Impassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house
stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives no outward
sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages rattle, doors are battered at,
the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers with skeleton throats and peachy
cheeks that have a rather ghastly bloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed
these fascinating creatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, dazzle
the eyes of men. Forth from the frigid mews come easily swinging carriages
guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk into downy
hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious Mercuries bearing sticks of state and
wearing cocked hats broadwise, a spectacle for the angels.
The Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before its
exalted dullness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the fair, being subject to
the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that disorder attacking her
spirits with some virulence, ventures at length to repair to the library for
change of scene. Her gentle tapping at the door producing no response, she opens
it and peeps in; seeing no one there, takes possession.
The sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the ancients,
Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which impels her on all convenient
and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with a golden glass at her eye,
peering into objects of every description. Certain it is that she avails herself
of the present opportunity of hovering over her kinsman's letters and papers
like a bird, taking a short peck at this document and a blink with her head on
one side at that document, and hopping about from table to table with her glass
at her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of these
researches she stumbles over something, and turning her glass in that direction,
sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled tree.
Volumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of reality
from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion. Servants tear up and
down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors are sent for, and Lady Dedlock is
sought in all directions, but not found. Nobody has seen or heard her since she
last rang her bell. Her letter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table, but
it is doubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another
world requiring to be personally answered, and all the living languages, and all
the dead, are as one to him.
They lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put ice to
his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit, the day has ebbed away,
and it is night in his room before his stertorous breathing lulls or his fixed
eyes show any consciousness of the candle that is occasionally passed before
them. But when this change begins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves
his eyes or even his hand in token that he hears and comprehends.
He fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat infirm,
but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He lies upon his bed, an
aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of himself. His voice was rich
and mellow and he had so long been thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import
to mankind of any word he said that his words really had come to sound as if
there were something in them. But now he can only whisper, and what he whispers
sounds like what it is--mere jumble and jargon.
His favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is the first
act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it. After vainly trying to
make himself understood in speech, he makes signs for a pencil. So
inexpressively that they cannot at first understand him; it is his old
housekeeper who makes out what he wants and brings in a slate.
After pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand that is not
his, "Chesney Wold?"
No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library this
morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to come to London and is able
to attend upon him.
"It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You will be
much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say so." This, with the
tears coursing down her fair old face.
After making a survey of the room and looking with particular attention all
round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, "My Lady."
"My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and don't know
of your illness yet."
He points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all try to quiet
him, but he points again with increased agitation. On their looking at one
another, not knowing what to say, he takes the slate once more and writes "My
Lady. For God's sake, where?" And makes an imploring moan.
It is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady Dedlock's
letter, the contents of which no one knows or can surmise. She opens it for him
and puts it out for his perusal. Having read it twice by a great effort, he
turns it down so that it shall not be seen and lies moaning. He passes into a
kind of relapse or into a swoon, and it is an hour before he opens his eyes,
reclining on his faithful and attached old servant's arm. The doctors know that
he is best with her, and when not actively engaged about him, stand aloof.
The slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to write he
cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction at this pass are
pitiable to behold. It seems as if he must go mad in the necessity he feels for
haste and the inability under which he labours of expressing to do what or to
fetch whom. He has written the letter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in the
height of his misery, he puts Mr. before it. The old housekeeper suggests
Bucket. Thank heaven! That's his meaning.
Mr. Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he come up?
There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning wish to see
him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of every one but the
housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket appears. Of all men upon earth,
Sir Leicester seems fallen from his high estate to place his sole trust and
reliance upon this man.
"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'm sorry to see you like this. I hope
you'll cheer up. I'm sure you will, on account of the family credit."
Leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his face while
he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket's eye as he reads on; with
one hook of his finger, while that eye is still glancing over the words, he
indicates, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I understand you."
Sir Leicester writes upon the slate. "Full forgiveness. Find--" Mr. Bucket
stops his hand.
"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'll find her. But my search after her must
be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost."
With the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock's look
towards a little box upon a table.
"Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open it with one
of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO be sure. Take the notes out?
So I will. Count 'em? That's soon done. Twenty and thirty's fifty, and twenty's
seventy, and fifty's one twenty, and forty's one sixty. Take 'em for expenses?
That I'll do, and render an account of course. Don't spare money? No I won't."
The velocity and certainty of Mr. Bucket's interpretation on all these heads
is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who holds the light, is giddy
with the swiftness of his eyes and hands as he starts up, furnished for his
journey.
"You're George's mother, old lady; that's about what you are, I believe?"
says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and buttoning his coat.
"Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother."
"So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. Well, then,
I'll tell you something. You needn't be distressed no more. Your son's all
right. Now, don't you begin a-crying, because what you've got to do is to take
care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you won't do that by crying. As to
your son, he's all right, I tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping
you're the same. He's discharged honourable; that's about what HE is; with no
more imputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a tidy
one, I'LL bet a pound. You may trust me, for I took your son. He conducted
himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he's a fine-made man, and
you're a fine-made old lady, and you're a mother and son, the pair of you, as
might be showed for models in a caravan. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what
you've trusted to me I'll go through with. Don't you be afraid of my turing out
of my way, right or left, or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have
found what I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on your
part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you better, and these
family affairs smoothed over--as, Lord, many other family affairs equally has
been, and equally wlll be, to the end of time."
With this peroration, Mr. Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out, looking
steadily before him as if he were already piercing the night in quest of the
fugitive.
His first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock's rooms and look all over
them for any trifling indication that may help him. The rooms are in darkness
now; and to see Mr. Bucket with a wax-light in his hand, holding it above his
head and taking a sharp mental inventory of the many delicate objects so
curiously at variance with himself, would be to see a sight--which nobody DOES
see, as he is particular to lock himself in.
"A spicy boudoir, this," says Mr. Bucket, who feels in a manner furbished up
in his French by the blow of the morning. "Must have cost a sight of money. Rum
articles to cut away from, these; she must have been hard put to it!"
Opening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and jewel-cases,
he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors, and moralizes thereon.
"One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and getting
myself up for almac's," says Mr. Bucket. "I begin to think I must be a swell in
the Guards without knowing it."
Ever looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner drawer.
His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can scarcely feel, they are so
light and soft within it, comes upon a white handkerchief.
"Hum! Let's have a look at YOU," says Mr. Bucket, putting down the light.
"What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What's YOUR motive? Are you her
ladyship's property, or somebody else's? You've got a mark upon you somewheres
or another, I suppose?"
He finds it as he speaks, "Esther Summerson."
"Oh!" says Mr. Bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. "Come, I'll take
YOU."
He completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has carried them
on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it, glides away after some five
minutes in all, and passes into the street. With a glance upward at the dimly
lighted windows of Sir Leicester's room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest
coach- stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be driven to the
shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a scientific judge of horses,
but he lays out a little money on the principal events in that line, and
generally sums up his knowledge of the subject in the remark that when he sees a
horse as can go, he knows him.
His knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering over the
stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his keen eyes to bear on
every slinking creature whom he passes in the midnight streets, and even on the
lights in upper windows where people are going or gone to bed, and on all the
turnings that he rattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where
the snow lies thin--for something may present itself to assist him, anywhere--he
dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he stops the horse half
smothers him in a cloud of steam.
"Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I'll be back."
He runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his pipe.
"I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my lad. I
haven't a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a woman. Miss Summerson that
was here when Gridley died--that was the name, I know--all right--where does she
live?"
The trooper has just come from there and gives him the address, near Oxford
Street.
"You won't repent it, George. Good night!"
He is off again, with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by the frosty
fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away again, and gets out in a
cloud of steam again.
Mr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed, rises
from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell, and comes down to the
door in his dressing-gown.
"Don't be alarmed, sir." In a moment his visitor is confidential with him in
the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the lock. "I've had
the pleasure of seeing you before. Inspector Bucket. Look at that handkerchief,
sir, Miss Esther Summerson's. Found it myself put away in a drawer of Lady
Dedlock's, quarter of an hour ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or
death. You know Lady Dedlock?"
"Yes."
"There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come out. Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit--apoplexy or paralysis--and couldn't
be brought to, and precious time has been lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this
afternoon and left a letter for him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here
it is!"
Mr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks.
"I don't know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there's more and more danger,
every minute, of its drawing to that. I'd give a hundred pound an hour to have
got the start of the present time. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I am employed by Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow her and find her, to save her and take her
his forgiveness. I have money and full power, but I want something else. I want
Miss Summerson."
Mr. Jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, "Miss Summerson?"
"Now, Mr. Jarndyce"--Mr. Bucket has read his face with the greatest attention
all along--"I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane heart, and under such
pressing circumstances as don't often happen. If ever delay was dangerous, it's
dangerous now; and if ever you couldn't afterwards forgive yourself for causing
it, this is the time. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound
apiece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am charged to
find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest that's heavy on her, she
has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of murder. If I follow her alone, she,
being in ignorance of what Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated to
me, may be driven to desperation. But if I follow her in company with a young
lady, answering to the description of a young lady that she has a tenderness
for--I ask no question, and I say no more than that--she will give me credit for
being friendly. Let me come up with her and be able to have the hold upon her of
putting that young lady for'ard, and I'll save her and prevail with her if she
is alive. Let me come up with her alone--a hard matter--and I'll do my best, but
I don't answer for what the best may be. Time flies; it's getting on for one
o'clock. When one strikes, there's another hour gone, and it's worth a thousand
pound now instead of a hundred."
This is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be questioned.
Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to Miss Summerson. Mr.
Bucket says he will, but acting on his usual principle, does no such thing,
following upstairs instead and keeping his man in sight. So he remains, dodging
and lurking about in the gloom of the staircase while they confer. In a very
little time Mr. Jarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will join
him directly and place herself under his protection to accompany him where he
pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and awaits her coming at
the door.
There he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide. Many
solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many solitary
figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks. But the figure that
he seeks is not among them. Other solitaries he perceives, in nooks of bridges,
looking over; and in shadowed places down by the river's level; and a dark,
dark, shapeless object drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings
with a drowning hold on his attention.
Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the handkerchief
and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted power to bring before
him the place where she found it and the night-landscape near the cottage where
it covered the little child, would he descry her there? On the waste where the
brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare, where the straw- roofs of the
wretched huts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind,
where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the gaunt blind
horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of human torture--traversing
this deserted, blighted spot there is a lonely figure with the sad world to
itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem,
from all companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably
dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at the great
door of the Dedlock mansion.
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