The Solitary House (65 page)

We all conceived a prepossession in his favour; for there was a sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous healthy voice, and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly prepared to have it so confirmed by his appearance, when Mr. Jarndyce presented him. He was not only a very handsome old gentleman—upright and stalwart as he had been described to us—with a massive grey head, a fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was—incapable (as Richard
said) of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those blank great guns, because he carried no small arms whatever—that really I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led by Mr. Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his head like a bloodhound, and gave out that tremendous Ha, ha, ha!

“You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?” said Mr. Jarndyce.

“By Heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!” replied the other. “He
is
the most wonderful creature! I wouldn’t take ten thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole support, in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!”

The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn’s man, on his forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted on his master’s head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good illustration of his character, I thought.

“By my soul, Jarndyce,” he said, very gently holding up a bit of bread to the canary to peck at, “if I were in your place, I would seize every Master in Chancery by the throat tomorrow morning, and shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets, and his bones rattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by fair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do it for you with the greatest satisfaction!” (All this time the very small canary was eating out of his hand.)

“I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at present,” returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, “that it would be greatly advanced even by the legal process of shaking the Bench and the whole Bar.”

“There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery, on the face of the earth!” said Mr. Boythorn. “Nothing but a mine below it on a busy day in term-time, with all its records, rules,
and precedents collected in it, and every functionary belonging to it also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it in the least!”

It was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he recommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw up his head, and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country seemed to echo to his Ha, ha, ha! It had not the least effect in disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete; and who hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master, as if he were no more than another bird.

“But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of way?” said Mr. Jarndyce. “You are not free from the toils of the law yourself!”

“The fellow has brought actions against
me
for trespass, and I have brought actions against
him
for trespass,” returned Mr. Boythorn. “By Heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible that his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer.”

“Complimentary to our distant relation!” said my Guardian laughingly, to Ada and Richard.

“I would beg Miss Clare’s pardon and Mr. Carstone’s pardon,” resumed our visitor, “if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of the lady, and the smile of the gentleman, that it is quite unnecessary, and that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance.”

“Or he keeps us,” suggested Richard.

“By my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley, “that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but a walking-stick’s! The whole of that family are the most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads!—But it’s no matter; he should not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one, and living in a hundred
Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory balls in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by his agent, or secretary, or somebody, writes to me “Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents his compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old parsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir Leicester’s right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of Chesney Wold; and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up the same.” I write to the fellow, “Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his compliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call
his
attention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir Leicester Dedlock’s positions on every possible subject, and has to add, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to see the man who may undertake to do it.” The fellow sends a most abandoned villain with one eye, to construct a gateway. I play upon that execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine, until the breath is nearly driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in the night. I chop it down and burn it in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to come over the fence, and pass and repass. I catch them in humane man traps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the engine—resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the existence of those lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass; I bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and battery; I defend them, and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha, ha!”

To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have thought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb, and softly smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought him the gentlest. To hear him laugh, and see the broad good nature of his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a summer joke.

“No, no,” he said, “no closing up of my paths, by any Dedlock! Though I willingly confess,” here he softened in a moment, “that Lady Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head seven hundred years thick,
may. A man who joined his regiment at twenty, and, within a week, challenged the most imperious and presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the breath of life through a tight waist—and got broke for it—is not the man to be walked over, by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive, locked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?” said my Guardian.

“Most assuredly not!” said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder with an air of protection, that had something serious in it, though he laughed. “He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may rely upon him! But, speaking of this trespass—with apologies to Miss Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so dry a subject—is there nothing for me from your men, Kenge and Carboy?”

“I think not, Esther?” said Mr. Jarndyce.

“Nothing, Guardian.”

“Much obliged!” said Mr. Boythorn. “Had no need to ask, after even my slight experience of Miss Summerson’s forethought for every one about her.” (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) “I inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet been in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down here. I dare say they will report progress tomorrow morning.”

I saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very pleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat at a little distance from the piano listening to the music—and he had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music, for his face showed it—that I asked my Guardian, as we sat at the backgammon board, whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married.

“No,” said he. “No.”

“But he meant to be!” said I.

“How did you find out that?” he returned, with a smile.

“Why, Guardian,” I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding what was in my thoughts, “there is something so
tender in his manner, after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and—”

Mr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting, as I have just described him.

I said no more.

“You are right, little woman,” he answered. “He was all but married once. Long ago. And once.”

“Did the lady die?”

“No—but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his later life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of romance yet?”

“I think, Guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say that, when you have told me so.”

“He has never since been what he might have been,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant, and his little yellow friend.—It’s your throw, my dear!”

I felt, from my Guardian’s manner, that beyond this point I could not pursue the subject without changing the wind. I therefore forbore to ask any further questions. I was interested, but not curious. I thought a little while about this old love story in the night, when I was awakened by Mr. Boythorn’s lusty snoring; and I tried to do that very difficult thing, imagine old people young again, and invested with the graces of youth. But I fell asleep before I had succeeded, and dreamed of the days when I lived in my godmother’s house. I am not sufficiently acquainted with such subjects, to know whether it is at all remarkable that I almost always dreamed of that period of my life.

With the morning, there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy to Mr. Boythorn, informing him that one of their clerks would wait upon him at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the bills, and added up my books, and made all the household affairs as compact as possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and Richard, took advantage of a very fine day to make a little excursion. Mr. Boythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy’s clerk, and then was to go on foot to meet them on their return.

Well! I was full of business, examining tradesmen’s books,
adding up columns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a great bustle about it, when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I had had some idea that the clerk who was to be sent down, might be the young gentleman who had met me at the coach-office; and I was glad to see him, because he was associated with my present happiness.

I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid gloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little finger. Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with bear’s-grease and other perfumery. He looked at me with an attention that quite confused me, when I begged him to take a seat until the servant should return; and as he sat there, crossing and uncrossing his legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a pleasant ride, and hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at him, but I found him looking at me, in the same scrutinizing and curious way.

When the request was brought to him that he would go upstairs to Mr. Boythorn’s room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared for him when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would partake. He said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the door, “Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?” I replied yes, I should be there; and he went out with a bow and another look.

I thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much embarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do, would be to wait until I saw that he had everything he wanted, and then to leave him to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some time on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long one—and a stormy one too, I should think; for although his room was at some distance, I heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation.

At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the conference. “My eye, miss,” he said in a low voice, “he’s a Tartar!”

“Pray take some refreshment, sir,” said I.

Mr. Guppy sat down at the table, and began nervously sharpening the carving-knife on the carving-fork; still looking at me (as I felt quite sure without looking at him), in the same unusual manner. The sharpening lasted so long, that at last I felt a kind of obligation on me to raise my eyes, in order that I might break the spell under which he seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off.

He immediately looked at the dish, and began to carve.

“What will you take yourself, miss? You’ll take a morsel of something?”