I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now—not what I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep my confidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!


Sir Leicester, I am desirous—but you are engaged.


Oh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn.


I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?


Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment) and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am tired to death of the matter. What can I do—to—assist? Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to send him up? Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request, request the iron gentleman to walk this way. I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell, was desirous to speak with you. Hem!


I shall be very happy, to give my best attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say.


Pray, sir, may I be allowed to inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son respecting your son’s fancy?


If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the pleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my son to conquer that—fancy.


And did you?


Oh! Of course I did.


And pray has he done so?


Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear not. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes couple an intention with our—our fancies which renders them not altogether easy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be in earnest.


Because. I have been thinking of the subject, which is tiresome to me.


I am very sorry, I am sure.


And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite concur and if you cannot give us the assurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion that the girl had better leave me.


I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind.


Then she had better go.


Excuse me, my Lady, but perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has not merited. Here is a young woman, whose good fortune it is to have attracted the notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages which such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very great—I believe unquestionably very great, sir—for a young woman in that station of life. The question then arises, should that young woman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune simply because she has has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell’s son? Now, has she deserved this punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this our previous understanding?


I beg your pardon. Sir Leicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the subject. Pray dismiss that from your consideration. If you remember anything so unimportant—which is not to be expected—you would recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining here.


It is not necessary, to enter into these matters on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever to say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many advantages and her good fortune that she is in love—or supposes she is, poor little fool—and unable to appreciate them. As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when we were fatigued by this business, we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would you prefer?


Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly—


By all means.


—I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of the incumbrance and remove her from her present position.


And to speak as plainly, so should I. Do I understand that you will take her with you?


Sir Leicester, will you ring? I had forgotten you. Thank you.


You are taken charge of, you see, and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for.


She seems after all, as if she were crying at going away.


Why, she is not well-bred, you see, and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no doubt.


No doubt,


I am very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she was happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and that she thanks my Lady over and over again.


Out, you silly little puss! Have a spirit, if you’re fond of Watt!


There, there, child! You are a good girl. Go away!


Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock. I beg to take my leave, with an apology for having again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome subject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful of my dealing with it, it is only because I did not at first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here away without troubling you at all. But it appeared to me—I dare say magnifying the importance of the thing—that it was respectful to explain to you how the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and convenience. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the polite world.


Mr. Rouncewell, do not mention it. Justifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side.


I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last word, revert to what I said before of my mother’s long connexion with the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done something to awaken such feelings—though of course Lady Dedlock, by her heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much more.


What do you want, sir?


Why, Lady Dedlock. I am rather surprised by the course you have taken.


Indeed?


Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a departure from our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new position, Lady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of saying that I don’t approve of it.


I do not quite understand you.


Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady Dedlock, we must not fence and parry now. You know you like this girl.


Well, sir?


And you know—and I know—that you have not sent her away for the reasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as much as possible from—excuse my mentioning it as a matter of business—any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself.


Well, Lady Dedlock. I object to that. I consider that a dangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated to awaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don’t know what, in the house. Besides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to be exactly what you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to yourself, as it is to me, that you have been this evening very different from what you were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady Dedlock, transparently so!


If, sir, in my knowledge of my secret—


Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of business the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer your secret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my secret, in trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady Dedlock, we should not be here holding this conversation.


That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I can to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at Chesney Wold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a resolution I have taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could shake it or could move me.


Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock, you are not to be trusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and according to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not to be trusted.


Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this same point when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?


Yes. Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly referred to the girl, but that was before we came to our arrangement, and both the letter and the spirit of our arrangement altogether precluded any action on your part founded upon my discovery. There can be no doubt about that. As to sparing the girl, of what importance or value is she? Spare! Lady Dedlock, here is a family name compromised. One might have supposed that the course was straight on—over everything, neither to the right nor to the left, regardless of all considerations in the way, sparing nothing, treading everything under foot.


Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview remains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A lady of your sense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring it void and taking my own course.


I am quite prepared.


That is all I have to trouble you with, Lady Dedlock.


This is the notice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you.


Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because the contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been observed. But virtually the same, virtually the same. The difference is merely in a lawyer’s mind.


You intend to give me no other notice?


You are right. No.


Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?


A home question! No, not to-night.


To-morrow?


All things considered, I had better decline answering that question, Lady Dedlock. If I were to say I don’t know when, exactly, you would not believe me, and it would answer no purpose. It may be to-morrow. I would rather say no more. You are prepared, and I hold out no expectations which circumstances might fail to justify. I wish you good evening.


Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were writing in the library. Are you going to return there?


Only for my hat. I am going home. And what do YOU say. What do you say? Why, you are worse than I thought you. Two minutes wrong? At this rate you won’t last my time. Don’t go home! Don’t go home! Don’t go home! Don’t come here!


What’s that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it?


If he could only tell what he saw!


What is your name? Who gave you that name? And how do you like that name?


At half after one. To the minute. They’ll be done. You shall have a dinner, old girl. Fit for a queen.


George will look us up. At half after four. To the moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This afternoon?


Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I begin to think. Just about that, and no less,


Old girl, never mind. You’d be as young as ever you was. If you wasn’t younger. Which you are. As everybody knows.


Do you know, Lignum, salt! I begin to think George is in the roving way again.


George, will never desert. And leave his old comrade. In the lurch. Don’t be afraid of it.


No, Lignum. No. I don’t say he will. I don’t think he will. But if he could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he would be off. Well. George seems to me to be getting not a little impatient and restless. I don’t say but what he’s as free as ever. Of course he must be free or he wouldn’t be George, but he smarts and seems put out.


He’s extra-drilled. By a lawyer. Who would put the devil out.


There’s something in that, but so it is, Lignum.


George! Military time.


Happy returns to all!


But, George, old man! What’s come to you?


Come to me?


Ah! You are so white, George—for you—and look so shocked. Now don’t he, Lignum?


George, tell the old girl. What’s the matter.


I didn’t know I looked white, and I didn’t know I looked shocked, and I’m sorry I do. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over.


Poor creetur! Is he gone? Dear, dear!”


I didn’t mean to say anything about it, for it’s not birthday talk, but you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I should have roused up in a minute, but you’re so quick, Mrs. Bagnet.


You’re right. The old girl. Is as quick. As powder.


And what’s more, she’s the subject of the day, and we’ll stick to her. See here, I have brought a little brooch along with me. It’s a poor thing, you know, but it’s a keepsake. That’s all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet.


Old girl. Tell him my opinion of it.


Why, it’s a wonder, George! It’s the beautifullest thing that ever was seen!


Good! My opinion.


It’s so pretty, George, that it seems too choice for me.


Bad! Not my opinion.


But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow, and though I have been a crossgrained soldier’s wife to you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, I am sure, in reality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for good luck, if you will, George. Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap you are!”


Would any one believe this? I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!


If that don’t bring you round, George, just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and the two together MUST do it.


You ought to do it of yourself. I know that very well, Mrs. Bagnet. I’ll tell you how, one way and another, the blues have got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. ’Twas dull work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him.


What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your roof.


I helped him so far, but that’s little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know his right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped out of that.


Ah, poor creetur!


Then, that brought up Gridley in a man’s mind. His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up in a man’s mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly—it made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you.


My advice to you, is to light your pipe and tingle that way. It’s wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the health altogether.


You’re right, and I’ll do it.


George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day’s march. And you won’t find such another. Here’s towards her!


And wishing yours! Here’s a man!


George, how do you find yourself?


Why, it’s Bucket!


Yes. I was going down the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the musical instruments in the shop-window—a friend of mine is in want of a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone—and I saw a party enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I thought I couldn’t be mistaken. How goes the world with you, George, at the present moment? Pretty smooth? And with you, ma’am? And with you, governor? And Lord,


here’s children too! You may do anything with me if you only show me children. Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who YOUR father and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life! You pretty dears, give us another kiss; it’s the only thing I’m greedy in. Lord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of these two, ma’am? I should put ’em down at the figures of about eight and ten.


You’re very near, sir,


I generally am near, being so fond of children. A friend of mine has had nineteen of ’em, ma’am, all by one mother, and she’s still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not so much so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And what do you call these, my darling? These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And what do you think about father? Do you think father could recommend a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. Bucket’s friend, my dear? My name’s Bucket. Ain’t that a funny name? Not in his usual spirits? Why, I never heard of such a thing! What’s the matter, George? You don’t intend to tell me you’ve been out of spirits. What should you be out of spirits for? You haven’t got anything on your mind, you know.


Nothing particular,


I should think not. What could you have on your mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on THEIR minds, eh? Not they, but they’ll be upon the minds of some of the young fellows, some of these days, and make ’em precious low-spirited. I ain’t much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma’am. There, ma’am! Would you believe it? No, I haven’t. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as fond of children as myself and as wishful to have ’em, but no. So it is. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine. What a very nice backyard, ma’am! Any way out of that yard, now? Ain’t there really? I should have thought there might have been. Well, I don’t know as I ever saw a backyard that took my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No, I see there’s no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it is! How are your spirits now, George?


All right now,


That’s your sort! Why should you ever have been otherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to be out of spirits. That ain’t a chest to be out of spirits, is it, ma’am? And you haven’t got anything on your mind, you know, George; what could you have on your mind! And this is brother, is it, my dears? And a nice brother he is—half-brother I mean to say. For he’s too old to be your boy, ma’am.


I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else’s, laughing.”


Well, you do surprise me! Yet he’s like you, there’s no denying. Lord, he’s wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the brow, you know, THERE his father comes out! George’s godson, is he? I must shake hands over again with George’s godson. Godfather and godson do credit to one another. And what do you intend to make of him, ma’am? Does he show any turn for any musical instrument?


Plays the fife. Beautiful.


Would you believe it, governor, that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not in a scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless you! ‘British Grenadiers’—there’s a tune to warm an Englishman up! COULD you give us ‘British Grenadiers,’ my fine fellow? British Gra-a-anadeers!


singer.”


Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms.” to come up to the scratch.”


Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor—could you recommend me such a thing?


Scores,


I am obliged to you. You’re a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a regular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn’t, you needn’t commit yourself to too low a figure, governor. I don’t want to pay too large a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper percentage and be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but fair. Every man must live, and ought to it. Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten to-morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few wiolincellers of a good tone? Thank you, thank you. Good night, ma’am. Good night, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you for one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life. Now George, old boy, come along!


almost clings to George like, and seems to be really fond of him.


Wait half a minute, George. I should wish to speak to you first.


Now, George, duty is duty, and friendship is friendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I have endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to you whether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in custody, George.


Custody? What for?


Now, George, duty, as you know very well, is one thing, and conversation is another. It’s my duty to inform you that any observations you may make will be liable to be used against you. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You don’t happen to have heard of a murder?


Murder!


Now, George, bear in mind what I’ve said to you. I ask you nothing. You’ve been in low spirits this afternoon. I say, you don’t happen to have heard of a murder?


No. Where has there been a murder?


Now, George, don’t you go and commit yourself. I’m a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a murder in Lincoln’s Inn Fields—gentleman of the name of Tulkinghorn. He was shot last night. I want you for that.


Bucket! It’s not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed and that you suspect ME?


George, it is certainly possible, because it’s the case. This deed was done last night at ten o’clock. Now, you know where you were last night at ten o’clock, and you’ll be able to prove it, no doubt.


Last night! Last night? Why, great heaven, I was there last night!


So I have understood, George. So I have understood. Likewise you’ve been very often there. You’ve been seen hanging about the place, and you’ve been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it’s possible—I don’t say it’s certainly so, mind you, but it’s possible—that he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous fellow. Now, George, my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant. I tell you plainly there’s a reward out, of a hundred guineas, offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as any other man. On all of which accounts, I should hope it was clear to you that I must have you, and that I’m damned if I don’t have you. Am I to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?


Come. I am ready.


George, wait a bit! This is a serious charge, George, and such is my duty.


There! Put them on!


How do you find them? Are they comfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as is consistent with my duty, and I’ve got another pair in my pocket. They’ll do as they are? Very well! Now, you see, George I was mindful of your feelings when I come out, and brought this on purpose. There! Who’s the wiser?


Only I, but as I know it, do me one more good turn and pull my hat over my eyes.


Really, though! Do you mean it? Ain’t it a pity? It looks so.


I can’t look chance men in the face with these things on. Do, for God’s sake, pull my hat forward.


Now, little woman, little woman, this will never do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and take possession of our old lodgings.


Not for me, dear guardian, for I never feel tired,


For me then, or for Ada, or for both of us. It is somebody’s birthday to-morrow, I think.


Truly I think it is,


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


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


What do you call some time, now?


Some weeks, I am afraid.


Ah! Now, what do you say about her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?


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


Well, you know, there’s Woodcourt. You don’t object to him, little woman?


Object to him, guardian? Oh no!


And you don’t think the patient would object to him? Very good. He has been here to-day, my dear, and I will see him about it to-morrow.


Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do to-day?


My Caroline. Tell me that you are better to-day.


Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop,


Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite prostrated by fatigue?


Not at all,


Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My dear Caroline want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains, everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not, even allow my simple requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine. Nay, my dears. Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave ye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other return. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park.


how she was,


So, Dame Trot, so Woodcourt has restored Caddy Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?


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


I wish it was, with all my heart. Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we not, little woman? True. I had forgotten that. But we would agree to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and his own household gods—and household goddess, too, perhaps? To be sure,


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


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


No, never, Esther.


Why then, my dear, there can be nothing amiss—and why should you not speak to us?


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


Just so, sir. Mr. C.’s address is not a hundred miles from here, sir, Mr. C.’s address is not a hundred miles from here. Would you take a seat, sir? Just so, sir. I believe, sir, that you have influence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have.


I was not aware of it myself, but I suppose you know best.


Sir, it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part of my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be wanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be wanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir.


Give me leave, sir,


Bear with me for a moment. Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play without—need I say what?


Money, I presume?


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


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


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


Well, that may be. I am particularly interested in his address.


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


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


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


Woodcourt, my dear fellow, you come upon my vision like a ghost.


A friendly one, and only waiting, as they say ghosts do, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?


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


What part is that?


The Chancery part.


I never heard, of its going well yet.


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


A bargain. Do as much by me in return.


Oh! You, you can pursue your art for its own sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different creatures. Well, well! Everything has an end. We shall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of me?


Aye! Indeed I will.


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


I had hinted as much to him.


Now pray, don’t think me a heap of selfishness. Don’t suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over this miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone. Ada’s are bound up with mine; they can’t be separated; Vholes works for both of us. Do think of that! You see, to an upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, I cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see Ada righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do my utmost to right her, as well as myself; I venture what I can scrape together to extricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech you, think of that!


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


No, Esther.


Not heard of him, perhaps?


Yes, I have heard of him,


We are not likely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction. Or Mr. Vholes’s office will do, for Mr. Vholes’s office is next door.


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


God bless him, for his truth to me!


He is not so sanguine, Ada, as Vholes and I are usually, but he is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. We have gone into them, and he has not. He can’t be expected to know much of such a labyrinth.


Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?


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


Perhaps, a change from both—


Might do me good? I shouldn’t wonder! But it can only come in one way now—in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit must be ended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl, the suit, my dear girl! We are doing very well. Vholes will tell you so. We are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest. Vholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them everywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall rouse up that nest of sleepers, mark my words!


The sight of our dear little woman, is so natural to me, and her compassionate face is so like the face of old days— —So exactly like the face of old days, that I can’t make pretences with her. I fluctuate a little; that’s the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes I—don’t quite despair, but nearly. I get, so tired! I get, so tired. It is such weary, weary work!


Esther, dear. I am not going home again. Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I shall never go home any more!


Speak to Esther, my dearest. Tell her how it was.


My pet. My love. My poor, poor girl!


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


My dear, to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great wrong. And as to me!


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


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


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


Now Esther, if you do, I’ll never speak to you again! Why, I declare. I never saw such a wife. I don’t think she loves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness’ sake. I give this dear young couple notice, that I am only going away to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming backwards and forwards until Symond’s Inn is tired of the sight of me. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the use of that, you know, when I am coming back so soon! I had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my heart to turn from. So I said (in a merry bustling manner) that unless they gave me some encouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take that liberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through her tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away.


Little woman. You have been crying.


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


Is she married, my dear? She has no need of it. Heaven bless her and her husband! Poor girl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada! Well, well, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast.


But its mistress remains, guardian. She will do all she can to make it happy,


She will succeed, my love! She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak House is thinning fast, O little woman!


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


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


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


True. It would be doing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth in any of these respects. Heaven forbid! We will stand by him, as he himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone.


This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen. And now I don’t so much care how it ends. This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in, but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of it. I thank you, miss,


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


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


First, can we do anything for your personal comfort, George?


For which, sir?


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


Well, sir. I am equally obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I can’t say that there is.


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


Thank you, sir. Howsoever, a man who has been knocking about the world in a vagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a place like the present, so far as that goes.


Next, as to your case,


Exactly so, sir,


How does it stand now?


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


Why, heaven save us, man, you talk of yourself as if you were somebody else!


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


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


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


But the mere truth won’t do,


Won’t it indeed, sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!


You must have a lawyer. We must engage a good one for you.


I ask your pardon, sir. I am equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything of that sort.


You won’t have a lawyer?


No, sir. I thank you all the same, sir, but—no lawyer!


Why not?


I don’t take kindly to the breed. Gridley didn’t. And—if you’ll excuse my saying so much—I should hardly have thought you did yourself, sir.


That’s equity, that’s equity, George.


Is it, indeed, sir? I am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general way I object to the breed.


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


I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss, by court-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware. If you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a couple of minutes, miss, not more, I’ll endeavour to explain myself as clearly as I can. You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property as I have—’tis small—is turned this way and that till it don’t know itself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don’t particular complain of that. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately preceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn’t gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn’t have happened. It HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it. I am such a short-winded talker that I must think a bit. How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don’t wish to rake up his ashes, but he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight hold of me. I don’t like his trade the better for that. If I had kept clear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that’s not what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. Suppose I really had discharged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off that Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found there any day since it has been my place. What should I have done as soon as I was hard and fast here? Got a lawyer. I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have often read in the newspapers), ‘My client says nothing, my client reserves his defence’: my client this, that, and t’other. Well, ’tis not the custom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to think that other men do. Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What would he do, whether or not? Act as if I was—shut my mouth up, tell me not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I care for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my own way—if you’ll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a lady? I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I don’t intend to say, that I am more partial to being hanged than another man. What I say is, I must come off clear and full or not at all. Therefore, when I hear stated against me what is true, I say it’s true; and when they tell me, ‘whatever you say will be used,’ I tell them I don’t mind that; I mean it to be used. If they can’t make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to do it out of anything less, or anything else. And if they are, it’s worth nothing to me. I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention, and many times more for your interest. That’s the plain state of the matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt broadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap pretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being seized as a murderer—it don’t take a rover who has knocked about so much as myself so very long to recover from a crash—I worked my way round to what you find me now. As such I shall remain. No relations will be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and—and that’s all I’ve got to say. Miss Summerson and gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet. And this is his wife, Mrs. Bagnet.


With a second-hand wiolinceller. Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no object to.


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


Old girl. Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval.


Why, George, you ought to know it don’t. You ought to know it’s enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won’t be got off this way, and you won’t be got off that way—what do you mean by such picking and choosing? It’s stuff and nonsense, George.


Don’t be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet,


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


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


Persuade him, sir? Lord bless you, no. You don’t know George. Now, there! There he stands! As self-willed and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human creature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon take up and shoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that man when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. Why, don’t I know him! Don’t I know you, George! You don’t mean to set up for a new character with ME after all these years, I hope? But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years, and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well as I do, they’ll give up talking to you too. If you are not too headstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is.


I accept it with many thanks,


Do you though, indeed? I’m sure I’m surprised at that. I wonder you don’t starve in your own way also. It would only be like you. Perhaps you’ll set your mind upon THAT next.


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


More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can’t find me,


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


’Tis curious. And yet I thought so at the time! Why, sir, when my ill fortune took me to the dead man’s staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like Miss Summerson’s go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak to it.


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


I didn’t let George see what I thought about it, you know, miss, but he’s in a bad way, poor old fellow!


Not with care and prudence and good help,


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


With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. When a boy,


Now, I tell you, miss, and when I say miss, I mean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I’ll tell you!


Old girl! Tell ’em!


Why, then, miss, you could as soon move Dover Castle as move George on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with. And I have got it!


You are a jewel of a woman. Go on!


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


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


But, bless the woman, how is she going? What money has she got?


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


Mr. Bagnet. Do you mean to let her go in that way?


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


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


She’s Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion. And there’s not such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.


And there you are, my partner, eh? And so you are. And so you are! And very well indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket! There you are, my partner, eh? And our lodger with you. I’m taking notice of you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you’re all right in your health, my dear!


Here’s another letter for you, Mr. Bucket, come by post,


Another one, eh? Do you happen to carry a box? Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres? Thankee. It don’t matter what it is; I’m not particular as to the kind. Thankee!


And this, is in the same hand, and consists of the same two words. Lady Dedlock. Yes, yes. But I could have made the money without this anonymous information.


No, 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.


You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I know you.


Have you anything new to communicate, officer? Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?


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


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


I do assure you, you’re a pretty creetur. I’ve seen hundreds worse looking at your time of life, I have indeed.


If I have not, 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. My mind, 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.


I declare. 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.


The ceremony of to-day, strikingly illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend was held by the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my brother who had committed it, I would not spare him.


You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss, no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I’m sure he was. It gives a start to a delicate female, but it’ll wear off. Why you see, miss, my dear it ain’t easy to answer those questions at the present moment. Not at the present moment. I’ve kept myself on this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to his satisfaction.


The officer, Volumnia, is faithful to his duty, and perfectly right. In fact, Volumnia, it is not holding up a good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you have put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he acts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them into execution. Or who vindicate their outraged majesty. Very well, Volumnia. Then you cannot be too discreet.


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


I am very glad indeed to hear it. Highly creditable to you.


Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see, miss. I mean from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite. Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families. I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and you have no idea—come, I’ll go so far as to say not even YOU have any idea, sir, what games goes on!


Very good. Thank you! You will not forget, officer, that I am at your disposal when you please.


Might I ask, by the by, who posted the reward-bill on the staircase.


I ordered it to be put up there,


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


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


Why, you’re six foot two, I suppose?


Three,


Are you so much? But then, you see, you’re broad in proportion and don’t look it. You’re not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain’t. Was you ever modelled now? and a friend of mine that you’ll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for the marble. My Lady’s out, ain’t she? Out to dinner. Goes out pretty well every day, don’t she?


Yes.


Not to be wondered at! Such a fine woman as her, so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the same way of life as yourself? Mine was. My father was first a page, then a footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his career, and so it was. I’ve a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My Lady a good temper?


As good as you can expect.


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


Talk of the angels,


Here she is! Mr. Bucket, my Lady. Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester? No, my Lady, I’ve seen him! Have you anything to say to me? Not just at present, my Lady. Have you made any new discoveries? A few, my Lady. She’s a lovely woman, too, she really is. Don’t look quite healthy though.


Is not quite healthy. Suffers much from headaches.


Really? That’s a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that.


Walks sometimes for two hours when she has them bad. By night, too.


Are you sure you’re quite so much as six foot three? Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?


Not a doubt about it.


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


Oh, yes. When it’s moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course!


I suppose you ain’t in the habit of walking yourself? Not much time for it, I should say?


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


To be sure. That makes a difference. Now I think of it, she went out walking the very night of this business.


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


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


I didn’t see YOU,


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


Half-past nine.


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


Of course she was.


Refreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and prepares for a field-day. just to mention quietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he’s ready for me, I’m ready for him.


I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather later than my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The agitation and the indignation from which I have recently suffered have been too much for me. I am subject to—gout indisposition and would have said it to anybody else, but Mr. Bucket palpably knows all about it and recent circumstances have brought it on. I am not aware, officer, whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely as you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock would be interested—


Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, we can’t be too private just at present. You will presently see that we can’t be too private. A lady, under the circumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock’s elevated station of society, can’t but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view to myself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we can’t be too private.


That is enough.


So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in the door.


By all means.


Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that I wanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed it and collected proof against the person who did this crime.


Against the soldier?


No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier.


Is the man in custody?


It was a woman.


Good heaven!


Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s my duty to prepare you for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to say that will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, you are a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and what a gentleman is capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock when it must come, boldly and steadily. A gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against almost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. If there’s a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your family. You ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away to Julius Caesar—not to go beyond him at present—have borne that blow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and you bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family credit. That’s the way you argue, and that’s the way you act, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, thus preparing you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to anything having come to MY knowledge. I know so much about so many characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less don’t signify a straw. I don’t suppose there’s a move on the board that would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken place, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move whatever (provided it’s in a wrong direction) being a probable move according to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don’t you go and let yourself be put out of the way because of my knowing anything of your family affairs.


I thank you for your preparation, which I hope is not necessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so good as to go on. Also also, to take a seat, if you have no objection.


Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I come to the point. Lady Dedlock— Lady Dedlock, you see she’s universally admired. That’s what her ladyship is; she’s universally admired,


I would greatly prefer, officer, my Lady’s name being entirely omitted from this discussion.


So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but—it’s impossible.


Impossible?


Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s altogether impossible. What I have got to say is about her ladyship. She is the pivot it all turns on.


Officer, you know your duty. Do your duty, but be careful not to overstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring my Lady’s name into this communication upon your responsibility—upon your responsibility. My Lady’s name is not a name for common persons to trifle with!


Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no more.


I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!


Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and suspicions of Lady Dedlock.


If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir—which he never did—I would have killed him myself!


Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and close, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I can’t quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips that he long ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through the sight of some handwriting—in this very house, and when you yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present—the existence, in great poverty, of a certain person who had been her lover before you courted her and who ought to have been her husband. Ought to have been her husband, not a doubt about it. I know from his lips that when that person soon afterwards died, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and his wretched grave, alone and in secret. I know from my own inquiries and through my eyes and ears that Lady Dedlock did make such visit in the dress of her own maid, for the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed me to reckon up her ladyship—if you’ll excuse my making use of the term we commonly employ—and I reckoned her up, so far, completely. I confronted the maid in the chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields with a witness who had been Lady Dedlock’s guide, and there couldn’t be the shadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman’s dress, unknown to her. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the way a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes. All this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and through your own Lady. It’s my belief that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death and that he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the matter that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady Dedlock, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship whether, even after he had left here, she didn’t go down to his chambers with the intention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose black mantle with a deep fringe to it. You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from me, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her ladyship makes any difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it’s no use, that Inspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the soldier as you called him (though he’s not in the army now) and knows that she knows she passed him on the staircase. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, why do I relate all this?


True.


Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken air, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn being cut down so sudden. The chance to hush it is to let in these people now in a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet—on the family account—while I reckon ’em up? And would you just throw in a nod when I seem to ask you for it?


Officer. The best you can, the best you can!


Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen. I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I am; and this, is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him, and mind you, it ain’t every one as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old gentleman, is Smallweed; that’s what your name is; I know it well.


Well, and you never heard any harm of it!


You don’t happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?


No!


Why, they killed him, on account of his having so much cheek. Don’t YOU get into the same position, because it isn’t worthy of you. You ain’t in the habit of conversing with a deaf person, are you?


Yes, my wife’s deaf.


That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain’t here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I’ll not only be obliged to you, but it’ll do you more credit. This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?


Name of Chadband,


Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name, and consequently feel a liking for it. Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?


And Mrs. Snagsby,


Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own. Love him like a brother! Now, what’s up?


Do you mean what business have we come upon?


Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it’s all about in presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come.


Yes. You first!


I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn. I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was own brother to a brimstone magpie—leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come into Krook’s property. I examined all his papers and all his effects. They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a shelf in the side of Lady Jane’s bed—his cat’s bed. He hid all manner of things away, everywheres. Mr. Tulkinghorn wanted ’em and got ’em, but I looked ’em over first. I’m a man of business, and I took a squint at ’em. They was letters from the lodger’s sweetheart, and she signed Honoria. Dear me, that’s not a common name, Honoria, is it? There’s no lady in this house that signs Honoria is there? Oh, no, I don’t think so! Oh, no, I don’t think so! And not in the same hand, perhaps? Oh, no, I don’t think so! Oh, dear me! Oh, Lord! I’m shaken all to pieces!


Now, when you’re ready, to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know.


Haven’t I come to it, Mr. Bucket? Isn’t the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon, and his ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? Come, then, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns me, if it don’t concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where they are. I won’t have ’em disappear so quietly. I handed ’em over to my friend and solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody else.


Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too,


I don’t care for that. I want to know who’s got ’em. And I tell you what we want—what we all here want, Mr. Bucket. We want more painstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If George the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice, and was set on. You know what I mean as well as any man.


Now I tell you what. I am damned if I am a-going to have my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half a second of time by any human being in creation. YOU want more painstaking and search-making! YOU do? Do you see this hand, and do you think that I don’t know the right time to stretch it out and put it on the arm that fired that shot? The advice I give you is, don’t you trouble your head about the murder. That’s my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers, and I shouldn’t wonder if you was to read something about it before long, if you look sharp. I know my business, and that’s all I’ve got to say to you on that subject. Now about those letters. You want to know who’s got ’em. I don’t mind telling you. I have got ’em. Is that the packet? What have you got to say next? Now, don’t open your mouth too wide, because you don’t look handsome when you do it.


I want five hundred pound.


No, you don’t; you mean fifty. That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider (without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business, and you ask me to consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it’s an unreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than that. Hadn’t you better say two fifty?


Then,


My friends, we are now—Rachael, my wife, and I—in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and do we require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much the same thing, money, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends.


You’re a man of business, you are, and consequently you’re going on to mention what the nature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn’t do better.


Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love, proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!


Since you want to know what we know, I’ll tell you. I helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship’s daughter. I was in the service of her ladyship’s sister, who was very sensitive to the disgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her ladyship, that the child was dead—she WAS very nearly so—when she was born. But she’s alive, and I know her. ladyship


I suppose now. YOU will be expecting a twenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?


offer


My friend the law-stationer’s good lady, over there. What may YOUR game be, ma’am?


Very good. Now I understand you, you know, and being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this little matter, can give it my fair and full attention. Now I won’t allude to conspiring to extort money or anything of that sort, because we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to make things pleasant. But I tell you what I DO wonder at; I am surprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall. It was so opposed to your interests. That’s what I look at.


We wanted to get in,


Why, of course you wanted to get in, but for a old gentleman at your time of life—what I call truly venerable, mind you!—with his wits sharpened, as I have no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which occasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to consider that if he don’t keep such a business as the present as close as possible it can’t be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You see your temper got the better of you; that’s where you lost ground,


I only said I wouldn’t go without one of the servants came up to Sir Leicester Dedlock,


That’s it! That’s where your temper got the better of you. Now, you keep it under another time and you’ll make money by it. Shall I ring for them to carry you down?


When are we to hear more of this?


Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful sex is! I shall have the pleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day—not forgetting Mr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty.


Five hundred!


All right! Nominally five hundred. SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the part of myself and the gentleman of the house? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s for you to consider whether or not to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it’s being bought up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that little pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used by all sides of the speculation and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and ends together than if she had meant it. Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, he held all these horses in his hand and could have drove ’em his own way, I haven’t a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost, and now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all dragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The cat’s away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the water runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended. The party to be apprehended is now in this house, and I’m about to take her into custody in your presence. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don’t you say a word nor yet stir. There’ll be no noise and no disturbance at all. I’ll come back in the course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don’t you be nervous on account of the apprehension at present coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to last.


I ask you pardon. They tell me there was no one here.


This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock. This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks back.


What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?


Why, my angel, we shall see.


You are very mysterieuse. Are you drunk?


Tolerable sober, my angel,


I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife. Your wife have left me since some minutes. They tell me downstairs that your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What is the intention of this fool’s play, say then? Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot! Leave me to pass downstairs, great pig.


Now, mademoiselle, you go and sit down upon that sofy.


I will not sit down upon nothing,


Now, mademoiselle, you sit down upon that sofy.


Why?


Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don’t need to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a foreigner if I can. If I can’t, I must be rough, and there’s rougher ones outside. What I am to be depends on you. So I recommend you, as a friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your head, to go and sit down upon that sofy.


You are a devil.


Now, you see, you’re comfortable and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of your sense to do. So I’ll give you a piece of advice, and it’s this, don’t you talk too much. You’re not expected to say anything here, and you can’t keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the less you PARLAY, the better, you know.


Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!


Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this young woman, my lodger, was her ladyship’s maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate against her ladyship after being discharged—


Lie! I discharge myself.


Now, why don’t you take my advice? I’m surprised at the indiscreetness you commit. You’ll say something that’ll be used against you, you know. You’re sure to come to it. Never you mind what I say till it’s given in evidence. It is not addressed to you.


Discharge, too, by her ladyship! Eh, my faith, a pretty ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by remaining with a ladyship so infame!


Upon my soul I wonder at you! I thought the French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female going on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!


He is a poor abused! I spit upon his house, upon his name, upon his imbecility. Oh, that he is a great man! Oh, yes, superb! Oh, heaven! Bah!


Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock, this intemperate foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established a claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion I told you of at his chambers, though she was liberally paid for her time and trouble.


Lie! I ref-use his money all togezzer.


If you WILL PARLAY, you know, you must take the consequences. Now, whether she became my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house in that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and likewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an unfortunate stationer.


Lie! All lie!


The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you know under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close with your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case was entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the papers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in the same house) I took George into custody as having been seen hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the murder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased on former occasions—even threatening him, as the witness made out. If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I believed George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly no, but he might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make it my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. Now, observe! I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found this young woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket. She had made a mighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first offering herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever—in fact, overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for the lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn. By the living Lord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at the table and saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!


Now where, had she been on the night of the murder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I have since found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had an artful customer to deal with and that proof would be very difficult; and I laid a trap for her—such a trap as I never laid yet, and such a venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my mind while I was talking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to bed, our house being small and this young woman’s ears sharp, I stuffed the sheet into Mrs. Bucket’s mouth that she shouldn’t say a word of surprise and told her all about it. My dear, don’t you give your mind to that again, or I shall link your feet together at the ankles.


What is the matter with you now?


Don’t you think any more, of throwing yourself out of window. That’s what’s the matter with me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn’t get up; I’ll sit down by you. Now take my arm, will you? I’m a married man, you know; you’re acquainted with my wife. Just take my arm. Now we’re all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case could never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who is a woman in fifty thousand—in a hundred and fifty thousand! To throw this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house since, though I’ve communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the baker’s loaves and in the milk as often as required. My whispered words to Mrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, ‘My dear, can you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions against George, and this, and that, and t’other? Can you do without rest and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you undertake to say, ‘She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner without suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from death, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I have got her, if she did this murder?’ Mrs. Bucket says to me, as well as she could speak on account of the sheet, ‘Bucket, I can!’ And she has acted up to it glorious! Bucket, I can!


Lies! All lies, my friend!


Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out under these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right? I was right. What does she try to do? Don’t let it give you a turn? To throw the murder on her ladyship. And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always here, which was done a-purpose. Now, open that pocket-book of mine, Sir Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words ‘Lady Dedlock’ in it. Open the one directed to yourself, which I stopped this very morning, and read the three words ‘Lady Dedlock, Murderess’ in it. These letters have been falling about like a shower of lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, from her spy-place having seen them all written by this young woman? What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding ink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not? What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having watched the posting of ’em every one by this young woman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the eventful period, and my foreign friend here saw her, I believe, from the upper part of the staircase. Her ladyship and George and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another’s heels. But that don’t signify any more, so I’ll not go into it. I found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description of your house at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you’ll say, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here is so thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the rest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces together and finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like Queer Street.


These are very long lies. You prose great deal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking always?


Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, the last point in the case which I am now going to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never doing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday without her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company with my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to convict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so rose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was altogether such a time for bringing down what you may call retribution upon her, that if I had been a younger hand with less experience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night, when her ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home looking—why, Lord, a man might almost say like Venus rising from the ocean—it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being charged with a murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to want to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here proposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at a very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of entertainment there’s a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to fetch her pocket-handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was; she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind. As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. Bucket, along with her observations and suspicions. I had the piece of water dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen hours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and hold it steady, and I shan’t hurt you! That’s one. Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!


Where, where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?


She’s gone forrard to the Police Office. You’ll see her there, my dear.


I would like to kiss her!


You’d bite her, I suspect,


I would! I would love to tear her limb from limb.


Bless you, darling. I’m fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another when you do differ. You don’t mind me half so much, do you?


No. Though you are a devil still.


Angel and devil by turns, eh? But I am in my regular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy. I’ve been lady’s maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting to the bonnet? There’s a cab at the door.


Listen then, my angel. You are very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?


Not exactly.


That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you make a honourable lady of her?


Don’t be so malicious,


Or a haughty gentleman of HIM? Eh! Oh, then regard him! The poor infant! Ha! Ha! Ha!


Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other. Come along!


You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with me. It is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu, you old man, grey. I pity you, and I despise you!


You are a mother, my dear soul, and you found out my George’s mother!


Why, George, was always free with me, ma’am, and when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all the things my Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line into his mother’s face or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother into his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past times, that he had behaved bad to her.


Never, my dear! My blessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving to me, was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and went for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, in letting us know about himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he didn’t rise, I know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn’t be a disgrace to us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always from a baby!


So I says to George when I goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe outside), ‘What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy penitent.’


Why, Mrs. Bagnet, it’s because I AM melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.


What have you done, old fellow?


what I have done has been done this many a long year, and is best not tried to be undone now. If I ever get to heaven it won’t be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no more.


Now, ma’am, when George says to me that it’s best not tried to be undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before, and I draw it out of George how he comes to have such things on him that afternoon. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the lawyer’s office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain before him, and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets himself and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon years back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old lady he has seen? And George tells me it’s Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before that he’s a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night, ‘Lignum, that’s his mother for five and for-ty pound!’


Bless you, and thank you. Bless you, and thank you, my worthy soul!


Dear heart! No thanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma’am, for being so ready to pay ’em! And mind once more, ma’am, what you had best do on finding George to be your own son is to make him—for your sake—have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won’t do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and lawyers,


He shall have, all the help that can be got for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and thankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole family will do their best. I—I know something, my dear; and will make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years, and finding him in a jail at last. My Lady, my Lady, my Lady!


George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!


My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite still, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such a man too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew he must be, if it pleased God he was alive!


Mother, forgive me first of all, for I know my need of it. Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my reward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a purpose in me too. When I left home I didn’t care much, mother—I am afraid not a great deal—for leaving; and went away and ’listed, harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not I, and that nobody cared for me. So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had ’listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I didn’t think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a service of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself why should I ever write.


I don’t find any fault, child—but not to ease my mind, George? Not a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?


Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small consolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you, respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance North Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and famous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like him, but self-unmade—all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for most things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself known? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of it? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a man) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me; and the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your mind as it was. No, I don’t say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be so. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear mother, some good might have come of it to myself—and there was the meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold; you would have brought me and my brother and my brother’s family together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of you feel sure of me when I couldn’t so much as feel sure of myself? How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to himself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother’s children in the face and pretend to set them an example—I, the vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and unhappiness of my mother’s life? ‘No, George.’ Such were my words, mother, when I passed this in review before me: ‘You have made your bed. Now, lie upon it.’


This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old comrade’s wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and might.


Mother, ’tis little enough to consent to, tell me what I shall do, and I’ll make a late beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you’ll take care of my mother, I know?


Then grant me this one great favour. Don’t let my brother know. Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can’t bear it; I can’t make up my mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done so much to raise himself while I’ve been soldiering that I haven’t brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any pleasure in such a discovery? It’s impossible. No, keep my secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my secret from my brother, of all men. Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all—though I may come to ask that too—but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it’s ever broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish, to break it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems to take it. In all other respects, my dear mother, I’ll be as tractable and obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up, an exact account of what I knew of the deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. It’s entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in it but what’s wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my own in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not to have any. Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?


I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some business there that must be looked to directly,


Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of course I know you will. Why should I ask it! Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand pound in gold, my dear!


Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with you? What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath. Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son—my youngest, who went away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison.


For debt?


Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful.


For what is he in prison then?


Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as—as I am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn. Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But think of my dear son wrongfully accused.


I do not accuse him.


No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger. Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say it! My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost’s Walk was so constant and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter. Hush! Hush! My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don’t believe what’s written in it, I know it can’t be true, I am sure and certain that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most I consider possible. I know you are not a hard lady, but you go your own way always without help, and you are not familiar with your friends; and all who admire you—and all do—as a beautiful and elegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves who can’t be approached close. My Lady, you may have some proud or angry reasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray, oh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been passed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to clear my son! My Lady, my good Lady, I am so humble in my place and you are by nature so high and distant that you may not think what I feel for my child, but I feel so much that I have come here to make so bold as to beg and pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any right or justice at this fearful time!


Am I to read this?


When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the most that I consider possible.


I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can affect your son. I have never accused him.


My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after reading the letter.


Let him come in!