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

by Lynn Shepherd

  “Ah, but I don’t know,” replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, “as he don’t hear.”

  “Why, he is not in this place.”

  “Oh, ain’t he though?” says Jo. “He’s in all manner of places, all at wunst.”

  Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently awaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his patience than by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear.

  “Aye!” says Allan. “Why, what had you been doing?”

  “Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, ’sept in not moving on and the Inkwhich. But I’m a-moving on now. I’m a-moving on to the berryin ground—that’s the move as I’m up to.”

  “No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?”

  “Put me in a horsepittle,” replied Jo, whispering, “till I was discharged, then giv me a little money—four half-bulls, wot you may call half-crowns—and ses ‘Hook it! Nobody wants you here,’ he ses. ‘You hook it. You go and tramp,’ he ses. ‘You move on,’ he ses. ‘Don’t let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or you’ll repent it.’ So I shall, if ever he does see me, and he’ll see me if I’m above ground,” concludes Jo, nervously repeating all his former precautions and investigations.

  Allan considers a little; then remarks, turning to the woman, but keeping an encouraging eye on Jo; “He is not so ungrateful as you supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an insufficient one.”

  “Thankee, sir, thankee!” exclaims Jo. “There now! See how hard you wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it’s all right. For you wos wery good to me too, and I knows it.”

  “Now Jo,” says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, “come with me, and I will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I take one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise.”

  “I won’t, not unless I wos to see him a-coming, sir.”

  “Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come along. Good day again, my good woman.”

  “Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again.”

  She has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises and takes it up. Jo, repeating, “Ony you tell the young lady as I never went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!” nods and shambles and shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries, a farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after Allan Woodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of the street. In this order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone’s into the broad rays of the sunlight and the purer air.

  *

  CHAPTER 47

  JO’S WILL

  As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets, where the high church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. “It surely is a strange fact,” he considers, “that in the heart of a civilized world this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of than an unowned dog.” But it is none the less a fact because of its strangeness, and the difficulty remains.

  At first, he looks behind him often, to assure himself that Jo is still really following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick to brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along, glancing over at him, watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing in his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on; considering with a less divided attention what he shall do.

  A breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be done. He stops there, looks round and beckons Jo. Jo crosses, and comes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left—kneading dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw the bread-and-butter; looking anxiously about him in all directions as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal.

  But he is so sick and miserable, that even hunger has abandoned him. “I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir,” says Jo, soon putting down his food; “but I don’t know nothink—not even that. I don’t care for eating wittles nor yet for drinking on ’em.” And Jo stands shivering, and looking at the breakfast wonderingly.

  Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse, and on his chest. “Draw breath, Jo!” “It draws,” says Jo, “as heavy as a cart.” He might add, “and rattles like it”; but he only mutters, “I’m a-moving on, sir.”

  Allan looks about for an apothecary’s shop. There is none at hand, but a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of wine, and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to revive, almost as soon as it passes his lips. “We may repeat that dose, Jo,” observes Allan after watching him with his attentive face. “So! Now we will take five minutes’ rest, and then go on again.”

  Leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his back against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without appearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that he is warmed, and refreshed. If a face so shaded can brighten, his face brightens somewhat; and, by little and little, he eats the slice of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of improvement, Allan engages him in conversation; and elicits to his no small wonder the adventures of the lady in the veil, with all its consequences. Jo slowly munches, as he slowly tells it. When he has finished his story and his bread, they go on again.

  Intending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of refuge for the boy, to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite, Allan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first foregathered. But all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much obscured by dust, whose age is a problem—but who is indeed no other than the interesting Judy—is tart and spare in her replies. These sufficing, however, to inform the visitor that Miss Flite and her birds are domiciled with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell Yard, he repairs to that neighbouring place; where Miss Flite (who rises early that she may be punctual at the Divan of justice held by her excellent friend the Chancellor) comes running downstairs, with tears of welcome and with open arms.

  “My dear physician!” cries Miss Flite. “My meritorious, distinguished, honourable officer!” She uses some odd expressions, but is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be—more so than it often is. Allan, very patient with her, waits until she has no more raptures to express; then points out Jo, trembling in a doorway, and tells her how he comes there.

  “Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now you have a fund of knowledge and good sense, and can advise me.”

  Miss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to consider; but it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. Mrs. Blinder is entirely let, and she herself occupies poor Gridley’s room. “Gridley!” exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands after a twentieth repetition of this remark. “Gridley! To be sure! of course! My dear physician! General George will help us out.”

  It is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, and would be, though Miss Flite had not already run upstairs to put her pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl, and to arm herself with her reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician, in her disjointed manner, on coming down in full array, that General George, whom she often calls upon, knows her dear Fitz-Jarndyce, and takes a great interest in all connected with her, Allan is induced to think that they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo, for his encouragement, that thi
s walking about will soon be over now; and they repair to the General’s. Fortunately it is not far.

  From the exterior of George’s Shooting Gallery, and the long entry, and the bare perspective beyond it, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. He also descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding towards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no stock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broad-sword and dumb-bell, weightily asserting themselves through his light shirt-sleeves.

  “Your servant, sir,” says Mr. George, with a military salute. Good-humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp hair, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, and at some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. He winds it up with another “Your servant, sir!” and another salute.

  “Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?” says Mr. George.

  “I am proud to find I have the air of one,” returns Allan; “but I am only a sea-going doctor.”

  “Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular bluejacket, myself.”

  Allan hopes Mr. George will forgive his intrusion the more readily on that account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his pipe, which, in his politeness, he has testified some intention of doing. “You are very good, sir,” returns the trooper. “As I know by experience that it’s not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it’s equally agreeable to yourself—” and finishes the sentence by putting it between his lips again. Allan proceeds to tell him all he knows about Jo; unto which the trooper listens with a grave face.

  “And that’s the lad, sir, is it?” he inquires, looking along the entry to where Jo stands staring up at the great letters on the white-washed front, which have no meaning in his eyes.

  “That’s he,” says Allan. “And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty about him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could procure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not stay there many hours, if he could be so much as got there. The same objection applies to a workhouse; supposing I had the patience to be evaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to get him into one—which is a system that I don’t take kindly to.”

  “No man does, sir,” returns Mr. George.

  “I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything.”

  “I ask your pardon, sir,” says Mr. George. “But you have not mentioned that party’s name. Is it a secret, sir?”

  “The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket.”

  “Bucket the Detective, sir?”

  “The same man.”

  “The man is known to me, sir,” returns the trooper, after blowing out a cloud of smoke and squaring his chest; “and the boy is so far correct that he undoubtedly is a—rum customer.” Mr. George smokes with a profound meaning after this, and surveys Miss Flite in silence.

  “Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared; and to have it in their power to speak with him, if they should desire to do so. Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor lodging kept by decent people, where he would be admitted. Decent people and Jo, Mr. George,” says Allan, following the direction of the trooper’s eyes along the entry, “have not been much acquainted as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in this neighbourhood, who would receive him for a while, on my paying for him beforehand?”

  As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man standing at the trooper’s elbow, and looking up, with an oddly twisted figure and countenance, into the trooper’s face. After a few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man, and the little man winks up at the trooper.

  “Well, sir,” says Mr. George, “I can assure you that I would willingly be knocked on the head at any time, if it would be at all agreeable to Miss Summerson; and consequently I esteem it a privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy, if the same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop, at a moment’s notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at your service.”

  With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole building at his visitor’s disposal.

  “I take it for granted, sir,” he adds, “you being one of the medical staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject?”

  Allan is quite sure of it.

  “Because, sir,” says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, “we have had enough of that.”

  His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. “Still I am bound to tell you,” observes Allan, after repeating his former assurance, “that the boy is deplorably low and reduced; and that he may be—I do not say that he is—too far gone to recover.”

  “Do you consider him in present danger, sir?” inquires the trooper.

  “Yes, I fear so.”

  “Then, sir,” returns the trooper in a decisive manner, “it appears to me—being naturally in the vagabond way myself—that the sooner he comes out of the street, the better. You Phil! Bring him in!”

  Mr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command; and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought in. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle’s Tockahoopo Indians; he is not one of Mrs. Jellyby’s lambs, being wholly unconnected with Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him: native ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee.

  He shuffles slowly into Mr. George’s gallery, and stands huddled together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he is, and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in creation. He is of no order and no place; neither of the beasts, nor of humanity.

  “Look here, Jo!” says Allan. “This is Mr. George.”

  Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a moment, and then down again.

  “He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room here.”

  Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After a little more consideration, and some backing and changing of the foot on which he rests, he mutters that he is “wery thankful.”

  “You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be obedient, and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, whatever you do, Jo.”

  “Wishermaydie if I don’t, sir,” says Jo, reverting to his favourite declaration. “I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir—’sept not knowin’ nothink and starwation.”

  “I believe it. Now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to speak to you.”

  “My intention merely was, sir,” observes Mr. George, amazingly broad and upright, “to point out to him where he can lie down, and get a thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here.” As the trooper speaks, he conducts them to the other end of the gallery, and opens one of the little cabins. “There
you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon, sir”; he refers apologetically to the card Allan has given him; “Mr. Woodcourt pleases. Don’t you be alarmed if you hear shots; they’ll be aimed at the target, and not you. Now, there’s another thing I would recommend, sir,” says the trooper, turning to his visitor. “Phil, come here!”

  Phil bears down upon them, according to his usual tactics.

  “Here is a man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor creature. You do, don’t you, Phil?”

  “Certainly and surely I do, guv’ner,” is Phil’s reply.

  “Now I was thinking, sir,” says Mr. George, in a martial sort of confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a drum-head, “that if this man was to take him to a bath, and was to lay out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles—”

  “Mr. George, my considerate friend,” returns Allan, taking out his purse, “it is the very favour I would have asked.”

  Phil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of improvement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes the best of her way to Court; having great fears that otherwise her friend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her, or may give the judgment she has so long expected, in her absence; and observing, “which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many years, would be too absurdly unfortunate!” Allan takes the opportunity of going out to procure some restorative medicines; and obtaining them near at hand, soon returns, to find the trooper walking up and down the gallery, and to fall into step and walk with him.

  “I take it, sir,” says Mr. George, “that you know Miss Summerson pretty well?”

  Yes, it appears.

  “Not related to her, sir?”

  No, it appears.

  “Excuse the apparent curiosity,” says Mr. George. “It seemed to me probable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor creature, because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest in him. ’Tis my case, sir, I assure you.”