Interlopers

Now do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons
who attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms reappear in
the precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly
fetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute
perquisitions through the court, and dive into the Sol's parlour, and
write with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. Now do they note
down, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery
Lane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the
most intense agitation and excitement by the following alarming and
horrible discovery. Now do they set forth how it will doubtless be
remembered that some time back a painful sensation was created in the
public mind by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring in the
first floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general
marine store shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate habits,
far advanced in life, named Krook; and how, by a remarkable
coincidence, Krook was examined at the inquest, which it may be
recollected was held on that occasion at the Sol's Arms, a
well-conducted tavern immediately adjoining the premises in question
on the west side and licensed to a highly respectable landlord, Mr.
James George Bogsby. Now do they show (in as many words as possible)
how during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was
observed by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical
occurrence which forms the subject of that present account
transpired; and which odour was at one time so powerful that Mr.
Swills, a comic vocalist professionally engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby,
has himself stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M.
Melvilleson, a lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise
engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called
Harmonic Assemblies, or Meetings, which it would appear are held at
the Sol's Arms under Mr. Bogsby's direction pursuant to the Act of
George the Second, that he (Mr. Swills) found his voice seriously
affected by the impure state of the atmosphere, his jocose expression
at the time being that he was like an empty post-office, for he
hadn't a single note in him. How this account of Mr. Swills is
entirely corroborated by two intelligent married females residing in
the same court and known respectively by the names of Mrs. Piper and
Mrs. Perkins, both of whom observed the foetid effluvia and regarded
them as being emitted from the premises in the occupation of Krook,
the unfortunate deceased. All this and a great deal more the two
gentlemen who have formed an amicable partnership in the melancholy
catastrophe write down on the spot; and the boy population of the
court (out of bed in a moment) swarm up the shutters of the Sol's
Arms parlour, to behold the tops of their heads while they are about
it.

The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night,
and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the
ill-fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued
from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a
bed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts
its door all night, for any kind of public excitement makes good for
the Sol and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The house
has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in
brandy-and-water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot-boy heard
what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his
shoulders and said, "There'll be a run upon us!" In the first outcry,
young Piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in triumph
at a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and holding on to
that fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and
torches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all
chinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in
company with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in
charge thereof. To this trio everybody in the court possessed of
sixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid
form.

Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol and
are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only
stay there. "This is not a time," says Mr. Bogsby, "to haggle about
money," though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter;
"give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever
you put a name to."

Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names
to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to
put a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to
all new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of
what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile,
one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing
it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from
outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well
know what they are up to in there.

Thus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out of
bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated,
still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little
money left it unexpectedly. Thus night at length with slow-retreating
steps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an
executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire
that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus the day cometh,
whether or no.

And the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court
has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen
drowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard floors
instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court
itself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood, waking up and
beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half
dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who
are far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do
to keep the door.

"Good gracious, gentlemen!" says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. "What's this
I hear!"

"Why, it's true," returns one of the policemen. "That's what it is.
Now move on here, come!"

"Why, good gracious, gentlemen," says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat promptly
backed away, "I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven
o'clock in conversation with the young man who lodges here."

"Indeed?" returns the policeman. "You will find the young man next
door then. Now move on here, some of you."

"Not hurt, I hope?" says Mr. Snagsby.

"Hurt? No. What's to hurt him!"

Mr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this or any question in his
troubled mind, repairs to the Sol's Arms and finds Mr. Weevle
languishing over tea and toast with a considerable expression on him
of exhausted excitement and exhausted tobacco-smoke.

"And Mr. Guppy likewise!" quoth Mr. Snagsby. "Dear, dear, dear! What
a fate there seems in all this! And my lit--"

Mr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the
words "my little woman." For to see that injured female walk into the
Sol's Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the
beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit,
strikes him dumb.

"My dear," says Mr. Snagsby when his tongue is loosened, "will you
take anything? A little--not to put too fine a point upon it--drop of
shrub?"

"No," says Mrs. Snagsby.

"My love, you know these two gentlemen?"

"Yes!" says Mrs. Snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their
presence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye.

The devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs.
Snagsby by the hand and leads her aside to an adjacent cask.

"My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don't do
it."

"I can't help my looks," says Mrs. Snagsby, "and if I could I
wouldn't."

Mr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins, "Wouldn't you
really, my dear?" and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble and
says, "This is a dreadful mystery, my love!" still fearfully
disconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye.

"It IS," returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, "a dreadful
mystery."

"My little woman," urges Mr. Snagsby in a piteous manner, "don't for
goodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look at me
in that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do it. Good
Lord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any
person, my dear?"

"I can't say," returns Mrs. Snagsby.

On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby "can't
say" either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may have
had something to do with it. He has had something--he don't know
what--to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious that it
is possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the
present transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his
handkerchief and gasps.

"My life," says the unhappy stationer, "would you have any objections
to mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your
conduct, you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?"

"Why do YOU come here?" inquires Mrs. Snagsby.

"My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has
happened to the venerable party who has been--combusted." Mr. Snagsby
has made a pause to suppress a groan. "I should then have related
them to you, my love, over your French roll."

"I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby."

"Every--my lit--"

"I should be glad," says Mrs. Snagsby after contemplating his
increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, "if you would
come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than
anywhere else."

"My love, I don't know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to
go."

Mr. Snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs.
Weevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with
which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby from the
Sol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible
for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of
the whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs.
Snagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are
so great that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up
to justice and requiring to be cleared if innocent and punished with
the utmost rigour of the law if guilty.

Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into
Lincoln's Inn to take a little walk about the square and clear as
many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may.

"There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony," says
Mr. Guppy after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the
square, "for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must,
with very little delay, come to an understanding."

"Now, I tell you what, William G.!" returns the other, eyeing his
companion with a bloodshot eye. "If it's a point of conspiracy, you
needn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that,
and I ain't going to have any more. We shall have YOU taking fire
next or blowing up with a bang."

This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy
that his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, "Tony, I should have
thought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson
to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived." To which
Mr. Weevle returns, "William, I should have thought it would have
been a lesson to YOU never to conspire any more as long as you
lived." To which Mr. Guppy says, "Who's conspiring?" To which Mr.
Jobling replies, "Why, YOU are!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "No, I
am not." To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, "Yes, you are!" To which
Mr. Guppy retorts, "Who says so?" To which Mr. Jobling retorts, "I
say so!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "Oh, indeed?" To which Mr.
Jobling retorts, "Yes, indeed!" And both being now in a heated state,
they walk on silently for a while to cool down again.

"Tony," says Mr. Guppy then, "if you heard your friend out instead of
flying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. But your temper is
hasty and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, Tony, all
that is calculated to charm the eye--"

"Oh! Blow the eye!" cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. "Say what
you have got to say!"

Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy
only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of
injury in which he recommences, "Tony, when I say there is a point on
which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite
apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is
professionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what
facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not desirable that
we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the
death of this unfortunate old mo--gentleman?" (Mr. Guppy was going to
say "mogul," but thinks "gentleman" better suited to the
circumstances.)

"What facts? THE facts."

"The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are"--Mr. Guppy tells them
off on his fingers--"what we knew of his habits, when you saw him
last, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and
how we made it."

"Yes," says Mr. Weevle. "Those are about the facts."

"We made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his eccentric
way, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, when you
were to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on
account of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with
you, was called down--and so forth. The inquiry being only into the
circumstances touching the death of the deceased, it's not necessary
to go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll agree?"

"No!" returns Mr. Weevle. "I suppose not."

"And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?" says the injured Guppy.

"No," returns his friend; "if it's nothing worse than this, I
withdraw the observation."

"Now, Tony," says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again and walking him
slowly on, "I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you
have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live
at that place?"

"What do you mean?" says Tony, stopping.

"Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your
continuing to live at that place?" repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him on
again.

"At what place? THAT place?" pointing in the direction of the rag and
bottle shop.

Mr. Guppy nods.

"Why, I wouldn't pass another night there for any consideration that
you could offer me," says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring.

"Do you mean it though, Tony?"

"Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that,"
says Mr. Weevle with a very genuine shudder.

"Then the possibility or probability--for such it must be
considered--of your never being disturbed in possession of those
effects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no
relation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find
out what he really had got stored up there, don't weigh with you at
all against last night, Tony, if I understand you?" says Mr. Guppy,
biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation.

"Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?"
cries Mr. Weevle indignantly. "Go and live there yourself."

"Oh! I, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. "I have never lived
there and couldn't get a lodging there now, whereas you have got
one."

"You are welcome to it," rejoins his friend, "and--ugh!--you may make
yourself at home in it."

"Then you really and truly at this point," says Mr. Guppy, "give up
the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?"

"You never," returns Tony with a most convincing steadfastness, "said
a truer word in all your life. I do!"

While they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square,
on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to
the public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the
multitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach
stops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs.
Smallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter Judy.

An air of haste and excitement pervades the party, and as the tall
hat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed
the elder pokes his head out of window and bawls to Mr. Guppy, "How
de do, sir! How de do!"

"What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning,
I wonder!" says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar.

"My dear sir," cries Grandfather Smallweed, "would you do me a
favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me
into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring
their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn,
sir?"

Mr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, "The
public-house in the court?" And they prepare to bear the venerable
burden to the Sol's Arms.

"There's your fare!" says the patriarch to the coachman with a fierce
grin and shaking his incapable fist at him. "Ask me for a penny more,
and I'll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy
with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won't
squeeze you tighter than I can help. Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my
bones!"

It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an
apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With
no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of
divers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed respiration, he
fulfils his share of the porterage and the benevolent old gentleman
is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol's Arms.

"Oh, Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from
an arm-chair. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, my aches and
pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling
poll-parrot! Sit down!"

This little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a
propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady whenever she finds
herself on her feet to amble about and "set" to inanimate objects,
accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A
nervous affection has probably as much to do with these
demonstrations as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman, but
on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion
with the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is
seated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held
her down in it, her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with
great volubility, the endearing epithet of "a pig-headed jackdaw,"
repeated a surprising number of times.

"My dear sir," Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr.
Guppy, "there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either
of you?"

"Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it."

"You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, THEY discovered it!"

The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the
compliment.

"My dear friends," whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his
hands, "I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy
office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's brother."

"Eh?" says Mr. Guppy.

"Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend--her only relation. We were
not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never WOULD be on
terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric--he was very
eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I
shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look
after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I
have come down," repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air
towards him with all his ten fingers at once, "to look after the
property."

"I think, Small," says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, "you might have
mentioned that the old man was your uncle."

"You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to
be the same," returns that old bird with a secretly glistening eye.
"Besides, I wasn't proud of him."

"Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or
not," says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye.

"He never saw me in his life to know me," observed Small; "I don't
know why I should introduce HIM, I am sure!"

"No, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored," the old
gentleman strikes in, "but I have come to look after the property--to
look over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make
good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn,
of Lincoln's Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as
my solicitor; and grass don't grow under HIS feet, I can tell ye.
Krook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; she had no relation but
Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of
your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years
of age."

Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head and pipe up,
"Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of
money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of
bank-notes!"

"Will somebody give me a quart pot?" exclaims her exasperated
husband, looking helplessly about him and finding no missile within
his reach. "Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will somebody
hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat,
you dog, you brimstone barker!" Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the
highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her
grandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin
at the old lady with such force as he can muster and then dropping
into his chair in a heap.

"Shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good," says the voice from
within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. "I
have come to look after the property. Shake me up, and call in the
police on duty at the next house to be explained to about the
property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the
property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch
the property!" As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and
putting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and
punching, he still repeats like an echo, "The--the property! The
property! Property!"

Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other, the former as having
relinquished the whole affair, the latter with a discomfited
countenance as having entertained some lingering expectations yet.
But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed
interest. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew in
the chambers to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is
answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin and that
the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due
time and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert
his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next
house and upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where he looks
like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary.

The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court
still makes good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle.
Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there
really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be
made him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members
of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the
foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump
and under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings
take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson
enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that
these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals
and non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up "The popular song of King
Death, with chorus by the whole strength of the company," as the
great Harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that "J.
G. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense in
consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the
bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a
late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation." There is
one point connected with the deceased upon which the court is
particularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin
should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the
undertaker's stating in the Sol's bar in the course of the day that
he has received orders to construct "a six-footer," the general
solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr.
Smallweed's conduct does him great honour.

Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable
excitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and
carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same
intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and
phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of
these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that
the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being
reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence
for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical
Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on English medical
jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess
Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of
Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was occasionally heard
of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the
testimony of Messrs. Fodere and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who
WOULD investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative
testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once
upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a
case occurred and even to write an account of it--still they regard
the late Mr. Krook's obstinacy in going out of the world by any such
by-way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the
court understands of all this, the more the court likes it, and the
greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms.
Then there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground
and figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the Cornish
coast to a review in Hyde Park or a meeting in Manchester, and in
Mrs. Perkins' own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws
in upon the block Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; in fact,
considerably larger, making a very temple of it. Similarly, being
permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts
that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long by fifty yards high,
at which the court is particularly charmed. All this time the two
gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house and assist
at the philosophical disputations--go everywhere and listen to
everybody--and yet are always diving into the Sol's parlour and
writing with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper.

At last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that
the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and
tells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that "that
would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined
house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't
account for!" After which the six-footer comes into action and is
much admired.

In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when
he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual
and can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the
mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of
bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings
draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the
catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady
Dedlock.

For which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang-dog sense
of guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol's Arms
have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at
the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests
to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner;
don't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage
at the door; but he wants to see my Lady too.

Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a
fellow-gentleman in waiting, "to pitch into the young man"; but his
instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the
young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young
man in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him.

Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering
everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or
wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it--? No, it's no ghost, but
fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed.

"I have to beg your ladyship's pardon," Mr. Guppy stammers, very
downcast. "This is an inconvenient time--"

"I told you, you could come at any time." She takes a chair, looking
straight at him as on the last occasion.

"Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable."

"You can sit down." There is not much affability in her tone.

"I don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down
and detaining you, for I--I have not got the letters that I mentioned
when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship."

"Have you come merely to say so?"

"Merely to say so, your ladyship." Mr. Guppy besides being depressed,
disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the
splendour and beauty of her appearance.

She knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a
grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and
coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least
perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also
that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and
further from her.

She will not speak, it is plain. So he must.

"In short, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent
thief, "the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a
sudden end, and--" He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the
sentence.

"And the letters are destroyed with the person?"

Mr. Guppy would say no if he could--as he is unable to hide.

"I believe so, your ladyship."

If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he
could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly
put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it.

He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure.

"Is this all you have to say?" inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard
him out--or as nearly out as he can stumble.

Mr. Guppy thinks that's all.

"You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this
being the last time you will have the opportunity."

Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present,
by any means.

"That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!"
And she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy
out.

But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old
man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his
quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the
handle of the door--comes in--and comes face to face with the young
man as he is leaving the room.

One glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the
blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks
out. Another instant, close again.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times.
It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the
room was empty. I beg your pardon!"

"Stay!" She negligently calls him back. "Remain here, I beg. I am
going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!"

The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes
that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well.

"Aye, aye?" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent
brows, though he has no need to look again--not he. "From Kenge and
Carboy's, surely?"

"Kenge and Carboy's, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir."

"To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!"

"Happy to hear it, sir. You can't be too well, sir, for the credit of
the profession."

"Thank you, Mr. Guppy!"

Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his
old-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock's brightness, hands her
down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and
rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.

A Turn of the Screw

"Now, what," says Mr. George, "may this be? Is it blank cartridge or
ball? A flash in the pan or a shot?"

An open letter is the subject of the trooper's speculations, and it
seems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm's length, brings
it close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left
hand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that
side, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them, still cannot satisfy
himself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and
thoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it
every now and then to come upon it with a fresh eye. Even that won't
do. "Is it," Mr. George still muses, "blank cartridge or ball?"

Phil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the
distance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march time
and in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back again to
the girl he left behind him.

"Phil!" The trooper beckons as he calls him.

Phil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he were
going anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander like a
bayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high relief upon
his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of the
brush.

"Attention, Phil! Listen to this."

"Steady, commander, steady."

"'Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for
my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months' date
drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the
sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become
due to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same
on presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.' What do you make of that,
Phil?"

"Mischief, guv'ner."

"Why?"

"I think," replies Phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle
in his forehead with the brush-handle, "that mischeevious
consequences is always meant when money's asked for."

"Lookye, Phil," says the trooper, sitting on the table. "First and
last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal in
interest and one thing and another."

Phil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very
unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the
transaction as being made more promising by this incident.

"And lookye further, Phil," says the trooper, staying his premature
conclusions with a wave of his hand. "There has always been an
understanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And it
has been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?"

"I say that I think the times is come to a end at last."

"You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself."

"Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?"

"The same."

"Guv'ner," says Phil with exceeding gravity, "he's a leech in his
dispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his
twistings, and a lobster in his claws."

Having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after
waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of
him, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he has
in hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical medium
that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. George,
having folded the letter, walks in that direction.

"There IS a way, commander," says Phil, looking cunningly at him, "of
settling this."

"Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could."

Phil shakes his head. "No, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. There IS
a way," says Phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush; "what I'm
a-doing at present."

"Whitewashing."

Phil nods.

"A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the
Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off my
old scores? YOU'RE a moral character," says the trooper, eyeing him
in his large way with no small indignation; "upon my life you are,
Phil!"

Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting
earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush
and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb,
that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so much
as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family when
steps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice
is heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, with a look at
his master, hobbles up, saying, "Here's the guv'ner, Mrs. Bagnet!
Here he is!" and the old girl herself, accompanied by Mr. Bagnet,
appears.

The old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the
year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very
clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so
interesting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe from
another quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an
umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of
the old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no colour known in
this life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a
metallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a little model
of a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval glasses out of a
pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious
capacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article
long associated with the British army. The old girl's umbrella is of
a flabby habit of waist and seems to be in need of stays--an
appearance that is possibly referable to its having served through a
series of years at home as a cupboard and on journeys as a carpet
bag. She never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her
well-proved cloak with its capacious hood, but generally uses the
instrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or
bunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the attention of
tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-basket, which is a
sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad.
Attended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest
sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs.
Bagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright, in George's Shooting
Gallery.

"Well, George, old fellow," says she, "and how do YOU do, this
sunshiny morning?"

Giving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long
breath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a
faculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such
positions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough bench,
unties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses her arms,
and looks perfectly comfortable.

Mr. Bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade and
with Phil, on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured nod
and smile.

"Now, George," said Mrs. Bagnet briskly, "here we are, Lignum and
myself"--she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on
account, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitae having been his old
regimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in compliment
to the extreme hardness and toughness of his physiognomy--"just
looked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that
security. Give him the new bill to sign, George, and he'll sign it
like a man."

"I was coming to you this morning," observes the trooper reluctantly.

"Yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out
early and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and
came to you instead--as you see! For Lignum, he's tied so close now,
and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But what's
the matter, George?" asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her cheerful talk.
"You don't look yourself."

"I am not quite myself," returns the trooper; "I have been a little
put out, Mrs. Bagnet."

Her bright quick eye catches the truth directly. "George!" holding up
her forefinger. "Don't tell me there's anything wrong about that
security of Lignum's! Don't do it, George, on account of the
children!"

The trooper looks at her with a troubled visage.

"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and
occasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. "If you
have allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum's, and
if you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger of
being sold up--and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain as
print--you have done a shameful action and have deceived us cruelly.
I tell you, cruelly, George. There!"

Mr. Bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his
large right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it from
a shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet.

"George," says that old girl, "I wonder at you! George, I am ashamed
of you! George, I couldn't have believed you would have done it! I
always knew you to be a rolling stone that gathered no moss, but I
never thought you would have taken away what little moss there was
for Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know what a
hard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec and Malta
and Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or could, have had
the heart to serve us so. Oh, George!" Mrs. Bagnet gathers up her
cloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine manner, "How could you do
it?"

Mrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as if
the shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at Mr. George, who
has turned quite white and looks distressfully at the grey cloak and
straw bonnet.

"Mat," says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but still
looking at his wife, "I am sorry you take it so much to heart,
because I do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. I certainly have,
this morning, received this letter"--which he reads aloud--"but I
hope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, why, what you
say is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never rolled in anybody's
way, I fully believe, that I rolled the least good to. But it's
impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family
better than I like 'em, Mat, and I trust you'll look upon me as
forgivingly as you can. Don't think I've kept anything from you. I
haven't had the letter more than a quarter of an hour."

"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet after a short silence, "will you tell
him my opinion?"

"Oh! Why didn't he marry," Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and
half crying, "Joe Pouch's widder in North America? Then he wouldn't
have got himself into these troubles."

"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "puts it correct--why didn't you?"

"Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope," returns the
trooper. "Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to Joe
Pouch's widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about me.
It's not mine; it's yours. Give the word, and I'll sell off every
morsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum
wanted, I'd have sold all long ago. Don't believe that I'll leave you
or yours in the lurch, Mat. I'd sell myself first. I only wish," says
the trooper, giving himself a disparaging blow in the chest, "that I
knew of any one who'd buy such a second-hand piece of old stores."

"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet, "give him another bit of my mind."

"George," says the old girl, "you are not so much to be blamed, on
full consideration, except for ever taking this business without the
means."

"And that was like me!" observes the penitent trooper, shaking his
head. "Like me, I know."

"Silence! The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "is correct--in her way of
giving my opinions--hear me out!"

"That was when you never ought to have asked for the security,
George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things
considered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an
honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power,
though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit but what
it's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our
heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and
forgive all round!"

Mrs. Bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her
husband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his and holds
them while he speaks.

"I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge
this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together has
gone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly enough
here, Phil and I. But the gallery don't quite do what was expected of
it, and it's not--in short, it's not the mint. It was wrong in me to
take it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner drawn into that step,
and I thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you'll try to
overlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, I am very
much obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself." With these
concluding words, Mr. George gives a shake to each of the hands he
holds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace or two in a
broad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a final confession
and were immediately going to be shot with all military honours.

"George, hear me out!" says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. "Old
girl, go on!"

Mr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to
observe that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that
it is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr.
Smallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and hold
harmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George, entirely
assenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with Mr. Bagnet to
the enemy's camp.

"Don't you mind a woman's hasty word, George," says Mrs. Bagnet,
patting him on the shoulder. "I trust my old Lignum to you, and I am
sure you'll bring him through it."

The trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he WILL bring
Lignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak,
basket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of
her family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of
mollifying Mr. Smallweed.

Whether there are two people in England less likely to come
satisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr.
George and Mr. Matthew Bagnet may be very reasonably questioned.
Also, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square
shoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same limits
two more simple and unaccustomed children in all the Smallweedy
affairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity through the
streets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Bagnet, observing
his companion to be thoughtful, considers it a friendly part to refer
to Mrs. Bagnet's late sally.

"George, you know the old girl--she's as sweet and as mild as milk.
But touch her on the children--or myself--and she's off like
gunpowder."

"It does her credit, Mat!"

"George," says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, "the old
girl--can't do anything--that don't do her credit. More or less. I
never say so. Discipline must be maintained."

"She's worth her weight in gold," says the trooper.

"In gold?" says Mr. Bagnet. "I'll tell you what. The old girl's
weight--is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight--in any
metal--for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl's metal is
far more precious--than the preciousest metal. And she's ALL metal!"

"You are right, Mat!"

"When she took me--and accepted of the ring--she 'listed under me and
the children--heart and head, for life. She's that earnest," says Mr.
Bagnet, "and true to her colours--that, touch us with a finger--and
she turns out--and stands to her arms. If the old girl fires
wide--once in a way--at the call of duty--look over it, George. For
she's loyal!"

"Why, bless her, Mat," returns the trooper, "I think the higher of
her for it!"

"You are right!" says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, though
without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. "Think as high of
the old girl--as the rock of Gibraltar--and still you'll be thinking
low--of such merits. But I never own to it before her. Discipline
must be maintained."

These encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant and to Grandfather
Smallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who,
having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but
indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she
consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred
to give consent from the circumstance of her returning with the words
on her honey lips that they can come in if they want to it. Thus
privileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the
drawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath and Mrs.
Smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing.

"My dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed with those two lean
affectionate arms of his stretched forth. "How de do? How de do? Who
is our friend, my dear friend?"

"Why this," returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at
first, "is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours,
you know."

"Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!" The old man looks at him under his hand.

"Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military air,
sir!"

No chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet and
one for himself. They sit down, Mr. Bagnet as if he had no power of
bending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose.

"Judy," says Mr. Smallweed, "bring the pipe."

"Why, I don't know," Mr. George interposes, "that the young woman
need give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not
inclined to smoke it to-day."

"Ain't you?" returns the old man. "Judy, bring the pipe."

"The fact is, Mr. Smallweed," proceeds George, "that I find myself in
rather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that your
friend in the city has been playing tricks."

"Oh, dear no!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "He never does that!"

"Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might be
HIS doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter."

Grandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way in recognition of the
letter.

"What does it mean?" asks Mr. George.

"Judy," says the old man. "Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. Did
you say what does it mean, my good friend?"

"Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed," urges the trooper,
constraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he
can, holding the open letter in one hand and resting the broad
knuckles of the other on his thigh, "a good lot of money has passed
between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are
both well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am
prepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly and to
keep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you
before, and I have been a little put about by it this morning,
because here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of
the money--"

"I DON'T know it, you know," says the old man quietly.

"Why, con-found you--it, I mean--I tell you so, don't I?"

"Oh, yes, you tell me so," returns Grandfather Smallweed. "But I
don't know it."

"Well!" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. "I know it."

Mr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, "Ah! That's quite
another thing!" And adds, "But it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's
situation is all one, whether or no."

The unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair
comfortably and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his
own terms.

"That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's Matthew
Bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see, that makes his
good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for whereas I'm a
harum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more kicks than halfpence
come natural to, why he's a steady family man, don't you see? Now,
Mr. Smallweed," says the trooper, gaining confidence as he proceeds
in his soldierly mode of doing business, "although you and I are good
friends enough in a certain sort of a way, I am well aware that I
can't ask you to let my friend Bagnet off entirely."

"Oh, dear, you are too modest. You can ASK me anything, Mr. George."
(There is an ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather Smallweed
to-day.)

"And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as
your friend in the city? Ha ha ha!"

"Ha ha ha!" echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard manner
and with eyes so particularly green that Mr. Bagnet's natural gravity
is much deepened by the contemplation of that venerable man.

"Come!" says the sanguine George. "I am glad to find we can be
pleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my friend
Bagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot, if you
please, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my friend
Bagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal if you'll just
mention to him what our understanding is."

Here some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, "Oh, good
gracious! Oh!" Unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is found
to be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose chin
has received a recent toss, expressive of derision and contempt. Mr.
Bagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound.

"But I think you asked me, Mr. George"--old Smallweed, who all this
time has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now--"I think you
asked me, what did the letter mean?"

"Why, yes, I did," returns the trooper in his off-hand way, "but I
don't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant."

Mr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's
head, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces.

"That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll crumble
you. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!"

The two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity
has now attained its profoundest point.

"Go to the devil!" repeats the old man. "I'll have no more of your
pipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent dragoon,
too! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before)
and show your independence now, will you? Come, my dear friend,
there's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; put these
blusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em out!"

He vociferates this so loudly that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on
the shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his
amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is
instantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr.
George awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a perfect
abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlour window
like a sentry and looks in every time he passes, apparently revolving
something in his mind.

"Come, Mat," says Mr. George when he has recovered himself, "we must
try the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?"

Mr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour,
replies with one shake of his head directed at the interior, "If my
old girl had been here--I'd have told him!" Having so discharged
himself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step and
marches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder.

When they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn
is engaged and not to be seen. He is not at all willing to see them,
for when they have waited a full hour, and the clerk, on his bell
being rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning as much, he brings
forth no more encouraging message than that Mr. Tulkinghorn has
nothing to say to them and they had better not wait. They do wait,
however, with the perseverance of military tactics, and at last the
bell rings again and the client in possession comes out of Mr.
Tulkinghorn's room.

The client is a handsome old lady, no other than Mrs. Rouncewell,
housekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a
fair old-fashioned curtsy and softly shuts the door. She is treated
with some distinction there, for the clerk steps out of his pew to
show her through the outer office and to let her out. The old lady is
thanking him for his attention when she observes the comrades in
waiting.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?"

The clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr. George
not turning round from the almanac over the fire-place. Mr. Bagnet
takes upon himself to reply, "Yes, ma'am. Formerly."

"I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at the
sight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless you,
gentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman, but I had a son once who went
for a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold
way, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. I ask
your pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, gentlemen!"

"Same to you, ma'am!" returns Mr. Bagnet with right good will.

There is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's
voice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure. But
Mr. George is so occupied with the almanac over the fire-place
(calculating the coming months by it perhaps) that he does not look
round until she has gone away and the door is closed upon her.

"George," Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the
almanac at last. "Don't be cast down! 'Why, soldiers, why--should we
be melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!"

The clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there
and Mr. Tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility,
"Let 'em come in then!" they pass into the great room with the
painted ceiling and find him standing before the fire.

"Now, you men, what do you want? Sergeant, I told you the last time I
saw you that I don't desire your company here."

Sergeant replies--dashed within the last few minutes as to his usual
manner of speech, and even as to his usual carriage--that he has
received this letter, has been to Mr. Smallweed about it, and has
been referred there.

"I have nothing to say to you," rejoins Mr. Tulkinghorn. "If you get
into debt, you must pay your debts or take the consequences. You have
no occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose?"

Sergeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money.

"Very well! Then the other man--this man, if this is he--must pay it
for you."

Sergeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with the
money either.

"Very well! Then you must pay it between you or you must both be sued
for it and both suffer. You have had the money and must refund it.
You are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, and pence and
escape scot-free."

The lawyer sits down in his easy-chair and stirs the fire. Mr. George
hopes he will have the goodness to--"I tell you, sergeant, I have
nothing to say to you. I don't like your associates and don't want
you here. This matter is not at all in my course of practice and is
not in my office. Mr. Smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs
to me, but they are not in my way. You must go to Melchisedech's in
Clifford's Inn."

"I must make an apology to you, sir," says Mr. George, "for pressing
myself upon you with so little encouragement--which is almost as
unpleasant to me as it can be to you--but would you let me say a
private word to you?"

Mr. Tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets and walks into
one of the window recesses. "Now! I have no time to waste." In the
midst of his perfect assumption of indifference, he directs a sharp
look at the trooper, taking care to stand with his own back to the
light and to have the other with his face towards it.

"Well, sir," says Mr. George, "this man with me is the other party
implicated in this unfortunate affair--nominally, only nominally--and
my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account.
He is a most respectable man with a wife and family, formerly in the
Royal Artillery--"

"My friend, I don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal
Artillery establishment--officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses,
guns, and ammunition."

"'Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and
family being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through
this matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any
other consideration what you wanted of me the other day."

"Have you got it here?"

"I have got it here, sir."

"Sergeant," the lawyer proceeds in his dry passionless manner, far
more hopeless in the dealing with than any amount of vehemence, "make
up your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have
finished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won't re-open it.
Understand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you
have brought here if you choose; you can take it away at once if you
choose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you--I
can replace this matter on its old footing, and I can go so far
besides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet
shall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded
against to the utmost, that your means shall be exhausted before the
creditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you
decided?"

The trooper puts his hand into his breast and answers with a long
breath, "I must do it, sir."

So Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes
the undertaking, which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who
has all this time been staring at the ceiling and who puts his hand
on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems
exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his
sentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded
paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's elbow.
"'Tis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from
him."

Look at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression,
and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. Tulkinghorn
when he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it and lays it in his
desk with a countenance as unperturbable as death.

Nor has he anything more to say or do but to nod once in the same
frigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, "You can go. Show
these men out, there!" Being shown out, they repair to Mr. Bagnet's
residence to dine.

Boiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former
repast of boiled pork and greens, and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the meal
in the same way and seasons it with the best of temper, being that
rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a
hint that it might be Better and catches light from any little spot
of darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow
of Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first
Mrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to
restore him, but finding those young ladies sensible that their
existing Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome
acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry and leaves him to
deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth.

But he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed.
During the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr.
Bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at
dinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his
pipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation and dismay
by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco.

Therefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the
invigorating pail, and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls, "Old
girl!" and winks monitions to her to find out what's the matter.

"Why, George!" says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. "How
low you are!"

"Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not."

"He ain't at all like Bluffy, mother!" cries little Malta.

"Because he ain't well, I think, mother," adds Quebec.

"Sure that's a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!" returns the
trooper, kissing the young damsels. "But it's true," with a sigh,
"true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!"

"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, working busily, "if I thought you cross
enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife--who
could have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done it
almost--said this morning, I don't know what I shouldn't say to you
now."

"My kind soul of a darling," returns the trooper. "Not a morsel of
it."

"Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say was
that I trusted Lignum to you and was sure you'd bring him through it.
And you HAVE brought him through it, noble!"

"Thankee, my dear!" says George. "I am glad of your good opinion."

In giving Mrs. Bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly
shake--for she took her seat beside him--the trooper's attention is
attracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as she
plies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his stool in
the corner, and beckons that fifer to him.

"See there, my boy," says George, very gently smoothing the mother's
hair with his hand, "there's a good loving forehead for you! All
bright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the
weather through following your father about and taking care of you,
but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree."

Mr. Bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies,
the highest approbation and acquiescence.

"The time will come, my boy," pursues the trooper, "when this hair of
your mother's will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and
re-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take
care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I never
whitened a hair of her dear head--I never marked a sorrowful line in
her face!' For of all the many things that you can think of when you
are a man, you had better have THAT by you, Woolwich!"

Mr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside
his mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him,
that he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit.

Esther's Narrative

I lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life
became like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time
so much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness
and inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many
days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance
where there was little or no separation between the various stages of
my life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I
seemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my
experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy
shore.

My housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to
think that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest
of the old duties at Greenleaf or the summer afternoons when I went
home from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish
shadow at my side, to my godmother's house. I had never known before
how short life really was and into how small a space the mind could
put it.

While I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became
confused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a
child, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I
was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each
station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile
them. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can
quite understand what I mean or what painful unrest arose from this
source.

For the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my
disorder--it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both
nights and days in it--when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever
striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in
a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew
perfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I was
in my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and knew
her very well; yet I would find myself complaining, "Oh, more of
these never-ending stairs, Charley--more and more--piled up to the
sky', I think!" and labouring on again.

Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in
great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry
circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my
only prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such
inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing?

Perhaps the less I say of these sick experiences, the less tedious
and the more intelligible I shall be. I do not recall them to make
others unhappy or because I am now the least unhappy in remembering
them. It may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions we
might be the better able to alleviate their intensity.

The repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful
rest, when in my weakness I was too calm to have any care for myself
and could have heard (or so I think now) that I was dying, with no
other emotion than with a pitying love for those I left behind--this
state can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in this state when
I first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me once more, and
knew with a boundless joy for which no words are rapturous enough
that I should see again.

I had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night; I had heard her
calling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had heard her
praying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me and to
leave my bedside no more; but I had only said, when I could speak,
"Never, my sweet girl, never!" and I had over and over again reminded
Charley that she was to keep my darling from the room whether I lived
or died. Charley had been true to me in that time of need, and with
her little hand and her great heart had kept the door fast.

But now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every
day more fully and brightly on me, I could read the letters that my
dear wrote to me every morning and evening and could put them to my
lips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. I could
see my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two
rooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to Ada from
the open window again. I could understand the stillness in the house
and the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had
always been so good to me. I could weep in the exquisite felicity of
my heart and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my
strength.

By and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with so
strange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done
for some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a little,
and so on to a little more and much more, until I became useful to
myself, and interested, and attached to life again.

How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed
with pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea-drinking with
Charley! The little creature--sent into the world, surely, to
minister to the weak and sick--was so happy, and so busy, and stopped
so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and
fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so
glad, that I was obliged to say, "Charley, if you go on in this way,
I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I
was!" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face
here and there across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into
the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I
watched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and
the pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its
white cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and
beautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the
bedside, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley
that was not new to my thoughts.

First I complimented Charley on the room, and indeed it was so fresh
and airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had
been lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face was
brighter than before.

"Yet, Charley," said I, looking round, "I miss something, surely,
that I am accustomed to?"

Poor little Charley looked round too and pretended to shake her head
as if there were nothing absent.

"Are the pictures all as they used to be?" I asked her.

"Every one of them, miss," said Charley.

"And the furniture, Charley?"

"Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss."

"And yet," said I, "I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it
is, Charley! It's the looking-glass."

Charley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten
something, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there.

I had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I could
thank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called Charley back,
and when she came--at first pretending to smile, but as she drew
nearer to me, looking grieved--I took her in my arms and said, "It
matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face
very well."

I was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great
chair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on
Charley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too,
but what I had to bear was none the harder to bear for that.

My guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was
now no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He came
one morning, and when he first came in, could only hold me in his
embrace and say, "My dear, dear girl!" I had long known--who could
know better?--what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his
heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to
fill such a place in it? "Oh, yes!" I thought. "He has seen me, and
he loves me better than he did; he has seen me and is even fonder of
me than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!"

He sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a
little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed
it, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, there
never can be, a pleasanter manner.

"My little woman," said he, "what a sad time this has been. Such an
inflexible little woman, too, through all!"

"Only for the best, guardian," said I.

"For the best?" he repeated tenderly. "Of course, for the best. But
here have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has
your friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here has
every one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has
even poor Rick been writing--to ME too--in his anxiety for you!"

I had read of Caddy in Ada's letters, but not of Richard. I told him
so.

"Why, no, my dear," he replied. "I have thought it better not to
mention it to her."

"And you speak of his writing to YOU," said I, repeating his
emphasis. "As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as
if he could write to a better friend!"

"He thinks he could, my love," returned my guardian, "and to many a
better. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while
unable to write to you with any hope of an answer--wrote coldly,
haughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we
must look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and
Jarndyce has warped him out of himself and perverted me in his eyes.
I have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two
angels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change their
nature."

"It has not changed yours, guardian."

"Oh, yes, it has, my dear," he said laughingly. "It has made the
south wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick mistrusts and
suspects me--goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect
me. Hears I have conflicting interests, claims clashing against his
and what not. Whereas, heaven knows that if I could get out of the
mountains of wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so
long bestowed (which I can't) or could level them by the extinction
of my own original right (which I can't either, and no human power
ever can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we got), I would do
it this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature
than be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart
and soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have left unclaimed with the
Accountant-General--and that's money enough, my dear, to be cast into
a pyramid, in memory of Chancery's transcendent wickedness."

"IS it possible, guardian," I asked, amazed, "that Richard can be
suspicious of you?"

"Ah, my love, my love," he said, "it is in the subtle poison of such
abuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and objects
lose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not HIS fault."

"But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian."

"It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within
the influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By
little and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed,
and it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything
around him. But again I say with all my soul, we must be patient with
poor Rick and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh hearts like
his have I seen in my time turned by the same means!"

I could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that
his benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little.

"We must not say so, Dame Durden," he cheerfully replied; "Ada is the
happier, I hope, and that is much. I did think that I and both these
young creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes and that
we might so far counter-act the suit and prove too strong for it. But
it was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain of
Rick's cradle."

"But, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach
him what a false and wretched thing it is?"

"We WILL hope so, my Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and that it may not
teach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. There
are not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men
too, who if they were thrown into this same court as suitors would
not be vitally changed and depreciated within three years--within
two--within one. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man so
unfortunate," here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking
aloud, "cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it
is. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his
interests and bring them to some settlement. It procrastinates,
disappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and
patience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers
after it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well,
well, well! Enough of this, my dear!"

He had supported me, as at first, all this time, and his tenderness
was so precious to me that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and
loved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind in
this little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew strong
and try to set him right.

"There are better subjects than these," said my guardian, "for such a
joyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. And I had a
commission to broach one of them as soon as I should begin to talk.
When shall Ada come to see you, my love?"

I had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the
absent mirrors, but not much, for I knew my loving girl would be
changed by no change in my looks.

"Dear guardian," said I, "as I have shut her out so long--though
indeed, indeed, she is like the light to me--"

"I know it well, Dame Durden, well."

He was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and
affection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my
heart that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. "Yes,
yes, you are tired," said he. "Rest a little."

"As I have kept Ada out so long," I began afresh after a short while,
"I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian.
It would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley
and I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I can move, and
if I had a week there in which to grow stronger and to be revived by
the sweet air and to look forward to the happiness of having Ada with
me again, I think it would be better for us."

I hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used
to my altered self before I met the eyes of the dear girl I longed so
ardently to see, but it is the truth. I did. He understood me, I was
sure; but I was not afraid of that. If it were a poor thing, I knew
he would pass it over.

"Our spoilt little woman," said my guardian, "shall have her own way
even in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of tears
downstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry,
breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before,
that if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he having already
turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by heaven and by earth
he'll pull it down and not leave one brick standing on another!"

And my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary
beginning such as "My dear Jarndyce," but rushing at once into the
words, "I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take
possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one
o'clock, P.M.," and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most
emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had
quoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for laughing
heartily over it, and we settled that I should send him a letter of
thanks on the morrow and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable
one to me, for all the places I could have thought of, I should have
liked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold.

"Now, little housewife," said my guardian, looking at his watch, "I
was strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be tired
too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I have one
other petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that you were
ill, made nothing of walking down here--twenty miles, poor soul, in a
pair of dancing shoes--to inquire. It was heaven's mercy we were at
home, or she would have walked back again."

The old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it!

"Now, pet," said my guardian, "if it would not be irksome to you to
admit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save
Boythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you
would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I--though
my eminent name is Jarndyce--could do in a lifetime."

I have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image
of the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle lesson
on my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I could not
tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. I had always
pitied her, never so much as now. I had always been glad of my little
power to soothe her under her calamity, but never, never, half so
glad before.

We arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach and share
my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face away upon
my couch and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such
blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had to
undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had aspired
to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do good to some
one and win some love to myself if I could came back into my mind
with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed and
all the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. If I
were weak now, what had I profited by those mercies? I repeated the
old childish prayer in its old childish words and found that its old
peace had not departed from it.

My guardian now came every day. In a week or so more I could walk
about our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the
window-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the courage
to look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without
her seeing me.

On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature ran
into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying from
her very heart of hearts, "My dear Fitz Jarndyce!" fell upon my neck
and kissed me twenty times.

"Dear me!" said she, putting her hand into her reticule, "I have
nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a
pocket handkerchief."

Charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it,
for she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so, shedding
tears for the next ten minutes.

"With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce," she was careful to explain.
"Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at
having the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder
of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend court
regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs--"

Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the
place where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me and looked
unwilling to pursue the suggestion.

"Ve-ry right!" said Miss Flite, "Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly
indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am
afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) a
little--rambling you know," said Miss Flite, touching her forehead.
"Nothing more."

"What were you going to tell me?" said I, smiling, for I saw she
wanted to go on. "You have roused my curiosity, and now you must
gratify it."

Miss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis, who
said, "If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then," and therein
gratified Miss Flite beyond measure.

"So sagacious, our young friend," said she to me in her mysterious
way. "Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it's a pretty
anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow
us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very
ungenteel bonnet--"

"Jenny, if you please, miss," said Charley.

"Just so!" Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. "Jenny.
Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that there has
been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz
Jarndyce's health and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little
keepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz Jarndyce's! Now, you
know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!"

"If you please, miss," said Charley, to whom I looked in some
astonishment, "Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a
handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the
baby's little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was
yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby."

"Diminutive," whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions about
her own forehead to express intellect in Charley. "But exceedingly
sagacious! And so dear! My love, she's clearer than any counsel I
ever heard!"

"Yes, Charley," I returned. "I remember it. Well?"

"Well, miss," said Charley, "and that's the handkerchief the lady
took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away
with it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and
left some money instead. Jenny don't know her at all, if you please,
miss!"

"Why, who can she be?" said I.

"My love," Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with
her most mysterious look, "in MY opinion--don't mention this to our
diminutive friend--she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. He's married,
you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his
lordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the
jeweller!"

I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an
impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted
by my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked hungry and who,
our dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in
arraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and
a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought
down in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the
entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a
sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant
to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did
honour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else.

When we had finished and had our little dessert before us,
embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the
superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite
was so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her
own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began
by saying "You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss
Flite?"

"Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment.
Shortly."

There was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful if
I had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would say no
more about it.

"My father expected a judgment," said Miss Flite. "My brother. My
sister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect."

"They are all--"

"Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear," said she.

As I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be serviceable
to her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it.

"Would it not be wiser," said I, "to expect this judgment no more?"

"Why, my dear," she answered promptly, "of course it would!"

"And to attend the court no more?"

"Equally of course," said she. "Very wearing to be always in
expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I
assure you, to the bone!"

She slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed.

"But, my dear," she went on in her mysterious way, "there's a
dreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don't mention it to our
diminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With
good reason. There's a cruel attraction in the place. You CAN'T leave
it. And you MUST expect."

I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently
and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer.

"Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry
absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, too. To
the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years,
and I have noticed. It's the mace and seal upon the table."

What could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her.

"Draw," returned Miss Flite. "Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out
of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities
out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night.
Cold and glittering devils!"

She tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly
as if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to
fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful
secrets to me.

"Let me see," said she. "I'll tell you my own case. Before they ever
drew me--before I had ever seen them--what was it I used to do?
Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at
tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder's business.
We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father
was drawn--slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years he
was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word or a kind
look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was
drawn to a debtors' prison. There he died. Then our brother was
drawn--swiftly--to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister
was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and
heard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of
Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then
I found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there."

Having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she
had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon
her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance.

"You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day.
I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new
faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal
in these many years. As my father's came there. As my brother's. As
my sister's. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge and the rest of
them say to the new faces, 'Here's little Miss Flite. Oh, you are new
here; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!' Ve-ry
good. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz
Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do,
when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them
begin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love,"
speaking low again, "I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in
Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin."

She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually
softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy,
and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely
as she sipped her glass of wine, "Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I
expect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know,
and confer estates."

I was much impressed by her allusion to Richard and by the sad
meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its
way through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite
complacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles.

"But, my dear," she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon
mine. "You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not
once, yet!"

I was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant.

"My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly
attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite
gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that
will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal."

"Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now," said I, "that I thought the time
for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite."

"But, my child," she returned, "is it possible that you don't know
what has happened?"

"No," said I.

"Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!"

"No," said I. "You forget how long I have been here."

"True! My dear, for the moment--true. I blame myself. But my memory
has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned.
Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a
terrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas."

"Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!"

"Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all
shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness.
Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it
all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything.
Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped
naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to
do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the
poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated
creatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet when
they got to the land and blessed him. The whole country rings with
it. Stay! Where's my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you
shall read it, you shall read it!"

And I DID read all the noble history, though very slowly and
imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the
words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down
the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so
triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and
gallant deeds, I felt such glowing exultation in his renown, I so
admired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn
people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver.
I could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him
in my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that
no one--mother, sister, wife--could honour him more than I. I did,
indeed!

My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when as
the evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest she
should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full
of the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to
understand in all its details.

"My dear," said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves,
"my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no
doubt he will. You are of that opinion?"

That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no.

"Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?" she asked rather sharply.

I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men
distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless
occasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very
large amount of money.

"Why, good gracious," said Miss Flite, "how can you say that? Surely
you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in
knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every
sort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and
consider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don't
know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the
land!"

I am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when
she was very mad indeed.

And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to
keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and that
if he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me
before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done
so, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it was now
that this had never happened! What should I have suffered if I had
had to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had known as
mine was quite gone from me and that I freely released him from his
bondage to one whom he had never seen!

Oh, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully
spared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all
he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone:
no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please
God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler
way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey,
I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than
he had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at the
journey's end.

The story of Krook's death and the aftermath continues. Weevle and Guppy go to the Sol's Arms tavern. Miss Flite is rescued from her room, and brought to the Sol's Arms and given a bed for the night. The neighborhood is much disturbed by the fantastic end of Mr. Krook, and the crowd pushes into the tavern. All of the Smallweeds arrive, and it is revealed that Grandmother Smallweed was originally a Miss Krook, the sister of Mr. Krook. Grandfather Smallweed thus comes to own Krook's shop. There is general confusion in the tavern, with Mrs. Snagsby reproaching Mr. Snagsby for coming in to hear the news, and Mr. Smallweed knocking Mrs. Smallweed about, because she starts to babble. The Coroner finally arrives, and Mr. Krook's shop is shut up. Guppy goes to Dedlock's the next day, and tells Lady Dedlock that he can't get the letters, though he thinks that the letters were destroyed with Mr. Krook. Lady Dedlock seems relieved. Mr. Tulkinghorn arrives on business at this time, and sees Guppy. He is instantly suspicious. Chapter 34 shows us Mr. George, having had Mr. Bagnet as a co-signer, in dire straights about a hundred-pound debt that is now overdue to Mr. Smallweed. George and Bagnet cannot get the money in time, and Smallweed, unsurprisingly, refuses another renewal. He refers them to his lawyer, Tulkinghorn. Tulkinghorn, already resentful toward Mr. George, reiterates Smallweed's demands, and George is put in an impossible position. Either he gives into Tulkinghorn's request for Captain Hawdon's handwriting, or he and Phil Squod will be out on the street. Also, George's dear friend Bagnet is involved in this, and he is loathe to put the Bagnets in jeopardy. The struggle is difficult for George, and if it had only been his affairs in jeopardy he wouldn't have relented, but he cannot drag his friends down. George gives Tulkinhorn the paper, which releases Bagnet from the contract, and renews the note. He goes to the Bagnets for dinner, and the family, especially Mrs. Bagnet, cheer him. Chapter 35 finds us back at Bleak House, and after the most serious kind of illness Esther is nursed very slowly back to health. Charley is her faithful nurse all the time, and Esther's sight is restored. However, she fears for the scars to her complexion, and when Charley grudgingly gives her the mirror, Esther realizes that any beauty that she had is now gone. Esther asks Mr. Jarndyce to let her and Charley leave for a while to get used to her new appearance before seeing Ada. It is decided that Esther will go to Boythorn's, for he, in his friendly and chivalric fervor, has sworn that unless she comes and uses his house that he will tear it down, brick by brick. Esther and Jarndyce have a happy reunion, and Esther is charmed and warmed by Mr. Jarndyce's obvious deep affection for her. Jarndyce tells Esther how Richard and he are almost completely estranged because of Richard's foolish jealousies over the Chancery suit. Miss Flite comes to visit, and explains how her entire family was ruined by their Chancery suit. She prophesies ominously about Richard and his obsession with Chancery. Miss Flite also tells a curious story about a veiled lady who enquired at Jenny's cottage about Esther's condition. While there, she took Esther's handkerchief, which had been saved with Jenny's dead baby's things, without Jenny's knowledge, and left some money behind. Miss Flite thinks that the veiled lady was probaby the Lord Chancellor's wife, but Esther thinks it was probably Caddy Jellyby. Miss Flite also regales Esther with a story of Dr. Woodcourts heroism in a shipwreck.

The fantastic and gruesome end of Krook casts its ugly shadow over the proceedings at the Sol's Arms, and the equally sordid jealousy of Mrs. Snagsby and the cruelty of the Smallweed family is highlighted.  All is in disarray and ugliness, and Guppy has been a witness to it. He hurries the next day to Lady Dedlock, who says she will receive him at any time, and is sad to bring bad news to her.  She affects not to care, but the affair is obviously coming to a head.  The plot device of Krook's demise is Dickens way of heralding that now the entire world that these characters have built up in the first half of the novel is about to come crashing down.  The signs of demise are everywhere -- George's debt, Tulkinghorn's sucessess in his ruthless quest, Krook's death, the revelation of Lady Dedlock's daughter, and even Esther's illness and recovery show that nothing is going to ever be the same again. Esther and Charley's heroism in the face of their own and each other's illnesses is a parallel to the story of Woodcourt's heroism.  In typical Dickensian  fashion, the heroism of the man is a public dramatic one; the heroism of the woman is a private, domestic one. The veiled lady coming to Jenny's cottage is no doubt Lady Dedlock, and the reader is left to wonder at that Lady's boldness.  It becomes apparent that Lady Dedlock is getting to the point where she can't, or doesn't want, to keep up the pretense any longer.  She knows Hawdon is dead, and her child is alive.  She cannot have as much motivation as she previously has had to keep her awful secret, and she is in constant fear that Tulkinghorn may know her secret and expose her. Esther is shy about allowing Ada to see her scarred face, much moreso than she is about allowing Mr. Jarndyce to see it.  This is a strange way of revealing the childishness of Ada.  She is to be shielded from, rather than allowed to share, Esther's suffering and grief.  Ada seems incapable of handling adult matters, or even of seeing the suffering and injustice so common in the world. This is clear in her interaction with Richard as well, whom she does not contradict or redirect even though his life's trajectory is so obviously heading for disaster.  Ada, though only slightly younger than Esther, is comparatively a child.