Bleak House
own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry
and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone
chargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work entwines
itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these
petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the
upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which
bold boys aspire to throw their friends’ caps (its only present use),
retains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of
departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals
in a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom like an
oyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights every night, like its high
and dry master in the House of Lords.
Therefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair,
could wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn stands.
And yet—and yet—she sends a look in that direction as if it were
her heart’s desire to have that figure moved out of the way.
Sir Leicester begs his Lady’s pardon. She was about to say?
“Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment)
and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am
tired to death of the matter.”
“What can I do—to—assist?” demands Sir Leicester in some
considerable doubt.
“Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to
send him up?”
“Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request,” says
Sir Leicester to Mercury, not immediately remembering the business
term, “request the iron gentleman to walk this way.”
Mercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and produces
him. Sir Leicester receives that ferruginous person graciously.
“I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, Mr.
Tulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell,” Sir Leicester
skilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, “was desirous
to speak with you. Hem!”
“I shall be very happy,” returns the iron gentleman, “to give my best
attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say.”
As he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes upon
him is less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant
supercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is
nothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness.
“Pray, sir,” says Lady Dedlock listlessly, “may I be allowed to
inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son
respecting your son’s fancy?”
It is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look
upon him as she asks this question.
“If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the
pleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my son
to conquer that—fancy.” The ironmaster repeats her expression with a
little emphasis.
“And did you?”
“Oh! Of course I did.”
Sir Leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. Very proper.
The iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was bound to do
it. No difference in this respect between the base metals and the
precious. Highly proper.
“And pray has he done so?”
“Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear
not. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes couple
an intention with our—our fancies which renders them not altogether
easy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be in earnest.”
Sir Leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden Wat Tylerish
meaning in this expression, and fumes a little. Mr. Rouncewell is
perfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such limits, evidently
adapts his tone to his reception.
“Because,” proceeds my Lady, “I have been thinking of the subject,
which is tiresome to me.”
“I am very sorry, I am sure.”
“And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite
concur”—Sir Leicester flattered—“and if you cannot give us the
assurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion
that the girl had better leave me.”
“I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind.”
“Then she had better go.”
“Excuse me, my Lady,” Sir Leicester considerately interposes, “but
perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has
not merited. Here is a young woman,” says Sir Leicester,
magnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a
service of plate, “whose good fortune it is to have attracted the
notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the
protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages
which such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very
great—I believe unquestionably very great, sir—for a young woman in
that station of life. The question then arises, should that young
woman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune
simply because she has”—Sir Leicester, with an apologetic but
dignified inclination of his head towards the ironmaster, winds up
his sentence—“has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell’s son? Now,
has she deserved this punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this
our previous understanding?”
“I beg your pardon,” interposes Mr. Rouncewell’s son’s father. “Sir
Leicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the subject. Pray
dismiss that from your consideration. If you remember anything so
unimportant—which is not to be expected—you would recollect that my
first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining
here.”
Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester
is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him
through such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their
report of the iron gentleman’s observations.
“It is not necessary,” observes my Lady in her coldest manner before
he can do anything but breathe amazedly, “to enter into these matters
on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever
to say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many
advantages and her good fortune that she is in love—or supposes she
is, poor little fool—and unable to appreciate them.”
Sir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He might
have been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons in
support of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman
had better go.
“As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when
we were fatigued by this business,” Lady Dedlock languidly proceeds,
“we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under
present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had
better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back
to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would
you prefer?”
“Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly—”
“By all means.”
“—I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of
the incumbrance and remove her from her present position.”
“And to speak as plainly,” she returns with the same studied
carelessness, “so should I. Do I understand that you will take her
with you?”
The iron gentleman makes an iron bow.
“Sir Leicester, will you ring?” Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from
his window and pulls the bell. “I had forgotten you. Thank you.” He
makes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. Mercury,
swift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce,
skims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs.
Rosa has been crying and is yet in distress. On her coming in, the
ironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with
her near the door ready to depart.
“You are taken charge of, you see,” says my Lady in her weary manner,
“and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a
very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for.”
“She seems after all,” observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, loitering a little
forward with his hands behind him, “as if she were crying at going
away.”
“Why, she is not well-bred, you see,” returns Mr. Rouncewell with
some quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer
to retort upon, “and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows
no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no
doubt.”
“No doubt,” is Mr. Tulkinghorn’s composed reply.
Rosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she
was happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and that
she thanks my Lady over and over again. “Out, you silly little puss!”
says the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice, though not angrily.
“Have a spirit, if you’re fond of Watt!” My Lady merely waves her off
with indifference, saying, “There, there, child! You are a good girl.
Go away!” Sir Leicester has magnificently disengaged himself from the
subject and retired into the sanctuary of his blue coat. Mr.
Tulkinghorn, an indistinct form against the dark street now dotted
with lamps, looms in my Lady’s view, bigger and blacker than before.
“Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock,” says Mr. Rouncewell after a pause
of a few moments, “I beg to take my leave, with an apology for having
again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome
subject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so
small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful of
my dealing with it, it is only because I did not at first quietly
exert my influence to take my young friend here away without
troubling you at all. But it appeared to me—I dare say magnifying
the importance of the thing—that it was respectful to explain to you
how the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and
convenience. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the
polite world.”
Sir Leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by these
remarks. “Mr. Rouncewell,” he returns, “do not mention it.
Justifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side.”
“I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last
word, revert to what I said before of my mother’s long connexion with
the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out
this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate
and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done
something to awaken such feelings—though of course Lady Dedlock, by
her heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much
more.”
If he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. He points
it, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner of
speech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the dim
room where my Lady sits. Sir Leicester stands to return his parting
salutation, Mr. Tulkinghorn again rings, Mercury takes another
flight, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house.
Then lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still
standing in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still
sitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the night
as well as of the day. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn, observing
it as she rises to retire, thinks, “Well she may be! The power of
this woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the whole
time.” But he can act a part too—his one unchanging character—and
as he holds the door open for this woman, fifty pairs of eyes, each
fifty times sharper than Sir Leicester’s pair, should find no flaw in
him.
Lady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is
whipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture of
the Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to dinner,
still deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the debilitated
cousin’s text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether Mr. Tulkinghorn