Bleak House
on his broom-handle, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider
their meaning; considers it satisfactory; and nods his ragged head.
“I’m fly,” says Jo. “But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!”
“What does the horrible creature mean?” exclaims the servant,
recoiling from him.
“Stow cutting away, you know!” says Jo.
“I don’t understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money
than you ever had in your life.”
Jo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub,
takes his broom under his arm, and leads the way, passing deftly with
his bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and mire.
Cook’s Court. Jo stops. A pause.
“Who lives here?”
“Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull,” says Jo in a
whisper without looking over his shoulder.
“Go on to the next.”
Krook’s house. Jo stops again. A longer pause.
“Who lives here?”
“HE lived here,” Jo answers as before.
After a silence he is asked, “In which room?”
“In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner.
Up there! That’s where I see him stritched out. This is the
public-ouse where I was took to.”
“Go on to the next!”
It is a longer walk to the next, but Jo, relieved of his first
suspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does not look
round. By many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, they
come to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp (lighted
now), and to the iron gate.
“He was put there,” says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in.
“Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!”
“There!” says Jo, pointing. “Over yinder. Among them piles of bones,
and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the
top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver
it for you with my broom if the gate was open. That’s why they locks
it, I s’pose,” giving it a shake. “It’s always locked. Look at the
rat!” cries Jo, excited. “Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the
ground!”
The servant shrinks into a corner, into a corner of that hideous
archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting
out her two hands and passionately telling him to keep away from her,
for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands
staring and is still staring when she recovers herself.
“Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?”
“I don’t know nothink of consequential ground,” says Jo, still
staring.
“Is it blessed?”
“Which?” says Jo, in the last degree amazed.
“Is it blessed?”
“I’m blest if I know,” says Jo, staring more than ever; “but I
shouldn’t think it warn’t. Blest?” repeats Jo, something troubled in
his mind. “It an’t done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think
it was t’othered myself. But I don’t know nothink!”
The servant takes as little heed of what he says as she seems to take
of what she has said herself. She draws off her glove to get some
money from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her
hand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling
rings.
She drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and
shuddering as their hands approach. “Now,” she adds, “show me the
spot again!”
Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and
with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length,
looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds
that he is alone.
His first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light
and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow—gold. His next is
to give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality.
His next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the
step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for
Tom-all-Alone’s, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to
produce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a
reassurance of its being genuine.
The Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady
goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is
fidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout;
he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous
pattering on the terrace that he can’t read the paper even by the
fireside in his own snug dressing-room.
“Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the
house, my dear,” says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. “His dressing-room is
on my Lady’s side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon
the Ghost’s Walk more distinct than it is to-night!”
CHAPTER XVII
Esther’s Narrative
Richard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though
he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities,
his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was
always delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I
knew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted
that he had been educated in no habits of application and
concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same
manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in
character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks,
always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful,
dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities
in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They
were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously
won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were
very bad masters. If they had been under Richard’s direction, they
would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction,
they became his enemies.
I write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any
other thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did think
so and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These
were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides
how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the
uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his
nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that
he was part of a great gaming system.
Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was
not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after
Richard.
“Why, Mr. Carstone,” said Mrs. Badger, “is very well and is, I assure
you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say
of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn
to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had become as tough as
the fore-topsel weather earrings. It was his naval way of mentioning
generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the
same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I—you won’t think me
premature if I mention it?”
I said no, as Mrs. Badger’s insinuating tone seemed to require such
an answer.
“Nor Miss Clare?” said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly.
Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy.
“Why, you see, my dears,” said Mrs. Badger, “—you’ll excuse me
calling you my dears?”
We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it.
“Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so,”
pursued Mrs. Badger, “so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that
although I am still young—or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the
compliment of saying so—”
“No,” Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public
meeting. “Not at all!”
“Very well,” smiled Mrs. Badger, “we will say still young.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Badger.
“My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of
observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old
Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser
in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and
befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser’s command. YOU never
heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would
not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts,
but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to
me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.”
“A man of European reputation,” murmured Mr. Badger.
“When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second,”
said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were
parts of a charade, “I still enjoyed opportunities of observing
youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo’s lectures was a large
one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man
seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to
throw our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific
Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed
biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there
was science to an unlimited extent.”
“Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Badger
reverentially. “There must have been great intellectual friction
going on there under the auspices of such a man!”
“And now,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “now that I am the wife of my dear
third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which
were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new
and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I
therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a
neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he
has not chosen his profession advisedly.”
Ada looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she
founded her supposition.
“My dear Miss Summerson,” she replied, “on Mr. Carstone’s character
and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he
would never think it worth while to mention how he really feels, but
he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive
interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided
impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a
tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr.
Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can
do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a
very little money and through years of considerable endurance and
disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the
case with Mr. Carstone.”
“Does Mr. Badger think so too?” asked Ada timidly.
“Why,” said Mr. Badger, “to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of
the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But
when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great
consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger’s mind, in addition to
its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by
two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men
as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The
conclusion at which I have arrived is—in short, is Mrs. Badger’s
conclusion.”
“It was a maxim of Captain Swosser’s,” said Mrs. Badger, “speaking in
his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot
make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you
should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that
this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical
profession.”
“To all professions,” observed Mr. Badger. “It was admirably said by
Captain Swosser. Beautifully said.”
“People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north
of Devon after our marriage,” said Mrs. Badger, “that he disfigured
some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of
those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor