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

by Lynn Shepherd

  But to return to my narrative. When Carley came to wake me, I asked her who had been in the garden and she looked at me in some perplexity and replied that I must be mistaken. There had been no visitors at that hour of the morning, she said, and none of the maids would have the leisure for a walk at such a time. And in truth, I was by then feeling so much worse that I was no longer sure of what I had seen. Indeed, Carley soon saw that I was very indisposed, and helped me to return to my bed before going at once for Miss Darby. She must have come, and come quickly, for I remember her placing her cool hand on my forehead, and the taste of something bitter between my lips. That day turned into night, and the night into another day, and I had not left my bed, or seen anyone but Miss Darby. Though I found it difficult to talk, I asked once or twice for Carley, but was told she was indisposed, and unable to come. Soon after that I heard my darling in the corridor outside, but Miss Darby went to the door and said that I was asleep. I heard her whisper softly, “You must not come in now, Miss Clara—not for all the world!”

  And then I knew how ill I must be, and turned my face to my pillow and wept.

  I lay sick a long time, and my old life became like a distant memory. Everything I knew and loved seemed to have retreated to a far remote place, leaving me alone and abandoned in that shuttered room. There were times when all my recollections seemed to run into one another and melt together, so that there was one moment when I thought I was a little girl again at my mother’s knee, but there was my Guardian sitting with us too, caressing my mother’s face and running his hand over my hair. This vision was painfully real to me—the colours too bright, the lines too sharp. I doubt that anyone who has not experienced such a thing can quite understand what I mean, or why I shrank from this vision as if it were a thing of terror, though it was, in every respect, a picture of love. There were nights too when I believed myself harnessed to a terrible treadmill, or forced to work forever some unbearable machinery that burned my hands and brought hot tears to my eyes. But there were other times when I talked quite lucidly with Miss Darby, and felt her hand on my head. But I dare not even think of that worst of times, when I felt drowned in a dark place, while my whole body was ripped apart in some never-ending agony, hour after hour, and I heard a voice calling out in pain, and knew it to be my own.

  But perhaps the less I think about these terrible things, the quicker I will forget them. I do remember the final utter bliss of sleep, and thinking, even in my frailty, that it was over now, and I could rest. I do not know how long this period of convalescence has lasted now. Days, perhaps weeks. I do know that the year has turned, and the weather with it. I sit at the window, wrapped in my shawl, and look down at the grey garden and watch the slow drops fall—drip, drip, drip—upon the terrace. And I remember Amy telling me of the footstep on the Ghost’s Walk, and I wonder if perhaps it might be true, and if it is, what does the sound most resemble? A man’s step? A woman’s? The tiny feet of a little child, ever getting closer, and never coming near? It affects me, now—that sound—as it never has before, in all the long years I have lived in this house. I cannot explain why. And in all this time of my recovery I have never seen my pet. Miss Darby makes up the fire, and brings me my meals on a tray, and she is as always the soul of kindness, but other than her I see no-one.

  No-one, that is, until this morning. I slept badly last night, disturbed by the dreary and monotonous drumming of the rain on the roof overhead, and I had only just drifted into a troubled slumber when I heard a noise in the passage outside my door, and then the soft careful sound of the key turning in the lock. I sat up stiffly in bed, wondering why Miss Darby should be waking me at such an early hour, but it was not Miss Darby’s face I saw. It was Carley’s. She closed the door quietly behind her, then came swiftly across to me and took me in her arms, and I could feel her body shaking. After a few moments she sat back and held me by the shoulders, and started to speak to me. Her voice low, and her eyes always, always fixed on mine.

  And now she is gone.

  I have been sitting here, in the bleak dawn light, for a long time, thinking about what she said, and shedding some bitter tears. I know Carley loves me, and I know—or thought I knew—that she would never lie to me. She said so again—over and over—that what she was telling me was the truth, and yet, how can I believe it? How can I accept what she says, without questioning everything I thought I knew—everyone I thought I trusted—every word that has been said to me in this house since the day I came here? I have gone over it in my mind, a hundred times, and still I cannot—cannot—believe my Guardian could have done such a thing.

  And even if it were true—even if he did—even supposing—

  TWENTY-ONE

  Mr Bucket

  IT IS MOONLIGHT TONIGHT. A clear, cold night full of sharp shadows, and the restless silence of a city that never fully comes to rest. In the attic at Buckingham Street a large black cat sleeps unchallenged and undisturbed on a tangled expanse of pale sheet, and in a room downstairs an old man stirs before the fire, his brow pressed into frowns, his mind astray in a thicket of memories that mingle and separate and recombine in strange new patterns that he will not remember when he wakes.

  Across town, in that immense but dreary mansion in its dull but elegant street, my Lady Dedlock’s soul is troubled, and she is heartsick. The spectre of her pursuer fills her mind, and the prospect of that pursuit, and of never being free of it, casts a shroud before her eyes. And not a mile away from her, in a small room, and a small street, another woman she once employed nurtures the like dark thoughts of the like implacable man, and festers a bitter hatred that she cares not to contain.

  And then, suddenly and without warning, the air splits open with a hissing crack that sets the dogs barking for a mile around. Those few people still out of doors stop in their tracks and glance up into the sky, but it is clear, and threatens no thunder. A firecracker? But no, Guy Fawkes is long gone, and the street-urchins sleeping. A window opens, then another. A man looks out, and calls down to those on the street. What made that noise—do any of them know? A sprat-seller who’s passing claims it came from over yonder near the Fields but his voice is drowned in the sudden chiming of the hour, and by the time the last bell has faded the street is silent again, and the moment, or incident, or whatever it was, has passed.

  The morning finds Charles, once again, at the shooting gallery. Where he has been all night he does not say, but his lined shirt and shadowed jaw have their own tale to tell. As, perhaps, does the deep line that has now settled between his brows. What it is that has made him so angry—so angry that the air about him seems to crackle with furious energy—will become clear soon enough. For the moment, though, we will content ourselves with watching. And we will not be alone.

  He has come, it seems, to the funeral of the crossing-sweep, though that is rather a grand term for such a meagre affair. The half-starved body lies in its open coffin, and though there are cuts on the bare feet and sores about the mouth, the thin face is finally—and perhaps for the first time—at peace. Jo has found his rest at last. The trooper has done what he can to dress the lad in clean clothes, and a heap of halfrotten verminous rags are now being fed into the rusty grate by an unusually grave-faced Phil. Charles stands with the doctor as the stern and ponderous beadle has the lid screwed down, and the small coffin lifted onto the cart and wheeled towards the door. Their destination is the cemetery where Jo’s dead friend was laid, and though it’s scarcely possible to think of a worse horror than an eternity in such a place, the lad seemed to gain comfort at the end from the thought that he would lie close by the only person who had ever showed him a little human kindness.

  Leaving Phil to attend to the morning clientele, the others take their places behind the cart as it creaks its way along the long whitewashed passage, followed slowly by its small cortège. There may only be three of them but that’s more than Jo’s wildest dreams would ever have pictured, and certain it is that he is more lavishly attended now than he
ever was in his short and disregarded life. It’s only when the cart swings out into the road that Charles seems to realise, with a start, that the procession now numbers four. They did not see him come, they did not hear his tread, but he walks there beside them all the same. Stout and sombre in his unexceptionable black suit, there seems at first glance nothing noteworthy about him at all. Nothing, perhaps, aside from the rather odd way he has suddenly materialised, and a certain glint in his eye as he contemplates Charles.

  Two of the three mourners are clearly well aware of the identity of their new companion, but while the trooper’s face merely sets yet grimmer and more silent, the very sight of this apparently inoffensive little man seems to douse hot oil on Charles’s dry fury.

  “What in God’s name are you doing here?” he snarls, gripping the man by the sleeve and swinging him round to face him. “Haven’t you done enough harm to that miserable little wretch without turning up here now to gloat over your handiwork?”

  “Now, Charles, my lad,” says Mr Bucket, taking his hand from his arm, “that’s hardly the way to speak to an old friend, now is it? And all may not be as you currently believe it is, in respect of the boy.”

  “He’d done nothing to you. He’d committed no crime.”

  “There was nothing charged against him,” replies Bucket, rubbing his face with his forefinger, “but that is not to say he was innocent neither. No—I tracked the boy down because I wished to keep a certain matter quiet that risked being made public in a very unpleasant manner, and bringing all kinds of trouble on the heads of his betters. He’d been more loose-tongued than he should have been about a service he’d been paid for, and that sort of thing won’t do at all.”

  “Not, at least, when the man paying for that service is Edward Tulkinghorn,” retorts Charles sardonically.

  Bucket looks at him with his habitual attentiveness. “That’s as may be. Rather more to the present purpose, I gather you have had dealings of your own with that gentleman of late. Dealings that you have also, in your turn, been paid for. And handsomely too, or so I hear.”

  Charles steps closer, his eyes darkening. “I’m going to find out the truth of this, Bucket. And then where will you be, you and your loathsome masters? However much Tulkinghorn’s paying you on the side, it won’t be enough. Not nearly enough—not when I’ve finished with you.”

  “Ah, there’s no call for that now, is there,” says Bucket brightly, taking him by the elbow. “I will come along with you for a moment, if you’ve no objection.”

  “In fact, I have a very strong objection indeed to spending a single minute more in your society. You have no business here and none, as far as I know, with me.”

  He turns to go, but Bucket still has his hand on his arm. “Half a minute, Charles. I should wish to speak to you first.”

  He stops, looks about him, then claps Charles suddenly against the wall of the alley. The cart is by now at least fifty yards ahead and the doctor turns and hesitates for a moment, not knowing whether to intervene. But it is only for a moment; he must have decided that Charles has some business with the newcomer, and is more than capable of looking after himself.

  “Now, Charles,” says Bucket softly, as the coffin and its followers disappear at the end of the street. “You know, and I know, that your great-uncle was a friend of mine once—friend and mentor—and I don’t want this little matter to get in the way of that, not if I can help it. I will endeavour to make things as pleasant as they may be, but you must be under no misapprehension. You are in my custody now, my lad, and you know what that means, none better.”

  “Custody?” scoffs Charles. “What the devil for?”

  “Now, now,” says Mr Bucket, reinforcing his words with his insistent forefinger. “As you know very well, I am under an obligation to inform you that anything you might say will be liable to be used against you. Therefore, I advise you to be rather careful what you do say. You may drop the pretence now, there’s a good lad. We both know that I have come about the murder.”

  “You can’t intimidate me that easily.” Charles pushes Bucket’s hand away. “You know as well as I do that I didn’t kill Lizzie Miller. I have an alibi. Which I’ve been through already—and in detail—with Wheeler—”

  “Now, now,” interrupts Bucket, tapping his forefinger—perhaps unadvisedly—on Charles’s chest. “Think carefully, mind, before you speak again. There has been a murder. Last night. In Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Shot, he was, right through the heart, clean as you like. You know who I mean, and I know you know. And now you understand what I’m doing here, don’t you?”

  Charles stares at him. Then he puts both hands on Bucket’s shoulders and shoves him, none too gently, away. “I was nowhere near there last night. I reviled and despised Tulkinghorn, yes, but I didn’t kill him. Though I’d like to shake the hand of the man who did. You’ll have to try harder than that, Bucket. You can’t pin this one on me.”

  “Now Charles,” returns Mr Bucket, seemingly unperturbed, “you know full well that I can. This murder I speak of was done at around ten o’clock. Now, if what you’re telling me is true, a bright lad like you will know where he was at that particular time, and will be able to prove it.”

  “No,” says Charles quietly. All his stridency has suddenly evaporated and his face is white. “I cannot prove it. I was—it doesn’t matter where I was—but it wasn’t Lincoln’s Inn Fields, or anywhere within a mile of that accursed house. You have my word.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll understand that I don’t have a mind to accept your word, on this occasion,” says Mr Bucket with a smile. “After all, as you will recall from your own days in the Detective, when a certain person has been seen more than once at the scene of the crime, when that person has, indeed, been heard arguing with the victim—even, perhaps, threatening him—a threat witnessed by a most unimpeachable source—then it’s in the natural way of things that I should seek out that person and bring him in for questioning. So, young Charles, am I to call in assistance, or is the deed done?”

  Charles stares at him for a long moment, as if weighing his options. And he must have concluded he has very few, because a moment later he nods slowly. “There’s no need for that. If I have to come, I’ll do so quietly.”

  “All the same,” says Bucket affably, “this is a very serious charge, Charles, and I have a preference to do such things by the book.”

  He takes a pair of cuffs from his pocket and stands, holding them, waiting. Charles starts back angrily but says nothing, and eventually holds out his hands in silence.

  Mr Bucket busies himself in one or two small adjustments, then stands back. “There, how is that? Will they do? If not, I have another pair about me that are just as serviceable.”

  Charles shakes his head. “For God’s sake, get on with it. Let’s get this over with.”

  It is, mercifully for all concerned, a very short way to Bow Street, so it is barely half an hour later that Charles finds himself in an underground cell, the iron-bound door of which he knows only too well, even if this is the first time he has seen it from the inside. But it is long, very long, before Bucket elects to visit his prisoner, and when the door is unbolted the Inspector finds Charles pacing up and down, kicking his feet against the rough brick walls, his coat cast on the bench. Although the cell is freezing his shirt is damp and there are unsightly patches of sweat under the arms. If it’s true that it’s the innocent who rage against wrongful arrest while the guilty go quietly to sleep, then there is surely no more blameless man in London than the man in this cell. And even if the latter is a very modern insight, Inspector Bucket is a very insightful man, and well able to draw his own conclusions. Not that he seems mindful to share them. Now, or at any other time.

  “Now, young Charles,” he begins, taking a seat as if he were in his own sitting-room, and the bench as comfortable as his favourite arm-chair. “I hope this little interlude has given you some time to think, and consider your position. For it’s not a good one
, all things taken into account. It’s a bad look-out for you at present, and no mistake.”

  Charles, who remains standing, looks down at him without any attempt to conceal his distaste.

  “Point one,” continues Bucket, counting them off with his fat forefinger. “You was heard, only a few days ago, by the deceased’s clerk, threatening his life—and in rather lurid tones, I may add. Point two, as the whole station-house here knows, you have a gun, and are competent to use it. Point three, you cannot—or will not—furnish an alibi for the time of the crime. So, young Maddox, can you give me one good reason why I should not be a-charging you with this murder right here and now, and having you taken down to Newgate without delay?”

  Before Charles can answer there’s a noise in the passage outside, and Sam Wheeler’s carroty head appears round the corner.

  “Just to say they’ve brought ’im in. The deceased, sir. ’E’s in the back room upstairs.”