Bleak House by Charles Dickens (ebook reader that looks like a book TXT) 📕

combat; from the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand,

the time for that being long gone by, it has become a gloomy relief

to turn to the palpable figure of the friend who would have saved

him from this ruin and make HIM his enemy. Richard has told Vholes

the truth. Is he in a hardened or a softened mood, he still lays

his injuries equally at that door; he was thwarted, in that

quarter, of a set purpose, and that purpose could only originate in

the one subject that is resolving his existence into itself;

besides, it is a justification to him in his own eyes to have an

embodied antagonist and oppressor.

Is Richard a monster in all this, or would Chancery be found rich

in such precedents too if they could be got for citation from the

Recording Angel?

Two pairs of eyes not unused to such people look after him, as,

biting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is

swallowed up by the shadow of the southern gateway. Mr. Guppy and

Mr. Weevle are the possessors of those eyes, and they have been

leaning in conversation against the low stone parapet under the

trees. He passes close by them, seeing nothing but the ground.

“William,” says Mr. Weevle, adjusting his whiskers, “there’s

combustion going on there! It’s not a case of spontaneous, but

it’s smouldering combustion it is.”

“Ah!” says Mr. Guppy. “He wouldn’t keep out of Jarndyce, and I

suppose he’s over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him.

He was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place.

A good riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony,

that as I was mentioning is what they’re up to.”

Mr. Guppy, refolding his arms, resettles himself against the

parapet, as resuming a conversation of interest.

“They are still up to it, sir,” says Mr. Guppy, “still taking

stock, still examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps

of rubbish. At this rate they’ll be at it these seven years.”

“And Small is helping?”

“Small left us at a week’s notice. Told Kenge his grandfather’s

business was too much for the old gentleman and he could better

himself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between

myself and Small on account of his being so close. But he said you

and I began it, and as he had me there—for we did—I put our

acquaintance on the old footing. That’s how I come to know what

they’re up to.”

“You haven’t looked in at all?”

“Tony,” says Mr. Guppy, a little disconcerted, “to be unreserved

with you, I don’t greatly relish the house, except in your company,

and therefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little

appointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour

by the clock! Tony”—Mr. Guppy becomes mysteriously and tenderly

eloquent—“it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind

once more that circumstances over which I have no control have made

a melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that

unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend.

That image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish

now in connexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying

out in the court with your aid as a friend is to let ‘em alone and

bury ‘em in oblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at

all likely (I put it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your

knowledge of that capricious and deep old character who fell a prey

to the—spontaneous element, do you, Tony, think it at all likely

that on second thoughts he put those letters away anywhere, after

you saw him alive, and that they were not destroyed that night?”

Mr. Weevle reflects for some time. Shakes his head. Decidedly

thinks not.

“Tony,” says Mr. Guppy as they walk towards the court, “once again

understand me, as a friend. Without entering into further

explanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no

purpose to serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have

pledged myself. I owe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered

image, as also to the circumstances over which I have no control.

If you was to express to me by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw

lying anywhere in your late lodgings any papers that so much as

looked like the papers in question, I would pitch them into the

fire, sir, on my own responsibility.”

Mr. Weevle nods. Mr. Guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by

having delivered these observations, with an air in part forensic

and in part romantic—this gentleman having a passion for

conducting anything in the form of an examination, or delivering

anything in the form of a summing up or a speech—accompanies his

friend with dignity to the court.

Never since it has been a court has it had such a Fortunatus’ purse

of gossip as in the proceedings at the rag and bottle shop.

Regularly, every morning at eight, is the elder Mr. Smallweed

brought down to the corner and carried in, accompanied by Mrs.

Smallweed, Judy, and Bart; and regularly, all day, do they all

remain there until nine at night, solaced by gipsy dinners, not

abundant in quantity, from the cook’s shop, rummaging and

searching, digging, delving, and diving among the treasures of the

late lamented. What those treasures are they keep so secret that

the court is maddened. In its delirium it imagines guineas pouring

out of tea-pots, crown-pieces overflowing punch-bowls, old chairs

and mattresses stuffed with Bank of England notes. It possesses

itself of the sixpenny history (with highly coloured folding

frontispiece) of Mr. Daniel Dancer and his sister, and also of Mr.

Elwes, of Suffolk, and transfers all the facts from those authentic

narratives to Mr. Krook. Twice when the dustman is called in to

carry off a cartload of old paper, ashes, and broken bottles, the

whole court assembles and pries into the baskets as they come

forth. Many times the two gentlemen who write with the ravenous

little pens on the tissue-paper are seen prowling in the

neighbourhood—shy of each other, their late partnership being

dissolved. The Sol skilfully carries a vein of the prevailing

interest through the Harmonic nights. Little Swills, in what are

professionally known as “patter” allusions to the subject, is

received with loud applause; and the same vocalist “gags” in the

regular business like a man inspired. Even Miss M. Melvilleson, in

the revived Caledonian melody of “We’re a-Nodding,” points the

sentiment that “the dogs love broo” (whatever the nature of that

refreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head

towards next door that she is immediately understood to mean Mr.

Smallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a

double encore. For all this, the court discovers nothing; and as

Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins now communicate to the late lodger whose

appearance is the signal for a general rally, it is in one

continual ferment to discover everything, and more.

Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, with every eye in the court’s head upon

them, knock at the closed door of the late lamented’s house, in a

high state of popularity. But being contrary to the court’s

expectation admitted, they immediately become unpopular and are

considered to mean no good.

The shutters are more or less closed all over the house, and the

ground-floor is sufficiently dark to require candles. Introduced

into the back shop by Mr. Smallweed the younger, they, fresh from

the sunlight, can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows;

but they gradually discern the elder Mr. Smallweed seated in his

chair upon the brink of a well or grave of waste-paper, the

virtuous Judy groping therein like a female sexton, and Mrs.

Smallweed on the level ground in the vicinity snowed up in a heap

of paper fragments, print, and manuscript which would appear to be

the accumulated compliments that have been sent flying at her in

the course of the day. The whole party, Small included, are

blackened with dust and dirt and present a fiendish appearance not

relieved by the general aspect of the room. There is more litter

and lumber in it than of old, and it is dirtier if possible;

likewise, it is ghostly with traces of its dead inhabitant and even

with his chalked writing on the wall.

On the entrance of visitors, Mr. Smallweed and Judy simultaneously

fold their arms and stop in their researches.

“Aha!” croaks the old gentleman. “How de do, gentlemen, how de do!

Come to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That’s well, that’s well.

Ha! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay

your warehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel

quite at home here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see

you!”

Mr. Weevle, thanking him, casts an eye about. Mr. Guppy’s eye

follows Mr. Weevle’s eye. Mr. Weevle’s eye comes back without any

new intelligence in it. Mr. Guppy’s eye comes back and meets Mr.

Smallweed’s eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring,

like some wound-up instrument running down, “How de do, sir—how

de—how—” And then having run down, he lapses into grinning

silence, as Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in

the darkness opposite with his hands behind him.

“Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor,” says Grandfather

Smallweed. “I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such

note, but he is so good!”

Mr. Guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look, makes

a shuffling bow to Mr. Tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy

nod. Mr. Tulkinghorn is looking on as if he had nothing else to do

and were rather amused by the novelty.

“A good deal of property here, sir, I should say,” Mr. Guppy

observes to Mr. Smallweed.

“Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish!

Me and Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out

an inventory of what’s worth anything to sell. But we haven’t come

to much as yet; we—haven’t—come—to—hah!”

Mr. Smallweed has run down again, while Mr. Weevle’s eye, attended

by Mr. Guppy’s eye, has again gone round the room and come back.

“Well, sir,” says Mr. Weevle. “We won’t intrude any longer if

you’ll allow us to go upstairs.”

“Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You’re at home. Make yourself

so, pray!”

As they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and

looks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very

dull and dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on

that memorable night yet in the discoloured grate. They have a

great disinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the

dust from it first. Nor are they desirous to prolong their visit,

packing the few movables with all possible speed and never speaking

above a whisper.

“Look here,” says Tony, recoiling. “Here’s that horrible cat

coming in!”

Mr. Guppy retreats behind a chair. “Small told me of her. She

went leaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a

dragon, and got out on the housetop, and roamed about up there for

a fortnight, and then came tumbling down the chimney very thin.

Did you ever see such a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it,

don’t she? Almost looks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out,

you goblin!”

Lady Jane, in the doorway, with her tiger snarl from ear to ear and