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

us and did the honours of the place in much the

same way, with the bland modesty of a proprietor. It was not a

very good day for a visit, he said; he would have preferred the

first day of term; but it was imposing, it was imposing.

 

When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress—if

I may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion—seemed to die

out of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody

expected to come, to any result. The Lord Chancellor then threw

down a bundle of papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him,

and somebody said, “Jarndyce and Jarndyce.” Upon this there was a

buzz, and a laugh, and a general withdrawal of the bystanders, and

a bringing in of great heaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of

papers.

 

I think it came on “for further directions”—about some bill of

costs, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough.

But I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were “in

it,” and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I.

They chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted

and explained among themselves, and some of them said it was this

way, and some of them said it was that way, and some of them

jocosely proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was

more buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state

of idle entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody.

After an hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun

and cut short, it was “referred back for the present,” as Mr. Kenge

said, and the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had

finished bringing them in.

 

I glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless

proceedings and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome

young face. “It can’t last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck

next time!” was all he said.

 

I had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for Mr.

Kenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered

me desirous to get out of the court. Richard had given me his arm

and was taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up.

 

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone,” said he in a whisper, “and Miss

Summerson’s also, but there’s a lady here, a friend of mine, who

knows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands.” As he

spoke, I saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape

from my remembrance, Mrs. Rachael of my godmother’s house.

 

“How do you do, Esther?” said she. “Do you recollect me?”

 

I gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little

altered.

 

“I wonder you remember those times, Esther,” she returned with her

old asperity. “They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you,

and glad you are not too proud to know me.” But indeed she seemed

disappointed that I was not.

 

“Proud, Mrs. Rachael!” I remonstrated.

 

“I am married, Esther,” she returned, coldly correcting me, “and am

Mrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you’ll do

well.”

 

Mr. Guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a

sigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael’s way through

the confused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which

we were in the midst of and which the change in the business had

brought together. Richard and I were making our way through it,

and I was yet in the first chill of the late unexpected recognition

when I saw, coming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person

than Mr. George. He made nothing of the people about him as he

tramped on, staring over their heads into the body of the court.

 

“George!” said Richard as I called his attention to him.

 

“You are well met, sir,” he returned. “And you, miss. Could you

point a person out for me, I want? I don’t understand these

places.”

 

Turning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when

we were out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain.

 

“There’s a little cracked old woman,” he began, “that—”

 

I put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by me, having kept

beside me all the time and having called the attention of several

of her legal acquaintance to me (as I had overheard to my

confusion) by whispering in their ears, “Hush! Fitz Jarndyce on my

left!”

 

“Hem!” said Mr. George. “You remember, miss, that we passed some

conversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley,” in a low

whisper behind his hand.

 

“Yes,” said I.

 

“He is hiding at my place. I couldn’t mention it. Hadn’t his

authority. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see

her. He says they can feel for one another, and she has been

almost as good as a friend to him here. I came down to look for

her, for when I sat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the

roll of the muffled drums.”

 

“Shall I tell her?” said I.

 

“Would you be so good?” he returned with a glance of something like

apprehension at Miss Flite. “It’s a providence I met you, miss; I

doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady.” And he

put one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude

as I informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport of his

kind errand.

 

“My angry friend from Shropshire! Almost as celebrated as myself!”

she exclaimed. “Now really! My dear, I will wait upon him with

the greatest pleasure.”

 

“He is living concealed at Mr. George’s,” said I. “Hush! This is

Mr. George.”

 

“In—deed!” returned Miss Flite. “Very proud to have the honour!

A military man, my dear. You know, a perfect general!” she

whispered to me.

 

Poor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as

a mark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often

that it was no easy matter to get her out of the court. When this

was at last done, and addressing Mr. George as “General,” she gave

him her arm, to the great entertainment of some idlers who were

looking on, he was so discomposed and begged me so respectfully

“not to desert him” that I could not make up my mind to do it,

especially as Miss Flite was always tractable with me and as she

too said, “Fitz Jarndyce, my dear, you will accompany us, of

course.” As Richard seemed quite willing, and even anxious, that

we should see them safely to their destination, we agreed to do so.

And as Mr. George informed us that Gridley’s mind had run on Mr.

Jarndyce all the afternoon after hearing of their interview in the

morning, I wrote a hasty note in pencil to my guardian to say where

we were gone and why. Mr. George sealed it at a coffee-house, that

it might lead to no discovery, and we sent it off by a ticket-porter.

 

We then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of

Leicester Square. We walked through some narrow courts, for which

Mr. George apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the

door of which was closed. As he pulled a bell-handle which hung by

a chain to the door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with

grey hair, wearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and

gaiters and a broad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded

cane, addressed him.

 

“I ask your pardon, my good friend,” said he, “but is this George’s

Shooting Gallery?”

 

“It is, sir,” returned Mr. George, glancing up at the great letters

in which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall.

 

“Oh! To be sure!” said the old gentleman, following his eyes.

“Thank you. Have you rung the bell?”

 

“My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell.”

 

“Oh, indeed?” said the old gentleman. “Your name is George? Then

I am here as soon as you, you see. You came for me, no doubt?”

 

“No, sir. You have the advantage of me.”

 

“Oh, indeed?” said the old gentleman. “Then it was your young man

who came for me. I am a physician and was requested—five minutes

ago—to come and visit a sick man at George’s Shooting Gallery.”

 

“The muffled drums,” said Mr. George, turning to Richard and me and

gravely shaking his head. “It’s quite correct, sir. Will you

please to walk in.”

 

The door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking

little man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and

dress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage

into a large building with bare brick walls where there were

targets, and guns, and swords, and other things of that kind. When

we had all arrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his

hat, appeared to vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a

different man in his place.

 

“Now lookee here, George,” said the man, turning quickly round upon

him and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. “You

know me, and I know you. You’re a man of the world, and I’m a man

of the world. My name’s Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a

peace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a

long time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit.”

 

Mr. George, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head.

 

“Now, George,” said the other, keeping close to him, “you’re a

sensible man and a well-conducted man; that’s what YOU are, beyond

a doubt. And mind you, I don’t talk to you as a common character,

because you have served your country and you know that when duty

calls we must obey. Consequently you’re very far from wanting to

give trouble. If I required assistance, you’d assist me; that’s

what YOU’D do. Phil Squod, don’t you go a-sidling round the

gallery like that”—the dirty little man was shuffling about with

his shoulder against the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a

manner that looked threatening—“because I know you and won’t have

it.”

 

“Phil!” said Mr. George.

 

“Yes, guv’ner.”

 

“Be quiet.”

 

The little man, with a low growl, stood still.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Bucket, “you’ll excuse anything

that may appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name’s Inspector

Bucket of the Detective, and I have a duty to perform. George, I

know where my man is because I was on the roof last night and saw

him through the skylight, and you along with him. He is in there,

you know,” pointing; “that’s where HE is—on a sofy. Now I must

see my man, and I must tell my man to consider himself in custody;

but you know me, and you know I don’t want to take any uncomfortable

measures. You give me your word, as from one man to another (and

an old soldier, mind you, likewise), that it’s honourable between

us two, and I’ll accommodate you to the utmost of my power.”

 

“I give it,” was the reply. “But it wasn’t handsome in you, Mr.

Bucket.”

 

“Gammon, George! Not handsome?” said Mr. Bucket, tapping him on

his broad breast