Bleak House

'If ever the wind was in the east,' said my guardian, pretending to look out of the window for a weathercock, 'I think it's there to-day!'

We found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not Miss Flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature in consulting the convenience of others, as there possibly could be. It was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr. Jarndyce. If he had been linked to him, he could hardly have attended him more closely. He proposed to show us his Court of Chancery, and all the strange medley it contained; during the whole of our inspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to Mr. Jarndyce, and sometimes detained him, under one pretence or other, until we had passed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination to enter upon some secret subject, which he could not make up his mind to approach. I cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive of caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he could not resolve to venture on, than Mr. Krook's was, that day. His watchfulness of my guardian was incessant. He rarely removed his eyes from his face. If he went on beside him, he observed him with the slyness of an old white fox. If he went before, he looked back. When we stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across and across his open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of power, and turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until they appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face.

At last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over the house, and having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous lumber, which was certainly curious, we came into the back part of the shop. Here, on the head of an empty barrel stood on end, were an ink-bottle, some old stumps of pens, and some dirty playbills; and, against the wall, were pasted several large printed alphabets in several plain hands.

'What are you doing here?' asked my guardian.

'Trying to learn myself to read and write,' said Krook.

'And how do you get on?'

'Slow. Bad,' returned the old man, impatiently. 'It's hard at my time of life.'

'It would be easier to be taught by some one,' said my guardian.

'Aye, but they might teach me wrong!' returned the old man, with a wonderfully suspicious flash of his eye. 'I don't know what I may have lost, by not being learnd afore. I wouldn't like to lose anything by being learnd wrong now.'

'Wrong?' said my guardian, with his good-humoured smile. 'Who do you suppose would teach you wrong?'

'I don't know, Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House!' replied the old man, turning up his spectacles on his forehead, and rubbing his hands. 'I don't suppose as anybody would – but I'd rather trust my own self than another!'

These answers, and his manner, were strange enough to cause my guardian to inquire of Mr. Woodcourt, as we all walked across Lincoln's Inn together, whether Mr. Krook were really, as his lodger represented him, deranged? The young surgeon replied, no, he had seen no reason to think so. He was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually was, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin: of which he drank great quantities, and of which he and his back-shop, as we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him mad, as yet.

On our way home, I so conciliated Peepy's affections by buying him a windmill and two flour-sacks, that he would suffer nobody else to take off his hat and gloves, and would sit nowhere at dinner but at my side. Caddy sat upon the other side of me, next to Ada, to whom we imparted the whole history of the engagement as soon as we got back. We made much of Caddy, and Peepy too; and Caddy brightened exceedingly; and my guardian was as merry as we were; and we were all very happy indeed; until Caddy went home at night in a hackney-coach, with Peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill.

I have forgotten to mention – at least I have not mentioned – that Mr. Woodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at Mr. Badger's. Or, that Mr. Jarndyce invited him to dinner that day. Or, that he came. Or, that when they were all gone, and I said to Ada, 'Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!' Ada laughed and said—

But, I don't think it matters what my darling said. She was always merry.

Chapter XV

Bell yard

While we were in London, Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our arrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on, and to brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All objects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for anything in the way of a testimonial to any one. His great power seemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. He would sit, for any length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in the light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake, and found him to be train-bearer and organ-blower to a whole procession of people.

Mrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something – and with her, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale repeated to us; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew Mrs. Pardiggle out. Mrs. Pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction to my guardian, in behalf of her eloquent friend, Mr. Gusher. With Mr. Gusher, appeared Mr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist surface, and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they seemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at first sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated, before Mr. Quale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great creature – which he certainly was, flabbily speaking; though Mr. Quale meant in intellectual beauty – and whether we were not struck by his massive configuration of brow? In short, we heard of a great many Missions of various sorts, among this set of people; but nothing respecting them was half so clear to us, as that it was Mr. Quale's mission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission, and that it was the most popular mission of all.

Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company, in the tenderness of his heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms; where charity was assumed, as a regular uniform, by loud professors and speculators in cheap notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help the weak from falling, rather than with a great deal of bluster and self-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down; he plainly told us. When a testimonial was originated to Mr. Quale, by Mr. Gusher (who had already got one, originated by Mr. Quale), and when Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a meeting, including two charity schools of small boys and girls, who were specially reminded of the widow's mite, and requested to come forward with halfpence and be acceptable sacrifices; I think the wind was in the east for three whole weeks.

I mention this, because I am coming to Mr. Skimpole again. It seemed to me, that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and were the more readily believed in; since, to find one perfectly undesigning and candid man, among many opposites, could not fail to give him pleasure. I should be sorry to imply that Mr. Skimpole divined this, and was politic: I really never understood him well enough to know. What he was to my guardian, he certainly was to the rest of the world.

He had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in London, we had seen nothing of him until now. He appeared one morning, in his usual agreeable way, and as full of pleasant spirits as ever.

Well, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were often bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he was a man of property. So he was, in a certain point of view – in his expansive intentions. He had been enriching his medical attendant in the most lavish manner. He had always doubled, and sometimes quadrupled, his fees. He had said to the doctor, 'Now, my dear doctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you attend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money – in my expansive intentions – if you only knew it!' And really (he said) he meant it to that degree, that he thought it much the same as doing it. If he had had those bits of metal or thin paper, to which mankind attached so much importance, to put in the doctor's hand, he would have put them in the doctor's hand. Not having them, he substituted the will for the deed. Very well! If he really meant it – if his will were genuine and real: which it was – it appeared to him that it was the same as coin, and cancelled the obligation.

'It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money,' said Mr. Skimpole, 'but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My butcher says to me, he wants that little bill. It's a part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature, that he always calls it a "little" bill – to make the payment appear easy to both of us. I reply to the butcher, My good friend, if you knew it you are paid. You haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. You are paid. I mean it.'

'But, suppose,' said my guardian, laughing, 'he had meant the meat in the bill, instead of providing it?'

'My dear Jarndyce,' he returned, 'you surprise me. You take the butcher's position. A butcher I once dealt with, occupied that very ground. Says he, "Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen-pence a pound?" "Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen-pence a pound, my honest friend?" said I, naturally amazed by the question. "I like spring lamb!" This was so far convincing. "Well, sir," says he, "I wish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!" "My good fellow," said I, "pray let us reason like intellectual beings. How could that be? It was impossible. You had got the lamb, and I have not got the money. You couldn't really mean the lamb without sending it in, whereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!" He had not a word. There was an end of the subject.'

'Did he take no legal proceedings?' inquired my guardian.

'Yes, he took legal proceedings,' said Mr. Skimpole. 'But, in that, he was influenced by passion; not by reason. Passion reminds me of Boythorn. He writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a short visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire.'

'He is a great favourite with my girls,' said Mr. Jarndyce, 'and I have promised for them.'

'Nature forgot to shade him off, I think?' observed Mr. Skimpole to Ada and me. 'A little too boisterous – like the sea? A little too vehement – like a bull, who has made up his mind to consider every colour scarlet? But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!'

I should have been surprised if those two could have thought very highly of one another; Mr. Boythorn attaching so much importance to many things, and Mr. Skimpole caring so little for anything. Besides which, I had noticed Mr. Boythorn more than once on the point of breaking out into some strong opinion, when Mr. Skimpole was referred to. Of course I merely joined Ada in saying that we had been greatly pleased with him.

'He has invited me,' said Mr. Skimpole; 'and if a child may trust himself in such hands: which the present child is encouraged to do, with the united tenderness of two angels to guard him: I shall go. He proposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will cost money? Shillings perhaps? Or pounds? Or something of that sort? By-the-bye. Coavinses. You remember our friend Coavinses, Miss Summerson?'

He asked me, as the subject arose in his mind, in his graceful light-hearted manner, and without the least embarrassment.

'O yes!' said I.

'Coavinses has been arrested by the great Bailiff,' said Mr. Skimpole. 'He will never do violence to the sunshine any more.'

It quite shocked me to hear it; for I had already recalled, with anything but a serious association, the image of the man sitting on the sofa that night, wiping his head.

'His successor informed me of it yesterday,' said Mr. Skimpole. 'His successor is in my house now – in possession, I think he calls it. He came yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. I put it to him, "This is unreasonable and inconvenient. If you had a blue-eyed daughter you wouldn't like me to come, uninvited, on her birthday?" But he stayed.'

Mr. Skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity, and lightly touched the piano by which he was seated.

'And he told me,' he said, playing little chords where I shall put full stops, 'That Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. And that Coavinses' profession. Being unpopular. The rising Coavinses. Were at a considerable disadvantage.'

Mr. Jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. Mr. Skimpole played the melody of one of Ada's favourite songs. Ada and I both looked at Mr. Jarndyce, thinking that we knew what was passing in his mind.

After walking and stopping, and several times leaving off rubbing his head, and beginning again, my guardian put his hand upon the keys and stopped Mr. Skimpole's playing. 'I don't like this, Skimpole,' he said thoughtfully.

Mr. Skimpole, who had quite forgotten the subject, looked up surprised.

'The man was necessary,' pursued my guardian, walking backward and forward in the very short space between the piano and the end of the room, and rubbing his hair up from the back of his head as if a high east wind had blown it into that form. 'If we make such men necessary by our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly knowledge, or by our misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. There was no harm in his trade. He maintained his children. One would like to know more about this.'

'O! Coavinses?' cried Mr. Skimpole, at length perceiving what he meant. 'Nothing easier. A walk to Coavinses' headquarters, and you can know what you will.'

Mr. Jarndyce nodded to us, who were only waiting for the signal. 'Come! We will walk that way, my dears. Why not that way, as soon as another!' We were quickly ready, and went out. Mr. Skimpole went with us, and quite enjoyed the expedition. It was so new and so refreshing, he said, for him to want Coavinses, instead of Coavinses wanting him!

He took us, first, to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, where there was a house with barred windows, which he called Coavinses' Castle. On our going into the entry and ringing a bell, a very hideous boy came out of a sort of office, and looked at us over a spiked wicket.

'Who did you want?' said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into his chin.

'There was a follower, or an officer, or something, here,' said Mr. Jarndyce, 'who is dead.'

'Yes?' said the boy. 'Well?'

'I want to know his name, if you please?'