Bleak House
towards his species and will drink with most of them. He is free with
his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation—but
through the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current
of forefinger.
Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he
is here to-day and gone to-morrow—but, very unlike man indeed, he is
here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking
into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock’s
house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads
at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is
propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all
things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards,
he and the Roman will be alone together comparing forefingers.
It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home
enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go
home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs.
Bucket—a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been
improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but
which has paused at the level of a clever amateur—he holds himself
aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger
(fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for
companionship and conversation.
A great crowd assembles in Lincoln’s Inn Fields on the day of the
funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person;
strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that
is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin
(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable
carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled
affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the
assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald’s
College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a
blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes,
with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and
three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of
woe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and
if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in
horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified
this day.
Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so
many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of
the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through
the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd—as for what
not?—and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage,
now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the
people’s heads, nothing escapes him.
“And there you are, my partner, eh?” says Mr. Bucket to himself,
apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of
the deceased’s house. “And so you are. And so you are! And very well
indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!”
The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of
its assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost
emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice
a hair’s breadth open while he looks.
And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is
still occupied with Mrs. B. “There you are, my partner, eh?” he
murmuringly repeats. “And our lodger with you. I’m taking notice of
you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you’re all right in your health, my dear!”
Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive
eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought
down—Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did
they fly with him on that sudden journey?—and until the procession
moves, and Mr. Bucket’s view is changed. After which he composes
himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the
carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful.
Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage
and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable track of
space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed
sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the
narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state
expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both;
neither is troubled about that.
Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides
from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself
arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock’s, which is at present a
sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all
hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows
the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious
greatness.
No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be
provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is
crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, “Here’s another letter for
you, Mr. Bucket, come by post,” and gives it him.
“Another one, eh?” says Mr. Bucket.
If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity
as to Mr. Bucket’s letters, that wary person is not the man to
gratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of
some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same.
“Do you happen to carry a box?” says Mr. Bucket.
Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker.
“Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?” says Mr. Bucket.
“Thankee. It don’t matter what it is; I’m not particular as to the
kind. Thankee!”
Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from
somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable
show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the
other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right
sort and goes on, letter in hand.
Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within
the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of
letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not
incidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his
pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient
to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others
as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business.
Further, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has
occasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For
these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender
or receiver. And yet he has received a round half-dozen within the
last twenty-four hours.
“And this,” says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, “is in
the same hand, and consists of the same two words.”
What two words?
He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book
of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly
written in each, “Lady Dedlock.”
“Yes, yes,” says Mr. Bucket. “But I could have made the money without
this anonymous information.”
Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again,
he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is
brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket
frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint,
that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry
better than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and
empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his
refreshment when an idea enters his mind.
Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room
and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is
sinking low. Mr. Bucket’s eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the
room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they
arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket
draws near and examines the directions. “No,” he says, “there’s none
in that hand. It’s only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow.”
With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and
after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester
has received him there these several evenings past to know whether he
has anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the
funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance.
Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three
people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to
Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to whom
it airily says, “You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I
know you.” Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr.
Bucket rubs his hands.
“Have you anything new to communicate, officer?” inquires Sir
Leicester. “Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?”
“Why—not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.”
“Because my time,” pursues Sir Leicester, “is wholly at your disposal
with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law.”
Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as
though he would respectfully observe, “I do assure you, you’re a
pretty creetur. I’ve seen hundreds worse looking at your time of
life, I have indeed.”
The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing
influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes
and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that
decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia
is writing poetry.
“If I have not,” pursues Sir Leicester, “in the most emphatic manner,
adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious
case, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of
rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a
consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur
none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall
hesitate for a moment to bear.”
Mr. Bucket made Sir Leicester’s bow again as a response to this
liberality.
“My mind,” Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, “has not, as
may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical
occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full
of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to
the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent.”
Sir Leicester’s voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head.
Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused.
“I declare,” he says, “I solemnly declare that until this crime is
discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as
if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a
large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last
day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table
and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck
down within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he
may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first
marked because of his association with my house—which may have
suggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of
greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have
indicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position
bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the
assertion of my respect for that gentleman’s memory and of my
fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me.”
While he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness,