The Solitary House (161 page)

“What have you got to say next?” asks Mr. Bucket. “Now, don’t open your mouth too wide, because you don’t look handsome when you do it.”

“I want five hundred pound.”

“No, you don’t; you mean fifty,” says Mr. Bucket, humorously.

It appears, however, that Mr. Smallweed means five hundred.

“That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider (without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business,” says Mr. Bucket; Sir Leicester mechanically bows his head; “and you ask me to consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it’s an unreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than that. Hadn’t you better say two fifty?”

Mr. Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not.

“Then,” says Mr. Bucket, “let’s hear Mr. Chadband. Lord! Many a time I’ve heard my old fellow-sergeant of that name; and a moderate man he was in all respects, as ever I come across!”

Thus invited, Mr. Chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek smiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands, delivers himself as follows:

“My friends, we are now—Rachael my wife, and I—in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we
are bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and doe we require corn, and wine, and oil—or, what is much the same thing, money, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends.”

“You’re a man of business, you are,” returns Mr. Bucket, very attentive; “and consequently you’re going on to mention what the nature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn’t do better.”

“Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love,” says Mr. Chadband, with a cunning eye, “proceed untoe it. Rachael, my wife, advance!”

Mrs. Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her husband into the back-ground, and confronts Mr. Bucket with a hard frowning smile.

“Since you want to know what we know,” says she, “I’ll tell you. I helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her Ladyship’s daughter. I was in the service of her Ladyship’s sister, who was very sensitive to the disgrace her Ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her Ladyship, that the child was dead—she
was
very nearly so—when she was born. But she’s alive, and I know her.” With these words, and a laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word “Ladyship,” Mrs. Chadband folds her arms, and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket.

“I suppose now,” returns that officer, “you will be expecting a twenty-pound note, or a present of about that figure?”

Mrs. Chadband merely laughs, and contemptuously tells him he can “offer” twenty pence.

“My friend the law-stationer’s good lady, over there,” says Mr. Bucket, luring Mrs. Snagsby forward with the finger. “What may
your
game be, ma’am?”

Mrs. Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from stating the nature of her game; but by degrees it confusedly comes to light, that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, whom Mr. Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned and sought to keep in darkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, has been the sympathy of the late
Mr. Tulkinghorn; who showed so much commiseration for her, on one occasion of his calling in Cook’s Court in the absence of her perjured husband, that she has of late habitually carried to him all her woes. Everybody, it appears, the present company excepted, has plotted against Mrs. Snagsby’s peace. There is Mr. Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as midnight, under the influence—no doubt—of Mr. Snagsby’s suborning and tampering. There is Mr. Weevle, friend of Mr. Guppy, who lived mysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. There was Krook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo, deceased; and they were “all in it.” In what, Mrs. Snagsby does not with particularity express; but she knows that Jo was Mr. Snagsby’s son, “as well as if a trumpet had spoken it,” and she followed Mr. Snagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and if he was not his son why did he go? The one occupation of her life has been, for some time back, to follow Mr. Snagsby to and fro, and up and down, and to piece suspicious circumstances together—and every circumstance that has happened has been most suspicious; and in this way she has pursued her object of detecting and confounding her false husband, night and day. Thus did it come to pass that she brought the Chadbands and Mr. Tulkinghorn together, and conferred with Mr. Tulkinghorn on the change in Mr. Guppy, and helped to turn up the circumstances, in which the present company are interested, casually, by the wayside; being still, and ever, on the great high road that is to terminate in Mr. Snagsby’s full exposure and a matrimonial separation. All this, Mrs. Snagsby, as an injured woman, and friend of Mrs. Chadband, and the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the mourner of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the seal of confidence, with every possible confusion and involvement possible and impossible; having no pecuniary motive whatever, no scheme or project but the one mentioned; and bringing here, and taking everywhere, her own dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the ceaseless working of her mill of jealousy.

While this exordium is in hand—and it takes some time—Mr. Bucket, who has seen through the transparency of Mrs.
Snagsby’s vinegar at a glance, confers with his familiar demon, and bestows his shrewd attention on the Chadbands and Mr. Smallweed. Sir Leicester Dedlock remains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him; except that he once or twice looks towards Mr. Bucket, as relying on that officer alone of all mankind.

“Very good,” says Mr. Bucket. “Now I understand you, you know; and, being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this little matter,” again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in confirmation of the statement, “can give it my fair and full attention. Now I won’t allude to conspiring to extort money, or anything of that sort, because we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to make things pleasant. But I tell you what I
do
wonder at; I am surprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall. It was so opposed to your interests. That’s what I look at.”

“We wanted to get in,” pleads Mr. Smallweed.

“Why, of course you wanted to get in,” Mr. Bucket asserts with cheerfulness; “but for a old gentleman at your time of life—what I call truly venerable, mind you!—with his wits sharpened, as I have no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which occasions all his animation to mount up into his head—not to consider, that if he don’t keep such a business as the present as close as possible it can’t be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You see your temper got the better of you; that’s where you lost ground,” says Mr. Bucket in an argumentative and friendly way.

“I only said I wouldn’t go without one of the servants came up to Sir Leicester Dedlock,” returns Mr. Smallweed.

“That’s it! That’s where your temper got the better of you. Now, you keep it under another time, and you’ll make money by it. Shall I ring for them to carry you down?”

“When are we to hear more of this?” Mrs. Chadband sternly demands.

“Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful sex is!” replies Mr. Bucket, with gallantry. “I shall have the pleasure of giving you a call tomorrow or next day—not forgetting Mr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty.”

“Five hundred!” exclaims Mr. Smallweed.

“All right! Nominally five hundred”; Mr. Bucket has his hand on the bell-rope;
“shall
I wish you good day for the present, on the part of myself and the gentleman of the house?” he asks in an insinuating tone.

Nobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it, and the party retire as they came up. Mr. Bucket follows them to the door; and returning, says with an air of serious business:

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s for you to consider whether or not to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, its being bought up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that little pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used by all sides of the speculation, and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and ends together than if she had meant it. Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, he held all these horses in his hand, and could have drove ’em his own way, I haven’t a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost, and now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all dragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The cat’s away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the water runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended.”

Sir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open; and he looks intently at Mr. Bucket, as Mr. Bucket refers to his watch.

“The party to be apprehended is now in this house,” proceeds Mr. Bucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand, and with rising spirits, “and I’m about to take her into custody in your presence. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don’t you say a word, nor yet stir. There’ll be no noise, and no disturbance at all. I’ll come back in the course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter, and the nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don’t you be nervous on account of the apprehension at present coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to last.”

Mr. Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury,
shuts the door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. After a suspense of a minute or two, the door slowly opens, and a Frenchwoman enters. Mademoiselle Hortense.

The moment she is in the room, Mr. Bucket claps the door to, and puts his back against it. The suddenness of the noise occasions her to turn; and then, for the first time, she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in his chair.

“I ask you pardon,” she mutters hurriedly. “They tell me there was no one here.”

Her step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr. Bucket. Suddenly a spasm shoots across her face, and she turns deadly pale.

“This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock,” says Mr. Bucket, nodding at her. “This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks back.”

“What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?” returns Mademoiselle, in a jocular strain.

“Why, my angel,” returns Mr. Bucket, “we shall see.”

Mademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face, which gradually changes into a smile of scorn. “You are very mysterieuse. Are you drunk?”

“Tolerable sober, my angel,” returns Mr. Bucket.

“I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife. Your wife have left me, since some minutes. They tell me downstairs that your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What is the intention of this fool’s play, say then?” Mademoiselle demands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in her dark cheek beating like a clock.

Mr. Bucket merely shakes the finger at her.

“Ah my God, you are an unhappy idiot!” cries Mademoiselle, with a toss of her head and a laugh.—“Leave me to pass downstairs, great pig.” With a stamp of her foot, and a menace.

“Now, Mademoiselle,” says Mr. Bucket, in a cool determined way, “you go and sit down upon that sofy.”

“I will not sit down upon nothing,” she replies, with a shower of nods.

“Now, Mademoiselle,” repeats Mr. Bucket, making no demonstration, except with the finger, “you sit down upon that sofy.”

“Why?”

“Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don’t need to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a foreigner, if I can. If I can’t, I must be rough; and there’s rougher ones outside. What I am to be, depends on you. So I recommend you, as a friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your head, to go and sit down upon that sofy.”

Mademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice, while that something in her cheeks beats fast and hard, “You are a Devil.”

“Now, you see,” Mr. Bucket proceeds approvingly, “you’re comfortable, and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of your sense to do. So I’ll give you a piece of advice, and it’s this. Don’t you talk too much. You’re not expected to say anything here, and you can’t keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the less you Parlay, the better, you know.” Mr. Bucket is very complacent over this French explanation.

Mademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth, and her black eyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a rigid state, with her hands clenched—and her feet too, one might suppose—muttering, “O, you Bucket, you are a Devil!”

“Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” says Mr. Bucket, and from this time forth the finger never rests, “this young woman, my lodger, was her Ladyship’s maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate against her Ladyship after being discharged—”

“Lie!” cries Mademoiselle. “I discharge myself.”

“Now, why don’t you take my advice?” returns Mr. Bucket, in an impressive, almost in an imploring tone. “I’m surprised at the indiscreetness you commit. You’ll say something that’ll be used against you, you know. You’re sure to come to it. Never you mind what I say till it’s given in evidence. It is not addressed to you.”

“Discharge, too!” cries Mademoiselle, furiously, “by her Ladyship! Eh, my faith, a pretty Ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by remaining with a Ladyship so infame!”

“Upon my soul I wonder at you!” Mr. Bucket remonstrates. “I thought the French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female going on like that, before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!”

“He is a poor abused!” cries Mademoiselle. “I spit upon his house, upon his name, upon his imbecility,” all of which she makes the carpet represent. “Oh, that he is a great man! O yes, superb! O Heaven! Bah!”