Bleak House

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Phil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he
were going anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander
like a bayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high
relief upon his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the
handle of the brush.

"Attention, Phil! Listen to this."

"Steady, commander, steady."

"'Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity
for my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months'
date drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted,
for the sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence,
will become due to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take
up the same on presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.' What do
you make of that, Phil?"

"Mischief, guv'ner."

"Why?"

"I think," replies Phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle
in his forehead with the brush-handle, "that mischeevious
consequences is always meant when money's asked for."

"Lookye, Phil," says the trooper, sitting on the table. "First and
last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal
in interest and one thing and another."

Phil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very
unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the
transaction as being made more promising by this incident.

"And lookye further, Phil," says the trooper, staying his premature
conclusions with a wave of his hand. "There has always been an
understanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And
it has been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?"

"I say that I think the times is come to a end at last."

"You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself."

"Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?"

"The same."

"Guv'ner," says Phil with exceeding gravity, "he's a leech in his
dispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in
his twistings, and a lobster in his claws."

Having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after
waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of
him, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he
has in hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical
medium that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady.
George, having folded the letter, walks in that direction.

"There IS a way, commander," says Phil, looking cunningly at him,
"of settling this."

"Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could."

Phil shakes his head. "No, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. There
IS a way," says Phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush;
"what I'm a-doing at present."

"Whitewashing."

Phil nods.

"A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the
Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off
my old scores? YOU'RE a moral character," says the trooper, eyeing
him in his large way with no small indignation; "upon my life you
are, Phil!"

Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting
earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush
and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb,
that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so
much as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy
family when steps are audible in the long passage without, and a
cheerful voice is heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil,
with a look at his master, hobbles up, saying, "Here's the guv'ner,
Mrs. Bagnet! Here he is!" and the old girl herself, accompanied by
Mr. Bagnet, appears.

The old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the
year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very
clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so
interesting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe
from another quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and
an umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a
part of the old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no colour
known in this life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle,
with a metallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a
little model of a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval
glasses out of a pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has
not that tenacious capacity of sticking to its post that might be
desired in an article long associated with the British army. The
old girl's umbrella is of a flabby habit of waist and seems to be
in need of stays--an appearance that is possibly referable to its
having served through a series of years at home as a cupboard and
on journeys as a carpet bag. She never puts it up, having the
greatest reliance on her well-proved cloak with its capacious hood,
but generally uses the instrument as a wand with which to point out
joints of meat or bunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the
attention of tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-
basket, which is a sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she
never stirs abroad. Attended by these her trusty companions,
therefore, her honest sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough
straw bonnet, Mrs. Bagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright,
in George's Shooting Gallery.

"Well, George, old fellow," says she, "and how do YOU do, this
sunshiny morning?"

Giving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long
breath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a
faculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such
positions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough
bench, unties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses
her arms, and looks perfectly comfortable.

Mr. Bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade
and with Phil, on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured
nod and smile.

"Now, George," said Mrs. Bagnet briskly, "here we are, Lignum and
myself"--she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on
account, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitae having been his old
regimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in
compliment to the extreme hardness and toughness of his
physiognomy--"just looked in, we have, to make it all correct as
usual about that security. Give him the new bill to sign, George,
and he'll sign it like a man."

"I was coming to you this morning," observes the trooper
reluctantly.

"Yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out
early and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and
came to you instead--as you see! For Lignum, he's tied so close
now, and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But
what's the matter, George?" asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her
cheerful talk. "You don't look yourself."

"I am not quite myself," returns the trooper; "I have been a little
put out, Mrs. Bagnet."

Her bright quick eye catches the truth directly. "George!" holding
up her forefinger. "Don't tell me there's anything wrong about
that security of Lignum's! Don't do it, George, on account of the
children!"

The trooper looks at her with a troubled visage.

"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and
occasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. "If you
have allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum's,
and if you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger
of being sold up--and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain
as print--you have done a shameful action and have deceived us
cruelly. I tell you, cruelly, George. There!"

Mr. Bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts
his large right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it
from a shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet.

"George," says that old girl, "I wonder at you! George, I am
ashamed of you! George, I couldn't have believed you would have
done it! I always knew you to be a rolling sone that gathered no
moss, but I never thought you would have taken away what little
moss there was for Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know
what a hard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec
and Malta and Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or
could, have had the heart to serve us so. Oh, George!" Mrs.
Bagnet gathers up her cloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine
manner, "How could you do it?"

Mrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as
if the shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at Mr.
George, who has turned quite white and looks distressfully at the
grey cloak and straw bonnet.

"Mat," says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but
still looking at his wife, "I am sorry you take it so much to
heart, because I do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. I
certainly have, this morning, received this letter"--which he reads
aloud--"but I hope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone,
why, what you say is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never
rolled in anybody's way, I fully believe, that I rolled the least
good to. But it's impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like
your wife and family better than I like 'em, Mat, and I trust
you'll look upon me as forgivingly as you can. Don't think I've
kept anything from you. I haven't had the letter more than a
quarter of an hour."

"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet after a short silence, "will you
tell him my opinion?"

"Oh! Why didn't he marry," Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and
half crying, "Joe Pouch's widder in North America? Then he
wouldn't have got himself into these troubles."

"The old girl," says Mr. Baguet, "puts it correct--why didn't you?"

"Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope," returns the
trooper. "Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to
Joe Pouch's widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about
me. It's not mine; it's yours. Give the word, and I'll sell off
every morsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in
nearly the sum wanted, I'd have sold all long ago. Don't believe
that I'll leave you or yours in the lurch, Mat. I'd sell myself
first. I only wish," says the trooper, giving himself a
disparaging blow in the chest, "that I knew of any one who'd buy
such a second-hand piece of old stores."

"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet, "give him another bit of my mind."

"George," says the old girl, "you are not so much to be blamed, on
full consideration, except for ever taking this business without
the means."

"And that was like me!" observes the penitent trooper, shaking his
head. "Like me, I know."

"Silence! The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "is correct--in her way
of giving my opinions--hear me out!"

"That was when you never ought to have asked for the security,
George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things
considered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an
honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your
power, though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit
but what it's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging
over our heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come!
Forget and forgive all round!"

Mrs. Bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her
husband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his and
holds them while he speaks.

"I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge
this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together
has gone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly
enough here, Phil and I. But the gallery don't quite do what was
expected of it, and it's not--in short, it's not the mint. It was
wrong in me to take it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner
drawn into that step, and I thought it might steady me, and set me
up, and you'll try to overlook my having such expectations, and
upon my soul, I am very much obliged to you, and very much ashamed
of myself." With these concluding words, Mr. George gives a shake
to each of the hands he holds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace
or two in a broad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a
final confession and were immediately going to be shot with all
military honours.

"George, hear me out!" says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. "Old
girl, go on!"

Mr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to
observe that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that
it is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr.
Smallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and
hold harmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George,
entirely assenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with Mr.
Bagnet to the enemy's camp.

"Don't you mind a woman's hasty word, George," says Mrs. Bagnet,
patting him on the shoulder. "I trust my old Lignum to you, and I
am sure you'll bring him through it."

The trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he WILL bring
Lignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak,
basket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of
her family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of
mollifying Mr. Smallweed.

Whether there are two people in England less likely to come
satisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr.
George and Mr. Matthew Bagnet may be very reasonably questioned.
Also, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square
shoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same
limits two more simple and unaccustomed children in all the
Smallweedy affairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity
through the streets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr.
Bagnet, observing his companion to be thoughtful, considers it a
friendly part to refer to Mrs. Bagnet's late sally.

"George, you know the old girl--she's as sweet and as mild as milk.
But touch her on the children--or myself--and she's off like
gunpowder."

"It does her credit, Mat!"

"George," says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, "the old
girl--can't do anything--that don't do her credit. More or less.
I never say so. Discipline must he maintained."

"She's worth her weight in gold," says the trooper.

"In gold?" says Mr. Bagnet. "I'll tell you what. The old girl's
weight--is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight--in any
metal--for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl's
metal is far more precious---than the preciousest metal. And she's
ALL metal!"

"You are right, Mat!"

"When she took me--and accepted of the ring--she 'listed under me
and the children--heart and head, for life. She's that earnest,"
says Mr. Bagnet, "and true to her colours--that, touch us with a
finger--and she turns out--and stands to her arms. If the old girl
fires wide--once in a way--at the call of duty--look over it,
George. For she's loyal!"

"Why, bless her, Mat," returns the trooper, "I think the higher of
her for it!"

"You are right!" says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm,
though without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. "Think as
high of the old girl--as the rock of Gibraltar--and still you'll be
thinking low--of such merits. But I never own to it before her.
Discipline must be maintained."

These encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant and to Grandfather
Smallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who,
having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but
indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she
consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be
inferred to give consent from the circumstance of her returning
with the words on her honey lips that they can come in if they want
to it. Thus privileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with
his feet in the drawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath
and Mrs. Smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is
not to sing.

"My dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed with those two lean
affectionate arms of his stretched forth. "How de do? How de do?
Who is our friend, my dear friend?"

"Why this," returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at
first, "is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of
ours, you know."

"Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!" The old man looks at him under his
hand.

"Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military
air, sir!"

No chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet
and one for himself. They sit down, Mr. Bagnet as if he had no
power of bending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose.

"Judy," says Mr. Smallweed, "bring the pipe."

"Why, I don't know," Mr. George interposes, "that the young woman
need give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not
inclined to smoke it to-day."

"Ain't you?" returns the old man. "Judy, bring the pipe."

"The fact is, Mr. Smallweed," proceeds George, "that I find myself
in rather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that
your friend in the city has been playing tricks."

"Oh, dear no!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "He never does that!"

"Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might
be HIS doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter."

Grandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way in recognition of
the letter.

"What does it mean?" asks Mr. George.

"Judy," says the old man. "Have you got the pipe? Give it to me.
Did you say what does it mean, my good friend?"

"Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed," urges the
trooper, constraining himself to speak as smoothly and
confidentially as he can, holding the open letter in one hand and
resting the broad knuckles of the other on his thigh, "a good lot
of money has passed between us, and we are face to face at the
present moment, and are both well aware of the understanding there
has always been. I am prepared to do the usual thing which I have
done regularly and to keep this matter going. I never got a letter
like this from you before, and I have been a little put about by it
this morning, because here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you
know, had none of the money--"

"I DON'T know it, you know," says the old man quietly.

"Why, con-found you--it, I mean--I tell you so, don't I?"

"Oh, yes, you tell me so," returns Grandfather Smallweed. "But I
don't know it."

"Well!" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. "I know it."

Mr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, "Ah! That's quite
another thing!" And adds, "But it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's
situation is all one, whether or no."

The unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair
comfortably and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his
own terms.

"That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's
Matthew Bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see,
that makes his good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for
whereas I'm a harurn-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more
kicks than halfpence come natural to, why he's a steady family man,
don't you see? Now, Mr. Smallweed," says the trooper, gaining
confidence as he proceeds in his soldierly mode of doing business,
"although you and I are good friends enough in a certain sort of a
way, I am well aware that I can't ask you to let my friend Bagnet
off entirely."

"Oh, dear, you are too modest. You can ASK me anything, Mr.
George." (There is an ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather
Smallweed to-day.)

"And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as
your friend in the city? Ha ha ha!"

"Ha ha ha!" echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard
manner and with eyes so particularly green that Mr. Bagnet's
natural gravity is much deepened by the contemplation of that
venerable man.

"Come!" says the sanguine George. "I am glad to find we can be
pleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my
friend Bagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot,
if you please, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my
friend Bagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal if you'll
just mention to him what our understanding is."

Here some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, "Oh, good
gracious! Oh!" Unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is
found to be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose
chin has received a recent toss, expressive of derision and
contempt. Mr. Bagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound.

"But I think you asked me, Mr. George"--old Smallweed, who all this
time has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now--"I think you
asked me, what did the letter mean?"

"Why, yes, I did," returns the trooper in his off-hand way, "but I
don't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant."

Mr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's
head, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces.

"That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll
crumble you. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!"

The two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity
has now attained its profoundest point.

"Go to the devil!" repeats the old man. "I'll have no more of your
pipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent
dragoon, too! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been
there before) and show your independeuce now, will you? Come, my
dear friend, there's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy;
put these blusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em
out!"

He vociferates this so loudly that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on
the shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his
amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is
instantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr.
George awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a
perfect abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little
parlour window like a sentry and looks in every time he passes,
apparently revolving something in his mind.

"Come, Mat," says Mr. George when he has recovered himself, "we
must try the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?"

Mr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour,
replies with one shake of his head directed at the interior, "If my
old girl had been here--I'd have told him!" Having so discharged
himself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step and
marches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder.

When they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr.
Tulkinghorn is engaged and not to be seen. He is not at all
willing to see them, for when they have waited a full hour, and the
clerk, on his bell being rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning
as much, he brings forth no more encouraging message than that Mr.
Tulkinghorn has nothing to say to them and they had better not
wait. They do wait, however, with the perseverance of military
tactics, and at last the bell rings again and the client in
possession comes out of Mr. Tulkinghorn's room.

The client is a handsome old lady, no other than Mrs. Rouncewell,
housekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a
fair old-fashioned curtsy and softly shuts the door. She is
treated with some distinction there, for the clerk steps out of his
pew to show her through the outer office and to let her out. The
old lady is thanking him for his attention when she observes the
comrades in waiting.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?"

The clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr.
George not turning round from the almanac over the fire-place. Mr.
Bagnet takes upon himself to reply, "Yes, ma'am. Formerly."

"I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at
the sight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless
you, gentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman, but I had a son once
who went for a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in
his bold way, though some people did disparage him to his poor
mother. I ask your pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you,
gentlemen!"

"Same to you, ma'am!" returns Mr. Bagnet with right good will.

There is something very touching in the earnestness of the old
lady's voice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old
figure. But Mr. George is so occupied with the almanac over the
fireplace (calculating the coming months by it perhaps) that he
does not look round until she has gone away and the door is closed
upon her.

"George," Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the
almanac at last. "Don't be cast down! 'Why, soldiers, why--should
we be melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!"