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

addressing an

assembly, Mr. Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in

which there might be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch

of compassion.

 

“The ceremony of to-day,” continues Sir Leicester, “strikingly

illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend”—he lays a

stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions—“was held

by the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have

received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were

my brother who had committed it, I would not spare him.”

 

Mr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that

he was the trustiest and dearest person!

 

“You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss,” replies Mr. Bucket

soothingly, “no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I’m

sure he was.”

 

Volumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her

sensitive mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as

long as she lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that

she has not the least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile

she folds up a cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath,

descriptive of her melancholy condition.

 

“It gives a start to a delicate female,” says Mr. Bucket

sympathetically, “but it’ll wear off.”

 

Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they

are going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier?

Whether he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in

the law? And a great deal more to the like artless purpose.

 

“Why you see, miss,” returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into

persuasive action—and such is his natural gallantry that he had

almost said “my dear”—“it ain’t easy to answer those questions at

the present moment. Not at the present moment. I’ve kept myself

on this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” whom Mr. Bucket

takes into the conversation in right of his importance, “morning,

noon, and night. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don’t think I

could have had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I

COULD answer your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir

Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with

all that has been traced. And I hope that he may find it”—Mr.

Bucket again looks grave—“to his satisfaction.”

 

The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler’ll be executed—zample.

Thinks more interest’s wanted—get man hanged presentime—than get

man place ten thousand a year. Hasn’t a doubt—zample—far better

hang wrong fler than no fler.

 

“YOU know life, you know, sir,” says Mr. Bucket with a

complimentary twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, “and you

can confirm what I’ve mentioned to this lady. YOU don’t want to be

told that from information I have received I have gone to work.

You’re up to what a lady can’t be expected to be up to. Lord!

Especially in your elevated station of society, miss,” says Mr.

Bucket, quite reddening at another narrow escape from “my dear.”

 

“The officer, Volumnia,” observes Sir Leicester, “is faithful to

his duty, and perfectly right.”

 

Mr. Bucket murmurs, “Glad to have the honour of your approbation,

Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”

 

“In fact, Volumnia,” proceeds Sir Leicester, “it is not holding up

a good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions

as you have put to him. He is the best judge of his own

responsibility; he acts upon his responsibility. And it does not

become us, who assist in making the laws, to impede or interfere

with those who carry them into execution. Or,” says Sir Leicester

somewhat sternly, for Volumnia was going to cut in before he had

rounded his sentence, “or who vindicate their outraged majesty.”

 

Volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the

plea of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her

sex in general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and

interest for the darling man whose loss they all deplore.

 

“Very well, Volumnia,” returns Sir Leicester. “Then you cannot be

too discreet.”

 

Mr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again.

 

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling

this lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon

the case as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case—a

beautiful case—and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect

to be able to supply in a few hours.”

 

“I am very glad indeed to hear it,” says Sir Leicester. “Highly

creditable to you.”

 

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,” returns Mr. Bucket very

seriously, “I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and

prove satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case,

you see, miss,” Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir

Leicester, “I mean from my point of view. As considered from other

points of view, such cases will always involve more or less

unpleasantness. Very strange things comes to our knowledge in

families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be

phenomenons, quite.”

 

Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so.

 

“Aye, and even in genteel families, in high families, in great

families,” says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester

aside. “I have had the honour of being employed in high families

before, and you have no idea—come, I’ll go so far as to say not

even YOU have any idea, sir,” this to the debilitated cousin, “what

games goes on!”

 

The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a

prostration of boredom yawns, “Vayli,” being the used-up for “very

likely.”

 

Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here

majestically interposes with the words, “Very good. Thank you!”

and also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is

an end of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low

habits they must take the consequences. “You will not forget,

officer,” he adds with condescension, “that I am at your disposal

when you please.”

 

Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would

suit, in case he should be as for’ard as he expects to be. Sir

Leicester replies, “All times are alike to me.” Mr. Bucket makes

his three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to

him.

 

“Might I ask, by the by,” he says in a low voice, cautiously

returning, “who posted the reward-bill on the staircase.”

 

“I ordered it to be put up there,” replies Sir Leicester.

 

“Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,

if I was to ask you why?”

 

“Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I

think it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole

establishment. I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity

of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness

of escape. At the same time, officer, if you in your better

knowledge of the subject see any objection—”

 

Mr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better

not be taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing

the door on Volumnia’s little scream, which is a preliminary to her

remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue

Chamber.

 

In his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr.

Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire—bright and warm

on the early winter night—admiring Mercury.

 

“Why, you’re six foot two, I suppose?” says Mr. Bucket.

 

“Three,” says Mercury.

 

“Are you so much? But then, you see, you’re broad in proportion

and don’t look it. You’re not one of the weak-legged ones, you

ain’t. Was you ever modelled now?” Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the

expression of an artist into the turn of his eye and head.

 

Mercury never was modelled.

 

“Then you ought to be, you know,” says Mr. Bucket; “and a friend of

mine that you’ll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would

stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for

the marble. My Lady’s out, ain’t she?”

 

“Out to dinner.”

 

“Goes out pretty well every day, don’t she?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Not to be wondered at!” says Mr. Bucket. “Such a fine woman as

her, so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh

lemon on a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your

father in the same way of life as yourself?”

 

Answer in the negative.

 

“Mine was,” says Mr. Bucket. “My father was first a page, then a

footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived

universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last

breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his

career, and so it was. I’ve a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My Lady a good temper?”

 

Mercury replies, “As good as you can expect.”

 

“Ah!” says Mr. Bucket. “A little spoilt? A little capricious?

Lord! What can you anticipate when they’re so handsome as that?

And we like ‘em all the better for it, don’t we?”

 

Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom

smallclothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of

a man of gallantry and can’t deny it. Come the roll of wheels and

a violent ringing at the bell. “Talk of the angels,” says Mr.

Bucket. “Here she is!”

 

The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still

very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two

beautiful bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms

is particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an

eager eye and rattles something in his pocket—halfpence perhaps.

 

Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the

other Mercury who has brought her home.

 

“Mr. Bucket, my Lady.”

 

Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar

demon over the region of his mouth.

 

“Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?”

 

“No, my Lady, I’ve seen him!”

 

“Have you anything to say to me?”

 

“Not just at present, my Lady.”

 

“Have you made any new discoveries?”

 

“A few, my Lady.”

 

This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps

upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot,

watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his

grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their

shadowy weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks

at going by, out of view.

 

“She’s a lovely woman, too, she really is,” says Mr. Bucket, coming

back to Mercury. “Don’t look quite healthy though.”

 

Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from

headaches.

 

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

that. Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes

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

 

“Are you sure you’re quite so much as six foot three?” asks Mr.

Bucket. “Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?”

 

Not a doubt about it.

 

“You’re so well put together that I shouldn’t have thought it. But

the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so

straggling. Walks by night, does she? When it’s moonlight,

though?”

 

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

Conversational and acquiescent on both sides.

 

“I suppose you ain’t in the habit of walking yourself?” says Mr.

Bucket. “Not much time for it, I should say?”

 

Besides which,