The Solitary House (119 page)

“There’s your fare!” says the Patriarch to the coachman with a fierce grin, and shaking his incapable fist at him. “Ask me for a penny more, and I’ll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won’t squeeze you tighter than I can help. O Lord! O dear me! O my bones!”

It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of divers croaking sounds, expressive of obstructed respiration, he fulfils his share of the porterage, and the benevolent old gentleman is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol’s Arms.

“O Lord!” gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from an arm-chair. “O dear me! O my bones and back! O my aches and pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling poll-parrot! Sit down!”

This little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady, whenever she finds herself on her feet, to amble about, and “set” to inanimate objects, accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A nervous affection has probably as much to do with these demonstrations, as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman; but on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion with the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is seated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held her down in it: her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with great volubility, the endearing epithet of “a pigheaded Jackdaw,” repeated a surprising number of times.

“My dear sir,” Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr. Guppy, “there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either of you?”

“Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it.”

“You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart,
they
discovered it!”

The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the compliment.

“My dear friends,” whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his hands, “I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed’s brother.”

“Eh?” says Mr. Guppy.

“Mrs. Smallweed’s brother, my dear friend—her only relation. We were not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never
would
be on terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric—he was very eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I have come down,” repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air towards him with all his ten fingers at once, “to look after the property.”

“I think, Small,” says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, “you might have mentioned that the old man was your uncle.”

“You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to be the same,” returns that old bird, with a secretly glistening eye. “Besides, I wasn’t proud of him.”

“Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or not,” says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye.

“He never saw me in his life, to know me,” observed Small; “I don’t know why I should introduce
him
, I am sure!”

“No, he never communicated with us—which is to be deplored,” the old gentleman strikes in; “but I have come to look after the property—to look over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as my solicitor; and grass don’t grow under
his
feet, I can tell ye. Krook was Mrs. Smallweed’s only brother; she had no relation but Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years of age.”

Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head, and pipe up, “Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of bank-notes!”

“Will somebody give me a quart pot?” exclaims her exasperated husband, looking helplessly about him, and finding no missile within his reach. “Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will someone hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!” Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her grandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin at the old lady with such force as he can muster, and then dropping into his chair in a heap.

“Shake me up, somebody, if you’ll be so good,” says the voice from within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. “I have come to look after the property. Shake me up; and call in the police on duty at the next house, to be explained to about the property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch the property!” As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and putting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and punching, he still repeats like an echo, “the—the property! The property!—property!”

Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other; the former as having relinquished the whole affair; the latter with a discomfited countenance, as having entertained some lingering expectations yet. But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed interest. Mr. Tulkinghorn’s clerk comes down from his official pew in the chambers, to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin, and that the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due time and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next house, and upstairs into Miss Flite’s deserted room, where he looks like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary.

The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court, still makes good for the Sol, and keeps the court upon its mettle. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there really is no will, and consider that a handsome
present ought to be made out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump and under the archway, all day long; where wild yells and hootings take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals and nonprofessionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up “The popular song of KING DEATH! with chorus by the whole strength of the company,” as the great Harmonic feature of the week; and announces in the bill that “J. G. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense, in consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation.” There is one point connected with the deceased, upon which the court is particularly anxious; namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the undertaker’s stating in the Sol’s bar in the course of the day, that he has received orders to construct “a six-footer,” the general solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr. Smallweed’s conduct does him great honour.

Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable excitement too; for men of science and philosophy come to look, and carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence for such deaths, reprinted in the sixth volume of the
Philosophical Transactions;
and also of a book not quite unknown, on English Medical Jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so, and was occasionally heard of in his time as having
gleams of reason in him; and also of the testimony of Messrs. Foderé and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who
would
investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a case occurred, and even to write an account of it;—still they regard the late Mr. Krook’s obstinacy, in going out of the world by any such by-way, as wholly unjustified and personally offensive. The less the court understands of all this, the more the court likes it; and the greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol’s Arms. Then, there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground and figures ready drawn for anything, from a wreck on the Cornish coast to a review in Hyde Park, or a meeting in Manchester,—and in Mrs. Perkins’ own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws in upon the block, Mr. Krook’s house, as large as life; in fact, considerably larger, making a very Temple of it. Similarly, being permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long, by fifty yards high; at which the court is particularly charmed. All this time, the two gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house, and assist at the philosophical disputations,—go everywhere, and listen to everybody,—and yet are always diving into the Sol’s parlour, and writing with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper.

At last come the Coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that the Coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and tells the gentlemen of the Jury, in his private capacity, that “that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can’t account for!” After which the six-footer comes into action, and is much admired.

In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual, and can only haunt the secret house on the outside; where he has the mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings draw to a close, that is to say,
on the night next after the catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady Dedlock.

For which reason, with a sinking heart, and with that hangdog sense of guilt upon him, which dread and watching, enfolded in the Sol’s Arms, have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven o’clock in the evening, and requests to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; don’t he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants to see my Lady too.

Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellow-gentleman in waiting, “to pitch into the young man”; but his instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young man in a large room, not overlight, while he makes report of him.

Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it—? No, it’s no ghost; but fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed.

“I have to beg your ladyship’s pardon,” Mr. Guppy stammers, very downcast. “This is an inconvenient time—”

“I told you, you could come at any time.” She takes a chair, looking straight at him as on the last occasion.

“Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable.”

“You can sit down.” There is not much affability in her tone.

“I don’t know, your ladyship, that it’s worth while my sitting down and detaining you, for I—I have not got the letters that I mentioned when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship.”

“Have you come merely to say so?”

“Merely to say so, your ladyship.” Mr. Guppy, besides being depressed, disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance. She knows its influence perfectly; has studied it too well to miss a grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide, in the least perception of what is really the complexion of her
thoughts; but also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and further from her.

She will not speak, it is plain. So he must.

“In short, your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy, like a meanly penitent thief, “the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a sudden end, and—” He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the sentence.

“And the letters are destroyed with the person?”

Mr. Guppy would say no, if he could—as he is unable to hide.

“I believe so, your ladyship.”

If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it.

He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure.

“Is this all you have to say?” inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard him out—or as nearly out as he can stumble.

Mr. Guppy thinks that’s all.

“You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me; this being the last time you will have the opportunity.”

Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present, by any means.

“That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!” and she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy out.