Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖

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“No,” says the other. “Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am

sorry you have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her

here.”

 

Mr. Snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes

his leave, lightened in heart. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes upstairs,

saying to himself, “These women were created to give trouble the

whole earth over. The mistress not being enough to deal with,

here’s the maid now! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!”

 

So saying, he unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky

rooms, lights his candles, and looks about him. It is too dark to

see much of the Allegory overhead there, but that importunate

Roman, who is for ever toppling out of the clouds and pointing, is

at his old work pretty distinctly. Not honouring him with much

attention, Mr. Tulkinghorn takes a small key from his pocket,

unlocks a drawer in which there is another key, which unlocks a

chest in which there is another, and so comes to the cellar-key,

with which he prepares to descend to the regions of old wine. He

is going towards the door with a candle in his hand when a knock

comes.

 

“Who’s this? Aye, aye, mistress, it’s you, is it? You appear at a

good time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you

want?”

 

He stands the candle on the chimney-piece in the clerk’s hall and

taps his dry cheek with the key as he addresses these words of

welcome to Mademoiselle Hortense. That feline personage, with her

lips tightly shut and her eyes looking out at him sideways, softly

closes the door before replying.

 

“I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir.”

 

“HAVE you!”

 

“I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me,

he is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for

you.”

 

“Quite right, and quite true.”

 

“Not true. Lies!”

 

At times there is a suddenness in the manner of Mademoiselle

Hortense so like a bodily spring upon the subject of it that such

subject involuntarily starts and fails back. It is Mr.

Tulkinghorn’s case at present, though Mademoiselle Hortense, with

her eyes almost shut up (but still looking out sideways), is only

smiling contemptuously and shaking her head.

 

“Now, mistress,” says the lawyer, tapping the key hastily upon the

chimney-piece. “If you have anything to say, say it, say it.”

 

“Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby.”

 

“Mean and shabby, eh?” returns the lawyer, rubbing his nose with

the key.

 

“Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have

attrapped me—catched me—to give you information; you have asked

me to show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night,

you have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it

not?” Mademoiselle Hortense makes another spring.

 

“You are a vixen, a vixen!” Mr. Tulkinghorn seems to meditate as

he looks distrustfully at her, then he replies, “Well, wench, well.

I paid you.”

 

“You paid me!” she repeats with fierce disdain. “Two sovereign! I

have not change them, I re-fuse them, I despise them, I throw them

from me!” Which she literally does, taking them out of her bosom

as she speaks and flinging them with such violence on the floor

that they jerk up again into the light before they roll away into

corners and slowly settle down there after spinning vehemently.

 

“Now!” says Mademoiselle Hortense, darkening her large eyes again.

“You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!”

 

Mr. Tulkinghorn rubs his head with the key while she entertains

herself with a sarcastic laugh.

 

“You must be rich, my fair friend,” he composedly observes, “to

throw money about in that way!”

 

“I AM rich,” she returns. “I am very rich in hate. I hate my

Lady, of all my heart. You know that.”

 

“Know it? How should I know it?”

 

“Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give

you that information. Because you have known perfectly that I was

en-r-r-r-raged!” It appears impossible for mademoiselle to roll

the letter “r” sufficiently in this word, notwithstanding that she

assists her energetic delivery by clenching both her hands and

setting all her teeth.

 

“Oh! I knew that, did I?” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, examining the wards

of the key.

 

“Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me

because you knew that. You had reason! I det-est her.”

Mademoiselle folds her arms and throws this last remark at him over

one of her shoulders.

 

“Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?”

 

“I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition!

If you cannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue

her, to chase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help

you well, and with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know

that?”

 

“You appear to know a good deal,” Mr. Tulkinghorn retorts.

 

“Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child,

that I come here in that dress to receive that boy only to decide

a little bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!” In this reply, down

to the word “wager” inclusive, mademoiselle has been ironically

polite and tender, then as suddenly dashed into the bitterest and

most defiant scorn, with her black eyes in one and the same moment

very nearly shut and staringly wide open.

 

“Now, let us see,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the

key and looking imperturbably at her, “how this matter stands.”

 

“Ah! Let us see,” mademoiselle assents, with many angry and tight

nods of her head.

 

“You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have

just stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again.”

 

“And again,” says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods.

“And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect,

for ever!”

 

“And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby’s too, perhaps?

That visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps?”

 

“And again,” repeats mademoiselle, cataleptic with determination.

“And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect,

for ever!”

 

“Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to

take the candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will

find it behind the clerk’s partition in the corner yonder.”

 

She merely throws a laugh over her shoulder and stands her ground

with folded arms.

 

“You will not, eh?”

 

“No, I will not!”

 

“So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress,

this is the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys

of prisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction

(where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very

strong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of

your spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one

of those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you

think?”

 

“I think,” mademoiselle replies without any action and in a clear,

obliging voice, “that you are a miserable wretch.”

 

“Probably,” returns Mr. Tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose.

“But I don’t ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of

the prison.”

 

“Nothing. What does it matter to me?”

 

“Why, it matters this much, mistress,” says the lawyer,

deliberately putting away his handkerchief and adjusting his frill;

“the law is so despotic here that it interferes to prevent any of

our good English citizens from being troubled, even by a lady’s

visits against his desire. And on his complaining that he is so

troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in

prison under hard discipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress.”

Illustrating with the cellar-key.

 

“Truly?” returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. “That is

droll! But—my faith!—still what does it matter to me?”

 

“My fair friend,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, “make another visit here,

or at Mr. Snagsby’s, and you shall learn.”

 

“In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

It would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle’s state of

agreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish

expansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would

make her do it.

 

“In a word, mistress,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, “I am sorry to be

unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here—or

there—again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry

is great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in

an ignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench.”

 

“I will prove you,” whispers mademoiselle, stretching out her hand,

“I will try if you dare to do it!”

 

“And if,” pursues the lawyer without minding her, “I place you in

that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some

time before you find yourself at liberty again.”

 

“I will prove you,” repeats mademoiselle in her former whisper.

 

“And now,” proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, “you had

better go. Think twice before you come here again.”

 

“Think you,” she answers, “twice two hundred times!”

 

“You were dismissed by your lady, you know,” Mr. Tulkinghorn

observes, following her out upon the staircase, “as the most

implacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and

take warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and

what I threaten, I will do, mistress.”

 

She goes down without answering or looking behind her. When she is

gone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered

bottle, devotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents,

now and then, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching

sight of the pertinacious Roman pointing from the ceiling.