Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box,
for their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops his horses,
Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says, "What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's
your man, is he?"
"Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?"
"Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think. But I don't know him, and
he don't know me."
There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done to
perfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr. Tulkinghorn's great
room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the fire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not
within at the present moment but will be back directly. The occupant of the pew
in the hall, having said thus much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to
warm themselves.
Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up at the
painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates the portraits of
the great clients, reads aloud the names on the boxes.
"'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully. "Ha!
'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!" Mr. George stands looking at these boxes a long
while--as if they were pictures--and comes back to the fire repeating, "Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and Manor of Chesney Wold, hey?"
"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather Smallweed, rubbing
his legs. "Powerfully rich!"
"Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?"
"This gentleman, this gentleman."
"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not bad
quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. "See the strong-box
yonder!"
This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no change in
him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in his hand, and their very
case worn threadbare. In manner, close and dry. In voice, husky and low. In
face, watchful behind a blind; habitually not uncensorious and contemptuous
perhaps. The peerage may have warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than
Mr. Tulkinghorn, after all, if everything were known.
"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes in. "You
have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant."
As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he looks
with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper stands and says
within himself perchance, "You'll do, my friend!"
"Sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is set on
one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. "Cold and raw this morning, cold
and raw!" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the bars, alternately, the palms and
knuckles of his hands and looks (from behind that blind which is always down) at
the trio sitting in a little semicircle before him.
"Now, I can feel what I am about" (as perhaps he can in two senses), "Mr.
Smallweed." The old gentleman is newly shaken up by Judy to bear his part in the
conversation. "You have brought our good friend the sergeant, I see."
"Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's wealth and
influence.
"And what does the sergeant say about this business?"
"Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of his
shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir."
Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and
profoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full complement of
regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him.
Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, "Well, George--I believe your name is George?"
"It is so, Sir."
"What do you say, George?"
"I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish to know
what YOU say?"
"Do you mean in point of reward?"
"I mean in point of everything, sir."
This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly breaks out
with "You're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn,
excusing himself for this slip of the tongue by saying to Judy, "I was thinking
of your grandmother, my dear."
"I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one side of
his chair and crosses his legs, "that Mr. Smallweed might have sufficiently
explained the matter. It lies in the smallest compass, however. You served under
Captain Hawdon at one time, and were his attendant in illness, and rendered him
many little services, and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so,
is it not?"
"Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George with military brevity.
"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession something-- anything, no
matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, a letter, anything--in Captain
Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare his writing with some that I have. If you
can give me the opportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three,
four, five, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say."
"Noble, my dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up his eyes.
"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can demand.
There is no need for you to part with the writing, against your
inclination--though I should prefer to have it."
Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the painted
ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed scratches the air.
"The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued,
uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's writing?"
"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir," repeats Mr.
George.
"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?"
"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it, sir,"
repeats Mr. George.
"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that," says
Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written paper tied
together.
"Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so," repeats Mr. George.
All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner, looking
straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at the affidavit in
Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him for his inspection (though he
still holds it in his hand), but continues to look at the lawyer with an air of
troubled meditation.
"Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "What do you say?"
"Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, "I would
rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this."
Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?"
"Why, sir," returns the trooper. "Except on military compulsion, I am not a
man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in Scotland a ne'er-do-weel.
I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand any fire better than a fire of cross
questions. I mentioned to Mr. Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I
come into things of this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my
sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, "at the present
moment."
With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on the
lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former station, where he
stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground and now at the painted
ceillhg, with his hands behind him as if to prevent himself from accepting any
other document whatever.
Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of disparagement
is so close to his tongue that he begins the words "my dear friend" with the
monosyllable "brim," thus converting the possessive pronoun into brimmy and
appearing to have an impediment in his speech. Once past this difficulty,
however, he exhorts his dear friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but
to do what so eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace,
confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr. Tulkinghorn
merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "You are the best judge of your own
interest, sergeant." "Take care you do no harm by this." "Please yourself,
please yourself." "If you know what you mean, that's quite enough." These he
utters with an appearance of perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on
his table and prepares to write a letter.
Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the ground, from
the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Tulkinghorn, and from Mr.
Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again, often in his perplexity changing the
leg on which he rests.
"I do assure you, sir," says Mr. George, "not to say it offensively, that
between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered fifty times
over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you gentlemen. Will you allow me to
ask why you want to see the captain's hand, in the case that I could find any
specimen of it?"
Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "No. If you were a man of business,
sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are confidential reasons,
very harmless in themselves, for many such wants in the profession to which I
belong. But if you are afraid of doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set
your mind at rest about that."
"Aye! He is dead, sir."
"IS he?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write.
"Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another
disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more satisfaction. If it
would be any satisfaction to any one that I should be confirmed in my judgment
that I would rather have nothing to do with this by a friend of mine who has a
better head for business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to
consult with him. I--I really am so completely smothered myself at present,"
says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his brow, "that I don't know
but what it might be a satisfaction to me."
Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so strongly
inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel with him, and
particularly informing him of its being a question of five guineas or more, that
Mr. George engages to go and see him. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing either way.
"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the trooper, "and
I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer in the course of
the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried downstairs--"
"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me speak half a
word with this gentleman in private?"
"Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account." The trooper retires to
a distant part of the room and resumes his curious inspection of the boxes,
strong and otherwise.
"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers Grandfather
Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his coat and
flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry eyes, "I'd tear the
writing away from him. He's got it buttoned in his breast. I saw him put it
there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak up, you crabbed image for the sign of a
walking- stick shop, and say you saw him put it there!"
This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a thrust at
his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and he slips away out of
his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with him, until he is arrested by Judy, and
well shaken.
"Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn then remarks
coolly.
"No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and galling--it's-- it's worse
than your smattering chattering magpie of a grandmother," to the imperturbable
Judy, who only looks at the fire, "to know he has got what's wanted and won't
give it up. He, not to give it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never
mind. At the most, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him
periodically in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If he won't do
it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one, sir! Now, my dear Mr.
George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at the lawyer hideously as he
releases him, "I am ready for your kind assistance, my excellent friend!"
Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting itself
through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire,
watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and acknowledging the trooper's
parting salute with one slight nod.
It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George finds, than
to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is replaced in his
conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the guineas and retains such
an affectionate hold of his button --having, in truth, a secret longing to rip
his coat open and rob him--that some degree of force is necessary on the
trooper's part to effect a separation. It is accomplished at last, and he
proceeds alone in quest of his adviser.
By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a glance at
Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in his way), and by
Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George sedately marches to a
street of little shops lying somewhere in that ganglion of roads from Kent and
Surrey, and of streets from the bridges of London, centring in the far-famed
elephant who has lost his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a
stronger iron monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he
dares. To one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's shop,
having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a
triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music, Mr. George directs his massive
tread. And halting at a few paces from it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman,
with her outer skirts tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that
tub commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement, Mr.
George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing greens. I never saw her, except
upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn't washing greens!"
The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in washing greens
at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr. George's approach until, lifting
up herself and her tub together when she has poured the water off into the
gutter, she finds him standing near her. Her reception of him is not flattering.
"George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!"
The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the
musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon the
counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon it.
"I never," she says, "George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute when
you're near him. You are that resfless and that roving--"
"Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am."
"You know you are!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "What's the use of that? WHY are you?"
"The nature of the animal, I suppose," returns the trooper good- humouredly.
"Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. "But what satisfaction will the
nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have tempted my Mat away
from the musical business to New Zealand or Australey?"
Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large- boned, a little
coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which have tanned her hair
upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and bright-eyed. A strong, busy,
active, honest-faced woman of from forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so
economically dressed (though substantially) that the only article of ornament of
which she stands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her
finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will never come off
again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust.
"Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "I am on my parole with you. Mat will get no
harm from me. You may trust me so far."
"Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling," Mrs. Bagnet
rejoins. "Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and married Joe
Pouch's widow when he died in North America, SHE'D have combed your hair for
you."
"It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half laughingly,
half seriously, "but I shall never settle down into a respectable man now. Joe
Pouch's widow might have done me good-- there was something in her, and
something of her--but I couldn't make up my mind to it. If I had had the luck to
meet with such a wife as Mat found!"
Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve with a
good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow herself for that
matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr. George in the face with a head
of greens and taking her tub into the little room behind the shop.
"Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following, on invitation, into that
department. "And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!"
These young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened by the
names applied to them, though always so called in the family from the places of
their birth in barracks--are respectively employed on three-legged stools, the
younger (some five or six years old) in learning her letters out of a penny
primer, the elder (eight or nine perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great
assiduity. Both hail Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after
some kissing and romping plant their stools beside him.
"And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George.
"Ah! There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans (for she
is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. "Would you believe it? Got
an engagement at the theayter, with his father, to play the fife in a military
piece."
"Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh.
"I believe you!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "He's a Briton. That's what Woolwich is. A
Briton!"
"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians one and
all," says Mr. George. "Family people. Children growing up. Mat's old mother in
Scotland, and your old father somewhere else, corresponded with, and helped a
little, and--well, well! To be sure, I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a
hundred mile away, for I have not much to do with all this!"
Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the whitewashed
room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and contains nothing
superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or dust in it, from the faces of
Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots and pannikins upon the dresser
shelves--Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is
busy, when Mr. Bagnet and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an
ex- artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers like the
fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid complexion. His
voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all unlike the tones of the
instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed there may be generally observed in him
an unbending, unyielding, brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of
the human orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer.
Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due season,
that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet hospitably declares that
he will hear of no business until after dinner and that his friend shall not
partake of his counsel without first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The
trooper yielding to this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the
domestic preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street,
which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it were a
rampart.
"George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that advises. She
has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.
Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then we'll consult. Whatever the old girl
says, do--do it!"
"I intend to, Mat," replies the other. "I would sooner take her opinion than
that of a college."
"College," returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. "What college
could you leave--in another quarter of the world-- with nothing but a grey cloak
and an umbrella--to make its way home to Europe? The old girl would do it
to-morrow. Did it once!"
"You are right," says Mr. George.
"What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life--with two penn'orth
of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth of sand--and the rest
of the change out of sixpence in money? That's what the old girl started on. In
the present business."
"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat."
"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, "saves. Has a stocking
somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she's got it. Wait till
the greens is off her mind. Then she'll set you up."
"She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George.
"She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.
It was the old girl that brought out my musical abilities. I should have been in
the artillery now but for the old girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten
at the flute. The old girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of
flexibility; try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the
bandmaster of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got
another, get a living by it!"
George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an apple.
"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine woman.
Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as she gets on. I
never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own to it before her. Discipline
must be maintained!"
Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down the
little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec and Malta to do
justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs. Bagnet, like a military
chaplain, says a short grace. In the distribution of these comestibles, as in
every other household duty, Mrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with
every dish before her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of
pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out complete.
Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus supplied the mess with
all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to satisfy her own hunger, which is
in a healthy state. The kit of the mess, if the table furniture may be so
denominated, is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty
in several parts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in particular, which is
of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong shutting-up movement
which frequently balks the appetite of that young musician, is mentioned as
having gone in various hands the complete round of foreign service.
The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who polish
their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the dinner garniture
shine as brightly as before and puts it all away, first sweeping the hearth, to
the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor may not be retarded in the smoking of
their pipes. These household cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening
in the backyard and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to
assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl reappearing by and
by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her needlework, then and only then--the
greens being only then to be considered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet
requests the trooper to state his case.
This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address himself to
Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all the time, as Bagnet has
himself. She, equally discreet, busies herself with her needlework. The case
fully stated, Mr. Bagnet resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of
discipline.
"That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he.
"That's the whole of it."
"You act according to my opinion?"
"I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it."
"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what
it is."
It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too deep for
him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not
understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to
nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see
the ground. This, in effect, is Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the
old girl, and it so relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and
banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe on that
exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with the whole Bagnet
family, according to their various ranges of experience.
Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again rise to
his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on when the bassoon
and fife are expected by a British public at the theatre; and as it takes time
even then for Mr. George, in his domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of
Quebec and Malta and insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his
godson with felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George
again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields.
"A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small it is,
makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made that evolution of
matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I am such a vagabond still, even at
my present time of life, that I couldn't hold to the gallery a month together if
it was a regular pursuit or if I didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I
disgrace nobody and cumber nobody; that's something. I have not done that for
many a long year!"
So he whistles it off and marches on.
Arrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's stair, he
finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper not knowing
much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark besides, he is yet fumbling
and groping about, hoping to discover a bell-handle or to open the door for
himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and
angrily asks, "Who is that? What are you doing there?"
"I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant."
"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?"
"Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't," says the trooper, rather
nettled.
"Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?" Mr. Tulkinghorn
demands. But he knows well enough at a glance.
"In the same mind, sir."
"I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the man," says Mr.
Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley
was found?"
"Yes, I AM the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs down.
"What then, sir?"
"What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have seen the inside
of my door this morning if I had thought of your being that man. Gridley? A
threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow."
With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the lawyer goes
into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering noise.
Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because a clerk
coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and evidently applies them
to him. "A pretty character to bear," the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he
strides downstairs. "A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!" And looking
up, he sees the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp.
This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill humour.
But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home to the shooting
gallery.
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