I assure you, my dear, when the out-door apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room, not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the window and see them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps. You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently I have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had some little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn’t any; and that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must allow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery—I have to thank Ma for that, at all events—and where there’s a will there’s a way, you know, Esther, the world over. Don’t laugh at me, please; that’s a dear girl! My dear, you can’t think how you cheer me. I shall owe you, you don’t know how much. What changes, Esther, even in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!


Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry, that he has not finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther. It takes him a long time to dress, because he is very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to support. You can’t think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested.


I asked Caddy if he brought her papa out much.


No. I don’t know that he does that, but he talks to Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get on together delightfully. You can’t think what good companions they make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop’s box regularly and keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again all the evening. As to Peepy, whom I was most afraid of—next to having any family of my own, Esther—as an inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short, and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl and ought to be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?


To the Old Street Road, where I have a few words to say to the solicitor’s clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear. Now I think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house.


Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you,


Miss Summerson, this is indeed an oasis. Mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and get out of the gangway.


I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir,


Could I speak to you alone for a moment? Miss Summerson, you will excuse the waywardness of a parent ever mindful of a son’s appiness. My mother, though highly exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates.


I—I—beg your pardon, but in our profession—we—we—find it necessary to be explicit. You have referred to an occasion, miss, when I—when I did myself the honour of making a declaration which— A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss, which rather knocks me over. I—er—a little subject to this sort of thing—er—by George! My intention was to remark, miss, dear me—something bronchial, I think—hem!—to remark that you was so good on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration. You—you wouldn’t perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses are present, it might be a satisfaction to—to your mind—if you was to put in that admission.


There can be no doubt, that I declined your proposal without any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy.


Thank you, miss. So far that’s satisfactory, and it does you credit. Er—this is certainly bronchial!—must be in the tubes—er—you wouldn’t perhaps be offended if I was to mention—not that it’s necessary, for your own good sense or any person’s sense must show ’em that—if I was to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there terminated?


I quite understand that,


Perhaps—er—it may not be worth the form, but it might be a satisfaction to your mind—perhaps you wouldn’t object to admit that, miss?


I admit it most fully and freely,


Thank you. Very honourable, I am sure. I regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever, but it will ever be a retrospect entwined—er—with friendship’s bowers.


I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?


I shall be honoured, I am sure. I am so persuaded that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will—will keep you as square as possible—that I can have nothing but pleasure, I am sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer.


You were so good as to imply, on that occasion—


Excuse me, miss, but we had better not travel out of the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied anything.


You said on that occasion, that you might possibly have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by making discoveries of which I should be the subject. I presume that you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr. Jarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have come to beg of you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish all idea of so serving me. I have thought of this sometimes, and I have thought of it most lately—since I have been ill. At length I have decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and act upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are altogether mistaken. You could make no discovery in reference to me that would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I am acquainted with my personal history, and I have it in my power to assure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. You may, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. If so, excuse my giving you unnecessary trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the assurance I have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to do this, for my peace.


I am bound to confess, that you express yourself, miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I gave you credit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and if I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I am prepared to tender a full apology. I should wish to be understood, miss, as hereby offering that apology—limiting it, as your own good sense and right feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present proceedings.


If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that I may have no occasion to resume, you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately as possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a confidence which I have really wished to respect—and which I always have respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my illness. There really is no reason why I should hesitate to say that I know very well that any little delicacy I might have had in making a request to you is quite removed. Therefore I make the entreaty I have now preferred, and I hope you will have sufficient consideration for me to accede to it.


Upon my word and honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living man, I’ll act according to your wish! I’ll never go another step in opposition to it. I’ll take my oath to it if it will be any satisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time touching the matters now in question. I speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so—


I am quite satisfied, and I thank you very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!


Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!


I do,


I beg your pardon, miss, but this lady being present—your own witness—it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions.


Well, Caddy, perhaps you will not be surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any engagement—


No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever,


No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever, between this gentleman—


William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex,


Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself.


Thank you, miss. Very full—er—excuse me—lady’s name, Christian and surname both? Married woman, I believe? Married woman. Thank you. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman Street, Oxford Street. Much obliged. Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which I have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly terminated some time back, but it couldn’t be. Now COULD it, you know! I only put it to you.


It certainly could not.


It’s very honourable of you, miss, I am sure. If an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship—but, upon my soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the tender passion only!


Again nothing done! Nothing, nothing done!


Don’t say nothing done, sir. That is scarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!


Why, what IS done?


That may not be the whole question. The question may branch off into what is doing, what is doing?


And what is doing?


A good deal is doing, sir. We have put our shoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round.


Yes, with Ixion on it. How am I to get through the next four or five accursed months?


Mr. C., your spirits are hasty, and I am sorry for it on your account. Excuse me if I recommend you not to chafe so much, not to be so impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should have more patience. You should sustain yourself better.


I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?


Sir, I should not have had the presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any man’s. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that is enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you mention me so pointedly, I will acknowledge that I should like to impart to you a little of my—come, sir, you are disposed to call it insensibility, and I am sure I have no objection—say insensibility—a little of my insensibility.


Mr. Vholes, I had no intention to accuse you of insensibility.


I think you had, sir, without knowing it. Very naturally. It is my duty to attend to your interests with a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your excited feelings I may appear, at such times as the present, insensible. My daughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. But they have known me much longer than you have, and the confiding eye of affection is not the distrustful eye of business. Not that I complain, sir, of the eye of business being distrustful; quite the contrary. In attending to your interests, I wish to have all possible checks upon me; it is right that I should have them; I court inquiry. But your interests demand that I should be cool and methodical, Mr. Carstone; and I cannot be otherwise—no, sir, not even to please you. What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the vacation. I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means of amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. If you had asked me what I was to do during the vacation, I could have answered you more readily. I am to attend to your interests. I am to be found here, day by day, attending to your interests. That is my duty, Mr. C., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to me. If you wish to consult me as to your interests, you will find me here at all times alike. Other professional men go out of town. I don’t. Not that I blame them for going; I merely say I don’t go. This desk is your rock, sir!


I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes, that you are the most reliable fellow in the world and that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man of business who is not to be hoodwinked. But put yourself in my case, dragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into difficulty every day, continually hoping and continually disappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in myself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you will find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do.


You know that I never give hopes, sir. I told you from the first, Mr. C., that I never give hopes. Particularly in a case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of the estate, I should not be considerate of my good name if I gave hopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when you say there is no change for the better, I must, as a bare matter of fact, deny that.


Aye? But how do you make it out?


Mr. Carstone, you are represented by—


You said just now—a rock.


Yes, sir, a rock. That’s something. You are separately represented, and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. THAT’S something. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk it about. THAT’S something. It’s not all Jarndyce, in fact as well as in name. THAT’S something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir. And THAT’S something, surely.


Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John Jarndyce’s house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he seemed—that he was what he has gradually turned out to be—I could have found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I could not have defended him too ardently. So little did I know of the world! Whereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment of the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is John Jarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him; that every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new injury from John Jarndyce’s hand.


No, no. Don’t say so. We ought to have patience, all of us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage.


Mr. Vholes, You know as well as I that he would have strangled the suit if he could.


He was not active in it. He certainly was not active in it. But however, but however, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the heart, Mr. C.!


You can. Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our interests conflicting? Tell—me—that!


Mr. C., I should be wanting in my duty as your professional adviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if I represented those interests as identical with the interests of Mr. Jarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I never impute motives; I both have and am a father, and I never impute motives. But I must not shrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in families. I understand you to be now consulting me professionally as to your interests? You are so? I reply, then, they are not identical with those of Mr. Jarndyce.


Of course they are not! You found that out long ago.


Mr. C., I wish to say no more of any third party than is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, together with any little property of which I may become possessed through industry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and Caroline. I also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. When Mr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir—I will not say the very high honour, for I never stoop to flattery—of bringing us together in this room, I mentioned to you that I could offer no opinion or advice as to your interests while those interests were entrusted to another member of the profession. And I spoke in such terms as I was bound to speak of Kenge and Carboy’s office, which stands high. You, sir, thought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless and to offer them to me. You brought them with clean hands, sir, and I accepted them with clean hands. Those interests are now paramount in this office. My digestive functions, as you may have heard me mention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but I shall not rest, sir, while I am your representative. Whenever you want me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come. During the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying your interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for moving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) after Michaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir, when I ultimately congratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to fortune—which, but that I never give hopes, I might say something further about—you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance may be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client not included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. I pretend to no claim upon you, Mr. C., but for the zealous and active discharge—not the languid and routine discharge, sir: that much credit I stipulate for—of my professional duty. My duty prosperously ended, all between us is ended. For there have been many little consultations and attendances of late, sir, and these things mount up, and I don’t profess to be a man of capital. When we first entered on our present relations I stated to you openly—it is a principle of mine that there never can be too much openness between solicitor and client—that I was not a man of capital and that if capital was your object you had better leave your papers in Kenge’s office. No, Mr. C., you will find none of the advantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. This, is your rock; it pretends to be nothing more.


Always here, sir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir, with my shoulder to the wheel.


William, there’s combustion going on there! It’s not a case of spontaneous, but it’s smouldering combustion it is.


Ah! He wouldn’t keep out of Jarndyce, and I suppose he’s over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. He was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. A good riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, that as I was mentioning is what they’re up to. They are still up to it, sir, still taking stock, still examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps of rubbish. At this rate they’ll be at it these seven years.


And Small is helping?


Small left us at a week’s notice. Told Kenge his grandfather’s business was too much for the old gentleman and he could better himself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between myself and Small on account of his being so close. But he said you and I began it, and as he had me there—for we did—I put our acquaintance on the old footing. That’s how I come to know what they’re up to.


You haven’t looked in at all?


Tony, to be unreserved with you, I don’t greatly relish the house, except in your company, and therefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little appointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour by the clock! Tony it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind once more that circumstances over which I have no control have made a melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. That image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish now in connexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying out in the court with your aid as a friend is to let ’em alone and bury ’em in oblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (I put it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your knowledge of that capricious and deep old character who fell a prey to the—spontaneous element, do you, Tony, think it at all likely that on second thoughts he put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that they were not destroyed that night? Tony, once again understand me, as a friend. Without entering into further explanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no purpose to serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have pledged myself. I owe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered image, as also to the circumstances over which I have no control. If you was to express to me by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw lying anywhere in your late lodgings any papers that so much as looked like the papers in question, I would pitch them into the fire, sir, on my own responsibility.


Aha! How de do, gentlemen, how de do! Come to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That’s well, that’s well. Ha! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay your warehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel quite at home here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see you! How de do, sir—how de—how— Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor. I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note, but he is so good!


A good deal of property here, sir, I should say,


Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! Me and Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out an inventory of what’s worth anything to sell. But we haven’t come to much as yet; we—haven’t—come—to—hah!


Well, sir. We won’t intrude any longer if you’ll allow us to go upstairs.


Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You’re at home. Make yourself so, pray!


Look here. Here’s that horrible cat coming in!


Small told me of her. She went leaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a dragon, and got out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight, and then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. Did you ever see such a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it, don’t she? Almost looks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out, you goblin!


Mr. Guppy, could I have a word with you?


Sir. I wish to act with courtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, I am sure, towards a member of it so well known as yourself—I will truly add, sir, so distinguished as yourself. Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir, I must stipulate that if you have any word with me, that word is spoken in the presence of my friend.


Oh, indeed?


Yes, sir. My reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but they are amply sufficient for myself.


No doubt, no doubt. The matter is not of that consequence that I need put you to the trouble of making any conditions, Mr. Guppy. You are to be congratulated, Mr. Guppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir.


Pretty well so, Mr. Tulkinghorn; I don’t complain.


Complain? High friends, free admission to great houses, and access to elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in London who would give their ears to be you.


Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is right by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no consequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not excepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any obligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you, sir, and without offence—I repeat, without offence—


Oh, certainly!


—I don’t intend to do it.


Quite so. Very good; I see by these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable great, sir? A virtue in which few Englishmen are deficient. Who is this? ‘Lady Dedlock.’ Ha! A very good likeness in its way, but it wants force of character. Good day to you, gentlemen; good day!


Tony, let us be quick in putting the things together and in getting out of this place. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that between myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now hold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and association. The time might have been when I might have revealed it to you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the oath I have taken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to circumstances over which I have no control, that the whole should be buried in oblivion. I charge you as a friend, by the interest you have ever testified in the fashionable intelligence, and by any little advances with which I may have been able to accommodate you, so to bury it without a word of inquiry!


She is not well, ma’am,


My Lady not well! What’s the matter?


Why, my Lady has been but poorly, ma’am, since she was last here—I don’t mean with the family, ma’am, but when she was here as a bird of passage like. My Lady has not been out much, for her, and has kept her room a good deal.


Chesney Wold, Thomas, will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no healthier soil in the world!


How are we getting on? ARE we safe?


Volumnia, we are doing tolerably.


Only tolerably!


At least there is no opposition to YOU,


No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many respects, I grieve to say, but—


It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!


A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally precipitate. You will have the goodness to make these materials into two members of Parliament and to send them home when done. I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of a most determined and most implacable description.


W-r-retches!


Even, even in many—in fact, in most—of those places in which the government has carried it against a faction— —Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without being put to an enormous expense. Hundreds, hundreds of thousands of pounds!


What for?


Volumnia. Volumnia!


No, no, I don’t mean what for. How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!


I am glad, that you do mean what a pity. I am glad, Volumnia, that you do mean what a pity. It is disgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and without intending so unreasonable a question, asked me ‘what for?’ let me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your good sense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere.


I suppose. I suppose Mr. Tulkinghorn has been worked to death.


I don’t know, why Mr. Tulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don’t know what Mr. Tulkinghorn’s engagements may be. He is not a candidate.


man told him ya’as’dy that Tulkinghorn had gone down t’ that iron place t’ give legal ’pinion ’bout something, and that contest being over t’ day, ’twould be highly jawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should ’pear with news that Coodle man was floored.


He has not been here once, since I came. I really had some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I had almost made up my mind that he was dead.


Mr. Tulkinghorn is always welcome here and always discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and deservedly respected.


’normously rich fler.


He has a stake in the country. I have no doubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on a footing of equality with the highest society.


Good gracious, what’s that?


A rat. And they have shot him.


No, no, I think not. My Lady, do you object to the twilight? Tulkinghorn, I beg your pardon. How do you do?


Now. How has that contest gone?


Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought in both their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to one. you are beaten It’s the place, you know, where they wanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell’s son.


A proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had the becoming taste and perception to decline. I cannot say that I by any means approve of the sentiments expressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here for some half-hour in this room, but there was a sense of propriety in his decision which I am glad to acknowledge.


Ha! It did not prevent him from being very active in this election, though.


Did I understand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very active in this election?


Uncommonly active.


Against—


Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and emphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence. In the business part of the proceedings he carried all before him. by his son.


By his son, sir?


By his son.


Then upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters have—a—obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion by which things are held together!


it is really high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in and do something strong.


I beg that we may not comment further on this circumstance. Comment is superfluous. My Lady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman—


I have no intention of parting with her.


That was not my meaning. I am glad to hear you say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of your patronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these dangerous hands. You might show her what violence would be done in such association to her duties and principles, and you might preserve her for a better fate. You might point out to her that she probably would, in good time, find a husband at Chesney Wold by whom she would not be—


however, that these people are, in their way, very proud.


Proud?


I should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the girl—yes, lover and all—instead of her abandoning them, supposing she remained at Chesney Wold under such circumstances.


Well! Well! You should know, Mr. Tulkinghorn. You have been among them.


Really, Sir Leicester. I state the fact. Why, I could tell you a story—with Lady Dedlock’s permission.


A story! Oh, he is going to tell something at last! A ghost in it, Volumnia hopes?


No. Real flesh and blood. Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock. Sir Leicester, these particulars have only lately become known to me. They are very brief. They exemplify what I have said. I suppress names for the present. Lady Dedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope? A townsman of this Mr. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel circumstances as I am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter who attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a great lady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of your condition, Sir Leicester.


Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn,


The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl, and treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her. Now this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she had preserved for many years. In fact, she had in early life been engaged to marry a young rake—he was a captain in the army—nothing connected with whom came to any good. She never did marry him, but she gave birth to a child of which he was the father. The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a train of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to discovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on her own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows how difficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be always guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you may suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband’s grief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. Rouncewell’s townsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be patronized and honoured than he would have suffered her to be trodden underfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, that he indignantly took her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. He had no sense of the honour done him and his daughter by the lady’s condescension; not the least. He resented the girl’s position, as if the lady had been the commonest of commoners. That is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock will excuse its painful nature.


no business—Rouncewell’s fernal townsman.


Lady Dedlock?


Why have you told my story to so many persons?


Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it.


How long have you known it?


I have suspected it a long while—fully known it a little while.


Months?


Days.


Is this true concerning the poor girl? You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story also? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried in the streets?


No, Lady Dedlock. No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir Leicester’s unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand. But it would be a real case if they knew—what we know.


Then they do not know it yet?


No.


Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?


Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot give a satisfactory opinion on that point.


Sir, I will make it plainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it, and felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr. Rouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power of seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by having for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my great and distinguished patronage. But I have an interest in her, or I should rather say—no longer belonging to this place—I had, and if you can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as to remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy. You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too. Is there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim that I can release or any charge or trouble that I can spare my husband in obtaining HIS release by certifying to the exactness of your discovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will dictate. I am ready to do it.


I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself.


I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare myself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have done. Do what remains now.


Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say a few words when you have finished.


Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine, I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you would be deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears. Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels are all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there. So, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some ready money I had with me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own dress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went to be henceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other charge with you.


Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, I am not sure that I understand you. You want—


To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this hour. Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you forgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and who it is?


No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means. Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and hear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the alarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it. Have the goodness to hear me, Lady Dedlock. The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady Dedlock; but as they are not of my making, I will not apologize for them. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well known to you that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery.


Sir, I had better have gone. It would have been far better not to have detained me. I have no more to say.


Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add a little more to hear.


I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can’t breathe where I am.


Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision satisfactory to myself on the course before me. I am not clear what to do or how to act next. I must request you, in the meantime, to keep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that I keep it too. Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are honouring me with your attention?


I am.


Thank you. I might have known it from what I have seen of your strength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but I have the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go on. The sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester.


Then why do you detain me in his house?


Because he IS the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion to tell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance upon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would not amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his wife. I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this case that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up by means of my own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as to shake your hold upon Sir Leicester and Sir Leicester’s trust and confidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not that he could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing can prepare him for the blow.


Not my flight? Think of it again.


Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a hundred times the whole truth, far and wide. It would be impossible to save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of. When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and the family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir Leicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his patrimony are, I need not say to you, Lady Dedlock, inseparable.


Go on!


Therefore, I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if it can be. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his wits or laid upon a death-bed? If I inflicted this shock upon him to-morrow morning, how could the immediate change in him be accounted for? What could have caused it? What could have divided you? Lady Dedlock, the wall-chalking and the street-crying would come on directly, and you are to remember that it would not affect you merely (whom I cannot at all consider in this business) but your husband, Lady Dedlock, your husband. There is another point of view, in which the case presents itself. Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to infatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even knowing what we know. I am putting an extreme case, but it might be so. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better for common sense, better for him, better for me. I must take all this into account, and it combines to render a decision very difficult. My experience teaches me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I always have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg you to keep your own counsel, and I will keep mine.


I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure, day by day?


Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock.


It is necessary, you think, that I should be so tied to the stake?


I am sure that what I recommend is necessary.


I am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable deception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when you give the signal?


Not without notice, Lady Dedlock. I shall take no step without forewarning you.


We are to meet as usual?


Precisely as usual, if you please.


And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?


As you have done so many years. I should not have made that reference myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your secret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no better than it was. I know it certainly, but I believe we have never wholly trusted each other.


Is there anything more to be said to-night?


Why. I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my arrangements, Lady Dedlock.


You may be assured of it.


Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business precaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any communication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview I have expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester’s feelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been happy to have made Lady Dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not.


I can attest your fidelity, sir.


Is that Snagsby?


Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, sir, and going home. Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?


Well, sir, I was wishful to say a word to you, sir.


Can you say it here?


Perfectly, sir.


Say it then.


It is relating—not to put too fine a point upon it—to the foreigner, sir!


What foreigner?


The foreign female, sir. French, if I don’t mistake? I am not acquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her manners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly foreign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night.


Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense.


Indeed, sir? I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in general, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that.


And what can you have to say, Snagsby, about her?


Well, sir, it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is very great—at least, it’s as great as can be expected, I’m sure—but my little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too fine a point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you see, a foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and hovering—I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if I could avoid it, but hovering, sir—in the court—you know it is—now ain’t it? I only put it to yourself, sir.


And that’s all, is it, Snagsby?


Why yes, sir, that’s all. and it’s enough too—for me.


I don’t know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she is mad.


Even if she was, you know, sir, it wouldn’t be a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign dagger planted in the family.


No. Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am sorry you have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her here. These women were created to give trouble the whole earth over. The mistress not being enough to deal with, here’s the maid now! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!


Who’s this? Aye, aye, mistress, it’s you, is it? You appear at a good time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you want?


I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir.


HAVE you!


I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me, he is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for you.


Quite right, and quite true.


Not true. Lies!


Now, mistress, If you have anything to say, say it, say it.


Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby.


Mean and shabby, eh?


Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have attrapped me—catched me—to give you information; you have asked me to show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, you have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it not?


You are a vixen, a vixen! Well, wench, well. I paid you.


You paid me! Two sovereign! I have not change them, I re-fuse them, I des-pise them, I throw them from me! Now! You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!


You must be rich, my fair friend, to throw money about in that way!


I AM rich. I am very rich in hate. I hate my Lady, of all my heart. You know that.


Know it? How should I know it?


Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you that information. Because you have known perfectly that I was en-r-r-r-raged!


Oh! I knew that, did I?


Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me because you knew that. You had reason! I det-est her.


Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?


I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition! If you cannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue her, to chase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help you well, and with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know that?


You appear to know a good deal.


Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child, that I come here in that dress to rec-eive that boy only to decide a little bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!


Now, let us see, how this matter stands.


Ah! Let us see,


You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have just stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again.


And again. And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for ever!


And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby’s too, perhaps? That visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps? Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to take the candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will find it behind the clerk’s partition in the corner yonder. You will not, eh?


No, I will not!


So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress, this is the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys of prisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction (where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very strong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of your spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one of those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you think?


I think that you are a miserable wretch.


Probably. But I don’t ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of the prison.


Nothing. What does it matter to me?


Why, it matters this much, mistress, the law is so despotic here that it interferes to prevent any of our good English citizens from being troubled, even by a lady’s visits against his desire. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison under hard discipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress.


Truly? That is droll! But—my faith!—still what does it matter to me?


My fair friend, make another visit here, or at Mr. Snagsby’s, and you shall learn.


In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?


Perhaps. In a word, mistress, I am sorry to be unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here—or there—again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry is great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an ignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench.


I will prove you. I will try if you dare to do it!


And if. I place you in that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time before you find yourself at liberty again.


I will prove you,


And now, you had better go. Think twice before you come here again.


Think you, twice two hundred times!


You were dismissed by your lady, you know, as the most implacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and take warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and what I threaten, I will do, mistress.


Rick is mistaken, my dear. Well, well! We have all been mistaken over and over again. We must trust to you and time to set him right.


Adviser! My dear, who would advise with Skimpole?


Encourager would perhaps have been a better word,


Encourager! Who could be encouraged by Skimpole?


Not Richard?


No. Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer creature is a relief to him and an amusement. But as to advising or encouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or anything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as Skimpole.


Pray, cousin John, what made him such a child?


What made him such a child? Why, he is all sentiment, and—and susceptibility, and—and sensibility, and—and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth attached too much importance to them and too little to any training that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he is. Hey? What do you think, you two?


it was a pity he should be an expense to Richard.


So it is, so it is. That must not be. We must arrange that. I must prevent it. That will never do.


Did he? Oh, yes!


Exactly! There you have the man! If he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any harm in it, he wouldn’t tell it. He tells it as he does it in mere simplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you’ll understand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and caution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an infant!


Here I am, you see! Here I am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and mutton for breakfast; I don’t. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, and my claret; I am content. I don’t want them for themselves, but they remind me of the sun. There’s nothing solar about legs of beef and mutton. Mere animal satisfaction! Yes, this is the bird’s cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings! He sings! Not an ambitious note, but still he sings. No. No! Some amiable gardener sells them. His man wanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should wait for the money. ‘Really, my friend,’ I said, ‘I think not—if your time is of any value to you.’ I suppose it was, for he went away. This is a day, that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it Saint Clare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I have a blue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment daughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all. They’ll be enchanted.


My dear Jarndyce,


as many moments as you please. Time is no object here. We never know what o’clock it is, and we never care. Not the way to get on in life, you’ll tell me? Certainly. But we DON’T get on in life. We don’t pretend to do it.


Now, Harold, the word I have to say relates to Rick.


The dearest friend I have! I suppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms with you. But he is, I can’t help it; he is full of youthful poetry, and I love him. If you don’t like it, I can’t help it. I love him.


You are welcome to love him as much as you like, but we must save his pocket, Harold.


Oh! His pocket? Now you are coming to what I don’t understand.


If you go with him here or there, you must not let him pay for both.


My dear Jarndyce, what am I to do? If he takes me anywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any money. If I had any money, I don’t know anything about it. Suppose I say to a man, how much? Suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? I know nothing about seven and sixpence. It is impossible for me to pursue the subject with any consideration for the man. I don’t go about asking busy people what seven and sixpence is in Moorish—which I don’t understand. Why should I go about asking them what seven and sixpence is in Money—which I don’t understand?


Well, if you come to any kind of journeying with Rick, you must borrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that circumstance), and leave the calculation to him.


My dear Jarndyce. I will do anything to give you pleasure, but it seems an idle form—a superstition. Besides, I give you my word, Miss Clare and my dear Miss Summerson, I thought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only to make over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or a bill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a shower of money.


Indeed it is not so, sir. He is poor.


No, really? You surprise me.


And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed, be you very careful not to encourage him in that reliance, Harold.


My dear good friend, and my dear Miss Simmerson, and my dear Miss Clare, how can I do that? It’s business, and I don’t know business. It is he who encourages me. He emerges from great feats of business, presents the brightest prospects before me as their result, and calls upon me to admire them. I do admire them—as bright prospects. But I know no more about them, and I tell him so.


This, is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa—plays and sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment daughter, Laura—plays a little but don’t sing. This is my Comedy daughter, Kitty—sings a little but don’t play. We all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money. It is pleasant, and it is whimsically interesting to trace peculiarities in families. In this family we are all children, and I am the youngest. My dears, it is true, is it not? So it is, and so it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, ‘it is our nature to.’ Now, here is Miss Summerson with a fine administrative capacity and a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will sound very strange in Miss Summerson’s ears, I dare say, that we know nothing about chops in this house. But we don’t, not the least. We can’t cook anything whatever. A needle and thread we don’t know how to use. We admire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we don’t quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live and let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and let us live upon you! We have sympathy, my roses, sympathy for everything. Have we not?


Oh, yes, papa!


In fact, that is our family department, in this hurly-burly of life. We are capable of looking on and of being interested, and we DO look on, and we ARE interested. What more can we do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three years. Now I dare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all wrong in point of political economy, but it was very agreeable. We had our little festivities on those occasions and exchanged social ideas. She brought her young husband home one day, and they and their young fledglings have their nest upstairs. I dare say at some time or other Sentiment and Comedy will bring THEIR husbands home and have THEIR nests upstairs too. So we get on, we don’t know how, but somehow.


My roses, take care of mama. She is poorly to-day. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I shall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been tried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home.


That bad man!


At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers, looking at the blue sky,


And when the smell of hay was in the air!


It showed a want of poetry in the man. It was coarse. There was an absence of the finer touches of humanity in it! My daughters have taken great offence, at an honest man—


Not honest, papa. Impossible!


At a rough kind of fellow—a sort of human hedgehog rolled up, who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we borrowed a couple of arm-chairs. We wanted a couple of arm-chairs, and we hadn’t got them, and therefore of course we looked to a man who HAD got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person lent them, and we wore them out. When they were worn out, he wanted them back. He had them back. He was contented, you will say. Not at all. He objected to their being worn. I reasoned with him, and pointed out his mistake. I said, ‘Can you, at your time of life, be so headstrong, my friend, as to persist that an arm-chair is a thing to put upon a shelf and look at? That it is an object to contemplate, to survey from a distance, to consider from a point of sight? Don’t you KNOW that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?’ He was unreasonable and unpersuadable and used intemperate language. Being as patient as I am at this minute, I addressed another appeal to him. I said, ‘Now, my good man, however our business capacities may vary, we are all children of one great mother, Nature. On this blooming summer morning here you see me’ (I was on the sofa) ‘with flowers before me, fruit upon the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air full of fragrance, contemplating Nature. I entreat you, by our common brotherhood, not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime, the absurd figure of an angry baker!’ But he did, he did interpose that ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. And therefore I am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend Jarndyce.


Sir Leicester Dedlock! I do myself the honour of calling here—


You do ME the honour, Sir Leicester.


Thank you—of calling here on my road from Lincolnshire to express my regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that I may have against a gentleman who—who is known to you and has been your host, and to whom therefore I will make no farther reference, should have prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and charge, from seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a polite and refined taste at my house, Chesney Wold.


You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those ladies (who are present) and for myself, I thank you very much.


It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the reasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion—it is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to believe that you would not have been received by my local establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir, that the fact is the reverse. It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce. I assure you, sir, it has given—me—pain—to learn from the housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was in your company in that part of the county, and who would appear to possess a cultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred by some such cause from examining the family pictures with that leisure, that attention, that care, which he might have desired to bestow upon them and which some of them might possibly have repaid. Mr. Hirrold—Herald—Harold—Skampling—Skumpling—I beg your pardon—Skimpole.


This is Mr. Harold Skimpole,


Oh! I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole and to have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope, sir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you will be under no similar sense of restraint.


You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I shall certainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to your beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold, are public benefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number of delightful objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to reap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield is to be ungrateful to our benefactors.


An artist, sir?


No. A perfectly idle man. A mere amateur.


Mr. Skimpole mentioned, mentioned to the housekeeper, who, as he may have observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family—


That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the occasion of my going down to visit Miss Summerson and Miss Clare,


—That the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was Mr. Jarndyce. And hence I became aware of the circumstance for which I have professed my regret. That this should have occurred to any gentleman, Mr. Jarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known to Lady Dedlock, and indeed claiming some distant connexion with her, and for whom (as I learn from my Lady herself) she entertains a high respect, does, I assure you, give—me—pain.


Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester. I am very sensible, as I am sure we all are, of your consideration. Indeed the mistake was mine, and I ought to apologize for it.


I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock, and my Lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on the occasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the vicinity. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to these ladies, the assurance I have already tendered to Mr. Skimpole. Circumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it would afford me any gratification to hear that Mr. Boythorn had favoured my house with his presence, but those circumstances are confined to that gentleman himself and do not extend beyond him.


You know my old opinion of him. An amiable bull who is determined to make every colour scarlet!


May I come in, guardian?


Surely, little woman. What’s the matter?


Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet time of saying a word to you about myself.


What concerns you, my dear Esther, concerns us all. You cannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear.


I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and support. Oh! You don’t know how much need I have to-night.


Or how anxious I have been to speak to you,


ever since the visitor was here to-day.


The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?


Yes.


Why, Esther, our visitor and you are the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting together!


Oh, yes, guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago. Do you remember, when we were overtaken by the thunder-storm, Lady Dedlock’s speaking to you of her sister?


Of course. Of course. Of course I do.


And reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone their several ways? Why did they separate, guardian?


My child, what questions are these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty as she. I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty as she.


Oh, guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!


Seen her? Then, Esther, when you spoke to me long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but married once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and that that time had had its influence on his later life—did you know it all, and know who the lady was?


No, guardian. Nor do I know yet.


Lady Dedlock’s sister.


And why, why, guardian, pray tell me why were THEY parted?


It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. He afterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some injury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel with her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she wrote him that from the date of that letter she died to him—as in literal truth she did—and that the resolution was exacted from her by her knowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which were both her nature too. In consideration for those master points in him, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the sacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. She did both, I fear; certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from that hour. Nor did any one.


Oh, guardian, what have I done! what sorrow have I innocently caused!


You caused, Esther?


Yes, guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is my first remembrance.


No, no!


Yes, guardian, yes! And HER sister is my mother!


Nor do I understand, that any doubts tend towards you, my dear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion.


With the lawyer. But two other persons have come into my mind since I have been anxious. Then I told him all about Mr. Guppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I little understood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview I expressed perfect confidence.


Well. Then we may dismiss him for the present. Who is the other? Ha! That is a more alarming person than the clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new service. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and it was natural that you should come into her head. She merely proposed herself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more.


Her manner was strange,


Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and showed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her death-bed. It would be useless self-distress and torment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are very few harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous meaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing better than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were before you had it. It is the best you can do for everybody’s sake. I, sharing the secret with you—


And lightening it, guardian, so much,


—will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can observe it from my distance. And if the time should come when I can stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is better not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear daughter’s sake. My dear Esther. I have long had something in my thoughts that I have wished to say to you.


Indeed?


I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I should wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately considered. Would you object to my writing it?


Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for ME to read?


Then see, my love, am I at this moment quite as plain and easy—do I seem as open, as honest and old-fashioned—as I am at any time?


Quite.


Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I said, had any reservation at all, no matter what? Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess, Esther?


Most thoroughly,


My dear girl, give me your hand. You have wrought changes in me, little woman, since the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you have done me a world of good since that time.


Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!


But, that is not to be remembered now.


It never can be forgotten.


Yes, Esther, it is to be forgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. You are only to remember now that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite assured of that, my dear?


I can, and I do,


That’s much. That’s everything. But I must not take that at a word. I will not write this something in my thoughts until you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as you know me. If you doubt that in the least degree, I will never write it. If you are sure of that, on good consideration, send Charley to me this night week—‘for the letter.’ But if you are not quite certain, never send. Mind, I trust to your truth, in this thing as in everything. If you are not quite certain on that one point, never send!


Guardian. I am already certain, I can no more be changed in that conviction than you can be changed towards me. I shall send Charley for the letter. Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce’s door, Charley, and say you have come from me—‘for the letter.’ Lay it on the table, Charley,


Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you! That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my dear, when you showed me such a change! When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be as cheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us begin for once and for all. And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your best friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men.


Don’t you remember, my plain dear, what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were there about your marrying—


Aye, it’s you, little woman, is it?


Guardian, when would you like to have the answer to the letter Charley came for?


When it’s ready, my dear,


I think it is ready,


Is Charley to bring it?


No. I have brought it myself, guardian,


was this the mistress of Bleak House,


yes;


Oh, if you please, miss, would you step and speak to Mr. Jarndyce! step and speak Yes, miss. Him as come down in the country with Mr. Richard.


You know Mr. Vholes, my dear, has brought an ugly report of our most unfortunate Rick. most unfortunate And as Rick and you are happily good friends, I should like to know, what you think, my dear. Would you be so good as to—as to speak up, Mr. Vholes?


I have been saying that I have reason to know, Miss Summerson, as Mr. C.’s professional adviser, that Mr. C.’s circumstances are at the present moment in an embarrassed state. Not so much in point of amount as owing to the peculiar and pressing nature of liabilities Mr. C. has incurred and the means he has of liquidating or meeting the same. I have staved off many little matters for Mr. C., but there is a limit to staving off, and we have reached it. I have made some advances out of pocket to accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to being repaid, for I do not pretend to be a man of capital, and I have a father to support in the Vale of Taunton, besides striving to realize some little independence for three dear girls at home. My apprehension is, Mr. C.’s circumstances being such, lest it should end in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all events is desirable to be made known to his connexions.


Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource. Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would never accept of help from me now. To offer it or hint at it would be to drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did.


What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the difficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I do not say that anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here under the seal of confidence and mention it in order that everything may be openly carried on and that it may not be said afterwards that everything was not openly carried on. My wish is that everything should be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me. If I consulted merely my own interests with Mr. C., I should not be here. So insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his objections. This is not a professional attendance. This can he charged to nobody. I have no interest in it except as a member of society and a father— AND a son,


Well, sir. Miss Summerson will communicate with Mr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet retrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, sir.


I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce, not any. I thank you, no, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor knife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid food at this period of the day, I don’t know what the consequences might be. Everything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your permission take my leave.


And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take our leave, Mr. Vholes, of a cause you know of.


We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the wheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think well of my professional brethren, one and all. You are sensible of an obligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.? Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir.


Now then!


Can I come in, Richard? It’s only Dame Durden.


Good heaven, my dear little woman, how do you come here? Who could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? Ada is well?


Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!


Ah! My poor cousin! I was writing to you, Esther.


Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to read it after all?


Oh, my dear. You may read it in the whole room. It is all over here. Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you! I am away on leave this day—should have been gone in another hour—and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out. Well! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the rest. I only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all the professions.


Richard, it is not so hopeless as that?


Esther, it is indeed. I am just so near disgrace as that those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism goes) would far rather be without me than with me. And they are right. Apart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, I am not fit even for this employment. I have no care, no mind, no heart, no soul, but for one thing. Why, if this bubble hadn’t broken now, how could I have gone abroad? I must have been ordered abroad, but how could I have gone? How could I, with my experience of that thing, trust even Vholes unless I was at his back! No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid—must forbid. The first is John Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, and I tell you I can’t help it now, and can’t be sane. But it is no such thing; it is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I ever was prevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. It would be wisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and pains I have bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be very agreeable, too, to some people; but I never will. Am I to read it now? Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?


Yes, Richard.


Offers me, the little inheritance she is certain of so soon—just as little and as much as I have wasted—and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right with it, and remain in the service.


I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart. And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada’s is a noble heart.


I am sure it is. I—I wish I was dead! And this is the heart that the same John Jarndyce, who is not otherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from me. And the dear girl makes me this generous offer from under the same John Jarndyce’s roof, and with the same John Jarndyce’s gracious consent and connivance, I dare say, as a new means of buying me off. I will not hear you say such shameful words! If you please, my dear Richard, do not speak in such a tone to me. Consider! To accept this offer, my dear Esther, —once more, pray, pray forgive me; I am deeply grieved—to accept my dearest cousin’s offer is, I need not say, impossible. Besides, I have letters and papers that I could show you which would convince you it is all over here. I have done with the red coat, believe me. But it is some satisfaction, in the midst of my troubles and perplexities, to know that I am pressing Ada’s interests in pressing my own. Vholes has his shoulder to the wheel, and he cannot help urging it on as much for her as for me, thank God! No, no! If every farthing of Ada’s little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining me in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary of. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should be used where she has a larger stake. Don’t be uneasy for me! I shall now have only one thing on my mind, and Vholes and I will work it. I shall not be without means. Free of my commission, I shall be able to compound with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their bond now—Vholes says so. I should have a balance in my favour anyway, but that would swell it. Come, come! You shall carry a letter to Ada from me, Esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of me and not believe that I am quite cast away just yet, my dear.


Charley, Charley, come away! My dear, there is no reason—there is and there can be no reason at all—why it should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you were last month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no better. This is not your resolution; call it up, Esther, call it up! No, my dear, no. No, no, no! You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. Woodcourt, but we can hardly call that a misfortune which enabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the truest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old patient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe illness.


Ah! Little Miss Flite! She lives the same life yet?


Just the same. Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most affectionate creature, as I have reason to say.


You—you have found her so? I—I am glad of that.


I assure you, that I was deeply touched by her sympathy and pleasure at the time I have referred to.


I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill.


I was very ill.


But you have quite recovered?


I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness. You know how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and I have everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to desire.


I saw you observe him rather closely. Do you think him so changed?


He is changed. It is not, his being so much younger or older, or thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being upon his face such a singular expression. I never saw so remarkable a look in a young person. One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair.


You do not think he is ill? That he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to know. Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?


To-morrow or the next day.


There is nothing Richard wants so much as a friend. He always liked you. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him sometimes with your companionship if you can. You do not know of what service it might be. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce, and even I—how we should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!


Miss Summerson, before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!


God bless you! Ada loves him—we all love him, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you say. Thank you, and God bless you, in her name!


Woodcourt, pray let us meet in London!


Meet? I have scarcely a friend there now but you. Where shall I find you?


Why, I must get a lodging of some sort. Say at Vholes’s, Symond’s Inn.


Good! Without loss of time.


What is the matter?


Nothing, sir.


Can’t you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?


I’m waiting till they get up at another house—a lodging-house—not here. I’m waiting here because there will be sun here presently to warm me.


I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the street.


Thank you, sir. It don’t matter.


Let me look at your forehead. I am a doctor. Don’t be afraid. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.


It’s nothing


Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very sore.


It do ache a little, sir,


Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won’t hurt you.


Oh, dear no, sir, I’m sure of that!


And so your husband is a brickmaker?


How do you know that, sir?


Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on your dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework in different places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel to their wives too.


Where is he now?


He got into trouble last night, sir; but he’ll look for me at the lodging-house.


He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and heavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal as he is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved it. You have no young child?


One as I calls mine, sir, but it’s Liz’s.


Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing! I suppose you have some settled home. Is it far from here?


It’s a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint Albans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start like, as if you did.


Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in return. Have you money for your lodging?


Yes, sir, really and truly.


Stop him, stop him! Stop him, sir! Stop him, sir, pray stop him!


Oh, you, Jo! What? I have found you at last!


Jo. Jo! Stay. To be sure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the coroner.


Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich. What of that? Can’t you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An’t I unfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to be? I’ve been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by another on you, till I’m worritted to skins and bones. The inkwhich warn’t MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, he wos; he wos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come across my crossing. It ain’t wery likely I should want him to be inkwhiched. I only wish I wos, myself. I don’t know why I don’t go and make a hole in the water, I’m sure I don’t.


Miserable creature, what has he done?


Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at last!


What has he done? Has he robbed you?


No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by me, and that’s the wonder of it. But he was along with me, sir. Oh, you Jo! He was along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when I durstn’t, and took him home— Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or heard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful looks, and wouldn’t hardly be known for the same young lady now if it wasn’t for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all along of you and of her goodness to you?


Richard told me— I mean, I have heard of this—don’t mind me for a moment, I will speak presently. You hear what she says. But get up, get up! You hear what she says, and I know it’s true. Have you been here ever since?


Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone’s till this blessed morning,


Why have you come here now?


I don’t know how to do nothink, and I can’t get nothink to do. I’m wery poor and ill, and I thought I’d come back here when there warn’t nobody about, and lay down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me somethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-chivying on me—like everybody everywheres.


Where have you come from? Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?


Tramp then,


Now tell me, tell me how it came about that you left that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to pity you and take you home.


Come, Jo. Tell me. No. I dustn’t. I dustn’t, or I would.


But I must know, all the same. Come, Jo.


Well, I’ll tell you something. I was took away. There!


Took away? In the night?


Ah!


Who took you away?


I dustn’t name him. I dustn’t do it, sir.


But I want, in the young lady’s name, to know. You may trust me. No one else shall hear.


Ah, but I don’t know, as he DON’T hear.


Why, he is not in this place.


Oh, ain’t he though? He’s in all manner of places, all at wanst.


Aye! Why, what had you been doing?


Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, ’sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I’m a-moving on now. I’m a-moving on to the berryin ground—that’s the move as I’m up to.


No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?


Put me in a horsepittle, till I was discharged, then giv me a little money—four half-bulls, wot you may call half-crowns—and ses ‘Hook it! Nobody wants you here,’ he ses. ‘You hook it. You go and tramp,’ he ses. ‘You move on,’ he ses. ‘Don’t let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or you’ll repent it.’ So I shall, if ever he doos see me, and he’ll see me if I’m above ground,


He is not so ungrateful as you supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an insufficient one.


Thankee, sir, thankee! There now! See how hard you wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it’s all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I knows it.


Now, Jo, come with me and I will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I take one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise.


I won’t, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir.


Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come along. Good day again, my good woman.


Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again.


Ony you tell the young lady as I never went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!


I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir, but I don’t know nothink—not even that. I don’t care for eating wittles nor yet for drinking on ’em.


Draw breath, Jo!


It draws, as heavy as a cart. I’m a-moving on, sir.


We may repeat that dose, Jo. So! Now we will take five minutes’ rest, and then go on again.


My dear physician! My meritorious, distinguished, honourable officer!


Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me.


Gridley! Gridley! To be sure! Of course! My dear physician! General George will help us out.


Your servant, sir. Your servant, sir! Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?


I am proud to find I have the air of one, but I am only a sea-going doctor.


Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket myself. You are very good, sir. As I know by experience that it’s not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it’s equally agreeable to yourself— And that’s the lad, sir, is it?


That’s he. And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty about him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could procure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not stay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. The same objection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had the patience to be evaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to get him into one, which is a system that I don’t take kindly to.


No man does, sir,


I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything.


I ask your pardon, sir. But you have not mentioned that party’s name. Is it a secret, sir?


The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket.


Bucket the detective, sir?


The same man.


The man is known to me, sir, and the boy is so far correct that he undoubtedly is a—rum customer.


Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it in their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so. Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor lodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent people and Jo, Mr. George, have not been much acquainted, as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for him beforehand?


Well, sir. I can assure you that I would willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment’s notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at your service. I take it for granted, sir, you being one of the medical staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject? Because, sir, we have had enough of that. Do you consider him in present danger, sir? Then, sir, it appears to me—being naturally in the vagabond way myself—that the sooner he comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!


Look here, Jo! This is Mr. George. He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room here.


wery thankful.


You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be obedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, whatever you do, Jo.


Wishermaydie if I don’t, sir. I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir, ’sept not knowin’ nothink and starwation.


My intention merely was, sir, to point out to him where he can lie down and get a thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here. There you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon, sir Mr. Woodcourt pleases. Don’t you be alarmed if you hear shots; they’ll be aimed at the target, and not you. Now, there’s another thing I would recommend, sir. Phil, come here! Here is a man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor creature. You do, don’t you, Phil?


Certainly and surely I do, guv’ner,


that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles—


Mr. George, my considerate friend, it is the very favour I would have asked.


I take it, sir, that you know Miss Summerson pretty well? Not related to her, sir? Excuse the apparent curiosity. It seemed to me probable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor creature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest in him. ’Tis MY case, sir, I assure you.


And mine, Mr. George.


Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Bucket took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted with the name, I can help you to it. It’s Tulkinghorn. That’s what it is. Tulkinghorn. That’s the name, sir. I know the man, and know him to have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow.


What kind of man! Do you mean to look at? I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally, what kind of man?


Why, then I’ll tell you, sir, he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man—by George!—that has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. That’s the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!


I am sorry, to have touched so sore a place.


Sore? It’s no fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me. He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won’t hold off, and he won’t come on. If I have a payment to make him, or time to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don’t see me, don’t hear me—passes me on to Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn, Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn passes me back again to him—he keeps me prowling and dangling about him as if I was made of the same stone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well, loitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing. Just as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He chafes and goads me till—Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr. Woodcourt, all I say is, he is an old man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs to my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that chance, in one of the humours he drives me into—he’d go down, sir!


Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more, and be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sleep, as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving on right forards with his duty, and I’ll be wery thankful. I’d be more thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible for an unfortnet to be it.


You don’t remember me, Mr. Snagsby? No, sir, I am not. Are you a married man, sir? Would you make the attempt, though single, to speak as low as you can? For my little woman is a-listening somewheres, or I’ll forfeit the business and five hundred pound! I never had a secret of my own, sir. I can’t charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my little woman on my own account since she named the day. I wouldn’t have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn’t have done it, I dursn’t have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a burden to me. You couldn’t name an individual human being—except myself—that my little woman is more set and determined against than Jo,


why?


Why? How should I know why? But you are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married person such a question! There again! At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little woman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that other certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam, sir!


And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?


I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am. Mr. Sangsby, I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yit as warn’t the t’other lady, and none of ’em never says nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good and my having been s’unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me yesday, and she ses, ‘Ah, Jo!’ she ses. ‘We thought we’d lost you, Jo!’ she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don’t pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don’t, and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he’s allus a-doin’ on day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby. Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby, wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p’raps?


Yes, Jo, please God,


Uncommon precious large, p’raps?


Yes, my poor boy.


Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn’t be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p’raps as to write out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to do it, and that though I didn’t know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he’d be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it wery large, he might.


It shall say it, Jo. Very large.


Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It’s wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore.


Hold up, my boy! Hold up!


I thought. I thought I was in Tom-all-Alone’s agin. Ain’t there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot?


Nobody.


And I ain’t took back to Tom-all-Alone’s. Am I, sir?


No.


I’m wery thankful.


Jo! Did you ever know a prayer?


Never knowd nothink, sir.


Not so much as one short prayer?


No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. Sangsby’s and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin’ to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn’t make out nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down Tom-all-Alone’s a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t’other ’wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t’others, and not a-talkin to us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about.


Stay, Jo! What now?


It’s time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir. Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he wos. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be berried. He used fur to say to me, ‘I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,’ he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have come there to be laid along with him.


By and by, Jo. By and by.


Ah! P’raps they wouldn’t do it if I wos to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?


I will, indeed.


Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They’ll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it’s allus locked. And there’s a step there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It’s turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin?


It is coming fast, Jo.


I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I’m a-gropin—a-gropin—let me catch hold of your hand.


Jo, can you say what I say?


I’ll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it’s good.


Our Father.


Our Father! Yes, that’s wery good, sir.


Which art in heaven.


Art in heaven—is the light a-comin, sir?


It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!


Hallowed be—thy—


Rosa. See to the door. Is it shut? I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust your attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to do, I will not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in you. Say nothing to any one of what passes between us. Do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from what I am to any one?


Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as you really are.


You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor child! Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?


I don’t know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my heart, I wish it was so.


It is so, little one.


My Lady! Have I offended you?


In nothing. Come here. I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would make you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot. There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part, rendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. You must not remain here. I have determined that you shall not. I have written to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. All this I have done for your sake.


Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought—forgive my being so free—that YOU are not happy.


I!


Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think again. Let me stay a little while!