she was, I remember that the gentlemen who visited us in our little house were always quick to praise my looks. When I was still a very little girl, one of these gentlemen—tall and severe to my lowly eye—bent down and touched my shoulder, saying, ‘Do you know how pretty you are, child?’, smiling all the while at my mother, where she sat at her needlework before the fire, and the little bird sang in its cage above her head.

  I had a very happy childhood altogether, surrounded by my mother’s love, and the companionship of the girls at the local school. I was the smallest there by a good deal, and they all made such a pet of me, kissing and cosseting me, and calling me their little marmoset. My mother shook her head at these frivolities, saying she was afraid I would be spoilt by so much attention. I think this was why she discouraged me from inviting my friends home; at least I think that must be the explanation, for I cannot remember any parties at the cottage in those days. Or not, at least, for my own friends; aside from the gentlemen who visited my mother, our lives were very retired and tranquil. As I grew older, my mother was careful to instruct me in my duties and obligations, telling me to be always diligent, submissive, and obedient.

  “Do good to those around you, child,” she said one day, as I stood at her bedside, “and you will always win their love. That is all that matters. Nothing else. You must always remember that.” The tears come to my eyes when I think of her shining face as she said this, her skin so pale and her eyes so bright! It is my weakness, I know, but I cannot help it. But there! I have composed myself again now, and can go on with my story.

  It seems to me now that I had very little time with my mother, after this. I remember strange women in the house I had never seen before, and the sound of cries that seemed to go on through a whole night and the following day. The women looked at one another when they thought I could not see, and one of them took something away wrapped in a coverlet that I never saw again. It was that day, I think, that one of the women clasped me by the hand and led me upstairs to my bedroom under the eaves, bidding me to be as quiet as a little mouse, and give my mother no further cause for distress. I was terrified to think that anything I had done could have brought about such turmoil and wretchedness, and lay awake the whole night pondering all my petty and unconfessed misdemeanours, which now lay as heavy on my soul as mortal sins.

  I do not remember how long this went on—ages and ages it seemed to me then. Days of whispering and bewilderment, and the women casting such stern looks upon me that I knew all this misery was indeed my own fault, and I deserved no better.

  “Where is Mother?” I asked at last in my childish way. “Why does she not let me see her?”

  “Your mother is in a Better Place,” said one of the women, pronouncing the words in so serious and awful a tone, that I was quite overwhelmed. I could not understand why my mother should have gone on a journey and left me behind, or how anywhere could be better or happier than our own little home that she loved so much. The woman was one of our neighbours and not, I think, unkind, and seeing my eyes fill with tears she drew me on her knee and explained as best she could that my mother had gone before me to heaven, and if I was good, and dutiful, and said my prayers every day, and went to church every Sunday, I might hope to meet her in the Hereafter. I did not know if this was the Better Place she had spoken of; but I did comprehend—albeit dimly—that I was not to see my mother again, not for many and many a year, and that all that waste of empty time must be filled with good deeds, and good works, and self-sacrifice. I wept alone in my little bed that night, and for many a night after that, gripping my Dolly tight in my arms and wondering what was to become of me. It was a long time indeed before I was able to quiet my sobs by recalling what Mrs Millard had said, and telling myself firmly that this was no way to be going on. ‘Hester,’ I would say to myself, ‘this will not do! Duty and diligence are to be your lot, and it is through duty and diligence that you will see your mother again.’

  They put me in a black frock and sent me for some days to lodge with our neighbour and her husband, a big close-lipped religious man who looked grimly upon me, and quoted verses from the Bible as if they applied chiefly and particularly to me. “You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them,” he would intone in his booming voice, “For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation.”

  My mother had read from the Gospels many times, telling me stories about our Saviour, and talking to me always of God’s love for His children, so I hardly knew what to make of the dour and vengeful Jehovah Mr Millard talked of. All I did know was that I was very sinful, and very wicked, and very much in the way.

  One dark and rainy afternoon I came home from school with my books and satchel, hoping, if possible, to slip upstairs before Mr Millard saw me, but his wife had clearly been looking out for my return, and came towards me as soon as I closed the door behind me. She took me by the hand and led me into the best parlour—a room I was never allowed to enter without permission, or by myself—and presented me to a gentleman of a very distinguished appearance, dressed in black and drinking tea, whom I had never, to my knowledge, seen before.

  “This,” said Mrs Millard in a confidential tone, “is the Child. This is Hester, sir.”

  The gentleman sat forward in his chair and beckoned to me. “Come here,” he said. “Let me look at you.”

  Then he asked me, if I would be so kind as to take off my bonnet, and when I had done so, he said, “Ah!” and afterwards “I see. Yes. Quite.”

  And then he leant back in his chair again, and picked up his teacup, and Mrs Millard said, “That will be all, Hester. Go and play now, there’s a good
girl.”

  So I made him the curtsy my mother taught me, and left the room.

  I think it was a few weeks later, and the winter nearly gone, when the gentleman in black reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs Millard, and found him in the same place in the parlour.

  “I have news for you, Hester,” he told me. “Your Guardian has arranged for you to be placed at an excellent establishment, where you may finish your education, and find a secure home that will offer you every appropriate comfort and amenity.”

  I knew not what to say. I had never heard I had a Guardian, and only the vaguest idea what the word might mean.

  The man was watching me closely, and seemed concerned to give me what reassurance was within his power.

  “You need not fear, Hester. Mr Jarvis is a kind man, and you will want for nothing, of that I am sure.”

  I could not speak, not then, because my heart was overflowing with gratitude for this unknown Guardian and his kindness to me, and I think the gentleman sensed some of this, because he reached over and patted me gently on the shoulder and said,

  “Run along now, child. I have business to talk with good Mrs Millard.”

  And so it was that exactly a week later I left the only place that I had ever known, and travelled by stagecoach for London. Mr Millard showed no discernible emotion at my departure aside, perhaps, from relief, but Mrs Millard had a softer heart and wept many sad tears. I do believe she had become quite fond of me, in the short time we had had together. When she gave me one last kiss, and adjured me to tread always in the paths of righteousness, I felt so remorseful and despondent that I threw my arms around her and wept myself, saying it was all my fault, and that Mother would never have left me if I had been good.

  “No, Hester!” she returned with a sad smile. “It is just your unhappy lot, my dear. And whatever Mr Millard says on the matter, I believe in my heart that our Heavenly Father does not visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, and will not hold you culpable for the circumstances of your birth, but only for the rectitude of your own conduct.”

  I wondered a little at these words, but the coach was already at the gate, so I had no time to ask her what she meant. She turned then and went into the house, and I never saw her again. I had no friend left now in the world, and no protector, except, perhaps for my new and as yet unknown Guardian.

  I looked back at the house until I could see it no more, and then wiped my eyes and cast my gaze instead at the landscape unrolling before me. It was a very beautiful day, with the new buds on the trees, and the fields pricked with the first green shoots of the year. After a very long and rattling journey, during most of which I was quite alone, the coach finally came to a halt and a lady opened the coach door and said, “I am Miss Darby. You must be Hester.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Come then. Mr Jarvis is waiting for us.”

  My boxes were put into a small green pony carriage by a maid in a starched white apron and cap, dressed altogether rather more formally, to my eyes, than the servants I was used to seeing in our country village. But that was only to be expected.

  Presently we drew up to a little lodge, and waited for the keeper to open the gate, before trotting up a long avenue of trees to a broad sweep before a large porch. It was a tall redbrick house with yellow-framed casements, and squares of blue and green glass in the windowpanes. On one side a bay had been thrown out one floor up, creating a view over what seemed to me to be a large and very pretty lawn, bordered with flowers, with beyond it an orchard and a vegetable garden. I heard a bell ring as the trap stopped, and I found my heart beating very fast as Miss Darby got down and helped me to descend. The door opened, and a man appeared. It was not the same person I had seen at Mrs Millard’s but another gentleman. He had a broad smile and a full beard, and came down the steps briskly and took me by the hand.

  “Welcome, Hester. I think you will be very happy here.”

  I felt the colour flood my face as I tried, without much success, to say some words of thanks, but Mr Jarvis seemed determined not to notice anything was amiss. He drew my hand through his arm as if it was the most natural thing there could be.

  “Come,” he said. “Let me show you your new home!”

  From that moment I felt quite at my ease with him, and knew in my heart how blessed I was to have found someone I could trust so completely, and in whom I could confide so unreservedly.

  He showed me to my little room, and truly I felt myself at that moment the luckiest girl in the world. It was a bright homely room, with a well-tended fire in the hearth, and a high metal-framed bed with smooth white pillows. The window looked down upon the flower-garden, and across the heath to the far-away steeples and towers of London, almost ethereal that day under a light silvery cloud. I turned to Mr Jarvis with tears in my eyes, wondering how all this could be, and almost overcome, saying, “Oh, thank you, thank you!” again and again. But he merely placed his arm about my waist, and made me sit down on the little chair by the fire and take some of the tea that had been thoughtfully placed there in preparation for my arrival.

  “My dear Hester,” he said kindly, a few moments later, “how you are a-tremble! Your cup quite clatters against the saucer.”

  How could I not be moved? Sitting there with him, seeing him smile upon me, and feeling, for the first time since Mama died, that I was valued and cherished, and had a place in the world.

  I put my arms about his neck and kissed him, and he gently patted me on the head and handed me a handkerchief scented with lavender. “There! There!” he said. “There is no cause for tears. This is your home now, and you will find no-one here but those who wish you well.” At least, that is my memory of what he said. Wish, I am quite sure it was.

  He got up presently and stirred the fire, then sat back once again in the easy-chair. I had by then folded my hands upon my lap and quite recovered myself, and Mr Jarvis started to talk to me as naturally and easily as if we were acquaintances of long date. The look on his face at that moment was the very image of his innate and generous goodness—I saw that expression for the first time in that moment, but for many years now I have seen it every day, and when I close my eyes it is there still.

  “Indeed, Hester,” he began, “I am in hopes that you will play a full part in our little community. I have been told you are a young lady of sense and usefulness; indeed it is obvious to anyone who has been but a quarter of an hour in your society. Some of your fellow boarders are occasionally a little dejected and melancholic—such a thing is quite common and normal, especially when they first come to us—but I feel sure that in such circumstances they could make a friend of you, and benefit immeasurably from being confided to your care.”

  I hardly knew what to reply. “I hope you have not formed too high an opinion of my abilities,” I began. “I am very young and I am afraid I am not clever either. I will do my best, but I am very concerned lest you should expect too much of me and then be disappointed.”

  He waved his hand at this as if all my fears were quite groundless. “I think it very likely that you may prove a good little woman for all of us, my dear,” he smiled. “Remember the little old woman of the nursery rhyme?

  Little old woman, and whither so high?

  To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky

  “This house has its own little clusters of cobwebs, Hester, like all such houses. But you will sweep every one out of the sky for us in the course of your time here. I am quite confident of that.”

  And that was how I came to be called Old Woman, and Little Old Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame Durden, and so many other things of a similar kind that I began almost to think myself the stooped and wizened creature my names seemed to imply.

  I soon adapted so fully to the daily routine, that I could hardly remember any other life, and my years at the cottage with my dear Mama seemed like a far-off golden dream. It was a happy and ordered existence we led, and nothing disturbed the calm serenity of o
ur days. There was a place for everything, and a time for everything, whether reading, or baking, or laundry, or tending to the garden. I have had several different companions during the years I have lived here, but at that time we were four boarders, including myself. There was Amy, and there was Caroline, and there was Augusta. Such pretty names, they all had, or so I thought. Amy was small and slight with huge grey eyes and a timid look, and a tendency to hear noises and take fright at the slightest untoward sound or gesture. I do believe the dear little thing took to me at first sight, and by the end of the week she was following me round like a tiny devoted dog, and creeping into my bed at night, whispering that she had heard the ghost on the walk again, or there were cries in the night, or phantoms scratching in the roof above her bed. Caroline, I found almost forbidding, or at least at first. I was introduced to her by Miss Darby the day after my arrival, in the big room downstairs, where she sat at a writing-table looking dissatisfied and sullen, her fingers covered with ink, her hair untidy, and her satin slippers scuffed.

  I saw her looking at my own dress, plain and serviceable as it was. “You think a lot of yourself, I dare say,” she said bitterly. But I could see there were tears in her eyes, for all her angry words, so I took a seat by her and tried my best to look her friend.

  “Come, come, Miss Caroline,” I coaxed, “a little care, a little tidiness—a pin here and a stitch there, and I could make you as fresh and lovely as a spring day. Lovelier far than I could ever be.”

  I put my hand in hers, but she pulled it away saying she was tired. Miss Darby shook her head and touched her forehead, saying it was hot, and she would have one of the maids fetch a restorative that would help to calm her. Miss Darby then said a few more quiet words to Caroline and she presently put down her pen, and straightened her dress as well she could.