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

by Lynn Shepherd

  “Dear me!” says Mr. Guppy. “Who’s that?”

  “The picture over the fireplace,” says Rosa, “is the portrait of the present Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the best work of the master.”

  “ ’Blest!” says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend, “if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been engraved, miss?”

  “The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always refused permission.”

  “Well!” says Mr. Guppy in a low voice, “I’ll be shot if it ain’t very curious how well I know that picture! So that’s Lady Dedlock, is it!”

  “The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The picture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester.”

  Mr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. “It’s unaccountable to me,” he says, still staring at the portrait, “how well I know that picture! I’m dashed!” adds Mr. Guppy, looking round, “if I don’t think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!”

  As no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy’s dreams, the probability is not pursued. But he still remains so absorbed by the portrait, that he stands immovable before it until the young gardener has closed the shutters; when he comes out of the room in a dazed state, that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for interest, and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare, as if he were looking everywhere for Lady Dedlock again.

  He sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last shown, as being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she looked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death. All things have an end—even houses that people take infinite pains to see, and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her description; which is always this:

  “The terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, The Ghost’s Walk.”

  “No?” says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious; “what’s the story, miss? Is it anything about a picture?”

  “Pray tell us the story,” says Watt, in a half whisper.

  “I don’t know it, sir.” Rosa is shyer than ever.

  “It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten,” says the housekeeper, advancing. “It has never been more than a family anecdote.”

  “You’ll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a picture, ma’am,” observes Mr. Guppy, “because I do assure you that the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without knowing how I know it!”

  The story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can guarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information; and is, moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided down another staircase by the young gardener; and presently is heard to drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the discretion of her two young hearers, and may tell them how the terrace came to have that ghostly name. She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window, and tells them:

  “In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the First—I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against that excellent King—Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those days, I can’t say. I should think it very likely indeed.”

  Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion, because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes; a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim.

  “Sir Morbury Dedlock,” says Mrs. Rouncewell, “was, I have no occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it is supposed that his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles’s enemies: that she was in correspondence with them; and that she gave them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed His Majesty’s cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?”

  Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper.

  “I hear the rain-drip on the stones,” replies the young man, “and I hear a curious echo—I suppose an echo—which is very like a halting step.”

  The housekeeper gravely nods and continues:

  “Partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir Morbury’s near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Chesney Wold in the King’s cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night and lamed their horses: and the story is, that once, at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist; and in a struggle or in a fall, or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip, and from that hour began to pine away.”

  The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a whisper.

  “She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being crippled, or of being in pain; but, day by day, she tried to walk upon the terrace; and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon, her husband (to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, ‘I will die here where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here, until the pride of this house is humbled. And when calamity, or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for my step!’ ”

  Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the ground, half frightened and half shy.

  “There and then she died. And from those days,” says Mrs. Rouncewell, “the name has come down—The Ghost’s Walk. If the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back, from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then.”

  “—And disgrace, grandmother—” says Watt.

  “Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold,” returns the housekeeper.

  Her grandson apologizes, with “True. True.”

  “That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound,” says Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; “and what is to be noticed in it, is, that it must be heard. My Lady, who is afraid of nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You cannot shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed there, ’a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion, and can play music. You understand how those things are managed?”

  “Pretty well, grandmother, I think.”

  “Set it a-going.”

  Watt sets it a-going—music and all.

  “Now, come hither,” says the housekeeper. “Hither, child, towards my Lady’s pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the beat, and everything?”

  “I certainly can!”

  “So my Lady says.”

  *

  CHAPTER 8

  COVERING A MULTITUDE OF SINS

  It was interesting when I dressed before daylight, to p
eep out of window, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like two beacons, and, finding all beyond still enshrouded in the indistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the day came on. As the prospect gradually revealed itself, and disclosed the scene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, like my memory over my life, I had a pleasure in discovering the unknown objects that had been around me in my sleep. At first they were faintly discernible in the mist, and above them the later stars still glimmered. That pale interval over, the picture began to enlarge and fill up so fast, that, at every new peep, I could have found enough to look at for an hour. Imperceptibly, my candles became the only incongruous part of the morning, the dark places in my room all melted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful landscape, prominent in which the old Abbey Church, with its massive tower, threw a softer train of shadow on the view than seemed compatible with its rugged character. But so from rough outsides (I hope I have learnt), serene and gentle influences often proceed.

  Every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so attentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys: though what with trying to remember the contents of each little store-room drawer, and cupboard; and what with making notes on a slate about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and glass, and china, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person; I was so busy that I could not believe it was breakfast-time when I heard the bell ring. Away I ran, however, and made tea, as I had already been installed into the responsibility of the tea-pot; and then, as they were all rather late, and nobody was down yet, I thought I would take a peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. I found it quite a delightful place; in front, the pretty avenue and drive by which we had approached (and where, by the by, we had cut up the gravel so terribly with our wheels that I asked the gardener to roll it); at the back, the flower-garden, with my darling at her window up there, throwing it open to smile out at me, as if she would have kissed me from that distance. Beyond the flower-garden was a kitchen-garden, and then a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard, and then a dear little farm-yard. As to the House itself, with its three peaks in the roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large, some so small, and all so pretty; its trelliswork, against the south-front for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable, welcoming look: it was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with her arm through that of its master, worthy of her cousin John—a bold thing to say, though he only pinched her dear cheek for it.

  Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast, as he had been overnight. There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about Bees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the overweening assumptions of Bees. He didn’t at all see why the busy Bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the Bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn’t do it—nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the Bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every confectioner went buzzing about the world, banging against everything that came in his way, and egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was a ridiculous position, to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone, as soon as you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a Manchester man, if he spun cotton for no other purpose. He must say he thought a Drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. The Drone said, unaffectedly, “You will excuse me; I really cannot attend to the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to see, and so short a time to see it in, that I must take the liberty of looking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who doesn’t want to look about him.” This appeared to Mr. Skimpole to be the Drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy—always supposing the Drone to be willing to be on good terms with the Bee: which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the consequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited about his honey!

  He pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of ground, and made us all merry; though again he seemed to have as serious a meaning in what he said as he was capable of having. I left them still listening to him, when I withdrew to attend to my new duties. They had occupied me for some time, and I was passing through the passages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm, when Mr. Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bedchamber, which I found to be in part a little library of books and papers, and in part quite a little museum of his boots and shoes, and hat-boxes.

  “Sit down, my dear,” said Mr. Jarndyce. “This, you must know, is the Growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.”

  “You must be here very seldom, sir,” said I.

  “Oh, you don’t know me!” he returned. “When I am deceived or disappointed in—the wind, and it’s Easterly, I take refuge here. The Growlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware of half my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling!”

  I could not help it; I tried very hard: but being alone with that benevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so happy, and so honoured there, and my heart so full—

  I kissed his hand. I don’t know what I said, or even that I spoke. He was disconcerted, and walked to the window; I almost believed with an intention of jumping out, until he turned, and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what he had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head, and I sat down.

  “There! There!” he said. “That’s over. Pooh! Don’t be foolish.”

  “It shall not happen again, sir,” I returned, “but at first it is difficult—”

  “Nonsense!” he said, “it’s easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to be that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my good opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in all this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, and I have before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again.”

  I said to myself, “Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is not what I expected of you!” and it had such a good effect, that I folded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. Mr. Jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as confidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with him every morning for I don’t know how long. I almost felt as if I had.

  “Of course, Esther,” he said, “you don’t understand this Chancery business?”

  And of course I shook my head.

  “I don’t know who does,” he returned. “The Lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It’s about a Will, and the trusts under a Will—or it was, once. It’s about nothing but costs now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. That’s the great question. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted away.”

  “But it was, sir,” said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub his head, “about a Will?”

  “Why, yes, it was about a Will when it was about anything,” he returned. “A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, and made a great Will. In the question how the trusts under that Will are to be administered, the fortune left by the Will is squandered away; the legatees under the Will are reduced to such a miserable condition that they would be sufficiently punished, if they had committed an enormous crime in having money left them; and the Will itself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause, everything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already, is referred to that only one man who don’t kno
w it, to find out—all through the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of cartloads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which is the usual course, for nobody wants them); and must go down the middle and up again, through such an infernal country-dance of costs and fees and nonsense and corruption, as was never dreamed of in the wildest visions of a Witch’s Sabbath. Equity sends questions to Law, Law sends questions back to Equity; Law finds it can’t do this, Equity finds it can’t do that; neither can so much as say it can’t do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel appearing for B; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the history of the Apple Pie. And thus, through years and years, and lives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and over again, and nothing ever ends. And we can’t get out of the suit on any terms, for we are made parties to it, and must be parties to it, whether we like it or not. But it won’t do to think of it! When my great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the beginning of the end!”

  “The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?”

  He nodded gravely. “I was his heir, and this was his house, Esther. When I came here, it was bleak, indeed. He had left the signs of his misery upon it.”

  “How changed it must be now!” I said.

  “It had been called, before his time, the Peaks. He gave it its present name, and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the wicked heaps of papers in the suit, and hoping against hope to disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In the meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds choked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of the house too; it was so shattered and ruined.”