The Solitary House (82 page)

“He was put there,” says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in.

“Where? O, what a scene of horror!”

“There!” says Jo, pointing. “Over yinder. Among them piles of bones, and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver it for you with my broom, if the gate was open. That’s why they locks it, I s’pose,” giving it a shake. “It’s always locked. Look at the rat!” cries Jo, excited. “Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the ground!”

The servant shrinks into a corner—into a corner of that hideous archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting out her two hands, and passionately telling him to keep away from her, for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands staring, and is still staring when she recovers herself.

“Is this place of abomination, consecrated ground?”

“I don’t know nothink of consequential ground,” says Jo, still staring.

“Is it blessed?”

“WHICH?” says Jo, in the last degree amazed.

“Is it blessed?”

“I’m blest if I know,” says Jo, staring more than ever; “but I shouldn’t think it warn’t. Blest?” repeats Jo, something troubled in his mind. “It an’t done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think it was t’othered myself. But I don’t know nothink!”

The servant takes as little heed of what he says, as she seems to take of what she has said herself. She draws off her glove, to get some money from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her hand is, and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling rings.

She drops a piece of money in his hand, without touching it, and shuddering as their hands approach. “Now,” she adds, “show me the spot again!”

Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the
gate, and with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length, looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds that he is alone.

His first proceeding, is, to hold the piece of money to the gas-light, and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow—gold. His next, is, to give it a one-sided bite at the edge, as a test of its quality. His next, to put it in his mouth for safety, and to sweep the step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for Tom-all-Alone’s; stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold, and give it another one-sided bite, as a reassurance of its being genuine.

The Mercury in powder is in no want of society tonight, for my Lady goes to a grand dinner, and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is fidgety, down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout; he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous pattering on the terrace, that he can’t read the paper, even by the fireside in his own snug dressing-room.

“Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the house, my dear,” says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. “His dressing-room is on my Lady’s side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon the Ghost’s Walk, more distinct than it is tonight!”

*

CHAPTER 17

ESTHER’S NARRATIVE

R
ichard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities, his good spirits, his good temper,
his gaiety and freshness, was always delightful. But, though I liked him more and more, the better I knew him, I still felt more and more, how much it was to be regretted that he had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit, and often with distinction; but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself, which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously won; but, like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. If they had been under Richard’s direction, they would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his enemies.

I write down these opinions, not because I believe that this or any other thing was so, because I thought so; but only because I did think so, and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides, how right my guardian was in what he had said; and that the uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester, who felt that he was part of a great gaming system.

Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon, when my guardian was not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after Richard.

“Why, Mr. Carstone,” said Mrs. Badger, “is very well, and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I—you won’t think me premature if I mention it?”

I said no, as Mrs. Badger’s insinuating tone seemed to require such an answer.

“Nor Miss Clare?” said Mrs. Bayham Badger, sweetly.

Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy.

“Why, you see, my dears,” said Mrs. Badger—“you’ll excuse me calling you my dears?”

We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it.

“Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that although I am still young—or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the compliment of saying so—”

“No,” Mr. Badger called out, like some one contradicting at a public meeting. “Not at all!”

“Very well,” smiled Mrs. Badger, “we will say still young.”

(“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Badger.)

“My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser’s command.
You
never heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts; but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.”

(“A man of European reputation,” murmured Mr. Badger.)

“When I lost my dear first, and became the wife of my dear second,” said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were parts of a charade, “I still enjoyed opportunities of observing youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo’s lectures was a large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to throw our house open to students, as a kind of Scientific Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed biscuit, for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there was science to an unlimited extent.”

(“Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Badger, reverentially. “There must have been great intellectual friction going on there, under the auspices of such a man!”)

“And now,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “now that I am the wife of
my dear third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser, and adapted to new and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a Neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he has not chosen his profession advisedly.”

Ada looked so very anxious now, that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she founded her supposition?

“My dear Miss Summerson,” she replied, “on Mr. Carstone’s character and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition, that probably he would never think it worthwhile to mention how he really feels; but, he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men, like Mr. Allan Woodcourt, who take it from a strong interest in all that it can do, will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a very little money, and through years of considerable endurance and disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the case with Mr. Carstone.”

“Does Mr. Badger think so too?” asked Ada, timidly.

“Why,” said Mr. Badger, “to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great consideration to it; knowing that Mrs. Badger’s mind, in addition to its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The conclusion at which I have arrived is—in short, is Mrs. Badger’s conclusion.”

“It was a maxim of Captain Swosser’s,” said Mrs. Badger, “speaking in his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that this maxim is applicable to the medical, as well as to the nautical profession.”

“To all professions,” observed Mr. Badger. “It was admirably said by Captain Swosser. Beautifully said.”

“People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the North of Devon, after our marriage,” said Mrs. Badger, “that he disfigured some of the houses and other buildings, by chipping off fragments of those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the Professor replied, that he knew of no building, save the Temple of Science. The principle is the same, I think?”

“Precisely the same,” said Mr. Badger. “Finely expressed! The Professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness; when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer under the pillow, and chipping at the countenances of the attendants. The ruling passion!”

Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to us, and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard; and, as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious talk with him.

So, after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly right in whatever he said.

“And how do you get on, Richard?” said I. I always sat down on the other side of him. He made quite a sister of me.

“O! well enough!” said Richard.

“He can’t say better than that, Esther, can he?” cried my pet, triumphantly.

I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I couldn’t.

“Well enough?” I repeated.

“Yes,” said Richard, “well enough. It’s rather jog-trotty and humdrum. But it’ll do as well as anything else!”

“O! My dear Richard!” I remonstrated.

“What’s the matter?” said Richard.

“Do as well as anything else!”

“I don’t think there’s any harm in that, Dame Durden,” said
Ada, looking so confidently at me across him; “because if it will do as well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope.”

“O yes, I hope so,” returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair from his forehead. “After all, it may be only a kind of probation till our suit is—I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit. Forbidden ground! O yes, it’s all right enough. Let us talk about something else.”

Ada would have done so, willingly, and with a full persuasion that we had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought it would be useless to stop there, so I began again.

“No, but Richard,” said I, “and my dear Ada! Consider how important it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any reservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It will be too late, very soon.”

“O yes! We must talk about it!” said Ada. “But I think Richard is right.”

What was the use of my trying to look wise, when she was so pretty, and so engaging, and so fond of him!

“Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard,” said I, “and they seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the profession.”

“Did they though?” said Richard. “O! Well, that rather alters the case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don’t care much about it. But O, it don’t matter! It’ll do as well as anything else!”