It happened that in the street they had several times passed a dingy
house, apparently empty, with bills in the windows, announcing that it
was to let. The bills, as a variety in the funeral procession, almost
amounted to a decoration. Perhaps because they kept the house separated
in his mind, or perhaps because Mr Meagles and himself had twice agreed
in passing, 'It is clear she don't live there,' Clennam now proposed
that they should go back and try that house before finally going away.
Mr Meagles agreed, and back they went.
They knocked once, and they rang once, without any response.
'Empty,' said Mr Meagles, listening. 'Once more,' said Clennam, and
knocked again. After that knock they heard a movement below, and
somebody shuffling up towards the door.
The confined entrance was so dark that it was impossible to make out
distinctly what kind of person opened the door; but it appeared to be an
old woman. 'Excuse our troubling you,' said Clennam. 'Pray can you
tell us where Miss Wade lives?' The voice in the darkness unexpectedly
replied, 'Lives here.' 'Is she at home?'
No answer coming, Mr Meagles asked again.
'Pray is she at home?' After another delay, 'I suppose she is,' said the voice abruptly; 'you
had better come in, and I'll ask.'
They 'were summarily shut into the close black house; and the figure
rustling away, and speaking from a higher level, said, 'Come up, if you
please; you can't tumble over anything.' They groped their way up-stairs
towards a faint light, which proved to be the light of the street
shining through a window; and the figure left them shut in an airless
room. 'This is odd, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, softly.
'Odd enough,' assented Clennam in the same tone, 'but we have succeeded;
that's the main point. Here's a light coming!'
The light was a lamp, and the bearer was an old woman: very dirty, very
wrinkled and dry. 'She's at home,' she said (and the voice was the same
that had spoken before); 'she'll come directly.' Having set the lamp
down on the table, the old woman dusted her hands on her apron, which
she might have done for ever without cleaning them, looked at the
visitors with a dim pair of eyes, and backed out.
The lady whom they had come to see, if she were the present occupant
of the house, appeared to have taken up her quarters there as she might
have established herself in an Eastern caravanserai. A small square
of carpet in the middle of the room, a few articles of furniture that
evidently did not belong to the room, and a disorder of trunks and
travelling articles, formed the whole of her surroundings. Under some
former regular inhabitant, the stifling little apartment had broken out
into a pier-glass and a gilt table; but the gilding was as faded as last
year's flowers, and the glass was so clouded that it seemed to hold in
magic preservation all the fogs and bad weather it had ever reflected.
The visitors had had a minute or two to look about them, when the door
opened and Miss Wade came in.