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

“Chesney Wold, Thomas,” rejoins the housekeeper with proud

complacency, “will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no

healthier soil in the world!”

Thomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, probably

hints them in his manner of smoothing his sleek head from the nape

of his neck to his temples, but he forbears to express them further

and retires to the servants’ hall to regale on cold meat-pie and

ale.

This groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next

evening, down come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their largest

retinue, and down come the cousins and others from all the points

of the compass. Thenceforth for some weeks backward and forward

rush mysterious men with no names, who fly about all those

particular parts of the country on which Doodle is at present

throwing himself in an auriferous and malty shower, but who are

merely persons of a restless disposition and never do anything

anywhere.

On these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful.

A better man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at

dinner, there could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than

the other cousins to ride over to polling-booths and hustings here

and there, and show themselves on the side of England, it would be

hard to find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true

descent; and there are many who appreciate her sprightly

conversation, her French conundrums so old as to have become in the

cycles of time almost new again, the honour of taking the fair

Dedlock in to dinner, or even the privilege of her hand in the

dance. On these national occasions dancing may be a patriotic

service, and Volumnia is constantly seen hopping about for the good

of an ungrateful and unpensioning country.

My Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and

being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at

all the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other

melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir

Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be

wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to

be received under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction,

he moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator.

Daily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf,

away to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and

hunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for

the boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester

holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no

occupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy.

Daily Volumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the

state of the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to

conclude that Volumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had

thought her.

“How are we getting on?” says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands.

“ARE we safe?”

The mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will

throw himself off the country in a few days more. Sir Leicester

has just appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright

particular star surrounded by clouds of cousins.

“Volumnia,” replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, “we

are doing tolerably.”

“Only tolerably!”

Although it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always has his own

particular fire in the evening. He takes his usual screened seat

near it and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as

who should say, I am not a common man, and when I say tolerably, it

must not be understood as a common expression, “Volumnia, we are

doing tolerably.”

“At least there is no opposition to YOU,” Volumnia asserts with

confidence.

“No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many

respects, I grieve to say, but—”

“It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!”

Volumnia’s finishing the sentence restores her to favour. Sir

Leicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to

himself, “A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally

precipitate.”

In fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock’s

observation was superfluous, Sir Leicester on these occasions

always delivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome

wholesale order to be promptly executed. Two other little seats

that belong to him he treats as retail orders of less importance,

merely sending down the men and signifying to the tradespeople,

“You will have the goodness to make these materials into two

members of Parliament and to send them home when done.”

“I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have

shown a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has

been of a most determined and most implacable description.”

“W-r-retches!” says Volumnia.

“Even,” proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent

cousins on sofas and ottomans, “even in many—in fact, in most—of

those places in which the government has carried it against a

faction—”

(Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with

the Doodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same

position towards the Coodleites.)

“—Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be

constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without

being put to an enormous expense. Hundreds,” says Sir Leicester,

eyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling

indignation, “hundreds of thousands of pounds!”

If Volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too

innocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well

with a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge

and pearl necklace. Howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks,

“What for?”

“Volumnia,” remonstrates Sir Leicester with his utmost severity.

“Volumnia!”

“No, no, I don’t mean what for,” cries Volumnia with her favourite

little scream. “How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!”

“I am glad,” returns Sir Leicester, “that you do mean what a pity.”

Volumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people

ought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party.

“I am glad, Volumnia,” repeats Sir Leicester, unmindful of these

mollifying sentiments, “that you do mean what a pity. It is

disgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and

without intending so unreasonable a question, asked me ‘what for?’

let me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your

good sense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or

elsewhere.”

Sir Leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing

aspect towards Volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these

necessary expenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be

unpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some

graceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the

Church service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the High

Court of Parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers

of the congregation be requested for six hundred and fifty-eight

gentlemen in a very unhealthy state.

“I suppose,” observes Volumnia, having taken a little time to

recover her spirits after her late castigation, “I suppose Mr.

Tulkinghorn has been worked to death.”

“I don’t know,” says Sir Leicester, opening his eyes, “why Mr.

Tulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don’t know what Mr.

Tulkinghorn’s engagements may be. He is not a candidate.”

Volumnia had thought he might have been employed. Sir Leicester

could desire to know by whom, and what for. Volumnia, abashed

again, suggests, by somebody—to advise and make arrangements. Sir

Leicester is not aware that any client of Mr. Tulkinghorn has been

in need of his assistance.

Lady Dedlock, seated at an open window with her arm upon its

cushioned ledge and looking out at the evening shadows falling on

the park, has seemed to attend since the lawyer’s name was

mentioned.

A languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility

now observes from his couch that man told him ya’as’dy that

Tulkinghorn had gone down t’ that iron place t’ give legal ‘pinion

‘bout something, and that contest being over t’ day, ‘twould be

highly jawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should ‘pear with news that

Coodle man was floored.

Mercury in attendance with coffee informs Sir Leicester, hereupon,

that Mr. Tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. My Lady

turns her head inward for the moment, then looks out again as

before.

Volumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. He is so

original, such a stolid creature, such an immense being for knowing

all sorts of things and never telling them! Volumnia is persuaded

that he must be a Freemason. Is sure he is at the head of a lodge,

and wears short aprons, and is made a perfect idol of with

candlesticks and trowels. These lively remarks the fair Dedlock

delivers in her youthful manner, while making a purse.

“He has not been here once,” she adds, “since I came. I really had

some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I

had almost made up my mind that he was dead.”

It may be the gathering gloom of evening, or it may be the darker

gloom within herself, but a shade is on my Lady’s face, as if she

thought, “I would he were!”

“Mr. Tulkinghorn,” says Sir Leicester, “is always welcome here and

always discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and

deservedly respected.”

The debilitated cousin supposes he is “‘normously rich fler.”

“He has a stake in the country,” says Sir Leicester, “I have no

doubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost

on a footing of equality with the highest society.”

Everybody starts. For a gun is fired close by.

“Good gracious, what’s that?” cries Volumnia with her little

withered scream.

“A rat,” says my Lady. “And they have shot him.”

Enter Mr. Tulkinghorn, followed by Mercuries with lamps and

candles.

“No, no,” says Sir Leicester, “I think not. My Lady, do you object

to the twilight?”

On the contrary, my Lady prefers it.

“Volumnia?”

Oh! Nothing is so delicious to Volumnia as to sit and talk in the

dark.

“Then take them away,” says Sir Leicester. “Tulkinghorn, I beg

your pardon. How do you do?”

Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, renders his

passing homage to my Lady, shakes Sir Leicester’s hand, and

subsides into the chair proper to him when he has anything to

communicate, on the opposite side of the Baronet’s little

newspaper-table. Sir Leicester is apprehensive that my Lady, not

being very well, will take cold at that open window. My Lady is

obliged to him, but would rather sit there for the air. Sir

Leicester rises, adjusts her scarf about her, and returns to his

seat. Mr. Tulkinghorn in the meanwhile takes a pinch of snuff.

“Now,” says Sir Leicester. “How has that contest gone?”

“Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought

in both their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to

one.”

It is a part of Mr. Tulkinghorn’s policy and mastery to have no

political opinions; indeed, NO opinions. Therefore he says “you”

are beaten, and not “we.”

Sir Leicester is majestically wroth. Volumnia never heard of such

a thing. ‘The debilitated cousin holds that it’s sort of thing

that’s sure tapn slongs votes—giv’n—Mob.

“It’s the place, you know,” Mr. Tulkinghorn goes on to say in the

fast-increasing darkness when there is silence again, “where