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 lookout 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 replied. “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 harbour 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
