Esther's Narrative

It happened that when I came home from Deal I found a note from Caddy
Jellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me that her
health, which had been for some time very delicate, was worse and
that she would be more glad than she could tell me if I would go to
see her. It was a note of a few lines, written from the couch on
which she lay and enclosed to me in another from her husband, in
which he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. Caddy was now
the mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor little baby--such a
tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely
anything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand,
always clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all
day, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to
imagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved
it cried, but at all other times it was so patient that the sole
desire of its life appeared to be to lie quiet and think. It had
curious little dark veins in its face and curious little dark marks
under its eyes like faint remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days, and
altogether, to those who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous
little sight.

But it was enough for Caddy that SHE was used to it. The projects
with which she beguiled her illness, for little Esther's education,
and little Esther's marriage, and even for her own old age as the
grandmother of little Esther's little Esthers, was so prettily
expressive of devotion to this pride of her life that I should be
tempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance that I
am getting on irregularly as it is.

To return to the letter. Caddy had a superstition about me which had
been strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago when
she had lain asleep with her head in my lap. She almost--I think I
must say quite--believed that I did her good whenever I was near her.
Now although this was such a fancy of the affectionate girl's that I
am almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have all the force of
a fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set off to Caddy, with my
guardian's consent, post-haste; and she and Prince made so much of me
that there never was anything like it.

Next day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. It
was a very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier in
the morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters
before leaving home.

But when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my
return at night, "Now, little woman, little woman, this will never
do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching
will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and
take possession of our old lodgings."

"Not for me, dear guardian," said I, "for I never feel tired," which
was strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such request.

"For me then," returned my guardian, "or for Ada, or for both of us.
It is somebody's birthday to-morrow, I think."

"Truly I think it is," said I, kissing my darling, who would be
twenty-one to-morrow.

"Well," observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously,
"that's a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary
business to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make
London a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will
go. That being settled, there is another thing--how have you left
Caddy?"

"Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she
regains her health and strength."

"What do you call some time, now?" asked my guardian thoughtfully.

"Some weeks, I am afraid."

"Ah!" He began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets,
showing that he had been thinking as much. "Now, what do you say
about her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?"

I felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but
that Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his
opinion to be confirmed by some one.

"Well, you know," returned my guardian quickly, "there's Woodcourt."

I had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment
all that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. Woodcourt seemed
to come back and confuse me.

"You don't object to him, little woman?"

"Object to him, guardian? Oh no!"

"And you don't think the patient would object to him?"

So far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a
great reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he was
no stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in his kind
attendance on Miss Flite.

"Very good," said my guardian. "He has been here to-day, my dear, and
I will see him about it to-morrow."

I felt in this short conversation--though I did not know how, for she
was quiet, and we interchanged no look--that my dear girl well
remembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no
other hands than Caddy's had brought me the little parting token.
This caused me to feel that I ought to tell her, and Caddy too, that
I was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that if I avoided
that disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my own eyes
of its master's love. Therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited
listening until the clock struck twelve in order that only I might be
the first to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to
take her to my heart, I set before her, just as I had set before
myself, the goodness and honour of her cousin John and the happy life
that was in store for me. If ever my darling were fonder of me at
one time than another in all our intercourse, she was surely fondest
of me that night. And I was so rejoiced to know it and so comforted
by the sense of having done right in casting this last idle
reservation away that I was ten times happier than I had been before.
I had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that
it was gone I felt as if I understood its nature better.

Next day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in
half an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone
away. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday,
and we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us
that Richard's absence naturally made on such an occasion. After that
day I was for some weeks--eight or nine as I remember--very much with
Caddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at this time than
any other since we had first come together, except the time of my own
illness. She often came to Caddy's, but our function there was to
amuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential
manner. Whenever I went home at night we were together, but Caddy's
rest was broken by pain, and I often remained to nurse her.

With her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their
home to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So self-denying,
so uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid
of giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her
husband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I had never known the
best of her until now. And it seemed so curious that her pale face
and helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing
was the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began
early every morning in the ball-room, and where the untidy little boy
waltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon.

At Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment,
trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more
airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every
day, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small
namesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It
was at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about
Bleak House.

We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in
his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit
softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very
little child. Whatever Caddy's condition really was, she never failed
to declare to Prince that she was all but well--which I, heaven
forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such
good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and
play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do
in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all.

Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her
usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her
grandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan
on its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as
untidy, she would say, "Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do
to-day?" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of
the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number
of letters she had lately received and answered or of the
coffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do
with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be
disguised.

Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and
from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the
baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him
uncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was
surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy
required any little comfort that the house contained, she first
carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In
return for this consideration he would come into the room once a day,
all but blessing it--showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a
grace of manner in dispensing the light of his high-shouldered
presence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known
better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life.

"My Caroline," he would say, making the nearest approach that he
could to bending over her. "Tell me that you are better to-day."

"Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop," Caddy would reply.

"Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite
prostrated by fatigue?" Here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss
his fingers to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased to be
particular in his attentions since I had been so altered.

"Not at all," I would assure him.

"Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We
must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My
dear Caroline"--he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite
generosity and protection--"want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish
and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains,
everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not," he
would sometimes add in a burst of deportment, "even allow my simple
requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere
with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine."

He had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment
(his son's inheritance from his mother) that I several times knew
both Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these
affectionate self-sacrifices.

"Nay, my dears," he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy's thin
arm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though
not by the same process. "Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave
ye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other
return. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park."

He would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his
hotel dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never
saw any better traits in him than these I faithfully record, except
that he certainly conceived a liking for Peepy and would take the
child out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions sending
him home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally with a
halfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness was attended
with no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before Peepy was
sufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of
deportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of Caddy and
her husband, from top to toe.

Last of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used to
come in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she was,
and then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt
to say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found me bustling
about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as
if with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got
any further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the
wall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite
divest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another.

I have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was
now Caddy's regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his
care, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he
took that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good deal
of Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be
supposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often slipped
home at about the hours when he was expected. We frequently met,
notwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself now, but I still
felt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still WAS sorry
for me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his professional
engagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects
for the future.

It was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change in
my dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me,
because I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing
in themselves and only became something when they were pieced
together. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada was
not so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her tenderness for
me was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a moment doubt that;
but there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to
me, and in which I traced some hidden regret.

Now, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the
happiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me
thinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed this
something from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my
head that she was a little grieved--for me--by what I had told her
about Bleak House.

How I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don't know. I had no
idea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was not
grieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy. Still,
that Ada might be thinking--for me, though I had abandoned all such
thoughts--of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy
to believe that I believed it.

What could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show
her that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk and
busy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along. However, as
Caddy's illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home
duties--though I had always been there in the morning to make my
guardian's breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said
there must be two little women, for his little woman was never
missing--I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went about
the house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and working
in a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, noon, and
night.

And still there was the same shade between me and my darling.

"So, Dame Trot," observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night
when we were all three together, "so Woodcourt has restored Caddy
Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?"

"Yes," I said; "and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be
made rich, guardian."

"I wish it was," he returned, "with all my heart."

So did I too, for that matter. I said so.

"Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we
not, little woman?"

I laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, for
it might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be
many who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy herself, and
many others.

"True," said my guardian. "I had forgotten that. But we would agree
to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with
tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and
his own household gods--and household goddess, too, perhaps?"

That was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that.

"To be sure," said my guardian. "All of us. I have a great regard for
Woodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him
delicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an
independent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. And
yet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He seems
half inclined for another voyage. But that appears like casting such
a man away."

"It might open a new world to him," said I.

"So it might, little woman," my guardian assented. "I doubt if he
expects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that he
sometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune
encountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?"

I shook my head.

"Humph," said my guardian. "I am mistaken, I dare say." As there was
a little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl's
satisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked
which was a favourite with my guardian.

"And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?" I asked
him when I had hummed it quietly all through.

"I don't quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was
likely at present that he will give a long trip to another country."

"I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him
wherever he goes," said I; "and though they are not riches, he will
never be the poorer for them, guardian, at least."

"Never, little woman," he replied.

I was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian's
chair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was
now. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, as she
looked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears
were falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be placid and
merry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at
rest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but to be myself.

So I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder--how little thinking
what was heavy on her mind!--and I said she was not quite well, and
put my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our own
room, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so
unprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I
never thought she stood in need of it.

"Oh, my dear good Esther," said Ada, "if I could only make up my mind
to speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!"

"Why, my love!" I remonstrated. "Ada, why should you not speak to
us!"

Ada only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart.

"You surely don't forget, my beauty," said I, smiling, "what quiet,
old-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the
discreetest of dames? You don't forget how happily and peacefully my
life is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you
don't forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be."

"No, never, Esther."

"Why then, my dear," said I, "there can be nothing amiss--and why
should you not speak to us?"

"Nothing amiss, Esther?" returned Ada. "Oh, when I think of all these
years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old
relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!"

I looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to
answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into many
little recollections of our life together and prevented her from
saying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I returned
to my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to Ada and sat
near her for a little while.

She was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a
little changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could not
decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was
changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked
different to me. My guardian's old hopes of her and Richard arose
sorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, "She has been anxious
about him," and I wondered how that love would end.

When I had come home from Caddy's while she was ill, I had often
found Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had
never known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her,
which was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still
rather wondered what the work could be, for it was evidently nothing
for herself.

And I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under
her pillow so that it was hidden.

How much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how much
less amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with my own
cheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested with me
to put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace!

But I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it next
day to find that there was still the same shade between me and my
darling.

Enlightened

When Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went, that very same day, to
Mr. Vholes's in Symond's Inn. For he never once, from the moment when
I entreated him to be a friend to Richard, neglected or forgot his
promise. He had told me that he accepted the charge as a sacred
trust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit.

He found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed Mr. Vholes of his
agreement with Richard that he should call there to learn his
address.

"Just so, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred
miles from here, sir, Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred miles from
here. Would you take a seat, sir?"

Mr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business with him
beyond what he had mentioned.

"Just so, sir. I believe, sir," said Mr. Vholes, still quietly
insisting on the seat by not giving the address, "that you have
influence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have."

"I was not aware of it myself," returned Mr. Woodcourt; "but I
suppose you know best."

"Sir," rejoined Mr. Vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all,
"it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part of
my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who
confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be
wanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be
wanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir."

Mr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address.

"Give me leave, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Bear with me for a moment.
Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play
without--need I say what?"

"Money, I presume?"

"Sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to be honest with you (honesty being my
golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I
generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr.
C.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly
impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off;
it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir," said Mr. Vholes,
bringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive manner,
"nothing."

"You seem to forget," returned Mr. Woodcourt, "that I ask you to say
nothing and have no interest in anything you say."

"Pardon me, sir!" retorted Mr. Vholes. "You do yourself an injustice.
No, sir! Pardon me! You shall not--shall not in my office, if I know
it--do yourself an injustice. You are interested in anything, and in
everything, that relates to your friend. I know human nature much
better, sir, than to admit for an instant that a gentleman of your
appearance is not interested in whatever concerns his friend."

"Well," replied Mr. Woodcourt, "that may be. I am particularly
interested in his address."

"The number, sir," said Mr. Vholes parenthetically, "I believe I have
already mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this
considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There are
funds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds in hand.
But for the onward play, more funds must be provided, unless Mr. C.
is to throw away what he has already ventured, which is wholly and
solely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I take the
opportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr. C. Without
funds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr. C. to the
extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate,
not beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging
some one. I must either wrong my three dear girls or my venerable
father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the Vale of Taunton; or
some one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call it weakness or folly
if you please) to wrong no one."

Mr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it.

"I wish, sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to leave a good name behind me.
Therefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of
Mr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is
worthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the wheel, I
do it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose. My name is
painted on the door outside, with that object."

"And Mr. Carstone's address, Mr. Vholes?"

"Sir," returned Mr. Vholes, "as I believe I have already mentioned,
it is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.'s
apartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser, and I
am far from objecting, for I court inquiry."

Upon this Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in search
of Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to understand now
but too well.

He found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as I had found
him in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he was
not writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which his
eyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be standing
open, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments without
being perceived, and he told me that he never could forget the
haggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before he was
aroused from his dream.

"Woodcourt, my dear fellow," cried Richard, starting up with extended
hands, "you come upon my vision like a ghost."

"A friendly one," he replied, "and only waiting, as they say ghosts
do, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?" They were seated
now, near together.

"Badly enough, and slowly enough," said Richard, "speaking at least
for my part of it."

"What part is that?"

"The Chancery part."

"I never heard," returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, "of its
going well yet."

"Nor I," said Richard moodily. "Who ever did?" He brightened again in
a moment and said with his natural openness, "Woodcourt, I should be
sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it in your
estimation. You must know that I have done no good this long time. I
have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of
nothing else. It may be that I should have done better by keeping out
of the net into which my destiny has worked me, but I think not,
though I dare say you will soon hear, if you have not already heard,
a very different opinion. To make short of a long story, I am afraid
I have wanted an object; but I have an object now--or it has me--and
it is too late to discuss it. Take me as I am, and make the best of
me."

"A bargain," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Do as much by me in return."

"Oh! You," returned Richard, "you can pursue your art for its own
sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can
strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different
creatures."

He spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary
condition.

"Well, well!" he cried, shaking it off. "Everything has an end. We
shall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of me?"

"Aye! Indeed I will." They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in
deep earnestness. I can answer for one of them with my heart of
hearts.

"You come as a godsend," said Richard, "for I have seen nobody here
yet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to
mention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You
can hardly make the best of me if I don't. You know, I dare say, that
I have an attachment to my cousin Ada?"

Mr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much to him. "Now pray,"
returned Richard, "don't think me a heap of selfishness. Don't
suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over
this miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone.
Ada's are bound up with mine; they can't be separated; Vholes works
for both of us. Do think of that!"

He was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him
the strongest assurances that he did him no injustice.

"You see," said Richard, with something pathetic in his manner of
lingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, "to an
upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, I
cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see
Ada righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do my utmost to
right her, as well as myself; I venture what I can scrape together to
extricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech you, think of that!"

Afterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt came to reflect on what had passed, he
was so very much impressed by the strength of Richard's anxiety on
this point that in telling me generally of his first visit to
Symond's Inn he particularly dwelt upon it. It revived a fear I had
had before that my dear girl's little property would be absorbed by
Mr. Vholes and that Richard's justification to himself would be
sincerely this. It was just as I began to take care of Caddy that the
interview took place, and I now return to the time when Caddy had
recovered and the shade was still between me and my darling.

I proposed to Ada that morning that we should go and see Richard. It
a little surprised me to find that she hesitated and was not so
radiantly willing as I had expected.

"My dear," said I, "you have not had any difference with Richard
since I have been so much away?"

"No, Esther."

"Not heard of him, perhaps?" said I.

"Yes, I have heard of him," said Ada.

Such tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. I could not make
my darling out. Should I go to Richard's by myself? I said. No, Ada
thought I had better not go by myself. Would she go with me? Yes, Ada
thought she had better go with me. Should we go now? Yes, let us go
now. Well, I could not understand my darling, with the tears in her
eyes and the love in her face!

We were soon equipped and went out. It was a sombre day, and drops of
chill rain fell at intervals. It was one of those colourless days
when everything looks heavy and harsh. The houses frowned at us, the
dust rose at us, the smoke swooped at us, nothing made any compromise
about itself or wore a softened aspect. I fancied my beautiful girl
quite out of place in the rugged streets, and I thought there were
more funerals passing along the dismal pavements than I had ever seen
before.

We had first to find out Symond's Inn. We were going to inquire in a
shop when Ada said she thought it was near Chancery Lane. "We are not
likely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction," said I.
So to Chancery Lane we went, and there, sure enough, we saw it
written up. Symond's Inn.

We had next to find out the number. "Or Mr. Vholes's office will do,"
I recollected, "for Mr. Vholes's office is next door." Upon which Ada
said, perhaps that was Mr. Vholes's office in the corner there. And
it really was.

Then came the question, which of the two next doors? I was going for
the one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling was
right again. So up we went to the second story, when we came to
Richard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel.

I should have knocked, but Ada said perhaps we had better turn the
handle and go in. Thus we came to Richard, poring over a table
covered with dusty bundles of papers which seemed to me like dusty
mirrors reflecting his own mind. Wherever I looked I saw the ominous
words that ran in it repeated. Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

He received us very affectionately, and we sat down. "If you had come
a little earlier," he said, "you would have found Woodcourt here.
There never was such a good fellow as Woodcourt is. He finds time to
look in between-whiles, when anybody else with half his work to do
would be thinking about not being able to come. And he is so cheery,
so fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so--everything that I am not, that
the place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes
again."

"God bless him," I thought, "for his truth to me!"

"He is not so sanguine, Ada," continued Richard, casting his dejected
look over the bundles of papers, "as Vholes and I are usually, but he
is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. We have gone into
them, and he has not. He can't be expected to know much of such a
labyrinth."

As his look wandered over the papers again and he passed his two
hands over his head, I noticed how sunken and how large his eyes
appeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all
bitten away.

"Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?" said I.

"Why, my dear Minerva," answered Richard with his old gay laugh, "it
is neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun shines
here, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining brightly in
an open spot. But it's well enough for the time. It's near the
offices and near Vholes."

"Perhaps," I hinted, "a change from both--"

"Might do me good?" said Richard, forcing a laugh as he finished the
sentence. "I shouldn't wonder! But it can only come in one way
now--in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit must be
ended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl,
the suit, my dear girl!"

These latter words were addressed to Ada, who was sitting nearest to
him. Her face being turned away from me and towards him, I could not
see it.

"We are doing very well," pursued Richard. "Vholes will tell you so.
We are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest.
Vholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them
everywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall rouse up that
nest of sleepers, mark my words!"

His hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his
despondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce in
its determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so
conscious of being forced and unsustainable that it had long touched
me to the heart. But the commentary upon it now indelibly written in
his handsome face made it far more distressing than it used to be. I
say indelibly, for I felt persuaded that if the fatal cause could
have been for ever terminated, according to his brightest visions, in
that same hour, the traces of the premature anxiety, self-reproach,
and disappointment it had occasioned him would have remained upon his
features to the hour of his death.

"The sight of our dear little woman," said Richard, Ada still
remaining silent and quiet, "is so natural to me, and her
compassionate face is so like the face of old days--"

Ah! No, no. I smiled and shook my head.

"--So exactly like the face of old days," said Richard in his cordial
voice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which nothing
ever changed, "that I can't make pretences with her. I fluctuate a
little; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes
I--don't quite despair, but nearly. I get," said Richard,
relinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, "so tired!"

He took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. "I get," he
repeated gloomily, "so tired. It is such weary, weary work!"

He was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice
and looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet,
kneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on
his head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to
me. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw!

"Esther, dear," she said very quietly, "I am not going home again."

A light shone in upon me all at once.

"Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have
been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I
shall never go home any more!" With those words my darling drew his
head down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my life I
saw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it then before
me.

"Speak to Esther, my dearest," said Richard, breaking the silence
presently. "Tell her how it was."

I met her before she could come to me and folded her in my arms. We
neither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own I wanted to
hear nothing. "My pet," said I. "My love. My poor, poor girl!" I
pitied her so much. I was very fond of Richard, but the impulse that
I had upon me was to pity her so much.

"Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?"

"My dear," said I, "to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great
wrong. And as to me!" Why, as to me, what had I to forgive!

I dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, and
Richard sat on my other side; and while I was reminded of that so
different night when they had first taken me into their confidence
and had gone on in their own wild happy way, they told me between
them how it was.

"All I had was Richard's," Ada said; "and Richard would not take it,
Esther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him dearly!"

"And you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent Dame
Durden," said Richard, "that how could we speak to you at such a
time! And besides, it was not a long-considered step. We went out one
morning and were married."

"And when it was done, Esther," said my darling, "I was always
thinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. And sometimes I
thought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes I thought you
ought not to know it and keep it from my cousin John; and I could not
tell what to do, and I fretted very much."

How selfish I must have been not to have thought of this before! I
don't know what I said now. I was so sorry, and yet I was so fond of
them and so glad that they were fond of me; I pitied them so much,
and yet I felt a kind of pride in their loving one another. I never
had experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at one time, and
in my own heart I did not know which predominated. But I was not
there to darken their way; I did not do that.

When I was less foolish and more composed, my darling took her
wedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. Then I
remembered last night and told Richard that ever since her marriage
she had worn it at night when there was no one to see. Then Ada
blushingly asked me how did I know that, my dear. Then I told Ada how
I had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little thought
why, my dear. Then they began telling me how it was all over again,
and I began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish again, and to
hide my plain old face as much as I could lest I should put them out
of heart.

Thus the time went on until it became necessary for me to think of
returning. When that time arrived it was the worst of all, for then
my darling completely broke down. She clung round my neck, calling me
by every dear name she could think of and saying what should she do
without me! Nor was Richard much better; and as for me, I should have
been the worst of the three if I had not severely said to myself,
"Now Esther, if you do, I'll never speak to you again!"

"Why, I declare," said I, "I never saw such a wife. I don't think she
loves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness'
sake." But I held her tight all the while, and could have wept over
her I don't know how long.

"I give this dear young couple notice," said I, "that I am only going
away to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming
backwards and forwards until Symond's Inn is tired of the sight of
me. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the use
of that, you know, when I am coming back so soon!"

I had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered
for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my
heart to turn from.

So I said (in a merry, bustling manner) that unless they gave me some
encouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take that
liberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through
her tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it
one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away.

And when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed to me
that I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank without
her, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope of seeing
her there, that I could get no comfort for a little while as I walked
up and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying.

I came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach
home. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had reappeared a
short time before and was lying at the point of death; indeed, was
then dead, though I did not know it. My guardian had gone out to
inquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being quite alone, I
cried a little again, though on the whole I don't think I behaved so
very, very ill.

It was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the loss
of my darling yet. Three or four hours were not a long time after
years. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which
I had left her, and I pictured it as such an overshadowed
stony-hearted one, and I so longed to be near her and taking some
sort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening only
to look up at her windows.

It was foolish, I dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to me,
and it does not seem quite so even now. I took Charley into my
confidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to the
new strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the
yellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, looking
up, and narrowly missed encountering Mr. Vholes, who came out of his
office while we were there and turned his head to look up too before
going home. The sight of his lank black figure and the lonesome air
of that nook in the dark were favourable to the state of my mind. I
thought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in
such an ill-assorted refuge, almost as if it were a cruel place.

It was very solitary and very dull, and I did not doubt that I might
safely steal upstairs. I left Charley below and went up with a light
foot, not distressed by any glare from the feeble oil lanterns on the
way. I listened for a few moments, and in the musty rotting silence
of the house believed that I could hear the murmur of their young
voices. I put my lips to the hearse-like panel of the door as a kiss
for my dear and came quietly down again, thinking that one of these
days I would confess to the visit.

And it really did me good, for though nobody but Charley and I knew
anything about it, I somehow felt as if it had diminished the
separation between Ada and me and had brought us together again for
those moments. I went back, not quite accustomed yet to the change,
but all the better for that hovering about my darling.

My guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark
window. When I went in, his face cleared and he came to his seat, but
he caught the light upon my face as I took mine.

"Little woman," said he, "You have been crying."

"Why, yes, guardian," said I, "I am afraid I have been, a little. Ada
has been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian."

I put my arm on the back of his chair, and I saw in his glance that
my words and my look at her empty place had prepared him.

"Is she married, my dear?"

I told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred to
his forgiveness.

"She has no need of it," said he. "Heaven bless her and her husband!"
But just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so was his. "Poor
girl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada!"

Neither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, "Well,
well, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast."

"But its mistress remains, guardian." Though I was timid about saying
it, I ventured because of the sorrowful tone in which he had spoken.
"She will do all she can to make it happy," said I.

"She will succeed, my love!"

The letter had made no difference between us except that the seat by
his side had come to be mine; it made none now. He turned his old
bright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his old
way, and said again, "She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak
House is thinning fast, O little woman!"

I was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. I was
rather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I had
meant to be since the letter and the answer.

Obstinacy

But one other day had intervened when, early in the morning as we
were going to breakfast, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the
astounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which
Mr. George had been apprehended and was in custody. When he told us
that a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the
murderer's apprehension, I did not in my first consternation
understand why; but a few more words explained to me that the
murdered person was Sir Leicester's lawyer, and immediately my
mother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance.

This unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long watched
and distrusted and who had long watched and distrusted her, one for
whom she could have had few intervals of kindness, always dreading in
him a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful that my first
thoughts were of her. How appalling to hear of such a death and be
able to feel no pity! How dreadful to remember, perhaps, that she had
sometimes even wished the old man away who was so swiftly hurried out
of life!

Such crowding reflections, increasing the distress and fear I always
felt when the name was mentioned, made me so agitated that I could
scarcely hold my place at the table. I was quite unable to follow the
conversation until I had had a little time to recover. But when I
came to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and found that
they were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and recalling every
favourable impression we had formed of him out of the good we had
known of him, my interest and my fears were so strongly aroused in
his behalf that I was quite set up again.

"Guardian, you don't think it possible that he is justly accused?"

"My dear, I CAN'T think so. This man whom we have seen so
open-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the
gentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived and
is so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such a
crime? I can't believe it. It's not that I don't or I won't. I
can't!"

"And I can't," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Still, whatever we believe or
know of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are
against him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. He
has openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have expressed
himself violently towards him, and he certainly did about him, to my
knowledge. He admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder
within a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely believe him to be
as innocent of any participation in it as I am, but these are all
reasons for suspicion falling upon him."

"True," said my guardian. And he added, turning to me, "It would be
doing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth
in any of these respects."

I felt, of course, that we must admit, not only to ourselves but to
others, the full force of the circumstances against him. Yet I knew
withal (I could not help saying) that their weight would not induce
us to desert him in his need.

"Heaven forbid!" returned my guardian. "We will stand by him, as he
himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone." He meant Mr.
Gridley and the boy, to both of whom Mr. George had given shelter.

Mr. Woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man had been with him
before day, after wandering about the streets all night like a
distracted creature. That one of the trooper's first anxieties was
that we should not suppose him guilty. That he had charged his
messenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn
assurance he could send us. That Mr. Woodcourt had only quieted the
man by undertaking to come to our house very early in the morning
with these representations. He added that he was now upon his way to
see the prisoner himself.

My guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides that I liked
the retired soldier very much and that he liked me, I had that secret
interest in what had happened which was only known to my guardian. I
felt as if it came close and near to me. It seemed to become
personally important to myself that the truth should be discovered
and that no innocent people should be suspected, for suspicion, once
run wild, might run wilder.

In a word, I felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with
them. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went.

It was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one
another and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new
comprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary
prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year,
have had--as I have read--for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In an
arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so
glaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and
iron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found
the trooper standing in a corner. He had been sitting on a bench
there and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn.

When he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread,
and there stopped and made a slight bow. But as I still advanced,
putting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment.

"This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen,"
said he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long breath.
"And now I don't so much care how it ends."

He scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. What with his coolness and his
soldierly bearing, he looked far more like the prison guard.

"This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in,"
said Mr. George, "but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of
it." As he handed me to the bench on which he had been sitting, I sat
down, which seemed to give him great satisfaction.

"I thank you, miss," said he.

"Now, George," observed my guardian, "as we require no new assurances
on your part, so I believe we need give you none on ours."

"Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not
innocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to
myself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the
present visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but I
feel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply."

He laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his head to
us. Although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a great
amount of natural emotion by these simple means.

"First," said my guardian, "can we do anything for your personal
comfort, George?"

"For which, sir?" he inquired, clearing his throat.

"For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would
lessen the hardship of this confinement?"

"Well, sir," replied George, after a little cogitation, "I am equally
obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I can't say that
there is."

"You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. Whenever
you do, George, let us know."

"Thank you, sir. Howsoever," observed Mr. George with one of his
sunburnt smiles, "a man who has been knocking about the world in a
vagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a
place like the present, so far as that goes."

"Next, as to your case," observed my guardian.

"Exactly so, sir," returned Mr. George, folding his arms upon his
breast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity.

"How does it stand now?"

"Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to
understand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from
time to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made
more complete I don't myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage
it somehow."

"Why, heaven save us, man," exclaimed my guardian, surprised into his
old oddity and vehemence, "you talk of yourself as if you were
somebody else!"

"No offence, sir," said Mr. George. "I am very sensible of your
kindness. But I don't see how an innocent man is to make up his mind
to this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls
unless he takes it in that point of view.

"That is true enough to a certain extent," returned my guardian,
softened. "But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take
ordinary precautions to defend himself."

"Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the
magistrates, 'Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as
yourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is
perfectly true; I know no more about it.' I intend to continue
stating that, sir. What more can I do? It's the truth."

"But the mere truth won't do," rejoined my guardian.

"Won't it indeed, sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!" Mr. George
good-humouredly observed.

"You must have a lawyer," pursued my guardian. "We must engage a good
one for you."

"I ask your pardon, sir," said Mr. George with a step backward. "I am
equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything
of that sort."

"You won't have a lawyer?"

"No, sir." Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner. "I
thank you all the same, sir, but--no lawyer!"

"Why not?"

"I don't take kindly to the breed," said Mr. George. "Gridley didn't.
And--if you'll excuse my saying so much--I should hardly have thought
you did yourself, sir."

"That's equity," my guardian explained, a little at a loss; "that's
equity, George."

"Is it, indeed, sir?" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner. "I
am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general
way I object to the breed."

Unfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one
massive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a
picture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever
I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured
to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well
with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our
representations that his place of confinement was.

"Pray think, once more, Mr. George," said I. "Have you no wish in
reference to your case?"

"I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss," he returned, "by
court-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware.
If you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a
couple of minutes, miss, not more, I'll endeavour to explain myself
as clearly as I can."

He looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he
were adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and
after a moment's reflection went on.

"You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and
brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My
shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property
as I have--'tis small--is turned this way and that till it don't know
itself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don't particular complain of
that. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately
preceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn't
gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened.
It HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it."

He rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured look
and said apologetically, "I am such a short-winded talker that I must
think a bit." Having thought a bit, he looked up again and resumed.

"How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer
and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up his ashes,
but he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight
hold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that. If I had kept
clear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that's
not what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. Suppose I really had
discharged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off
that Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found
there any day since it has been my place. What should I have done as
soon as I was hard and fast here? Got a lawyer."

He stopped on hearing some one at the locks and bolts and did not
resume until the door had been opened and was shut again. For what
purpose opened, I will mention presently.

"I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have often
read in the newspapers), 'My client says nothing, my client reserves
his defence': my client this, that, and t'other. Well, 'tis not the
custom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to
think that other men do. Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He
would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What
would he do, whether or not? Act as if I was--shut my mouth up, tell
me not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence
small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I
care for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my
own way--if you'll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a
lady?"

He had warmed into his subject now, and was under no further
necessity to wait a bit.

"I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I don't
intend to say," looking round upon us with his powerful arms akimbo
and his dark eyebrows raised, "that I am more partial to being hanged
than another man. What I say is, I must come off clear and full or
not at all. Therefore, when I hear stated against me what is true, I
say it's true; and when they tell me, 'whatever you say will be
used,' I tell them I don't mind that; I mean it to be used. If they
can't make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to
do it out of anything less, or anything else. And if they are, it's
worth nothing to me."

Taking a pace or two over the stone floor, he came back to the table
and finished what he had to say.

"I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention,
and many times more for your interest. That's the plain state of the
matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt
broadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my
duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap
pretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being
seized as a murderer--it don't take a rover who has knocked about so
much as myself so very long to recover from a crash--I worked my way
round to what you find me now. As such I shall remain. No relations
will be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and--and that's all
I've got to say."

The door had been opened to admit another soldier-looking man of less
prepossessing appearance at first sight and a weather-tanned,
bright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who, from her entrance,
had been exceedingly attentive to all Mr. George had said. Mr. George
had received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look, but
without any more particular greeting in the midst of his address. He
now shook them cordially by the hand and said, "Miss Summerson and
gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet. And this
is his wife, Mrs. Bagnet."

Mr. Bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and Mrs. Bagnet dropped us a
curtsy.

"Real good friends of mine, they are," sald Mr. George. "It was at
their house I was taken."

"With a second-hand wiolinceller," Mr. Bagnet put in, twitching his
head angrily. "Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no object
to."

"Mat," said Mr. George, "you have heard pretty well all I have been
saying to this lady and these two gentlemen. I know it meets your
approval?"

Mr. Bagnet, after considering, referred the point to his wife. "Old
girl," said he. "Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval."

"Why, George," exclaimed Mrs. Bagnet, who had been unpacking her
basket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little tea
and sugar, and a brown loaf, "you ought to know it don't. You ought
to know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won't be
got off this way, and you won't be got off that way--what do you mean
by such picking and choosing? It's stuff and nonsense, George."

"Don't be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet," said the
trooper lightly.

"Oh! Bother your misfortunes," cried Mrs. Bagnet, "if they don't make
you more reasonable than that comes to. I never was so ashamed in my
life to hear a man talk folly as I have been to hear you talk this
day to the present company. Lawyers? Why, what but too many cooks
should hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the gentleman
recommended them to you."

"This is a very sensible woman," said my guardian. "I hope you will
persuade him, Mrs. Bagnet."

"Persuade him, sir?" she returned. "Lord bless you, no. You don't
know George. Now, there!" Mrs. Bagnet left her basket to point him
out with both her bare brown hands. "There he stands! As self-willed
and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human
creature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon take up and
shoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that
man when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. Why,
don't I know him!" cried Mrs. Bagnet. "Don't I know you, George! You
don't mean to set up for a new character with ME after all these
years, I hope?"

Her friendly indignation had an exemplary effect upon her husband,
who shook his head at the trooper several times as a silent
recommendation to him to yield. Between whiles, Mrs. Bagnet looked at
me; and I understood from the play of her eyes that she wished me to
do something, though I did not comprehend what.

"But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years,"
said Mrs. Bagnet as she blew a little dust off the pickled pork,
looking at me again; "and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well
as I do, they'll give up talking to you too. If you are not too
headstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is."

"I accept it with many thanks," returned the trooper.

"Do you though, indeed?" said Mrs. Bagnet, continuing to grumble on
good-humouredly. "I'm sure I'm surprised at that. I wonder you don't
starve in your own way also. It would only be like you. Perhaps
you'll set your mind upon THAT next." Here she again looked at me,
and I now perceived from her glances at the door and at me, by turns,
that she wished us to retire and to await her following us outside
the prison. Communicating this by similar means to my guardian and
Mr. Woodcourt, I rose.

"We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George," said I, "and we
shall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable."

"More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can't find me," he returned.

"But more persuadable we can, I hope," said I. "And let me entreat
you to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the
discovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last
importance to others besides yourself."

He heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, which
I spoke a little turned from him, already on my way to the door; he
was observing (this they afterwards told me) my height and figure,
which seemed to catch his attention all at once.

"'Tis curious," said he. "And yet I thought so at the time!"

My guardian asked him what he meant.

"Why, sir," he answered, "when my ill fortune took me to the dead
man's staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like
Miss Summerson's go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak
to it."

For an instant I felt such a shudder as I never felt before or since
and hope I shall never feel again.

"It came downstairs as I went up," said the trooper, "and crossed the
moonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; I noticed a deep
fringe to it. However, it has nothing to do with the present subject,
excepting that Miss Summerson looked so like it at the moment that it
came into my head."

I cannot separate and define the feelings that arose in me after
this; it is enough that the vague duty and obligation I had felt upon
me from the first of following the investigation was, without my
distinctly daring to ask myself any question, increased, and that I
was indignantly sure of there being no possibility of a reason for my
being afraid.

We three went out of the prison and walked up and down at some short
distance from the gate, which was in a retired place. We had not
waited long when Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet came out too and quickly joined
us.

There was a tear in each of Mrs. Bagnet's eyes, and her face was
flushed and hurried. "I didn't let George see what I thought about
it, you know, miss," was her first remark when she came up, "but he's
in a bad way, poor old fellow!"

"Not with care and prudence and good help," said my guardian.

"A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir," returned Mrs. Bagnet,
hurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her grey cloak, "but I am
uneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much that he
never meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as
Lignum and me do. And then such a number of circumstances have
happened bad for him, and such a number of people will be brought
forward to speak against him, and Bucket is so deep."

"With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. When a
boy," Mr. Bagnet added with great solemnity.

"Now, I tell you, miss," said Mrs. Bagnet; "and when I say miss, I
mean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I'll tell you!"

Mrs. Bagnet hurried us into a more secluded place and was at first
too breathless to proceed, occasioning Mr. Bagnet to say, "Old girl!
Tell 'em!"

"Why, then, miss," the old girl proceeded, untying the strings of her
bonnet for more air, "you could as soon move Dover Castle as move
George on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with.
And I have got it!"

"You are a jewel of a woman," said my guardian. "Go on!"

"Now, I tell you, miss," she proceeded, clapping her hands in her
hurry and agitation a dozen times in every sentence, "that what he
says concerning no relations is all bosh. They don't know of him, but
he does know of them. He has said more to me at odd times than to
anybody else, and it warn't for nothing that he once spoke to my
Woolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. For fifty
pounds he had seen his mother that day. She's alive and must be
brought here straight!"

Instantly Mrs. Bagnet put some pins into her mouth and began pinning
up her skirts all round a little higher than the level of her grey
cloak, which she accomplished with surpassing dispatch and dexterity.

"Lignum," said Mrs. Bagnet, "you take care of the children, old man,
and give me the umbrella! I'm away to Lincolnshire to bring that old
lady here."

"But, bless the woman," cried my guardian with his hand in his
pocket, "how is she going? What money has she got?"

Mrs. Bagnet made another application to her skirts and brought forth
a leathern purse in which she hastily counted over a few shillings
and which she then shut up with perfect satisfaction.

"Never you mind for me, miss. I'm a soldier's wife and accustomed to
travel my own way. Lignum, old boy," kissing him, "one for yourself,
three for the children. Now I'm away into Lincolnshire after George's
mother!"

And she actually set off while we three stood looking at one another
lost in amazement. She actually trudged away in her grey cloak at a
sturdy pace, and turned the corner, and was gone.

"Mr. Bagnet," said my guardian. "Do you mean to let her go in that
way?"

"Can't help it," he returned. "Made her way home once from another
quarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same umbrella.
Whatever the old girl says, do. Do it! Whenever the old girl says,
I'LL do it. She does it."

"Then she is as honest and genuine as she looks," rejoined my
guardian, "and it is impossible to say more for her."

"She's Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion," said Mr. Bagnet,
looking at us over his shoulder as he went his way also. "And there's
not such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must
be maintained."

The Track

Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together
under existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this
pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems
to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears,
and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins
him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent;
he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his
destruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict
that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a
terrible avenger will be heard of before long.

Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the
whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the
follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and
strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather
languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition
towards his species and will drink with most of them. He is free with
his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation--but
through the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current
of forefinger.

Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he
is here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed, he is
here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking
into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's
house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads
at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is
propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all
things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards,
he and the Roman will be alone together comparing forefingers.

It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home
enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go
home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs.
Bucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been
improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but
which has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds himself
aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger
(fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for
companionship and conversation.

A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the
funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person;
strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that
is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin
(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable
carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled
affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the
assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald's
College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a
blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes,
with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and
three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of
woe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and
if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in
horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified
this day.

Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so
many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of
the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through
the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd--as for what
not?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage,
now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the
people's heads, nothing escapes him.

"And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself,
apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of
the deceased's house. "And so you are. And so you are! And very well
indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!"

The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of
its assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost
emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice
a hair's breadth open while he looks.

And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is
still occupied with Mrs. B. "There you are, my partner, eh?" he
murmuringly repeats. "And our lodger with you. I'm taking notice of
you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my dear!"

Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive
eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought
down--Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did
they fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession
moves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed. After which he composes
himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the
carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful.

Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage
and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable track of
space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed
sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the
narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state
expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both;
neither is troubled about that.

Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides
from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself
arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at present a
sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all
hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows
the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious
greatness.

No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be
provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is
crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, "Here's another letter for
you, Mr. Bucket, come by post," and gives it him.

"Another one, eh?" says Mr. Bucket.

If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity
as to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to
gratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of
some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same.

"Do you happen to carry a box?" says Mr. Bucket.

Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker.

"Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?" says Mr. Bucket.
"Thankee. It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the
kind. Thankee!"

Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from
somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable
show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the
other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right
sort and goes on, letter in hand.

Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within
the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of
letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not
incidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his
pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient
to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others
as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business.
Further, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has
occasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For
these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender
or receiver. And yet he has received a round half-dozen within the
last twenty-four hours.

"And this," says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in
the same hand, and consists of the same two words."

What two words?

He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book
of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly
written in each, "Lady Dedlock."

"Yes, yes," says Mr. Bucket. "But I could have made the money without
this anonymous information."

Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again,
he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is
brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket
frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint,
that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry
better than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and
empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his
refreshment when an idea enters his mind.

Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room
and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is
sinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the
room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they
arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket
draws near and examines the directions. "No," he says, "there's none
in that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow."

With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and
after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester
has received him there these several evenings past to know whether he
has anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the
funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance.

Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three
people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to
Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to whom
it airily says, "You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I
know you." Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr.
Bucket rubs his hands.

"Have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires Sir
Leicester. "Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?"

"Why--not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet."

"Because my time," pursues Sir Leicester, "is wholly at your disposal
with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law."

Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as
though he would respectfully observe, "I do assure you, you're a
pretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of
life, I have indeed."

The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing
influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes
and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that
decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia
is writing poetry.

"If I have not," pursues Sir Leicester, "in the most emphatic manner,
adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious
case, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of
rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a
consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur
none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall
hesitate for a moment to bear."

Mr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this
liberality.

"My mind," Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, "has not, as
may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical
occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full
of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to
the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent."

Sir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head.
Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused.

"I declare," he says, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is
discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as
if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a
large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last
day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table
and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck
down within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he
may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first
marked because of his association with my house--which may have
suggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of
greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have
indicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position
bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the
assertion of my respect for that gentleman's memory and of my
fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me."

While he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness,
looking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr.
Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might
be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion.

"The ceremony of to-day," continues Sir Leicester, "strikingly
illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend"--he lays a
stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--"was held by
the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have
received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my
brother who had committed it, I would not spare him."

Mr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that he
was the trustiest and dearest person!

"You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss," replies Mr. Bucket
soothingly, "no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm
sure he was."

Volumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive
mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she
lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she has not
the least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile she folds up a
cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, descriptive of
her melancholy condition.

"It gives a start to a delicate female," says Mr. Bucket
sympathetically, "but it'll wear off."

Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they are
going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Whether
he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law?
And a great deal more to the like artless purpose.

"Why you see, miss," returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into
persuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had
almost said "my dear"--"it ain't easy to answer those questions at
the present moment. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself on
this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," whom Mr. Bucket takes
into the conversation in right of his importance, "morning, noon, and
night. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I could have
had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I COULD answer
your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock,
Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been
traced. And I hope that he may find it"--Mr. Bucket again looks
grave--"to his satisfaction."

The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample.
Thinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get
man place ten thousand a year. Hasn't a doubt--zample--far better
hang wrong fler than no fler.

"YOU know life, you know, sir," says Mr. Bucket with a complimentary
twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you can confirm what
I've mentioned to this lady. YOU don't want to be told that from
information I have received I have gone to work. You're up to what a
lady can't be expected to be up to. Lord! Especially in your elevated
station of society, miss," says Mr. Bucket, quite reddening at
another narrow escape from "my dear."

"The officer, Volumnia," observes Sir Leicester, "is faithful to his
duty, and perfectly right."

Mr. Bucket murmurs, "Glad to have the honour of your approbation, Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet."

"In fact, Volumnia," proceeds Sir Leicester, "it is not holding up a
good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you
have put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he
acts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist
in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them
into execution. Or," says Sir Leicester somewhat sternly, for
Volumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence, "or
who vindicate their outraged majesty."

Volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the plea
of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in
general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for
the darling man whose loss they all deplore.

"Very well, Volumnia," returns Sir Leicester. "Then you cannot be too
discreet."

Mr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again.

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this
lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case
as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case--a beautiful
case--and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able
to supply in a few hours."

"I am very glad indeed to hear it," says Sir Leicester. "Highly
creditable to you."

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket very seriously,
"I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove
satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see,
miss," Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir Leicester, "I mean
from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such
cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange
things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart,
what you would think to be phenomenons, quite."

Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so.

"Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great
families," says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester aside.
"I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and
you have no idea--come, I'll go so far as to say not even YOU have
any idea, sir," this to the debilitated cousin, "what games goes on!"

The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a
prostration of boredom yawns, "Vayli," being the used-up for "very
likely."

Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here
majestically interposes with the words, "Very good. Thank you!" and
also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an end
of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they
must take the consequences. "You will not forget, officer," he adds
with condescension, "that I am at your disposal when you please."

Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would
suit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir
Leicester replies, "All times are alike to me." Mr. Bucket makes his
three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him.

"Might I ask, by the by," he says in a low voice, cautiously
returning, "who posted the reward-bill on the staircase."

"I ordered it to be put up there," replies Sir Leicester.

"Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if
I was to ask you why?"

"Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think
it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I
wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the
determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the
same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject
see any objection--"

Mr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not
be taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing the
door on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her
remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue
Chamber.

In his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr.
Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm on
the early winter night--admiring Mercury.

"Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?" says Mr. Bucket.

"Three," says Mercury.

"Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion and
don't look it. You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain't. Was
you ever modelled now?" Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the expression of
an artist into the turn of his eye and head.

Mercury never was modelled.

"Then you ought to be, you know," says Mr. Bucket; "and a friend of
mine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would
stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for
the marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?"

"Out to dinner."

"Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?"

"Yes."

"Not to be wondered at!" says Mr. Bucket. "Such a fine woman as her,
so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on
a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the
same way of life as yourself?"

Answer in the negative.

"Mine was," says Mr. Bucket. "My father was first a page, then a
footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived
universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath
that he considered service the most honourable part of his career,
and so it was. I've a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My
Lady a good temper?"

Mercury replies, "As good as you can expect."

"Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. "A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord!
What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like
'em all the better for it, don't we?"

Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom
small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a
man of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a
violent ringing at the bell. "Talk of the angels," says Mr. Bucket.
"Here she is!"

The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still
very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful
bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is
particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager
eye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps.

Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the
other Mercury who has brought her home.

"Mr. Bucket, my Lady."

Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon
over the region of his mouth.

"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?"

"No, my Lady, I've seen him!"

"Have you anything to say to me?"

"Not just at present, my Lady."

"Have you made any new discoveries?"

"A few, my Lady."

This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps
upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot,
watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his
grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy
weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going
by, out of view.

"She's a lovely woman, too, she really is," says Mr. Bucket, coming
back to Mercury. "Don't look quite healthy though."

Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from
headaches.

Really? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that.
Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes for two
hours when she has them bad. By night, too.

"Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?" asks Mr.
Bucket. "Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?"

Not a doubt about it.

"You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it. But
the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so
straggling. Walks by night, does she? When it's moonlight, though?"

Oh, yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course!
Conversational and acquiescent on both sides.

"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?" says Mr.
Bucket. "Not much time for it, I should say?"

Besides which, Mercury don't like it. Prefers carriage exercise.

"To be sure," says Mr. Bucket. "That makes a difference. Now I think
of it," says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at
the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of this business."

"To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way."

"And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it."

"I didn't see YOU," says Mercury.

"I was rather in a hurry," returns Mr. Bucket, "for I was going to
visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea--next door but two to the
old original Bun House--ninety year old the old lady is, a single
woman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the
time. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't ten."

"Half-past nine."

"You're right. So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady was
muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?"

"Of course she was."

Of course she was. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has to
get on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in
acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is
all he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of
bestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of
both parties?

Caddy and Prince Turveydrop are have a baby girl, but Caddy is not feeling well after the birth. As usual, in any distress Caddy turns to Esther, who is only too happy to help. Esther makes three visits, and then Mr. Jarndyce, again with his usual generous nature, proposes that he, Ada, and Esther go to London and stay for some time. He contacts Allan Woodcourt, and sends him to Caddy to be her doctor. In these circumstances, so blameless and in fact arranged by her fiance, Esther and Allan meet often. After a time, Esther tells Ada and Caddy about Jarndyce's proposal. Esther seems to notice a strange, subtle change in Ada's behavior toward her. Cryptically, Jarndyce asks Esther if she would like Allan to be magically made rich. Esther returns that he would be less likely to be as useful to as many poor people if he were rich. Jarndyce continues, asking if he would be rich enough to live comfortably and continue in his good works, would that be agreeable to Esther? She says that would be quite a different thing, and good for the doctor and others. In Chapter 51, Allan Woodcourt, as good as his word to Ada, obtains Richard's address from Mr. Vholes. The greedy lawyer never ceases in his assertions that Richard needs money to resolve his suit -- money that would go directly into Vholes's pocket. Woodcourt finds Richard in a worn and haggard state, though not yet actually ill. He puts all his energy into the suit, and has given up the army. Richard says that he will be guided by Allan. Esther wants Ada to go with her to visit Richard, and Ada reacts strangely. She ends up going, but once they are there she reveals to the shocked Esther that she has been secretly married to Richard for two months. She is not going home to Bleak House. In Chapter 52, Woodcourt is convinced of George Rouncewell's innocence, but he is also aware of the large amount of circumstantial evidence which looks bad for Rouncewell. Esther, Allan, Mr. Jarndyce, and, of course, the Bagnets visit George in prison. In a characteristic twist, George refuses to have a lawyer. He is a simple, straightforward man, and he wants his own innocence, not legal wrangling, to acquit him of any crime. He looks at Esther, and says aside to Mr. Jarndyce that a figure like hers passed him on Tulkinhorn's staircase on the night of the murder. He doesn't think that it was Esther, but it was so very like her he has to say it. Mrs. Bagnet, on an errand of mercy, visits George's mother and asks her to help convince him to get legal counsel. In Chapter 53, we see the machinations and investigations of Inspector Bucket. He is not completely convinced of Sgt. George's guilt. He spies on the guests at the funeral of Mr. Tulkinghorn. He visits the Dedlocks, and is extremely subtle in his talk with Volumnia, Sir Leicester, and Mercury the footman. From Mercury, by a circuitous means, he manages to extract that Lady Dedlock took a walk, by herself, on the night of the murder.

Caddy and Prince provide the most realistic picture of domestic life -- sometimes happy, sometimes sad.  Caddy has ever been a device for getting Esther to London, and she performs this service again.  In addition, she has need of Woodcourt, which puts the two young people together. The strange suggestion from Jarndyce about making Woodcourt rich leads the reader to believe that he knows that Esther and Woodcourt love each other.  Esther, of course, does not understand this. The revelation of Ada and Richard's secret marriage is a deep disappointment to Esther and to Jarndyce.  Ada and Richard seem to be married under an unlucky star, and, for a long time now, the reader has had no cause to hope for Richard. George Rouncewell, who serves as a refreshingly simple character in a tangle of difficult and complicated characters, must be persuaded to defend himself.  It now becomes clear his connection with the Dedlocks, and his past is about to come full circle back to him in the person of his mother. Bucket has many suspects now -- Lady Dedlock and even Esther, in addition to George.  The "detective story" part of the novel is at full steam now, and it is interesting to note the means that the Victorian detective, who must be so careful of social boundaries, and to work without any forensic support, must use to pursue criminals.  Incidentally, Mr. Bucket is considered to be the first fictional "detective": the precursor to Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and one hundred and fifty years of other figures.  The restrictions of Victorian society require him to use quiet methods -- observation and logic, mostly -- to "crack" the case, and this pattern of deductive detection has proved extremely popular beyond Victorian society.