“Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or not,” says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye.
“He never saw me in his life, to know me,” observed Small; “I don’t know why I should introduce him, I am sure!”
“No, he never communicated with us—which is to be deplored,” the old gentleman strikes in; “but I have come to look after the property—to look over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as my solicitor; and grass don’t grow under his feet, I can tell ye. Krook was Mrs. Smallweed’s only brother; she had no relation but Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years of age.”
Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head, and pipe up, “Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of bank-notes!”
“Will somebody give me a quart pot?” exclaims her exasperated husband, looking helplessly about him, and finding no missile within his reach. “Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will someone hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!” Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her grandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin at the old lady with such force as he can muster, and then dropping into his chair in a heap.
“Shake me up, somebody, if you’ll be so good,” says the voice from within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. “I have come to look after the property. Shake me up; and call in the police on duty at the next house, to be explained to about the property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch the property!” As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and putting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and punching, he still repeats like an echo, “the—the property! The property!—property!”
Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other; the former as having relinquished the whole affair; the latter with a discomfited countenance, as having entertained some lingering expectations yet. But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed interest. Mr. Tulkinghorn’s clerk comes down from his official pew in the chambers, to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin, and that the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due time and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next house, and upstairs into Miss Flite’s deserted room, where he looks like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary.
The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court, still makes good for the Sol, and keeps the court upon its mettle. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be made out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump and under the archway, all day long; where wild yells and hootings take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals and nonprofessionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up “The popular song of KING DEATH! with chorus by the whole strength of the company,” as the great Harmonic feature of the week; and announces in the bill that “J. G. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense, in consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation.” There is one point connected with the deceased, upon which the court is particularly anxious; namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the undertaker’s stating in the Sol’s bar in the course of the day, that he has received orders to construct “a six-footer,” the general solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr. Smallweed’s conduct does him great honour.
Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable excitement too; for men of science and philosophy come to look, and carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence for such deaths, reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown, on English Medical Jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so, and was occasionally heard of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the testimony of Messrs. Foderé and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who would investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a case occurred, and even to write an account of it;—still they regard the late Mr. Krook’s obstinacy, in going out of the world by any such by-way, as wholly unjustified and personally offensive. The less the court understands of all this, the more the court likes it; and the greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol’s Arms. Then, there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground and figures ready drawn for anything, from a wreck on the Cornish coast to a review in Hyde Park, or a meeting in Manchester,—and in Mrs. Perkins’ own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws in upon the block, Mr. Krook’s house, as large as life; in fact, considerably larger, making a very Temple of it. Similarly, being permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long, by fifty yards high; at which the court is particularly charmed. All this time, the two gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house, and assist at the philosophical disputations,—go everywhere, and listen to everybody,—and yet are always diving into the Sol’s parlour, and writing with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper.
At last come the Coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that the Coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and tells the gentlemen of the Jury, in his private capacity, that “that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can’t account for!” After which the six-footer comes into action, and is much admired.
In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual, and can only haunt the secret house on the outside; where he has the mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady Dedlock.
For which reason, with a sinking heart, and with that hangdog sense of guilt upon him, which dread and watching, enfolded in the Sol’s Arms, have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven o’clock in the evening, and requests to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; don’t he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants to see my Lady too.
Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellow-gentleman in waiting, “to pitch into the young man”; but his instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkil
y supposes that the young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young man in a large room, not overlight, while he makes report of him.
Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it—? No, it’s no ghost; but fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed.
“I have to beg your ladyship’s pardon,” Mr. Guppy stammers, very downcast. “This is an inconvenient time—”
“I told you, you could come at any time.” She takes a chair, looking straight at him as on the last occasion.
“Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable.”
“You can sit down.” There is not much affability in her tone.
“I don’t know, your ladyship, that it’s worth while my sitting down and detaining you, for I—I have not got the letters that I mentioned when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship.”
“Have you come merely to say so?”
“Merely to say so, your ladyship.” Mr. Guppy, besides being depressed, disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance. She knows its influence perfectly; has studied it too well to miss a grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide, in the least perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts; but also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and further from her.
She will not speak, it is plain. So he must.
“In short, your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy, like a meanly penitent thief, “the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a sudden end, and—” He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the sentence.
“And the letters are destroyed with the person?”
Mr. Guppy would say no, if he could—as he is unable to hide.
“I believe so, your ladyship.”
If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it.
He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure.
“Is this all you have to say?” inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard him out—or as nearly out as he can stumble.
Mr. Guppy thinks that’s all.
“You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me; this being the last time you will have the opportunity.”
Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present, by any means.
“That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!” and she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy out.
But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his quiet footsteps to the library, has his hand at that moment on the handle of the door—comes in—and comes face to face with the young man as he is leaving the room.
One glance between the old man and the lady; and for an instant the blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks out. Another instant; close again.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times. It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the room was empty. I beg your pardon!”
“Stay!” She negligently calls him back. “Remain here, I beg. I am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!”
The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well.
“Aye, aye?” says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent brows; though he has no need to look again—not he. “From Kenge and Carboy’s, surely?”
“Kenge and Carboy’s, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir.”
“To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!”
“Happy to hear it, sir. You can’t be too well, sir, for the credit of the profession.”
“Thank you, Mr. Guppy!”
Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his old-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock’s brightness, hands her down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.
CHAPTER 34
A TURN OF THE SCREW
Now, what,” says Mr. George, “may this be? is it blank cartridge, or ball? A flash in the pan, or a shot?”
An open letter is the subject of the trooper’s speculations, and it seems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm’s length, brings it close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left hand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that side, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them; still, cannot satisfy himself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and thoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it every now and then, to come upon it with a fresh eye. Even that won’t do. “Is it,” Mr. George still muses, “blank cartridge or ball?”
Phil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the distance whitening the targets; softly whistling, in quick-march-time, and in drum-and-fife manner, that he must and will go back again to the girl he left behind him.
“Phil!” The trooper beckons as he calls him.
Phil approaches in his usual way; sidling off at first as if he were going anywhere else, and then bearing down upon his commander like a bayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high relief upon his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of the brush.
“Attention, Phil! Listen to this.”
“Steady, commander, steady.”
“ ‘Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months’ date drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become due tomorrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same on presentation. Yours, JOSHUA SMALLWEED.’—What do you make of that, Phil?”
“Mischief, guv’ner.”
“Why?”
“I think,” replies Phil, after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle in his forehead with the brush-handle, “that mischeevious consequences is always meant when money’s asked for.”
“Lookye, Phil,” says the trooper, sitting on the table. “First and last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal, in interest and one thing and another.”
Phil intimates, by sidling back a pace or two, with a very unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the transaction as being made more promising by this incident.
“And lookye further, Phil,” says the trooper, staying his premature conclusions with a wave of his hand. “There has always been an understanding that this bill was to be what they call Renewed. And it has been renewed, no end of times. What do you say now?”
“I say that I think the times is come to a end at last.”
“You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself.”
“Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?”
“The same.”
“Guv’ner,” says Phil, with exceeding gravity, “he’s a leech in his dispositions, he’s a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his twistings, and a lobster in his claws.”
Having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of him, gets back, by his usual series of movements, to the target he has in hand; and vigorously signifies, through his former musical medium, that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. George, having folded the letter, walks in that direction.
“There is a way, commander,” says Phil, looking cunningly at him, “of settling this.”
“Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could.”
Phil shakes his head. “No, guv’ner, no; not so bad
as that. There is a way,” says Phil, with a highly artistic turn of his brush—“what I’m a-doing at present.”
“White-washing.”
Phil nods.
“A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off old scores? You’re a moral character,” says the trooper, eyeing him in his large way with no small indignation, “upon my life you are, Phil!”
Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush, and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb, that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility, and would not so much as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family, when steps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice is heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, with a look at his master, hobbles up, saying, “Here’s the guv’ner, Mrs. Bagnet! Here he is!” and the old girl herself, accompanied by Mr. Bagnet, appears.
The old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so interesting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe from another quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of the old girl’s presence out of doors. It is of no colour known in this life, and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a metallic object let into its prow or beak, resembling a little model of a fanlight over a street door, or one of the oval glasses out of a pair of spectacles: which ornamental object has not that tenacious capacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article long associated with the British army. The old girl’s umbrella is of a flabby habit of waist, and seems to be in need of stays—an appearance that is possibly referable to its having served, through a series of years, at home as a cupboard, and on journeys as a carpet bag. She never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her well-proved cloak with its capacious hood; but generally uses the instrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or bunches of greens in marketing, or to arrest the attention of tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-basket, which is a sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad. Attended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs. Bagnet now arrives fresh-coloured and bright, in George’s Shooting Gallery.
The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White) Page 90