Bleak House - Charles Dickens (read this if txt) 📗

Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose

ghost is propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks,

pockets, all things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few

hours afterwards, he and the Roman will be alone together comparing

forefingers.

 

It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home

enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go

home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs.

Bucket—a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been

improved by professional exercise, might have done great things,

but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur—he holds

himself aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on

their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an

interest) for companionship and conversation.

 

A great crowd assembles in Lincoln’s Inn Fields on the day of the

funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person;

strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that

is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin

(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable

carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled

affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is

the assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the

Herald’s College might be supposed to have lost its father and

mother at a blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust

and ashes, with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last

improvements, and three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on

behind, in a bunch of woe. All the state coachmen in London seem

plunged into mourning; and if that dead old man of the rusty garb

be not beyond a taste in horseflesh (which appears impossible), it

must be highly gratified this day.

 

Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so

many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of

the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd

through the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd—as for

what not?—and looking here and there, now from this side of the

carriage, now from the other, now up at the house windows, now

along the people’s heads, nothing escapes him.

 

“And there you are, my partner, eh?” says Mr. Bucket to himself,

apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps

of the deceased’s house. “And so you are. And so you are! And

very well indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!”

 

The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of

its assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost

emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the

lattice a hair’s breadth open while he looks.

 

And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he

is still occupied with Mrs. B. “There you are, my partner, eh?” he

murmuringly repeats. “And our lodger with you. I’m taking notice

of you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you’re all right in your health, my

dear!”

 

Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive

eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought down—

Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did they

fly with him on that sudden journey?—and until the procession

moves, and Mr. Bucket’s view is changed. After which he composes

himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the

carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful.

 

Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark

carriage and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable

track of space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into

the fixed sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the

streets, and the narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the

watchful state expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all

one to both; neither is troubled about that.

 

Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and

glides from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with

himself arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock’s, which is at

present a sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes

at all hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where

he knows the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of

mysterious greatness.

 

No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be

provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is

crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, “Here’s another letter for

you, Mr. Bucket, come by post,” and gives it him.

 

“Another one, eh?” says Mr. Bucket.

 

If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity

as to Mr. Bucket’s letters, that wary person is not the man to

gratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of

some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same.

 

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

 

Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker.

 

“Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?” says Mr. Bucket.

“Thankee. It don’t matter what it is; I’m not particular as to the

kind. Thankee!”

 

Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from

somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable

show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with

the other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the

right sort and goes on, letter in hand.

 

Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within

the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of

letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not

incidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his

pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always

convenient to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with

himself in others as being too artless and direct a way of doing

delicate business. Further, he often sees damaging letters

produced in evidence and has occasion to reflect that it was a

green thing to write them. For these reasons he has very little to

do with letters, either as sender or receiver. And yet he has

received a round half-dozen within the last twenty-four hours.

 

“And this,” says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, “is in

the same hand, and consists of the same two words.”

 

What two words?

 

He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book

of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly

written in each, “Lady Dedlock.”

 

“Yes, yes,” says Mr. Bucket. “But I could have made the money

without this anonymous information.”

 

Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again,

he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is

brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket

frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no

restraint, that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East

Inder sherry better than anything you can offer him. Consequently

he fills and empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is

proceeding with his refreshment when an idea enters his mind.

 

Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room

and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire

is sinking low. Mr. Bucket’s eye, after taking a pigeon-flight

round the room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put

as they arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it.

Mr. Bucket draws near and examines the directions. “No,” he says,

“there’s none in that hand. It’s only me as is written to. I can

break it to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow.”

 

With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and

after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir

Leicester has received him there these several evenings past to

know whether he has anything to report. The debilitated cousin

(much exhausted by the funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance.

 

Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three

people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to

Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to

whom it airily says, “You are a swell about town, and you know me,

and I know you.” Having distributed these little specimens of his

tact, Mr. Bucket rubs his hands.

 

“Have you anything new to communicate, officer?” inquires Sir

Leicester. “Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in

private?”

 

“Why—not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”

 

“Because my time,” pursues Sir Leicester, “is wholly at your

disposal with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of

the law.”

 

Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as

though he would respectfully observe, “I do assure you, you’re a

pretty creetur. I’ve seen hundreds worse looking at your time of

life, I have indeed.”

 

The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing

influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes

and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices

that decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that

Volumnia is writing poetry.

 

“If I have not,” pursues Sir Leicester, “in the most emphatic

manner, adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this

atrocious case, I particularly desire to take the present

opportunity of rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no

expense be a consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges.

You can incur none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken

that I shall hesitate for a moment to bear.”

 

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

liberality.

 

“My mind,” Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, “has not, as

may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late

diabolical occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone.

But it is full of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal

of consigning to the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a

devoted adherent.”

 

Sir Leicester’s voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his

head. Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is

aroused.

 

“I declare,” he says, “I solemnly declare that until this crime is

discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel

as if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted

a large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the

last day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at

my table and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own,

and is struck down within an hour of his leaving my house. I

cannot say but that he may have been followed from my house,

watched at my house, even first marked because of his association

with my house—which may have suggested his possessing greater

wealth and being altogether of greater importance than his own

retiring demeanour would have indicated. If I cannot with my means

and influence and my position bring all the perpetrators of such a

crime to light, I fail in the assertion of my respect for that

gentleman’s memory and of my fidelity towards one who was ever

faithful to me.”

 

While he makes this protestation with great emotion and

earnestness, looking round the room as if he were