Unworthy

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Bleak House

Copyright: Public Domain/BBC

Josiah Tulkinghorn watches his master's wedding reception with a face as immovable as any of the stone angels around the church. Dressed in black, formal and correct as always, he stands out like a spill of ink against the dashing suits, gold-buttoned uniforms and shimmering gowns of the other guests; just so, his expression stands out against the jokes of the younger gentlemen, the grim disapproval of the groom's relations, and the tears of emotion (or possibly jealousy) from the ladies, especially Volumnia, whose layer of rouge is positively streaked. With a look in his pale eyes that anyone watching would dismiss as polite indifference, Tulkinghorn holds on to his wineglass and watches the couple dance.

Sir Leicester is smiling, in a way no one has ever seen him smile. For all his ash-colored hair, his stout figure and the frown lines in his face, he looks about twenty years younger as he leads his young bride through the dance. The way he clasps her hand, draws her closer, never takes his eyes off her even when the pattern of the dance requires moving apart, makes it impossible not to see what his feelings must be. The lady, however, is a mystery.

She is beautiful, of course. A man like Sir Leicester, Tulkinghorn reflects, would never marry a girl with neither family nor wealth if she did not have other assets to compensate. With her elegant features, deep blue eyes, heavy coronet of chestnut curls under her white lace veil, and the slender figure just visible beneath her empire-waisted gown, it is no surprise that she attracted his attention. Though a clergyman's daughter, orphaned and penniless, she seems to belong with these wood-paneled rooms, chandeliers dripping with crystals, rows of dim ancestral portraits and armies of servants better than some who are born to it. However, if Tulkinghorn had ever dared to give an opinion – which he is far too professional to do – he would have told Sir Leicester, without hesitation, that Honoria Barbary is unworthy of him. He has tried, cautiously of course, to hint against the marriage. But his master, for the first time, cut him off with an irritable wave of his hand.

My choice of a wife is no one's concern but my own!

Of course not, my lord. Forgive me …

I know you mean well, Tulkinghorn. Your concern for the Dedlock family name does you credit. But if Miss Barbary is not worthy to receive that name, neither is any lady upon this earth.

As you say, my lord.

Sir Leicester's proud face softened then, and Tulkinghorn saw the man behind the title whom so few people are privileged to see: the man who stayed up all night to learn the fate of a sick hunting dog, who protected a homely, awkward young Josiah from bullies when they went to school together, who hired him without question even after Tulkinghorn Sr. died a bankrupt. The man who deserves so much better than the likes of Miss Barbary.

He can see it in the dance. She does not reach for her husband's hand or look at him unless she has to; she still wears her veil despite the heat of the candlelit room; she moves like a figure in a music box, with grace, but without emotion.

This woman means everything to Sir Leicester, and he means nothing to her.

Tulkinghorn stares down into his wineglass, swirling the aged port like blood draining into a sink. He thinks back to the ceremony, to the moment when the entire congregation was ordered to speak now or forever hold their peace. He looks back at Lady Dedlock, and in the depths of the rusty streong-box he has for a heart, he makes a promise to himself – to get his master out of this trap, by any means necessary.