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

with this?’ ‘Spend it, sir,’ says

I. ‘But I shall be taken in,’ he says, ‘they won’t give me the

right change, I shall lose it, it’s no use to me.’ Lord, you never

saw such a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where

to find Toughey, and I found him.”

 

I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole

towards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish

innocence.

 

“Bounds, my dear?” returned Mr. Bucket. “Bounds? Now, Miss

Summerson, I’ll give you a piece of advice that your husband will

find useful when you are happily married and have got a family

about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent

as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money,

for they are dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a

person proclaims to you ‘In worldly matters I’m a child,’ you

consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held

accountable and that you have got that person’s number, and it’s

Number One. Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal

way when it goes round a company, but I’m a practical one, and

that’s my experience. So’s this rule. Fast and loose in one

thing, fast and loose in everything. I never knew it fail. No

more will you. Nor no one. With which caution to the unwary, my

dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back

to our business.”

 

I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more

than it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole

household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time

in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not

diminished by my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It

could not be doubted that this was the truth.

 

“Then, Miss Summerson,” said my companion, “we can’t be too soon at

the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most

inquiries there I leave to you, if you’ll be so good as to make

‘em. The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is

your own way.”

 

We set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found

it shut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who

knew me and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear

informed me that the two women and their husbands now lived

together in another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood

on the margin of the piece of ground where the kilns were and where

the long rows of bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing

to this place, which was within a few hundred yards; and as the

door stood ajar, I pushed it open.

 

There were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying

asleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the

dead child, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and

the men, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me

a morose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr.

Bucket followed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman

evidently knew him.

 

I had asked leave to enter of course. Liz (the only name by which

I knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a

stool near the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead.

Now that I had to speak and was among people with whom I was not

familiar, I became conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was

very difficult to begin, and I could not help bursting into tears.

 

“Liz,” said I, “I have come a long way in the night and through the

snow to inquire after a lady—”

 

“Who has been here, you know,” Mr. Bucket struck in, addressing the

whole group with a composed propitiatory face; “that’s the lady the

young lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know.”

 

“And who told YOU as there was anybody here?” inquired Jenny’s

husband, who had made a surly stop in his eating to listen and now

measured him with his eye.

 

“A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen

waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons,” Mr. Bucket

immediately answered.

 

“He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is,” growled the

man.

 

“He’s out of employment, I believe,” said Mr. Bucket apologetically

for Michael Jackson, “and so gets talking.”

 

The woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her

hand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have

spoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this

attitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a

lump of bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other,

struck the handle of his knife violently on the table and told her

with an oath to mind HER own business at any rate and sit down.

 

“I should like to have seen Jenny very much,” said I, “for I am

sure she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I

am very anxious indeed—you cannot think how anxious—to overtake.

Will Jenny be here soon? Where is she?”

 

The woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another

oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to

Jenny’s husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence

the latter turned his shaggy head towards me.

 

“I’m not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you’ve

heerd me say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and

it’s curious they can’t let my place be. There’d be a pretty shine

made if I was to go a-wisitin THEM, I think. Howsoever, I don’t so

much complain of you as of some others, and I’m agreeable to make

you a civil answer, though I give notice that I’m not a-going to be

drawed like a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won’t.

Where is she? She’s gone up to Lunnun.”

 

“Did she go last night?” I asked.

 

“Did she go last night? Ah! She went last night,” he answered with

a sulky jerk of his head.

 

“But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to

her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind

as to tell me,” said I, “for I am in great distress to know.”

 

“If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm—” the

woman timidly began.

 

“Your master,” said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow

emphasis, “will break your neck if you meddle with wot don’t

concern you.”

 

After another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to

me again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness.

 

“Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the

lady come. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I’ll tell you wot

the lady said to her. She said, ‘You remember me as come one time

to talk to you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you?

You remember me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher

wot she had left?’ Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well,

then, wos that young lady up at the house now? No, she warn’t up

at the house now. Well, then, lookee here. The lady was upon a

journey all alone, strange as we might think it, and could she rest

herself where you’re a setten for a hour or so. Yes she could, and

so she did. Then she went—it might be at twenty minutes past

eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve; we ain’t got

no watches here to know the time by, nor yet clocks. Where did she

go? I don’t know where she go’d. She went one way, and Jenny went

another; one went right to Lunnun, and t’other went right from it.

That’s all about it. Ask this man. He heerd it all, and see it

all. He knows.”

 

The other man repeated, “That’s all about it.”

 

“Was the lady crying?” I inquired.

 

“Devil a bit,” returned the first man. “Her shoes was the worse,

and her clothes was the worse, but she warn’t—not as I see.”

 

The woman sat with her arms crossed and her eyes upon the ground.

Her husband had turned his seat a little so as to face her and kept

his hammer-like hand upon the table as if it were in readiness to

execute his threat if she disobeyed him.

 

“I hope you will not object to my asking your wife,” said I, “how

the lady looked.”

 

“Come, then!” he gruffly cried to her. “You hear what she says.

Cut it short and tell her.”

 

“Bad,” replied the woman. “Pale and exhausted. Very bad.”

 

“Did she speak much?”

 

“Not much, but her voice was hoarse.”

 

She answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave.

 

“Was she faint?” said I. “Did she eat or drink here?”

 

“Go on!” said the husband in answer to her look. “Tell her and cut

it short.”

 

“She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and

tea. But she hardly touched it.”

 

“And when she went from here,” I was proceeding, when Jenny’s

husband impatiently took me up.

 

“When she went from here, she went right away nor’ard by the high

road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn’t so.

Now, there’s the end. That’s all about it.”

 

I glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen

and was ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me,

and took my leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went

out, and he looked full at her.

 

“Now, Miss Summerson,” he said to me as we walked quickly away.

“They’ve got her ladyship’s watch among ‘em. That’s a positive

fact.”

 

“You saw it?” I exclaimed.

 

“Just as good as saw it,” he returned. “Else why should he talk

about his ‘twenty minutes past’ and about his having no watch to

tell the time by? Twenty minutes! He don’t usually cut his time

so fine as that. If he comes to half-hours, it’s as much as HE

does. Now, you see, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he

took it. I think she gave it him. Now, what should she give it

him for? What should she give it him for?”

 

He repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried

on, appearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in

his mind.

 

“If time could be spared,” said Mr. Bucket, “which is the only

thing that can’t be spared in this case, I might get it out of that

woman; but it’s too doubtful a chance to trust to under present

circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and

any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and

scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband

that ill uses her through thick and thin. There’s something kept

back. It’s