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Lady Deadlock on the Staircase
Mr. Bucket watches Lady Dedlock as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his grave; past the printed bill, which she looks at going by. (728)
Harry Furniss
1910
15 cm x 9.4 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Bleak House, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Chapter 53, "The Track" — facing XI, 736.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Mine was," says Mr. Bucket. "My father was first a page, then a footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his career, and so it was. I've a brother in service, and a brother-in-law. My Lady a good temper?"
Mercury replies, "As good as you can expect."
"Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. "A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord! What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like 'em all the better for it, don't we?"
Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a man of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a violent ringing at the bell. "Talk of the angels," says Mr. Bucket. "Here she is!"
The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager eye and rattles something in his pocket — halfpence perhaps.
Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the other Mercury who has brought her home.
"Mr. Bucket, my Lady."
Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon over the region of his mouth.
"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?"
"No, my Lady, I've seen him!"
"Have you anything to say to me?"
"Not just at present, my Lady."
"Have you made any new discoveries?"
"A few, my Lady."
This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot, watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going by, out of view. [Chapter LIII, "The Track," 728]
Although he has George Rouncewell safely behind bars for the murder of the Dedlock's attorney, Tulkinghorn, Bucket realizes that, despite his having both means, motive, and opportunity, Mr. George is not the most likely suspect. He simply is not the sort of person to shoot down an unarmed adversary, no matter how vexatious he may have found the lawyer's professional conduct. The chapter title "The Track" seems to point initially towards Bucket's charging Lady Dedlock with the murder advertised in Sir Leicester's poster conspicuously posted at the top of the stairs in his townhouse. But, again, appearances are deceptive. Although like George she has no proper alibi to account for her wherabouts on the evening of the murder (indeed, she like George was present at Tulkinbghorn's Lincoln's Inn chambers that night), she is far too self-controlled to allow her anger to run away with her. No, reasons Bucket, the perpetrator of the crime is a person with both a hot temper and a deep-seated grievance against the attorney: his lodger, the discharged French maid, is certainly the most likely candidate. Mrs. Bucket has had her under surveillance, and, indeed, he has already recovered the murder weapon from the lake where Hortense threw it.
Left: Phiz's original serial study of the Lady Dedlock shortly before Bucket's revelations: Shadow/span> (June 1853). Centre: Fred Barnard's Household Edition composite woodblock wood-engraving features Bucket's clapping the cuffs on Hortense: "Can you make a haughty gentleman of Him? . . . . The poor infant!" (1873). Right: F. O. C. Darley's frontispiece depicting Bucket's interrogation of the French maid in Sir Leicester's library: Springing a Mine (1863).
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Created 24 March 2021