Bleak House
looking round the room as if he were 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 gen-teel 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
small-clothes, 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, Mercury don’t like it. Prefers carriage exercise.
“To be sure,” says Mr. Bucket. “That makes a difference. Now I think
of it,” says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at
the blaze, “she went out walking the very night of this business.”
“To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way.”
“And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it.”
“I didn’t see YOU,” says Mercury.
“I was rather in a hurry,” returns Mr. Bucket, “for I was going to
visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea—next door but two to the