In Mr. Tulkinghorn’s Chambers
From the verdant undulations and the spreading oaks of the Dedlock
property, Mr. Tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and
dust of London. His manner of coming and going between the two places
is one of his impenetrabilities. He walks into Chesney Wold as if it
were next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers as if he
had never been out of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He neither changes his
dress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. He melted out of
his turret-room this morning, just as now, in the late twilight, he
melts into his own square.
Like a dingy London bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant
fields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into
wigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded,
dwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without
experience of genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped nest
in holes and corners of human nature that he has forgotten its
broader and better range, comes sauntering home. In the oven made by
the hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked himself dryer than
usual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a
century old.
The lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on Mr.
Tulkinghorn’s side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble
mysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the
door-steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on
the top step, a bowing and propitiatory little man.
“Is that Snagsby?”
“Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, sir,
and going home.”
“Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?”
“Well, sir,” says Mr. Snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his
head in his deference towards his best customer, “I was wishful to
say a word to you, sir.”
“Can you say it here?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Say it then.” The lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron railing
at the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter lighting the
court-yard.
“It is relating,” says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, “it is
relating—not to put too fine a point upon it—to the foreigner,
sir!”
Mr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. “What foreigner?”
“The foreign female, sir. French, if I don’t mistake? I am not
acquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her
manners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly
foreign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the
honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night.”
“Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense.”
“Indeed, sir?” Mr. Snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind his
hat. “I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in
general, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that.” Mr. Snagsby appears
to have set out in this reply with some desperate design of repeating
the name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse himself.
“And what can you have to say, Snagsby,” demands Mr. Tulkinghorn,
“about her?”
“Well, sir,” returns the stationer, shading his communication with
his hat, “it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is
very great—at least, it’s as great as can be expected, I’m sure—but
my little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too fine a
point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you see, a
foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and
hovering—I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if
I could avoid it, but hovering, sir—in the court—you know it
is—now ain’t it? I only put it to yourself, sir.”
Mr. Snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in a
cough of general application to fill up all the blanks.
“Why, what do you mean?” asks Mr. Tulkinghorn.
“Just so, sir,” returns Mr. Snagsby; “I was sure you would feel it
yourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when
coupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. You see, the
foreign female—which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a
native sound I am sure—caught up the word Snagsby that night, being
uncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come at
dinner-time. Now Guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and
she, taking fright at the foreigner’s looks—which are fierce—and at
a grinding manner that she has of speaking—which is calculated to
alarm a weak mind—gave way to it, instead of bearing up against it,
and tumbled down the kitchen stairs out of one into another, such
fits as I do sometimes think are never gone into, or come out of, in
any house but ours. Consequently there was by good fortune ample
occupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop. When
she DID say that Mr. Tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his
employer (which I had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of
viewing a clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually
calling at my place until she was let in here. Since then she has
been, as I began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir”—Mr. Snagsby
repeats the word with pathetic emphasis—“in the court. The effects
of which movement it is impossible to calculate. I shouldn’t wonder
if it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even
in the neighbours’ minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was
possible) my little woman. Whereas, goodness knows,” says Mr.
Snagsby, shaking his head, “I never had an idea of a foreign female,
except as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms and a baby,
or at the present time with a tambourine and earrings. I never had, I
do assure you, sir!”
Mr. Tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires
when the stationer has finished, “And that’s all, is it, Snagsby?”
“Why yes, sir, that’s all,” says Mr. Snagsby, ending with a cough
that plainly adds, “and it’s enough too—for me.”
“I don’t know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she
is mad,” says the lawyer.
“Even if she was, you know, sir,” Mr. Snagsby pleads, “it wouldn’t be
a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign
dagger planted in the family.”
“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 falls 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 des-pise 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 Hortense 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 rec-eive 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.