The Solitary House (178 page)

“That’s what was agreed,” Mr. Smallweed assented, with the same bad grace.

“In consequence of which,” said Mr. Bucket, dismissing his agreeable manner all at once, and becoming strictly business-like, “you’ve got that Will upon your person at the present time; and the only thing that remains for you to do, is just to Out with it!”

Having given us one glance out of the watching corner of his eye, and having given his nose one triumphant rub with his forefinger, Mr. Bucket stood with his eyes fastened on his confidential friend, and his hand stretched forth ready to take the paper and present it to my guardian. It was not produced without much reluctance, and many declarations on the part of Mr. Smallweed that he was a poor industrious man, and that he left it to Mr. Jarndyce’s honour not to let him lose by his honesty. Little by little, he very slowly took from a breast-pocket a stained discoloured paper, which was much singed upon the outside, and a little burnt at the edges, as if it had long ago been thrown upon a fire, and hastily snatched off again. Mr. Bucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with the dexterity of a conjurer, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Jarndyce. As he gave it to my guardian, he whispered behind his fingers:

“Hadn’t settled how to make their market of it. Quarrelled and hinted about it. I laid out twenty pounds upon it. First, the avaricious grandchildren split upon him, on account of their objections to his living so unreasonably long, and then they split on one another. Lord! there ain’t one of the family that wouldn’t sell the other for a pound or two, except the old lady—and she’s only out of it because she’s too weak in her mind to drive a bargain.”

“Mr. Bucket,” said my guardian aloud, “whatever the worth
of this paper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it be of any worth, I hold myself bound to see Mr. Smallweed remunerated accordingly.”

“Not according to your merits, you know,” said Mr. Bucket, in friendly explanation to Mr. Smallweed. “Don’t you be afraid of that. According to its value.”

“That is what I mean,” said my guardian. “You may observe, Mr. Bucket, that I abstain from examining this paper myself. The plain truth is, I have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many years, and my soul is sick of it. But Miss Summerson and I will immediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the cause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all other parties interested.”

“Mr. Jarndyce can’t say fairer than that, you understand,” observed Mr. Bucket, to his fellow-visitor. “And it being now made clear to you that nobody’s a-going to be wronged—which must be a great relief to
your
mind—we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing you home again.”

He unbolted the door, called in the bearers, wished us good morning, and with a look full of meaning, and a crook of his finger at parting, went his way.

We went our way too, which was to Lincoln’s Inn, as quickly as possible. Mr. Kenge was disengaged; and we found him at his table in his dusty room, with the inexpressive-looking books, and the piles of papers. Chairs having been placed for us by Mr. Guppy, Mr. Kenge expressed the surprise and gratification he felt at the unusual sight of Mr. Jarndyce in his office. He turned over his double eye-glass as he spoke, and was more Conversation Kenge than ever.

“I hope,” said Mr. Kenge, “that the genial influence of Miss Summerson,” he bowed to me, “may have induced Mr. Jarndyce,” he bowed to him, “to forego some little of his animosity towards a Cause and towards a Court which are—shall I say, which take their place in the stately vista of the pillars of our profession?”

“I am inclined to think,” returned my guardian, “that Miss Summerson has seen too much of the effects of the Court and the Cause to exert any influence in their favour. Nevertheless,
they are a part of the occasion of my being here. Mr. Kenge, before I lay this paper on your desk, and have done with it, let me tell you how it has come into my hands.”

He did so shortly and distinctly.

“It could not, sir,” said Mr. Kenge, “have been stated more plainly and to the purpose, if it had been a case at law.”

“Did you ever know English law, or equity either, plain and to the purpose?” said my guardian.

“O fie!” said Mr. Kenge.

At first he had not seemed to attach much importance to the paper, but when he saw it he appeared more interested, and when he had opened and read a little of it through his eye-glass, he became amazed. “Mr. Jarndyce,” he said, looking off it, “you have perused this?”

“Not I!” returned my guardian.

“But, my dear sir,” said Mr. Kenge, “it is a Will of later date than any in the suit. It appears to be all in the Testator’s handwriting. It is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks of fire, it is
not
cancelled. Here it is, a perfect instrument!”

“Well!” said my guardian. “What is that to me?”

“Mr. Guppy!” cried Mr. Kenge, raising his voice.—“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jarndyce.”

“Sir.”

“Mr. Vholes of Symond’s Inn. My compliments. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Glad to speak with him.”

Mr. Guppy disappeared.

“You ask me what is this to you, Mr. Jarndyce. If you had perused this document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest considerably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still leaving it a very handsome one,” said Mr. Kenge, waving his hand persuasively and blandly. “You would further have seen that the interests of Mr. Richard Carstone, and of Miss Ada Clare, now Mrs. Richard Carstone, are very materially advanced by it.”

“Kenge,” said my guardian, “if all the flourishing wealth that the suit brought into this vile court of Chancery could fall to my
two young cousins, I should be well contented. But do you ask
me
to believe that any good is to come of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?”

“O really, Mr. Jarndyce! Prejudice, prejudice. My dear sir, this is a very great country, a very great country. Its system of equity is a very great system, a very great system. Really, really!”

My guardian said no more, and Mr. Vholes arrived. He was modestly impressed by Mr. Kenge’s professional eminence.

“How do you do, Mr. Vholes? Will you be so good as to take a chair here by me, and look at this paper?”

Mr. Vholes did as he was asked, and seemed to read it every word. He was not excited by it; but he was not excited by anything. When he had well examined it, he retired with Mr. Kenge into a window, and shading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some length. I was not suprised to observe Mr. Kenge inclined to dispute what he said before he had said much, for I knew that no two people ever did agree about anything in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But he seemed to get the better of Mr. Kenge too, in a conversation that sounded as if it were almost composed of the words “Receiver-General,” “Accountant-General,” “Report,” “Estate,” and “Costs.” When they had finished, they came back to Mr. Kenge’s table and spoke aloud.

“Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr. Vholes?” said Mr. Kenge.

Mr. Vholes said, “Very much so.”

“And a very important document, Mr. Vholes?” said Mr. Kenge.

Again Mr. Vholes said, “Very much so.”

“And as you say, Mr. Vholes, when the Cause is in the paper next Term, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in it,” said Mr. Kenge, looking loftily at my guardian.

Mr. Vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to keep respectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such an authority.

“And when,” asked my guardian, rising after a pause, during which Mr. Kenge had rattled his money, and Mr. Vholes had picked his pimples, “when is next Term?”

“Next term, Mr. Jarndyce, will be next month,” said Mr. Kenge. “Of course we shall at once proceed to do what is
necessary with this document, and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of course you will receive our usual notification of the Cause being in the paper.”

“To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention.”

“Still bent, my dear sir,” said Mr. Kenge, showing us through the outer office to the door, “still bent, even with your enlarged mind, on echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr. Jarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr. Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr. Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? Now, really, really!”

He said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if it were a silver trowel, with which to spread the cement of his words on the structure of the system, and consolidate it for a thousand ages.

CHAPTER 63

STEEL AND IRON

G
eorge’s shooting gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and George himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his rides, and riding very near his bridle-rein, because of the uncertain hand with which he guides his horse. But not today is George so occupied. He is journeying today into the iron country farther north, to look about him.

As he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green woods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits and ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching fires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke, become the features of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper, looking about him, and always looking for something he has come to find.

At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of iron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the trooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse, and asks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts?

“Why, master,” quoth the workman, “do I know my own name?”

“ ’Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?” asks the trooper.

“Rouncewell’s? Ah! you’re right.”

“And where might it be now?” asks the trooper, with a glance before him.

“The bank, the factory, or the house?” the workman wants to know.

“Hum! Rouncewell’s is so great apparently,” mutters the trooper, stroking his chin, “that I have as good as half a mind to go back again. Why, I don’t know which I want. Should I find Mr. Rouncewell at the factory, do you think?”

“Tain’t easy to say where you’d find him—at this time of the day you might find either him or his son there, if he’s in town; but his contracts take him away.”

And which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys—the tallest ones! Yes, he sees
them
. Well! let him keep his eye on those chimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he’ll see ’em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall which forms one side of the street. That’s Rouncewell’s.

The trooper thanks his informant, and rides slowly on, looking about him. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much disposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of Rouncewell’s hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some of Rouncewell’s hands have just knocked off for dinner-time, and seem to be invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, are Rouncewell’s hands—a little sooty too.

He comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great perplexity of iron lying about, in every stage, and in a vast variety of shapes; in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and wrenched into eccentric and perverse forms, as separate parts of machinery; mountains of it broken-up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright
fireworks of it showering about, under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a Babel of iron sounds.

“This is a place to make a man’s head ache, too!” says the trooper, looking about him for a counting-house. “Who comes here? This is very like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if likenesses run in families. Your servant, sir.”

“Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?”

“Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with him.”

The young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time, for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to be found. “Very like me before I was set up—devilish like me!” thinks the trooper, as he follows. They come to a building in the yard; with an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman in the office, Mr. George turns very red.

“What name shall I say to my father?” asks the young man.

George, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers “Steel,” and is so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the office, who sits at a table with account-books before him, and some sheets of paper, blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of cunning shapes. It is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on the iron view below. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron, purposely broken to be tested, at various periods of their service, in various capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke is seen through the windows, rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys, to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon of other chimneys.