With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock and we were yet a few miles short of Saint Albans, when he came out of one of these houses and handed me in a cup of tea.
"Drink it, Miss Summerson, it'll do you good. You're beginning to get more yourself now, ain't you?"
I thanked him, and said I hoped so.
"You was what you may call stunned at first," he returned; "and Lord! no wonder. Don't speak loud, my dear. It's all right. She's on ahead."
I don't know what joyful exclamation I made, or was going to make, but he put up his finger, and I stopped myself.
"Passed through here on foot, this evening, about eight or nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but couldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, Ostler. Now, if you wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half-a-crown in your t'other hand. One, two, three, and there you are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!"
We were soon in Saint Albans, and alighted a little before day, when I was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the night, and really to believe that they were not a dream. Leaving the carriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready, my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home.
"As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see," he observed, "I should like to know whether you've been asked for by any stranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce has. I don't much expect it, but it might be."
As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye--the day was now breaking--and reminded me that I had come down it one night, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and poor Jo: whom he called Toughey.
I wondered how he knew that.
"When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know," said Mr. Bucket.
Yes, I remembered that too, very well.
"That was me," said Mr. Bucket.
Seeing my surprise, he went on:
"I drove down in a gig that afternoon, to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your little maid going up, when I was walking the horse down. Making an inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he was in; and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him, when I observed you bringing him home here."
"Had he committed any crime?" I asked.
"None was charged against him," said Mr. Bucket, coolly lifting off his hat; "but I suppose he wasn't over-particular. No. What I wanted him for, was in connection with keeping this very matter of Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome, as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn't do, at any sort of price, to have him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he was away, and go farther from it, and maintain a bright look out that I didn't catch him coming back again."
"Poor creature!" said I.
"Poor enough," assented Mr. Bucket, "and trouble enough, and well enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure you."
I asked him why? "Why, my dear?" said Mr. Bucket. "Naturally there was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a yard and a half of it, and a remnant over."
Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me. With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that we had in view. He still pursued this subject, as we turned in at the garden-gate.
"Ah!" said Mr. Bucket. "Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker-tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They're early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what you've always got to be careful of with servants, is, who comes to see 'em; you never know what they're up to, if you don't know that. And another thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the kitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose."
We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely at the gravel for footprints, before he raised his eyes to the windows.
"Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room, when he's on a visit here, Miss Summerson?" he inquired, glancing at Mr. Skimpole's usual chamber.
"You know Mr. Skimpole!" said I.
"What do you call him again?" returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his ear. "Skimpole, is it? I've often wondered what his name might be. Skimpole. Not John. I should say, nor yet Jacob!"
"Harold," I told him.
"Harold. Yes. He's a queer bird, is Harold," said Mr. Bucket, eyeing me with great expression.
"He is a singular character," said I.
"No idea of money," observed Mr. Bucket.--"He takes it though!"
I involuntarily returned for answer, that I perceived Mr. Bucket knew him.
"Why, now I'll tell you, Miss Summerson," he rejoined. "Your mind will be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and I'll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where Toughey was. I made up my mind, that night, to come to the door and ask for Toughey, if that was all; but, willing to try a move or so first, if any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at that window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I have had a look at him, thinks I, you're the man for me. So I smoothed him down a bit, about not wanting to disturb the family after they was gone to bed, and about its being a thing to be regretted that charitable young ladies should harbor vagrants; and then, when I pretty well understood his ways, I said, I should consider a fypunnote well bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, 'it's no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because I'm a mere child in such matters, and have no idea of money.' Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and looks as innocent as you like, and says, 'But I don't know the value of these things. What am I to do with this?' 'Spend it, sir,' says I. 'But I shall be taken in,' he says 'they won't give me the right change, I shall lose it, it's no use to me.' Lord, you never saw such a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find Toughey, and I found him."
I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole towards my guardian, and as passing the usual bounds of his childish innocence.
"Bounds, my dear?" returned Mr. Bucket. "Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, I'll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it, if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you 'In worldly matters I'm a child,' you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable, and that you have got that person's number, and it's Number One. Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal way, when it goes round a company, but I'm a practical one, and that's my experience. So's this rule. Fast and loose in one thing, Fast and loose in everything. I never knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business."
I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than it had been out of my mind,
or out of his face. The whole household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be doubted that this was the truth.
"Then, Miss Summerson," said my companion, "we can't be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries there I leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make 'em. The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own way."
We set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found it shut up, and apparently deserted: but one of the neighbors who knew me, and who came out when I was trying to make someone hear, informed me that the two women and their husbands now lived together in another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin of the piece of ground where the kilns were, and where the long rows of bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing to this place, which was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, I pushed it open.
There were only three of them sitting at breakfast; the child lying asleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the dead child, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and the men, though they were as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a morose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr. Bucket followed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman evidently knew him.
I had asked leave to enter, of course. Liz (the only name by which I knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a stool near the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. Now that I had to speak, and was among people with whom I was not familiar, I became conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was very difficult to begin, and I could not help bursting into tears.
"Liz," said I, "I have come a long way in the night and through the snow, to inquire after a lady--"
"Who has been here, you know," Mr. Bucket struck in, addressing the whole group, with a composed propitiatory face; "that's the lady the young lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know."
"And who told you as there was anybody here?" inquired Jenny's husband, who had made a surly stop in his eating, to listen, and now measured him with his eye.
"A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue velveteen waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons," Mr. Bucket immediately answered.
"He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is," growled the man.
"He's out of employment, I believe," said Mr. Bucket, apologetically for Michael Jackson, "and so gets talking."
The woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her hand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have spoken to me privately, if she had dared. She was still in this attitude of uncertainty, when her husband, who was eating with a lump of bread and fat in one hand, and his clasp-knife in the other, struck the handle of his knife violently on the table, and told her with an oath to mind her own business at any rate, and sit down.
"I should like to have seen Jenny very much," said I, "for I am sure she would have told me all she could about this lady whom I am very anxious indeed--you cannot think how anxious--to overtake. Will Jenny be here soon? Where is she?"
The woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to Jenny's husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence the latter turned his shaggy head towards me.
"I'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you've heerd me say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and it's curous they can't let my place be. There'd be a pretty shine made if I was to go a-wisitin them, I think. Howsoever I don't so much complain of you as of some others; and I'm agreeable to make you a civil answer, though I give notice that I'm not a-going to be drawed like a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No, she won't. Where is she? She's gone up to Lunnun."
"Did she go last night?" I asked.
"Did she go last night? Ah! she went last night," he answered, with a sulky jerk of his head.
"But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as to tell me," said I, "for I am in great distress to know."
"If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm--" the woman timidly began.
"Your master," said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow emphasis, "will break your neck, if you meddle with wot don't concern you."
After another silence, the husband of the absent woman turning to me again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness.
"Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the lady come. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I'll tell you wot the lady said to her. She said, 'You remember me as come one time to talk to you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had left?' Ah she remembered. So we all did. Well, then, wos that young lady up at the house now? No, she warn't up at the house now. Well, then, lookee here. The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as we might think it, and could she rest herself where you're a setten, for a hour or so. Yes, she could, and so she did. Then she went--it might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve, we ain't got no watches here to know the time by, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don't know where she go'd. She went one way and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun, and t'other went right from it. That's all about it. Ask this man. He heerd it all, and see it all. He knows."
The other man repeated, "That's all about it."
"Was the lady crying?" I inquired.
"Devil a bit," returned the first man. "Her shoes was the worse, and her clothes was the worse, but she warn't--not as I see."
The woman sat with her arms crossed, and her eyes upon the ground. Her husband had turned his seat a little so as to face her; and kept his hammer-like hand upon the table, as if it were in readiness to execute his threat if she disobeyed him.
"I hope you will not object to my asking your wife," said I, "how the lady looked?"
"Come, then!" he gruffly cried to her. "You hear what she says. Cut it short, and tell her."
"Bad," replied the woman. "Pale and exhausted. Very bad."
"Did she speak much?"
"Not much, but her voice was hoarse."
She answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave.
"Was she faint?" said I. "Did she eat or drink here?"
"Go on!" said the husband, in answer to her look. "Tell her and cut it short."
"She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and tea. But she hardly touched it."
"And when she went from here"--I was proceeding, when Jenny's husband impatiently took me up.
"When she went from here, she went right away Nor'ard by the high road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn't so. Now, there's the end. That's all about it."
I glanced at my companion; and finding that he had already risen and was ready to depart, thanked them for what thay had told me, and took my leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went out, and he looked full at her.
"Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me, as we walked quickly away. "They've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. That's a positive fact."
"You saw it?" I exclaimed.
"Just as good as saw it," he returned. "Else why should he talk about his 'twenty minutes past,' and about his having no watch to tell the time by? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time so fine as that. If he comes to half-hours, it's as much as he does. Now, you see, either her ladyship gave him that watch, or he took it. I think she gave it him. Now, what should she give it him for? What should she give it him for?"
He repeated this question to himself several times, as we hurried on; appearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in his mind.
"If time could be spared," said
Mr. Bucket--"which is the only thing that can't be spared in this case--I might get it out of that woman; but it's too doubtful a chance to trust to, under present circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that ill uses her, through thick and thin. There's something kept back. It's a pity but what we had seen the other woman."
I regretted it exceedingly; for she was very grateful, and I felt sure would have resisted no entreaty of mine.
"It's possible, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it, "that her Ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and it's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don't come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the cards. Now, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, on these Roughs, and I don't see my way to the usefulness of it at present. No! So far, our road, Miss Summerson, is for'ard--straight ahead--and keeping everything quiet!"
We called at home once more, that I might send a hasty note to my guardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the carriage. The horses were brought out as soon as we were seen coming, and we were on the road again in a few minutes.
It had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air was so thick with the darkness of the day, and the density of the fall, that we could see but a very little way in any direction. Although it was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it churned--with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells--under the hoofs of the horses, into mire and water. They sometimes slipped and floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a standstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first stage, and trembled so, and was so shaken, that the driver had to dismount from his saddle and lead him at last.