Bleak House, Charles Dickens [the beginning after the end novel read .txt] 📗

is no way out of that yard.

 

“Ain’t there really?” says Mr. Bucket. “I should have thought

there might have been. Well, I don’t know as I ever saw a backyard

that took my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank

you. No, I see there’s no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it is!”

 

Having cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his

chair next his friend Mr. George and pats Mr. George affectionately

on the shoulder.

 

“How are your spirits now, George?”

 

“All right now,” returns the trooper.

 

“That’s your sort!” says Mr. Bucket. “Why should you ever have

been otherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no

right to be out of spirits. That ain’t a chest to be out of

spirits, is it, ma’am? And you haven’t got anything on your mind,

you know, George; what could you have on your mind!”

 

Somewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety

of his conversational powers, Mr. Bucket twice or thrice repeats it

to the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is

particularly his own. But the sun of his sociality soon recovers

from this brief eclipse and shines again.

 

“And this is brother, is it, my dears?” says Mr. Bucket, referring

to Quebec and Malta for information on the subject of young

Woolwich. “And a nice brother he is—half-brother I mean to say.

For he’s too old to be your boy, ma’am.”

 

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

returns Mrs. Bagnet, laughing.

 

“Well, you do surprise me! Yet he’s like you, there’s no denying.

Lord, he’s wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the

brow, you know, THERE his father comes out!” Mr. Bucket compares

the faces with one eye shut up, while Mr. Bagnet smokes in stolid

satisfaction.

 

This is an opportunity for Mrs. Bagnet to inform him that the boy

is George’s godson.

 

“George’s godson, is he?” rejoins Mr. Bucket with extreme

cordiality. “I must shake hands over again with George’s godson.

Godfather and godson do credit to one another. And what do you

intend to make of him, ma’am? Does he show any turn for any

musical instrument?”

 

Mr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, “Plays the fife. Beautiful.”

 

“Would you believe it, governor,” says Mr. Bucket, struck by the

coincidence, “that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not

in a scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless

you! ‘British Grenadiers’—there’s a tune to warm an Englishman

up! COULD you give us ‘British Grenadiers,’ my fine fellow?”

 

Nothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this

call upon young Woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and

performs the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket,

much enlivened, beats time and never falls to come in sharp with

the burden, “British Gra-a-anadeers!” In short, he shows so much

musical taste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips

to express his conviction that he is a singer. Mr. Bucket receives

the harmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did

once chaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own

bosom, and with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends,

that he is asked to sing. Not to be behindhand in the sociality of

the evening, he complies and gives them “Believe Me, if All Those

Endearing Young Charms.” This ballad, he informs Mrs. Bagnet, he

considers to have been his most powerful ally in moving the heart

of Mrs. Bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the

altar—Mr. Bucket’s own words are “to come up to the scratch.”

 

This sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the

evening that Mr. George, who testified no great emotions of

pleasure on his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather

proud of him. He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources,

and so easy to get on with, that it is something to have made him

known there. Mr. Bagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible

of the value of his acquaintance that he solicits the honour of his

company on the old girl’s next birthday. If anything can more

closely cement and consolidate the esteem which Mr. Bucket has

formed for the family, it is the discovery of the nature of the

occasion. He drinks to Mrs. Bagnet with a warmth approaching to

rapture, engages himself for that day twelvemonth more than

thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day in a large black pocket-book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope that Mrs. Bucket and

Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner, sisters. As he

says himself, what is public life without private ties? He is in

his humble way a public man, but it is not in that sphere that he

finds happiness. No, it must be sought within the confines of

domestic bliss.

 

It is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn,

should remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising

an acquaintance. And he does. He keeps very close to him.

Whatever the subject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye

upon him. He waits to walk home with him. He is interested in his

very boots and observes even them attentively as Mr. George sits

smoking cross-legged in the chimney-corner.

 

At length Mr. George rises to depart. At the same moment Mr.

Bucket, with the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises. He

dotes upon the children to the last and remembers the commission he

has undertaken for an absent friend.

 

“Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor—could you

recommend me such a thing?”

 

“Scores,” says Mr. Bagnet.

 

“I am obliged to you,” returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand.

“You’re a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a

regular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the

rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn’t,”

says Mr. Bucket in a considerate and private voice, “you needn’t

commit yourself to too low a figure, governor. I don’t want to pay

too large a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper

percentage and be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but

fair. Every man must live, and ought to it.”

 

Mr. Bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they

have found a jewel of price.

 

“Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten to-morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few

wiolincellers of a good tone?” says Mr. Bucket.

 

Nothing easier. Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet both engage to have the

requisite information ready and even hint to each other at the

practicability of having a small stock collected there for

approval.

 

“Thank you,” says Mr. Bucket, “thank you. Good night, ma’am. Good

night, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you

for one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life.”

 

They, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he

has given them in his company; and so they part with many

expressions of goodwill on both sides. “Now George, old boy,” says

Mr. Bucket, taking his arm at the shop-door, “come along!” As they

go down the little street and the Bagnets pause for a minute

looking after them, Mrs. Bagnet remarks to the worthy Lignum that

Mr. Bucket “almost clings to George like, and seems to be really

fond of him.”

 

The neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little

inconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm. Mr. George

therefore soon proposes to walk singly. But Mr. Bucket, who cannot

make up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, “Wait

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

Immediately afterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into

a parlour, where he confronts him and claps his own back against

the door.

 

“Now, George,” says Mr. Bucket, “duty is duty, and friendship is

friendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I

have endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to

you whether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in

custody, George.”

 

“Custody? What for?” returns the trooper, thunderstruck.

 

“Now, George,” says Mr. Bucket, urging a sensible view of the case

upon him with his fat forefinger, “duty, as you know very well, is

one thing, and conversation is another. It’s my duty to inform you

that any observations you may make will be liable to be used

against you. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You

don’t happen to have heard of a murder?”

 

“Murder!”

 

“Now, George,” says Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger in an

impressive state of action, “bear in mind what I’ve said to you. I

ask you nothing. You’ve been in low spirits this afternoon. I

say, you don’t happen to have heard of a murder?”

 

“No. Where has there been a murder?”

 

“Now, George,” says Mr. Bucket, “don’t you go and commit yourself.

I’m a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a

murder in Lincoln’s Inn Fields—gentleman of the name of

Tulkinghorn. He was shot last night. I want you for that.”

 

The trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out

upon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face.

 

“Bucket! It’s not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed

and that you suspect ME?”

 

“George,” returns Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger going, “it is

certainly possible, because it’s the case. This deed was done last

night at ten o’clock. Now, you know where you were last night at

ten o’clock, and you’ll be able to prove it, no doubt.”

 

“Last night! Last night?” repeats the trooper thoughtfully. Then

it flashes upon him. “Why, great heaven, I was there last night!”

 

“So I have understood, George,” returns Mr. Bucket with great

deliberation. “So I have understood. Likewise you’ve been very

often there. You’ve been seen hanging about the place, and you’ve

been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it’s possible

—I don’t say it’s certainly so, mind you, but it’s possible—that

he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering,

dangerous fellow.”

 

The trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak.

 

“Now, George,” continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table

with an air of business rather in the upholstery way than

otherwise, “my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make

things pleasant. I tell you plainly there’s a reward out, of a

hundred guineas, offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You

and me have always been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to

discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as

well be made by me as any other man. On all of which accounts, I

should hope it was clear to you that I must have you, and that I’m

damned if I don’t have you. Am I to call in any assistance, or is

the trick done?”

 

Mr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier.

“Come,” he says; “I am ready.”

 

“George,” continues Mr. Bucket, “wait a bit!” With his upholsterer

manner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes

from his pocket a pair of handcuffs. “This is a