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diff --git a/old/ldort10.txt b/old/ldort10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e4f6f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ldort10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,39310 @@ +*Project Gutenberg's Etext of Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens* +#30 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + + + + +Little Dorrit + +Charles Dickens + + + +CONTENTS + + +Preface to the 1857 Edition + + +BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY +1. Sun and Shadow +2. Fellow Travellers +3. Home +4. Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream +5. Family Affairs +6. The Father of the Marshalsea +7. The Child of the Marshalsea +8. The Lock +9. little Mother +10. Containing the whole Science of Government +11. Let Loose +12. Bleeding Heart Yard +13. Patriarchal +14. Little Dorrit's Party +15. Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream +16. Nobody's Weakness +17. Nobody's Rival +18. Little Dorrit's Lover +19. The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations +20. Moving in Society +21. Mr Merdle's Complaint +22. A Puzzle +23. Machinery in Motion +24. Fortune-Telling +25. Conspirators and Others +26. Nobody's State of Mind +27. Five-and-Twenty +28. Nobody's Disappearance +29. Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming +30. The Word of a Gentleman +31. Spirit +32. More Fortune-Telling +33. Mrs Merdle's Complaint +34. A Shoal of Barnacles +35. What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit's Hand +36. The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan + + + +BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES + +1. Fellow Travellers +2. Mrs General +3. On the Road +4. A Letter from Little Dorrit +5. Something Wrong Somewhere +6. Something Right Somewhere +7. Mostly, Prunes and Prism +8. The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that 'It Never Does' +9. Appearance and Disappearance +10. The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken +11. A Letter from Little Dorrit +12. In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden +13. The Progress of an Epidemic +14. Taking Advice +15. No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons should + not be joined together +16. Getting on +17. Missing +18. A Castle in the Air +19. The Storming of the Castle in the Air +20. Introduces the next +21. The History of a Self-Tormentor +22. Who Passes by this Road so late? +23. Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, respecting her Dreams +24. The Evening of a Long Day +25. The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office +26. Reaping the Whirlwind +27. The Pupil of the Marshalsea +28. An Appearance in the Marshalsea +29. A Plea in the Marshalsea +30. Closing in +31. Closed +32. Going +33. Going! +34. Gone + + + + +PREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION + + +I have been occupied with this story, during many working hours of +two years. I must have been very ill employed, if I could not +leave its merits and demerits as a whole, to express themselves on +its being read as a whole. But, as it is not unreasonable to +suppose that I may have held its threads with a more continuous +attention than anyone else can have given them during its desultory +publication, it is not unreasonable to ask that the weaving may be +looked at in its completed state, and with the pattern finished. + +If I might offer any apology for so exaggerated a fiction as the +Barnacles and the Circumlocution Office, I would seek it in the +common experience of an Englishman, without presuming to mention +the unimportant fact of my having done that violence to good +manners, in the days of a Russian war, and of a Court of Inquiry at +Chelsea. If I might make so bold as to defend that extravagant +conception, Mr Merdle, I would hint that it originated after the +Railroad-share epoch, in the times of a certain Irish bank, and of +one or two other equally laudable enterprises. If I were to plead +anything in mitigation of the preposterous fancy that a bad design +will sometimes claim to be a good and an expressly religious +design, it would be the curious coincidence that it has been +brought to its climax in these pages, in the days of the public +examination of late Directors of a Royal British Bank. But, I +submit myself to suffer judgment to go by default on all these +counts, if need be, and to accept the assurance (on good authority) +that nothing like them was ever known in this land. +Some of my readers may have an interest in being informed whether +or no any portions of the Marshalsea Prison are yet standing. I +did not know, myself, until the sixth of this present month, when +I went to look. I found the outer front courtyard, often mentioned +here, metamorphosed into a butter shop; and I then almost gave up +every brick of the jail for lost. Wandering, however, down a +certain adjacent 'Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey', I came to +'Marshalsea Place:' the houses in which I recognised, not only as +the great block of the former prison, but as preserving the rooms +that arose in my mind's-eye when I became Little Dorrit's +biographer. The smallest boy I ever conversed with, carrying the +largest baby I ever saw, offered a supernaturally intelligent +explanation of the locality in its old uses, and was very nearly +correct. How this young Newton (for such I judge him to be) came +by his information, I don't know; he was a quarter of a century too +young to know anything about it of himself. I pointed to the +window of the room where Little Dorrit was born, and where her +father lived so long, and asked him what was the name of the lodger +who tenanted that apartment at present? He said, 'Tom Pythick.' +I asked him who was Tom Pythick? and he said, 'Joe Pythick's +uncle.' + +A little further on, I found the older and smaller wall, which used +to enclose the pent-up inner prison where nobody was put, except +for ceremony. But, whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning +out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on +the very paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its +narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered if at +all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; +will look upon rooms in which the debtors lived; and will stand +among the crowding ghosts of many miserable years. + +In the Preface to Bleak House I remarked that I had never had so +many readers. In the Preface to its next successor, Little Dorrit, +I have still to repeat the same words. Deeply sensible of the +affection and confidence that have grown up between us, I add to +this Preface, as I added to that, May we meet again! + +London +May 1857 + + + + +BOOK THE FIRST +POVERTY + + + +CHAPTER 1 +Sun and Shadow + + +Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day. + +A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in +southern France then, than at any other time, before or since. +Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the +fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had +become universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance +by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white +streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which +verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not fixedly +staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of +grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air +barely moved their faint leaves. + +There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the +harbour, or on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation +between the two colours, black and blue, showed the point which the +pure sea would not pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable +pool, with which it never mixed. Boats without awnings were too +hot to touch; ships blistered at their moorings; the stones of the +quays had not cooled, night or day, for months. Hindoos, Russians, +Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Genoese, +Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks, descendants from all the +builders of Babel, come to trade at Marseilles, sought the shade +alike--taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too intensely +blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great +flaming jewel of fire. + +The universal stare made the eyes ache. Towards the distant line +of Italian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds +of mist, slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it +softened nowhere else. Far away the staring roads, deep in dust, +stared from the hill-side, stared from the hollow, stared from the +interminable plain. Far away the dusty vines overhanging wayside +cottages, and the monotonous wayside avenues of parched trees +without shade, drooped beneath the stare of earth and sky. So did +the horses with drowsy bells, in long files of carts, creeping +slowly towards the interior; so did their recumbent drivers, when +they were awake, which rarely happened; so did the exhausted +labourers in the fields. Everything that lived or grew, was +oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly over +rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, like +a rattle. The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered +in the atmosphere as if the air itself were panting. + +Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to +keep out the stare. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot +in like a white-hot arrow. The churches were the freest from it. +To come out of the twilight of pillars and arches--dreamily dotted +with winking lamps, dreamily peopled with ugly old shadows piously +dozing, spitting, and begging--was to plunge into a fiery river, +and swim for life to the nearest strip of shade. So, with people +lounging and lying wherever shade was, with but little hum of +tongues or barking of dogs, with occasional jangling of discordant +church bells and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to +be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day. +In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of +its chambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare +blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it +could find for itself, were two men. Besides the two men, a +notched and disfigured bench, immovable from the wall, with a +draught-board rudely hacked upon it with a knife, a set of +draughts, made of old buttons and soup bones, a set of dominoes, +two mats, and two or three wine bottles. That was all the chamber +held, exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, in addition to the +seen vermin, the two men. + +It received such light as it got through a grating of iron bars +fashioned like a pretty large window, by means of which it could be +always inspected from the gloomy staircase on which the grating +gave. There was a broad strong ledge of stone to this grating +where +the bottom of it was let into the masonry, three or four feet above +the ground. Upon it, one of the two men lolled, half sitting and +half lying, with his knees drawn up, and his feet and shoulders +planted against the opposite sides of the aperture. The bars were +wide enough apart to admit of his thrusting his arm through to the +elbow; and so he held on negligently, for his greater ease. + +A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the +imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were +all deteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and +haggard, so the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was +rotten, the air was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a +vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness +outside, and would have kept its polluted atmosphere intact in one +of the spice islands of the Indian ocean. + +The man who lay on the ledge of the grating was even chilled. He +jerked his great cloak more heavily upon him by an impatient +movement of one shoulder, and growled, 'To the devil with this +Brigand of a Sun that never shines in here!' + +He was waiting to be fed, looking sideways through the bars that he +might see the further down the stairs, with much of the expression +of a wild beast in similar expectation. But his eyes, too close +together, were not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of +beasts are in his, and they were sharp rather than bright--pointed +weapons with little surface to betray them. They had no depth or +change; they glittered, and they opened and shut. So far, and +waiving their use to himself, a clockmaker could have made a better +pair. He had a hook nose, handsome after its kind, but too high +between the eyes by probably just as much as his eyes were too near +to one another. For the rest, he was large and tall in frame, had +thin lips, where his thick moustache showed them at all, and a +quantity of dry hair, of no definable colour, in its shaggy state, +but shot with red. The hand with which he held the grating (seamed +all over the back with ugly scratches newly healed), was unusually +small and plump; would have been unusually white but for the prison +grime. +The other man was lying on the stone floor, covered with a coarse +brown coat. + +'Get up, pig!' growled the first. 'Don't sleep when I am hungry.' + +'It's all one, master,' said the pig, in a submissive manner, and +not without cheerfulness; 'I can wake when I will, I can sleep when +I will. It's all the same.' + +As he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratched himself, tied his +brown coat loosely round his neck by the sleeves (he had previously +used it as a coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement yawning, +with his back against the wall opposite to the grating. + +'Say what the hour is,' grumbled the first man. + +'The mid-day bells will ring--in forty minutes.' When he made the +little pause, he had looked round the prison-room, as if for +certain information. + +'You are a clock. How is it that you always know?' + +'How can I say? I always know what the hour is, and where I am. +I was brought in here at night, and out of a boat, but I know where +I am. See here! Marseilles harbour;' on his knees on the +pavement, mapping it all out with a swarthy forefinger; 'Toulon +(where the galleys are), Spain over there, Algiers over there. +Creeping away to the left here, Nice. Round by the Cornice to +Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine Ground. City there; +terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here, Porto Fino. +Stand out for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia. so away to-- +hey! there's no room for Naples;' he had got to the wall by this +time; 'but it's all one; it's in there!' + +He remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow-prisoner with a +lively look for a prison. A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, +though rather thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth +lighting up his grotesque brown face, intensely black hair +clustering about his brown throat, a ragged red shirt open at his +brown breast. Loose, seaman-like trousers, decent shoes, a long +red cap, a red sash round his waist, and a knife in it. + +'Judge if I come back from Naples as I went! See here, my master! +Civita Vecchia, Leghorn, Porto Fino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice +(which is in there), Marseilles, you and me. The apartment of the +jailer and his keys is where I put this thumb; and here at my wrist +they keep the national razor in its case--the guillotine locked +up.' + +The other man spat suddenly on the pavement, and gurgled in his +throat. + +Some lock below gurgled in its throat immediately afterwards, and +then a door crashed. Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the +prattle of a sweet little voice mingled with the noise they made; +and the prison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four +years old, and a basket. + +'How goes the world this forenoon, gentlemen? My little one, you +see, going round with me to have a peep at her father's birds. +Fie, then! Look at the birds, my pretty, look at the birds.' + +He looked sharply at the birds himself, as he held the child up at +the grate, especially at the little bird, whose activity he seemed +to mistrust. 'I have brought your bread, Signor John Baptist,' +said he (they all spoke in French, but the little man was an +Italian); 'and if I might recommend you not to game--' + +'You don't recommend the master!' said John Baptist, showing his +teeth as he smiled. + +'Oh! but the master wins,' returned the jailer, with a passing +look of no particular liking at the other man, 'and you lose. It's +quite another thing. You get husky bread and sour drink by it; and +he gets sausage of Lyons, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, +strachino cheese, and good wine by it. Look at the birds, my +pretty!' + +'Poor birds!' said the child. + +The fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped +shrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel's in the prison. +John Baptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good +attraction for him. The other bird remained as before, except for +an impatient glance at the basket. + +'Stay!' said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer +ledge of the grate, 'she shall feed the birds. This big loaf is +for Signor John Baptist. We must break it to get it through into +the cage. So, there's a tame bird to kiss the little hand! This +sausage in a vine leaf is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again--this veal in +savoury jelly is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again--these three white +little loaves are for Monsieur Rigaud. Again, this cheese--again, +this wine--again, this tobacco--all for Monsieur Rigaud. Lucky +bird!' + +The child put all these things between the bars into the soft, +Smooth, well-shaped hand, with evident dread--more than once +drawing back her own and looking at the man with her fair brow +roughened into an expression half of fright and half of anger. +Whereas she had put the lump of coarse bread into the swart, +scaled, knotted hands of John Baptist (who had scarcely as much +nail on his eight fingers and two thumbs as would have made out one +for Monsieur Rigaud), with ready confidence; and, when he kissed +her hand, had herself passed it caressingly over his face. +Monsieur Rigaud, indifferent to this distinction, propitiated the +father by laughing and nodding at the daughter as often as she gave +him anything; and, so soon as he had all his viands about him in +convenient nooks of the ledge on which he rested, began to eat with +an appetite. + +When Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change took place in his face, that +was more remarkable than prepossessing. His moustache went up +under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache, in a +very sinister and cruel manner. + +'There!' said the jailer, turning his basket upside down to beat +the crumbs out, 'I have expended all the money I received; here is +the note of it, and that's a thing accomplished. Monsieur Rigaud, +as I expected yesterday, the President will look for the pleasure +of your society at an hour after mid-day, to-day.' + + +'To try me, eh?' said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in +mouth. + +'You have said it. To try you.' + +'There is no news for me?' asked John Baptist, who had begun, +contentedly, to munch his bread. + +The jailer shrugged his shoulders. + +'Lady of mine! Am I to lie here all my life, my father?' + +'What do I know!' cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern +quickness, and gesticulating with both his hands and all his +fingers, as if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. 'My +friend, how is it possible for me to tell how long you are to lie +here? What do I know, John Baptist Cavalletto? Death of my life! +There are prisoners here sometimes, who are not in such a devil of +a hurry to be tried.' +He seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark; +but Monsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with +quite so quick an appetite as before. + +'Adieu, my birds!' said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty +child in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss. + +'Adieu, my birds!' the pretty child repeated. + +Her innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he +walked away with her, singing her the song of the child's game: + + 'Who passes by this road so late? + Compagnon de la Majolaine! + Who passes by this road so late? + Always gay!' + +that John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate, +and in good time and tune, though a little hoarsely: + + 'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, + Compagnon de la Majolaine! + Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, + Always gay!' + +which accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the +prison-keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear +the song out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight. +Then the child's head disappeared, and the prison-keeper's head +disappeared, but the little voice prolonged the strain until the +door clashed. + +Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way +before the echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for +imprisonment, and seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his +foot that he had better resume his own darker place. The little +man sat down again upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one +who was thoroughly accustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks +of coarse bread before himself, and falling to upon a fourth, began +contentedly to work his way through them as if to clear them off +were a sort of game. + +Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at +the veal in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make +his mouth water; Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of +the president and tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as +clean as he could, and to wipe them on his vine leaves. Then, as +he paused in his drink to contemplate his fellow-prisoner, his +moustache went up, and his nose came down. + +'How do you find the bread?' + +'A little dry, but I have my old sauce here,' returned John +Baptist, holding up his knife. +'How sauce?' + +'I can cut my bread so--like a melon. Or so--like an omelette. Or +so--like a fried fish. Or so--like Lyons sausage,' said John +Baptist, demonstrating the various cuts on the bread he held, and +soberly chewing what he had in his mouth. + +'Here!' cried Monsieur Rigaud. 'You may drink. You may finish +this.' + +It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but +Signor Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle +gratefully, turned it upside down at his mouth, and smacked his +lips. + +'Put the bottle by with the rest,' said Rigaud. + +The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a +lighted match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes +by the aid of little squares of paper which had been brought in +with it. + +'Here! You may have one.' + +'A thousand thanks, my master!' John Baptist said in his own +language, and with the quick conciliatory manner of his own +countrymen. + +Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his +stock into a breast-pocket, and stretched himself out at full +length upon the bench. Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, +holding one of his ankles in each hand, and smoking peacefully. +There seemed to be some uncomfortable attraction of Monsieur +Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of that part of the +pavement where the thumb had been in the plan. They were so drawn +in that direction, that the Italian more than once followed them to +and back from the pavement in some surprise. + +'What an infernal hole this is!' said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a +long pause. 'Look at the light of day. Day? the light of +yesterday week, the light of six months ago, the light of six years +ago. So slack and dead!' + +It came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in +the staircase wall, through which the sky was never seen--nor +anything else. + +'Cavalletto,' said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly withdrawing his gaze +from this funnel to which they had both involuntarily turned their +eyes, 'you know me for a gentleman?' + +'Surely, surely!' + +'How long have we been here?' +'I, eleven weeks, to-morrow night at midnight. You, nine weeks and +three days, at five this afternoon.' + +'Have I ever done anything here? Ever touched the broom, or spread +the mats, or rolled them up, or found the draughts, or collected +the dominoes, or put my hand to any kind of work?' + +'Never!' + +'Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work?' + +John Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the +right forefinger which is the most expressive negative in the +Italian language. + +'No! You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that I +was a gentleman?' + +'ALTRO!' returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his +head a most vehement toss. The word being, according to its +Genoese emphasis, a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a +denial, a taunt, a compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, +became in the present instance, with a significance beyond all +power of written expression, our familiar English 'I believe you!' + +'Haha! You are right! A gentleman I am! And a gentleman I'll +live, and a gentleman I'll die! It's my intent to be a gentleman. +It's my game. Death of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!' + +He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant +air: + +'Here I am! See me! Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the +company of a mere smuggler;--shut up with a poor little contraband +trader, whose papers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of +besides, for placing his boat (as a means of getting beyond the +frontier) at the disposition of other little people whose papers +are wrong; and he instinctively recognises my position, even by +this light and in this place. It's well done! By Heaven! I win, +however the game goes.' + +Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down. + +'What's the hour now?' he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon him, +rather difficult of association with merriment. + +'A little half-hour after mid-day.' + +'Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon. Come! + +Shall I tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for +I shall not return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to +be made ready for shaving. You know where they keep the razor.' + +Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, +and showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been +expected. + +'I am a'--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--'I am a cosmopolitan +gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss-- +Canton de Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. +I myself was born in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.' + +His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip within the +folds of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his +companion and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to +intimate that he was rehearsing for the President, whose +examination he was shortly to undergo, rather than troubling +himself merely to enlighten so small a person as John Baptist +Cavalletto. + +'Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I +have lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman +everywhere. I have been treated and respected as a gentleman +universally. If you try to prejudice me by making out that I have +lived by my wits--how do your lawyers live--your politicians--your +intriguers--your men of the Exchange?' + +He kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it +were a witness to his gentility that had often done him good +service before. + +'Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I admit that I was poor; I +had been ill. When your lawyers, your politicians, your +intriguers, your men of the Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped +money together, they become poor. I put up at the Cross of Gold,-- +kept then by Monsieur Henri Barronneau--sixty-five at least, and in +a failing state of health. I had lived in the house some four +months when Monsieur Henri Barronneau had the misfortune to die;-- +at any rate, not a rare misfortune, that. It happens without any +aid of mine, pretty often.' + +John Baptist having smoked his cigarette down to his fingers' ends, +Monsieur Rigaud had the magnanimity to throw him another. He +lighted the second at the ashes of the first, and smoked on, +looking sideways at his companion, who, preoccupied with his own +case, hardly looked at him. + +'Monsieur Barronneau left a widow. She was two-and-twenty. She +had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another +thing) was beautiful. I continued to live at the Cross of Gold. +I married Madame Barronneau. It is not for me to say whether there +was any great disparity in such a match. Here I stand, with the +contamination of a jail upon me; but it is possible that you may +think me better suited to her than her former husband was.' + +He had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and +a certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not. It was +mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many +others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world. + +'Be it as it may, Madame Barronneau approved of me. That is not to +prejudice me, I hope?' + +His eye happening to light upon John Baptist with this inquiry, +that little man briskly shook his head in the negative, and +repeated in an argumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, +altro, altro--an infinite number of times. + +' Now came the difficulties of our position. I am proud. I say +nothing in defence of pride, but I am proud. It is also my +character to govern. I can't submit; I must govern. +Unfortunately, the property of Madame Rigaud was settled upon +herself. Such was the insane act of her late husband. More +unfortunately still, she had relations. When a wife's relations +interpose against a husband who is a gentleman, who is proud, and +who must govern, the consequences are inimical to peace. There was +yet another source of difference between us. Madame Rigaud was +unfortunately a little vulgar. I sought to improve her manners and +ameliorate her general tone; she (supported in this likewise by her +relations) resented my endeavours. Quarrels began to arise between +us; and, propagated and exaggerated by the slanders of the +relations of Madame Rigaud, to become notorious to the neighbours. +It has been said that I treated Madame Rigaud with cruelty. I may +have been seen to slap her face--nothing more. I have a light +hand; and if I have been seen apparently to correct Madame Rigaud +in that manner, I have done it almost playfully.' + +If the playfulness of Monsieur Rigaud were at all expressed by his +smile at this point, the relations of Madame Rigaud might have said +that they would have much preferred his correcting that unfortunate +woman seriously. + +'I am sensitive and brave. I do not advance it as a merit to be +sensitive and brave, but it is my character. If the male relations +of Madame Rigaud had put themselves forward openly, I should have +known how to deal with them. They knew that, and their +machinations were conducted in secret; consequently, Madame Rigaud +and I were brought into frequent and unfortunate collision. Even +when I wanted any little sum of money for my personal expenses, I +could not obtain it without collision--and I, too, a man whose +character it is to govern! One night, Madame Rigaud and myself +were walking amicably--I may say like lovers--on a height +overhanging the sea. An evil star occasioned Madame Rigaud to +advert to her relations; I reasoned with her on that subject, and +remonstrated on the want of duty and devotion manifested in her +allowing herself to be influenced by their jealous animosity +towards her husband. Madame Rigaud retorted; I retorted; Madame +Rigaud grew warm; I grew warm, and provoked her. I admit it. +Frankness is a part of my character. At length, Madame Rigaud, in +an access of fury that I must ever deplore, threw herself upon me +with screams of passion (no doubt those that were overheard at some +distance), tore my clothes, tore my hair, lacerated my hands, +trampled and trod the dust, and finally leaped over, dashing +herself to death upon the rocks below. Such is the train of +incidents which malice has perverted into my endeavouring to force +from Madame Rigaud a relinquishment of her rights; and, on her +persistence in a refusal to make the concession I required, +struggling with her--assassinating her!' + +He stepped aside to the ledge where the vine leaves yet lay strewn +about, collected two or three, and stood wiping his hands upon +them, with his back to the light. + +'Well,' he demanded after a silence, 'have you nothing to say to +all that?' + +'It's ugly,' returned the little man, who had risen, and was +brightening his knife upon his shoe, as he leaned an arm against +the wall. + +'What do you mean?' +John Baptist polished his knife in silence. + +'Do you mean that I have not represented the case correctly?' + +'Al-tro!' returned John Baptist. The word was an apology now, and +stood for 'Oh, by no means!' + +'What then?' + +'Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced.' + +'Well,' cried the other, uneasily flinging the end of his cloak +over his shoulder with an oath, 'let them do their worst!' + +'Truly I think they will,' murmured John Baptist to himself, as he +bent his head to put his knife in his sash. + +Nothing more was said on either side, though they both began +walking to and fro, and necessarily crossed at every turn. +Monsieur Rigaud sometimes stopped, as if he were going to put his +case in a new light, or make some irate remonstrance; but Signor +Cavalletto continuing to go slowly to and fro at a grotesque kind +of jog-trot pace with his eyes turned downward, nothing came of +these inclinings. + +By-and-by the noise of the key in the lock arrested them both. The +sound of voices succeeded, and the tread of feet. The door +clashed, the voices and the feet came on, and the prison-keeper +slowly ascended the stairs, followed by a guard of soldiers. + +'Now, Monsieur Rigaud,' said he, pausing for a moment at the grate, +with his keys in his hands, 'have the goodness to come out.' + +'I am to depart in state, I see?' +'Why, unless you did,' returned the jailer, 'you might depart in so +many pieces that it would be difficult to get you together again. +There's a crowd, Monsieur Rigaud, and it doesn't love you.' + +He passed on out of sight, and unlocked and unbarred a low door in +the corner of the chamber. 'Now,' said he, as he opened it and +appeared within, 'come out.' + +There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun at all +like the whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud's face as it was then. +Neither is there any expression of the human countenance at all +like that expression in every little line of which the frightened +heart is seen to beat. Both are conventionally compared with +death; but the difference is the whole deep gulf between the +struggle done, and the fight at its most desperate extremity. + +He lighted another of his paper cigars at his companion's; put it +tightly between his teeth; covered his head with a soft slouched +hat; threw the end of his cloak over his shoulder again; and walked +out into the side gallery on which the door opened, without taking +any further notice of Signor Cavalletto. As to that little man +himself, his whole attention had become absorbed in getting near +the door and looking out at it. Precisely as a beast might +approach the opened gate of his den and eye the freedom beyond, he +passed those few moments in watching and peering, until the door +was closed upon him. + +There was an officer in command of the soldiers; a stout, +serviceable, profoundly calm man, with his drawn sword in his hand, +smoking a cigar. He very briefly directed the placing of Monsieur +Rigaud in the midst of the party, put himself with consummate +indifference at their head, gave the word 'march!' and so they all +went jingling down the staircase. The door clashed--the key +turned--and a ray of unusual light, and a breath of unusual air, +seemed to have passed through the jail, vanishing in a tiny wreath +of smoke from the cigar. + +Still, in his captivity, like a lower animal--like some impatient +ape, or roused bear of the smaller species--the prisoner, now left +solitary, had jumped upon the ledge, to lose no glimpse of this +departure. As he yet stood clasping the grate with both hands, an +uproar broke upon his hearing; yells, shrieks, oaths, threats, +execrations, all comprehended in it, though (as in a storm) nothing +but a raging swell of sound distinctly heard. + +Excited into a still greater resemblance to a caged wild animal by +his anxiety to know more, the prisoner leaped nimbly down, ran +round the chamber, leaped nimbly up again, clasped the grate and +tried to shake it, leaped down and ran, leaped up and listened, and +never rested until the noise, becoming more and more distant, had +died away. How many better prisoners have worn their noble hearts +out so; no man thinking of it; not even the beloved of their souls +realising it; great kings and governors, who had made them captive, +careering in the sunlight jauntily, and men cheering them on. Even +the said great personages dying in bed, making exemplary ends and +sounding speeches; and polite history, more servile than their +instruments, embalming them! + +At last, John Baptist, now able to choose his own spot within the +compass of those walls for the exercise of his faculty of going to +sleep when he would, lay down upon the bench, with his face turned +over on his crossed arms, and slumbered. In his submission, in his +lightness, in his good humour, in his short-lived passion, in his +easy contentment with hard bread and hard stones, in his ready +sleep, in his fits and starts, altogether a true son of the land +that gave him birth. + +The wide stare stared itself out for one while; the Sun went down +in a red, green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, +and the fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may +feebly imitate the goodness of a better order of beings; the long +dusty roads and the interminable plains were in repose--and so deep +a hush was on the sea, that it scarcely whispered of the time when +it shall give up its dead. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 +Fellow Travellers + + +'No more of yesterday's howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?' + +'I have heard none.' + +'Then you may be sure there is none. When these people howl, they +howl to be heard.' + +'Most people do, I suppose.' + +'Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise.' + +'Do you mean the Marseilles people?' + +'I mean the French people. They're always at it. As to +Marseilles, we know what Marseilles is. It sent the most +insurrectionary tune into the world that was ever composed. It +couldn't exist without allonging and marshonging to something or +other--victory or death, or blazes, or something.' + +The speaker, with a whimsical good humour upon him all the time, +looked over the parapet-wall with the greatest disparagement of +Marseilles; and taking up a determined position by putting his +hands in his pockets and rattling his money at it, apostrophised it +with a short laugh. + +'Allong and marshong, indeed. It would be more creditable to you, +I think, to let other people allong and marshong about their lawful +business, instead of shutting 'em up in quarantine!' + +'Tiresome enough,' said the other. 'But we shall be out to-day.' + +'Out to-day!' repeated the first. 'It's almost an aggravation of +the enormity, that we shall be out to-day. Out! What have we ever +been in for?' + +'For no very strong reason, I must say. But as we come from the +East, and as the East is the country of the plague--' + +'The plague!' repeated the other. 'That's my grievance. I have +had the plague continually, ever since I have been here. I am like +a sane man shut up in a madhouse; I can't stand the suspicion of +the thing. I came here as well as ever I was in my life; but to +suspect me of the plague is to give me the plague. And I have had +it--and I have got it.' + +'You bear it very well, Mr Meagles,' said the second speaker, +smiling. + +'No. If you knew the real state of the case, that's the last +observation you would think of making. I have been waking up night +after night, and saying, NOW I have got it, NOW it has developed +itself, NOW I am in for it, NOW these fellows are making out their +case for their precautions. Why, I'd as soon have a spit put +through me, and be stuck upon a card in a collection of beetles, as +lead the life I have been leading here.' + +'Well, Mr Meagles, say no more about it now it's over,' urged a +cheerful feminine voice. + +'Over!' repeated Mr Meagles, who appeared (though without any ill- +nature) to be in that peculiar state of mind in which the last word +spoken by anybody else is a new injury. 'Over! and why should I +say no more about it because it's over?' + +It was Mrs Meagles who had spoken to Mr Meagles; and Mrs Meagles +was, like Mr Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English +face which had been looking at homely things for five-and-fifty +years or more, and shone with a bright reflection of them. + +'There! Never mind, Father, never mind!' said Mrs Meagles. 'For +goodness sake content yourself with Pet.' + +'With Pet?' repeated Mr Meagles in his injured vein. Pet, however, +being close behind him, touched him on the shoulder, and Mr Meagles +immediately forgave Marseilles from the bottom of his heart. + +Pet was about twenty. A fair girl with rich brown hair hanging +free in natural ringlets. A lovely girl, with a frank face, and +wonderful eyes; so large, so soft, so bright, set to such +perfection in her kind good head. She was round and fresh and +dimpled and spoilt, and there was in Pet an air of timidity and +dependence which was the best weakness in the world, and gave her +the only crowning charm a girl so pretty and pleasant could have +been without. + +'Now, I ask you,' said Mr Meagles in the blandest confidence, +falling back a step himself, and handing his daughter a step +forward to illustrate his question: 'I ask you simply, as between +man and man, you know, DID you ever hear of such damned nonsense as +putting Pet in quarantine?' + +'It has had the result of making even quarantine enjoyable.' +'Come!' said Mr Meagles, 'that's something to be sure. I am +obliged to you for that remark. Now, Pet, my darling, you had +better go along with Mother and get ready for the boat. The +officer of health, and a variety of humbugs in cocked hats, are +coming off to let us out of this at last: and all we jail-birds are +to breakfast together in something approaching to a Christian style +again, before we take wing for our different destinations. +Tattycoram, stick you close to your young mistress.' + +He spoke to a handsome girl with lustrous dark hair and eyes, and +very neatly dressed, who replied with a half curtsey as she passed +off in the train of Mrs Meagles and Pet. They crossed the bare +scorched terrace all three together, and disappeared through a +staring white archway. Mr Meagles's companion, a grave dark man of +forty, still stood looking towards this archway after they were +gone; until Mr Meagles tapped him on the arm. + +'I beg your pardon,' said he, starting. + +'Not at all,' said Mr Meagles. + +They took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the +wall, getting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are +placed, what cool refreshment of sea breeze there was at seven in +the morning. Mr Meagles's companion resumed the conversation. + +'May I ask you,' he said, 'what is the name of--' + +'Tattycoram?' Mr Meagles struck in. 'I have not the least idea.' + +'I thought,' said the other, 'that--' + +'Tattycoram?' suggested Mr Meagles again. + +'Thank you--that Tattycoram was a name; and I have several times +wondered at the oddity of it.' + +'Why, the fact is,' said Mr Meagles, 'Mrs Meagles and myself are, +you see, practical people.' + +'That you have frequently mentioned in the course of the agreeable +and interesting conversations we have had together, walking up and +down on these stones,' said the other, with a half smile breaking +through the gravity of his dark face. + +'Practical people. So one day, five or six years ago now, when we +took Pet to church at the Foundling--you have heard of the +Foundling Hospital in London? Similar to the Institution for the +Found Children in Paris?' + +'I have seen it.' + +'Well! One day when we took Pet to church there to hear the +music--because, as practical people, it is the business of our +lives to show her everything that we think can please her--Mother +(my usual name for Mrs Meagles) began to cry so, that it was +necessary to take her out. "What's the matter, Mother?" said I, +when we had brought her a little round: "you are frightening Pet, +my dear." "Yes, I know that, Father," says Mother, "but I think +it's through my loving her so much, that it ever came into my +head." "That ever what came into your head, Mother?" "O dear, +dear!" cried Mother, breaking out again, "when I saw all those +children ranged tier above tier, and appealing from the father none +of them has ever known on earth, to the great Father of us all in +Heaven, I thought, does any wretched mother ever come here, and +look among those young faces, wondering which is the poor child she +brought into this forlorn world, never through all its life to know +her love, her kiss, her face, her voice, even her name!" Now that +was practical in Mother, and I told her so. I said, "Mother, +that's what I call practical in you, my dear."' + +The other, not unmoved, assented. + +'So I said next day: Now, Mother, I have a proposition to make that +I think you'll approve of. Let us take one of those same little +children to be a little maid to Pet. We are practical people. So +if we should find her temper a little defective, or any of her ways +a little wide of ours, we shall know what we have to take into +account. We shall know what an immense deduction must be made from +all the influences and experiences that have formed us--no parents, +no child-brother or sister, no individuality of home, no Glass +Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. And that's the way we came by +Tattycoram.' + +'And the name itself--' + +'By George!' said Mr Meagles, 'I was forgetting the name itself. +Why, she was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle--an +arbitrary name, of course. Now, Harriet we changed into Hattey, +and then into Tatty, because, as practical people, we thought even +a playful name might be a new thing to her, and might have a +softening and affectionate kind of effect, don't you see? As to +Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out of the question. If +there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms, +anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, +anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks our +English holding on by nonsense after every one has found it out, it +is a beadle. You haven't seen a beadle lately?' + +'As an Englishman who has been more than twenty years in China, +no.' + +'Then,' said Mr Meagles, laying his forefinger on his companion's +breast with great animation, 'don't you see a beadle, now, if you +can help it. Whenever I see a beadle in full fig, coming down a +street on a Sunday at the head of a charity school, I am obliged to +turn and run away, or I should hit him. The name of Beadle being +out of the question, and the originator of the Institution for +these poor foundlings having been a blessed creature of the name of +Coram, we gave that name to Pet's little maid. At one time she was +Tatty, and at one time she was Coram, until we got into a way of +mixing the two names together, and now she is always Tattycoram.' + +'Your daughter,' said the other, when they had taken another silent +turn to and fro, and, after standing for a moment at the wall +glancing down at the sea, had resumed their walk, 'is your only +child, I know, Mr Meagles. May I ask you--in no impertinent +curiosity, but because I have had so much pleasure in your society, +may never in this labyrinth of a world exchange a quiet word with +you again, and wish to preserve an accurate remembrance of you and +yours--may I ask you, if I have not gathered from your good wife +that you have had other children?' + +'No. No,' said Mr Meagles. 'Not exactly other children. One +other child.' + +'I am afraid I have inadvertently touched upon a tender theme.' + +'Never mind,' said Mr Meagles. 'If I am grave about it, I am not +at all sorrowful. It quiets me for a moment, but does not make me +unhappy. Pet had a twin sister who died when we could just see her +eyes--exactly like Pet's--above the table, as she stood on tiptoe +holding by it.' + +'Ah! indeed, indeed!' + +'Yes, and being practical people, a result has gradually sprung up +in the minds of Mrs Meagles and myself which perhaps you may--or +perhaps you may not--understand. Pet and her baby sister were so +exactly alike, and so completely one, that in our thoughts we have +never been able to separate them since. It would be of no use to +tell us that our dead child was a mere infant. We have changed +that child according to the changes in the child spared to us and +always with us. As Pet has grown, that child has grown; as Pet has +become more sensible and womanly, her sister has become more +sensible and womanly by just the same degrees. It would be as hard +to convince me that if I was to pass into the other world to- +morrow, I should not, through the mercy of God, be received there +by a daughter, just like Pet, as to persuade me that Pet herself is +not a reality at my side.' +'I understand you,' said the other, gently. + +'As to her,' pursued her father, 'the sudden loss of her little +picture and playfellow, and her early association with that mystery +in which we all have our equal share, but which is not often so +forcibly presented to a child, has necessarily had some influence +on her character. Then, her mother and I were not young when we +married, and Pet has always had a sort of grown-up life with us, +though we have tried to adapt ourselves to her. We have been +advised more than once when she has been a little ailing, to change +climate and air for her as often as we could--especially at about +this time of her life--and to keep her amused. So, as I have no +need to stick at a bank-desk now (though I have been poor enough in +my time I assure you, or I should have married Mrs Meagles long +before), we go trotting about the world. This is how you found us +staring at the Nile, and the Pyramids, and the Sphinxes, and the +Desert, and all the rest of it; and this is how Tattycoram will be +a greater traveller in course of time than Captain Cook.' + +'I thank you,' said the other, 'very heartily for your confidence.' + +'Don't mention it,' returned Mr Meagles, 'I am sure you are quite +welcome. And now, Mr Clennam, perhaps I may ask you whether you +have yet come to a decision where to go next?' + +'Indeed, no. I am such a waif and stray everywhere, that I am +liable to be drifted where any current may set.' + +'It's extraordinary to me--if you'll excuse my freedom in saying +so--that you don't go straight to London,' said Mr Meagles, in the +tone of a confidential adviser. + +'Perhaps I shall.' + +'Ay! But I mean with a will.' + +'I have no will. That is to say,'--he coloured a little,--'next to +none that I can put in action now. Trained by main force; broken, +not bent; heavily ironed with an object on which I was never +consulted and which was never mine; shipped away to the other end +of the world before I was of age, and exiled there until my +father's death there, a year ago; always grinding in a mill I +always hated; what is to be expected from me in middle life? Will, +purpose, hope? All those lights were extinguished before I could +sound the words.' + +'Light 'em up again!' said Mr Meagles. + +'Ah! Easily said. I am the son, Mr Meagles, of a hard father and +mother. I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and +priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, +and priced, had no existence. Strict people as the phrase is, +professors of a stern religion, their very religion was a gloomy +sacrifice of tastes and sympathies that were never their own, +offered up as a part of a bargain for the security of their +possessions. Austere faces, inexorable discipline, penance in this +world and terror in the next--nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, +and the void in my cowed heart everywhere--this was my childhood, +if I may so misuse the word as to apply it to such a beginning of +life.' + +'Really though?' said Mr Meagles, made very uncomfortable by the +picture offered to his imagination. 'That was a tough +commencement. But come! You must now study, and profit by, all +that lies beyond it, like a practical man.' + +'If the people who are usually called practical, were practical in +your direction--' + +'Why, so they are!' said Mr Meagles. + +'Are they indeed?' + +'Well, I suppose so,' returned Mr Meagles, thinking about it. 'Eh? + +One can but be practical, and Mrs Meagles and myself are nothing +else.' + +'My unknown course is easier and more helpful than I had expected +to find it, then,' said Clennam, shaking his head with his grave +smile. 'Enough of me. Here is the boat.' + +The boat was filled with the cocked hats to which Mr Meagles +entertained a national objection; and the wearers of those cocked +hats landed and came up the steps, and all the impounded travellers +congregated together. There was then a mighty production of papers +on the part of the cocked hats, and a calling over of names, and +great work of signing, sealing, stamping, inking, and sanding, with +exceedingly blurred, gritty, and undecipherable results. Finally, +everything was done according to rule, and the travellers were at +liberty to depart whithersoever they would. + +They made little account of stare and glare, in the new pleasure of +recovering their freedom, but flitted across the harbour in gay +boats, and reassembled at a great hotel, whence the sun was +excluded by closed lattices, and where bare paved floors, lofty +ceilings, and resounding corridors tempered the intense heat. +There, a great table in a great room was soon profusely covered +with a superb repast; and the quarantine quarters became bare +indeed, remembered among dainty dishes, southern fruits, cooled +wines, flowers from Genoa, snow from the mountain tops, and all the +colours of the rainbow flashing in the mirrors. + +'But I bear those monotonous walls no ill-will now,' said Mr +Meagles. 'One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's +left behind; I dare say a prisoner begins to relent towards his +prison, after he is let out.' + +They were about thirty in company, and all talking; but necessarily +in groups. Father and Mother Meagles sat with their daughter +between them, the last three on one side of the table: on the +opposite side sat Mr Clennam; a tall French gentleman with raven +hair and beard, of a swart and terrible, not to say genteelly +diabolical aspect, but who had shown himself the mildest of men; +and a handsome young Englishwoman, travelling quite alone, who had +a proud observant face, and had either withdrawn herself from the +rest or been avoided by the rest--nobody, herself excepted perhaps, +could have quite decided which. The rest of the party were of the +usual materials: travellers on business, and travellers for +pleasure; officers from India on leave; merchants in the Greek and +Turkey trades; a clerical English husband in a meek strait- +waistcoat, on a wedding trip with his young wife; a majestic +English mama and papa, of the patrician order, with a family of +three growing-up daughters, who were keeping a journal for the +confusion of their fellow-creatures; and a deaf old English mother, +tough in travel, with a very decidedly grown-up daughter indeed, +which daughter went sketching about the universe in the expectation +of ultimately toning herself off into the married state. + +The reserved Englishwoman took up Mr Meagles in his last remark. +'Do you mean that a prisoner forgives his prison?' said she, slowly +and with emphasis. + +'That was my speculation, Miss Wade. I don't pretend to know +positively how a prisoner might feel. I never was one before.' + +'Mademoiselle doubts,' said the French gentleman in his own +language, 'it's being so easy to forgive?' + +'I do.' + +Pet had to translate this passage to Mr Meagles, who never by any +accident acquired any knowledge whatever of the language of any +country into which he travelled. 'Oh!' said he. 'Dear me! But +that's a pity, isn't it?' + +'That I am not credulous?' said Miss Wade. + +'Not exactly that. Put it another way. That you can't believe it +easy to forgive.' + +'My experience,' she quietly returned, 'has been correcting my +belief in many respects, for some years. It is our natural +progress, I have heard.' + +'Well, well! But it's not natural to bear malice, I hope?' said Mr +Meagles, cheerily. + +'If I had been shut up in any place to pine and suffer, I should +always hate that place and wish to burn it down, or raze it to the +ground. I know no more.' +'Strong, sir?' said Mr Meagles to the Frenchman; it being another +of his habits to address individuals of all nations in idiomatic +English, with a perfect conviction that they were bound to +understand it somehow. 'Rather forcible in our fair friend, you'll +agree with me, I think?' + +The French gentleman courteously replied, 'Plait-il?' To which Mr +Meagles returned with much satisfaction, 'You are right. My +opinion.' + +The breakfast beginning by-and-by to languish, Mr Meagles made the +company a speech. It was short enough and sensible enough, +considering that it was a speech at all, and hearty. It merely +went to the effect that as they had all been thrown together by +chance, and had all preserved a good understanding together, and +were now about to disperse, and were not likely ever to find +themselves all together again, what could they do better than bid +farewell to one another, and give one another good-speed in a +simultaneous glass of cool champagne all round the table? It was +done, and with a general shaking of hands the assembly broke up for +ever. + +The solitary young lady all this time had said no more. She rose +with the rest, and silently withdrew to a remote corner of the +great room, where she sat herself on a couch in a window, seeming +to watch the reflection of the water as it made a silver quivering +on the bars of the lattice. She sat, turned away from the whole +length of the apartment, as if she were lonely of her own haughty +choice. And yet it would have been as difficult as ever to say, +positively, whether she avoided the rest, or was avoided. + +The shadow in which she sat, falling like a gloomy veil across her +forehead, accorded very well with the character of her beauty. One +could hardly see the face, so still and scornful, set off by the +arched dark eyebrows, and the folds of dark hair, without wondering +what its expression would be if a change came over it. That it +could soften or relent, appeared next to impossible. That it could +deepen into anger or any extreme of defiance, and that it must +change in that direction when it changed at all, would have been +its peculiar impression upon most observers. It was dressed and +trimmed into no ceremony of expression. Although not an open face, +there was no pretence in it. 'I am self-contained and self- +reliant; your opinion is nothing to me; I have no interest in you, +care nothing for you, and see and hear you with indifference'--this +it said plainly. It said so in the proud eyes, in the lifted +nostril, in the handsome but compressed and even cruel mouth. +Cover either two of those channels of expression, and the third +would have said so still. Mask them all, and the mere turn of the +head would have shown an unsubduable nature. + +Pet had moved up to her (she had been the subject of remark among +her family and Mr Clennam, who were now the only other occupants of +the room), and was standing at her side. + +'Are you'--she turned her eyes, and Pet faltered--'expecting any +one to meet you here, Miss Wade?' + +'I? No.' + +'Father is sending to the Poste Restante. Shall he have the +pleasure of directing the messenger to ask if there are any letters +for you?' + +'I thank him, but I know there can be none.' + +'We are afraid,' said Pet, sitting down beside her, shyly and half +tenderly, 'that you will feel quite deserted when we are all gone.' + +'Indeed!' + +'Not,' said Pet, apologetically and embarrassed by her eyes, 'not, +of course, that we are any company to you, or that we have been +able to be so, or that we thought you wished it.' + +'I have not intended to make it understood that I did wish it.' + +'No. Of course. But--in short,' said Pet, timidly touching her +hand as it lay impassive on the sofa between them, 'will you not +allow Father to tender you any slight assistance or service? He +will be very glad.' + +'Very glad,' said Mr Meagles, coming forward with his wife and +Clennam. 'Anything short of speaking the language, I shall be +delighted to undertake, I am sure.' + +'I am obliged to you,' she returned, 'but my arrangements are made, +and I prefer to go my own way in my own manner.' + +'Do you?' said Mr Meagles to himself, as he surveyed her with a +puzzled look. 'Well! There's character in that, too.' + +'I am not much used to the society of young ladies, and I am afraid +I may not show my appreciation of it as others might. A pleasant +journey to you. Good-bye!' + +She would not have put out her hand, it seemed, but that Mr Meagles +put out his so straight before her that she could not pass it. She +put hers in it, and it lay there just as it had lain upon the +couch. + +'Good-bye!' said Mr Meagles. 'This is the last good-bye upon the +list, for Mother and I have just said it to Mr Clennam here, and he +only waits to say it to Pet. Good-bye! We may never meet again.' + +'In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming +to meet us, from many strange places and by many strange roads,' +was the composed reply; 'and what it is set to us to do to them, +and what it is set to them to do to us, will all be done.' +There was something in the manner of these words that jarred upon +Pet's ear. It implied that what was to be done was necessarily +evil, and it caused her to say in a whisper, 'O Father!' and to +shrink childishly, in her spoilt way, a little closer to him. This +was not lost on the speaker. + +'Your pretty daughter,' she said, 'starts to think of such things. +Yet,' looking full upon her, 'you may be sure that there are men +and women already on their road, who have their business to do with +YOU, and who will do it. Of a certainty they will do it. They may +be coming hundreds, thousands, of miles over the sea there; they +may be close at hand now; they may be coming, for anything you know +or anything you can do to prevent it, from the vilest sweepings of +this very town.' + +With the coldest of farewells, and with a certain worn expression +on her beauty that gave it, though scarcely yet in its prime, a +wasted look, she left the room. + +Now, there were many stairs and passages that she had to traverse +in passing from that part of the spacious house to the chamber she +had secured for her own occupation. When she had almost completed +the journey, and was passing along the gallery in which her room +was, she heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. A door +stood open, and within she saw the attendant upon the girl she had +just left; the maid with the curious name. + +She stood still, to look at this maid. A sullen, passionate girl! +Her rich black hair was all about her face, her face was flushed +and hot, and as she sobbed and raged, she plucked at her lips with +an unsparing hand. + +'Selfish brutes!' said the girl, sobbing and heaving between +whiles. 'Not caring what becomes of me! Leaving me here hungry +and thirsty and tired, to starve, for anything they care! Beasts! +Devils! Wretches!' + +'My poor girl, what is the matter?' + +She looked up suddenly, with reddened eyes, and with her hands +suspended, in the act of pinching her neck, freshly disfigured with +great scarlet blots. 'It's nothing to you what's the matter. It +don't signify to any one.' + +'O yes it does; I am sorry to see you so.' + +'You are not sorry,' said the girl. 'You are glad. You know you +are glad. I never was like this but twice over in the quarantine +yonder; and both times you found me. I am afraid of you.' + +'Afraid of me?' + +'Yes. You seem to come like my own anger, my own malice, my own-- +whatever it is--I don't know what it is. But I am ill-used, I am +ill-used, I am ill-used!' Here the sobs and the tears, and the +tearing hand, which had all been suspended together since the first +surprise, went on together anew. + +The visitor stood looking at her with a strange attentive smile. +It was wonderful to see the fury of the contest in the girl, and +the bodily struggle she made as if she were rent by the Demons of +old. + +'I am younger than she is by two or three years, and yet it's me +that looks after her, as if I was old, and it's she that's always +petted and called Baby! I detest the name. I hate her! They make +a fool of her, they spoil her. She thinks of nothing but herself, +she thinks no more of me than if I was a stock and a stone!' So +the girl went on. + +'You must have patience.' + +'I WON'T have patience!' + +'If they take much care of themselves, and little or none of you, +you must not mind it.' + +I WILL mind it.' + +'Hush! Be more prudent. You forget your dependent position.' + +'I don't care for that. I'll run away. I'll do some mischief. I +won't bear it; I can't bear it; I shall die if I try to bear it!' + +The observer stood with her hand upon her own bosom, looking at the +girl, as one afflicted with a diseased part might curiously watch +the dissection and exposition of an analogous case. + +The girl raged and battled with all the force of her youth and +fulness of life, until by little and little her passionate +exclamations trailed off into broken murmurs as if she were in +pain. By corresponding degrees she sank into a chair, then upon +her knees, then upon the ground beside the bed, drawing the +coverlet with her, half to hide her shamed head and wet hair in it, +and half, as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have nothing to +take to her repentant breast. + +'Go away from me, go away from me! When my temper comes upon me, +I am mad. I know I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, +and sometimes I do try hard enough, and at other times I don't and +won't. What have I said! I knew when I said it, it was all lies. +They think I am being taken care of somewhere, and have all I want. + +They are nothing but good to me. I love them dearly; no people +could ever be kinder to a thankless creature than they always are +to me. Do, do go away, for I am afraid of you. I am afraid of +myself when I feel my temper coming, and I am as much afraid of +you. Go away from me, and let me pray and cry myself better!' +The day passed on; and again the wide stare stared itself out; and +the hot night was on Marseilles; and through it the caravan of the +morning, all dispersed, went their appointed ways. And thus ever +by day and night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the +dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land +and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and +to act and react on one another, move all we restless travellers +through the pilgrimage of life. + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +Home + + +It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale. +Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and +flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar +echoes hideous. Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, +steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them +out of windows, in dire despondency. In every thoroughfare, up +almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful +bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the +city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything was bolted +and barred that could by possibility furnish relief to an +overworked people. No pictures, no unfamiliar animals, no rare +plants or flowers, no natural or artificial wonders of the ancient +world--all TABOO with that enlightened strictness, that the ugly +South Sea gods in the British Museum might have supposed themselves +at home again. Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets. +Nothing to breathe but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to +change the brooding mind, or raise it up. Nothing for the spent +toiler to do, but to compare the monotony of his seventh day with +the monotony of his six days, think what a weary life he led, and +make the best of it--or the worst, according to the probabilities. + +At such a happy time, so propitious to the interests of religion +and morality, Mr Arthur Clennam, newly arrived from Marseilles by +way of Dover, and by Dover coach the Blue-eyed Maid, sat in the +window of a coffee-house on Ludgate Hill. Ten thousand responsible +houses surrounded him, frowning as heavily on the streets they +composed, as if they were every one inhabited by the ten young men +of the Calender's story, who blackened their faces and bemoaned +their miseries every night. Fifty thousand lairs surrounded him +where people lived so unwholesomely that fair water put into their +crowded rooms on Saturday night, would be corrupt on Sunday +morning; albeit my lord, their county member, was amazed that they +failed to sleep in company with their butcher's meat. Miles of +close wells and pits of houses, where the inhabitants gasped for +air, stretched far away towards every point of the compass. +Through the heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and flowed, in +the place of a fine fresh river. What secular want could the +million or so of human beings whose daily labour, six days in the +week, lay among these Arcadian objects, from the sweet sameness of +which they had no escape between the cradle and the grave--what +secular want could they possibly have upon their seventh day? +Clearly they could want nothing but a stringent policeman. + +Mr Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the coffee-house on Ludgate +Hill, counting one of the neighbouring bells, making sentences and +burdens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how +many sick people it might be the death of in the course of the +year. As the hour approached, its changes of measure made it more +and more exasperating. At the quarter, it went off into a +condition of deadly-lively importunity, urging the populace in a +voluble manner to Come to church, Come to church, Come to church! +At the ten minutes, it became aware that the congregation would be +scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, They WON'T come, +they WON'T come, they WON'T come! At the five minutes, it +abandoned hope, and shook every house in the neighbourhood for +three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per second, as a groan +of despair. + +'Thank Heaven!' said Clennam, when the hour struck, and the bell +stopped. + +But its sound had revived a long train of miserable Sundays, and +the procession would not stop with the bell, but continued to march +on. 'Heaven forgive me,' said he, 'and those who trained me. How +I have hated this day!' + +There was the dreary Sunday of his childhood, when he sat with his +hands before him, scared out of his senses by a horrible tract +which commenced business with the poor child by asking him in its +title, why he was going to Perdition?--a piece of curiosity that he +really, in a frock and drawers, was not in a condition to satisfy-- +and which, for the further attraction of his infant mind, had a +parenthesis in every other line with some such hiccupping reference +as 2 Ep. Thess. c. iii, v. 6 & 7. There was the sleepy Sunday of +his boyhood, when, like a military deserter, he was marched to +chapel by a picquet of teachers three times a day, morally +handcuffed to another boy; and when he would willingly have +bartered two meals of indigestible sermon for another ounce or two +of inferior mutton at his scanty dinner in the flesh. There was +the interminable Sunday of his nonage; when his mother, stern of +face and unrelenting of heart, would sit all day behind a Bible-- +bound, like her own construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and +straitest boards, with one dinted ornament on the cover like the +drag of a chain, and a wrathful sprinkling of red upon the edges of +the leaves--as if it, of all books! were a fortification against +sweetness of temper, natural affection, and gentle intercourse. +There was the resentful Sunday of a little later, when he sat down +glowering and glooming through the tardy length of the day, with a +sullen sense of injury in his heart, and no more real knowledge of +the beneficent history of the New Testament than if he had been +bred among idolaters. There was a legion of Sundays, all days of +unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly passing before +him. +'Beg pardon, sir,' said a brisk waiter, rubbing the table. 'Wish +see bed-room?' + +'Yes. I have just made up my mind to do it.' + +'Chaymaid!' cried the waiter. 'Gelen box num seven wish see room!' + +'Stay!' said Clennam, rousing himself. 'I was not thinking of what +I said; I answered mechanically. I am not going to sleep here. I +am going home.' + +'Deed, sir? Chaymaid! Gelen box num seven, not go sleep here, +gome.' + +He sat in the same place as the day died, looking at the dull +houses opposite, and thinking, if the disembodied spirits of former +inhabitants were ever conscious of them, how they must pity +themselves for their old places of imprisonment. Sometimes a face +would appear behind the dingy glass of a window, and would fade +away into the gloom as if it had seen enough of life and had +vanished out of it. Presently the rain began to fall in slanting +lines between him and those houses, and people began to collect +under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look out +hopelessly at the sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster. Then +wet umbrellas began to appear, draggled skirts, and mud. What the +mud had been doing with itself, or where it came from, who could +say? But it seemed to collect in a moment, as a crowd will, and in +five minutes to have splashed all the sons and daughters of Adam. +The lamplighter was going his rounds now; and as the fiery jets +sprang up under his touch, one might have fancied them astonished +at being suffered to introduce any show of brightness into such a +dismal scene. + +Mr Arthur Clennam took up his hat and buttoned his coat, and walked +out. In the country, the rain would have developed a thousand +fresh scents, and every drop would have had its bright association +with some beautiful form of growth or life. In the city, it +developed only foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt- +stained, wretched addition to the gutters. + +He crossed by St Paul's and went down, at a long angle, almost to +the water's edge, through some of the crooked and descending +streets which lie (and lay more crookedly and closely then) between +the river and Cheapside. Passing, now the mouldy hall of some +obsolete Worshipful Company, now the illuminated windows of a +Congregationless Church that seemed to be waiting for some +adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and discover its history; passing +silent warehouses and wharves, and here and there a narrow alley +leading to the river, where a wretched little bill, +FOUND DROWNED, was weeping on the wet wall; he came at last to the +house he sought. An old brick house, so dingy as to be all but +black, standing by itself within a gateway. Before it, a square +court-yard where a shrub or two and a patch of grass were as rank +(which is saying much) as the iron railings enclosing them were +rusty; behind it, a jumble of roots. It was a double house, with +long, narrow, heavily-framed windows. Many years ago, it had had +it in its mind to slide down sideways; it had been propped up, +however, and was leaning on some half-dozen gigantic crutches: +which gymnasium for the neighbouring cats, weather-stained, smoke- +blackened, and overgrown with weeds, appeared in these latter days +to be no very sure reliance. + +'Nothing changed,' said the traveller, stopping to look round. +'Dark and miserable as ever. A light in my mother's window, which +seems never to have been extinguished since I came home twice a +year from school, and dragged my box over this pavement. Well, +well, well!' + +He went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved +work of festooned jack-towels and children's heads with water on +the brain, designed after a once-popular monumental pattern, and +knocked. A shuffling step was soon heard on the stone floor of the +hall, and the door was opened by an old man, bent and dried, but +with keen eyes. + +He had a candle in his hand, and he held it up for a moment to +assist his keen eyes. 'Ah, Mr Arthur?' he said, without any +emotion, 'you are come at last? Step in.' + +Mr Arthur stepped in and shut the door. + +'Your figure is filled out, and set,' said the old man, turning to +look at him with the light raised again, and shaking his head; 'but +you don't come up to your father in my opinion. Nor yet your +mother.' + +'How is my mother?' + +'She is as she always is now. Keeps her room when not actually +bedridden, and hasn't been out of it fifteen times in as many +years, Arthur.' They had walked into a spare, meagre dining-room. +The old man had put the candlestick upon the table, and, supporting +his right elbow with his left hand, was smoothing his leathern jaws +while he looked at the visitor. The visitor offered his hand. The +old man took it coldly enough, and seemed to prefer his jaws, to +which he returned as soon as he could. + +'I doubt if your mother will approve of your coming home on the +Sabbath, Arthur,' he said, shaking his head warily. + +'You wouldn't have me go away again?' + +'Oh! I? I? I am not the master. It's not what _I_ would have. +I have stood between your father and mother for a number of years. +I don't pretend to stand between your mother and you.' + +'Will you tell her that I have come home?' + +'Yes, Arthur, yes. Oh, to be sure! I'll tell her that you have +come home. Please to wait here. You won't find the room changed.' + +He took another candle from a cupboard, lighted it, left the first +on the table, and went upon his errand. He was a short, bald old +man, in a high-shouldered black coat and waistcoat, drab breeches, +and long drab gaiters. He might, from his dress, have been either +clerk or servant, and in fact had long been both. There was +nothing about him in the way of decoration but a watch, which was +lowered into the depths of its proper pocket by an old black +ribbon, and had a tarnished copper key moored above it, to show +where it was sunk. His head was awry, and he had a one-sided, +crab-like way with him, as if his foundations had yielded at about +the same time as those of the house, and he ought to have been +propped up in a similar manner. + +'How weak am I,' said Arthur Clennam, when he was gone, 'that I +could shed tears at this reception! I, who have never experienced +anything else; who have never expected anything else.' He not only +could, but did. It was the momentary yielding of a nature that had +been disappointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but had not +quite given up all its hopeful yearnings yet. He subdued it, took +up the candle, and examined the room. The old articles of +furniture were in their old places; the Plagues of Egypt, much the +dimmer for the fly and smoke plagues of London, were framed and +glazed upon the walls. There was the old cellaret with nothing in +it, lined with lead, like a sort of coffin in compartments; there +was the old dark closet, also with nothing in it, of which he had +been many a time the sole contents, in days of punishment, when he +had regarded it as the veritable entrance to that bourne to which +the tract had found him galloping. There was the large, hard- +featured clock on the sideboard, which he used to see bending its +figured brows upon him with a savage joy when he was behind-hand +with his lessons, and which, when it was wound up once a week with +an iron handle, used to sound as if it were growling in ferocious +anticipation of the miseries into which it would bring him. But +here was the old man come back, saying, 'Arthur, I'll go before and +light you.' + +Arthur followed him up the staircase, which was panelled off into +spaces like so many mourning tablets, into a dim bed-chamber, the +floor of which had gradually so sunk and settled, that the fire- +place was in a dell. On a black bier-like sofa in this hollow, +propped up behind with one great angular black bolster like the +block at a state execution in the good old times, sat his mother in +a widow's dress. + +She and his father had been at variance from his earliest +remembrance. To sit speechless himself in the midst of rigid +silence, glancing in dread from the one averted face to the other, +had been the peacefullest occupation of his childhood. She gave +him one glassy kiss, and four stiff fingers muffled in worsted. +This embrace concluded, he sat down on the opposite side of her +little table. There was a fire in the grate, as there had been +night and day for fifteen years. There was a kettle on the hob, as +there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a little +mound of damped ashes on the top of the fire, and another little +mound swept together under the grate, as there had been night and +day for fifteen years. There was a smell of black dye in the +airless room, which the fire had been drawing out of the crape and +stuff of the widow's dress for fifteen months, and out of the bier- +like sofa for fifteen years. + +'Mother, this is a change from your old active habits.' + +'The world has narrowed to these dimensions, Arthur,' she rep lied, +glancing round the room. 'It is well for me that I never set my +heart upon its hollow vanities.' + +The old influence of her presence and her stern strong voice, so +gathered about her son, that he felt conscious of a renewal of the +timid chill and reserve of his childhood. + +'Do you never leave your room, mother?' + +'What with my rheumatic affection, and what with its attendant +debility or nervous weakness--names are of no matter now--I have +lost the use of my limbs. I never leave my room. I have not been +outside this door for--tell him for how long,' she said, speaking +over her shoulder. + +'A dozen year next Christmas,' returned a cracked voice out of the +dimness behind. + +'Is that Affery?' said Arthur, looking towards it. + +The cracked voice replied that it was Affery: and an old woman came +forward into what doubtful light there was, and kissed her hand +once; then subsided again into the dimness. + +'I am able,' said Mrs Clennam, with a slight motion of her worsted- +muffled right hand toward a chair on wheels, standing before a tall +writing cabinet close shut up, 'I am able to attend to my business +duties, and I am thankful for the privilege. It is a great +privilege. But no more of business on this day. It is a bad +night, is it not?' + +'Yes, mother.' + +'Does it snow?' + +'Snow, mother? And we only yet in September?' + +'All seasons are alike to me,' she returned, with a grim kind of +luxuriousness. 'I know nothing of summer and winter, shut up here. + +The Lord has been pleased to put me beyond all that.' With her +cold grey eyes and her cold grey hair, and her immovable face, as +stiff as the folds of her stony head-dress,--her being beyond the +reach of the seasons seemed but a fit sequence to her being beyond +the reach of all changing emotions. + +On her little table lay two or three books, her handkerchief, a +pair of steel spectacles newly taken off, and an old-fashioned gold +watch in a heavy double case. Upon this last object her son's eyes +and her own now rested together. + +'I see that you received the packet I sent you on my father's +death, safely, mother.' + +'You see.' + +'I never knew my father to show so much anxiety on any subject, as +that his watch should be sent straight to you.' + +'I keep it here as a remembrance of your father.' + +'It was not until the last, that he expressed the wish; when he +could only put his hand upon it, and very indistinctly say to me +"your mother." A moment before, I thought him wandering in his +mind, as he had been for many hours--I think he had no +consciousness of pain in his short illness--when I saw him turn +himself in his bed and try to open it.' + +'Was your father, then, not wandering in his mind when he tried to +open it?' + +'No. He was quite sensible at that time.' + +Mrs Clennam shook her head; whether in dismissal of the deceased or +opposing herself to her son's opinion, was not clearly expressed. + +'After my father's death I opened it myself, thinking there might +be, for anything I knew, some memorandum there. However, as I need +not tell you, mother, there was nothing but the old silk watch- +paper worked in beads, which you found (no doubt) in its place +between the cases, where I found and left it.' + +Mrs Clennam signified assent; then added, 'No more of business on +this day,' and then added, 'Affery, it is nine o'clock.' + +Upon this, the old woman cleared the little table, went out of the +room, and quickly returned with a tray on which was a dish of +little rusks and a small precise pat of butter, cool, symmetrical, +white, and plump. The old man who had been standing by the door in +one attitude during the whole interview, looking at the mother up- +stairs as he had looked at the son down-stairs, went out at the +same time, and, after a longer absence, returned with another tray +on which was the greater part of a bottle of port wine (which, to +judge by his panting, he had brought from the cellar), a lemon, a +sugar-basin, and a spice box. With these materials and the aid of +the kettle, he filled a tumbler with a hot and odorous mixture, +measured out and compounded with as much nicety as a physician's +prescription. Into this mixture Mrs Clennam dipped certain of the +rusks, and ate them; while the old woman buttered certain other of +the rusks, which were to be eaten alone. When the invalid had +eaten all the rusks and drunk all the mixture, the two trays were +removed; and the books and the candle, watch, handkerchief, and +spectacles were replaced upon the table. She then put on the +spectacles and read certain passages aloud from a book--sternly, +fiercely, wrathfully--praying that her enemies (she made them by +her tone and manner expressly hers) might be put to the edge of the +sword, consumed by fire, smitten by plagues and leprosy, that their +bones might be ground to dust, and that they might be utterly +exterminated. As she read on, years seemed to fall away from her +son like the imaginings of a dream, and all the old dark horrors of +his usual preparation for the sleep of an innocent child to +overshadow him. + +She shut the book and remained for a little time with her face +shaded by her hand. So did the old man, otherwise still unchanged + +in attitude; so, probably, did the old woman in her dimmer part of +the room. Then the sick woman was ready for bed. + +'Good night, Arthur. Affery will see to your accommodation. Only +touch me, for my hand is tender.' He touched the worsted muffling +of her hand--that was nothing; if his mother had been sheathed in +brass there would have been no new barrier between them--and +followed the old man and woman down-stairs. + +The latter asked him, when they were alone together among the heavy +shadows of the dining-room, would he have some supper? + +'No, Affery, no supper.' + +'You shall if you like,' said Affery. 'There's her tomorrow's +partridge in the larder--her first this year; say the word and I'll +cook it.' + +No, he had not long dined, and could eat nothing. + +'Have something to drink, then,' said Affery; 'you shall have some +of her bottle of port, if you like. I'll tell Jeremiah that you +ordered me to bring it you.' + +No; nor would he have that, either. + +'It's no reason, Arthur,' said the old woman, bending over him to +whisper, 'that because I am afeared of my life of 'em, you should +be. You've got half the property, haven't you?' + +'Yes, yes.' + +'Well then, don't you be cowed. You're clever, Arthur, an't you? +' +He nodded, as she seemed to expect an answer in the affirmative. +'Then stand up against them! She's awful clever, and none but a +clever one durst say a word to her. HE'S a clever one--oh, he's a +clever one!--and he gives it her when he has a mind to't, he does!' + +'Your husband does?' + +'Does? It makes me shake from head to foot, to hear him give it +her. My husband, Jeremiah Flintwinch, can conquer even your +mother. What can he be but a clever one to do that!' + +His shuffling footstep coming towards them caused her to retreat to +the other end of the room. Though a tall, hard-favoured, sinewy +old woman, who in her youth might have enlisted in the Foot Guards +without much fear of discovery, she collapsed before the little +keen-eyed crab-like old man. + +'Now, Affery,' said he, 'now, woman, what are you doing? Can't you +find Master Arthur something or another to pick at?' + +Master Arthur repeated his recent refusal to pick at anything. + +'Very well, then,' said the old man; 'make his bed. Stir +yourself.' His neck was so twisted that the knotted ends of his +white cravat usually dangled under one ear; his natural acerbity +and energy, always contending with a second nature of habitual +repression, gave his features a swollen and suffused look; and +altogether, he had a weird appearance of having hanged himself at +one time or other, and of having gone about ever since, halter and +all, exactly as some timely hand had cut him down. + +'You'll have bitter words together to-morrow, Arthur; you and your +mother,' said Jeremiah. 'Your having given up the business on your +father's death--which she suspects, though we have left it to you +to tell her--won't go off smoothly.' + +'I have given up everything in life for the business, and the time +came for me to give up that.' + +'Good!' cried Jeremiah, evidently meaning Bad. 'Very good! only +don't expect me to stand between your mother and you, Arthur. I +stood between your mother and your father, fending off this, and +fending off that, and getting crushed and pounded betwixt em; and +I've done with such work.' + +'You will never be asked to begin it again for me, Jeremiah.' + +' Good. I'm glad to hear it; because I should have had to decline +it, if I had been. That's enough--as your mother says--and more +than enough of such matters on a Sabbath night. Affery, woman, +have you found what you want yet?' + +She had been collecting sheets and blankets from a press, and +hastened to gather them up, and to reply, 'Yes, Jeremiah.' Arthur +Clennam helped her by carrying the load himself, wished the old man +good night, and went up-stairs with her to the top of the house. + +They mounted up and up, through the musty smell of an old close +house, little used, to a large garret bed-room. Meagre and spare, +like all the other rooms, it was even uglier and grimmer than the +rest, by being the place of banishment for the worn-out furniture. +Its movables were ugly old chairs with worn-out seats, and ugly old +chairs without any seats; a threadbare patternless carpet, a maimed +table, a crippled wardrobe, a lean set of fire-irons like the +skeleton of a set deceased, a washing-stand that looked as if it +had stood for ages in a hail of dirty soapsuds, and a bedstead with +four bare atomies of posts, each terminating in a spike, as if for +the dismal accommodation of lodgers who might prefer to impale +themselves. Arthur opened the long low window, and looked out upon +the old blasted and blackened forest of chimneys, and the old red +glare in the sky, which had seemed to him once upon a time but a +nightly reflection of the fiery environment that was presented to +his childish fancy in all directions, let it look where it would. + +He drew in his head again, sat down at the bedside, and looked on +at Affery Flintwinch making the bed. + +'Affery, you were not married when I went away.' + +She screwed her mouth into the form of saying 'No,' shook her head, +and proceeded to get a pillow into its case. + +'How did it happen?' + +'Why, Jeremiah, o' course,' said Affery, with an end of the pillow- +case between her teeth. + +'Of course he proposed it, but how did it all come about? I should +have thought that neither of you would have married; least of all +should I have thought of your marrying each other.' + +'No more should I,' said Mrs Flintwinch, tying the pillow tightly +in its case. + +'That's what I mean. When did you begin to think otherwise?' + +'Never begun to think otherwise at all,' said Mrs Flintwinch. + +Seeing, as she patted the pillow into its place on the bolster, +that he was still looking at her as if waiting for the rest of her +reply, she gave it a great poke in the middle, and asked, 'How +could I help myself?' + +'How could you help yourself from being married!' + +'O' course,' said Mrs Flintwinch. 'It was no doing o' mine. I'D +never thought of it. I'd got something to do, without thinking, +indeed! She kept me to it (as well as he) when she could go about, +and she could go about then.' +'Well?' + +'Well?' echoed Mrs Flintwinch. 'That's what I said myself. Well! +What's the use of considering? If them two clever ones have made +up their minds to it, what's left for me to do? Nothing.' + +'Was it my mother's project, then?' + +'The Lord bless you, Arthur, and forgive me the wish!' cried +Affery, speaking always in a low tone. 'If they hadn't been both +of a mind in it, how could it ever have been? Jeremiah never +courted me; t'ant likely that he would, after living in the house +with me and ordering me about for as many years as he'd done. He +said to me one day, he said, "Affery," he said, "now I am going to +tell you something. What do you think of the name of Flintwinch?" +"What do I think of it?" I says. "Yes," he said, "because you're +going to take it," he said. "Take it?" I says. "Jere-MI-ah?" Oh! +he's a clever one!' + +Mrs Flintwinch went on to spread the upper sheet over the bed, and +the blanket over that, and the counterpane over that, as if she had +quite concluded her story. +'Well?' said Arthur again. + +'Well?' echoed Mrs Flintwinch again. 'How could I help myself? He +said to me, "Affery, you and me must be married, and I'll tell you +why. She's failing in health, and she'll want pretty constant +attendance up in her room, and we shall have to be much with her, +and there'll be nobody about now but ourselves when we're away from +her, and altogether it will be more convenient. She's of my +opinion," he said, "so if you'll put your bonnet on next Monday +morning at eight, we'll get it over."' Mrs Flintwinch tucked up the +bed. + +'Well?' + +'Well?' repeated Mrs Flintwinch, 'I think so! I sits me down and +says it. Well!--Jeremiah then says to me, "As to banns, next +Sunday being the third time of asking (for I've put 'em up a +fortnight), is my reason for naming Monday. She'll speak to you +about it herself, and now she'll find you prepared, Affery." That +same day she spoke to me, and she said, "So, Affery, I understand +that you and Jeremiah are going to be married. I am glad of it, +and so are you, with reason. It is a very good thing for you, and +very welcome under the circumstances to me. He is a sensible man, +and a trustworthy man, and a persevering man, and a pious man." +What could I say when it had come to that? Why, if it had been--a +smothering instead of a wedding,' Mrs Flintwinch cast about in her +mind with great pains for this form of expression, 'I couldn't have +said a word upon it, against them two clever ones.' + +'In good faith, I believe so.' +'And so you may, Arthur.' + +'Affery, what girl was that in my mother's room just now?' + +'Girl?' said Mrs Flintwinch in a rather sharp key. + +'It was a girl, surely, whom I saw near you--almost hidden in the +dark corner?' + +'Oh! She? Little Dorrit? She's nothing; she's a whim of--hers.' +It was a peculiarity of Affery Flintwinch that she never spoke of +Mrs Clennam by name. 'But there's another sort of girls than that +about. Have you forgot your old sweetheart? Long and long ago, +I'll be bound.' + +'I suffered enough from my mother's separating us, to remember her. + +I recollect her very well.' + +'Have you got another?' + +'No.' + +'Here's news for you, then. She's well to do now, and a widow. +And if you like to have her, why you can.' + +'And how do you know that, Affery?' + +'Them two clever ones have been speaking about it.--There's +Jeremiah on the stairs!' She was gone in a moment. + +Mrs Flintwinch had introduced into the web that his mind was busily +weaving, in that old workshop where the loom of his youth had +stood, the last thread wanting to the pattern. The airy folly of +a boy's love had found its way even into that house, and he had +been as wretched under its hopelessness as if the house had been a +castle of romance. Little more than a week ago at Marseilles, the +face of the pretty girl from whom he had parted with regret, had +had an unusual interest for him, and a tender hold upon him, +because of some resemblance, real or imagined, to this first face +that had soared out of his gloomy life into the bright glories of +fancy. He leaned upon the sill of the long low window, and looking +out upon the blackened forest of chimneys again, began to dream; +for it had been the uniform tendency of this man's life--so much +was wanting in it to think about, so much that might have been +better directed and happier to speculate upon--to make him a +dreamer, after all. + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream + + +When Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, she usually dreamed, unlike the son of +her old mistress, with her eyes shut. She had a curiously vivid +dream that night, and before she had left the son of her old +mistress many hours. In fact it was not at all like a dream; it +was so very real in every respect. It happened in this wise. + +The bed-chamber occupied by Mr and Mrs Flintwinch was within a few +paces of that to which Mrs Clennam had been so long confined. It +was not on the same floor, for it was a room at the side of the +house, which was approached by a steep descent of a few odd steps, +diverging from the main staircase nearly opposite to Mrs Clennam's +door. It could scarcely be said to be within call, the walls, +doors, and panelling of the old place were so cumbrous; but it was +within easy reach, in any undress, at any hour of the night, in any +temperature. At the head of the bed and within a foot of Mrs +Flintwinch's ear, was a bell, the line of which hung ready to Mrs +Clennam's hand. Whenever this bell rang, up started Affery, and +was in the sick room before she was awake. + +Having got her mistress into bed, lighted her lamp, and given her +good night, Mrs Flintwinch went to roost as usual, saving that her +lord had not yet appeared. It was her lord himself who became-- +unlike the last theme in the mind, according to the observation of +most philosophers--the subject of Mrs Flintwinch's dream. +It seemed to her that she awoke after sleeping some hours, and +found Jeremiah not yet abed. That she looked at the candle she had +left burning, and, measuring the time like King Alfred the Great, +was confirmed by its wasted state in her belief that she had been +asleep for some considerable period. That she arose thereupon, +muffled herself up in a wrapper, put on her shoes, and went out on +the staircase, much surprised, to look for Jeremiah. + +The staircase was as wooden and solid as need be, and Affery went +straight down it without any of those deviations peculiar to +dreams. She did not skim over it, but walked down it, and guided +herself by the banisters on account of her candle having died out. +In one corner of the hall, behind the house-door, there was a +little waiting-room, like a well-shaft, with a long narrow window +in it as if it had been ripped up. In this room, which was never +used, a light was burning. + +Mrs Flintwinch crossed the hall, feeling its pavement cold to her +stockingless feet, and peeped in between the rusty hinges on the +door, which stood a little open. She expected to see Jeremiah fast +asleep or in a fit, but he was calmly seated in a chair, awake, and +in his usual health. But what--hey?--Lord forgive us!--Mrs +Flintwinch muttered some ejaculation to this effect, and turned +giddy. + +For, Mr Flintwinch awake, was watching Mr Flintwinch asleep. He +sat on one side of the small table, looking keenly at himself on +the other side with his chin sunk on his breast, snoring. The +waking Flintwinch had his full front face presented to his wife; +the sleeping Flintwinch was in profile. The waking Flintwinch was +the old original; the sleeping Flintwinch was the double. just as +she might have distinguished between a tangible object and its +reflection in a glass, Affery made out this difference with her +head going round and round. + +If she had had any doubt which was her own Jeremiah, it would have +been resolved by his impatience. He looked about him for an +offensive weapon, caught up the snuffers, and, before applying them +to the cabbage-headed candle, lunged at the sleeper as though he +would have run him through the body. + +'Who's that? What's the matter?' cried the sleeper, starting. + +Mr Flintwinch made a movement with the snuffers, as if he would +have enforced silence on his companion by putting them down his +throat; the companion, coming to himself, said, rubbing his eyes, +'I forgot where I was.' + +'You have been asleep,' snarled Jeremiah, referring to his watch, +'two hours. You said you would be rested enough if you had a short +nap.' + +'I have had a short nap,' said Double. + +'Half-past two o'clock in the morning,' muttered Jeremiah. +'Where's your hat? Where's your coat? Where's the box?' + +'All here,' said Double, tying up his throat with sleepy +carefulness in a shawl. 'Stop a minute. Now give me the sleeve-- +not that sleeve, the other one. Ha! I'm not as young as I was.' +Mr Flintwinch had pulled him into his coat with vehement energy. +'You promised me a second glass after I was rested.' + +'Drink it!' returned Jeremiah, 'and--choke yourself, I was going to +say--but go, I mean.'At the same time he produced the identical +port-wine bottle, and filled a wine-glass. + +'Her port-wine, I believe?' said Double, tasting it as if he were +in the Docks, with hours to spare. 'Her health.' + +He took a sip. + +'Your health!' + +He took another sip. + +'His health!' + +He took another sip. + +'And all friends round St Paul's.' He emptied and put down the +wine-glass half-way through this ancient civic toast, and took up +the box. It was an iron box some two feet square, which he carried +under his arms pretty easily. Jeremiah watched his manner of +adjusting it, with jealous eyes; tried it with his hands, to be +sure that he had a firm hold of it; bade him for his life be +careful what he was about; and then stole out on tiptoe to open the +door for him. Affery, anticipating the last movement, was on the +staircase. The sequence of things was so ordinary and natural, +that, standing there, she could hear the door open, feel the night +air, and see the stars outside. + +But now came the most remarkable part of the dream. She felt so +afraid of her husband, that being on the staircase, she had not the +power to retreat to her room (which she might easily have done +before he had fastened the door), but stood there staring. +Consequently when he came up the staircase to bed, candle in hand, +he came full upon her. He looked astonished, but said not a word. +He kept his eyes upon her, and kept advancing; and she, completely +under his influence, kept retiring before him. Thus, she walking +backward and he walking forward, they came into their own room. +They were no sooner shut in there, than Mr Flintwinch took her by +the throat, and shook her until she was black in the face. + +'Why, Affery, woman--Affery!' said Mr Flintwinch. 'What have you +been dreaming of? Wake up, wake up! What's the matter?' + +'The--the matter, Jeremiah?' gasped Mrs Flintwinch, rolling her +eyes. + +'Why, Affery, woman--Affery! You have been getting out of bed in +your sleep, my dear! I come up, after having fallen asleep myself, +below, and find you in your wrapper here, with the nightmare. +Affery, woman,' said Mr Flintwinch, with a friendly grin on his +expressive countenance, 'if you ever have a dream of this sort +again, it'll be a sign of your being in want of physic. And I'll +give you such a dose, old woman--such a dose!' + +Mrs Flintwinch thanked him and crept into bed. + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +Family Affairs + + +As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was +wheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall +cabinet. When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled +herself at its desk, Jeremiah withdrew--as it might be, to hang +himself more effectually--and her son appeared. + +'Are you any better this morning, mother?' + +She shook her head, with the same austere air of luxuriousness that +she had shown over-night when speaking of the weather. + +'I shall never be better any more. It is well for me, Arthur, that +I know it and can bear it.' + +Sitting with her hands laid separately upon the desk, and the tall +cabinet towering before her, she looked as if she were performing +on a dumb church organ. Her son thought so (it was an old thought +with him), while he took his seat beside it. + +She opened a drawer or two, looked over some business papers, and +put them back again. Her severe face had no thread of relaxation +in it, by which any explorer could have been guided to the gloomy +labyrinth of her thoughts. + +'Shall I speak of our affairs, mother? Are you inclined to enter +upon business?' + +'Am I inclined, Arthur? Rather, are you? Your father has been +dead a year and more. I have been at your disposal, and waiting +your pleasure, ever since.' + +'There was much to arrange before I could leave; and when I did +leave, I travelled a little for rest and relief.' + +She turned her face towards him, as not having heard or understood +his last words. +'For rest and relief.' + +She glanced round the sombre room, and appeared from the motion of +her lips to repeat the words to herself, as calling it to witness +how little of either it afforded her. + +'Besides, mother, you being sole executrix, and having the +direction and management of the estate, there remained little +business, or I might say none, that I could transact, until you had +had time to arrange matters to your satisfaction.' + +'The accounts are made out,' she returned. 'I have them here. The +vouchers have all been examined and passed. You can inspect them +when you like, Arthur; now, if you please.' + +'It is quite enough, mother, to know that the business is +completed. Shall I proceed then?' + +'Why not?' she said, in her frozen way. + +'Mother, our House has done less and less for some years past, and +our dealings have been progressively on the decline. We have never +shown much confidence, or invited much; we have attached no people +to us; the track we have kept is not the track of the time; and we +have been left far behind. I need not dwell on this to you, +mother. You know it necessarily.' + +'I know what you mean,' she answered, in a qualified tone. +'Even this old house in which we speak,' pursued her son, 'is an +instance of what I say. In my father's earlier time, and in his +uncle's time before him, it was a place of business--really a place +of business, and business resort. Now, it is a mere anomaly and +incongruity here, out of date and out of purpose. All our +consignments have long been made to Rovinghams' the commission- +merchants; and although, as a check upon them, and in the +stewardship of my father's resources, your judgment and +watchfulness have been actively exerted, still those qualities +would have influenced my father's fortunes equally, if you had +lived in any private dwelling: would they not?' + +'Do you consider,' she returned, without answering his question, +'that a house serves no purpose, Arthur, in sheltering your infirm +and afflicted--justly infirm and righteously afflicted--mother?' + +'I was speaking only of business purposes.' + +'With what object?' + +'I am coming to it.' + +'I foresee,' she returned, fixing her eyes upon him, 'what it is. +But the Lord forbid that I should repine under any visitation. In +my sinfulness I merit bitter disappointment, and I accept it.' + +'Mother, I grieve to hear you speak like this, though I have had my +apprehensions that you would--' + +'You knew I would. You knew ME,' she interrupted. + +Her son paused for a moment. He had struck fire out of her, and +was surprised. + +'Well!' she said, relapsing into stone. 'Go on. Let me hear.' + +'You have anticipated, mother, that I decide for my part, to +abandon the business. I have done with it. I will not take upon +myself to advise you; you will continue it, I see. If I had any +influence with you, I would simply use it to soften your judgment +of me in causing you this disappointment: to represent to you that +I have lived the half of a long term of life, and have never before +set my own will against yours. I cannot say that I have been able +to conform myself, in heart and spirit, to your rules; I cannot say +that I believe my forty years have been profitable or pleasant to +myself, or any one; but I have habitually submitted, and I only ask +you to remember it.' + +Woe to the suppliant, if such a one there were or ever had been, +who had any concession to look for in the inexorable face at the +cabinet. Woe to the defaulter whose appeal lay to the tribunal +where those severe eyes presided. Great need had the rigid woman +of her mystical religion, veiled in gloom and darkness, with +lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and destruction, flashing through +the sable clouds. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, +was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite Thou my debtors, +Lord, wither them, crush them; do Thou as I would do, and Thou +shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she +built up to scale Heaven. + +'Have you finished, Arthur, or have you anything more to say to me? + +I think there can be nothing else. You have been short, but full +of matter!' + +'Mother, I have yet something more to say. It has been upon my +mind, night and day, this long time. It is far more difficult to +say than what I have said. That concerned myself; this concerns us +all.' + +'Us all! Who are us all?' + +'Yourself, myself, my dead father.' + +She took her hands from the desk; folded them in her lap; and sat +looking towards the fire, with the impenetrability of an old +Egyptian sculpture. + +'You knew my father infinitely better than I ever knew him; and his +reserve with me yielded to you. You were much the stronger, +mother, and directed him. As a child, I knew it as well as I know +it now. I knew that your ascendancy over him was the cause of his +going to China to take care of the business there, while you took +care of it here (though I do not even now know whether these were +really terms of separation that you agreed upon); and that it was +your will that I should remain with you until I was twenty, and +then go to him as I did. You will not be offended by my recalling +this, after twenty years?' + +'I am waiting to hear why you recall it.' + +He lowered his voice, and said, with manifest reluctance, and +against his will: + +'I want to ask you, mother, whether it ever occurred to you to +suspect--' + +At the word Suspect, she turned her eyes momentarily upon her son, +with a dark frown. She then suffered them to seek the fire, as +before; but with the frown fixed above them, as if the sculptor of +old Egypt had indented it in the hard granite face, to frown for +ages. + +'--that he had any secret remembrance which caused him trouble of +mind--remorse? Whether you ever observed anything in his conduct +suggesting that; or ever spoke to him upon it, or ever heard him +hint at such a thing?' + +'I do not understand what kind of secret remembrance you mean to +infer that your father was a prey to,' she returned, after a +silence. 'You speak so mysteriously.' + +'Is it possible, mother,' her son leaned forward to be the nearer +to her while he whispered it, and laid his hand nervously upon her +desk, 'is it possible, mother, that he had unhappily wronged any +one, and made no reparation?' + +Looking at him wrathfully, she bent herself back in her chair to +keep him further off, but gave him no reply. + +'I am deeply sensible, mother, that if this thought has never at +any time flashed upon you, it must seem cruel and unnatural in me, +even in this confidence, to breathe it. But I cannot shake it off. + +Time and change (I have tried both before breaking silence) do +nothing to wear it out. Remember, I was with my father. Remember, +I saw his face when he gave the watch into my keeping, and +struggled to express that he sent it as a token you would +understand, to you. Remember, I saw him at the last with the +pencil in his failing hand, trying to write some word for you to +read, but to which he could give no shape. The more remote and +cruel this vague suspicion that I have, the stronger the +circumstances that could give it any semblance of probability to +me. For Heaven's sake, let us examine sacredly whether there is +any wrong entrusted to us to set right. No one can help towards +it, mother, but you. ' + +Still so recoiling in her chair that her overpoised weight moved +it, from time to time, a little on its wheels, and gave her the +appearance of a phantom of fierce aspect gliding away from him, she +interposed her left arm, bent at the elbow with the back of her +hand towards her face, between herself and him, and looked at him +in a fixed silence. + +'In grasping at money and in driving hard bargains--I have begun, +and I must speak of such things now, mother--some one may have been +grievously deceived, injured, ruined. You were the moving power of +all this machinery before my birth; your stronger spirit has been +infused into all my father's dealings for more than two score +years. You can set these doubts at rest, I think, if you will +really help me to discover the truth. Will you, mother?' + +He stopped in the hope that she would speak. But her grey hair was +not more immovable in its two folds, than were her firm lips. + +'If reparation can be made to any one, if restitution can be made +to any one, let us know it and make it. Nay, mother, if within my +means, let ME make it. I have seen so little happiness come of +money; it has brought within my knowledge so little peace to this +house, or to any one belonging to it, that it is worth less to me +than to another. It can buy me nothing that will not be a reproach +and misery to me, if I am haunted by a suspicion that it darkened +my father's last hours with remorse, and that it is not honestly +and justly mine.' +There was a bell-rope hanging on the panelled wall, some two or +three yards from the cabinet. By a swift and sudden action of her +foot, she drove her wheeled chair rapidly back to it and pulled it +violently--still holding her arm up in its shield-like posture, as +if he were striking at her, and she warding off the blow. + +A girl came hurrying in, frightened. + +'Send Flintwinch here!' + +In a moment the girl had withdrawn, and the old man stood within +the door. 'What! You're hammer and tongs, already, you two?' he +said, coolly stroking his face. 'I thought you would be. I was +pretty sure of it.' + +'Flintwinch!' said the mother, 'look at my son. Look at him!' + +'Well, I AM looking at him,' said Flintwinch. + +She stretched out the arm with which she had shielded herself, and +as she went on, pointed at the object of her anger. + +'In the very hour of his return almost--before the shoe upon his +foot is dry--he asperses his father's memory to his mother! Asks +his mother to become, with him, a spy upon his father's +transactions through a lifetime! Has misgivings that the goods of +this world which we have painfully got together early and late, +with wear and tear and toil and self-denial, are so much plunder; +and asks to whom they shall be given up, as reparation and +restitution!' + +Although she said this raging, she said it in a voice so far from +being beyond her control that it was even lower than her usual +tone. She also spoke with great distinctness. + +'Reparation!' said she. 'Yes, truly! It is easy for him to talk +of reparation, fresh from journeying and junketing in foreign +lands, and living a life of vanity and pleasure. But let him look +at me, in prison, and in bonds here. I endure without murmuring, +because it is appointed that I shall so make reparation for my +sins. Reparation! Is there none in this room? Has there been +none here this fifteen years?' + +Thus was she always balancing her bargains with the Majesty of +heaven, posting up the entries to her credit, strictly keeping her +set-off, and claiming her due. She was only remarkable in this, +for the force and emphasis with which she did it. Thousands upon +thousands do it, according to their varying manner, every day. + +'Flintwinch, give me that book!' + +The old man handed it to her from the table. She put two fingers +between the leaves, closed the book upon them, and held it up to +her son in a threatening way. +' In the days of old, Arthur, treated of in this commentary, there +were pious men, beloved of the Lord, who would have cursed their +sons for less than this: who would have sent them forth, and sent +whole nations forth, if such had supported them, to be avoided of +God and man, and perish, down to the baby at the breast. But I +only tell you that if you ever renew that theme with me, I will +renounce you; I will so dismiss you through that doorway, that you +had better have been motherless from your cradle. I will never see +or know you more. And if, after all, you were to come into this +darkened room to look upon me lying dead, my body should bleed, if +I could make it, when you came near me.' + +In part relieved by the intensity of this threat, and in part +(monstrous as the fact is) by a general impression that it was in +some sort a religious proceeding, she handed back the book to the +old man, and was silent. + +'Now,' said Jeremiah; 'premising that I'm not going to stand +between you two, will you let me ask (as I have been called in, and +made a third) what is all this about?' + +'Take your version of it,' returned Arthur, finding it left to him +to speak, 'from my mother. Let it rest there. What I have said, +was said to my mother only.' +'Oh!' returned the old man. 'From your mother? Take it from your +mother? Well! But your mother mentioned that you had been +suspecting your father. That's not dutiful, Mr Arthur. Who will +you be suspecting next?' + +'Enough,' said Mrs Clennam, turning her face so that it was +addressed for the moment to the old man only. 'Let no more be said +about this.' + +'Yes, but stop a bit, stop a bit,' the old man persisted. 'Let us +see how we stand. Have you told Mr Arthur that he mustn't lay +offences at his father's door? That he has no right to do it? +That he has no ground to go upon?' + +'I tell him so now.' + +'Ah! Exactly,' said the old man. 'You tell him so now. You +hadn't told him so before, and you tell him so now. Ay, ay! +That's right! You know I stood between you and his father so long, +that it seems as if death had made no difference, and I was still +standing between you. So I will, and so in fairness I require to +have that plainly put forward. Arthur, you please to hear that you +have no right to mistrust your father, and have no ground to go +upon.' + +He put his hands to the back of the wheeled chair, and muttering to +himself, slowly wheeled his mistress back to her cabinet. 'Now,' +he resumed, standing behind her: 'in case I should go away leaving +things half done, and so should be wanted again when you come to +the other half and get into one of your flights, has Arthur told +you what he means to do about the business?' + +'He has relinquished it.' + +'In favour of nobody, I suppose?' + +Mrs Clennam glanced at her son, leaning against one of the windows. + +He observed the look and said, 'To my mother, of course. She does +what she pleases.' + +'And if any pleasure,' she said after a short pause, 'could arise +for me out of the disappointment of my expectations that my son, in +the prime of his life, would infuse new youth and strength into it, +and make it of great profit and power, it would be in advancing an +old and faithful servant. Jeremiah, the captain deserts the ship, +but you and I will sink or float with it.' + +Jeremiah, whose eyes glistened as if they saw money, darted a +sudden look at the son, which seemed to say, 'I owe YOU no thanks +for this; YOU have done nothing towards it!' and then told the +mother that he thanked her, and that Affery thanked her, and that +he would never desert her, and that Affery would never desert her. +Finally, he hauled up his watch from its depths, and said, 'Eleven. +Time for your oysters!' and with that change of subject, which +involved no change of expression or manner, rang the bell. + +But Mrs Clennam, resolved to treat herself with the greater rigour +for having been supposed to be unacquainted with reparation, +refused to eat her oysters when they were brought. They looked +tempting; eight in number, circularly set out on a white plate on +a tray covered with a white napkin, flanked by a slice of buttered +French roll, and a little compact glass of cool wine and water; but +she resisted all persuasions, and sent them down again--placing the +act to her credit, no doubt, in her Eternal Day-Book. + +This refection of oysters was not presided over by Affery, but by +the girl who had appeared when the bell was rung; the same who had +been in the dimly-lighted room last night. Now that he had an +opportunity of observing her, Arthur found that her diminutive +figure, small features, and slight spare dress, gave her the +appearance of being much younger than she was. A woman, probably +of not less than two-and-twenty, she might have been passed in the +street for little more than half that age. Not that her face was +very youthful, for in truth there was more consideration and care +in it than naturally belonged to her utmost years; but she was so +little and light, so noiseless and shy, and appeared so conscious +of being out of place among the three hard elders, that she had all +the manner and much of the appearance of a subdued child. + +In a hard way, and in an uncertain way that fluctuated between +patronage and putting down, the sprinkling from a watering-pot and +hydraulic pressure, Mrs Clennam showed an interest in this +dependent. Even in the moment of her entrance, upon the violent +ringing of the bell, when the mother shielded herself with that +singular action from the son, Mrs Clennam's eyes had had some +individual recognition in them, which seemed reserved for her. As +there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal, and shades of +colour in black itself, so, even in the asperity of Mrs Clennam's +demeanour towards all the rest of humanity and towards Little +Dorrit, there was a fine gradation. + +Little Dorrit let herself out to do needlework. At so much a day-- +or at so little--from eight to eight, Little Dorrit was to be +hired. Punctual to the moment, Little Dorrit appeared; punctual to +the moment, Little Dorrit vanished. What became of Little Dorrit +between the two eights was a mystery. + +Another of the moral phenomena of Little Dorrit. Besides her +consideration money, her daily contract included meals. She had an +extraordinary repugnance to dining in company; would never do so, +if it were possible to escape. Would always plead that she had +this bit of work to begin first, or that bit of work to finish +first; and would, of a certainty, scheme and plan--not very +cunningly, it would seem, for she deceived no one--to dine alone. +Successful in this, happy in carrying off her plate anywhere, to +make a table of her lap, or a box, or the ground, or even as was +supposed, to stand on tip-toe, dining moderately at a mantel-shelf; +the great anxiety of Little Dorrit's day was set at rest. + +It was not easy to make out Little Dorrit's face; she was so +retiring, plied her needle in such removed corners, and started +away so scared if encountered on the stairs. But it seemed to be +a pale transparent face, quick in expression, though not beautiful +in feature, its soft hazel eyes excepted. A delicately bent head, +a tiny form, a quick little pair of busy hands, and a shabby +dress--it must needs have been very shabby to look at all so, being +so neat--were Little Dorrit as she sat at work. + +For these particulars or generalities concerning Little Dorrit, Mr +Arthur was indebted in the course of the day to his own eyes and to +Mrs Affery's tongue. If Mrs Affery had had any will or way of her +own, it would probably have been unfavourable to Little Dorrit. +But as 'them two clever ones'--Mrs Affery's perpetual reference, in +whom her personality was swallowed up--were agreed to accept Little +Dorrit as a matter of course, she had nothing for it but to follow +suit. Similarly, if the two clever ones had agreed to murder +Little Dorrit by candlelight, Mrs Affery, being required to hold +the candle, would no doubt have done it. + +In the intervals of roasting the partridge for the invalid chamber, +and preparing a baking-dish of beef and pudding for the dining- +room, Mrs Affery made the communications above set forth; +invariably putting her head in at the door again after she had +taken it out, to enforce resistance to the two clever ones. It +appeared to have become a perfect passion with Mrs Flintwinch, that +the only son should be pitted against them. + +In the course of the day, too, Arthur looked through the whole +house. Dull and dark he found it. The gaunt rooms, deserted for +years upon years, seemed to have settled down into a gloomy +lethargy from which nothing could rouse them again. The furniture, +at once spare and lumbering, hid in the rooms rather than furnished +them, and there was no colour in all the house; such colour as had +ever been there, had long ago started away on lost sunbeams--got +itself absorbed, perhaps, into flowers, butterflies, plumage of +birds, precious stones, what not. There was not one straight floor +from the foundation to the roof; the ceilings were so fantastically +clouded by smoke and dust, that old women might have told fortunes +in them better than in grouts of tea; the dead-cold hearths showed +no traces of having ever been warmed but in heaps of soot that had +tumbled down the chimneys, and eddied about in little dusky +whirlwinds when the doors were opened. In what had once been a +drawing-room, there were a pair of meagre mirrors, with dismal +processions of black figures carrying black garlands, walking round +the frames; but even these were short of heads and legs, and one +undertaker-like Cupid had swung round on its own axis and got +upside down, and another had fallen off altogether. The room +Arthur Clennam's deceased father had occupied for business +purposes, when he first remembered him, was so unaltered that he +might have been imagined still to keep it invisibly, as his visible +relict kept her room up-stairs; Jeremiah Flintwinch still going +between them negotiating. His picture, dark and gloomy, earnestly +speechless on the wall, with the eyes intently looking at his son +as they had looked when life departed from them, seemed to urge him +awfully to the task he had attempted; but as to any yielding on the +part of his mother, he had now no hope, and as to any other means +of setting his distrust at rest, he had abandoned hope a long time. + +Down in the cellars, as up in the bed-chambers, old objects that he +well remembered were changed by age and decay, but were still in +their old places; even to empty beer-casks hoary with cobwebs, and +empty wine-bottles with fur and fungus choking up their throats. +There, too, among unusual bottle-racks and pale slants of light +from the yard above, was the strong room stored with old ledgers, +which had as musty and corrupt a smell as if they were regularly +balanced, in the dead small hours, by a nightly resurrection of old +book-keepers. + +The baking-dish was served up in a penitential manner on a shrunken +cloth at an end of the dining-table, at two o'clock, when he dined +with Mr Flintwinch, the new partner. Mr Flintwinch informed him +that his mother had recovered her equanimity now, and that he need +not fear her again alluding to what had passed in the morning. +'And don't you lay offences at your father's door, Mr Arthur,' +added Jeremiah, 'once for all, don't do it! Now, we have done with +the subject.' + +Mr Flintwinch had been already rearranging and dusting his own +particular little office, as if to do honour to his accession to +new dignity. He resumed this occupation when he was replete with +beef, had sucked up all the gravy in the baking-dish with the flat +of his knife, and had drawn liberally on a barrel of small beer in +the scullery. Thus refreshed, he tucked up his shirt-sleeves and +went to work again; and Mr Arthur, watching him as he set about it, +plainly saw that his father's picture, or his father's grave, would +be as communicative with him as this old man. + +'Now, Affery, woman,' said Mr Flintwinch, as she crossed the hall. +'You hadn't made Mr Arthur's bed when I was up there last. Stir +yourself. Bustle.' + +But Mr Arthur found the house so blank and dreary, and was so +unwilling to assist at another implacable consignment of his +mother's enemies (perhaps himself among them) to mortal +disfigurement and immortal ruin, that he announced his intention of +lodging at the coffee-house where he had left his luggage. Mr +Flintwinch taking kindly to the idea of getting rid of him, and his +mother being indifferent, beyond considerations of saving, to most +domestic arrangements that were not bounded by the walls of her own +chamber, he easily carried this point without new offence. Daily +business hours were agreed upon, which his mother, Mr Flintwinch, +and he, were to devote together to a necessary checking of books +and papers; and he left the home he had so lately found, with +depressed heart. + +But Little Dorrit? + +The business hours, allowing for intervals of invalid regimen of +oysters and partridges, during which Clennam refreshed himself with +a walk, were from ten to six for about a fortnight. Sometimes +Little Dorrit was employed at her needle, sometimes not, sometimes +appeared as a humble visitor: which must have been her character on +the occasion of his arrival. His original curiosity augmented +every day, as he watched for her, saw or did not see her, and +speculated about her. Influenced by his predominant idea, he even +fell into a habit of discussing with himself the possibility of her +being in some way associated with it. At last he resolved to watch +Little Dorrit and know more of her story. + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +The Father of the Marshalsea + + +Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of +Saint George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of +the way going southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It had stood there +many years before, and it remained there some years afterwards; but +it is gone now, and the world is none the worse without it. + +It was an oblong pile of barrack building, partitioned into squalid +houses standing back to back, so that there were no back rooms; +environed by a narrow paved yard, hemmed in by high walls duly +spiked at top. Itself a close and confined prison for debtors, it +contained within it a much closer and more confined jail for +smugglers. Offenders against the revenue laws, and defaulters to +excise or customs who had incurred fines which they were unable to +pay, were supposed to be incarcerated behind an iron-plated door +closing up a second prison, consisting of a strong cell or two, and +a blind alley some yard and a half wide, which formed the +mysterious termination of the very limited skittle-ground in which +the Marshalsea debtors bowled down their troubles. + +Supposed to be incarcerated there, because the time had rather +outgrown the strong cells and the blind alley. In practice they +had come to be considered a little too bad, though in theory they +were quite as good as ever; which may be observed to be the case at +the present day with other cells that are not at all strong, and +with other blind alleys that are stone-blind. Hence the smugglers +habitually consorted with the debtors (who received them with open +arms), except at certain constitutional moments when somebody came +from some Office, to go through some form of overlooking something +which neither he nor anybody else knew anything about. On these +truly British occasions, the smugglers, if any, made a feint of +walking into the strong cells and the blind alley, while this +somebody pretended to do his something: and made a reality of +walking out again as soon as he hadn't done it--neatly epitomising +the administration of most of the public affairs in our right +little, tight little, island. + +There had been taken to the Marshalsea Prison, long before the day +when the sun shone on Marseilles and on the opening of this +narrative, a debtor with whom this narrative has some concern. + +He was, at that time, a very amiable and very helpless middle-aged +gentleman, who was going out again directly. Necessarily, he was +going out again directly, because the Marshalsea lock never turned +upon a debtor who was not. He brought in a portmanteau with him, +which he doubted its being worth while to unpack; he was so +perfectly clear--like all the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock +said--that he was going out again directly. + +He was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, though in an effeminate +style; with a mild voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands--rings +upon the fingers in those days--which nervously wandered to his +trembling lip a hundred times in the first half-hour of his +acquaintance with the jail. His principal anxiety was about his +wife. + +'Do you think, sir,' he asked the turnkey, 'that she will be very +much shocked, if she should come to the gate to-morrow morning?' + +The turnkey gave it as the result of his experience that some of +'em was and some of 'em wasn't. In general, more no than yes. +'What like is she, you see?' he philosophically asked: 'that's what +it hinges on.' + +'She is very delicate and inexperienced indeed.' + +'That,' said the turnkey, 'is agen her.' + +'She is so little used to go out alone,' said the debtor, 'that I +am at a loss to think how she will ever make her way here, if she +walks.' + +'P'raps,' quoth the turnkey, 'she'll take a ackney coach.' + +'Perhaps.' The irresolute fingers went to the trembling lip. 'I +hope she will. She may not think of it.' + +'Or p'raps,' said the turnkey, offering his suggestions from the +the top of his well-worn wooden stool, as he might have offered +them to a child for whose weakness he felt a compassion, 'p'raps +she'll get her brother, or her sister, to come along with her.' + +'She has no brother or sister.' + +'Niece, nevy, cousin, serwant, young 'ooman, greengrocer.--Dash it! + +One or another on 'em,' said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand +the refusal of all his suggestions. + +'I fear--I hope it is not against the rules--that she will bring +the children.' + +'The children?' said the turnkey. 'And the rules? Why, lord set +you up like a corner pin, we've a reg'lar playground o' children +here. Children! Why we swarm with 'em. How many a you got?' + +'Two,' said the debtor, lifting his irresolute hand to his lip +again, and turning into the prison. + +The turnkey followed him with his eyes. 'And you another,' he +observed to himself, 'which makes three on you. And your wife +another, I'll lay a crown. Which makes four on you. And another +coming, I'll lay half-a-crown. Which'll make five on you. And +I'll go another seven and sixpence to name which is the +helplessest, the unborn baby or you!' + +He was right in all his particulars. She came next day with a +little boy of three years old, and a little girl of two, and he +stood entirely corroborated. + +'Got a room now; haven't you?' the turnkey asked the debtor after +a week or two. + +'Yes, I have got a very good room.' + +'Any little sticks a coming to furnish it?' said the turnkey. + +'I expect a few necessary articles of furniture to be delivered by +the carrier, this afternoon.' + +'Missis and little 'uns a coming to keep you company?' asked the +turnkey. + +'Why, yes, we think it better that we should not be scattered, even +for a few weeks.' + +'Even for a few weeks, OF course,' replied the turnkey. And he +followed him again with his eyes, and nodded his head seven times +when he was gone. + +The affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership, of +which he knew no more than that he had invested money in it; by +legal matters of assignment and settlement, conveyance here and +conveyance there, suspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in +this direction, and of mysterious spiriting away of property in +that; and as nobody on the face of the earth could be more +incapable of explaining any single item in the heap of confusion +than the debtor himself, nothing comprehensible could be made of +his case. To question him in detail, and endeavour to reconcile +his answers; to closet him with accountants and sharp +practitioners, learned in the wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy; +was only to put the case out at compound interest and +incomprehensibility. The irresolute fingers fluttered more and +more ineffectually about the trembling lip on every such occasion, +and the sharpest practitioners gave him up as a hopeless job. + +'Out?' said the turnkey, 'he'll never get out, unless his creditors +take him by the shoulders and shove him out.' + +He had been there five or six months, when he came running to this +turnkey one forenoon to tell him, breathless and pale, that his +wife was ill. + +'As anybody might a known she would be,' said the turnkey. + +'We intended,' he returned, 'that she should go to a country +lodging only to-morrow. What am I to do! Oh, good heaven, what am +I to do!' + +'Don't waste your time in clasping your hands and biting your +fingers,' responded the practical turnkey, taking him by the elbow, +'but come along with me.' + +The turnkey conducted him--trembling from head to foot, and +constantly crying under his breath, What was he to do! while his +irresolute fingers bedabbled the tears upon his face--up one of the +common staircases in the prison to a door on the garret story. +Upon which door the turnkey knocked with the handle of his key. + +'Come in!' cried a voice inside. + +The turnkey, opening the door, disclosed in a wretched, ill- +smelling little room, two hoarse, puffy, red-faced personages +seated at a rickety table, playing at all-fours, smoking pipes, and +drinking brandy. +'Doctor,' said the turnkey, 'here's a gentleman's wife in want of +you without a minute's loss of time!' + +The doctor's friend was in the positive degree of hoarseness, +puffiness, red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy; the +doctor in the comparative--hoarser, puffier, more red-faced, more +all-fourey, tobaccoer, dirtier, and brandier. The doctor was +amazingly shabby, in a torn and darned rough-weather sea-jacket, +out at elbows and eminently short of buttons (he had been in his +time the experienced surgeon carried by a passenger ship), the +dirtiest white trousers conceivable by mortal man, carpet slippers, +and no visible linen. 'Childbed?' said the doctor. 'I'm the boy!' +With that the doctor took a comb from the chimney-piece and stuck +his hair upright--which appeared to be his way of washing himself-- +produced a professional chest or case, of most abject appearance, +from the cupboard where his cup and saucer and coals were, settled +his chin in the frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became a ghastly +medical scarecrow. + +The doctor and the debtor ran down-stairs, leaving the turnkey to +return to the lock, and made for the debtor's room. All the ladies +in the prison had got hold of the news, and were in the yard. Some +of them had already taken possession of the two children, and were +hospitably carrying them off; others were offering loans of little +comforts from their own scanty store; others were sympathising with +the greatest volubility. The gentlemen prisoners, feeling +themselves at a disadvantage, had for the most part retired, not to +say sneaked, to their rooms; from the open windows of which some of +them now complimented the doctor with whistles as he passed below, +while others, with several stories between them, interchanged +sarcastic references to the prevalent excitement. + +It was a hot summer day, and the prison rooms were baking between +the high walls. In the debtor's confined chamber, Mrs Bangham, +charwoman and messenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had +been once), but was the popular medium of communication with the +outer world, had volunteered her services as fly-catcher and +general attendant. The walls and ceiling were blackened with +flies. Mrs Bangham, expert in sudden device, with one hand fanned +the patient with a cabbage leaf, and with the other set traps of +vinegar and sugar in gallipots; at the same time enunciating +sentiments of an encouraging and congratulatory nature, adapted to +the occasion. + +'The flies trouble you, don't they, my dear?' said Mrs Bangham. +'But p'raps they'll take your mind off of it, and do you good. +What between the buryin ground, the grocer's, the waggon-stables, +and the paunch trade, the Marshalsea flies gets very large. P'raps +they're sent as a consolation, if we only know'd it. How are you +now, my dear? No better? No, my dear, it ain't to be expected; +you'll be worse before you're better, and you know it, don't you? +Yes. That's right! And to think of a sweet little cherub being +born inside the lock! Now ain't it pretty, ain't THAT something to +carry you through it pleasant? Why, we ain't had such a thing +happen here, my dear, not for I couldn't name the time when. And +you a crying too?' said Mrs Bangham, to rally the patient more and +more. 'You! Making yourself so famous! With the flies a falling +into the gallipots by fifties! And everything a going on so well! +And here if there ain't,' said Mrs Bangham as the door opened, 'if +there ain't your dear gentleman along with Dr Haggage! And now +indeed we ARE complete, I THINK!' + +The doctor was scarcely the kind of apparition to inspire a patient +with a sense of absolute completeness, but as he presently +delivered the opinion, 'We are as right as we can be, Mrs Bangham, +and we shall come out of this like a house afire;' and as he and +Mrs Bangham took possession of the poor helpless pair, as everybody +else and anybody else had always done, the means at hand were as +good on the whole as better would have been. The special feature +in Dr Haggage's treatment of the case, was his determination to +keep Mrs Bangham up to the mark. As thus: + +'Mrs Bangham,' said the doctor, before he had been there twenty +minutes, 'go outside and fetch a little brandy, or we shall have +you giving in.' + +'Thank you, sir. But none on my accounts,' said Mrs Bangham. + +'Mrs Bangham,' returned the doctor, 'I am in professional +attendance on this lady, and don't choose to allow any discussion +on your part. Go outside and fetch a little brandy, or I foresee +that you'll break down.' + +'You're to be obeyed, sir,' said Mrs Bangham, rising. 'If you was +to put your own lips to it, I think you wouldn't be the worse, for +you look but poorly, sir.' + +'Mrs Bangham,' returned the doctor, 'I am not your business, thank +you, but you are mine. Never you mind ME, if you please. What you +have got to do, is, to do as you are told, and to go and get what +I bid you.' + +Mrs Bangham submitted; and the doctor, having administered her +potion, took his own. He repeated the treatment every hour, being +very determined with Mrs Bangham. Three or four hours passed; the +flies fell into the traps by hundreds; and at length one little +life, hardly stronger than theirs, appeared among the multitude of +lesser deaths. + +'A very nice little girl indeed,' said the doctor; 'little, but +well-formed. Halloa, Mrs Bangham! You're looking queer! You be +off, ma'am, this minute, and fetch a little more brandy, or we +shall have you in hysterics.' + +By this time, the rings had begun to fall from the debtor's +irresolute hands, like leaves from a wintry tree. Not one was left +upon them that night, when he put something that chinked into the +doctor's greasy palm. In the meantime Mrs Bangham had been out on +an errand to a neighbouring establishment decorated with three +golden balls, where she was very well known. + +'Thank you,' said the doctor, 'thank you. Your good lady is quite +composed. Doing charmingly.' + +'I am very happy and very thankful to know it,' said the debtor, +'though I little thought once, that--' + +'That a child would be born to you in a place like this?' said the +doctor. 'Bah, bah, sir, what does it signify? A little more +elbow-room is all we want here. We are quiet here; we don't get +badgered here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by +creditors and bring a man's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes +here to ask if a man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door +mat till he is. Nobody writes threatening letters about money to +this place. It's freedom, sir, it's freedom! I have had to-day's +practice at home and abroad, on a march, and aboard ship, and I'll +tell you this: I don't know that I have ever pursued it under such +quiet circumstances as here this day. Elsewhere, people are +restless, worried, hurried about, anxious respecting one thing, +anxious respecting another. Nothing of the kind here, sir. We +have done all that--we know the worst of it; we have got to the +bottom, we can't fall, and what have we found? Peace. That's the +word for it. Peace.' With this profession of faith, the doctor, +who was an old jail-bird, and was more sodden than usual, and had +the additional and unusual stimulus of money in his pocket, +returned to his associate and chum in hoarseness, puffiness, red- +facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy. + +Now, the debtor was a very different man from the doctor, but he +had already begun to travel, by his opposite segment of the circle, +to the same point. Crushed at first by his imprisonment, he had +soon found a dull relief in it. He was under lock and key; but the +lock and key that kept him in, kept numbers of his troubles out. +If he had been a man with strength of purpose to face those +troubles and fight them, he might have broken the net that held +him, or broken his heart; but being what he was, he languidly +slipped into this smooth descent, and never more took one step +upward. + +When he was relieved of the perplexed affairs that nothing would +make plain, through having them returned upon his hands by a dozen +agents in succession who could make neither beginning, middle, nor +end of them or him, he found his miserable place of refuge a +quieter refuge than it had been before. He had unpacked the +portmanteau long ago; and his elder children now played regularly +about the yard, and everybody knew the baby, and claimed a kind of +proprietorship in her. + +'Why, I'm getting proud of you,' said his friend the turnkey, one +day. 'You'll be the oldest inhabitant soon. The Marshalsea +wouldn't be like the Marshalsea now, without you and your family.' + +The turnkey really was proud of him. He would mention him in +laudatory terms to new-comers, when his back was turned. 'You took +notice of him,' he would say, 'that went out of the lodge just +now?' + +New-comer would probably answer Yes. + +'Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was. Ed'cated at +no end of expense. Went into the Marshal's house once to try a new +piano for him. Played it, I understand, like one o'clock-- +beautiful! As to languages--speaks anything. We've had a +Frenchman here in his time, and it's my opinion he knowed more +French than the Frenchman did. We've had an Italian here in his +time, and he shut him up in about half a minute. You'll find some +characters behind other locks, I don't say you won't; but if you +want the top sawyer in such respects as I've mentioned, you must +come to the Marshalsea.' + +When his youngest child was eight years old, his wife, who had long +been languishing away--of her own inherent weakness, not that she +retained any greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than he +did--went upon a visit to a poor friend and old nurse in the +country, and died there. He remained shut up in his room for a +fortnight afterwards; and an attorney's clerk, who was going +through the Insolvent Court, engrossed an address of condolence to +him, which looked like a Lease, and which all the prisoners signed. + +When he appeared again he was greyer (he had soon begun to turn +grey); and the turnkey noticed that his hands went often to his +trembling lips again, as they had used to do when he first came in. + +But he got pretty well over it in a month or two; and in the +meantime the children played about the yard as regularly as ever, +but in black. + +Then Mrs Bangham, long popular medium of communication with the +outer world, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual +comatose on pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the +change of her clients ninepence short. His son began to supersede +Mrs Bangham, and to execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to +be of the prison prisonous, of the streets streety. + +Time went on, and the turnkey began to fail. His chest swelled, +and his legs got weak, and he was short of breath. The well-worn +wooden stool was 'beyond him,' he complained. He sat in an arm- +chair with a cushion, and sometimes wheezed so, for minutes +together, that he couldn't turn the key. When he was overpowered +by these fits, the debtor often turned it for him. +'You and me,' said the turnkey, one snowy winter's night when the +lodge, with a bright fire in it, was pretty full of company, 'is +the oldest inhabitants. I wasn't here myself above seven year +before you. I shan't last long. When I'm off the lock for good +and all, you'll be the Father of the Marshalsea.' + +The turnkey went off the lock of this world next day. His words +were remembered and repeated; and tradition afterwards handed down +from generation to generation--a Marshalsea generation might be +calculated as about three months--that the shabby old debtor with +the soft manner and the white hair, was the Father of the +Marshalsea. + +And he grew to be proud of the title. If any impostor had arisen +to claim it, he would have shed tears in resentment of the attempt +to deprive him of his rights. A disposition began to be perceived +in him to exaggerate the number of years he had been there; it was +generally understood that you must deduct a few from his account; +he was vain, the fleeting generations of debtors said. + +All new-comers were presented to him. He was punctilious in the +exaction of this ceremony. The wits would perform the office of +introduction with overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could +not easily overstep his sense of its gravity. He received them in +his poor room (he disliked an introduction in the mere yard, as +informal--a thing that might happen to anybody), with a kind of +bowed-down beneficence. They were welcome to the Marshalsea, he +would tell them. Yes, he was the Father of the place. So the +world was kind enough to call him; and so he was, if more than +twenty years of residence gave him a claim to the title. It looked +small at first, but there was very good company there--among a +mixture--necessarily a mixture--and very good air. + +It became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under +his door at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and +then at long intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the +Marshalsea. 'With the compliments of a collegian taking leave.' +He received the gifts as tributes, from admirers, to a public +character. Sometimes these correspondents assumed facetious names, +as the Brick, Bellows, Old Gooseberry, Wideawake, Snooks, Mops, +Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man; but he considered this in bad taste, +and was always a little hurt by it. + + +In the fulness of time, this correspondence showing signs of +wearing out, and seeming to require an effort on the part of the +correspondents to which in the hurried circumstances of departure +many of them might not be equal, he established the custom of +attending collegians of a certain standing, to the gate, and taking +leave of them there. The collegian under treatment, after shaking +hands, would occasionally stop to wrap up something in a bit of +paper, and would come back again calling 'Hi!' + +He would look round surprised.'Me?' he would say, with a smile. +By this time the collegian would be up with him, and he would +paternally add,'What have you forgotten? What can I do for you?' + +'I forgot to leave this,' the collegian would usually return, 'for +the Father of the Marshalsea.' + +'My good sir,' he would rejoin, 'he is infinitely obliged to you.' +But, to the last, the irresolute hand of old would remain in the +pocket into which he had slipped the money during two or three +turns about the yard, lest the transaction should be too +conspicuous to the general body of collegians. + +One afternoon he had been doing the honours of the place to a +rather large party of collegians, who happened to be going out, +when, as he was coming back, he encountered one from the poor side +who had been taken in execution for a small sum a week before, had +'settled' in the course of that afternoon, and was going out too. +The man was a mere Plasterer in his working dress; had his wife +with him, and a bundle; and was in high spirits. + +'God bless you, sir,' he said in passing. + +'And you,' benignantly returned the Father of the Marshalsea. + +They were pretty far divided, going their several ways, when the +Plasterer called out, 'I say!--sir!' and came back to him. + +'It ain't much,' said the Plasterer, putting a little pile of +halfpence in his hand, 'but it's well meant.' + +The Father of the Marshalsea had never been offered tribute in +copper yet. His children often had, and with his perfect +acquiescence it had gone into the common purse to buy meat that he +had eaten, and drink that he had drunk; but fustian splashed with +white lime, bestowing halfpence on him, front to front, was new. + +'How dare you!' he said to the man, and feebly burst into tears. + +The Plasterer turned him towards the wall, that his face might not +be seen; and the action was so delicate, and the man was so +penetrated with repentance, and asked pardon so honestly, that he +could make him no less acknowledgment than, 'I know you meant it +kindly. Say no more.' + +'Bless your soul, sir,' urged the Plasterer, 'I did indeed. I'd do +more by you than the rest of 'em do, I fancy.' + +'What would you do?' he asked. + +'I'd come back to see you, after I was let out.' + +'Give me the money again,' said the other, eagerly, 'and I'll keep +it, and never spend it. Thank you for it, thank you! I shall see +you again?' +'If I live a week you shall.' + +They shook hands and parted. The collegians, assembled in +Symposium in the Snuggery that night, marvelled what had happened +to their Father; he walked so late in the shadows of the yard, and +seemed so downcast. + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +The Child of the Marshalsea + + +The baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor +Haggage's brandy, was handed down among the generations of +collegians, like the tradition of their common parent. In the +earlier stages of her existence, she was handed down in a literal +and prosaic sense; it being almost a part of the entrance footing +of every new collegian to nurse the child who had been born in the +college. + +'By rights,' remarked the turnkey when she was first shown to him, +'I ought to be her godfather.' + +The debtor irresolutely thought of it for a minute, and said, +'Perhaps you wouldn't object to really being her godfather?' + +'Oh! _I_ don't object,' replied the turnkey, 'if you don't.' + +Thus it came to pass that she was christened one Sunday afternoon, +when the turnkey, being relieved, was off the lock; and that the +turnkey went up to the font of Saint George's Church, and promised +and vowed and renounced on her behalf, as he himself related when +he came back, 'like a good 'un.' + +This invested the turnkey with a new proprietary share in the +child, over and above his former official one. When she began to +walk and talk, he became fond of her; bought a little arm-chair and +stood it by the high fender of the lodge fire-place; liked to have +her company when he was on the lock; and used to bribe her with +cheap toys to come and talk to him. The child, for her part, soon +grew so fond of the turnkey that she would come climbing up the +lodge-steps of her own accord at all hours of the day. When she +fell asleep in the little armchair by the high fender, the turnkey +would cover her with his pocket-handkerchief; and when she sat in +it dressing and undressing a doll which soon came to be unlike +dolls on the other side of the lock, and to bear a horrible family +resemblance to Mrs Bangham--he would contemplate her from the top +of his stool with exceeding gentleness. Witnessing these things, +the collegians would express an opinion that the turnkey, who was +a bachelor, had been cut out by nature for a family man. But the +turnkey thanked them, and said, 'No, on the whole it was enough to +see other people's children there.' +At what period of her early life the little creature began to +perceive that it was not the habit of all the world to live locked +up in narrow yards surrounded by high walls with spikes at the top, +would be a difficult question to settle. But she was a very, very +little creature indeed, when she had somehow gained the knowledge +that her clasp of her father's hand was to be always loosened at +the door which the great key opened; and that while her own light +steps were free to pass beyond it, his feet must never cross that +line. A pitiful and plaintive look, with which she had begun to +regard him when she was still extremely young, was perhaps a part +of this discovery. + +With a pitiful and plaintive look for everything, indeed, but with +something in it for only him that was like protection, this Child +of the Marshalsea and the child of the Father of the Marshalsea, +sat by her friend the turnkey in the lodge, kept the family room, +or wandered about the prison-yard, for the first eight years of her +life. With a pitiful and plaintive look for her wayward sister; +for her idle brother; for the high blank walls; for the faded crowd +they shut in; for the games of the prison children as they whooped +and ran, and played at hide-and-seek, and made the iron bars of the +inner gateway 'Home.' + +Wistful and wondering, she would sit in summer weather by the high +fender in the lodge, looking up at the sky through the barred +window, until, when she turned her eyes away, bars of light would +arise between her and her friend, and she would see him through a +grating, too. +'Thinking of the fields,' the turnkey said once, after watching +her, 'ain't you?' + +'Where are they?' she inquired. + +'Why, they're--over there, my dear,' said the turnkey, with a vague +flourish of his key. 'Just about there.' + +'Does anybody open them, and shut them? Are they locked?' + +The turnkey was discomfited. 'Well,' he said. 'Not in general.' + +'Are they very pretty, Bob?' She called him Bob, by his own +particular request and instruction. + +'Lovely. Full of flowers. There's buttercups, and there's +daisies, and there's'--the turnkey hesitated, being short of floral +nomenclature--'there's dandelions, and all manner of games.' + +'Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?' + +'Prime,' said the turnkey. + +'Was father ever there?' + +'Hem!' coughed the turnkey. 'O yes, he was there, sometimes.' + +'Is he sorry not to be there now?' + +'N-not particular,' said the turnkey. + +'Nor any of the people?' she asked, glancing at the listless crowd +within. 'O are you quite sure and certain, Bob?' + +At this difficult point of the conversation Bob gave in, and +changed the subject to hard-bake: always his last resource when he +found his little friend getting him into a political, social, or +theological corner. But this was the origin of a series of Sunday +excursions that these two curious companions made together. They +used to issue from the lodge on alternate Sunday afternoons with +great gravity, bound for some meadows or green lanes that had been +elaborately appointed by the turnkey in the course of the week; and +there she picked grass and flowers to bring home, while he smoked +his pipe. Afterwards, there were tea-gardens, shrimps, ale, and +other delicacies; and then they would come back hand in hand, +unless she was more than usually tired, and had fallen asleep on +his shoulder. + +In those early days, the turnkey first began profoundly to consider +a question which cost him so much mental labour, that it remained +undetermined on the day of his death. He decided to will and +bequeath his little property of savings to his godchild, and the +point arose how could it be so 'tied up' as that only she should +have the benefit of it? His experience on the lock gave him such +an acute perception of the enormous difficulty of 'tying up' money +with any approach to tightness, and contrariwise of the remarkable +ease with which it got loose, that through a series of years he +regularly propounded this knotty point to every new insolvent agent +and other professional gentleman who passed in and out. + +'Supposing,' he would say, stating the case with his key on the +professional gentleman's waistcoat; 'supposing a man wanted to +leave his property to a young female, and wanted to tie it up so +that nobody else should ever be able to make a grab at it; how +would you tie up that property?' + +'Settle it strictly on herself,' the professional gentleman would +complacently answer. + +'But look here,' quoth the turnkey. 'Supposing she had, say a +brother, say a father, say a husband, who would be likely to make +a grab at that property when she came into it--how about that?' + +'It would be settled on herself, and they would have no more legal +claim on it than you,' would be the professional answer. + +'Stop a bit,' said the turnkey. 'Supposing she was tender-hearted, +and they came over her. Where's your law for tying it up then?' + +The deepest character whom the turnkey sounded, was unable to +produce his law for tying such a knot as that. So, the turnkey +thought about it all his life, and died intestate after all. + +But that was long afterwards, when his god-daughter was past +sixteen. The first half of that space of her life was only just +accomplished, when her pitiful and plaintive look saw her father a +widower. From that time the protection that her wondering eyes had +expressed towards him, became embodied in action, and the Child of +the Marshalsea took upon herself a new relation towards the Father. + +At first, such a baby could do little more than sit with him, +deserting her livelier place by the high fender, and quietly +watching him. But this made her so far necessary to him that he +became accustomed to her, and began to be sensible of missing her +when she was not there. Through this little gate, she passed out +of childhood into the care-laden world. + +What her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in +her sister, in her brother, in the jail; how much, or how little of +the wretched truth it pleased God to make visible to her; lies +hidden with many mysteries. It is enough that she was inspired to +be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that +something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. +Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a +priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to +the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life! + +With no earthly friend to help her, or so much as to see her, but +the one so strangely assorted; with no knowledge even of the common +daily tone and habits of the common members of the free community +who are not shut up in prisons; born and bred in a social +condition, false even with a reference to the falsest condition +outside the walls; drinking from infancy of a well whose waters had +their own peculiar stain, their own unwholesome and unnatural +taste; the Child of the Marshalsea began her womanly life. + +No matter through what mistakes and discouragements, what ridicule +(not unkindly meant, but deeply felt) of her youth and little +figure, what humble consciousness of her own babyhood and want of +strength, even in the matter of lifting and carrying; through how +much weariness and hopelessness, and how many secret tears; she +drudged on, until recognised as useful, even indispensable. That +time came. She took the place of eldest of the three, in all +things but precedence; was the head of the fallen family; and bore, +in her own heart, its anxieties and shames. + +At thirteen, she could read and keep accounts, that is, could put +down in words and figures how much the bare necessaries that they +wanted would cost, and how much less they had to buy them with. +She had been, by snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an evening +school outside, and got her sister and brother sent to day-schools +by desultory starts, during three or four years. There was no +instruction for any of them at home; but she knew well--no one +better--that a man so broken as to be the Father of the Marshalsea, +could be no father to his own children. + +To these scanty means of improvement, she added another of her own +contriving. Once, among the heterogeneous crowd of inmates there +appeared a dancing-master. Her sister had a great desire to learn +the dancing-master's art, and seemed to have a taste that way. At +thirteen years old, the Child of the Marshalsea presented herself +to the dancing-master, with a little bag in her hand, and preferred +her humble petition. + +'If you please, I was born here, sir.' + +'Oh! You are the young lady, are you?' said the dancing-master, +surveying the small figure and uplifted face. + +'Yes, sir.' + +'And what can I do for you?' said the dancing-master. + +'Nothing for me, sir, thank you,' anxiously undrawing the strings +of the little bag; 'but if, while you stay here, you could be so +kind as to teach my sister cheap--' + +'My child, I'll teach her for nothing,' said the dancing-master, +shutting up the bag. He was as good-natured a dancing-master as +ever danced to the Insolvent Court, and he kept his word. The +sister was so apt a pupil, and the dancing-master had such abundant +leisure to bestow upon her (for it took him a matter of ten weeks +to set to his creditors, lead off, turn the Commissioners, and +right and left back to his professional pursuits), that wonderful +progress was made. Indeed the dancing-master was so proud of it, +and so wishful to display it before he left to a few select friends +among the collegians, that at six o'clock on a certain fine +morning, a minuet de la cour came off in the yard--the college- +rooms being of too confined proportions for the purpose--in which +so much ground was covered, and the steps were so conscientiously +executed, that the dancing-master, having to play the kit besides, +was thoroughly blown. + +The success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master's +continuing his instruction after his release, emboldened the poor +child to try again. She watched and waited months for a +seamstress. In the fulness of time a milliner came in, and to her +she repaired on her own behalf. + +'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' she said, looking timidly round the +door of the milliner, whom she found in tears and in bed: 'but I +was born here.' + +Everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the +milliner sat up in bed, drying her eyes, and said, just as the +dancing-master had said: + +'Oh! You are the child, are you?' + +'Yes, ma'am.' + +'I am sorry I haven't got anything for you,' said the milliner, +shaking her head. + +'It's not that, ma'am. If you please I want to learn needle-work.' + +'Why should you do that,' returned the milliner, 'with me before +you? It has not done me much good.' + +'Nothing--whatever it is--seems to have done anybody much good who +comes here,' she returned in all simplicity; 'but I want to learn +just the same.' + +'I am afraid you are so weak, you see,' the milliner objected. + +'I don't think I am weak, ma'am.' + +'And you are so very, very little, you see,' the milliner objected. + +'Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed,' returned the Child of +the Marshalsea; and so began to sob over that unfortunate defect of +hers, which came so often in her way. The milliner--who was not +morose or hard-hearted, only newly insolvent--was touched, took her +in hand with goodwill, found her the most patient and earnest of +pupils, and made her a cunning work-woman in course of time. + +In course of time, and in the very self-same course of time, the +Father of the Marshalsea gradually developed a new flower of +character. The more Fatherly he grew as to the Marshalsea, and the +more dependent he became on the contributions of his changing +family, the greater stand he made by his forlorn gentility. With +the same hand that he pocketed a collegian's half-crown half an +hour ago, he would wipe away the tears that streamed over his +cheeks if any reference were made to his daughters' earning their +bread. So, over and above other daily cares, the Child of the +Marshalsea had always upon her the care of preserving the genteel +fiction that they were all idle beggars together. + +The sister became a dancer. There was a ruined uncle in the family +group--ruined by his brother, the Father of the Marshalsea, and +knowing no more how than his ruiner did, but accepting the fact as +an inevitable certainty--on whom her protection devolved. +Naturally a retired and simple man, he had shown no particular +sense of being ruined at the time when that calamity fell upon him, +further than that he left off washing himself when the shock was +announced, and never took to that luxury any more. He had been a +very indifferent musical amateur in his better days; and when he +fell with his brother, resorted for support to playing a clarionet +as dirty as himself in a small Theatre Orchestra. It was the +theatre in which his niece became a dancer; he had been a fixture +there a long time when she took her poor station in it; and he +accepted the task of serving as her escort and guardian, just as he +would have accepted an illness, a legacy, a feast, starvation-- +anything but soap. + +To enable this girl to earn her few weekly shillings, it was +necessary for the Child of the Marshalsea to go through an +elaborate form with the Father. + +'Fanny is not going to live with us just now, father. She will be +here a good deal in the day, but she is going to live outside with +uncle.' + +'You surprise me. Why?' + +'I think uncle wants a companion, father. He should be attended +to, and looked after.' + +'A companion? He passes much of his time here. And you attend to +him and look after him, Amy, a great deal more than ever your +sister will. You all go out so much; you all go out so much.' + +This was to keep up the ceremony and pretence of his having no idea +that Amy herself went out by the day to work. + +'But we are always glad to come home, father; now, are we not? And +as to Fanny, perhaps besides keeping uncle company and taking care +of him, it may be as well for her not quite to live here, always. +She was not born here as I was, you know, father.' + +'Well, Amy, well. I don't quite follow you, but it's natural I +suppose that Fanny should prefer to be outside, and even that you +often should, too. So, you and Fanny and your uncle, my dear, +shall have your own way. Good, good. I'll not meddle; don't mind +me.' + +To get her brother out of the prison; out of the succession to Mrs +Bangham in executing commissions, and out of the slang interchange +with very doubtful companions consequent upon both; was her hardest +task. At eighteen he would have dragged on from hand to mouth, +from hour to hour, from penny to penny, until eighty. Nobody got +into the prison from whom he derived anything useful or good, and +she could find no patron for him but her old friend and godfather. + +'Dear Bob,' said she, 'what is to become of poor Tip?' His name +was Edward, and Ted had been transformed into Tip, within the +walls. + +The turnkey had strong private opinions as to what would become of +poor Tip, and had even gone so far with the view of averting their +fulfilment, as to sound Tip in reference to the expediency of +running away and going to serve his country. But Tip had thanked +him, and said he didn't seem to care for his country. + +'Well, my dear,' said the turnkey, 'something ought to be done with +him. Suppose I try and get him into the law?' + +'That would be so good of you, Bob!' + +The turnkey had now two points to put to the professional gentlemen +as they passed in and out. He put this second one so perseveringly +that a stool and twelve shillings a week were at last found for Tip +in the office of an attorney in a great National Palladium called +the Palace Court; at that time one of a considerable list of +everlasting bulwarks to the dignity and safety of Albion, whose +places know them no more. + +Tip languished in Clifford's Inns for six months, and at the +expiration of that term sauntered back one evening with his hands +in his pockets, and incidentally observed to his sister that he was +not going back again. + +'Not going back again?' said the poor little anxious Child of the +Marshalsea, always calculating and planning for Tip, in the front +rank of her charges. + +'I am so tired of it,' said Tip, 'that I have cut it.' + +Tip tired of everything. With intervals of Marshalsea lounging, +and Mrs Bangham succession, his small second mother, aided by her +trusty friend, got him into a warehouse, into a market garden, into +the hop trade, into the law again, into an auctioneers, into a +brewery, into a stockbroker's, into the law again, into a coach +office, into a waggon office, into the law again, into a general +dealer's, into a distillery, into the law again, into a wool house, +into a dry goods house, into the Billingsgate trade, into the +foreign fruit trade, and into the docks. But whatever Tip went +into, he came out of tired, announcing that he had cut it. +Wherever he went, this foredoomed Tip appeared to take the prison +walls with him, and to set them up in such trade or calling; and to +prowl about within their narrow limits in the old slip-shod, +purposeless, down-at-heel way; until the real immovable Marshalsea +walls asserted their fascination over him, and brought him back. + +Nevertheless, the brave little creature did so fix her heart on her +brother's rescue, that while he was ringing out these doleful +changes, she pinched and scraped enough together to ship him for +Canada. When he was tired of nothing to do, and disposed in its +turn to cut even that, he graciously consented to go to Canada. +And there was grief in her bosom over parting with him, and joy in +the hope of his being put in a straight course at last. + +'God bless you, dear Tip. Don't be too proud to come and see us, +when you have made your fortune.' + +'All right!' said Tip, and went. + +But not all the way to Canada; in fact, not further than Liverpool. + +After making the voyage to that port from London, he found himself +so strongly impelled to cut the vessel, that he resolved to walk +back again. Carrying out which intention, he presented himself +before her at the expiration of a month, in rags, without shoes, +and much more tired than ever. +At length, after another interval of successorship to Mrs Bangham, +he found a pursuit for himself, and announced it. + +'Amy, I have got a situation.' + +'Have you really and truly, Tip?' + +'All right. I shall do now. You needn't look anxious about me any +more, old girl.' + +'What is it, Tip?' + +'Why, you know Slingo by sight?' + +'Not the man they call the dealer?' + +'That's the chap. He'll be out on Monday, and he's going to give +me a berth.' + +'What is he a dealer in, Tip?' + +'Horses. All right! I shall do now, Amy.' + +She lost sight of him for months afterwards, and only heard from +him once. A whisper passed among the elder collegians that he had +been seen at a mock auction in Moorfields, pretending to buy plated +articles for massive silver, and paying for them with the greatest +liberality in bank notes; but it never reached her ears. One +evening she was alone at work--standing up at the window, to save +the twilight lingering above the wall--when he opened the door and +walked in. + +She kissed and welcomed him; but was afraid to ask him any +questions. He saw how anxious and timid she was, and appeared +sorry. + +'I am afraid, Amy, you'll be vexed this time. Upon my life I am!' + +'I am very sorry to hear you say so, Tip. Have you come back?' + +'Why--yes.' + +'Not expecting this time that what you had found would answer very +well, I am less surprised and sorry than I might have been, Tip.' + +'Ah! But that's not the worst of it.' + +'Not the worst of it?' + +'Don't look so startled. No, Amy, not the worst of it. I have +come back, you see; but--DON'T look so startled--I have come back +in what I may call a new way. I am off the volunteer list +altogether. I am in now, as one of the regulars.' + +'Oh! Don't say you are a prisoner, Tip! Don't, don't!' + +'Well, I don't want to say it,' he returned in a reluctant tone; +'but if you can't understand me without my saying it, what am I to +do? I am in for forty pound odd.' + +For the first time in all those years, she sunk under her cares. +She cried, with her clasped hands lifted above her head, that it +would kill their father if he ever knew it; and fell down at Tip's +graceless feet. + +It was easier for Tip to bring her to her senses than for her to +bring him to understand that the Father of the Marshalsea would be +beside himself if he knew the truth. The thing was +incomprehensible to Tip, and altogether a fanciful notion. He +yielded to it in that light only, when he submitted to her +entreaties, backed by those of his uncle and sister. There was no +want of precedent for his return; it was accounted for to the +father in the usual way; and the collegians, with a better +comprehension of the pious fraud than Tip, supported it loyally. + +This was the life, and this the history, of the child of the +Marshalsea at twenty-two. With a still surviving attachment to the +one miserable yard and block of houses as her birthplace and home, +she passed to and fro in it shrinkingly now, with a womanly +consciousness that she was pointed out to every one. Since she had +begun to work beyond the walls, she had found it necessary to +conceal where she lived, and to come and go as secretly as she +could, between the free city and the iron gates, outside of which +she had never slept in her life. Her original timidity had grown +with this concealment, and her light step and her little figure +shunned the thronged streets while they passed along them. + +Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all +things else. Innocent, in the mist through which she saw her +father, and the prison, and the turbid living river that flowed +through it and flowed on. + + +This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; now +going home upon a dull September evening, observed at a distance by +Arthur Clennam. This was the life, and this the history, of Little +Dorrit; turning at the end of London Bridge, recrossing it, going +back again, passing on to Saint George's Church, turning back +suddenly once more, and flitting in at the open outer gate and +little court-yard of the Marshalsea. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +The Lock + + +Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by +what place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose +face there was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still +stood pausing in the street, when an old man came up and turned +into the courtyard. + +He stooped a good deal, and plodded along in a slow pre-occupied +manner, which made the bustling London thoroughfares no very safe +resort for him. He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare +coat, once blue, reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, +where it vanished in the pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of +red cloth with which that phantom had been stiffened in its +lifetime was now laid bare, and poked itself up, at the back of the +old man's neck, into a confusion of grey hair and rusty stock and +buckle which altogether nearly poked his hat off. A greasy hat it +was, and a napless; impending over his eyes, cracked and crumpled +at the brim, and with a wisp of pocket-handkerchief dangling out +below it. His trousers were so long and loose, and his shoes so +clumsy and large, that he shuffled like an elephant; though how +much of this was gait, and how much trailing cloth and leather, no +one could have told. Under one arm he carried a limp and worn-out +case, containing some wind instrument; in the same hand he had a +pennyworth of snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown paper, from +which he slowly comforted his poor blue old nose with a lengthened- +out pinch, as Arthur Clennam looked at him. +To this old man crossing the court-yard, he preferred his inquiry, +touching him on the shoulder. The old man stopped and looked +round, with the expression in his weak grey eyes of one whose +thoughts had been far off, and who was a little dull of hearing +also. + +'Pray, sir,' said Arthur, repeating his question, 'what is this +place?' + +'Ay! This place?' returned the old man, staying his pinch of snuff +on its road, and pointing at the place without looking at it. +'This is the Marshalsea, sir.' + +'The debtors' prison?' + +'Sir,' said the old man, with the air of deeming it not quite +necessary to insist upon that designation, 'the debtors' prison.' + +He turned himself about, and went on. + +'I beg your pardon,' said Arthur, stopping him once more, 'but will +you allow me to ask you another question? Can any one go in here?' + +'Any one can go IN,' replied the old man; plainly adding by the +significance of his emphasis, 'but it is not every one who can go +out.' + +'Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place?' + +'Sir,' returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff +in his hand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions +hurt him. 'I am.' + +'I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have +a good object. Do you know the name of Dorrit here?' + +'My name, sir,' replied the old man most unexpectedly, 'is Dorrit.' + +Arthur pulled off his hat to him. 'Grant me the favour of half-a- +dozen words. I was wholly unprepared for your announcement, and +hope that assurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the +liberty of addressing you. I have recently come home to England +after a long absence. I have seen at my mother's--Mrs Clennam in +the city--a young woman working at her needle, whom I have only +heard addressed or spoken of as Little Dorrit. I have felt +sincerely interested in her, and have had a great desire to know +something more about her. I saw her, not a minute before you came +up, pass in at that door.' + +The old man looked at him attentively. 'Are you a sailor, sir?' he +asked. He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head +that replied to him. 'Not a sailor? I judged from your sunburnt +face that you might be. Are you in earnest, sir?' + +'I do assure you that I am, and do entreat you to believe that I +am, in plain earnest.' + +'I know very little of the world, sir,' returned the other, who had +a weak and quavering voice. 'I am merely passing on, like the +shadow over the sun-dial. It would be worth no man's while to +mislead me; it would really be too easy--too poor a success, to +yield any satisfaction. The young woman whom you saw go in here is +my brother's child. My brother is William Dorrit; I am Frederick. +You say you have seen her at your mother's (I know your mother +befriends her), you have felt an interest in her, and you wish to +know what she does here. Come and see.' + +He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him. + +'My brother,' said the old man, pausing on the step and slowly +facing round again, 'has been here many years; and much that +happens even among ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for +reasons that I needn't enter upon now. Be so good as to say +nothing of my niece's working at her needle. Be so good as to say +nothing that goes beyond what is said among us. If you keep within +our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now! Come and see.' + +Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key +was turned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted +them into a lodge or lobby, across which they passed, and so +through another door and a grating into the prison. The old man +always plodding on before, turned round, in his slow, stiff, +stooping manner, when they came to the turnkey on duty, as if to +present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and the companion +passed in without being asked whom he wanted. + +The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the +candles in the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of +wry old curtain and blind, had not the air of making it lighter. +A few people loitered about, but the greater part of the population +was within doors. The old man, taking the right-hand side of the +yard, turned in at the third or fourth doorway, and began to ascend +the stairs. 'They are rather dark, sir, but you will not find +anything in the way.' + +He paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story. +He had no sooner turned the handle than the visitor saw Little +Dorrit, and saw the reason of her setting so much store by dining +alone. + +She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, +and was already warming it on a gridiron over the fire for her +father, clad in an old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his +supper at the table. A clean cloth was spread before him, with +knife, fork, and spoon, salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter +ale-pot. Such zests as his particular little phial of cayenne +pepper and his pennyworth of pickles in a saucer, were not wanting. + +She started, coloured deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more +with his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, +entreated her to be reassured and to trust him. + +'I found this gentleman,' said the uncle--'Mr Clennam, William, son +of Amy's friend--at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of +paying his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. +This is my brother William, sir.' + +'I hope,' said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, 'that my respect +for your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented +to you, sir.' + +'Mr Clennam,' returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the +flat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, 'you do +me honour. You are welcome, sir;' with a low bow. 'Frederick, a +chair. Pray sit down, Mr Clennam.' + +He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed +his own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage +in his manner. These were the ceremonies with which he received +the collegians. + +'You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many +gentlemen to these walls. Perhaps you are aware--my daughter Amy +may have mentioned that I am the Father of this place.' + +'I--so I have understood,' said Arthur, dashing at the assertion. + +'You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good +girl, sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, +my dear, put this dish on; Mr Clennam will excuse the primitive +customs to which we are reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask +you if you would do me the honour, sir, to--' + +'Thank you,' returned Arthur. 'Not a morsel.' + +He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and +that the probability of his daughter's having had a reserve as to +her family history, should be so far out of his mind. + +She filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready +to his hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. +Evidently in observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread +before herself, and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw +she was troubled and took nothing. Her look at her father, half +admiring him and proud of him, half ashamed for him, all devoted +and loving, went to his inmost heart. + +The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an +amiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived +at distinction. 'Frederick,' said he, 'you and Fanny sup at your +lodgings to-night, I know. What have you done with Fanny, +Frederick?' +'She is walking with Tip.' + +'Tip--as you may know--is my son, Mr Clennam. He has been a little +wild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world +was rather'--he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and +looked round the room--'a little adverse. Your first visit here, +sir?' + +'my first.' + +'You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my +knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody--of any +pretensions-any pretensions--comes here without being presented to +me.' + +'As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my +brother,' said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride. + +'Yes!' the Father of the Marshalsea assented. 'We have even +exceeded that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite +a Levee--quite a Levee. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the +day to remember the name of the gentleman from Camberwell who was +introduced to me last Christmas week by that agreeable coal- +merchant who was remanded for six months.' + +'I don't remember his name, father.' + +'Frederick, do you remember his name?' +Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that +Frederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, +with any hope of information. + +'I mean,' said his brother, 'the gentleman who did that handsome +action with so much delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite +escaped me. Mr Clennam, as I have happened to mention handsome and +delicate action, you may like, perhaps, to know what it was.' + +'Very much,' said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate +head beginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude +stealing over it. + +'It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is +almost a duty to mention it. I said at the time that I always +would mention it on every suitable occasion, without regard to +personal sensitiveness. A--well--a--it's of no use to disguise the +fact--you must know, Mr Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that +people who come here desire to offer some little--Testimonial--to +the Father of the place.' + +To see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half-repressed, and +her timid little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, +sad sight. + +'Sometimes,' he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated, and +clearing his throat every now and then; 'sometimes--hem--it takes +one shape and sometimes another; but it is generally--ha--Money. +And it is, I cannot but confess it, it is too often--hem-- +acceptable. This gentleman that I refer to, was presented to me, +Mr Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying to my feelings, and +conversed not only with great politeness, but with great--ahem-- +information.' All this time, though he had finished his supper, he +was nervously going about his plate with his knife and fork, as if +some of it were still before him. 'It appeared from his +conversation that he had a garden, though he was delicate of +mentioning it at first, as gardens are--hem--are not accessible to +me. But it came out, through my admiring a very fine cluster of +geranium--beautiful cluster of geranium to be sure--which he had +brought from his conservatory. On my taking notice of its rich +colour, he showed me a piece of paper round it, on which was +written, "For the Father of the Marshalsea," and presented it to +me. But this was--hem--not all. He made a particular request, on +taking leave, that I would remove the paper in half an hour. I-- +ha--I did so; and I found that it contained--ahem--two guineas. I +assure you, Mr Clennam, I have received--hem--Testimonials in many +ways, and of many degrees of value, and they have always been--ha-- +unfortunately acceptable; but I never was more pleased than with +this--ahem--this particular Testimonial.' +Arthur was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a +theme, when a bell began to ring, and footsteps approached the +door. A pretty girl of a far better figure and much more developed +than Little Dorrit, though looking much younger in the face when +the two were observed together, stopped in the doorway on seeing a +stranger; and a young man who was with her, stopped too. + +'Mr Clennam, Fanny. My eldest daughter and my son, Mr Clennam. +The bell is a signal for visitors to retire, and so they have come +to say good night; but there is plenty of time, plenty of time. +Girls, Mr Clennam will excuse any household business you may have +together. He knows, I dare say, that I have but one room here.' + +'I only want my clean dress from Amy, father,' said the second +girl. + +'And I my clothes,' said Tip. + +Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest +of drawers above and a bedstead below, and produced two little +bundles, which she handed to her brother and sister. 'Mended and +made up?' Clennam heard the sister ask in a whisper. To which Amy +answered 'Yes.' He had risen now, and took the opportunity of +glancing round the room. The bare walls had been coloured green, +evidently by an unskilled hand, and were poorly decorated with a +few prints. The window was curtained, and the floor carpeted; and +there were shelves and pegs, and other such conveniences, that had +accumulated in the course of years. It was a close, confined room, +poorly furnished; and the chimney smoked to boot, or the tin screen +at the top of the fireplace was superfluous; but constant pains and +care had made it neat, and even, after its kind, comfortable. +All the while the bell was ringing, and the uncle was anxious to +go. 'Come, Fanny, come, Fanny,' he said, with his ragged clarionet +case under his arm; 'the lock, child, the lock!' + +Fanny bade her father good night, and whisked off airily. Tip had +already clattered down-stairs. 'Now, Mr Clennam,' said the uncle, +looking back as he shuffled out after them, 'the lock, sir, the +lock.' + +Mr Clennam had two things to do before he followed; one, to offer +his testimonial to the Father of the Marshalsea, without giving +pain to his child; the other to say something to that child, though +it were but a word, in explanation of his having come there. + +'Allow me,' said the Father, 'to see you down-stairs.' + +She had slipped out after the rest, and they were alone. 'Not on +any account,' said the visitor, hurriedly. 'Pray allow me to--' +chink, chink, chink. + +'Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'I am deeply, deeply--' But his +visitor had shut up his hand to stop the clinking, and had gone +down-stairs with great speed. + +He saw no Little Dorrit on his way down, or in the yard. The last +two or three stragglers were hurrying to the lodge, and he was +following, when he caught sight of her in the doorway of the first +house from the entrance. He turned back hastily. + +'Pray forgive me,' he said, 'for speaking to you here; pray forgive +me for coming here at all! I followed you to-night. I did so, +that I might endeavour to render you and your family some service. +You know the terms on which I and my mother are, and may not be +surprised that I have preserved our distant relations at her house, +lest I should unintentionally make her jealous, or resentful, or do +you any injury in her estimation. What I have seen here, in this +short time, has greatly increased my heartfelt wish to be a friend +to you. It would recompense me for much disappointment if I could +hope to gain your confidence.' + +She was scared at first, but seemed to take courage while he spoke +to her. + +'You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me. But I-- +but I wish you had not watched me.' + +He understood the emotion with which she said it, to arise in her +father's behalf; and he respected it, and was silent. + +'Mrs Clennam has been of great service to me; I don't know what we +should have done without the employment she has given me; I am +afraid it may not be a good return to become secret with her; I can +say no more to-night, sir. I am sure you mean to be kind to us. +Thank you, thank you.' +'Let me ask you one question before I leave. Have you known my +mother long?' + +'I think two years, sir,--The bell has stopped.' + +'How did you know her first? Did she send here for you?' + +'No. She does not even know that I live here. We have a friend, +father and I--a poor labouring man, but the best of friends--and I +wrote out that I wished to do needlework, and gave his address. +And he got what I wrote out displayed at a few places where it cost +nothing, and Mrs Clennam found me that way, and sent for me. The +gate will be locked, sir!' + +She was so tremulous and agitated, and he was so moved by +compassion for her, and by deep interest in her story as it dawned +upon him, that he could scarcely tear himself away. But the +stoppage of the bell, and the quiet in the prison, were a warning +to depart; and with a few hurried words of kindness he left her +gliding back to her father. + +But he remained too late. The inner gate was locked, and the lodge +closed. After a little fruitless knocking with his hand, he was +standing there with the disagreeable conviction upon him that he +had got to get through the night, when a voice accosted him from +behind. + +'Caught, eh?' said the voice. 'You won't go home till morning. +Oh! It's you, is it, Mr Clennam?' + +The voice was Tip's; and they stood looking at one another in the +prison-yard, as it began to rain. + + +'You've done it,' observed Tip; 'you must be sharper than that next +time.' + +'But you are locked in too,' said Arthur. + +'I believe I am!' said Tip, sarcastically. 'About! But not in +your way. I belong to the shop, only my sister has a theory that +our governor must never know it. I don't see why, myself.' + +'Can I get any shelter?' asked Arthur. 'What had I better do?' + +'We had better get hold of Amy first of all,' said Tip, referring +any difficulty to her as a matter of course. + +'I would rather walk about all night--it's not much to do--than +give that trouble.' + +'You needn't do that, if you don't mind paying for a bed. If you +don't mind paying, they'll make you up one on the Snuggery table, +under the circumstances. If you'll come along, I'll introduce you +there.' + +As they passed down the yard, Arthur looked up at the window of the +room he had lately left, where the light was still burning. 'Yes, +sir,' said Tip, following his glance. 'That's the governor's. +She'll sit with him for another hour reading yesterday's paper to +him, or something of that sort; and then she'll come out like a +little ghost, and vanish away without a sound.' + +'I don't understand you.' + +'The governor sleeps up in the room, and she has a lodging at the +turnkey's. First house there,' said Tip, pointing out the doorway +into which she had retired. 'First house, sky parlour. She pays +twice as much for it as she would for one twice as good outside. +But she stands by the governor, poor dear girl, day and night.' + +This brought them to the tavern-establishment at the upper end of +the prison, where the collegians had just vacated their social +evening club. The apartment on the ground-floor in which it was +held, was the Snuggery in question; the presidential tribune of the +chairman, the pewter-pots, glasses, pipes, tobacco-ashes, and +general flavour of members, were still as that convivial +institution had left them on its adjournment. The Snuggery had two +of the qualities popularly held to be essential to grog for ladies, +in respect that it was hot and strong; but in the third point of +analogy, requiring plenty of it, the Snuggery was defective; being +but a cooped-up apartment. + +The unaccustomed visitor from outside, naturally assumed everybody +here to be prisoners--landlord, waiter, barmaid, potboy, and all. +Whether they were or not, did not appear; but they all had a weedy +look. The keeper of a chandler's shop in a front parlour, who took +in gentlemen boarders, lent his assistance in making the bed. He +had been a tailor in his time, and had kept a phaeton, he said. He +boasted that he stood up litigiously for the interests of the +college; and he had undefined and undefinable ideas that the +marshal intercepted a 'Fund,' which ought to come to the +collegians. He liked to believe this, and always impressed the +shadowy grievance on new-comers and strangers; though he could not, +for his life, have explained what Fund he meant, or how the notion +had got rooted in his soul. He had fully convinced himself, +notwithstanding, that his own proper share of the Fund was three +and ninepence a week; and that in this amount he, as an individual +collegian, was swindled by the marshal, regularly every Monday. +Apparently, he helped to make the bed, that he might not lose an +opportunity of stating this case; after which unloading of his +mind, and after announcing (as it seemed he always did, without +anything coming of it) that he was going to write a letter to the +papers and show the marshal up, he fell into miscellaneous +conversation with the rest. It was evident from the general tone +of the whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the +normal state of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that +occasionally broke out. +In this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting +about him, Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations as if they +were part of a dream. Pending which, the long-initiated Tip, with +an awful enjoyment of the Snuggery's resources, pointed out the +common kitchen fire maintained by subscription of collegians, the +boiler for hot water supported in like manner, and other premises +generally tending to the deduction that the way to be healthy, +wealthy, and wise, was to come to the Marshalsea. + +The two tables put together in a corner, were, at length, converted +into a very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the Windsor +chairs, the presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, +pipe-lights, spittoons and repose. But the last item was long, +long, long, in linking itself to the rest. The novelty of the +place, the coming upon it without preparation, the sense of being +locked up, the remembrance of that room up-stairs, of the two +brothers, and above all of the retiring childish form, and the face +in which he now saw years of insufficient food, if not of want, +kept him waking and unhappy. + +Speculations, too, bearing the strangest relations towards the +prison, but always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares +through his mind while he lay awake. Whether coffins were kept +ready for people who might die there, where they were kept, how +they were kept, where people who died in the prison were buried, +how they were taken out, what forms were observed, whether an +implacable creditor could arrest the dead? As to escaping, what +chances there were of escape? Whether a prisoner could scale the +walls with a cord and grapple, how he would descend upon the other +side? whether he could alight on a housetop, steal down a +staircase, let himself out at a door, and get lost in the crowd? +As to Fire in the prison, if one were to break out while he lay +there? + +And these involuntary starts of fancy were, after all, but the +setting of a picture in which three people kept before him. His +father, with the steadfast look with which he had died, +prophetically darkened forth in the portrait; his mother, with her +arm up, warding off his suspicion; Little Dorrit, with her hand on +the degraded arm, and her drooping head turned away. + +What if his mother had an old reason she well knew for softening to +this poor girl! What if the prisoner now sleeping quietly--Heaven +grant it!--by the light of the great Day of judgment should trace +back his fall to her. What if any act of hers and of his father's, +should have even remotely brought the grey heads of those two +brothers so low! + +A swift thought shot into his mind. In that long imprisonment +here, and in her own long confinement to her room, did his mother +find a balance to be struck? 'I admit that I was accessory to that +man's captivity. I have suffered for it in kind. He has decayed +in his prison: I in mine. I have paid the penalty.' + +When all the other thoughts had faded out, this one held possession +of him. When he fell asleep, she came before him in her wheeled +chair, warding him off with this justification. When he awoke, and +sprang up causelessly frightened, the words were in his ears, as if +her voice had slowly spoken them at his pillow, to break his rest: +'He withers away in his prison; I wither away in mine; inexorable +justice is done; what do I owe on this score!' + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +Little Mother + + +The morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look +in at the Snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have +been more welcome if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush +of rain with it. But the equinoctial gales were blowing out at +sea, and the impartial south-west wind, in its flight, would not +neglect even the narrow Marshalsea. While it roared through the +steeple of St George's Church, and twirled all the cowls in the +neighbourhood, it made a swoop to beat the Southwark smoke into the +jail; and, plunging down the chimneys of the few early collegians +who were yet lighting their fires, half suffocated them. +Arthur Clennam would have been little disposed to linger in bed, +though his bed had been in a more private situation, and less +affected by the raking out of yesterday's fire, the kindling of to- +day's under the collegiate boiler, the filling of that Spartan +vessel at the pump, the sweeping and sawdusting of the common room, +and other such preparations. Heartily glad to see the morning, +though little rested by the night, he turned out as soon as he +could distinguish objects about him, and paced the yard for two +heavy hours before the gate was opened. + +The walls were so near to one another, and the wild clouds hurried +over them so fast, that it gave him a sensation like the beginning +of sea-sickness to look up at the gusty sky. The rain, carried +aslant by flaws of wind, blackened that side of the central +building which he had visited last night, but left a narrow dry +trough under the lee of the wall, where he walked up and down among +the waits of straw and dust and paper, the waste droppings of the +pump, and the stray leaves of yesterday's greens. It was as +haggard a view of life as a man need look upon. + +Nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had +brought him there. Perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at +that where her father lived, while his face was turned from both; +but he saw nothing of her. It was too early for her brother; to +have seen him once, was to have seen enough of him to know that he +would be sluggish to leave whatever frowsy bed he occupied at +night; so, as Arthur Clennam walked up and down, waiting for the +gate to open, he cast about in his mind for future rather than for +present means of pursuing his discoveries. + +At last the lodge-gate turned, and the turnkey, standing on the +step, taking an early comb at his hair, was ready to let him out. +With a joyful sense of release he passed through the lodge, and +found himself again in the little outer court-yard where he had +spoken to the brother last night. + +There was a string of people already straggling in, whom it was not +difficult to identify as the nondescript messengers, go-betweens, +and errand-bearers of the place. Some of them had been lounging in +the rain until the gate should open; others, who had timed their +arrival with greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing in +with damp whitey-brown paper bags from the grocers, loaves of +bread, lumps of butter, eggs, milk, and the like. The shabbiness +of these attendants upon shabbiness, the poverty of these insolvent +waiters upon insolvency, was a sight to see. Such threadbare coats +and trousers, such fusty gowns and shawls, such squashed hats and +bonnets, such boots and shoes, such umbrellas and walking-sticks, +never were seen in Rag Fair. All of them wore the cast-off clothes +of other men and women, were made up of patches and pieces of other +people's individuality, and had no sartorial existence of their own +proper. Their walk was the walk of a race apart. They had a +peculiar way of doggedly slinking round the corner, as if they were +eternally going to the pawnbroker's. When they coughed, they +coughed like people accustomed to be forgotten on doorsteps and in +draughty passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, +which gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental +disturbance and no satisfaction. As they eyed the stranger in +passing, they eyed him with borrowing eyes--hungry, sharp, +speculative as to his softness if they were accredited to him, and +the likelihood of his standing something handsome. Mendicity on +commission stooped in their high shoulders, shambled in their +unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and dragged their +clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their figures in +dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in +alcoholic breathings. + +As these people passed him standing still in the court-yard, and +one of them turned back to inquire if he could assist him with his +services, it came into Arthur Clennam's mind that he would speak to +Little Dorrit again before he went away. She would have recovered +her first surprise, and might feel easier with him. He asked this +member of the fraternity (who had two red herrings in his hand, and +a loaf and a blacking brush under his arm), where was the nearest +place to get a cup of coffee at. The nondescript replied in +encouraging terms, and brought him to a coffee-shop in the street +within a stone's throw. + +'Do you know Miss Dorrit?' asked the new client. + +The nondescript knew two Miss Dorrits; one who was born inside-- +That was the one! That was the one? The nondescript had known her +many years. In regard of the other Miss Dorrit, the nondescript +lodged in the same house with herself and uncle. + +This changed the client's half-formed design of remaining at the +coffee-shop until the nondescript should bring him word that Dorrit +had issued forth into the street. He entrusted the nondescript +with a confidential message to her, importing that the visitor who +had waited on her father last night, begged the favour of a few +words with her at her uncle's lodging; he obtained from the same +source full directions to the house, which was very near; dismissed +the nondescript gratified with half-a-crown; and having hastily +refreshed himself at the coffee-shop, repaired with all speed to +the clarionet-player's dwelling. + +There were so many lodgers in this house that the doorpost seemed +to be as full of bell-handles as a cathedral organ is of stops. +Doubtful which might be the clarionet-stop, he was considering the +point, when a shuttlecock flew out of the parlour window, and +alighted on his hat. He then observed that in the parlour window +was a blind with the inscription, MR CRIPPLES's ACADEMY; also in +another line, EVENING TUITION; and behind the blind was a little +white-faced boy, with a slice of bread-and-butter and a battledore. + +The window being accessible from the footway, he looked in over the +blind, returned the shuttlecock, and put his question. + +'Dorrit?' said the little white-faced boy (Master Cripples in +fact). 'Mr Dorrit? Third bell and one knock.' +The pupils of Mr Cripples appeared to have been making a copy-book +of the street-door, it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil. + +The frequency of the inscriptions, 'Old Dorrit,' and 'Dirty Dick,' +in combination, suggested intentions of personality on the part Of +Mr Cripples's pupils. There was ample time to make these +observations before the door was opened by the poor old man +himself. + +'Ha!' said he, very slowly remembering Arthur, 'you were shut in +last night?' + +'Yes, Mr Dorrit. I hope to meet your niece here presently.' + +'Oh!' said he, pondering. 'Out of my brother's way? True. Would +you come up-stairs and wait for her?' + +'Thank you.' + +Turning himself as slowly as he turned in his mind whatever he +heard or said, he led the way up the narrow stairs. The house was +very close, and had an unwholesome smell. The little staircase +windows looked in at the back windows of other houses as +unwholesome as itself, with poles and lines thrust out of them, on +which unsightly linen hung; as if the inhabitants were angling for +clothes, and had had some wretched bites not worth attending to. +In the back garret--a sickly room, with a turn-up bedstead in it, +so hastily and recently turned up that the blankets were boiling +over, as it were, and keeping the lid open--a half-finished +breakfast of coffee and toast for two persons was jumbled down +anyhow on a rickety table. + +There was no one there. The old man mumbling to himself, after +some consideration, that Fanny had run away, went to the next room +to fetch her back. The visitor, observing that she held the door +on the inside, and that, when the uncle tried to open it, there was +a sharp adjuration of 'Don't, stupid!' and an appearance of loose +stocking and flannel, concluded that the young lady was in an +undress. The uncle, without appearing to come to any conclusion, +shuffled in again, sat down in his chair, and began warming his +hands at the fire; not that it was cold, or that he had any waking +idea whether it was or not. + +'What did you think of my brother, sir?' he asked, when he by-and- +by discovered what he was doing, left off, reached over to the +chimney-piece, and took his clarionet case down. + +'I was glad,' said Arthur, very much at a loss, for his thoughts +were on the brother before him; 'to find him so well and cheerful.' +'Ha!' muttered the old man, 'yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!' + +Arthur wondered what he could possibly want with the clarionet +case. He did not want it at all. He discovered, in due time, that +it was not the little paper of snuff (which was also on the +chimney-piece), put it back again, took down the snuff instead, and +solaced himself with a pinch. He was as feeble, spare, and slow in +his pinches as in everything else, but a certain little trickling +of enjoyment of them played in the poor worn nerves about the +corners of his eyes and mouth. + +'Amy, Mr Clennam. What do you think of her?' + +'I am much impressed, Mr Dorrit, by all that I have seen of her and +thought of her.' + +'My brother would have been quite lost without Amy,' he returned. +'We should all have been lost without Amy. She is a very good +girl, Amy. She does her duty.' + +Arthur fancied that he heard in these praises a certain tone of +custom, which he had heard from the father last night with an +inward protest and feeling of antagonism. It was not that they +stinted her praises, or were insensible to what she did for them; +but that they were lazily habituated to her, as they were to all +the rest of their condition. He fancied that although they had +before them, every day, the means of comparison between her and one +another and themselves, they regarded her as being in her necessary +place; as holding a position towards them all which belonged to +her, like her name or her age. He fancied that they viewed her, +not as having risen away from the prison atmosphere, but as +appertaining to it; as being vaguely what they had a right to +expect, and nothing more. + +Her uncle resumed his breakfast, and was munching toast sopped in +coffee, oblivious of his guest, when the third bell rang. That was +Amy, he said, and went down to let her in; leaving the visitor with +as vivid a picture on his mind of his begrimed hands, dirt-worn +face, and decayed figure, as if he were still drooping in his +chair. + +She came up after him, in the usual plain dress, and with the usual +timid manner. Her lips were a little parted, as if her heart beat +faster than usual. + +'Mr Clennam, Amy,' said her uncle, 'has been expecting you some +time.' + +'I took the liberty of sending you a message.' + +'I received the message, sir.' + +'Are you going to my mother's this morning? I think not, for it is +past your usual hour.' +'Not to-day, sir. I am not wanted to-day.' + +'Will you allow Me to walk a little way in whatever direction you +may be going? I can then speak to you as we walk, both without +detaining you here, and without intruding longer here myself.' + +She looked embarrassed, but said, if he pleased. He made a +pretence of having mislaid his walking-stick, to give her time to +set the bedstead right, to answer her sister's impatient knock at +the wall, and to say a word softly to her uncle. Then he found it, +and they went down-stairs; she first, he following; the uncle +standing at the stair-head, and probably forgetting them before +they had reached the ground floor. + +Mr Cripples's pupils, who were by this time coming to school, +desisted from their morning recreation of cuffing one another with +bags and books, to stare with all the eyes they had at a stranger +who had been to see Dirty Dick. They bore the trying spectacle in +silence, until the mysterious visitor was at a safe distance; when +they burst into pebbles and yells, and likewise into reviling +dances, and in all respects buried the pipe of peace with so many +savage ceremonies, that, if Mr Cripples had been the chief of the +Cripplewayboo tribe with his war-paint on, they could scarcely have +done greater justice to their education. + +In the midst of this homage, Mr Arthur Clennam offered his arm to +Little Dorrit, and Little Dorrit took it. 'Will you go by the Iron +Bridge,' said he, 'where there is an escape from the noise of the +street?' Little Dorrit answered, if he pleased, and presently +ventured to hope that he would 'not mind' Mr Cripples's boys, for +she had herself received her education, such as it was, in Mr +Cripples's evening academy. He returned, with the best will in the +world, that Mr Cripples's boys were forgiven out of the bottom of +his soul. Thus did Cripples unconsciously become a master of the +ceremonies between them, and bring them more naturally together +than Beau Nash might have done if they had lived in his golden +days, and he had alighted from his coach and six for the purpose. + +The morning remained squally, and the streets were miserably muddy, +but no rain fell as they walked towards the Iron Bridge. The +little creature seemed so young in his eyes, that there were +moments when he found himself thinking of her, if not speaking to +her, as if she were a child. Perhaps he seemed as old in her eyes +as she seemed young in his. + +'I am sorry to hear you were so inconvenienced last night, sir, as +to be locked in. It was very unfortunate.' + +It was nothing, he returned. He had had a very good bed. + + +'Oh yes!' she said quickly; 'she believed there were excellent beds +at the coffee-house.' He noticed that the coffee-house was quite +a majestic hotel to her, and that she treasured its reputation. +'I believe it is very expensive,' said Little Dorrit, 'but MY +father has told me that quite beautiful dinners may be got there. +And wine,' she added timidly. +'Were you ever there?' + +'Oh no! Only into the kitchen to fetch hot water.' + +To think of growing up with a kind of awe upon one as to the +luxuries of that superb establishment, the Marshalsea Hotel! + +'I asked you last night,' said Clennam, 'how you had become +acquainted with my mother. Did you ever hear her name before she +sent for you?' + +'No, sir.' + +'Do you think your father ever did?' + +'No, sir.' + +He met her eyes raised to his with so much wonder in them (she was +scared when the encounter took place, and shrunk away again), that +he felt it necessary to say: + +'I have a reason for asking, which I cannot very well explain; but +you must, on no account, suppose it to be of a nature to cause you +the least alarm or anxiety. Quite the reverse. And you think that +at no time of your father's life was my name of Clennam ever +familiar to him?' + +'No, sir.' + +He felt, from the tone in which she spoke, that she was glancing up +at him with those parted lips; therefore he looked before him, +rather than make her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her +afresh. + +Thus they emerged upon the Iron Bridge, which was as quiet after +the roaring streets as though it had been open country. The wind +blew roughly, the wet squalls came rattling past them, skimming the +pools on the road and pavement, and raining them down into the +river. The clouds raced on furiously in the lead-Coloured sky, the +smoke and mist raced after them, the dark tide ran fierce and +strong in the same direction. Little Dorrit seemed the least, the +quietest, and weakest of Heaven's creatures. + +'Let me put you in a coach,' said Clennam, very nearly adding 'my +poor child.' + +She hurriedly declined, saying that wet or dry made little +difference to her; she was used to go about in all weathers. He +knew it to be so, and was touched with more pity; thinking of the +slight figure at his side, making its nightly way through the damp +dark boisterous streets to such a place of rest. +'You spoke so feelingly to me last night, sir, and I found +afterwards that you had been so generous to my father, that I could +not resist your message, if it was only to thank you; especially as +I wished very much to say to you--' she hesitated and trembled, and +tears rose in her eyes, but did not fall. + +'To say to me--?' + +'That I hope you will not misunderstand my father. Don't judge +him, sir, as you would judge others outside the gates. He has been +there so long! I never saw him outside, but I can understand that +he must have grown different in some things since.' + +'My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe +me.' + +'Not,' she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently +crept upon her that she might seem to be abandoning him, 'not that +he has anything to be ashamed of for himself, or that I have +anything to be ashamed of for him. He only requires to be +understood. I only ask for him that his life may be fairly +remembered. All that he said was quite true. It all happened just +as he related it. He is very much respected. Everybody who comes +in, is glad to know him. He is more courted than anyone else. He +is far more thought of than the Marshal is.' + +If ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in Little Dorrit when +she grew boastful of her father. + +'It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman's, and +quite a study. I see none like them in that place, but he is +admitted to be superior to all the rest. This is quite as much why +they make him presents, as because they know him to be needy. He +is not to be blamed for being in need, poor love. Who could be in +prison a quarter of a century, and be prosperous!' + +What affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed +tears, what a great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light +that shed false brightness round him! + +'If I have found it best to conceal where my home is, it is not +because I am ashamed of him. God forbid! Nor am I so much ashamed +of the place itself as might be supposed. People are not bad +because they come there. I have known numbers of good, +persevering, honest people come there through misfortune. They are +almost all kind-hearted to one another. And it would be ungrateful +indeed in me, to forget that I have had many quiet, comfortable +hours there; that I had an excellent friend there when I was quite +a baby, who was very very fond of me; that I have been taught +there, and have worked there, and have slept soundly there. I +think it would be almost cowardly and cruel not to have some little +attachment for it, after all this.' + +She had relieved the faithful fulness of her heart, and modestly +said, raising her eyes appealingly to her new friend's, 'I did not +mean to say so much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this +before. But it seems to set it more right than it was last night. +I said I wished you had not followed me, sir. I don't wish it so +much now, unless you should think--indeed I don't wish it at all, +unless I should have spoken so confusedly, that--that you can +scarcely understand me, which I am afraid may be the case.' + +He told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and +putting himself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered +her as well as he could. + +'I feel permitted now,' he said, 'to ask you a little more +concerning your father. Has he many creditors?' + +'Oh! a great number.' + +'I mean detaining creditors, who keep him where he is?' + +'Oh yes! a great number.' + +'Can you tell me--I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, +if you cannot--who is the most influential of them?' + +Little Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she used to +hear long ago of Mr Tite Barnacle as a man of great power. He was +a commissioner, or a board, or a trustee, 'or something.' He lived +in Grosvenor Square, she thought, or very near it. He was under +Government--high in the Circumlocution Office. She appeared to +have acquired, in her infancy, some awful impression of the might +of this formidable Mr Tite Barnacle of Grosvenor Square, or very +near it, and the Circumlocution Office, which quite crushed her +when she mentioned him. + +'It can do no harm,' thought Arthur, 'if I see this Mr Tite +Barnacle.' + +The thought did not present itself so quietly but that her +quickness intercepted it. 'Ah!' said Little Dorrit, shaking her +head with the mild despair of a lifetime. 'Many people used to +think once of getting my poor father out, but you don't know how +hopeless it is.' + +She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away +from the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him +with eyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, +her fragile figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not +turn him from his purpose of helping her. + +'Even if it could be done,' said she--'and it never can be done +now--where could father live, or how could he live? I have often +thought that if such a change could come, it might be anything but +a service to him now. People might not think so well of him +outside as they do there. He might not be so gently dealt with +outside as he is there. He might not be so fit himself for the +life outside as he is for that.' +Here for the first time she could not restrain her tears from +falling; and the little thin hands he had watched when they were so +busy, trembled as they clasped each other. + +' It would be a new distress to him even to know that I earn a +little money, and that Fanny earns a little money. He is so +anxious about us, you see, feeling helplessly shut up there. Such +a good, good father!' + +He let the little burst of feeling go by before he spoke. It was +soon gone. She was not accustomed to think of herself, or to +trouble any one with her emotions. He had but glanced away at the +piles of city roofs and chimneys among which the smoke was rolling +heavily, and at the wilderness of masts on the river, and the +wilderness of steeples on the shore, indistinctly mixed together in +the stormy haze, when she was again as quiet as if she had been +plying her needle in his mother's room. + +'You would be glad to have your brother set at liberty?' + +'Oh very, very glad, sir!' + +'Well, we will hope for him at least. You told me last night of a +friend you had?' + +His name was Plornish, Little Dorrit said. + +And where did Plornish live? Plornish lived in Bleeding Heart +Yard. He was 'only a plasterer,' Little Dorrit said, as a caution +to him not to form high social expectations of Plornish. He lived +at the last house in Bleeding Heart Yard, and his name was over a +little gateway. +Arthur took down the address and gave her his. He had now done all +he sought to do for the present, except that he wished to leave her +with a reliance upon him, and to have something like a promise from +her that she would cherish it. + +'There is one friend!' he said, putting up his pocketbook. 'As I +take you back--you are going back?' + +'Oh yes! going straight home.' + +'As I take you back,' the word home jarred upon him, 'let me ask +you to persuade yourself that you have another friend. I make no +professions, and say no more.' + +'You are truly kind to me, sir. I am sure I need no more.' + +They walked back through the miserable muddy streets, and among the +poor, mean shops, and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters +usual to a poor neighbourhood. There was nothing, by the short +way, that was pleasant to any of the five senses. Yet it was not +a common passage through common rain, and mire, and noise, to +Clennam, having this little, slender, careful creature on his arm. +How young she seemed to him, or how old he to her; or what a secret +either to the other, in that beginning of the destined interweaving +of their stories, matters not here. He thought of her having been +born and bred among these scenes, and shrinking through them now, +familiar yet misplaced; he thought of her long acquaintance with +the squalid needs of life, and of her innocence; of her solicitude +for others, and her few years, and her childish aspect. + +They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when +a voice cried, 'Little mother, little mother!' Little Dorrit +stopping and looking back, an excited figure of a strange kind +bounced against them (still crying 'little mother'), fell down, and +scattered the contents of a large basket, filled with potatoes, in +the mud. + +'Oh, Maggy,' said Little Dorrit, 'what a clumsy child you are!' + +Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and then +began to pick up the potatoes, in which both Little Dorrit and +Arthur Clennam helped. Maggy picked up very few potatoes and a +great quantity of mud; but they were all recovered, and deposited +in the basket. Maggy then smeared her muddy face with her shawl, +and presenting it to Mr Clennam as a type of purity, enabled him to +see what she was like. + +She was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones , large features, +large feet and hands, large eyes and no hair. Her large eyes were +limpid and almost colourless; they seemed to be very little +affected by light, and to stand unnaturally still. There was also +that attentive listening expression in her face, which is seen in +the faces of the blind; but she was not blind, having one tolerably +serviceable eye. Her face was not exceedingly ugly, though it was +only redeemed from being so by a smile; a good-humoured smile, and +pleasant in itself, but rendered pitiable by being constantly +there. A great white cap, with a quantity of opaque frilling that +was always flapping about, apologised for Maggy's baldness, and +made it so very difficult for her old black bonnet to retain its +place upon her head, that it held on round her neck like a gipsy's +baby. A commission of haberdashers could alone have reported what +the rest of her poor dress was made of, but it had a strong general +resemblance to seaweed, with here and there a gigantic tea-leaf. +Her shawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf after long infusion. + +Arthur Clennam looked at Little Dorrit with the expression of one +saying, 'May I ask who this is?' Little Dorrit, whose hand this +Maggy, still calling her little mother, had begun to fondle, +answered in words (they were under a gateway into which the +majority of the potatoes had rolled). + +'This is Maggy, sir.' + +'Maggy, sir,' echoed the personage presented. 'Little mother!' + +'She is the grand-daughter--' said Little Dorrit. + +'Grand-daughter,' echoed Maggy. + +'Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long time. Maggy, how old +are you?' + +'Ten, mother,' said Maggy. + +'You can't think how good she is, sir,' said Little Dorrit, with +infinite tenderness. + +'Good SHE is,' echoed Maggy, transferring the pronoun in a most +expressive way from herself to her little mother. + +'Or how clever,' said Little Dorrit. 'She goes on errands as well +as any one.' Maggy laughed. 'And is as trustworthy as the Bank of +England.' Maggy laughed. 'She earns her own living entirely. +Entirely, sir!' said Little Dorrit, in a lower and triumphant tone. + +'Really does!' + +'What is her history?' asked Clennam. + +'Think of that, Maggy?' said Little Dorrit, taking her two large +hands and clapping them together. 'A gentleman from thousands of +miles away, wanting to know your history!' + +'My history?' cried Maggy. 'Little mother.' + +'She means me,' said Little Dorrit, rather confused; 'she is very +much attached to me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as +she should have been; was she, Maggy?' +Maggy shook her head, made a drinking vessel of her clenched left +hand, drank out of it, and said, 'Gin.' Then beat an imaginary +child, and said, 'Broom-handles and pokers.' + +'When Maggy was ten years old,' said Little Dorrit, watching her +face while she spoke, 'she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never +grown any older ever since.' + +'Ten years old,' said Maggy, nodding her head. 'But what a nice +hospital! So comfortable, wasn't it? Oh so nice it was. Such a +Ev'nly place!' + +'She had never been at peace before, sir,' said Little Dorrit, +turning towards Arthur for an instant and speaking low, 'and she +always runs off upon that.' + +'Such beds there is there!' cried Maggy. 'Such lemonades! Such +oranges! Such d'licious broth and wine! Such Chicking! Oh, AIN'T +it a delightful place to go and stop at!' + +'So Maggy stopped there as long as she could,' said Little Dorrit, +in her former tone of telling a child's story; the tone designed +for Maggy's ear, 'and at last, when she could stop there no longer, +she came out. Then, because she was never to be more than ten +years old, however long she lived--' + +'However long she lived,' echoed Maggy. + +'And because she was very weak; indeed was so weak that when she +began to laugh she couldn't stop herself--which was a great pity--' + + +(Maggy mighty grave of a sudden.) + +'Her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and for some +years was very unkind to her indeed. At length, in course of time, +Maggy began to take pains to improve herself, and to be very +attentive and very industrious; and by degrees was allowed to come +in and out as often as she liked, and got enough to do to support +herself, and does support herself. And that,' said Little Dorrit, +clapping the two great hands together again, 'is Maggy's history, +as Maggy knows!' + +Ah! But Arthur would have known what was wanting to its +completeness, though he had never heard of the words Little mother; +though he had never seen the fondling of the small spare hand; +though he had had no sight for the tears now standing in the +colourless eyes; though he had had no hearing for the sob that +checked the clumsy laugh. The dirty gateway with the wind and rain +whistling through it, and the basket of muddy potatoes waiting to +be spilt again or taken up, never seemed the common hole it really +was, when he looked back to it by these lights. Never, never! + +They were very near the end of their walk, and they now came out of +the gateway to finish it. Nothing would serve Maggy but that they +must stop at a grocer's window, short of their destination, for her +to show her learning. She could read after a sort; and picked out +the fat figures in the tickets of prices, for the most part +correctly. She also stumbled, with a large balance of success +against her failures, through various philanthropic recommendations +to Try our Mixture, Try our Family Black, Try our Orange-flavoured +Pekoe, challenging competition at the head of Flowery Teas; and +various cautions to the public against spurious establishments and +adulterated articles. When he saw how pleasure brought a rosy tint +into Little Dorrit's face when Maggy made a hit, he felt that he +could have stood there making a library of the grocer's window +until the rain and wind were tired. + +The court-yard received them at last, and there he said goodbye to +Little Dorrit. Little as she had always looked, she looked less +than ever when he saw her going into the Marshalsea lodge passage, +the little mother attended by her big child. +The cage door opened, and when the small bird, reared in captivity, +had tamely fluttered in, he saw it shut again; and then he came +away. + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +Containing the whole Science of Government + + +The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being +told) the most important Department under Government. No public +business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the +acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the +largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was +equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the +plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution +Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour +before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified +in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of +boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official +memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, +on the part of the Circumlocution Office. + +This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the +one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a +country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been +foremost to study that bright revelation and to carry its shining +influence through the whole of the official proceedings. Whatever +was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand +with all the public departments in the art of perceiving--HOW NOT +TO DO IT. + +Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it +invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always +acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the +public departments; and the public condition had risen to be--what +it was. + +It is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of +all public departments and professional politicians all round the +Circumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every +new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing +as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied +their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true +that from the moment when a general election was over, every +returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been +done, and who had been asking the friends of the honourable +gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell +him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it +must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be +done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true that +the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session through, +uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. +It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session +virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable +stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your +respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true +that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually +said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious +months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not +to do it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of +Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss +you. All this +is true, but the Circumlocution Office went beyond it. + +Because the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, +keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How +not to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was +down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or +who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of +doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of +instructions that extinguished him. It was this spirit of national +efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to +its having something to do with everything. Mechanicians, natural +philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people +with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people +who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, +people who couldn't get rewarded for merit, and people who couldn't +get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under +the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office. + +Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office. +Unfortunates with wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare +(and they had better have had wrongs at first, than have taken that +bitter English recipe for certainly getting them), who in slow +lapse of time and agony had passed safely through other public +departments; who, according to rule, had been bullied in this, +over-reached by that, and evaded by the other; got referred at last +to the Circumlocution Office, and never reappeared in the light of +day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, +commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, +checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all +the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office, +except the business that never came out of it; and its name was +Legion. + +Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the Circumlocution Office. +Sometimes, parliamentary questions were asked about it, and even +parliamentary motions made or threatened about it by demagogues so +low and ignorant as to hold that the real recipe of government was, +How to do it. Then would the noble lord, or right honourable +gentleman, in whose department it was to defend the Circumlocution +Office, put an orange in his pocket, and make a regular field-day +of the occasion. Then would he come down to that house with a slap +upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman foot to foot. +Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that the +Circumlocution Office not only was blameless in this matter, but +was commendable in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this +matter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman +that, although the Circumlocution Office was invariably right and +wholly right, it never was so right as in this matter. Then would +he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that it would have +been more to his honour, more to his credit, more to his good +taste, more to his good sense, more to half the dictionary of +commonplaces, if he had left the Circumlocution Office alone, and +never approached this matter. Then would he keep one eye upon a +coach or crammer from the Circumlocution Office sitting below the +bar, and smash the honourable gentleman with the Circumlocution +Office account of this matter. And although one of two things +always happened; namely, either that the Circumlocution Office had +nothing to say and said it, or that it had something to say of +which the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, blundered one +half and forgot the other; the Circumlocution Office was always +voted immaculate by an accommodating majority. + +Such a nursery of statesmen had the Department become in virtue of +a long career of this nature, that several solemn lords had +attained the reputation of being quite unearthly prodigies of +business, solely from having practised, How not to do it, as the +head of the Circumlocution Office. As to the minor priests and +acolytes of that temple, the result of all this was that they stood +divided into two classes, and, down to the junior messenger, either +believed in the Circumlocution Office as a heaven-born institution +that had an absolute right to do whatever it liked; or took refuge +in total infidelity, and considered it a flagrant nuisance. + +The Barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the +Circumlocution Office. The Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed, +considered themselves in a general way as having vested rights in +that direction, and took it ill if any other family had much to say +to it. The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large +family. They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held +all sorts of public places. Either the nation was under a load of +obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of +obligation to the nation. It was not quite unanimously settled +which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the nation theirs. + +The Mr Tite Barnacle who at the period now in question usually +coached or crammed the statesman at the head of the Circumlocution +Office, when that noble or right honourable individual sat a little +uneasily in his saddle by reason of some vagabond making a tilt at +him in a newspaper, was more flush of blood than money. As a +Barnacle he had his place, which was a snug thing enough; and as a +Barnacle he had of course put in his son Barnacle Junior in the +office. But he had intermarried with a branch of the +Stiltstalkings, who were also better endowed in a sanguineous point +of view than with real or personal property, and of this marriage +there had been issue, Barnacle junior and three young ladies. What +with the patrician requirements of Barnacle junior, the three young +ladies, Mrs Tite Barnacle nee Stiltstalking, and himself, Mr Tite +Barnacle found the intervals between quarter day and quarter day +rather longer than he could have desired; a circumstance which he +always attributed to the country's parsimony. +For Mr Tite Barnacle, Mr Arthur Clennam made his fifth inquiry one +day at the Circumlocution Office; having on previous occasions +awaited that gentleman successively in a hall, a glass case, a +waiting room, and a fire-proof passage where the Department seemed +to keep its wind. On this occasion Mr Barnacle was not engaged, as +he had been before, with the noble prodigy at the head of the +Department; but was absent. Barnacle Junior, however, was +announced as a lesser star, yet visible above the office horizon. + +With Barnacle junior, he signified his desire to confer; and found +that young gentleman singeing the calves of his legs at the +parental fire, and supporting his spine against the mantel-shelf. +It was a comfortable room, handsomely furnished in the higher +official manner; an presenting stately suggestions of the absent +Barnacle, in the thick carpet, the leather-covered desk to sit at, +the leather-covered desk to stand at, the formidable easy-chair and +hearth-rug, the interposed screen, the torn-up papers, the +dispatch-boxes with little labels sticking out of them, like +medicine bottles or dead game, the pervading smell of leather and +mahogany, and a general bamboozling air of How not to do it. + +The present Barnacle, holding Mr Clennam's card in his hand, had a +youthful aspect, and the fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that +ever was seen. Such a downy tip was on his callow chin, that he +seemed half fledged like a young bird; and a compassionate observer +might have urged that, if he had not singed the calves of his legs, +he would have died of cold. He had a superior eye-glass dangling +round his neck, but unfortunately had such flat orbits to his eyes +and such limp little eyelids that it wouldn't stick in when he put +it up, but kept tumbling out against his waistcoat buttons with a +click that discomposed him very much. + +'Oh, I say. Look here! My father's not in the way, and won't be +in the way to-day,' said Barnacle Junior. 'Is this anything that +I can do?' + +(Click! Eye-glass down. Barnacle Junior quite frightened and +feeling all round himself, but not able to find it.) + +'You are very good,' said Arthur Clennam. 'I wish however to see +Mr Barnacle.' + +'But I say. Look here! You haven't got any appointment, you +know,' said Barnacle Junior. + +(By this time he had found the eye-glass, and put it up again.) + +'No,' said Arthur Clennam. 'That is what I wish to have.' + +'But I say. Look here! Is this public business?' asked Barnacle +junior. + +(Click! Eye-glass down again. Barnacle Junior in that state of +search after it that Mr Clennam felt it useless to reply at +present.) + +'Is it,' said Barnacle junior, taking heed of his visitor's brown +face, 'anything about--Tonnage--or that sort of thing?' + +(Pausing for a reply, he opened his right eye with his hand, and +stuck his glass in it, in that inflammatory manner that his eye +began watering dreadfully.) + +'No,' said Arthur, 'it is nothing about tonnage.' + +'Then look here. Is it private business?' + +'I really am not sure. It relates to a Mr Dorrit.' + +'Look here, I tell you what! You had better call at our house, if +you are going that way. Twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor +Square. My father's got a slight touch of the gout, and is kept at +home by it.' + +(The misguided young Barnacle evidently going blind on his eye- +glass side, but ashamed to make any further alteration in his +painful arrangements.) + +'Thank you. I will call there now. Good morning.' Young Barnacle +seemed discomfited at this, as not having at all expected him to +go. + +'You are quite sure,' said Barnacle junior, calling after him when +he got to the door, unwilling wholly to relinquish the bright +business idea he had conceived; 'that it's nothing about Tonnage?' + +'Quite sure.' + +With such assurance, and rather wondering what might have taken +place if it HAD been anything about tonnage, Mr Clennam withdrew to +pursue his inquiries. + +Mews Street, Grosvenor Square, was not absolutely Grosvenor Square +itself, but it was very near it. It was a hideous little street of +dead wall, stables, and dunghills, with lofts over coach-houses +inhabited by coachmen's families, who had a passion for drying +clothes and decorating their window-sills with miniature turnpike- +gates. The principal chimney-sweep of that fashionable quarter +lived at the blind end of Mews Street; and the same corner +contained an establishment much frequented about early morning and +twilight for the purchase of wine-bottles and kitchen-stuff. +Punch's shows used to lean against the dead wall in Mews Street, +while their proprietors were dining elsewhere; and the dogs of the +neighbourhood made appointments to meet in the same locality. Yet +there were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of +Mews Street, which went at enormous rents on account of their being +abject hangers-on to a fashionable situation; and whenever one of +these fearful little coops was to be let (which seldom happened, +for they were in great request), the house agent advertised it as +a gentlemanly residence in the most aristocratic part of town, +inhabited solely by the elite of the beau monde. + +If a gentlemanly residence coming strictly within this narrow +margin had not been essential to the blood of the Barnacles, this +particular branch would have had a pretty wide selection among, let +us say, ten thousand houses, offering fifty times the accommodation +for a third of the money. As it was, Mr Barnacle, finding his +gentlemanly residence extremely inconvenient and extremely dear, +always laid it, as a public servant, at the door of the country, +and adduced it as another instance of the country's parsimony. + +Arthur Clennam came to a squeezed house, with a ramshackle bowed +front, little dingy windows, and a little dark area like a damp +waistcoat-pocket, which he found to be number twenty-four, Mews +Street, Grosvenor Square. To the sense of smell the house was like +a sort of bottle filled with a strong distillation of Mews; and +when the footman opened the door, he seemed to take the stopper +out. + +The footman was to the Grosvenor Square footmen, what the house was +to the Grosvenor Square houses. Admirable in his way, his way was +a back and a bye way. His gorgeousness was not unmixed with dirt; +and both in complexion and consistency he had suffered from the +closeness of his pantry. A sallow flabbiness was upon him when he +took the stopper out, and presented the bottle to Mr Clennam's +nose. + +'Be so good as to give that card to Mr Tite Barnacle, and to say +that I have just now seen the younger Mr Barnacle, who recommended +me to call here.' + +The footman (who had as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest +upon them on the flaps of his pockets, as if he were the family +strong box, and carried the plate and jewels about with him +buttoned up) pondered over the card a little; then said, 'Walk in.' + +It required some judgment to do it without butting the inner hall- +door open, and in the consequent mental confusion and physical +darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs. The visitor, however, +brought himself up safely on the door-mat. + +Still the footman said 'Walk in,' so the visitor followed him. At +the inner hall-door, another bottle seemed to be presented and +another stopper taken out. This second vial appeared to be filled +with concentrated provisions and extract of Sink from the pantry. +After a skirmish in the narrow passage, occasioned by the footman's +opening the door of the dismal dining-room with confidence, finding +some one there with consternation, and backing on the visitor with +disorder, the visitor was shut up, pending his announcement, in a +close back parlour. There he had an opportunity of refreshing +himself with both the bottles at once, looking out at a low +blinding wall three feet off, and speculating on the number of +Barnacle families within the bills of mortality who lived in such +hutches of their own free flunkey choice. + +Mr Barnacle would see him. Would he walk up-stairs? He would, and +he did; and in the drawing-room, with his leg on a rest, he found +Mr Barnacle himself, the express image and presentment of How not +to do it. + +Mr Barnacle dated from a better time, when the country was not so +parsimonious and the Circumlocution Office was not so badgered. He +wound and wound folds of white cravat round his neck, as he wound +and wound folds of tape and paper round the neck of the country. +His wristbands and collar were oppressive; his voice and manner +were oppressive. He had a large watch-chain and bunch of seals, a +coat buttoned up to inconvenience, a waistcoat buttoned up to +inconvenience, an unwrinkled pair of trousers, a stiff pair of +boots. He was altogether splendid, massive, overpowering, and +impracticable. He seemed to have been sitting for his portrait to +Sir Thomas Lawrence all the days of his life. + +'Mr Clennam?' said Mr Barnacle. 'Be seated.' + +Mr Clennam became seated. + +'You have called on me, I believe,' said Mr Barnacle, 'at the +Circumlocution--' giving it the air of a word of about five-and- +twenty syllables--'Office.' + +'I have taken that liberty.' + +Mr Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who should say, 'I do not +deny that it is a liberty; proceed to take another liberty, and let +me know your business.' + +'Allow me to observe that I have been for some years in China, am +quite a stranger at home, and have no personal motive or interest +in the inquiry I am about to make.' + +Mr Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table, and, as if he were now +sitting for his portrait to a new and strange artist, appeared to +say to his visitor, 'If you will be good enough to take me with my +present lofty expression, I shall feel obliged.' + +'I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea Prison of the name of +Dorrit, who has been there many years. I wish to investigate his +confused affairs so far as to ascertain whether it may not be +possible, after this lapse of time, to ameliorate his unhappy +condition. The name of Mr Tite Barnacle has been mentioned to me +as representing some highly influential interest among his +creditors. Am I correctly informed?' + +It being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never, +on any account whatever, to give a straightforward answer, Mr +Barnacle said, 'Possibly.' + +'On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as private individual?' + +'The Circumlocution Department, sir,' Mr Barnacle replied, 'may +have possibly recommended--possibly--I cannot say--that some public +claim against the insolvent estate of a firm or copartnership to +which this person may have belonged, should be enforced. The +question may have been, in the course of official business, +referred to the Circumlocution Department for its consideration. +The Department may have either originated, or confirmed, a Minute +making that recommendation.' + +'I assume this to be the case, then.' + +'The Circumlocution Department,' said Mr Barnacle, 'is not +responsible for any gentleman's assumptions.' + +'May I inquire how I can obtain official information as to the real +state of the case?' + +'It is competent,' said Mr Barnacle, 'to any member of the-- +Public,' mentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his +natural enemy, 'to memorialise the Circumlocution Department. Such +formalities as are required to be observed in so doing, may be +known on application to the proper branch of that Department.' + +'Which is the proper branch?' + +'I must refer you,' returned Mr Barnacle, ringing the bell, 'to the +Department itself for a formal answer to that inquiry.' + +'Excuse my mentioning--' + +'The Department is accessible to the--Public,' Mr Barnacle was +always checked a little by that word of impertinent signification, +'if the--Public approaches it according to the official forms; if +the--Public does not approach it according to the official forms, +the--Public has itself to blame.' + +Mr Barnacle made him a severe bow, as a wounded man of family, a +wounded man of place, and a wounded man of a gentlemanly residence, +all rolled into one; and he made Mr Barnacle a bow, and was shut +out into Mews Street by the flabby footman. + +Having got to this pass, he resolved as an exercise in +perseverance, to betake himself again to the Circumlocution Office, +and try what satisfaction he could get there. So he went back to +the Circumlocution Office, and once more sent up his card to +Barnacle junior by a messenger who took it very ill indeed that he +should come back again, and who was eating mashed potatoes and +gravy behind a partition by the hall fire. + +He was readmitted to the presence of Barnacle junior, and found +that young gentleman singeing his knees now, and gaping his weary +way on to four o'clock. +'I say. Look here. You stick to us in a devil of a manner,' Said +Barnacle junior, looking over his shoulder. + +'I want to know--' + +'Look here. Upon my soul you mustn't come into the place saying +you want to know, you know,' remonstrated Barnacle junior, turning +about and putting up the eye-glass. + +'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam, who had made up his mind to +persistence in one short form of words, 'the precise nature of the +claim of the Crown against a prisoner for debt, named Dorrit.' + +'I say. Look here. You really are going it at a great pace, you +know. Egad, you haven't got an appointment,' said Barnacle junior, +as if the thing were growing serious. + +'I want to know,' said Arthur, and repeated his case. + +Barnacle junior stared at him until his eye-glass fell out, and +then put it in again and stared at him until it fell out again. +'You have no right to come this sort of move,' he then observed +with the greatest weakness. 'Look here. What do you mean? You +told me you didn't know whether it was public business or not.' + +'I have now ascertained that it is public business,' returned the +suitor, 'and I want to know'--and again repeated his monotonous +inquiry. + +Its effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a +defenceless way, 'Look here! Upon my SOUL you mustn't come into +the place saying you want to know, you know!' The effect of that +upon Arthur Clennam was to make him repeat his inquiry in exactly +the same words and tone as before. The effect of that upon young +Barnacle was to make him a wonderful spectacle of failure and +helplessness. + +'Well, I tell you what. Look here. You had better try the +Secretarial Department,' he said at last, sidling to the bell and +ringing it. 'Jenkinson,' to the mashed potatoes messenger, 'Mr +Wobbler!' + +Arthur Clennam, who now felt that he had devoted himself to the +storming of the Circumlocution Office, and must go through with it, +accompanied the messenger to another floor of the building, where +that functionary pointed out Mr Wobbler's room. He entered that +apartment, and found two gentlemen sitting face to face at a large +and easy desk, one of whom was polishing a gun-barrel on his +pocket-handkerchief, while the other was spreading marmalade on +bread with a paper-knife. + +'Mr Wobbler?' inquired the suitor. + +Both gentlemen glanced at him, and seemed surprised at his +assurance. + +'So he went,' said the gentleman with the gun-barrel, who was an +extremely deliberate speaker, 'down to his cousin's place, and took +the Dog with him by rail. Inestimable Dog. Flew at the porter +fellow when he was put into the dog-box, and flew at the guard when +he was taken out. He got half-a-dozen fellows into a Barn, and a +good supply of Rats, and timed the Dog. Finding the Dog able to do +it immensely, made the match, and heavily backed the Dog. When the +match came off, some devil of a fellow was bought over, Sir, Dog +was made drunk, Dog's master was cleaned out.' + +'Mr Wobbler?' inquired the suitor. + +The gentleman who was spreading the marmalade returned, without +looking up from that occupation, 'What did he call the Dog?' + +'Called him Lovely,' said the other gentleman. 'Said the Dog was +the perfect picture of the old aunt from whom he had expectations. +Found him particularly like her when hocussed.' + +'Mr Wobbler?' said the suitor. + +Both gentlemen laughed for some time. The gentleman with the gun- +barrel, considering it, on inspection, in a satisfactory state, +referred it to the other; receiving confirmation of his views, he +fitted it into its place in the case before him, and took out the +stock and polished that, softly whistling. + +'Mr Wobbler?' said the suitor. + +'What's the matter?' then said Mr Wobbler, with his mouth full. + +'I want to know--' and Arthur Clennam again mechanically set forth +what he wanted to know. + +'Can't inform you,' observed Mr Wobbler, apparently to his lunch. +'Never heard of it. Nothing at all to do with it. Better try Mr +Clive, second door on the left in the next passage.' + +'Perhaps he will give me the same answer.' + +'Very likely. Don't know anything about it,' said Mr Wobbler. + +The suitor turned away and had left the room, when the gentleman +with the gun called out 'Mister! Hallo!' + +He looked in again. + +'Shut the door after you. You're letting in a devil of a draught +here!' +A few steps brought him to the second door on the left in the next +passage. In that room he found three gentlemen; number one doing +nothing particular, number two doing nothing particular, number +three doing nothing particular. They seemed, however, to be more +directly concerned than the others had been in the effective +execution of the great principle of the office, as there was an +awful inner apartment with a double door, in which the +Circumlocution Sages appeared to be assembled in council, and out +of which there was an imposing coming of papers, and into which +there was an imposing going of papers, almost constantly; wherein +another gentleman, number four, was the active instrument. + +'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam,--and again stated his case +in the same barrel-organ way. As number one referred him to number +two, and as number two referred him to number three, he had +occasion to state it three times before they all referred him to +number four, to whom he stated it again. + +Number four was a vivacious, well-looking, well-dressed, agreeable +young fellow--he was a Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of +the family--and he said in an easy way, 'Oh! you had better not +bother yourself about it, I think.' + +'Not bother myself about it?' + +'No! I recommend you not to bother yourself about it.' + +This was such a new point of view that Arthur Clennam found himself +at a loss how to receive it. + +'You can if you like. I can give you plenty of forms to fill up. +Lots of 'em here. You can have a dozen if you like. But you'll +never go on with it,' said number four. + +'Would it be such hopeless work? Excuse me; I am a stranger in +England.' +'I don't say it would be hopeless,' returned number four, with a +frank smile. 'I don't express an opinion about that; I only +express an opinion about you. I don't think you'd go on with it. +However, of course, you can do as you like. I suppose there was a +failure in the performance of a contract, or something of that +kind, was there?' + +'I really don't know.' + +'Well! That you can find out. Then you'll find out what +Department the contract was in, and then you'll find out all about +it there.' + +'I beg your pardon. How shall I find out?' + +'Why, you'll--you'll ask till they tell you. Then you'll +memorialise that Department (according to regular forms which +you'll find out) for leave to memorialise this Department. If you +get it (which you may after a time), that memorial must be entered +in that Department, sent to be registered in this Department, sent +back to be signed by that Department, sent back to be countersigned +by this Department, and then it will begin to be regularly before +that Department. You'll find out when the business passes through +each of these stages by asking at both Departments till they tell +you.' + +'But surely this is not the way to do the business,' Arthur Clennam +could not help saying. + +This airy young Barnacle was quite entertained by his simplicity in +supposing for a moment that it was. This light in hand young +Barnacle knew perfectly that it was not. This touch and go young +Barnacle had 'got up' the Department in a private secretaryship, +that he might be ready for any little bit of fat that came to hand; +and he fully understood the Department to be a politico-diplomatic +hocus pocus piece of machinery for the assistance of the nobs in +keeping off the snobs. This dashing young Barnacle, in a word, was +likely to become a statesman, and to make a figure. + +'When the business is regularly before that Department, whatever it +is,' pursued this bright young Barnacle, 'then you can watch it +from time to time through that Department. When it comes regularly +before this Department, then you must watch it from time to time +through this Department. We shall have to refer it right and left; +and when we refer it anywhere, then you'll have to look it up. +When it comes back to us at any time, then you had better look US +up. When it sticks anywhere, you'll have to try to give it a jog. +When you write to another Department about it, and then to this +Department about it, and don't hear anything satisfactory about it, +why then you had better--keep on writing.' + +Arthur Clennam looked very doubtful indeed. 'But I am obliged to +you at any rate,' said he, 'for your politeness.' + +'Not at all,' replied this engaging young Barnacle. 'Try the +thing, and see how you like it. It will be in your power to give +it up at any time, if you don't like it. You had better take a lot +of forms away with you. Give him a lot of forms!' With which +instruction to number two, this sparkling young Barnacle took a +fresh handful of papers from numbers one and three, and carried +them into the sanctuary to offer to the presiding Idol of the +Circumlocution Office. + +Arthur Clennam put his forms in his pocket gloomily enough, and +went his way down the long stone passage and the long stone +staircase. He had come to the swing doors leading into the street, +and was waiting, not over patiently, for two people who were +between him and them to pass out and let him follow, when the voice +of one of them struck familiarly on his ear. He looked at the +speaker and recognised Mr Meagles. Mr Meagles was very red in the +face--redder than travel could have made him--and collaring a short +man who was with him, said, 'come out, you rascal, come Out!' + +it was such an unexpected hearing, and it was also such an +unexpected sight to see Mr Meagles burst the swing doors open, and +emerge into the street with the short man, who was of an +unoffending appearance, that Clennam stood still for the moment +exchanging looks of surprise with the porter. He followed, +however, quickly; and saw Mr Meagles going down the street with his +enemy at his side. He soon came up with his old travelling +companion, and touched him on the back. The choleric face which Mr +Meagles turned upon him smoothed when he saw who it was, and he put +out his friendly hand. + +'How are you?' said Mr Meagles. 'How d'ye do? I have only just +come over from abroad. I am glad to see you.' + +'And I am rejoiced to see you.' + +'Thank'ee. Thank'ee!' + +'Mrs Meagles and your daughter--?' + +'Are as well as possible,' said Mr Meagles. 'I only wish you had +come upon me in a more prepossessing condition as to coolness.' + +Though it was anything but a hot day, Mr Meagles was in a heated +state that attracted the attention of the passersby; more +particularly as he leaned his back against a railing, took off his +hat and cravat, and heartily rubbed his steaming head and face, and +his reddened ears and neck, without the least regard for public +opinion. + +'Whew!' said Mr Meagles, dressing again. 'That's comfortable. Now +I am cooler.' + +'You have been ruffled, Mr Meagles. What is the matter?' + +'Wait a bit, and I'll tell you. Have you leisure for a turn in the +Park?' + +'As much as you please.' + +'Come along then. Ah! you may well look at him.' He happened to +have turned his eyes towards the offender whom Mr Meagles had so +angrily collared. 'He's something to look at, that fellow is.' + +He was not much to look at, either in point of size or in point of +dress; being merely a short, square, practical looking man, whose +hair had turned grey, and in whose face and forehead there were +deep lines of cogitation, which looked as though they were carved +in hard wood. He was dressed in decent black, a little rusty, and +had the appearance of a sagacious master in some handicraft. He +had a spectacle-case in his hand, which he turned over and over +while he was thus in question, with a certain free use of the thumb +that is never seen but in a hand accustomed to tools. + +'You keep with us,' said Mr Meagles, in a threatening kind of Way, +'and I'll introduce you presently. Now then!' + +Clennam wondered within himself, as they took the nearest way to +the Park, what this unknown (who complied in the gentlest manner) +could have been doing. His appearance did not at all justify the +suspicion that he had been detected in designs on Mr Meagles's +pocket-handkerchief; nor had he any appearance of being quarrelsome +or violent. He was a quiet, plain, steady man; made no attempt to +escape; and seemed a little depressed, but neither ashamed nor +repentant. If he were a criminal offender, he must surely be an +incorrigible hypocrite; and if he were no offender, why should Mr +Meagles have collared him in the Circumlocution Office? He +perceived that the man was not a difficulty in his own mind alone, +but in Mr Meagles's too; for such conversation as they had together +on the short way to the Park was by no means well sustained, and Mr +Meagles's eye always wandered back to the man, even when he spoke +of something very different. + +At length they being among the trees, Mr Meagles stopped short, and +said: + +'Mr Clennam, will you do me the favour to look at this man? His +name is Doyce, Daniel Doyce. You wouldn't suppose this man to be +a notorious rascal; would you?' + +'I certainly should not.' It was really a disconcerting question, +with the man there. + +'No. You would not. I know you would not. You wouldn't suppose +him to be a public offender; would you?' + +'No.' + +'No. But he is. He is a public offender. What has he been guilty +of? Murder, manslaughter, arson, forgery, swindling, house- +breaking, highway robbery, larceny, conspiracy, fraud? Which +should you say, now?' + +'I should say,' returned Arthur Clennam, observing a faint smile in +Daniel Doyce's face, 'not one of them.' + +'You are right,' said Mr Meagles. 'But he has been ingenious, and +he has been trying to turn his ingenuity to his country's service. +That makes him a public offender directly, sir.' + +Arthur looked at the man himself, who only shook his head. + +'This Doyce,' said Mr Meagles, 'is a smith and engineer. He is not +in a large way, but he is well known as a very ingenious man. A +dozen years ago, he perfects an invention (involving a very curious +secret process) of great importance to his country and his fellow- +creatures. I won't say how much money it cost him, or how many +years of his life he had been about it, but he brought it to +perfection a dozen years ago. Wasn't it a dozen?' said Mr Meagles, +addressing Doyce. 'He is the most exasperating man in the world; +he never complains!' + +'Yes. Rather better than twelve years ago.' + +'Rather better?' said Mr Meagles, 'you mean rather worse. Well, Mr +Clennam, he addresses himself to the Government. The moment he +addresses himself to the Government, he becomes a public offender! +Sir,' said Mr Meagles, in danger of making himself excessively hot +again, 'he ceases to be an innocent citizen, and becomes a culprit. + +He is treated from that instant as a man who has done some infernal +action. He is a man to be shirked, put off, brow-beaten, sneered +at, handed over by this highly-connected young or old gentleman, to +that highly-connected young or old gentleman, and dodged back +again; he is a man with no rights in his own time, or his own +property; a mere outlaw, whom it is justifiable to get rid of +anyhow; a man to be worn out by all possible means.' + +It was not so difficult to believe, after the morning's experience, +as Mr Meagles supposed. + +'Don't stand there, Doyce, turning your spectacle-case over and +over,' cried Mr Meagles, 'but tell Mr Clennam what you confessed to +me.' + +'I undoubtedly was made to feel,' said the inventor, 'as if I had +committed an offence. In dancing attendance at the various +offices, I was always treated, more or less, as if it was a very +bad offence. I have frequently found it necessary to reflect, for +my own self-support, that I really had not done anything to bring +myself into the Newgate Calendar, but only wanted to effect a great +saving and a great improvement.' + +'There!' said Mr Meagles. 'Judge whether I exaggerate. Now you'll +be able to believe me when I tell you the rest of the case.' + +With this prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the +established narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of- +course narrative which we all know by heart. How, after +interminable attendance and correspondence, after infinite +impertinences, ignorances, and insults, my lords made a Minute, +number three thousand four hundred and seventy-two, allowing the +culprit to make certain trials of his invention at his own expense. + +How the trials were made in the presence of a board of six, of whom +two ancient members were too blind to see it, two other ancient +members were too deaf to hear it, one other ancient member was too +lame to get near it, and the final ancient member was too pig- +headed to look at it. How there were more years; more +impertinences, ignorances, and insults. How my lords then made a +Minute, number five thousand one hundred and three, whereby they +resigned the business to the Circumlocution Office. How the +Circumlocution Office, in course of time, took up the business as +if it were a bran new thing of yesterday, which had never been +heard of before; muddled the business, addled the business, tossed +the business in a wet blanket. How the impertinences, ignorances, +and insults went through the multiplication table. How there was +a reference of the invention to three Barnacles and a +Stiltstalking, who knew nothing about it; into whose heads nothing +could be hammered about it; who got bored about it, and reported +physical impossibilities about it. How the Circumlocution Office, +in a Minute, number eight thousand seven hundred and forty, 'saw no +reason to reverse the decision at which my lords had arrived.' How +the Circumlocution Office, being reminded that my lords had arrived +at no decision, shelved the business. How there had been a final +interview with the head of the Circumlocution Office that very +morning, and how the Brazen Head had spoken, and had been, upon the +whole, and under all the circumstances, and looking at it from the +various points of view, of opinion that one of two courses was to +be pursued in respect of the business: that was to say, either to +leave it alone for evermore, or to begin it all over again. + +'Upon which,' said Mr Meagles, 'as a practical man, I then and +there, in that presence, took Doyce by the collar, and told him it +was plain to me that he was an infamous rascal and treasonable +disturber of the government peace, and took him away. I brought +him out of the office door by the collar, that the very porter +might know I was a practical man who appreciated the official +estimate of such characters; and here we are!' + +If that airy young Barnacle had been there, he would have frankly +told them perhaps that the Circumlocution Office had achieved its +function. That what the Barnacles had to do, was to stick on to +the national ship as long as they could. That to trim the ship, +lighten the ship, clean the ship, would be to knock them off; that +they could but be knocked off once; and that if the ship went down +with them yet sticking to it, that was the ship's look out, and not +theirs. + +'There!' said Mr Meagles, 'now you know all about Doyce. Except, +which I own does not improve my state of mind, that even now you +don't hear him complain.' + +'You must have great patience,' said Arthur Clennam, looking at him +with some wonder, 'great forbearance.' + +'No,' he returned, 'I don't know that I have more than another +man.' + +'By the Lord, you have more than I have, though!' cried Mr Meagles. + +Doyce smiled, as he said to Clennam, 'You see, my experience of +these things does not begin with myself. It has been in my way to +know a little about them from time to time. Mine is not a +particular case. I am not worse used than a hundred others who +have put themselves in the same position--than all the others, I +was going to say.' + +'I don't know that I should find that a consolation, if it were my +case; but I am very glad that you do.' + +'Understand me! I don't say,' he replied in his steady, planning +way, and looking into the distance before him as if his grey eye +were measuring it, 'that it's recompense for a man's toil and hope; +but it's a certain sort of relief to know that I might have counted +on this.' + +He spoke in that quiet deliberate manner, and in that undertone, +which is often observable in mechanics who consider and adjust with +great nicety. It belonged to him like his suppleness of thumb, or +his peculiar way of tilting up his hat at the back every now and +then, as if he were contemplating some half-finished work of his +hand and thinking about it. + +'Disappointed?' he went on, as he walked between them under the +trees. 'Yes. No doubt I am disappointed. Hurt? Yes. No doubt +I am hurt. That's only natural. But what I mean when I say that +people who put themselves in the same position are mostly used in +the same way--' + +'In England,' said Mr Meagles. + +'Oh! of course I mean in England. When they take their inventions +into foreign countries, that's quite different. And that's the +reason why so many go there.' + +Mr Meagles very hot indeed again. + +'What I mean is, that however this comes to be the regular way of +our government, it is its regular way. Have you ever heard of any +projector or inventor who failed to find it all but inaccessible, +and whom it did not discourage and ill-treat?' + +'I cannot say that I ever have.' + +'Have you ever known it to be beforehand in the adoption of any +useful thing? Ever known it to set an example of any useful kind?' + +'I am a good deal older than my friend here,' said Mr Meagles, 'and +I'll answer that. Never.' + +'But we all three have known, I expect,' said the inventor, 'a +pretty many cases of its fixed determination to be miles upon +miles, and years upon years, behind the rest of us; and of its +being found out persisting in the use of things long superseded, +even after the better things were well known and generally taken +up?' + +They all agreed upon that. + +'Well then,' said Doyce, with a sigh, 'as I know what such a metal +will do at such a temperature, and such a body under such a +pressure, so I may know (if I will only consider), how these great +lords and gentlemen will certainly deal with such a matter as mine. + +I have no right to be surprised, with a head upon my shoulders, and +memory in it, that I fall into the ranks with all who came before +me. I ought to have let it alone. I have had warning enough, I am +sure.' + + +With that he put up his spectacle-case, and said to Arthur, 'If I +don't complain, Mr Clennam, I can feel gratitude; and I assure you +that I feel it towards our mutual friend. Many's the day, and +many's the way in which he has backed me.' + +'Stuff and nonsense,' said Mr Meagles. + +Arthur could not but glance at Daniel Doyce in the ensuing silence. + +Though it was evidently in the grain of his character, and of his +respect for his own case, that he should abstain from idle +murmuring, it was evident that he had grown the older, the sterner, +and the poorer, for his long endeavour. He could not but think +what a blessed thing it would have been for this man, if he had +taken a lesson from the gentlemen who were so kind as to take a +nation's affairs in charge, and had learnt How not to do it. + +Mr Meagles was hot and despondent for about five minutes, and then +began to cool and clear up. + +'Come, come!' said he. 'We shall not make this the better by being +grim. Where do you think of going, Dan?' + +'I shall go back to the factory,' said Dan. +'Why then, we'll all go back to the factory, or walk in that +direction,' returned Mr Meagles cheerfully. 'Mr Clennam won't be +deterred by its being in Bleeding Heart Yard.' + +'Bleeding Heart Yard?' said Clennam. 'I want to go there.' + +'So much the better,' cried Mr Meagles. 'Come along!' + +As they went along, certainly one of the party, and probably more +than one, thought that Bleeding Heart Yard was no inappropriate +destination for a man who had been in official correspondence with +my lords and the Barnacles--and perhaps had a misgiving also that +Britannia herself might come to look for lodgings in Bleeding Heart +Yard some ugly day or other, if she over-did the Circumlocution +Office. + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +Let Loose + + +A late, dull autumn night was closing in upon the river Saone. The +stream, like a sullied looking-glass in a gloomy place, reflected +the clouds heavily; and the low banks leaned over here and there, +as if they were half curious, and half afraid, to see their +darkening pictures in the water. The flat expanse of country about +Chalons lay a long heavy streak, occasionally made a little ragged +by a row of poplar trees against the wrathful sunset. On the banks +of the river Saone it was wet, depressing, solitary; and the night +deepened fast. + +One man slowly moving on towards Chalons was the only visible +figure in the landscape. Cain might have looked as lonely and +avoided. With an old sheepskin knapsack at his back, and a rough, +unbarked stick cut out of some wood in his hand; miry, footsore, +his shoes and gaiters trodden out, his hair and beard untrimmed; +the cloak he carried over his shoulder, and the clothes he wore, +sodden with wet; limping along in pain and difficulty; he looked as +if the clouds were hurrying from him, as if the wail of the wind +and the shuddering of the grass were directed against him, as if +the low mysterious plashing of the water murmured at him, as if the +fitful autumn night were disturbed by him. + +He glanced here, and he glanced there, sullenly but shrinkingly; +and sometimes stopped and turned about, and looked all round him. +Then he limped on again, toiling and muttering. + +'To the devil with this plain that has no end! To the devil with +these stones that cut like knives! To the devil with this dismal +darkness, wrapping itself about one with a chill! I hate you!' + +And he would have visited his hatred upon it all with the scowl he +threw about him, if he could. He trudged a little further; and +looking into the distance before him, stopped again. +'I, hungry, thirsty, weary. You, imbeciles, where the lights are +yonder, eating and drinking, and warming yourselves at fires! I +wish I had the sacking of your town; I would repay you, my +children!' + +But the teeth he set at the town, and the hand he shook at the +town, brought the town no nearer; and the man was yet hungrier, and +thirstier, and wearier, when his feet were on its jagged pavement, +and he stood looking about him. + +There was the hotel with its gateway, and its savoury smell of +cooking; there was the cafe with its bright windows, and its +rattling of dominoes; there was the dyer's with its strips of red +cloth on the doorposts; there was the silversmith's with its +earrings, and its offerings for altars; there was the tobacco +dealer's with its lively group of soldier customers coming out pipe +in mouth; there were the bad odours of the town, and the rain and +the refuse in the kennels, and the faint lamps slung across the +road, and the huge Diligence, and its mountain of luggage, and its +six grey horses with their tails tied up, getting under weigh at +the coach office. But no small cabaret for a straitened traveller +being within sight, he had to seek one round the dark corner, where +the cabbage leaves lay thickest, trodden about the public cistern +at which women had not yet left off drawing water. There, in the +back street he found one, the Break of Day. The curtained windows +clouded the Break of Day, but it seemed light and warm, and it +announced in legible inscriptions with appropriate pictorial +embellishment of billiard cue and ball, that at the Break of Day +one could play billiards; that there one could find meat, drink, +and lodgings, whether one came on horseback, or came on foot; and +that it kept good wines, liqueurs, and brandy. The man turned the +handle of the Break of Day door, and limped in. + +He touched his discoloured slouched hat, as he came in at the door, +to a few men who occupied the room. Two were playing dominoes at +one of the little tables; three or four were seated round the +stove, conversing as they smoked; the billiard-table in the centre +was left alone for the time; the landlady of the Daybreak sat +behind her little counter among her cloudy bottles of syrups, +baskets of cakes, and leaden drainage for glasses, working at her +needle. + +Making his way to an empty little table in a corner of the room +behind the stove, he put down his knapsack and his cloak upon the +ground. As he raised his head from stooping to do so, he found the +landlady beside him. + +'One can lodge here to-night, madame?' + +'Perfectly!' said the landlady in a high, sing-song, cheery voice. + +'Good. One can dine--sup--what you please to call it?' + +'Ah, perfectly!' cried the landlady as before. +'Dispatch then, madame, if you please. Something to eat, as +quickly as you can; and some wine at once. I am exhausted.' + +'It is very bad weather, monsieur,' said the landlady. + +'Cursed weather.' + +'And a very long road.' + +'A cursed road.' + +His hoarse voice failed him, and he rested his head upon his hands +until a bottle of wine was brought from the counter. Having filled +and emptied his little tumbler twice, and having broken off an end +from the great loaf that was set before him with his cloth and +napkin, soup-plate, salt, pepper, and oil, he rested his back +against the corner of the wall, made a couch of the bench on which +he sat, and began to chew crust, until such time as his repast +should be ready. +There had been that momentary interruption of the talk about the +stove, and that temporary inattention to and distraction from one +another, which is usually inseparable in such a company from the +arrival of a stranger. It had passed over by this time; and the +men had done glancing at him, and were talking again. + +'That's the true reason,' said one of them, bringing a story he had +been telling, to a close, 'that's the true reason why they said +that the devil was let loose.' The speaker was the tall Swiss +belonging to the church, and he brought something of the authority +of the church into the discussion--especially as the devil was in +question. + +The landlady having given her directions for the new guest's +entertainment to her husband, who acted as cook to the Break of +Day, had resumed her needlework behind her counter. She was a +smart, neat, bright little woman, with a good deal of cap and a +good deal of stocking, and she struck into the conversation with +several laughing nods of her head, but without looking up from her +work. + +'Ah Heaven, then,' said she. 'When the boat came up from Lyons, +and brought the news that the devil was actually let loose at +Marseilles, some fly-catchers swallowed it. But I? No, not I.' + +'Madame, you are always right,' returned the tall Swiss. +'Doubtless you were enraged against that man, madame?' + +'Ay, yes, then!' cried the landlady, raising her eyes from her +work, opening them very wide, and tossing her head on one side. +'Naturally, yes.' + +'He was a bad subject.' + +'He was a wicked wretch,' said the landlady, 'and well merited what +he had the good fortune to escape. So much the worse.' + +'Stay, madame! Let us see,' returned the Swiss, argumentatively +turning his cigar between his lips. 'It may have been his +unfortunate destiny. He may have been the child of circumstances. +It is always possible that he had, and has, good in him if one did +but know how to find it out. Philosophical philanthropy teaches--' + +The rest of the little knot about the stove murmured an objection +to the introduction of that threatening expression. Even the two +players at dominoes glanced up from their game, as if to protest +against philosophical philanthropy being brought by name into the +Break of Day. + +'Hold there, you and your philanthropy,' cried the smiling +landlady, nodding her head more than ever. 'Listen then. I am a +woman, I. I know nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I +know what I have seen, and what I have looked in the face in this +world here, where I find myself. And I tell you this, my friend, +that there are people (men and women both, unfortunately) who have +no good in them--none. That there are people whom it is necessary +to detest without compromise. That there are people who must be +dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there are people who +have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and +cleared out of the way. They are but few, I hope; but I have seen +(in this world here where I find myself, and even at the little +Break of Day) that there are such people. And I do not doubt that +this man--whatever they call him, I forget his name--is one of +them.' + +The landlady's lively speech was received with greater favour at +the Break of Day, than it would have elicited from certain amiable +whitewashers of the class she so unreasonably objected to, nearer +Great Britain. + +'My faith! If your philosophical philanthropy,' said the landlady, +putting down her work, and rising to take the stranger's soup from +her husband, who appeared with it at a side door, 'puts anybody at +the mercy of such people by holding terms with them at all, in +words or deeds, or both, take it away from the Break of Day, for it +isn't worth a sou.' + +As she placed the soup before the guest, who changed his attitude +to a sitting one, he looked her full in the face, and his moustache +went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache. + +'Well!' said the previous speaker, 'let us come back to our +subject. Leaving all that aside, gentlemen, it was because the man +was acquitted on his trial that people said at Marseilles that the +devil was let loose. That was how the phrase began to circulate, +and what it meant; nothing more.' + +'How do they call him?' said the landlady. 'Biraud, is it not?' + +'Rigaud, madame,' returned the tall Swiss. + +'Rigaud! To be sure.' + +The traveller's soup was succeeded by a dish of meat, and that by +a dish of vegetables. He ate all that was placed before him, +emptied his bottle of wine, called for a glass of rum, and smoked +his cigarette with his cup of coffee. As he became refreshed, he +became overbearing; and patronised the company at the Daybreak in +certain small talk at which he assisted, as if his condition were +far above his appearance. + +The company might have had other engagements, or they might have +felt their inferiority, but in any case they dispersed by degrees, +and not being replaced by other company, left their new patron in +possession of the Break of Day. The landlord was clinking about in +his kitchen; the landlady was quiet at her work; and the refreshed +traveller sat smoking by the stove, warming his ragged feet. + +'Pardon me, madame--that Biraud.' + +'Rigaud, monsieur.' + +'Rigaud. Pardon me again--has contracted your displeasure, how?' + +The landlady, who had been at one moment thinking within herself +that this was a handsome man, at another moment that this was an +ill-looking man, observed the nose coming down and the moustache +going up, and strongly inclined to the latter decision. Rigaud was +a criminal, she said, who had killed his wife. + +'Ay, ay? Death of my life, that's a criminal indeed. But how do +you know it?' + +'All the world knows it.' + +'Hah! And yet he escaped justice?' + +'Monsieur, the law could not prove it against him to its +satisfaction. So the law says. Nevertheless, all the world knows +he did it. The people knew it so well, that they tried to tear him +to pieces.' + +'Being all in perfect accord with their own wives?' said the guest. + +'Haha!' + +The landlady of the Break of Day looked at him again, and felt +almost confirmed in her last decision. He had a fine hand, though, +and he turned it with a great show. She began once more to think +that he was not ill-looking after all. + +'Did you mention, madame--or was it mentioned among the gentlemen-- +what became of him?' +The landlady shook her head; it being the first conversational +stage at which her vivacious earnestness had ceased to nod it, +keeping time to what she said. It had been mentioned at the +Daybreak, she remarked, on the authority of the journals, that he +had been kept in prison for his own safety. However that might be, +he had escaped his deserts; so much the worse. + +The guest sat looking at her as he smoked out his final cigarette, +and as she sat with her head bent over her work, with an expression +that might have resolved her doubts, and brought her to a lasting +conclusion on the subject of his good or bad looks if she had seen +it. When she did look up, the expression was not there. The hand +was smoothing his shaggy moustache. +'May one ask to be shown to bed, madame?' + +Very willingly, monsieur. Hola, my husband! My husband would +conduct him up-stairs. There was one traveller there, asleep, who +had gone to bed very early indeed, being overpowered by fatigue; +but it was a large chamber with two beds in it, and space enough +for twenty. This the landlady of the Break of Day chirpingly +explained, calling between whiles, 'Hola, my husband!' out at the +side door. + +My husband answered at length, 'It is I, my wife!' and presenting +himself in his cook's cap, lighted the traveller up a steep and +narrow staircase; the traveller carrying his own cloak and +knapsack, and bidding the landlady good night with a complimentary +reference to the pleasure of seeing her again to-morrow. It was a +large room, with a rough splintery floor, unplastered rafters +overhead, and two bedsteads on opposite sides. Here 'my husband' +put down the candle he carried, and with a sidelong look at his +guest stooping over his knapsack, gruffly gave him the instruction, +'The bed to the right!' and left him to his repose. The landlord, +whether he was a good or a bad physiognomist, had fully made up his +mind that the guest was an ill-looking fellow. + +The guest looked contemptuously at the clean coarse bedding +prepared for him, and, sitting down on the rush chair at the +bedside, drew his money out of his pocket, and told it over in his +hand. 'One must eat,' he muttered to himself, 'but by Heaven I +must eat at the cost of some other man to-morrow!' + +As he sat pondering, and mechanically weighing his money in his +palm, the deep breathing of the traveller in the other bed fell so +regularly upon his hearing that it attracted his eyes in that +direction. The man was covered up warm, and had drawn the white +curtain at his head, so that he could be only heard, not seen. But +the deep regular breathing, still going on while the other was +taking off his worn shoes and gaiters, and still continuing when he +had laid aside his coat and cravat, became at length a strong +provocative to curiosity, and incentive to get a glimpse of the +sleeper's face. + +The waking traveller, therefore, stole a little nearer, and yet a +little nearer, and a little nearer to the sleeping traveller's bed, +until he stood close beside it. Even then he could not see his +face, for he had drawn the sheet over it. The regular breathing +still continuing, he put his smooth white hand (such a treacherous +hand it looked, as it went creeping from him!) to the sheet, and +gently lifted it away. + +'Death of my soul!' he whispered, falling back, 'here's +Cavalletto!' + +The little Italian, previously influenced in his sleep, perhaps, by +the stealthy presence at his bedside, stopped in his regular +breathing, and with a long deep respiration opened his eyes. At +first they were not awake, though open. He lay for some seconds +looking placidly at his old prison companion, and then, all at +once, with a cry of surprise and alarm, sprang out of bed. + +'Hush! What's the matter? Keep quiet! It's I. You know me?' +cried the other, in a suppressed voice. + +But John Baptist, widely staring, muttering a number of invocations +and ejaculations, tremblingly backing into a corner, slipping on +his trousers, and tying his coat by the two sleeves round his neck, +manifested an unmistakable desire to escape by the door rather than +renew the acquaintance. Seeing this, his old prison comrade fell +back upon the door, and set his shoulders against it. + +'Cavalletto! Wake, boy! Rub your eyes and look at me. Not the +name you used to call me--don't use that--Lagnier, say Lagnier!' + +John Baptist, staring at him with eyes opened to their utmost +width, made a number of those national, backhanded shakes of the +right forefinger in the air, as if he were resolved on negativing +beforehand everything that the other could possibly advance during +the whole term of his life. + +'Cavalletto! Give me your hand. You know Lagnier, the gentleman. +Touch the hand of a gentleman!' + +Submitting himself to the old tone of condescending authority, John +Baptist, not at all steady on his legs as yet, advanced and put his +hand in his patron's. Monsieur Lagnier laughed; and having given +it a squeeze, tossed it up and let it go. + +'Then you were--' faltered John Baptist. + +'Not shaved? No. See here!' cried Lagnier, giving his head a +twirl; 'as tight on as your own.' + +John Baptist, with a slight shiver, looked all round the room as if +to recall where he was. His patron took that opportunity of +turning the key in the door, and then sat down upon his bed. + +'Look!' he said, holding up his shoes and gaiters. 'That's a poor +trim for a gentleman, you'll say. No matter, you shall see how +Soon I'll mend it. Come and sit down. Take your old place!' + +John Baptist, looking anything but reassured, sat down on the floor +at the bedside, keeping his eyes upon his patron all the time. + +'That's well!' cried Lagnier. 'Now we might be in the old infernal +hole again, hey? How long have you been out?' + +'Two days after you, my master.' + +'How do you come here?' + +'I was cautioned not to stay there, and so I left the town at once, +and since then I have changed about. I have been doing odds and +ends at Avignon, at Pont Esprit, at Lyons; upon the Rhone, upon the +Saone.' As he spoke, he rapidly mapped the places out with his +sunburnt hand upon the floor. +'And where are you going?' + +'Going, my master?' + +'Ay!' + +John Baptist seemed to desire to evade the question without knowing +how. 'By Bacchus!' he said at last, as if he were forced to the +admission, 'I have sometimes had a thought of going to Paris, and +perhaps to England.' + +'Cavalletto. This is in confidence. I also am going to Paris and +perhaps to England. We'll go together.' + +The little man nodded his head, and showed his teeth; and yet +seemed not quite convinced that it was a surpassingly desirable +arrangement. + +'We'll go together,' repeated Lagnier. 'You shall see how soon I +will force myself to be recognised as a gentleman, and you shall +profit by it. It is agreed? Are we one?' + +'Oh, surely, surely!' said the little man. + +'Then you shall hear before I sleep--and in six words, for I want +sleep--how I appear before you, I, Lagnier. Remember that. Not +the other.' + +'Altro, altro! Not Ri--' Before John Baptist could finish the +name, his comrade had got his hand under his chin and fiercely shut +up his mouth. + +'Death! what are you doing? Do you want me to be trampled upon +and stoned? Do YOU want to be trampled upon and stoned? You would +be. You don't imagine that they would set upon me, and let my +prison chum go? Don't think it!' +There was an expression in his face as he released his grip of his +friend's jaw, from which his friend inferred that if the course of +events really came to any stoning and trampling, Monsieur Lagnier +would so distinguish him with his notice as to ensure his having +his full share of it. He remembered what a cosmopolitan gentleman +Monsieur Lagnier was, and how few weak distinctions he made. + +'I am a man,' said Monsieur Lagnier, 'whom society has deeply +wronged since you last saw me. You know that I am sensitive and +brave, and that it is my character to govern. How has society +respected those qualities in me? I have been shrieked at through +the streets. I have been guarded through the streets against men, +and especially women, running at me armed with any weapons they +could lay their hands on. I have lain in prison for security, with +the place of my confinement kept a secret, lest I should be torn +out of it and felled by a hundred blows. I have been carted out of +Marseilles in the dead of night, and carried leagues away from it +packed in straw. It has not been safe for me to go near my house; +and, with a beggar's pittance in my pocket, I have walked through +vile mud and weather ever since, until my feet are crippled--look +at them! Such are the humiliations that society has inflicted upon +me, possessing the qualities I have mentioned, and which you know +me to possess. But society shall pay for it.' + +All this he said in his companion's ear, and with his hand before +his lips. + +'Even here,' he went on in the same way, 'even in this mean +drinking-shop, society pursues me. Madame defames me, and her +guests defame me. I, too, a gentleman with manners and +accomplishments to strike them dead! But the wrongs society has +heaped upon me are treasured in this breast.' + +To all of which John Baptist, listening attentively to the +suppressed hoarse voice, said from time to time, 'Surely, surely!' +tossing his head and shutting his eyes, as if there were the +clearest case against society that perfect candour could make out. + +'Put my shoes there,' continued Lagnier. 'Hang my cloak to dry +there by the door. Take my hat.' He obeyed each instruction, as +it was given. 'And this is the bed to which society consigns me, +is it? Hah. Very well!' + +As he stretched out his length upon it, with a ragged handkerchief +bound round his wicked head, and only his wicked head showing above +the bedclothes, John Baptist was rather strongly reminded of what +had so very nearly happened to prevent the moustache from any more +going up as it did, and the nose from any more coming down as it +did. + +'Shaken out of destiny's dice-box again into your company, eh? By +Heaven! So much the better for you. You'll profit by it. I shall +need a long rest. Let me sleep in the morning.' + +John Baptist replied that he should sleep as long as he would, and +wishing him a happy night, put out the candle. One might have +Supposed that the next proceeding of the Italian would have been to +undress; but he did exactly the reverse, and dressed himself from +head to foot, saving his shoes. When he had so done, he lay down +upon his bed with some of its coverings over him, and his coat +still tied round his neck, to get through the night. + +When he started up, the Godfather Break of Day was peeping at its +namesake. He rose, took his shoes in his hand, turned the key in +the door with great caution, and crept downstairs. Nothing was +astir there but the smell of coffee, wine, tobacco, and syrups; and +madame's little counter looked ghastly enough. But he had paid +madame his little note at it over night, and wanted to see nobody-- +wanted nothing but to get on his shoes and his knapsack, open the +door, and run away. + +He prospered in his object. No movement or voice was heard when he +opened the door; no wicked head tied up in a ragged handkerchief +looked out of the upper window. When the sun had raised his full +disc above the flat line of the horizon, and was striking fire out +of the long muddy vista of paved road with its weary avenue of +little trees, a black speck moved along the road and splashed among +the flaming pools of rain-water, which black speck was John Baptist +Cavalletto running away from his patron. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +Bleeding Heart Yard + + +In London itself, though in the old rustic road towards a suburb of +note where in the days of William Shakespeare, author and stage- +player, there were Royal hunting-seats--howbeit no sport is left +there now but for hunters of men--Bleeding Heart Yard was to be +found; a place much changed in feature and in fortune, yet with +some relish of ancient greatness about it. Two or three mighty +stacks of chimneys, and a few large dark rooms which had escaped +being walled and subdivided out of the recognition of their old +proportions, gave the Yard a character. It was inhabited by poor +people, who set up their rest among its faded glories, as Arabs of +the desert pitch their tents among the fallen stones of the +Pyramids; but there was a family sentimental feeling prevalent in +the Yard, that it had a character. + +As if the aspiring city had become puffed up in the very ground on +which it stood, the ground had so risen about Bleeding Heart Yard +that you got into it down a flight of steps which formed no part of +the original approach, and got out of it by a low gateway into a +maze of shabby streets, which went about and about, tortuously +ascending to the level again. At this end of the Yard and over the +gateway, was the factory of Daniel Doyce, often heavily beating +like a bleeding heart of iron, with the clink of metal upon metal. +The opinion of the Yard was divided respecting the derivation of +its name. The more practical of its inmates abided by the +tradition of a murder; the gentler and more imaginative +inhabitants, including the whole of the tender sex, were loyal to +the legend of a young lady of former times closely imprisoned in +her chamber by a cruel father for remaining true to her own true +love, and refusing to marry the suitor he chose for her. The +legend related how that the young lady used to be seen up at her +window behind the bars, murmuring a love-lorn song of which the +burden was, 'Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away,' until +she died. It was objected by the murderous party that this Refrain +was notoriously the invention of a tambour-worker, a spinster and +romantic, still lodging in the Yard. But, forasmuch as all +favourite legends must be associated with the affections, and as +many more people fall in love than commit murder--which it may be +hoped, howsoever bad we are, will continue until the end of the +world to be the dispensation under which we shall live--the +Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away story, carried the +day by a great majority. Neither party would listen to the +antiquaries who delivered learned lectures in the neighbourhood, +showing the Bleeding Heart to have been the heraldic cognisance of +the old family to whom the property had once belonged. And, +considering that the hour-glass they turned from year to year was +filled with the earthiest and coarsest sand, the Bleeding Heart +Yarders had reason enough for objecting to be despoiled of the one +little golden grain of poetry that sparkled in it. + +Down in to the Yard, by way of the steps, came Daniel Doyce, Mr +Meagles, and Clennam. Passing along the Yard, and between the open +doors on either hand, all abundantly garnished with light children +nursing heavy ones, they arrived at its opposite boundary, the +gateway. Here Arthur Clennam stopped to look about him for the +domicile of Plornish, plasterer, whose name, according to the +custom of Londoners, Daniel Doyce had never seen or heard of to +that hour. + +It was plain enough, nevertheless, as Little Dorrit had said; over +a lime-splashed gateway in the corner, within which Plornish kept +a ladder and a barrel or two. The last house in Bleeding Heart +Yard which she had described as his place of habitation, was a +large house, let off to various tenants; but Plornish ingeniously +hinted that he lived in the parlour, by means of a painted hand +under his name, the forefinger of which hand (on which the artist +had depicted a ring and a most elaborate nail of the genteelest +form) referred all inquirers to that apartment. + +Parting from his companions, after arranging another meeting with +Mr Meagles, Clennam went alone into the entry, and knocked with his +knuckles at the parlour-door. It was opened presently by a woman +with a child in her arms, whose unoccupied hand was hastily +rearranging the upper part of her dress. This was Mrs Plornish, +and this maternal action was the action of Mrs Plornish during a +large part of her waking existence. + +Was Mr Plornish at home? 'Well, sir,' said Mrs Plornish, a civil +woman, 'not to deceive you, he's gone to look for a job.' + +'Not to deceive you' was a method of speech with Mrs Plornish. She +would deceive you, under any circumstances, as little as might be; +but she had a trick of answering in this provisional form. + +'Do you think he will be back soon, if I wait for him?' + +'I have been expecting him,' said Mrs Plornish, 'this half an hour, +at any minute of time. Walk in, sir.' +Arthur entered the rather dark and close parlour (though it was +lofty too), and sat down in the chair she placed for him. + +'Not to deceive you, sir, I notice it,' said Mrs Plornish, 'and I +take it kind of you.' + +He was at a loss to understand what she meant; and by expressing as +much in his looks, elicited her explanation. + +'It ain't many that comes into a poor place, that deems it worth +their while to move their hats,' said Mrs Plornish. 'But people +think more of it than people think.' + +Clennam returned, with an uncomfortable feeling in so very slight +a courtesy being unusual, Was that all! And stooping down to pinch +the cheek of another young child who was sitting on the floor, +staring at him, asked Mrs Plornish how old that fine boy was? + +'Four year just turned, sir,' said Mrs Plornish. 'He IS a fine +little fellow, ain't he, sir? But this one is rather sickly.' She +tenderly hushed the baby in her arms, as she said it. 'You +wouldn't mind my asking if it happened to be a job as you was come +about, sir, would you?' asked Mrs Plornish wistfully. + +She asked it so anxiously, that if he had been in possession of any +kind of tenement, he would have had it plastered a foot deep rather +than answer No. But he was obliged to answer No; and he saw a +shade of disappointment on her face, as she checked a sigh, and +looked at the low fire. Then he saw, also, that Mrs Plornish was +a young woman, made somewhat slatternly in herself and her +belongings by poverty; and so dragged at by poverty and the +children together, that their united forces had already dragged her +face into wrinkles. + +'All such things as jobs,' said Mrs Plornish, 'seems to me to have +gone underground, they do indeed.' (Herein Mrs Plornish limited +her remark to the plastering trade, and spoke without reference to +the Circumlocution Office and the Barnacle Family.) + +'Is it so difficult to get work?' asked Arthur Clennam. + +'Plornish finds it so,' she returned. 'He is quite unfortunate. +Really he is.' +Really he was. He was one of those many wayfarers on the road of +life, who seem to be afflicted with supernatural corns, rendering +it impossible for them to keep up even with their lame competitors. + +A willing, working, soft hearted, not hard-headed fellow, Plornish +took his fortune as smoothly as could be expected; but it was a +rough one. It so rarely happened that anybody seemed to want him, +it was such an exceptional case when his powers were in any +request, that his misty mind could not make out how it happened. +He took it as it came, therefore; he tumbled into all kinds of +difficulties, and tumbled out of them; and, by tumbling through +life, got himself considerably bruised. + +'It's not for want of looking after jobs, I am sure,' said Mrs +Plornish, lifting up her eyebrows, and searching for a solution of +the problem between the bars of the grate; 'nor yet for want of +working at them when they are to be got. No one ever heard my +husband complain of work.' + +Somehow or other, this was the general misfortune of Bleeding Heart +Yard. From time to time there were public complaints, pathetically +going about, of labour being scarce--which certain people seemed to +take extraordinarily ill, as though they had an absolute right to +it on their own terms--but Bleeding Heart Yard, though as willing +a Yard as any in Britain, was never the better for the demand. +That high old family, the Barnacles, had long been too busy with +their great principle to look into the matter; and indeed the +matter had nothing to do with their watchfulness in out-generalling +all other high old families except the Stiltstalkings. + +While Mrs Plornish spoke in these words of her absent lord, her +lord returned. A smooth-cheeked, fresh-coloured, sandy-whiskered +man of thirty. Long in the legs, yielding at the knees, foolish in +the face, flannel-jacketed, lime-whitened. + +'This is Plornish, sir.' + +'I came,' said Clennam, rising, 'to beg the favour of a little +conversation with you on the subject of the Dorrit family.' + +Plornish became suspicious. Seemed to scent a creditor. Said, +'Ah, yes. Well. He didn't know what satisfaction he could give +any gentleman, respecting that family. What might it be about, +now?' + +'I know you better,' said Clennam, smiling, 'than you suppose.' + +Plornish observed, not Smiling in return, And yet he hadn't the +pleasure of being acquainted with the gentleman, neither. + +'No,' said Arthur, 'I know your kind offices at second hand, but on +the best authority; through Little Dorrit.--I mean,' he explained, +'Miss Dorrit.' + +'Mr Clennam, is it? Oh! I've heard of you, Sir.' + +'And I of you,' said Arthur. + +'Please to sit down again, Sir, and consider yourself welcome.-- +Why, yes,' said Plornish, taking a chair, and lifting the elder +child upon his knee, that he might have the moral support of +speaking to a stranger over his head, 'I have been on the wrong +side of the Lock myself, and in that way we come to know Miss +Dorrit. Me and my wife, we are well acquainted with Miss Dorrit.' +'Intimate!' cried Mrs Plornish. Indeed, she was so proud of the +acquaintance, that she had awakened some bitterness of spirit in +the Yard by magnifying to an enormous amount the sum for which Miss +Dorrit's father had become insolvent. The Bleeding Hearts resented +her claiming to know people of such distinction. + +'It was her father that I got acquainted with first. And through +getting acquainted with him, you see--why--I got acquainted with +her,' said Plornish tautologically. + +'I see.' + +'Ah! And there's manners! There's polish! There's a gentleman to +have run to seed in the Marshalsea jail! Why, perhaps you are not +aware,' said Plornish, lowering his voice, and speaking with a +perverse admiration of what he ought to have pitied or despised, +'not aware that Miss Dorrit and her sister dursn't let him know +that they work for a living. No!' said Plornish, looking with a +ridiculous triumph first at his wife, and then all round the room. +'Dursn't let him know it, they dursn't!' + +'Without admiring him for that,' Clennam quietly observed, 'I am +very sorry for him.' The remark appeared to suggest to Plornish, +for the first time, that it might not be a very fine trait of +character after all. He pondered about it for a moment, and gave +it up. + +'As to me,' he resumed, 'certainly Mr Dorrit is as affable with me, +I am sure, as I can possibly expect. Considering the differences +and distances betwixt us, more so. But it's Miss Dorrit that we +were speaking of.' + +'True. Pray how did you introduce her at my mother's!' + +Mr Plornish picked a bit of lime out of his whisker, put it between +his lips, turned it with his tongue like a sugar-plum, considered, +found himself unequal to the task of lucid explanation, and +appealing to his wife, said, 'Sally, you may as well mention how it +was, old woman.' + +'Miss Dorrit,' said Sally, hushing the baby from side to side, and +laying her chin upon the little hand as it tried to disarrange the +gown again, 'came here one afternoon with a bit of writing, telling +that how she wished for needlework, and asked if it would be +considered any ill-conwenience in case she was to give her address +here.' (Plornish repeated, her address here, in a low voice, as if +he were making responses at church.) 'Me and Plornish says, No, +Miss Dorrit, no ill-conwenience,' (Plornish repeated, no ill- +conwenience,) 'and she wrote it in, according. Which then me and +Plornish says, Ho Miss Dorrit!' (Plornish repeated, Ho Miss +Dorrit.) 'Have you thought of copying it three or four times, as +the way to make it known in more places than one? No, says Miss +Dorrit, I have not, but I will. She copied it out according, on +this table, in a sweet writing, and Plornish, he took it where he +worked, having a job just then,' (Plornish repeated job just then,) +'and likewise to the landlord of the Yard; through which it was +that Mrs Clennam first happened to employ Miss Dorrit.' Plornish +repeated, employ Miss Dorrit; and Mrs Plornish having come to an +end, feigned to bite the fingers of the little hand as she kissed +it. + +'The landlord of the Yard,' said Arthur Clennam, 'is--' + +'He is Mr Casby, by name, he is,' said Plornish, 'and Pancks, he +collects the rents. That,' added Mr Plornish, dwelling on the +subject with a slow thoughtfulness that appeared to have no +connection with any specific object, and to lead him nowhere, 'that +is about what they are, you may believe me or not, as you think +proper.' + +'Ay?' returned Clennam, thoughtful in his turn. 'Mr Casby, too! +An old acquaintance of mine, long ago!' + +Mr Plornish did not see his road to any comment on this fact, and +made none. As there truly was no reason why he should have the +least interest in it, Arthur Clennam went on to the present purport +of his visit; namely, to make Plornish the instrument of effecting +Tip's release, with as little detriment as possible to the self- +reliance and self-helpfulness of the young man, supposing him to +possess any remnant of those qualities: without doubt a very wide +stretch of supposition. Plornish, having been made acquainted with +the cause of action from the Defendant's own mouth, gave Arthur to +understand that the Plaintiff was a 'Chaunter'--meaning, not a +singer of anthems, but a seller of horses--and that he (Plornish) +considered that ten shillings in the pound 'would settle handsome,' +and that more would be a waste of money. The Principal and +instrument soon drove off together to a stable-yard in High +Holborn, where a remarkably fine grey gelding, worth, at the lowest +figure, seventy-five guineas (not taking into account the value of +the shot he had been made to swallow for the improvement of his +form), was to be parted with for a twenty-pound note, in +consequence of his having run away last week with Mrs Captain +Barbary of Cheltenham, who wasn't up to a horse of his courage, and +who, in mere spite, insisted on selling him for that ridiculous +sum: or, in other words, on giving him away. Plornish, going up +this yard alone and leaving his Principal outside, found a +gentleman with tight drab legs, a rather old hat, a little hooked +stick, and a blue neckerchief (Captain Maroon of Gloucestershire, +a private friend of Captain Barbary); who happened to be there, in +a friendly way, to mention these little circumstances concerning +the remarkably fine grey gelding to any real judge of a horse and +quick snapper-up of a good thing, who might look in at that address +as per advertisement. This gentleman, happening also to be the +Plaintiff in the Tip case, referred Mr Plornish to his solicitor, +and declined to treat with Mr Plornish, or even to endure his +presence in the yard, unless he appeared there with a twenty-pound +note: in which case only, the gentleman would augur from +appearances that he meant business, and might be induced to talk to +him. On this hint, Mr Plornish retired to communicate with his +Principal, and presently came back with the required credentials. +Then said Captain Maroon, 'Now, how much time do you want to make +the other twenty in? Now, I'll give you a month.' Then said +Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit, 'Now, I'll tell what I'll +do with you. You shall get me a good bill at four months, made +payable at a banking-house, for the other twenty!' Then said +Captain Maroon, when THAT wouldn't suit, 'Now, come; Here's the +last I've got to say to you. You shall give me another ten down, +and I'll run my pen clean through it.' Then said Captain Maroon +when THAT wouldn't suit, 'Now, I'll tell you what it is, and this +shuts it up; he has used me bad, but I'll let him off for another +five down and a bottle of wine; and if you mean done, say done, and +if you don't like it, leave it.' Finally said Captain Maroon, when +THAT wouldn't suit either, 'Hand over, then!'--And in consideration +of the first offer, gave a receipt in full and discharged the +prisoner. + +'Mr Plornish,' said Arthur, 'I trust to you, if you please, to keep +my secret. If you will undertake to let the young man know that he +is free, and to tell him that you were employed to compound for the +debt by some one whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not +only do me a service, but may do him one, and his sister also.' + +'The last reason, sir,' said Plornish, 'would be quite sufficient. +Your wishes shall be attended to.' + +'A Friend has obtained his discharge, you can say if you please. +A Friend who hopes that for his sister's sake, if for no one +else's, he will make good use of his liberty.' + +'Your wishes, sir, shall be attended to.' + +'And if you will be so good, in your better knowledge of the +family, as to communicate freely with me, and to point out to me +any means by which you think I may be delicately and really useful +to Little Dorrit, I shall feel under an obligation to you.' + +'Don't name it, sir,' returned Plornish, 'it'll be ekally a +pleasure an a--it'l be ekally a pleasure and a--' Finding himself +unable to balance his sentence after two efforts, Mr Plornish +wisely dropped it. He took Clennam's card and appropriate +pecuniary compliment. + +He was earnest to finish his commission at once, and his Principal +was in the same mind. So his Principal offered to set him down at +the Marshalsea Gate, and they drove in that direction over +Blackfriars Bridge. On the way, Arthur elicited from his new +friend a confused summary of the interior life of Bleeding Heart +Yard. They was all hard up there, Mr Plornish said, uncommon hard +up, to be sure. Well, he couldn't say how it was; he didn't know +as anybody could say how it was; all he know'd was, that so it was. + +When a man felt, on his own back and in his own belly, that poor he +was, that man (Mr Plornish gave it as his decided belief) know'd +well that he was poor somehow or another, and you couldn't talk it +out of him, no more than you could talk Beef into him. Then you +see, some people as was better off said, and a good many such +people lived pretty close up to the mark themselves if not beyond +it so he'd heerd, that they was 'improvident' (that was the +favourite word) down the Yard. For instance, if they see a man +with his wife and children going to Hampton Court in a Wan, perhaps +once in a year, they says, 'Hallo! I thought you was poor, my +improvident friend!' Why, Lord, how hard it was upon a man! What +was a man to do? He couldn't go mollancholy mad, and even if he +did, you wouldn't be the better for it. In Mr Plornish's judgment +you would be the worse for it. Yet you seemed to want to make a +man mollancholy mad. You was always at it--if not with your right +hand, with your left. What was they a doing in the Yard? Why, +take a look at 'em and see. There was the girls and their mothers +a working at their sewing, or their shoe-binding, or their +trimming, or their waistcoat making, day and night and night and +day, and not more than able to keep body and soul together after +all--often not so much. There was people of pretty well all sorts +of trades you could name, all wanting to work, and yet not able to +get it. There was old people, after working all their lives, going +and being shut up in the workhouse, much worse fed and lodged and +treated altogether, than--Mr Plornish said manufacturers, but +appeared to mean malefactors. Why, a man didn't know where to turn +himself for a crumb of comfort. As to who was to blame for it, Mr +Plornish didn't know who was to blame for it. He could tell you +who suffered, but he couldn't tell you whose fault it was. It +wasn't HIS place to find out, and who'd mind what he said, if he +did find out? He only know'd that it wasn't put right by them what +undertook that line of business, and that it didn't come right of +itself. And, in brief, his illogical opinion was, that if you +couldn't do nothing for him, you had better take nothing from him +for doing of it; so far as he could make out, that was about what +it come to. Thus, in a prolix, gently-growling, foolish way, did +Plornish turn the tangled skein of his estate about and about, like +a blind man who was trying to find some beginning or end to it; +until they reached the prison gate. There, he left his Principal +alone; to wonder, as he rode away, how many thousand Plornishes +there might be within a day or two's journey of the Circumlocution +Office, playing sundry curious variations on the same tune, which +were not known by ear in that glorious institution. + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +Patriarchal + + +The mention of Mr Casby again revived in Clennam's memory the +smouldering embers of curiosity and interest which Mrs Flintwinch +had fanned on the night of his arrival. Flora Casby had been the +beloved of his boyhood; and Flora was the daughter and only child +of wooden-headed old Christopher (so he was still occasionally +spoken of by some irreverent spirits who had had dealings with him, +and in whom familiarity had bred its proverbial result perhaps), +who was reputed to be rich in weekly tenants, and to get a good +quantity of blood out of the stones of several unpromising courts +and alleys. +After some days of inquiry and research, Arthur Clennam became +convinced that the case of the Father of the Marshalsea was indeed +a hopeless one, and sorrowfully resigned the idea of helping him to +freedom again. He had no hopeful inquiry to make at present, +concerning Little Dorrit either; but he argued with himself that it +might--for anything he knew--it might be serviceable to the poor +child, if he renewed this acquaintance. It is hardly necessary to +add that beyond all doubt he would have presented himself at Mr +Casby's door, if there had been no Little Dorrit in existence; for +we all know how we all deceive ourselves--that is to say, how +people in general, our profounder selves excepted, deceive +themselves--as to motives of action. + +With a comfortable impression upon him, and quite an honest one in +its way, that he was still patronising Little Dorrit in doing what +had no reference to her, he found himself one afternoon at the +corner of Mr Casby's street. Mr Casby lived in a street in the +Gray's Inn Road, which had set off from that thoroughfare with the +intention of running at one heat down into the valley, and up again +to the top of Pentonville Hill; but which had run itself out of +breath in twenty yards, and had stood still ever since. There is +no such place in that part now; but it remained there for many +years, looking with a baulked countenance at the wilderness patched +with unfruitful gardens and pimpled with eruptive summerhouses, +that it had meant to run over in no time. + +'The house,' thought Clennam, as he crossed to the door, 'is as +little changed as my mother's, and looks almost as gloomy. But the +likeness ends outside. I know its staid repose within. The smell +of its jars of old rose-leaves and lavender seems to come upon me +even here.' + +When his knock at the bright brass knocker of obsolete shape +brought a woman-servant to the door, those faded scents in truth +saluted him like wintry breath that had a faint remembrance in it +of the bygone spring. He stepped into the sober, silent, air-tight +house--one might have fancied it to have been stifled by Mutes in +the Eastern manner--and the door, closing again, seemed to shut out +sound and motion. The furniture was formal, grave, and quaker- +like, but well-kept; and had as prepossessing an aspect as +anything, from a human creature to a wooden stool, that is meant +for much use and is preserved for little, can ever wear. There was +a grave clock, ticking somewhere up the staircase; and there was a +songless bird in the same direction, pecking at his cage, as if he +were ticking too. The parlour-fire ticked in the grate. There was +only one person on the parlour-hearth, and the loud watch in his +pocket ticked audibly. + +The servant-maid had ticked the two words 'Mr Clennam' so softly +that she had not been heard; and he consequently stood, within the +door she had closed, unnoticed. The figure of a man advanced in +life, whose smooth grey eyebrows seemed to move to the ticking as +the fire-light flickered on them, sat in an arm-chair, with his +list shoes on the rug, and his thumbs slowly revolving over one +another. This was old Christopher Casby--recognisable at a +glance--as unchanged in twenty years and upward as his own solid +furniture--as little touched by the influence of the varying +seasons as the old rose-leaves and old lavender in his porcelain +jars. + +Perhaps there never was a man, in this troublesome world, so +troublesome for the imagination to picture as a boy. And yet he +had changed very little in his progress through life. Confronting +him, in the room in which he sat, was a boy's portrait, which +anybody seeing him would have identified as Master Christopher +Casby, aged ten: though disguised with a haymaking rake, for which +he had had, at any time, as much taste or use as for a diving-bell; +and sitting (on one of his own legs) upon a bank of violets, moved +to precocious contemplation by the spire of a village church. +There was the same smooth face and forehead, the same calm blue +eye, the same placid air. The shining bald head, which looked so +very large because it shone so much; and the long grey hair at its +sides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, which looked so very +benevolent because it was never cut; were not, of course, to be +seen in the boy as in the old man. Nevertheless, in the Seraphic +creature with the haymaking rake, were clearly to be discerned the +rudiments of the Patriarch with the list shoes. + +Patriarch was the name which many people delighted to give him. +Various old ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of +the Patriarchs. So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so +very bumpy in the head, Patriarch was the word for him. He had +been accosted in the streets, and respectfully solicited to become +a Patriarch for painters and for sculptors; with so much +importunity, in sooth, that it would appear to be beyond the Fine +Arts to remember the points of a Patriarch, or to invent one. +Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was, and on being +informed, 'Old Christopher Casby, formerly Town-agent to Lord +Decimus Tite Barnacle,' had cried in a rapture of disappointment, +'Oh! why, with that head, is he not a benefactor to his species! +Oh! why, with that head, is he not a father to the orphan and a +friend to the friendless!' With that head, however, he remained +old Christopher Casby, proclaimed by common report rich in house +property; and with that head, he now sat in his silent parlour. +Indeed it would be the height of unreason to expect him to be +sitting there without that head. + +Arthur Clennam moved to attract his attention, and the grey +eyebrows turned towards him. + +'I beg your pardon,' said Clennam, 'I fear you did not hear me +announced?' + +'No, sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, sir?' + +'I wished to pay my respects.' + +Mr Casby seemed a feather's weight disappointed by the last words, +having perhaps prepared himself for the visitor's wishing to pay +something else. 'Have I the pleasure, sir,' he proceeded--'take a +chair, if you please--have I the pleasure of knowing--? Ah! +truly, yes, I think I have! I believe I am not mistaken in +supposing that I am acquainted with those features? I think I +address a gentleman of whose return to this country I was informed +by Mr Flintwinch?' + +'That is your present visitor.' + +'Really! Mr Clennam?' + +'No other, Mr Casby.' + +'Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. How have you been since we +met?' + +Without thinking it worth while to explain that in the course of +some quarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight +fluctuations in his health and spirits, Clennam answered generally +that he had never been better, or something equally to the purpose; +and shook hands with the possessor of 'that head' as it shed its +patriarchal light upon him. + +'We are older, Mr Clennam,' said Christopher Casby. + +'We are--not younger,' said Clennam. After this wise remark he +felt that he was scarcely shining with brilliancy, and became aware +that he was nervous. + +'And your respected father,' said Mr Casby, 'is no more! I was +grieved to hear it, Mr Clennam, I was grieved.' + +Arthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to +him. + +'There was a time,' said Mr Casby, 'when your parents and myself +were not on friendly terms. There was a little family +misunderstanding among us. Your respected mother was rather +jealous of her son, maybe; when I say her son, I mean your worthy +self, your worthy self.' + +His smooth face had a bloom upon it like ripe wall-fruit. What +with his blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed +to be delivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like +manner, his physiognomical expression seemed to teem with +benignity. Nobody could have said where the wisdom was, or where +the virtue was, or where the benignity was; but they all seemed to +be somewhere about him. +'Those times, however,' pursued Mr Casby, 'are past and gone, past +and gone. I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your +respected mother occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and +strength of mind with which she bears her trials, bears her +trials.' When he made one of these little repetitions, sitting +with his hands crossed before him, he did it with his head on one +side, and a gentle smile, as if he had something in his thoughts +too sweetly profound to be put into words. As if he denied himself +the pleasure of uttering it, lest he should soar too high; and his +meekness therefore preferred to be unmeaning. + +'I have heard that you were kind enough on one of those occasions,' +said Arthur, catching at the opportunity as it drifted past him, +'to mention Little Dorrit to my mother.' + +'Little--Dorrit? That's the seamstress who was mentioned to me by +a small tenant of mine? Yes, yes. Dorrit? That's the name. Ah, +yes, yes! You call her Little Dorrit?' + +No road in that direction. Nothing came of the cross-cut. It led +no further. + +'My daughter Flora,' said Mr Casby, 'as you may have heard +probably, Mr Clennam, was married and established in life, several +years ago. She had the misfortune to lose her husband when she had +been married a few months. She resides with me again. She will be +glad to see you, if you will permit me to let her know that you are +here.' + +'By all means,' returned Clennam. 'I should have preferred the +request, if your kindness had not anticipated me.' + +Upon this Mr Casby rose up in his list shoes, and with a slow, +heavy step (he was of an elephantine build), made for the door. He +had a long wide-skirted bottle-green coat on, and a bottle-green +pair of trousers, and a bottle-green waistcoat. The Patriarchs +were not dressed in bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes +looked patriarchal. + +He had scarcely left the room, and allowed the ticking to become +audible again, when a quick hand turned a latchkey in the house- +door, opened it, and shut it. Immediately afterwards, a quick and +eager short dark man came into the room with so much way upon him +that he was within a foot of Clennam before he could stop. + +'Halloa!' he said. + +Clennam saw no reason why he should not say 'Halloa!' too. + +'What's the matter?' said the short dark man. + +'I have not heard that anything is the matter,' returned Clennam. + +'Where's Mr Casby?' asked the short dark man, looking about. +'He will be here directly, if you want him.' + +'_I_ want him?' said the short dark man. 'Don't you?' +This elicited a word or two of explanation from Clennam, during the +delivery of which the short dark man held his breath and looked at +him. He was dressed in black and rusty iron grey; had jet black +beads of eyes; a scrubby little black chin; wiry black hair +striking out from his head in prongs, like forks or hair-pins; and +a complexion that was very dingy by nature, or very dirty by art, +or a compound of nature and art. He had dirty hands and dirty +broken nails, and looked as if he had been in the coals; he was in +a perspiration, and snorted and sniffed and puffed and blew, like +a little labouring steam-engine. + +'Oh!' said he, when Arthur told him how he came to be there. 'Very +well. That's right. If he should ask for Pancks, will you be so +good as to say that Pancks is come in?' And so, with a snort and +a puff, he worked out by another door. + +Now, in the old days at home, certain audacious doubts respecting +the last of the Patriarchs, which were afloat in the air, had, by +some forgotten means, come in contact with Arthur's sensorium. He +was aware of motes and specks of suspicion in the atmosphere of +that time; seen through which medium, Christopher Casby was a mere +Inn signpost, without any Inn--an invitation to rest and be +thankful, when there was no place to put up at, and nothing +whatever to be thankful for. He knew that some of these specks +even represented Christopher as capable of harbouring designs in +'that head,' and as being a crafty impostor. Other motes there +were which showed him as a heavy, selfish, drifting Booby, who, +having stumbled, in the course of his unwieldy jostlings against +other men, on the discovery that to get through life with ease and +credit, he had but to hold his tongue, keep the bald part of his +head well polished, and leave his hair alone, had had just cunning +enough to seize the idea and stick to it. It was said that his +being town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not +to his having the least business capacity, but to his looking so +supremely benignant that nobody could suppose the property screwed +or jobbed under such a man; also, that for similar reasons he now +got more money out of his own wretched lettings, unquestioned, than +anybody with a less nobby and less shining crown could possibly +have done. In a word, it was represented (Clennam called to mind, +alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select their models, +much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs; and that, +whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dog-stealer +will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues, on +account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby +planting thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant +students of nature), so, in the great social Exhibition, +accessories are often accepted in lieu of the internal character. + +Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr Pancks in a row with +them, Arthur Clennam leaned this day to the opinion, without quite +deciding on it, that the last of the Patriarchs was the drifting +Booby aforesaid, with the one idea of keeping the bald part of his +head highly polished: and that, much as an unwieldy ship in the +Thames river may sometimes be seen heavily driving with the tide, +broadside on, stern first, in its own way and in the way of +everything else, though making a great show of navigation, when all +of a sudden, a little coaly steam-tug will bear down upon it, take +it in tow, and bustle off with it; similarly the cumbrous Patriarch +had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was now following +in the wake of that dingy little craft. + +The return of Mr Casby with his daughter Flora, put an end to these +meditations. Clennam's eyes no sooner fell upon the subject of his +old passion than it shivered and broke to pieces. + +Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true +to an old idea. It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly +the opposite, when the idea will not bear close comparison with the +reality, and the contrast is a fatal shock to it. Such was +Clennam's case. In his youth he had ardently loved this woman, and +had heaped upon her all the locked-up wealth of his affection and +imagination. That wealth had been, in his desert home, like +Robinson Crusoe's money; exchangeable with no one, lying idle in +the dark to rust, until he poured it out for her. Ever since that +memorable time, though he had, until the night of his arrival, as +completely dismissed her from any association with his Present or +Future as if she had been dead (which she might easily have been +for anything he knew), he had kept the old fancy of the Past +unchanged, in its old sacred place. And now, after all, the last +of the Patriarchs coolly walked into the parlour, saying in effect, +'Be good enough to throw it down and dance upon it. This is +Flora.' + +Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of +breath; but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had +become a peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed +enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. +That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, +was determined to be spoiled and artless now. That was a fatal +blow. + +This is Flora! + +'I am sure,' giggled Flora, tossing her head with a caricature of +her girlish manner, such as a mummer might have presented at her +own funeral, if she had lived and died in classical antiquity, 'I +am ashamed to see Mr Clennam, I am a mere fright, I know he'll find +me fearfully changed, I am actually an old woman, it's shocking to +be found out, it's really shocking!' + +He assured her that she was just what he had expected and that time +had not stood still with himself. + +'Oh! But with a gentleman it's so different and really you look so +amazingly well that you have no right to say anything of the kind, +while, as to me, you know--oh!' cried Flora with a little scream, +'I am dreadful!' + +The Patriarch, apparently not yet understanding his own part in the +drama under representation, glowed with vacant serenity. + +'But if we talk of not having changed,' said Flora, who, whatever +she said, never once came to a full stop, 'look at Papa, is not +Papa precisely what he was when you went away, isn't it cruel and +unnatural of Papa to be such a reproach to his own child, if we go +on in this way much longer people who don't know us will begin to +suppose that I am Papa's Mama!' + +That must be a long time hence, Arthur considered. + +'Oh Mr Clennam you insincerest of creatures,' said Flora, 'I +perceive already you have not lost your old way of paying +compliments, your old way when you used to pretend to be so +sentimentally struck you know--at least I don't mean that, I--oh I +don't know what I mean!' Here Flora tittered confusedly, and gave +him one of her old glances. + +The Patriarch, as if he now began to perceive that his part in the +piece was to get off the stage as soon as might be, rose, and went +to the door by which Pancks had worked out, hailing that Tug by +name. He received an answer from some little Dock beyond, and was +towed out of sight directly. + +'You mustn't think of going yet,' said Flora--Arthur had looked at +his hat, being in a ludicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do: +'you could never be so unkind as to think of going, Arthur--I mean +Mr Arthur--or I suppose Mr Clennam would be far more proper--but I +am sure I don't know what I am saying--without a word about the +dear old days gone for ever, when I come to think of it I dare say +it would be much better not to speak of them and it's highly +probable that you have some much more agreeable engagement and pray +let Me be the last person in the world to interfere with it though +there was a time, but I am running into nonsense again.' + +Was it possible that Flora could have been such a chatterer in the +days she referred to? Could there have been anything like her +present disjointed volubility in the fascinations that had +captivated him? + +'Indeed I have little doubt,' said Flora, running on with +astonishing speed, and pointing her conversation with nothing but +commas, and very few of them, 'that you are married to some Chinese +lady, being in China so long and being in business and naturally +desirous to settle and extend your connection nothing was more +likely than that you should propose to a Chinese lady and nothing +was more natural I am sure than that the Chinese lady should accept +you and think herself very well off too, I only hope she's not a +Pagodian dissenter.' + +'I am not,' returned Arthur, smiling in spite of himself, 'married +to any lady, Flora.' + +'Oh good gracious me I hope you never kept yourself a bachelor so +long on my account!' tittered Flora; 'but of course you never did +why should you, pray don't answer, I don't know where I'm running +to, oh do tell me something about the Chinese ladies whether their +eyes are really so long and narrow always putting me in mind of +mother-of-pearl fish at cards and do they really wear tails down +their back and plaited too or is it only the men, and when they +pull their hair so very tight off their foreheads don't they hurt +themselves, and why do they stick little bells all over their +bridges and temples and hats and things or don't they really do +it?' Flora gave him another of her old glances. Instantly she +went on again, as if he had spoken in reply for some time. + +'Then it's all true and they really do! good gracious Arthur!-- +pray excuse me--old habit--Mr Clennam far more proper--what a +country to live in for so long a time, and with so many lanterns +and umbrellas too how very dark and wet the climate ought to be and +no doubt actually is, and the sums of money that must be made by +those two trades where everybody carries them and hangs them +everywhere, the little shoes too and the feet screwed back in +infancy is quite surprising, what a traveller you are!' + +In his ridiculous distress, Clennam received another of the old +glances without in the least knowing what to do with it. + +'Dear dear,' said Flora, 'only to think of the changes at home +Arthur--cannot overcome it, and seems so natural, Mr Clennam far +more proper--since you became familiar with the Chinese customs and +language which I am persuaded you speak like a Native if not better +for you were always quick and clever though immensely difficult no +doubt, I am sure the tea chests alone would kill me if I tried, +such changes Arthur--I am doing it again, seems so natural, most +improper--as no one could have believed, who could have ever +imagined Mrs Finching when I can't imagine it myself!' + +'Is that your married name?' asked Arthur, struck, in the midst of +all this, by a certain warmth of heart that expressed itself in her +tone when she referred, however oddly, to the youthful relation in +which they had stood to one another. 'Finching?' + +'Finching oh yes isn't it a dreadful name, but as Mr F. said when +he proposed to me which he did seven times and handsomely consented +I must say to be what he used to call on liking twelve months, +after all, he wasn't answerable for it and couldn't help it could +he, Excellent man, not at all like you but excellent man!' + +Flora had at last talked herself out of breath for one moment. One +moment; for she recovered breath in the act of raising a minute +corner of her pocket-handkerchief to her eye, as a tribute to the +ghost of the departed Mr F., and began again. + +'No one could dispute, Arthur--Mr Clennam--that it's quite right +you should be formally friendly to me under the altered +circumstances and indeed you couldn't be anything else, at least I +suppose not you ought to know, but I can't help recalling that +there was a time when things were very different.' + +'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur began, struck by the good tone +again. + +'Oh not that nasty ugly name, say Flora!' + +'Flora. I assure you, Flora, I am happy in seeing you once more, +and in finding that, like me, you have not forgotten the old +foolish dreams, when we saw all before us in the light of our youth +and hope.' + +'You don't seem so,' pouted Flora, 'you take it very coolly, but +however I know you are disappointed in me, I suppose the Chinese +ladies--Mandarinesses if you call them so--are the cause or perhaps +I am the cause myself, it's just as likely.' + +'No, no,' Clennam entreated, 'don't say that.' + +'Oh I must you know,' said Flora, in a positive tone, 'what +nonsense not to, I know I am not what you expected, I know that +very well.' + +In the midst of her rapidity, she had found that out with the quick +perception of a cleverer woman. The inconsistent and profoundly +unreasonable way in which she instantly went on, nevertheless, to +interweave their long-abandoned boy and girl relations with their +present interview, made Clennam feel as if he were light-headed. + +'One remark,' said Flora, giving their conversation, without the +slightest notice and to the great terror of Clennam, the tone of a +love-quarrel, 'I wish to make, one explanation I wish to offer, +when your Mama came and made a scene of it with my Papa and when I +was called down into the little breakfast-room where they were +looking at one another with your Mama's parasol between them seated +on two chairs like mad bulls what was I to do?' + +'My dear Mrs Finching,' urged Clennam--'all so long ago and so long +concluded, is it worth while seriously to--' + +'I can't Arthur,' returned Flora, 'be denounced as heartless by the +whole society of China without setting myself right when I have the +opportunity of doing so, and you must be very well aware that there +was Paul and Virginia which had to be returned and which was +returned without note or comment, not that I mean to say you could +have written to me watched as I was but if it had only come back +with a red wafer on the cover I should have known that it meant +Come to Pekin Nankeen and What's the third place, barefoot.' + +'My dear Mrs Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed +you. We were both too young, too dependent and helpless, to do +anything but accept our separation.--Pray think how long ago,' +gently remonstrated Arthur. +'One more remark,' proceeded Flora with unslackened volubility, 'I +wish to make, one more explanation I wish to offer, for five days +I had a cold in the head from crying which I passed entirely in the +back drawing-room--there is the back drawing-room still on the +first floor and still at the back of the house to confirm my +words--when that dreary period had passed a lull succeeded years +rolled on and Mr F. became acquainted with us at a mutual friend's, +he was all attention he called next day he soon began to call three +evenings a week and to send in little things for supper it was not +love on Mr F.'s part it was adoration, Mr F. proposed with the full +approval of Papa and what could I do?' + +'Nothing whatever,' said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, +'but what you did. Let an old friend assure you of his full +conviction that you did quite right.' + +'One last remark,' proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with +a wave of her hand, 'I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to +offer, there was a time ere Mr F. first paid attentions incapable +of being mistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr +Clennam you no longer wear a golden chain you are free I trust you +may be happy, here is Papa who is always tiresome and putting in +his nose everywhere where he is not wanted.' + +With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid +caution--such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in +the old time--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a +long long way behind again; and came to a full stop at last. + +Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age +behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; +thus making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover +contemplated with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and +his sense of the comical were curiously blended. + +For example. As if there were a secret understanding between +herself and Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first +of a train of post-chaises and four, extending all the way to +Scotland, were at that moment round the corner; and as if she +couldn't (and wouldn't) have walked into the Parish Church with +him, under the shade of the family umbrella, with the Patriarchal +blessing on her head, and the perfect concurrence of all mankind; +Flora comforted her soul with agonies of mysterious signalling, +expressing dread of discovery. With the sensation of becoming more +and more light-headed every minute, Clennam saw the relict of the +late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner, by +putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all +the old performances--now, when the stage was dusty, when the +scenery was faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the +orchestra was empty, when the lights were out. And still, through +all this grotesque revival of what he remembered as having once +been prettily natural to her, he could not but feel that it revived +at sight of him, and that there was a tender memory in it. + +The Patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Flora +signalled 'Yes!' Clennam so wished he could have done more than +stay to dinner--so heartily wished he could have found the Flora +that had been, or that never had been--that he thought the least +atonement he could make for the disappointment he almost felt +ashamed of, was to give himself up to the family desire. +Therefore, he stayed to dinner. + +Pancks dined with them. Pancks steamed out of his little dock at +a quarter before six, and bore straight down for the Patriarch, who +happened to be then driving, in an inane manner, through a stagnant +account of Bleeding Heart Yard. Pancks instantly made fast to him +and hauled him out. + +'Bleeding Heart Yard?' said Pancks, with a puff and a snort. 'It's +a troublesome property. Don't pay you badly, but rents are very +hard to get there. You have more trouble with that one place than +with all the places belonging to you.' + +just as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, +of being the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to +have said himself whatever Pancks said for him. + +'Indeed?' returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so +efficiently made by a mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke +the ship instead of the Tug. 'The people are so poor there?' + +'You can't say, you know,' snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty +hands out of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he +could find any, and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, +'whether they're poor or not. They say they are, but they all say +that. When a man says he's rich, you're generally sure he isn't. +Besides, if they ARE poor, you can't help it. You'd be poor +yourself if you didn't get your rents.' + +'True enough,' said Arthur. + +'You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London,' +pursued Pancks. 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. +You're not going to open your gates wide and let 'em come free. +Not if you know it, you ain't.' + +Mr Casby shook his head, in Placid and benignant generality. + +'If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the +week comes round hasn't got the half-crown, you say to that man, +Why have you got the room, then? If you haven't got the one thing, +why have you got the other? What have you been and done with your +money? What do you mean by it? What are you up to? That's what +YOU say to a man of that sort; and if you didn't say it, more shame +for you!' Mr Pancks here made a singular and startling noise, +produced by a strong blowing effort in the region of the nose, +unattended by any result but that acoustic one. + +'You have some extent of such property about the east and north- +east here, I believe?' said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to +address. + +'Oh, pretty well,' said Pancks. 'You're not particular to east or +north-east, any point of the compass will do for you. What you +want is a good investment and a quick return. You take it where +you can find it. You ain't nice as to situation--not you.' + +There was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal +tent, who also appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little +old woman, with a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for +expression, and a stiff yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of +her head, as if the child who owned the doll had driven a tack +through it anywhere, so that it only got fastened on. Another +remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that the same child +seemed to have damaged her face in two or three places with some +blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon; her countenance, and +particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the phenomena of +several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that article. A +further remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that she had +no name but Mr F.'s Aunt. + +She broke upon the visitor's view under the following +circumstances: Flora said when the first dish was being put on the +table, perhaps Mr Clennam might not have heard that Mr F. had left +her a legacy? Clennam in return implied his hope that Mr F. had +endowed the wife whom he adored, with the greater part of his +worldly substance, if not with all. Flora said, oh yes, she didn't +mean that, Mr F. had made a beautiful will, but he had left her as +a separate legacy, his Aunt. She then went out of the room to +fetch the legacy, and, on her return, rather triumphantly presented +'Mr F.'s Aunt.' + +The major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr F.'s +Aunt, were extreme severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes +interrupted by a propensity to offer remarks in a deep warning +voice, which, being totally uncalled for by anything said by +anybody, and traceable to no association of ideas, confounded and +terrified the Mind. Mr F.'s Aunt may have thrown in these +observations on some system of her own, and it may have been +ingenious, or even subtle: but the key to it was wanted. +The neatly-served and well-cooked dinner (for everything about the +Patriarchal household promoted quiet digestion) began with some +soup, some fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish +of potatoes. The conversation still turned on the receipt of +rents. Mr F.'s Aunt, after regarding the company for ten minutes +with a malevolent gaze, delivered the following fearful remark: + +'When we lived at Henley, Barnes's gander was stole by tinkers.' +Mr Pancks courageously nodded his head and said, 'All right, +ma'am.' But the effect of this mysterious communication upon +Clennam was absolutely to frighten him. And another circumstance +invested this old lady with peculiar terrors. Though she was +always staring, she never acknowledged that she saw any individual. + +The polite and attentive stranger would desire, say, to consult her +inclinations on the subject of potatoes. His expressive action +would be hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he do? No man +could say, 'Mr F.'s Aunt, will you permit me?' Every man retired +from the spoon, as Clennam did, cowed and baffled. + +There was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie--nothing in the +remotest way connected with ganders--and the dinner went on like a +disenchanted feast, as it truly was. Once upon a time Clennam had +sat at that table taking no heed of anything but Flora; now the +principal heed he took of Flora was to observe, against his will, +that she was very fond of porter, that she combined a great deal of +sherry with sentiment, and that if she were a little overgrown, it +was upon substantial grounds. The last of the Patriarchs had +always been a mighty eater, and he disposed of an immense quantity +of solid food with the benignity of a good soul who was feeding +some one else. Mr Pancks, who was always in a hurry, and who +referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he kept +beside him (perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant +to look up by way of dessert), took in his victuals much as if he +were coaling; with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping +about, and a puff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly +ready to steam away. + +All through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating +and drinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way +that made Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he +could not look towards her without receiving some glance of +mysterious meaning or warning, as if they were engaged in a plot. +Mr F.'s Aunt sat silently defying him with an aspect of the +greatest bitterness, until the removal of the cloth and the +appearance of the decanters, when she originated another +observation--struck into the conversation like a clock, without +consulting anybody. + +Flora had just said, 'Mr Clennam, will you give me a glass of port +for Mr F.'s Aunt?' + +'The Monument near London Bridge,' that lady instantly proclaimed, +'was put up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of +London was not the fire in which your uncle George's workshops was +burned down.' + +Mr Pancks, with his former courage, said, 'Indeed, ma'am? All +right!' But appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction, +or other ill-usage, Mr F.'s Aunt, instead of relapsing into +silence, made the following additional proclamation: + +'I hate a fool!' + +She imparted to this sentiment, in itself almost Solomonic, so +extremely injurious and personal a character by levelling it +straight at the visitor's head, that it became necessary to lead Mr +F.'s Aunt from the room. This was quietly done by Flora; Mr F.'s +Aunt offering no resistance, but inquiring on her way out, 'What he +come there for, then?' with implacable animosity. + +When Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever old +lady, but was sometimes a little singular, and 'took dislikes'-- +peculiarities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather than +otherwise. As Flora's good nature shone in the case, Clennam had +no fault to find with the old lady for eliciting it, now that he +was relieved from the terrors of her presence; and they took a +glass or two of wine in peace. Foreseeing then that the Pancks +would shortly get under weigh, and that the Patriarch would go to +sleep, he pleaded the necessity of visiting his mother, and asked +Mr Pancks in which direction he was going? + +'Citywards, sir,' said Pancks. +'Shall we walk together?' said Arthur. + +'Quite agreeable,' said Pancks. + +Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that +there was a time and that the past was a yawning gulf however and +that a golden chain no longer bound him and that she revered the +memory of the late Mr F. and that she should be at home to-morrow +at half-past one and that the decrees of Fate were beyond recall +and that she considered nothing so improbable as that he ever +walked on the north-west side of Gray's-Inn Gardens at exactly four +o'clock in the afternoon. He tried at parting to give his hand in +frankness to the existing Flora--not the vanished Flora, or the +mermaid--but Flora wouldn't have it, couldn't have it, was wholly +destitute of the power of separating herself and him from their +bygone characters. He left the house miserably enough; and so much +more light-headed than ever, that if it had not been his good +fortune to be towed away, he might, for the first quarter of an +hour, have drifted anywhere. + +When he began to come to himself, in the cooler air and the absence +of Flora, he found Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty +pasturage of nails as he could find, and snorting at intervals. +These, in conjunction with one hand in his pocket and his roughened +hat hind side before, were evidently the conditions under which he +reflected. + +'A fresh night!' said Arthur. + +'Yes, it's pretty fresh,' assented Pancks. 'As a stranger you feel +the climate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven't got time +to feel it.' + +'You lead such a busy life?' + +'Yes, I have always some of 'em to look up, or something to look +after. But I like business,' said Pancks, getting on a little +faster. 'What's a man made for?' + +'For nothing else?' said Clennam. + +Pancks put the counter question, 'What else?' It packed up, in the +smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam's life; and +he made no answer. + +'That's what I ask our weekly tenants,' said Pancks. 'Some of 'em +will pull long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, +we're always grinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we're awake. + +I say to them, What else are you made for? It shuts them up. They +haven't a word to answer. What else are you made for? That +clinches it.' + +'Ah dear, dear, dear!' sighed Clennam. + +'Here am I,' said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly +tenant. 'What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. + +Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time +as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always +at it, and I'll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else +always at it. There you are with the Whole Duty of Man in a +commercial country.' + +When they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: +'Have you no taste for anything, Mr Pancks?' + +'What's taste?' drily retorted Pancks. + +'Let us say inclination.' + +'I have an inclination to get money, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you +will show me how.' He blew off that sound again, and it occurred +to his companion for the first time that it was his way of +laughing. He was a singular man in all respects; he might not have +been quite in earnest, but that the short, hard, rapid manner in +which he shot out these cinders of principles, as if it were done +by mechanical revolvency, seemed irreconcilable with banter. + +'You are no great reader, I suppose?' said Clennam. + +'Never read anything but letters and accounts. Never collect +anything but advertisements relative to next of kin. If that's a +taste, I have got that. You're not of the Clennams of Cornwall, Mr +Clennam?' + +'Not that I ever heard of.' +'I know you're not. I asked your mother, sir. She has too much +character to let a chance escape her.' + +'Supposing I had been of the Clennams of Cornwall?' +'You'd have heard of something to your advantage.' + +'Indeed! I have heard of little enough to my advantage for some +time.' + +'There's a Cornish property going a begging, sir, and not a Cornish +Clennam to have it for the asking,' said Pancks, taking his note- +book from his breast pocket and putting it in again. 'I turn off +here. I wish you good night.' + +'Good night!' said Clennam. But the Tug, suddenly lightened, and +untrammelled by having any weight in tow, was already puffing away +into the distance. + +They had crossed Smithfield together, and Clennam was left alone at +the corner of Barbican. He had no intention of presenting himself +in his mother's dismal room that night, and could not have felt +more depressed and cast away if he had been in a wilderness. He +turned slowly down Aldersgate Street, and was pondering his way +along towards Saint Paul's, purposing to come into one of the great +thoroughfares for the sake of their light and life, when a crowd of +people flocked towards him on the same pavement, and he stood aside +against a shop to let them pass. As they came up, he made out that +they were gathered around a something that was carried on men's +shoulders. He soon saw that it was a litter, hastily made of a +shutter or some such thing; and a recumbent figure upon it, and the +scraps of conversation in the crowd, and a muddy bundle carried by +one man, and a muddy hat carried by another, informed him that an +accident had occurred. The litter stopped under a lamp before it +had passed him half-a-dozen paces, for some readjustment of the +burden; and, the crowd stopping too, he found himself in the midst +of the array. + +'An accident going to the Hospital?' he asked an old man beside +him, who stood shaking his head, inviting conversation. + +'Yes,' said the man, 'along of them Mails. They ought to be +prosecuted and fined, them Mails. They come a racing out of Lad +Lane and Wood Street at twelve or fourteen mile a hour, them Mails +do. The only wonder is, that people ain't killed oftener by them +Mails.' + +'This person is not killed, I hope?' + +'I don't know!' said the man, 'it an't for the want of a will in +them Mails, if he an't.' The speaker having folded his arms, and +set in comfortably to address his depreciation of them Mails to any +of the bystanders who would listen, several voices, out of pure +sympathy with the sufferer, confirmed him; one voice saying to +Clennam, 'They're a public nuisance, them Mails, sir;' another, 'I +see one on 'em pull up within half a inch of a boy, last night;' +another, 'I see one on 'em go over a cat, sir--and it might have +been your own mother;' and all representing, by implication, that +if he happened to possess any public influence, he could not use it +better than against them Mails. + +'Why, a native Englishman is put to it every night of his life, to +save his life from them Mails,' argued the first old man; 'and he +knows when they're a coming round the corner, to tear him limb from +limb. What can you expect from a poor foreigner who don't know +nothing about 'em!' + +'Is this a foreigner?' said Clennam, leaning forward to look. + +In the midst of such replies as 'Frenchman, sir,' 'Porteghee, sir,' +'Dutchman, sir,' 'Prooshan, sir,' and other conflicting testimony, +he now heard a feeble voice asking, both in Italian and in French, +for water. A general remark going round, in reply, of 'Ah, poor +fellow, he says he'll never get over it; and no wonder!' Clennam +begged to be allowed to pass, as he understood the poor creature. +He was immediately handed to the front, to speak to him. + +'First, he wants some water,' said he, looking round. (A dozen +good fellows dispersed to get it.) 'Are you badly hurt, my friend?' +he asked the man on the litter, in Italian. + +'Yes, sir; yes, yes, yes. It's my leg, it's my leg. But it +pleases me to hear the old music, though I am very bad.' + +'You are a traveller! Stay! See, the water! Let me give you +some.' They had rested the litter on a pile of paving stones. It +was at a convenient height from the ground, and by stooping he +could lightly raise the head with one hand and hold the glass to +his lips with the other. A little, muscular, brown man, with black +hair and white teeth. A lively face, apparently. Earrings in his +ears. + +'That's well. You are a traveller?' + +'Surely, sir.' + +'A stranger in this city?' + +'Surely, surely, altogether. I am arrived this unhappy evening.' + +'From what country?' +'Marseilles.' + +'Why, see there! I also! Almost as much a stranger here as you, +though born here, I came from Marseilles a little while ago. Don't +be cast down.' The face looked up at him imploringly, as he rose +from wiping it, and gently replaced the coat that covered the +writhing figure. 'I won't leave you till you shall be well taken +care of. Courage! You will be very much better half an hour +hence.' + +'Ah! Altro, Altro!' cried the poor little man, in a faintly +incredulous tone; and as they took him up, hung out his right hand +to give the forefinger a back-handed shake in the air. + +Arthur Clennam turned; and walking beside the litter, and saying an +encouraging word now and then, accompanied it to the neighbouring +hospital of Saint Bartholomew. None of the crowd but the bearers +and he being admitted, the disabled man was soon laid on a table in +a cool, methodical way, and carefully examined by a surgeon who was +as near at hand, and as ready to appear as Calamity herself. 'He +hardly knows an English word,' said Clennam; 'is he badly hurt?' + +'Let us know all about it first,' said the surgeon, continuing his +examination with a businesslike delight in it, 'before we +pronounce.' + +After trying the leg with a finger, and two fingers, and one hand +and two hands, and over and under, and up and down, and in this +direction and in that, and approvingly remarking on the points of +interest to another gentleman who joined him, the surgeon at last +clapped the patient on the shoulder, and said, 'He won't hurt. +He'll do very well. It's difficult enough, but we shall not want +him to part with his leg this time.' Which Clennam interpreted to +the patient, who was full of gratitude, and, in his demonstrative +way, kissed both the interpreter's hand and the surgeon's several +times. + +'It's a serious injury, I suppose?' said Clennam. + +'Ye-es,' replied the surgeon, with the thoughtful pleasure of an +artist contemplating the work upon his easel. 'Yes, it's enough. +There's a compound fracture above the knee, and a dislocation +below. They are both of a beautiful kind.' He gave the patient a +friendly clap on the shoulder again, as if he really felt that he +was a very good fellow indeed, and worthy of all commendation for +having broken his leg in a manner interesting to science. + +'He speaks French?' said the surgeon. + +'Oh yes, he speaks French.' + +'He'll be at no loss here, then.--You have only to bear a little +pain like a brave fellow, my friend, and to be thankful that all +goes as well as it does,' he added, in that tongue, 'and you'll +walk again to a marvel. Now, let us see whether there's anything +else the matter, and how our ribs are?' + +There was nothing else the matter, and our ribs were sound. +Clennam remained until everything possible to be done had been +skilfully and promptly done--the poor belated wanderer in a strange +land movingly besought that favour of him--and lingered by the bed +to which he was in due time removed, until he had fallen into a +doze. Even then he wrote a few words for him on his card, with a +promise to return to-morrow, and left it to be given to him when he +should awake. +All these proceedings occupied so long that it struck eleven +o'clock at night as he came out at the Hospital Gate. He had hired +a lodging for the present in Covent Garden, and he took the nearest +way to that quarter, by Snow Hill and Holborn. + +Left to himself again, after the solicitude and compassion of his +last adventure, he was naturally in a thoughtful mood. As +naturally, he could not walk on thinking for ten minutes without +recalling Flora. She necessarily recalled to him his life, with +all its misdirection and little happiness. + +When he got to his lodging, he sat down before the dying fire, as +he had stood at the window of his old room looking out upon the +blackened forest of chimneys, and turned his gaze back upon the +gloomy vista by which he had come to that stage in his existence. +So long, so bare, so blank. No childhood; no youth, except for one +remembrance; that one remembrance proved, only that day, to be a +piece of folly. + +It was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to +another. For, while all that was hard and stern in his +recollection, remained Reality on being proved--was obdurate to the +sight and touch, and relaxed nothing of its old indomitable +grimness--the one tender recollection of his experience would not +bear the same test, and melted away. He had foreseen this, on the +former night, when he had dreamed with waking eyes. but he had not +felt it then; and he had now. + +He was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had, deep- +rooted in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things +his life had been without. Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this +had rescued him to be a man of honourable mind and open hand. Bred +in coldness and severity, this had rescued him to have a warm and +sympathetic heart. Bred in a creed too darkly audacious to pursue, +through its process of reserving the making of man in the image of +his Creator to the making of his Creator in the image of an erring +man, this had rescued him to judge not, and in humility to be +merciful, and have hope and charity. + +And this saved him still from the whimpering weakness and cruel +selfishness of holding that because such a happiness or such a +virtue had not come into his little path, or worked well for him, +therefore it was not in the great scheme, but was reducible, when +found in appearance, to the basest elements. A disappointed mind +he had, but a mind too firm and healthy for such unwholesome air. +Leaving himself in the dark, it could rise into the light, seeing +it shine on others and hailing it. + +Therefore, he sat before his dying fire, sorrowful to think upon +the way by which he had come to that night, yet not strewing poison +on the way by which other men had come to it. That he should have +missed so much, and at his time of life should look so far about +him for any staff to bear him company upon his downward journey and +cheer it, was a just regret. He looked at the fire from which the +blaze departed, from which the afterglow subsided, in which the +ashes turned grey, from which they dropped to dust, and thought, +'How soon I too shall pass through such changes, and be gone!' + +To review his life was like descending a green tree in fruit and +flower, and seeing all the branches wither and drop off, one by +one, as he came down towards them. + +'From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the +rigid and unloving home that followed them, through my departure, +my long exile, my return, my mother's welcome, my intercourse with +her since, down to the afternoon of this day with poor Flora,' said +Arthur Clennam, 'what have I found!' + +His door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, +and came as if they were an answer: + +'Little Dorrit.' + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + +Little Dorrit's Party + + +Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door. +This history must sometimes see with Little Dorrit's eyes, and +shall begin that course by seeing him. + +Little Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one +to her, and grandly furnished. Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as +a place with famous coffee-houses, where gentlemen wearing gold- +laced coats and swords had quarrelled and fought duels; costly +ideas of Covent Garden, as a place where there were flowers in +winter at guineas a-piece, pine-apples at guineas a pound, and peas +at guineas a pint; picturesque ideas of Covent Garden, as a place +where there was a mighty theatre, showing wonderful and beautiful +sights to richly-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and which was for +ever far beyond the reach of poor Fanny or poor uncle; desolate +ideas of Covent Garden, as having all those arches in it, where the +miserable children in rags among whom she had just now passed, like +young rats, slunk and hid, fed on offal, huddled together for +warmth, and were hunted about (look to the rats young and old, all +ye Barnacles, for before God they are eating away our foundations, +and will bring the roofs on our heads!); teeming ideas of Covent +Garden, as a place of past and present mystery, romance, abundance, +want, beauty, ugliness, fair country gardens, and foul street +gutters; all confused together,--made the room dimmer than it was +in Little Dorrit's eyes, as they timidly saw it from the door. + +At first in the chair before the gone-out fire, and then turned +round wondering to see her, was the gentleman whom she sought. The +brown, grave gentleman, who smiled so pleasantly, who was so frank +and considerate in his manner, and yet in whose earnestness there +was something that reminded her of his mother, with the great +difference that she was earnest in asperity and he in gentleness. +Now he regarded her with that attentive and inquiring look before +which Little Dorrit's eyes had always fallen, and before which they +fell still. + +'My poor child! Here at midnight?' + +'I said Little Dorrit, sir, on purpose to prepare you. I knew you +must be very much surprised.' + +'Are you alone?' + +'No sir, I have got Maggy with me.' + +Considering her entrance sufficiently prepared for by this mention +of her name, Maggy appeared from the landing outside, on the broad +grin. She instantly suppressed that manifestation, however, and +became fixedly solemn. + +'And I have no fire,' said Clennam. 'And you are--' He was going +to say so lightly clad, but stopped himself in what would have been +a reference to her poverty, saying instead, 'And it is so cold.' + +Putting the chair from which he had risen nearer to the grate, he +made her sit down in it; and hurriedly bringing wood and coal, +heaped them together and got a blaze. + +'Your foot is like marble, my child;' he had happened to touch it, +while stooping on one knee at his work of kindling the fire; 'put +it nearer the warmth.' Little Dorrit thanked him hastily. It was +quite warm, it was very warm! It smote upon his heart to feel that +she hid her thin, worn shoe. + +Little Dorrit was not ashamed of her poor shoes. He knew her +story, and it was not that. Little Dorrit had a misgiving that he +might blame her father, if he saw them; that he might think, 'why +did he dine to-day, and leave this little creature to the mercy of +the cold stones!' She had no belief that it would have been a just +reflection; she simply knew, by experience, that such delusions did +sometimes present themselves to people. It was a part of her +father's misfortunes that they did. + +'Before I say anything else,' Little Dorrit began, sitting before +the pale fire, and raising her eyes again to the face which in its +harmonious look of interest, and pity, and protection, she felt to +be a mystery far above her in degree, and almost removed beyond her +guessing at; 'may I tell you something, sir?' + +'Yes, my child.' +A slight shade of distress fell upon her, at his so often calling +her a child. She was surprised that he should see it, or think of +such a slight thing; but he said directly: +'I wanted a tender word, and could think of no other. As you just +now gave yourself the name they give you at my mother's, and as +that is the name by which I always think of you, let me call you +Little Dorrit.' + +'Thank you, sir, I should like it better than any name.' + +'Little Dorrit.' + +'Little mother,' Maggy (who had been falling asleep) put in, as a +correction. + +'It's all the same, MaggY,' returned Little Dorrit, 'all the same.' + +'Is it all the same, mother?' + +'Just the same.' + +Maggy laughed, and immediately snored. In Little Dorrit's eyes and +ears, the uncouth figure and the uncouth sound were as pleasant as +could be. There was a glow of pride in her big child, +overspreading her face, when it again met the eyes of the grave +brown gentleman. She wondered what he was thinking of, as he +looked at Maggy and her. She thought what a good father he would +be. How, with some such look, he would counsel and cherish his +daughter. + +'What I was going to tell you, sir,' said Little Dorrit, 'is, that +MY brother is at large.' + +Arthur was rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he would do well. + +'And what I was going to tell you, sir,' said Little Dorrit, +trembling in all her little figure and in her voice, 'is, that I am +not to know whose generosity released him--am never to ask, and am +never to be told, and am never to thank that gentleman with all MY +grateful heart!' + +He would probably need no thanks, Clennam said. Very likely he +would be thankful himself (and with reason), that he had had the +means and chance of doing a little service to her, who well +deserved a great one. + +'And what I was going to say, sir, is,' said Little Dorrit, +trembling more and more, 'that if I knew him, and I might, I would +tell him that he can never, never know how I feel his goodness, and +how my good father would feel it. And what I was going to say, +sir, is, that if I knew him, and I might--but I don't know him and +I must not--I know that!--I would tell him that I shall never any +more lie down to sleep without having prayed to Heaven to bless him +and reward him. And if I knew him, and I might, I would go down on +my knees to him, and take his hand and kiss it and ask him not to +draw it away, but to leave it--O to leave it for a moment--and let +my thankful tears fall on it; for I have no other thanks to give +him!' + +Little Dorrit had put his hand to her lips, and would have kneeled +to him, but he gently prevented her, and replaced her in her chair. + +Her eyes, and the tones of her voice, had thanked him far better +than she thought. He was not able to say, quite as composedly as +usual, 'There, Little Dorrit, there, there, there! We will suppose +that you did know this person, and that you might do all this, and +that it was all done. And now tell me, Who am quite another +person--who am nothing more than the friend who begged you to trust +him--why you are out at midnight, and what it is that brings you so +far through the streets at this late hour, my slight, delicate,' +child was on his lips again, 'Little Dorrit!' + +'Maggy and I have been to-night,' she answered, subduing herself +with the quiet effort that had long been natural to her, 'to the +theatre where my sister is engaged.' + +'And oh ain't it a Ev'nly place,' suddenly interrupted Maggy, who +seemed to have the power of going to sleep and waking up whenever +she chose. 'Almost as good as a hospital. Only there ain't no +Chicking in it.' + +Here she shook herself, and fell asleep again. + +'We went there,' said Little Dorrit, glancing at her charge, +'because I like sometimes to know, of my own knowledge, that my +sister is doing well; and like to see her there, with my own eyes, +when neither she nor Uncle is aware. It is very seldom indeed that +I can do that, because when I am not out at work, I am with my +father, and even when I am out at work, I hurry home to him. But +I pretend to-night that I am at a party.' + +As she made the confession, timidly hesitating, she raised her eyes +to the face, and read its expression so plainly that she answered +it. 'Oh no, certainly! I never was at a party in my life.' She +paused a little under his attentive look, and then said, 'I hope +there is no harm in it. I could never have been of any use, if I +had not pretended a little.' + +She feared that he was blaming her in his mind for so devising to +contrive for them, think for them, and watch over them, without +their knowledge or gratitude; perhaps even with their reproaches +for supposed neglect. But what was really in his mind, was the +weak figure with its strong purpose, the thin worn shoes, the +insufficient dress, and the pretence of recreation and enjoyment. +He asked where the suppositious party was? At a place where she +worked, answered Little Dorrit, blushing. She had said very little +about it; only a few words to make her father easy. Her father did +not believe it to be a grand party--indeed he might suppose that. +And she glanced for an instant at the shawl she wore. + +'It is the first night,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I have ever been +away from home. And London looks so large, so barren, and so +wild.' In Little Dorrit's eyes, its vastness under the black sky +was awful; a tremor passed over her as she said the words. + +'But this is not,' she added, with the quiet effort again, 'what I +have come to trouble you with, sir. My sister's having found a +friend, a lady she has told me of and made me rather anxious about, +was the first cause of my coming away from home. And being away, +and coming (on purpose) round by where you lived and seeing a light +in the window--' + +Not for the first time. No, not for the first time. In Little +Dorrit's eyes, the outside of that window had been a distant star +on other nights than this. She had toiled out of her way, tired +and troubled, to look up at it, and wonder about the grave, brown +gentleman from so far off, who had spoken to her as a friend and +protector. + +'There were three things,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I thought I +would like to say, if you were alone and I might come up-stairs. +First, what I have tried to say, but never can--never shall--' + +'Hush, hush! That is done with, and disposed of. Let us pass to +the second,' said Clennam, smiling her agitation away, making the +blaze shine upon her, and putting wine and cake and fruit towards +her on the table. + +'I think,' said Little Dorrit--'this is the second thing, sir--I +think Mrs Clennam must have found out my secret, and must know +where I come from and where I go to. Where I live, I mean.' + +'Indeed!' returned Clennam quickly. He asked her, after short +consideration, why she supposed so. + +'I think,' replied Little Dorrit, 'that Mr Flintwinch must have +watched me.' + +And why, Clennam asked, as he turned his eyes upon the fire, bent +his brows, and considered again; why did she suppose that? + +'I have met him twice. Both times near home. Both times at night, +when I was going back. Both times I thought (though that may +easily be my mistake), that he hardly looked as if he had met me by +accident.' +'Did he say anything?' + +'No; he only nodded and put his head on one side.' + +'The devil take his head!' mused Clennam, still looking at the +fire; 'it's always on one side.' +He roused himself to persuade her to put some wine to her lips, and +to touch something to eat--it was very difficult, she was so timid +and shy--and then said, musing again: +'Is my mother at all changed to you?' + +'Oh, not at all. She is just the same. I wondered whether I had +better tell her my history. I wondered whether I might--I mean, +whether you would like me to tell her. I wondered,' said Little +Dorrit, looking at him in a suppliant way, and gradually +withdrawing her eyes as he looked at her, 'whether you would advise +me what I ought to do.' + +'Little Dorrit,' said Clennam; and the phrase had already begun, +between these two, to stand for a hundred gentle phrases, according +to the varying tone and connection in which it was used; 'do +nothing. I will have some talk with my old friend, Mrs Affery. Do +nothing, Little Dorrit--except refresh yourself with such means as +there are here. I entreat you to do that.' + +'Thank you, I am not hungry. Nor,' said Little Dorrit, as he +softly put her glass towards her, 'nor thirsty.--I think Maggy +might like something, perhaps.' + +'We will make her find pockets presently for all there is here,' +said Clennam: 'but before we awake her, there was a third thing to +say.' + +'Yes. You will not be offended, sir?' + +'I promise that, unreservedly.' + +'It will sound strange. I hardly know how to say it. Don't think +it unreasonable or ungrateful in me,' said Little Dorrit, with +returning and increasing agitation. + +'No, no, no. I am sure it will be natural and right. I am not +afraid that I shall put a wrong construction on it, whatever it +is.' + +'Thank you. You are coming back to see my father again?' + +'Yes.' + +'You have been so good and thoughtful as to write him a note, +saying that you are coming to-morrow?' + +'Oh, that was nothing! Yes.' + +'Can you guess,' said Little Dorrit, folding her small hands tight +in one another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her +soul looking steadily out of her eyes, 'what I am going to ask you +not to do?' + +'I think I can. But I may be wrong.' +'No, you are not wrong,' said Little Dorrit, shaking her head. 'If +we should want it so very, very badly that we cannot do without it, +let me ask you for it.' + +'I Will,--I Will.' + +'Don't encourage him to ask. Don't understand him if he does ask. +Don't give it to him. Save him and spare him that, and you will be +able to think better of him!' + +Clennam said--not very plainly, seeing those tears glistening in +her anxious eyes--that her wish should be sacred with him. + +'You don't know what he is,' she said; 'you don't know what he +really is. How can you, seeing him there all at once, dear love, +and not gradually, as I have done! You have been so good to us, so +delicately and truly good, that I want him to be better in your +eyes than in anybody's. And I cannot bear to think,' cried Little +Dorrit, covering her tears with her hands, 'I cannot bear to think +that you of all the world should see him in his only moments of +degradation.' + +'Pray,' said Clennam, 'do not be so distressed. Pray, pray, Little +Dorrit! This is quite understood now.' + +'Thank you, sir. Thank you! I have tried very much to keep myself +from saying this; I have thought about it, days and nights; but +when I knew for certain you were coming again, I made up my mind to +speak to you. Not because I am ashamed of him,' she dried her +tears quickly, 'but because I know him better than any one does, +and love him, and am proud of him.' + +Relieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be +gone. Maggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly +gloating over the fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, +Clennam made the best diversion in his power by pouring her out a +glass of wine, which she drank in a series of loud smacks; putting +her hand upon her windpipe after every one, and saying, breathless, +with her eyes in a prominent state, 'Oh, ain't it d'licious! Ain't +it hospitally!' When she had finished the wine and these +encomiums, he charged her to load her basket (she was never without +her basket) with every eatable thing upon the table, and to take +especial care to leave no scrap behind. Maggy's pleasure in doing +this and her little mother's pleasure in seeing Maggy pleased, was +as good a turn as circumstances could have given to the late +conversation. + +'But the gates will have been locked long ago,' said Clennam, +suddenly remembering it. 'Where are you going?' + +'I am going to Maggy's lodging,' answered Little Dorrit. 'I shall +be quite safe, quite well taken care of.' + +'I must accompany you there,' said Clennam, 'I cannot let you go +alone.' + +'Yes, pray leave us to go there by ourselves. Pray do!' begged +Little Dorrit. + +She was so earnest in the petition, that Clennam felt a delicacy in +obtruding himself upon her: the rather, because he could well +understand that Maggy's lodging was of the obscurest sort. 'Come, +Maggy,' said Little Dorrit cheerily, 'we shall do very well; we +know the way by this time, Maggy?' + +'Yes, yes, little mother; we know the way,' chuckled Maggy. And +away they went. Little Dorrit turned at the door to say, 'God +bless you!' She said it very softly, but perhaps she may have been +as audible above--who knows!--as a whole cathedral choir. + +Arthur Clennam suffered them to pass the corner of the street +before he followed at a distance; not with any idea of encroaching +a second time on Little Dorrit's privacy, but to satisfy his mind +by seeing her secure in the neighbourhood to which she was +accustomed. So diminutive she looked, so fragile and defenceless +against the bleak damp weather, flitting along in the shuffling +shadow of her charge, that he felt, in his compassion, and in his +habit of considering her a child apart from the rest of the rough +world, as if he would have been glad to take her up in his arms and +carry her to her journey's end. + +In course of time she came into the leading thoroughfare where the +Marshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon +turn down a by-street. He stopped, felt that he had no right to go +further, and slowly left them. He had no suspicion that they ran +any risk of being houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth +until long, long afterwards. + +But, said Little Dorrit, when they stopped at a poor dwelling all +in darkness, and heard no sound on listening at the door, 'Now, +this is a good lodging for you, Maggy, and we must not give +offence. Consequently, we will only knock twice, and not very +loud; and if we cannot wake them so, we must walk about till day.' + +Once, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. +Twice, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. +All was close and still. 'Maggy, we must do the best we can, my +dear. We must be patient, and wait for day.' + +It was a chill dark night, with a damp wind blowing, when they came +out into the leading street again, and heard the clocks strike +half-past one. 'In only five hours and a half,' said Little +Dorrit, 'we shall be able to go home.' To speak of home, and to go +and look at it, it being so near, was a natural sequence. They +went to the closed gate, and peeped through into the court-yard. +'I hope he is sound asleep,' said Little Dorrit, kissing one of the +bars, 'and does not miss me.' + +The gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put +down Maggy's basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping +close together, rested there for some time. While the street was +empty and silent, Little Dorrit was not afraid; but when she heard +a footstep at a distance, or saw a moving shadow among the street +lamps, she was startled, and whispered, 'Maggy, I see some one. +Come away!' Maggy would then wake up more or less fretfully, and +they would wander about a little, and come back again. + +As long as eating was a novelty and an amusement, Maggy kept up +pretty well. But that period going by, she became querulous about +the cold, and shivered and whimpered. 'It will soon be over, +dear,' said Little Dorrit patiently. 'Oh it's all very fine for +you, little mother,' returned Maggy, 'but I'm a poor thing, only +ten years old.' At last, in the dead of the night, when the street +was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid the heavy head upon her +bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she sat at the gate, as +it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing the clouds pass +over them in their wild flight--which was the dance at Little +Dorrit's party. + +'If it really was a party!' she thought once, as she sat there. +'If it was light and warm and beautiful, and it was our house, and +my poor dear was its master, and had never been inside these walls. + +And if Mr Clennam was one of our visitors, and we were dancing to +delightful music, and were all as gay and light-hearted as ever we +could be! I wonder--' Such a vista of wonder opened out before +her, that she sat looking up at the stars, quite lost, until Maggy +was querulous again, and wanted to get up and walk. + +Three o'clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London +Bridge. They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; and +looked down, awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen +little spots of lighted water where the bridge lamps were +reflected, shining like demon eyes, with a terrible fascination in +them for guilt and misery. They had shrunk past homeless people, +lying coiled up in nooks. They had run from drunkards. They had +started from slinking men, whistling and signing to one another at +bye corners, or running away at full speed. Though everywhere the +leader and the guide, Little Dorrit, happy for once in her youthful +appearance, feigned to cling to and rely upon Maggy. And more than +once some voice, from among a knot of brawling or prowling figures +in their path, had called out to the rest to 'let the woman and the +child go by!' + +So, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had +sounded from the steeples. They were walking slowly towards the +east, already looking for the first pale streak of day, when a +woman came after them. + +'What are you doing with the child?' she said to Maggy. + +She was young--far too young to be there, Heaven knows!--and +neither ugly nor wicked-looking. She spoke coarsely, but with no +naturally coarse voice; there was even something musical in its +sound. +'What are you doing with yourself?' retorted Maggy, for want Of a +better answer. + +'Can't you see, without my telling you?' + +'I don't know as I can,' said Maggy. + +'Killing myself! Now I have answered you, answer me. What are you +doing with the child?' + +The supposed child kept her head drooped down, and kept her form +close at Maggy's side. + +'Poor thing!' said the woman. 'Have you no feeling, that you keep +her out in the cruel streets at such a time as this? Have you no +eyes, that you don't see how delicate and slender she is? Have you +no sense (you don't look as if you had much) that you don't take +more pity on this cold and trembling little hand?' + +She had stepped across to that side, and held the hand between her +own two, chafing it. 'Kiss a poor lost creature, dear,' she said, +bending her face, 'and tell me where's she taking you.' + +Little Dorrit turned towards her. + +'Why, my God!' she said, recoiling, 'you're a woman!' + +'Don't mind that!' said Little Dorrit, clasping one of her hands +that had suddenly released hers. 'I am not afraid of you.' + +'Then you had better be,' she answered. 'Have you no mother?' + +'No.' + +'No father?' + +'Yes, a very dear one.' + +'Go home to him, and be afraid of me. Let me go. Good night!' + +'I must thank you first; let me speak to you as if I really were a +child.' + +'You can't do it,' said the woman. 'You are kind and innocent; but +you can't look at me out of a child's eyes. I never should have +touched you, but I thought that you were a child.' And with a +strange, wild cry, she went away. + +No day yet in the sky, but there was day in the resounding stones +of the streets; in the waggons, carts, and coaches; in the workers +going to various occupations; in the opening of early shops; in the +traffic at markets; in the stir of the riverside. There was coming +day in the flaring lights, with a feebler colour in them than they +would have had at another time; coming day in the increased +sharpness of the air, and the ghastly dying of the night. + +They went back again to the gate, intending to wait there now until +it should be opened; but the air was so raw and cold that Little +Dorrit, leading Maggy about in her sleep, kept in motion. Going +round by the Church, she saw lights there, and the door open; and +went up the steps and looked in. + +'Who's that?' cried a stout old man, who was putting on a nightcap +as if he were going to bed in a vault. + +'It's no one particular, sir,' said Little Dorrit. + +'Stop!' cried the man. 'Let's have a look at you!' + +This caused her to turn back again in the act of going out, and to +present herself and her charge before him. + +'I thought so!' said he. 'I know YOU.' + +'We have often seen each other,' said Little Dorrit, recognising +the sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, 'when +I have been at church here.' + +'More than that, we've got your birth in our Register, you know; +you're one of our curiosities.' + +'Indeed!' said Little Dorrit. + +'To be sure. As the child of the--by-the-bye, how did you get out +so early?' + +'We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.' + +'You don't mean it? And there's another hour good yet! Come into +the vestry. You'll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the +painters. I'm waiting for the painters, or I shouldn't be here, +you may depend upon it. One of our curiosities mustn't be cold +when we have it in our power to warm her up comfortable. Come +along.' + +He was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having +stirred the vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers +for a particular volume. 'Here you are, you see,' he said, taking +it down and turning the leaves. 'Here you'll find yourself, as +large as life. Amy, daughter of William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, +Marshalsea Prison, Parish of St George. And we tell people that +you have lived there, without so much as a day's or a night's +absence, ever since. Is it true?' + +'Quite true, till last night.' +'Lord!' But his surveying her with an admiring gaze suggested +Something else to him, to wit: 'I am sorry to see, though, that you +are faint and tired. Stay a bit. I'll get some cushions out of +the church, and you and your friend shall lie down before the fire. + +Don't be afraid of not going in to join your father when the gate +opens. I'll call you.' + +He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground. + +'There you are, you see. Again as large as life. Oh, never mind +thanking. I've daughters of my own. And though they weren't born +in the Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in +my ways of carrying on, of your father's breed. Stop a bit. I +must put something under the cushion for your head. Here's a +burial volume. just the thing! We have got Mrs Bangham in this +book. But what makes these books interesting to most people is-- +not who's in 'em, but who isn't--who's coming, you know, and when. +That's the interesting question.' + +Commendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left +them to their hour's repose. Maggy was snoring already, and Little +Dorrit was soon fast asleep with her head resting on that sealed +book of Fate, untroubled by its mysterious blank leaves. + +This was Little Dorrit's party. The shame, desertion, +wretchedness, and exposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, +the slow hours, and the swift clouds of the dismal night. This was +the party from which Little Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first +grey mist of a rainy morning. + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + +Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream + + +The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of +soot, and leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its +decay and worn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful +interval, let what would betide. If the sun ever touched it, it +was but with a ray, and that was gone in half an hour; if the +moonlight ever fell upon it, it was only to put a few patches on +its doleful cloak, and make it look more wretched. The stars, to +be sure, coldly watched it when the nights and the smoke were clear +enough; and all bad weather stood by it with a rare fidelity. You +should alike find rain, hail, frost, and thaw lingering in that +dismal enclosure when they had vanished from other places; and as +to snow, you should see it there for weeks, long after it had +changed from yellow to black, slowly weeping away its grimy life. +The place had no other adherents. As to street noises, the +rumbling of wheels in the lane merely rushed in at the gateway in +going past, and rushed out again: making the listening Mistress +Affery feel as if she were deaf, and recovered the sense of hearing +by instantaneous flashes. So with whistling, singing, talking, +laughing, and all pleasant human sounds. They leaped the gap in a +moment, and went upon their way. +The varying light of fire and candle in Mrs Clennam's room made the +greatest change that ever broke the dead monotony of the spot. In +her two long narrow windows, the fire shone sullenly all day, and +sullenly all night. On rare occasions it flashed up passionately, +as she did; but for the most part it was suppressed, like her, and +preyed upon itself evenly and slowly. During many hours of the +short winter days, however, when it was dusk there early in the +afternoon, changing distortions of herself in her wheeled chair, of +Mr Flintwinch with his wry neck, of Mistress Affery coming and +going, would be thrown upon the house wall that was over the +gateway, and would hover there like shadows from a great magic +lantern. As the room-ridden invalid settled for the night, these +would gradually disappear: Mistress Affery's magnified shadow +always flitting about, last, until it finally glided away into the +air, as though she were off upon a witch excursion. Then the +solitary light would burn unchangingly, until it burned pale before +the dawn, and at last died under the breath of Mrs Affery, as her +shadow descended on it from the witch-region of sleep. + +Strange, if the little sick-room fire were in effect a beacon fire, +summoning some one, and that the most unlikely some one in the +world, to the spot that MUST be come to. Strange, if the little +sick-room light were in effect a watch-light, burning in that place +every night until an appointed event should be watched out! Which +of the vast multitude of travellers, under the sun and the stars, +climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, +journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so +strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another; which of +the host may, with no suspicion of the journey's end, be travelling +surely hither? + +Time shall show us. The post of honour and the post of shame, the +general's station and the drummer's, a peer's statue in Westminster +Abbey and a seaman's hammock in the bosom of the deep, the mitre +and the workhouse, the woolsack and the gallows, the throne and the +guillotine--the travellers to all are on the great high road, but +it has wonderful divergencies, and only Time shall show us whither +each traveller is bound. + +On a wintry afternoon at twilight, Mrs Flintwinch, having been +heavy all day, dreamed this dream: + +She thought she was in the kitchen getting the kettle ready for +tea, and was warming herself with her feet upon the fender and the +skirt of her gown tucked up, before the collapsed fire in the +middle of the grate, bordered on either hand by a deep cold black +ravine. She thought that as she sat thus, musing upon the question +whether life was not for some people a rather dull invention, she +was frightened by a sudden noise behind her. She thought that she +had been similarly frightened once last week, and that the noise +was of a mysterious kind--a sound of rustling and of three or four +quick beats like a rapid step; while a shock or tremble was +communicated to her heart, as if the step had shaken the floor, or +even as if she had been touched by some awful hand. She thought +that this revived within her certain old fears of hers that the +house was haunted; and that she flew up the kitchen stairs without +knowing how she got up, to be nearer company. + +Mistress Affery thought that on reaching the hall, she saw the door +of her liege lord's office standing open, and the room empty. That +she went to the ripped-up window in the little room by the street +door to connect her palpitating heart, through the glass, with +living things beyond and outside the haunted house. That she then +saw, on the wall over the gateway, the shadows of the two clever +ones in conversation above. That she then went upstairs with her +shoes in her hand, partly to be near the clever ones as a match for +most ghosts, and partly to hear what they were talking about. + +'None of your nonsense with me,' said Mr Flintwinch. 'I won't take +it from you.' + +Mrs Flintwinch dreamed that she stood behind the door, which was +just ajar, and most distinctly heard her husband say these bold +words. + +'Flintwinch,' returned Mrs Clennam, in her usual strong low voice, +'there is a demon of anger in you. Guard against it.' + +'I don't care whether there's one or a dozen,' said Mr Flintwinch, +forcibly suggesting in his tone that the higher number was nearer +the mark. 'If there was fifty, they should all say, None of your +nonsense with me, I won't take it from you--I'd make 'em say it, +whether they liked it or not.' + +'What have I done, you wrathful man?' her strong voice asked. + +'Done?' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Dropped down upon me.' + +'If you mean, remonstrated with you--' + +'Don't put words into my mouth that I don't mean,' said Jeremiah, +sticking to his figurative expression with tenacious and +impenetrable obstinacy: 'I mean dropped down upon me.' + +'I remonstrated with you,' she began again, 'because--' + +'I won't have it!' cried Jeremiah. 'You dropped down upon me.' + +'I dropped down upon you, then, you ill-conditioned man,' (Jeremiah +chuckled at having forced her to adopt his phrase,) 'for having +been needlessly significant to Arthur that morning. I have a right +to complain of it as almost a breach of confidence. You did not +mean it--' + +'I won't have it!' interposed the contradictory Jeremiah, flinging +back the concession. 'I did mean it.' + +'I suppose I must leave you to speak in soliloquy if you choose,' +she replied, after a pause that seemed an angry one. 'It is +useless my addressing myself to a rash and headstrong old man who +has a set purpose not to hear me.' + +'Now, I won't take that from you either,' said Jeremiah. 'I have +no such purpose. I have told you I did mean it. Do you wish to +know why I meant it, you rash and headstrong old woman?' + +'After all, you only restore me my own words,' she said, struggling +with her indignation. 'Yes.' + +'This is why, then. Because you hadn't cleared his father to him, +and you ought to have done it. Because, before you went into any +tantrum about yourself, who are--' + +'Hold there, Flintwinch!' she cried out in a changed voice: 'you +may go a word too far.' + +The old man seemed to think so. There was another pause, and he +had altered his position in the room, when he spoke again more +mildly: + +'I was going to tell you why it was. Because, before you took your +own part, I thought you ought to have taken the part of Arthur's +father. Arthur's father! I had no particular love for Arthur's +father. I served Arthur's father's uncle, in this house, when +Arthur's father was not much above me--was poorer as far as his +pocket went--and when his uncle might as soon have left me his heir +as have left him. He starved in the parlour, and I starved in the +kitchen; that was the principal difference in our positions; there +was not much more than a flight of breakneck stairs between us. I +never took to him in those times; I don't know that I ever took to +him greatly at any time. He was an undecided, irresolute chap, who +had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he was +young. And when he brought you home here, the wife his uncle had +named for him, I didn't need to look at you twice (you were a good- +looking woman at that time) to know who'd be master. You have +stood of your own strength ever since. Stand of your own strength +now. Don't lean against the dead.' + +'I do not--as you call it--lean against the dead.' + +'But you had a mind to do it, if I had submitted,' growled +Jeremiah, 'and that's why you drop down upon me. You can't forget +that I didn't submit. I suppose you are astonished that I should +consider it worth my while to have justice done to Arthur's father? + +Hey? It doesn't matter whether you answer or not, because I know +you are, and you know you are. Come, then, I'll tell you how it +is. I may be a bit of an oddity in point of temper, but this is my +temper--I can't let anybody have entirely their own way. You are +a determined woman, and a clever woman; and when you see your +purpose before you, nothing will turn you from it. Who knows that +better than I do?' + +'Nothing will turn me from it, Flintwinch, when I have justified it +to myself. Add that.' + +'Justified it to yourself? I said you were the most determined +woman on the face of the earth (or I meant to say so), and if you +are determined to justify any object you entertain, of course +you'll do it.' + +'Man! I justify myself by the authority of these Books,' she +cried, with stern emphasis, and appearing from the sound that +followed to strike the dead-weight of her arm upon the table. + +'Never mind that,' returned Jeremiah calmly, 'we won't enter into +that question at present. However that may be, you carry out your +purposes, and you make everything go down before them. Now, I +won't go down before them. I have been faithful to you, and useful +to you, and I am attached to you. But I can't consent, and I won't +consent, and I never did consent, and I never will consent to be +lost in you. Swallow up everybody else, and welcome. The +peculiarity of my temper is, ma'am, that I won't be swallowed up +alive.' + +Perhaps this had Originally been the mainspring of the +understanding between them. Descrying thus much of force of +character in Mr Flintwinch, perhaps Mrs Clennam had deemed alliance +with him worth her while. + +'Enough and more than enough of the subject,' said she gloomily. + +'Unless you drop down upon me again,' returned the persistent +Flintwinch, 'and then you must expect to hear of it again.' + +Mistress Affery dreamed that the figure of her lord here began +walking up and down the room, as if to cool his spleen, and that +she ran away; but that, as he did not issue forth when she had +stood listening and trembling in the shadowy hall a little time, +she crept up-stairs again, impelled as before by ghosts and +curiosity, and once more cowered outside the door. + +'Please to light the candle, Flintwinch,' Mrs Clennam was saying, +apparently wishing to draw him back into their usual tone. 'It is +nearly time for tea. Little Dorrit is coming, and will find me in +the dark.' + +Mr Flintwinch lighted the candle briskly, and said as he put it +down upon the table: + +'What are you going to do with Little Dorrit? Is she to come to +work here for ever? To come to tea here for ever? To come +backwards and forwards here, in the same way, for ever?' +'How can you talk about "for ever" to a maimed creature like me? +Are we not all cut down like the grass of the field, and was not I +shorn by the scythe many years ago: since when I have been lying +here, waiting to be gathered into the barn?' + +'Ay, ay! But since you have been lying here--not near dead-- +nothing like it--numbers of children and young people, blooming +women, strong men, and what not, have been cut down and carried; +and still here are you, you see, not much changed after all. Your +time and mine may be a long one yet. When I say for ever, I mean +(though I am not poetical) through all our time.' Mr Flintwinch +gave this explanation with great calmness, and calmly waited for an +answer. + +'So long as Little Dorrit is quiet and industrious, and stands in +need of the slight help I can give her, and deserves it; so long, +I suppose, unless she withdraws of her own act, she will continue +to come here, I being spared.' + +'Nothing more than that?' said Flintwinch, stroking his mouth and +chin. + +'What should there be more than that! What could there be more +than that!' she ejaculated in her sternly wondering way. + +Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, that, for the space of a minute or two, +they remained looking at each other with the candle between them, +and that she somehow derived an impression that they looked at each +other fixedly. + +'Do you happen to know, Mrs Clennam,' Affery's liege lord then +demanded in a much lower voice, and with an amount of expression +that seemed quite out of proportion to the simple purpose of his +words, 'where she lives?' + +'No.' + +'Would you--now, would you like to know?' said Jeremiah with a +pounce as if he had sprung upon her. + +'If I cared to know, I should know already. Could I not have asked +her any day?' + +'Then you don't care to know?' + +'I do not.' + +Mr Flintwinch, having expelled a long significant breath said, with +his former emphasis, 'For I have accidentally--mind!--found out.' + +'Wherever she lives,' said Mrs Clennam, speaking in one unmodulated +hard voice, and separating her words as distinctly as if she were +reading them off from separate bits of metal that she took up one +by one, 'she has made a secret of it, and she shall always keep her +secret from me.' + +'After all, perhaps you would rather not have known the fact, any +how?' said Jeremiah; and he said it with a twist, as if his words +had come out of him in his own wry shape. + +'Flintwinch,' said his mistress and partner, flashing into a sudden +energy that made Affery start, 'why do you goad me? Look round +this room. If it is any compensation for my long confinement +within these narrow limits--not that I complain of being afflicted; +you know I never complain of that--if it is any compensation to me +for long confinement to this room, that while I am shut up from all +pleasant change I am also shut up from the knowledge of some things +that I may prefer to avoid knowing, why should you, of all men, +grudge me that belief?' + +'I don't grudge it to you,' returned Jeremiah. + +'Then say no more. Say no more. Let Little Dorrit keep her secret +from me, and do you keep it from me also. Let her come and go, +unobserved and unquestioned. Let me suffer, and let me have what +alleviation belongs to my condition. Is it so much, that you +torment me like an evil spirit?' + +'I asked you a question. That's all.' + +'I have answered it. So, say no more. Say no more.' Here the +sound of the wheeled chair was heard upon the floor, and Affery's +bell rang with a hasty jerk. + +More afraid of her husband at the moment than of the mysterious +sound in the kitchen, Affery crept away as lightly and as quickly +as she could, descended the kitchen stairs almost as rapidly as she +had ascended them, resumed her seat before the fire, tucked up her +skirt again, and finally threw her apron over her head. Then the +bell rang once more, and then once more, and then kept on ringing; +in despite of which importunate summons, Affery still sat behind +her apron, recovering her breath. + +At last Mr Flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the +hall, muttering and calling 'Affery woman!' all the way. Affery +still remaining behind her apron, he came stumbling down the +kitchen stairs, candle in hand, sidled up to her, twitched her +apron off, and roused her. + +'Oh Jeremiah!' cried Affery, waking. 'What a start you gave me!' + +'What have you been doing, woman?' inquired Jeremiah. 'You've been +rung for fifty times.' + +'Oh Jeremiah,' said Mistress Affery, 'I have been a-dreaming!' + +Reminded of her former achievement in that way, Mr Flintwinch held +the candle to her head, as if he had some idea of lighting her up +for the illumination of the kitchen. + +'Don't you know it's her tea-time?' he demanded with a vicious +grin, and giving one of the legs of Mistress Affery's chair a kick. + +'Jeremiah? Tea-time? I don't know what's come to me. But I got +such a dreadful turn, Jeremiah, before I went--off a-dreaming, that +I think it must be that.' + +'Yoogh! Sleepy-Head!' said Mr Flintwinch, 'what are you talking +about?' + +'Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a curious movement. In +the kitchen here--just here.' + +Jeremiah held up his light and looked at the blackened ceiling, +held down his light and looked at the damp stone floor, turned +round with his light and looked about at the spotted and blotched +walls. + +'Rats, cats, water, drains,' said Jeremiah. + +Mistress Affery negatived each with a shake of her head. 'No, +Jeremiah; I have felt it before. I have felt it up-stairs, and +once on the staircase as I was going from her room to ours in the +night--a rustle and a sort of trembling touch behind me.' + +'Affery, my woman,' said Mr Flintwinch grimly, after advancing his +nose to that lady's lips as a test for the detection of spirituous +liquors, 'if you don't get tea pretty quick, old woman, you'll +become sensible of a rustle and a touch that'll send you flying to +the other end of the kitchen.' + +This prediction stimulated Mrs Flintwinch to bestir herself, and to +hasten up-stairs to Mrs Clennam's chamber. But, for all that, she +now began to entertain a settled conviction that there was +something wrong in the gloomy house. Henceforth, she was never at +peace in it after daylight departed; and never went up or down +stairs in the dark without having her apron over her head, lest she +should see something. + +What with these ghostly apprehensions and her singular dreams, Mrs +Flintwinch fell that evening into a haunted state of mind, from +which it may be long before this present narrative descries any +trace of her recovery. In the vagueness and indistinctness of all +her new experiences and perceptions, as everything about her was +mysterious to herself she began to be mysterious to others: and +became as difficult to be made out to anybody's satisfaction as she +found the house and everything in it difficult to make out to her +own. + +She had not yet finished preparing Mrs Clennam's tea, when the soft +knock came to the door which always announced Little Dorrit. +Mistress Affery looked on at Little Dorrit taking off her homely +bonnet in the hall, and at Mr Flintwinch scraping his jaws and +contemplating her in silence, as expecting some wonderful +consequence to ensue which would frighten her out of her five wits +or blow them all three to pieces. + +After tea there came another knock at the door, announcing Arthur. +Mistress Affery went down to let him in, and he said on entering, +'Affery, I am glad it's you. I want to ask you a question.' +Affery immediately replied, 'For goodness sake don't ask me +nothing, Arthur! I am frightened out of one half of my life, and +dreamed out of the other. Don't ask me nothing! I don't know +which is which, or what is what!'--and immediately started away +from him, and came near him no more. + +Mistress Affery having no taste for reading, and no sufficient +light for needlework in the subdued room, supposing her to have the +inclination, now sat every night in the dimness from which she had +momentarily emerged on the evening of Arthur Clennam's return, +occupied with crowds of wild speculations and suspicions respecting +her mistress and her husband and the noises in the house. When the +ferocious devotional exercises were engaged in, these speculations +would distract Mistress Affery's eyes towards the door, as if she +expected some dark form to appear at those propitious moments, and +make the party one too many. + +Otherwise, Affery never said or did anything to attract the +attention of the two clever ones towards her in any marked degree, +except on certain occasions, generally at about the quiet hour +towards bed-time, when she would suddenly dart out of her dim +corner, and whisper with a face of terror to Mr Flintwinch, reading +the paper near Mrs Clennam's little table: 'There, jeremiah! Now! +What's that noise?' + +Then the noise, if there were any, would have ceased, and Mr +Flintwinch would snarl, turning upon her as if she had cut him down +that moment against his will, 'Affery, old woman, you shall have a +dose, old woman, such a dose! You have been dreaming again!' + + + + +CHAPTER 16 + +Nobody's Weakness + + +The time being come for the renewal of his acquaintance with the +Meagles family, Clennam, pursuant to contract made between himself +and Mr Meagles within the precincts of Bleeding Heart Yard, turned +his face on a certain Saturday towards Twickenham, where Mr Meagles +had a cottage-residence of his own. The weather being fine and +dry, and any English road abounding in interest for him who had +been so long away, he sent his valise on by the coach, and set out +to walk. A walk was in itself a new enjoyment to him, and one that +had rarely diversified his life afar off. + +He went by Fulham and Putney, for the pleasure of strolling over +the heath. It was bright and shining there; and when he found +himself so far on his road to Twickenham, he found himself a long +way on his road to a number of airier and less substantial +destinations. They had risen before him fast, in the healthful +exercise and the pleasant road. It is not easy to walk alone in +the country without musing upon something. And he had plenty of +unsettled subjects to meditate upon, though he had been walking to +the Land's End. + +First, there was the subject seldom absent from his mind, the +question, what he was to do henceforth in life; to what occupation +he should devote himself, and in what direction he had best seek +it. He was far from rich, and every day of indecision and inaction +made his inheritance a source of greater anxiety to him. As often +as he began to consider how to increase this inheritance, or to lay +it by, so often his misgiving that there was some one with an +unsatisfied claim upon his justice, returned; and that alone was a +subject to outlast the longest walk. Again, there was the subject +of his relations with his mother, which were now upon an equable +and peaceful but never confidential footing, and whom he saw +several times a week. Little Dorrit was a leading and a constant +subject: for the circumstances of his life, united to those of her +own story, presented the little creature to him as the only person +between whom and himself there were ties of innocent reliance on +one hand, and affectionate protection on the other; ties of +compassion, respect, unselfish interest, gratitude, and pity. +Thinking of her, and of the possibility of her father's release +from prison by the unbarring hand of death--the only change of +circumstance he could foresee that might enable him to be such a +friend to her as he wished to be, by altering her whole manner of +life, smoothing her rough road, and giving her a home--he regarded +her, in that perspective, as his adopted daughter, his poor child +of the Marshalsea hushed to rest. If there were a last subject in +his thoughts, and it lay towards Twickenham, its form was so +indefinite that it was little more than the pervading atmosphere in +which these other subjects floated before him. + +He had crossed the heath and was leaving it behind when he gained +upon a figure which had been in advance of him for some time, and +which, as he gained upon it, he thought he knew. He derived this +impression from something in the turn of the head, and in the +figure's action of consideration, as it went on at a sufficiently +sturdy walk. But when the man--for it was a man's figure--pushed +his hat up at the back of his head, and stopped to consider some +object before him, he knew it to be Daniel Doyce. + +'How do you do, Mr Doyce?' said Clennam, overtaking him. 'I am +glad to see you again, and in a healthier place than the +Circumlocution Office.' + +'Ha! Mr Meagles's friend!' exclaimed that public criminal, coming +out of some mental combinations he had been making, and offering +his hand. 'I am glad to see you, sir. Will you excuse me if I +forget your name?' + +'Readily. It's not a celebrated name. It's not Barnacle.' +'No, no,' said Daniel, laughing. 'And now I know what it is. It's +Clennam. How do you do, Mr Clennam?' + +'I have some hope,' said Arthur, as they walked on together, 'that +we may be going to the same place, Mr Doyce.' + +'Meaning Twickenham?' returned Daniel. 'I am glad to hear it.' + +They were soon quite intimate, and lightened the way with a variety +of conversation. The ingenious culprit was a man of great modesty +and good sense; and, though a plain man, had been too much +accustomed to combine what was original and daring in conception +with what was patient and minute in execution, to be by any means +an ordinary man. It was at first difficult to lead him to speak +about himself, and he put off Arthur's advances in that direction +by admitting slightly, oh yes, he had done this, and he had done +that, and such a thing was of his making, and such another thing +was his discovery, but it was his trade, you see, his trade; until, +as he gradually became assured that his companion had a real +interest in his account of himself, he frankly yielded to it. Then +it appeared that he was the son of a north-country blacksmith, and +had originally been apprenticed by his widowed mother to a lock- +maker; that he had 'struck out a few little things' at the lock- +maker's, which had led to his being released from his indentures +with a present, which present had enabled him to gratify his ardent +wish to bind himself to a working engineer, under whom he had +laboured hard, learned hard, and lived hard, seven years. His time +being out, he had 'worked in the shop' at weekly wages seven or +eight years more; and had then betaken himself to the banks of the +Clyde, where he had studied, and filed, and hammered, and improved +his knowledge, theoretical and practical, for six or seven years +more. There he had had an offer to go to Lyons, which he had +accepted; and from Lyons had been engaged to go to Germany, and in +Germany had had an offer to go to St Petersburg, and there had done +very well indeed--never better. However, he had naturally felt a +preference for his own country, and a wish to gain distinction +there, and to do whatever service he could do, there rather than +elsewhere. And so he had come home. And so at home he had +established himself in business, and had invented and executed, and +worked his way on, until, after a dozen years of constant suit and +service, he had been enrolled in the Great British Legion of +Honour, the Legion of the Rebuffed of the Circumlocution Office, +and had been decorated with the Great British Order of Merit, the +Order of the Disorder of the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings. + +'it is much to be regretted,' said Clennam, 'that you ever turned +your thoughts that way, Mr Doyce.' + +'True, sir, true to a certain extent. But what is a man to do? if +he has the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the +nation, he must follow where it leads him.' +'Hadn't he better let it go?' said Clennam. + +'He can't do it,' said Doyce, shaking his head with a thoughtful +smile. 'It's not put into his head to be buried. It's put into +his head to be made useful. You hold your life on the condition +that to the last you shall struggle hard for it. Every man holds +a discovery on the same terms.' + +'That is to say,' said Arthur, with a growing admiration of his +quiet companion, 'you are not finally discouraged even now?' + +'I have no right to be, if I am,' returned the other. 'The thing +is as true as it ever was.' + +When they had walked a little way in silence, Clennam, at once to +change the direct point of their conversation and not to change it +too abruptly, asked Mr Doyce if he had any partner in his business +to relieve him of a portion of its anxieties? + +'No,' he returned, 'not at present. I had when I first entered on +it, and a good man he was. But he has been dead some years; and as +I could not easily take to the notion of another when I lost him, +I bought his share for myself and have gone on by myself ever +since. And here's another thing,' he said, stopping for a moment +with a good-humoured laugh in his eyes, and laying his closed right +hand, with its peculiar suppleness of thumb, on Clennam's arm, 'no +inventor can be a man of business, you know.' + +'No?' said Clennam. + +'Why, so the men of business say,' he answered, resuming the walk +and laughing outright. 'I don't know why we unfortunate creatures +should be supposed to want common sense, but it is generally taken +for granted that we do. Even the best friend I have in the world, +our excellent friend over yonder,' said Doyce, nodding towards +Twickenham, 'extends a sort of protection to me, don't you know, as +a man not quite able to take care of himself?' + +Arthur Clennam could not help joining in the good-humoured laugh, +for he recognised the truth of the description. + +'So I find that I must have a partner who is a man of business and +not guilty of any inventions,' said Daniel Doyce, taking off his +hat to pass his hand over his forehead, 'if it's only in deference +to the current opinion, and to uphold the credit of the Works. I +don't think he'll find that I have been very remiss or confused in +my way of conducting them; but that's for him to say--whoever he +is--not for me.' +'You have not chosen him yet, then?' + +'No, sir, no. I have only just come to a decision to take one. +The fact is, there's more to do than there used to be, and the +Works are enough for me as I grow older. What with the books and +correspondence, and foreign journeys for which a Principal is +necessary, I can't do all. I am going to talk over the best way of +negotiating the matter, if I find a spare half-hour between this +and Monday morning, with my--my Nurse and protector,' said Doyce, +with laughing eyes again. 'He is a sagacious man in business, and +has had a good apprenticeship to it.' + +After this, they conversed on different subjects until they arrived +at their journey's end. A composed and unobtrusive self- +sustainment was noticeable in Daniel Doyce--a calm knowledge that +what was true must remain true, in spite of all the Barnacles in +the family ocean, and would be just the truth, and neither more nor +less when even that sea had run dry--which had a kind of greatness +in it, though not of the official quality. + +As he knew the house well, he conducted Arthur to it by the way +that showed it to the best advantage. It was a charming place +(none the worse for being a little eccentric), on the road by the +river, and just what the residence of the Meagles family ought to +be. It stood in a garden, no doubt as fresh and beautiful in the +May of the Year as Pet now was in the May of her life; and it was +defended by a goodly show of handsome trees and spreading +evergreens, as Pet was by Mr and Mrs Meagles. It was made out of +an old brick house, of which a part had been altogether pulled +down, and another part had been changed into the present cottage; +so there was a hale elderly portion, to represent Mr and Mrs +Meagles, and a young picturesque, very pretty portion to represent +Pet. There was even the later addition of a conservatory +sheltering itself against it, uncertain of hue in its deep-stained +glass, and in its more transparent portions flashing to the sun's +rays, now like fire and now like harmless water drops; which might +have stood for Tattycoram. Within view was the peaceful river and +the ferry-boat, to moralise to all the inmates saying: Young or +old, passionate or tranquil, chafing or content, you, thus runs the +current always. Let the heart swell into what discord it will, +thus plays the rippling water on the prow of the ferry-boat ever +the same tune. Year after year, so much allowance for the drifting +of the boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here +the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet, upon +this road that steadily runs away; while you, upon your flowing +road of time, are so capricious and distracted. + +The bell at the gate had scarcely sounded when Mr Meagles came out +to receive them. Mr Meagles had scarcely come out, when Mrs +Meagles came out. Mrs Meagles had scarcely come out, when Pet came +out. Pet scarcely had come out, when Tattycoram came out. Never +had visitors a more hospitable reception. + +'Here we are, you see,' said Mr Meagles, 'boxed up, Mr Clennam, +within our own home-limits, as if we were never going to expand-- +that is, travel--again. Not like Marseilles, eh? No allonging and +marshonging here!' + +'A different kind of beauty, indeed!' said Clennam, looking about +him. + +'But, Lord bless me!' cried Mr Meagles, rubbing his hands with a +relish, 'it was an uncommonly pleasant thing being in quarantine, +wasn't it? Do you know, I have often wished myself back again? We +were a capital party.' + +This was Mr Meagles's invariable habit. Always to object to +everything while he was travelling, and always to want to get back +to it when he was not travelling. + +'If it was summer-time,' said Mr Meagles, 'which I wish it was on +your account, and in order that you might see the place at its +best, you would hardly be able to hear yourself speak for birds. +Being practical people, we never allow anybody to scare the birds; +and the birds, being practical people too, come about us in +myriads. We are delighted to see you, Clennam (if you'll allow me, +I shall drop the Mister); I heartily assure you, we are delighted.' + +'I have not had so pleasant a greeting,' said Clennam--then he +recalled what Little Dorrit had said to him in his own room, and +faithfully added 'except once--since we last walked to and fro, +looking down at the Mediterranean.' + +'Ah!' returned Mr Meagles. 'Something like a look out, that was, +wasn't it? I don't want a military government, but I shouldn't +mind a little allonging and marshonging--just a dash of it--in this +neighbourhood sometimes. It's Devilish still.' + +Bestowing this eulogium on the retired character of his retreat +with a dubious shake of the head, Mr Meagles led the way into the +house. It was just large enough, and no more; was as pretty within +as it was without, and was perfectly well-arranged and comfortable. + +Some traces of the migratory habits of the family were to be +observed in the covered frames and furniture, and wrapped-up +hangings; but it was easy to see that it was one of Mr Meagles's +whims to have the cottage always kept, in their absence, as if they +were always coming back the day after to-morrow. Of articles +collected on his various expeditions, there was such a vast +miscellany that it was like the dwelling of an amiable Corsair. +There were antiquities from Central Italy, made by the best modern +houses in that department of industry; bits of mummy from Egypt +(and perhaps Birmingham); model gondolas from Venice; model +villages from Switzerland; morsels of tesselated pavement from +Herculaneum and Pompeii, like petrified minced veal; ashes out of +tombs, and lava out of Vesuvius; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, +Moorish slippers, Tuscan hairpins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini +scarves, Genoese velvets and filigree, Neapolitan coral, Roman +cameos, Geneva jewellery, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest all round +by the Pope himself, and an infinite variety of lumber. There were +views, like and unlike, of a multitude of places; and there was one +little picture-room devoted to a few of the regular sticky old +Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair like Neptune's, wrinkles +like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every holy personage +served for a fly-trap, and became what is now called in the vulgar +tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr +Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he said, +except of what pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap, +and people had considered them rather fine. One man, who at any +rate ought to know something of the subject, had declared that +'Sage, Reading' (a specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with +a swan's-down tippet for a beard, and a web of cracks all over him +like rich pie-crust), to be a fine Guercino. As for Sebastian del +Piombo there, you would judge for yourself; if it were not his +later manner, the question was, Who was it? Titian, that might or +might not be--perhaps he had only touched it. Daniel Doyce said +perhaps he hadn't touched it, but Mr Meagles rather declined to +overhear the remark. + +When he had shown all his spoils, Mr Meagles took them into his own +snug room overlooking the lawn, which was fitted up in part like a +dressing-room and in part like an office, and in which, upon a kind +of counter-desk, were a pair of brass scales for weighing gold, and +a scoop for shovelling out money. + +'Here they are, you see,' said Mr Meagles. 'I stood behind these +two articles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought +of gadding about than I now think of--staying at home. When I left +the Bank for good, I asked for them, and brought them away with me. + +I mention it at once, or you might suppose that I sit in my +counting-house (as Pet says I do), like the king in the poem of the +four-and-twenty blackbirds, counting out my money.' + +Clennam's eyes had strayed to a natural picture on the wall, of two +pretty little girls with their arms entwined. 'Yes, Clennam,' said +Mr Meagles, in a lower voice. 'There they both are. It was taken +some seventeen years ago. As I often say to Mother, they were +babies then.' + +'Their names?' said Arthur. + +'Ah, to be sure! You have never heard any name but Pet. Pet's +name is Minnie; her sister's Lillie.' + +'Should you have known, Mr Clennam, that one of them was meant for +me?' asked Pet herself, now standing in the doorway. + +'I might have thought that both of them were meant for you, both +are still so like you. Indeed,' said Clennam, glancing from the +fair original to the picture and back, 'I cannot even now say which +is not your portrait.' +'D'ye hear that, Mother?' cried Mr Meagles to his wife, who had +followed her daughter. 'It's always the same, Clennam; nobody can +decide. The child to your left is Pet.' + +The picture happened to be near a looking-glass. As Arthur looked +at it again, he saw, by the reflection of the mirror, Tattycoram +stop in passing outside the door, listen to what was going on, and +pass away with an angry and contemptuous frown upon her face, that +changed its beauty into ugliness. + +'But come!' said Mr Meagles. 'You have had a long walk, and will +be glad to get your boots off. As to Daniel here, I suppose he'd +never think of taking his boots off, unless we showed him a boot- +jack.' + +'Why not?' asked Daniel, with a significant smile at Clennam. + +'Oh! You have so many things to think about,' returned Mr Meagles, +clapping him on the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left +to itself on any account. 'Figures, and wheels, and cogs, and +levers, and screws, and cylinders, and a thousand things.' + +'In my calling,' said Daniel, amused, 'the greater usually includes +the less. But never mind, never mind! Whatever pleases you, +pleases me.' + +Clennam could not help speculating, as he seated himself in his +room by the fire, whether there might be in the breast of this +honest, affectionate, and cordial Mr Meagles, any microscopic +portion of the mustard-seed that had sprung up into the great tree +of the Circumlocution Office. His curious sense of a general +superiority to Daniel Doyce, which seemed to be founded, not so +much on anything in Doyce's personal character as on the mere fact +of his being an originator and a man out of the beaten track of +other men, suggested the idea. It might have occupied him until he +went down to dinner an hour afterwards, if he had not had another +question to consider, which had been in his mind so long ago as +before he was in quarantine at Marseilles, and which had now +returned to it, and was very urgent with it. No less a question +than this: Whether he should allow himself to fall in love with +Pet? + +He was twice her age. (He changed the leg he had crossed over the +other, and tried the calculation again, but could not bring out the +total at less.) He was twice her age. Well! He was young in +appearance, young in health and strength, young in heart. A man +was certainly not old at forty; and many men were not in +circumstances to marry, or did not marry, until they had attained +that time of life. On the other hand, the question was, not what +he thought of the point, but what she thought of it. + +He believed that Mr Meagles was disposed to entertain a ripe regard +for him, and he knew that he had a sincere regard for Mr Meagles +and his good wife. He could foresee that to relinquish this +beautiful only child, of whom they were so fond, to any husband, +would be a trial of their love which perhaps they never yet had had +the fortitude to contemplate. But the more beautiful and winning +and charming she, the nearer they must always be to the necessity +of approaching it. And why not in his favour, as well as in +another's? + +When he had got so far, it came again into his head that the +question was, not what they thought of it, but what she thought of +it. + +Arthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a sense of many +deficiencies; and he so exalted the merits of the beautiful Minnie +in his mind, and depressed his own, that when he pinned himself to +this point, his hopes began to fail him. He came to the final +resolution, as he made himself ready for dinner, that he would not +allow himself to fall in love with Pet. + +There were only five, at a round table, and it was very pleasant +indeed. They had so many places and people to recall, and they +were all so easy and cheerful together (Daniel Doyce either sitting +out like an amused spectator at cards, or coming in with some +shrewd little experiences of his own, when it happened to be to the +purpose), that they might have been together twenty times, and not +have known so much of one another. + +'And Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, after they had recalled a number +of fellow-travellers. 'Has anybody seen Miss Wade?' + +'I have,' said Tattycoram. + +She had brought a little mantle which her young mistress had sent +for, and was bending over her, putting it on, when she lifted up +her dark eyes and made this unexpected answer. + +'Tatty!' her young mistress exclaimed. 'You seen Miss Wade?-- +where?' + +'Here, miss,' said Tattycoram. + +'How?' + +An impatient glance from Tattycoram seemed, as Clennam saw it, to +answer 'With my eyes!' But her only answer in words was: 'I met +her near the church.' + +'What was she doing there I wonder!' said Mr Meagles. 'Not going +to it, I should think.' + +'She had written to me first,' said Tattycoram. + +'Oh, Tatty!' murmured her mistress, 'take your hands away. I feel +as if some one else was touching me!' + +She said it in a quick involuntary way, but half playfully, and not +more petulantly or disagreeably than a favourite child might have +done, who laughed next moment. Tattycoram set her full red lips +together, and crossed her arms upon her bosom. +'Did you wish to know, sir,' she said, looking at Mr Meagles, 'what +Miss Wade wrote to me about?' + +'Well, Tattycoram,' returned Mr Meagles, 'since you ask the +question, and we are all friends here, perhaps you may as well +mention it, if you are so inclined.' + +'She knew, when we were travelling, where you lived,' said +Tattycoram, 'and she had seen me not quite--not quite--' + +'Not quite in a good temper, Tattycoram?' suggested Mr Meagles, +shaking his head at the dark eyes with a quiet caution. 'Take a +little time--count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.' + +She pressed her lips together again, and took a long deep breath. + +'So she wrote to me to say that if I ever felt myself hurt,' she +looked down at her young mistress, 'or found myself worried,' she +looked down at her again, 'I might go to her, and be considerately +treated. I was to think of it, and could speak to her by the +church. So I went there to thank her.' + +'Tatty,' said her young mistress, putting her hand up over her +shoulder that the other might take it, 'Miss Wade almost frightened +me when we parted, and I scarcely like to think of her just now as +having been so near me without my knowing it. Tatty dear!' + +Tatty stood for a moment, immovable. + +'Hey?' cried Mr Meagles. 'Count another five-and-twenty, +Tattycoram.' + +She might have counted a dozen, when she bent and put her lips to +the caressing hand. It patted her cheek, as it touched the owner's +beautiful curls, and Tattycoram went away. + +'Now there,' said Mr Meagles softly, as he gave a turn to the dumb- +waiter on his right hand to twirl the sugar towards himself. +'There's a girl who might be lost and ruined, if she wasn't among +practical people. Mother and I know, solely from being practical, +that there are times when that girl's whole nature seems to roughen +itself against seeing us so bound up in Pet. No father and mother +were bound up in her, poor soul. I don't like to think of the way +in which that unfortunate child, with all that passion and protest +in her, feels when she hears the Fifth Commandment on a Sunday. I +am always inclined to call out, Church, Count five-and-twenty, +Tattycoram.' + +Besides his dumb-waiter, Mr Meagles had two other not dumb waiters +in the persons of two parlour-maids with rosy faces and bright +eyes, who were a highly ornamental part of the table decoration. +'And why not, you see?' said Mr Meagles on this head. 'As I always +say to Mother, why not have something pretty to look at, if you +have anything at all?' +A certain Mrs Tickit, who was Cook and Housekeeper when the family +were at home, and Housekeeper only when the family were away, +completed the establishment. Mr Meagles regretted that the nature +of the duties in which she was engaged, rendered Mrs Tickit +unpresentable at present, but hoped to introduce her to the new +visitor to-morrow. She was an important part of the Cottage, he +said, and all his friends knew her. That was her picture up in the +corner. When they went away, she always put on the silk-gown and +the jet-black row of curls represented in that portrait (her hair +was reddish-grey in the kitchen), established herself in the +breakfast-room, put her spectacles between two particular leaves of +Doctor Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and sat looking over the blind +all day until they came back again. It was supposed that no +persuasion could be invented which would induce Mrs Tickit to +abandon her post at the blind, however long their absence, or to +dispense with the attendance of Dr Buchan; the lucubrations of +which learned practitioner, Mr Meagles implicitly believed she had +never yet consulted to the extent of one word in her life. + +In the evening they played an old-fashioned rubber; and Pet sat +looking over her father's hand, or singing to herself by fits and +starts at the piano. She was a spoilt child; but how could she be +otherwise? Who could be much with so pliable and beautiful a +creature, and not yield to her endearing influence? Who could pass +an evening in the house, and not love her for the grace and charm +of her very presence in the room? This was Clennam's reflection, +notwithstanding the final conclusion at which he had arrived up- +stairs. + +In making it, he revoked. 'Why, what are you thinking of, my good +sir?' asked the astonished Mr Meagles, who was his partner. + +'I beg your pardon. Nothing,' returned Clennam. + +'Think of something, next time; that's a dear fellow,' said Mr +Meagles. + +Pet laughingly believed he had been thinking of Miss Wade. + +'Why of Miss Wade, Pet?' asked her father. + +'Why, indeed!' said Arthur Clennam. + +Pet coloured a little, and went to the piano again. + +As they broke up for the night, Arthur overheard Doyce ask his host +if he could give him half an hour's conversation before breakfast +in the morning? The host replying willingly, Arthur lingered +behind a moment, having his own word to add to that topic. + +'Mr Meagles,' he said, on their being left alone, 'do you remember +when you advised me to go straight to London?' + +'Perfectly well.' +'And when you gave me some other good advice which I needed at that +time?' + +'I won't say what it was worth,' answered Mr Meagles: 'but of +course I remember our being very pleasant and confidential +together.' + +'I have acted on your advice; and having disembarrassed myself of +an occupation that was painful to me for many reasons, wish to +devote myself and what means I have, to another pursuit.' + +'Right! You can't do it too soon,' said Mr Meagles. + +'Now, as I came down to-day, I found that your friend, Mr Doyce, is +looking for a partner in his business--not a partner in his +mechanical knowledge, but in the ways and means of turning the +business arising from it to the best account.' + +'Just so,' said Mr Meagles, with his hands in his pockets, and with +the old business expression of face that had belonged to the scales +and scoop. + +'Mr Doyce mentioned incidentally, in the course of our +conversation, that he was going to take your valuable advice on the +subject of finding such a partner. If you should think our views +and opportunities at all likely to coincide, perhaps you will let +him know my available position. I speak, of course, in ignorance +of the details, and they may be unsuitable on both sides.' + +'No doubt, no doubt,' said Mr Meagles, with the caution belonging +to the scales and scoop. + +'But they will be a question of figures and accounts--' + +'Just so, just so,' said Mr Meagles, with arithmetical solidity +belonging to the scales and scoop. + +'--And I shall be glad to enter into the subject, provided Mr Doyce +responds, and you think well of it. If you will at present, +therefore, allow me to place it in your hands, you will much oblige +me.' + +'Clennam, I accept the trust with readiness,' said Mr Meagles. +'And without anticipating any of the points which you, as a man of +business, have of course reserved, I am free to say to you that I +think something may come of this. Of one thing you may be +perfectly certain. Daniel is an honest man.' + +'I am so sure of it that I have promptly made up my mind to speak +to you.' +'You must guide him, you know; you must steer him; you must direct +him; he is one of a crotchety sort,' said Mr Meagles, evidently +meaning nothing more than that he did new things and went new ways; +'but he is as honest as the sun, and so good night!' +Clennam went back to his room, sat down again before his fire, and +made up his mind that he was glad he had resolved not to fall in +love with Pet. She was so beautiful, so amiable, so apt to receive +any true impression given to her gentle nature and her innocent +heart, and make the man who should be so happy as to communicate +it, the most fortunate and enviable of all men, that he was very +glad indeed he had come to that conclusion. + +But, as this might have been a reason for coming to the opposite +conclusion, he followed out the theme again a little way in his +mind; to justify himself, perhaps. + +'Suppose that a man,' so his thoughts ran, 'who had been of age +some twenty years or so; who was a diffident man, from the +circumstances of his youth; who was rather a grave man, from the +tenor of his life; who knew himself to be deficient in many little +engaging qualities which he admired in others, from having been +long in a distant region, with nothing softening near him; who had +no kind sisters to present to her; who had no congenial home to +make her known in; who was a stranger in the land; who had not a +fortune to compensate, in any measure, for these defects; who had +nothing in his favour but his honest love and his general wish to +do right--suppose such a man were to come to this house, and were +to yield to the captivation of this charming girl, and were to +persuade himself that he could hope to win her; what a weakness it +would be!' + +He softly opened his window, and looked out upon the serene river. +Year after year so much allowance for the drifting of the ferry- +boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the +rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet. + +Why should he be vexed or sore at heart? It was not his weakness +that he had imagined. It was nobody's, nobody's within his +knowledge; why should it trouble him? And yet it did trouble him. +And he thought--who has not thought for a moment, sometimes?--that +it might be better to flow away monotonously, like the river, and +to compound for its insensibility to happiness with its +insensibility to pain. + + + + +CHAPTER 17 + +Nobody's Rival + + +Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about +him. As the morning was fine and he had an hour on his hands, he +crossed the river by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath +through some meadows. When he came back to the towing-path, he +found the ferry-boat on the opposite side, and a gentleman hailing +it and waiting to be taken over. + +This gentleman looked barely thirty. He was well dressed, of a +sprightly and gay appearance, a well-knit figure, and a rich dark +complexion. As Arthur came over the stile and down to the water's +edge, the lounger glanced at him for a moment, and then resumed his +occupation of idly tossing stones into the water with his foot. +There was something in his way of spurning them out of their places +with his heel, and getting them into the required position, that +Clennam thought had an air of cruelty in it. Most of us have more +or less frequently derived a similar impression from a man's manner +of doing some very little thing: plucking a flower, clearing away +an obstacle, or even destroying an insentient object. + +The gentleman's thoughts were preoccupied, as his face showed, and +he took no notice of a fine Newfoundland dog, who watched him +attentively, and watched every stone too, in its turn, eager to +spring into the river on receiving his master's sign. The ferry- +boat came over, however, without his receiving any sign, and when +it grounded his master took him by the collar and walked him into +it. + +'Not this morning,' he said to the dog. 'You won't do for ladies' +company, dripping wet. Lie down.' + +Clennam followed the man and the dog into the boat, and took his +seat. The dog did as he was ordered. The man remained standing, +with his hands in his pockets, and towered between Clennam and the +prospect. Man and dog both jumped lightly out as soon as they +touched the other side, and went away. Clennam was glad to be rid +of them. + +The church clock struck the breakfast hour as he walked up the +little lane by which the garden-gate was approached. The moment he +pulled the bell a deep loud barking assailed him from within the +wall. + +'I heard no dog last night,' thought Clennam. The gate was opened +by one of the rosy maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland dog +and the man. + +'Miss Minnie is not down yet, gentlemen,' said the blushing +portress, as they all came together in the garden. Then she said +to the master of the dog, 'Mr Clennam, sir,' and tripped away. + +'Odd enough, Mr Clennam, that we should have met just now,' said +the man. Upon which the dog became mute. 'Allow me to introduce +myself--Henry Gowan. A pretty place this, and looks wonderfully +well this morning!' + +The manner was easy, and the voice agreeable; but still Clennam +thought, that if he had not made that decided resolution to avoid +falling in love with Pet, he would have taken a dislike to this +Henry Gowan. + +'It's new to you, I believe?' said this Gowan, when Arthur had +extolled the place. +'Quite new. I made acquaintance with it only yesterday afternoon.' + +'Ah! Of course this is not its best aspect. It used to look +charming in the spring, before they went away last time. I should +like you to have seen it then.' + +But for that resolution so often recalled, Clennam might have +wished him in the crater of Mount Etna, in return for this +civility. + +'I have had the pleasure of seeing it under many circumstances +during the last three years, and it's--a Paradise.' + +It was (at least it might have been, always excepting for that wise +resolution) like his dexterous impudence to call it a Paradise. He +only called it a Paradise because he first saw her coming, and so +made her out within her hearing to be an angel, Confusion to him! +And ah! how beaming she looked, and how glad! How she caressed +the dog, and how the dog knew her! How expressive that heightened +colour in her face, that fluttered manner, her downcast eyes, her +irresolute happiness! When had Clennam seen her look like this? +Not that there was any reason why he might, could, would, or should +have ever seen her look like this, or that he had ever hoped for +himself to see her look like this; but still--when had he ever +known her do it! + +He stood at a little distance from them. This Gowan when he had +talked about a Paradise, had gone up to her and taken her hand. +The dog had put his great paws on her arm and laid his head against +her dear bosom. She had laughed and welcomed them, and made far +too much of the dog, far, far, too much--that is to say, supposing +there had been any third person looking on who loved her. + +She disengaged herself now, and came to Clennam, and put her hand +in his and wished him good morning, and gracefully made as if she +would take his arm and be escorted into the house. To this Gowan +had no objection. No, he knew he was too safe. + +There was a passing cloud on Mr Meagles's good-humoured face when +they all three (four, counting the dog, and he was the most +objectionable but one of the party) came in to breakfast. Neither +it, nor the touch of uneasiness on Mrs Meagles as she directed her +eyes towards it, was unobserved by Clennam. + +'Well, Gowan,' said Mr Meagles, even suppressing a sigh; 'how goes +the world with you this morning?' + +'Much as usual, sir. Lion and I being determined not to waste +anything of our weekly visit, turned out early, and came over from +Kingston, my present headquarters, where I am making a sketch or +two.' Then he told how he had met Mr Clennam at the ferry, and +they had come over together. + +'Mrs Gowan is well, Henry?' said Mrs Meagles. (Clennam became +attentive.) + +'My mother is quite well, thank you.' (Clennam became +inattentive.) 'I have taken the liberty of making an addition to +your family dinner-party to-day, which I hope will not be +inconvenient to you or to Mr Meagles. I couldn't very well get out +of it,' he explained, turning to the latter. 'The young fellow +wrote to propose himself to me; and as he is well connected, I +thought you would not object to my transferring him here.' + +'Who is the young fellow?' asked Mr Meagles with peculiar +complacency. + +'He is one of the Barnacles. Tite Barnacle's son, Clarence +Barnacle, who is in his father's Department. I can at least +guarantee that the river shall not suffer from his visit. He won't +set it on fire.' + +'Aye, aye?' said Meagles. 'A Barnacle is he? We know something of +that family, eh, Dan? By George, they are at the top of the tree, +though! Let me see. What relation will this young fellow be to +Lord Decimus now? His Lordship married, in seventeen ninety-seven, +Lady Jemima Bilberry, who was the second daughter by the third +marriage--no! There I am wrong! That was Lady Seraphina--Lady +Jemima was the first daughter by the second marriage of the +fifteenth Earl of Stiltstalking with the Honourable Clementina +Toozellem. Very well. Now this young fellow's father married a +Stiltstalking and his father married his cousin who was a Barnacle. + +The father of that father who married a Barnacle, married a +Joddleby.--I am getting a little too far back, Gowan; I want to +make out what relation this young fellow is to Lord Decimus.' + +'That's easily stated. His father is nephew to Lord Decimus.' + +'Nephew--to--Lord--Decimus,' Mr Meagles luxuriously repeated with +his eyes shut, that he might have nothing to distract him from the +full flavour of the genealogical tree. 'By George, you are right, +Gowan. So he is.' + +'Consequently, Lord Decimus is his great uncle.' + +'But stop a bit!' said Mr Meagles, opening his eyes with a fresh +discovery. 'Then on the mother's side, Lady Stiltstalking is his +great aunt.' + +'Of course she is.' + +'Aye, aye, aye?' said Mr Meagles with much interest. 'Indeed, +indeed? We shall be glad to see him. We'll entertain him as well +as we can, in our humble way; and we shall not starve him, I hope, +at all events.' + +In the beginning of this dialogue, Clennam had expected some great +harmless outburst from Mr Meagles, like that which had made him +burst out of the Circumlocution Office, holding Doyce by the +collar. But his good friend had a weakness which none of us need +go into the next street to find, and which no amount of +Circumlocution experience could long subdue in him. Clennam looked +at Doyce; but Doyce knew all about it beforehand, and looked at his +plate, and made no sign, and said no word. + +'I am much obliged to you,' said Gowan, to conclude the subject. +'Clarence is a great ass, but he is one of the dearest and best +fellows that ever lived!' + +It appeared, before the breakfast was over, that everybody whom +this Gowan knew was either more or less of an ass, or more or less +of a knave; but was, notwithstanding, the most lovable, the most +engaging, the simplest, truest, kindest, dearest, best fellow that +ever lived. The process by which this unvarying result was +attained, whatever the premises, might have been stated by Mr Henry +Gowan thus: 'I claim to be always book-keeping, with a peculiar +nicety, in every man's case, and posting up a careful little +account of Good and Evil with him. I do this so conscientiously, +that I am happy to tell you I find the most worthless of men to be +the dearest old fellow too: and am in a condition to make the +gratifying report, that there is much less difference than you are +inclined to suppose between an honest man and a scoundrel.' The +effect of this cheering discovery happened to be, that while he +seemed to be scrupulously finding good in most men, he did in +reality lower it where it was, and set it up where it was not; but +that was its only disagreeable or dangerous feature. + +It scarcely seemed, however, to afford Mr Meagles as much +satisfaction as the Barnacle genealogy had done. The cloud that +Clennam had never seen upon his face before that morning, +frequently overcast it again; and there was the same shadow of +uneasy observation of him on the comely face of his wife. More +than once or twice when Pet caressed the dog, it appeared to +Clennam that her father was unhappy in seeing her do it; and, in +one particular instance when Gowan stood on the other side of the +dog, and bent his head at the same time, Arthur fancied that he saw +tears rise to Mr Meagles's eyes as he hurried out of the room. It +was either the fact too, or he fancied further, that Pet herself +was not insensible to these little incidents; that she tried, with +a more delicate affection than usual, to express to her good father +how much she loved him; that it was on this account that she fell +behind the rest, both as they went to church and as they returned +from it, and took his arm. He could not have sworn but that as he +walked alone in the garden afterwards, he had an instantaneous +glimpse of her in her father's room, clinging to both her parents +with the greatest tenderness, and weeping on her father's shoulder. + +The latter part of the day turning out wet, they were fain to keep +the house, look over Mr Meagles's collection, and beguile the time +with conversation. This Gowan had plenty to say for himself, and +said it in an off-hand and amusing manner. He appeared to be an +artist by profession, and to have been at Rome some time; yet he +had a slight, careless, amateur way with him--a perceptible limp, +both in his devotion to art and his attainments--which Clennam +could scarcely understand. + +He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together, +looking out of window. + +'You know Mr Gowan?' he said in a low voice. + +'I have seen him here. Comes here every Sunday when they are at +home.' + +'An artist, I infer from what he says?' + +'A sort of a one,' said Daniel Doyce, in a surly tone. + +'What sort of a one?' asked Clennam, with a smile. + +'Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a leisurely Pall-Mall +pace,' said Doyce, 'and I doubt if they care to be taken quite so +coolly.' + +Pursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that the Gowan family were a +very distant ramification of the Barnacles; and that the paternal +Gowan, originally attached to a legation abroad, had been pensioned +off as a Commissioner of nothing particular somewhere or other, and +had died at his post with his drawn salary in his hand, nobly +defending it to the last extremity. In consideration of this +eminent public service, the Barnacle then in power had recommended +the Crown to bestow a pension of two or three hundred a-year on his +widow; to which the next Barnacle in power had added certain shady +and sedate apartments in the Palaces at Hampton Court, where the +old lady still lived, deploring the degeneracy of the times in +company with several other old ladies of both sexes. Her son, Mr +Henry Gowan, inheriting from his father, the Commissioner, that +very questionable help in life, a very small independence, had been +difficult to settle; the rather, as public appointments chanced to +be scarce, and his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that +exclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the +cultivation of wild oats. At last he had declared that he would +become a Painter; partly because he had always had an idle knack +that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief +who had not provided for him. So it had come to pass successively, +first, that several distinguished ladies had been frightfully +shocked; then, that portfolios of his performances had been handed +about o' nights, and declared with ecstasy to be perfect Claudes, +perfect Cuyps, perfect phaenomena; then, that Lord Decimus had +bought his picture, and had asked the President and Council to +dinner at a blow, and had said, with his own magnificent gravity, +'Do you know, there appears to me to be really immense merit in +that work?' and, in short, that people of condition had absolutely +taken pains to bring him into fashion. But, somehow, it had all +failed. The prejudiced public had stood out against it +obstinately. They had determined not to admire Lord Decimus's +picture. They had determined to believe that in every service, +except their own, a man must qualify himself, by striving early and +late, and by working heart and soul, might and main. So now Mr +Gowan, like that worn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet's nor +anybody else's, hung midway between two points: jaundiced and +jealous as to the one he had left: jaundiced and jealous as to the +other that he couldn't reach. + +Such was the substance of Clennam's discoveries concerning him, +made that rainy Sunday afternoon and afterwards. + +About an hour or so after dinner time, Young Barnacle appeared, +attended by his eye-glass; in honour of whose family connections, +Mr Meagles had cashiered the pretty parlour-maids for the day, and +had placed on duty in their stead two dingy men. Young Barnacle +was in the last degree amazed and disconcerted at sight of Arthur, +and had murmured involuntarily, 'Look here! upon my soul, you +know!' before his presence of mind returned. + +Even then, he was obliged to embrace the earliest opportunity of +taking his friend into a window, and saying, in a nasal way that +was a part of his general debility: + +'I want to speak to you, Gowan. I say. Look here. Who is that +fellow?' + +'A friend of our host's. None of mine.' + +'He's a most ferocious Radical, you know,' said Young Barnacle. + +'Is he? How do you know?' + +'Ecod, sir, he was Pitching into our people the other day in the +most tremendous manner. Went up to our place and Pitched into my +father to that extent that it was necessary to order him out. Came +back to our Department, and Pitched into me. Look here. You never +saw such a fellow.' + +'What did he want?' + +'Ecod, sir,' returned Young Barnacle, 'he said he wanted to know, +you know! Pervaded our Department--without an appointment--and +said he wanted to know!' + +The stare of indignant wonder with which Young Barnacle accompanied +this disclosure, would have strained his eyes injuriously but for +the opportune relief of dinner. Mr Meagles (who had been extremely +solicitous to know how his uncle and aunt were) begged him to +conduct Mrs Meagles to the dining-room. And when he sat on Mrs +Meagles's right hand, Mr Meagles looked as gratified as if his +whole family were there. + +All the natural charm of the previous day was gone. The eaters of +the dinner, like the dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid, +overdone--and all owing to this poor little dull Young Barnacle. +Conversationless at any time, he was now the victim of a weakness +special to the occasion, and solely referable to Clennam. He was +under a pressing and continual necessity of looking at that +gentleman, which occasioned his eye-glass to get into his soup, +into his wine-glass, into Mrs Meagles's plate, to hang down his +back like a bell-rope, and be several times disgracefully restored +to his bosom by one of the dingy men. Weakened in mind by his +frequent losses of this instrument, and its determination not to +stick in his eye, and more and more enfeebled in intellect every +time he looked at the mysterious Clennam, he applied spoons to his +eyes, forks, and other foreign matters connected with the furniture +of the dinner-table. His discovery of these mistakes greatly +increased his difficulties, but never released him from the +necessity of looking at Clennam. And whenever Clennam spoke, this +ill-starred young man was clearly seized with a dread that he was +coming, by some artful device, round to that point of wanting to +know, you know. + +It may be questioned, therefore, whether any one but Mr Meagles had +much enjoyment of the time. Mr Meagles, however, thoroughly +enjoyed Young Barnacle. As a mere flask of the golden water in the +tale became a full fountain when it was poured out, so Mr Meagles +seemed to feel that this small spice of Barnacle imparted to his +table the flavour of the whole family-tree. In its presence, his +frank, fine, genuine qualities paled; he was not so easy, he was +not so natural, he was striving after something that did not belong +to him, he was not himself. What a strange peculiarity on the part +of Mr Meagles, and where should we find another such case! + +At last the wet Sunday wore itself out in a wet night; and Young +Barnacle went home in a cab, feebly smoking; and the objectionable +Gowan went away on foot, accompanied by the objectionable dog. Pet +had taken the most amiable pains all day to be friendly with +Clennam, but Clennam had been a little reserved since breakfast-- +that is to say, would have been, if he had loved her. + +When he had gone to his own room, and had again thrown himself into +the chair by the fire, Mr Doyce knocked at the door, candle in +hand, to ask him how and at what hour he proposed returning on the +morrow? After settling this question, he said a word to Mr Doyce +about this Gowan--who would have run in his head a good deal, if he +had been his rival. + +'Those are not good prospects for a painter,' said Clennam. + +'No,' returned Doyce. + +Mr Doyce stood, chamber-candlestick in hand, the other hand in his +pocket, looking hard at the flame of his candle, with a certain +quiet perception in his face that they were going to say something +more. +'I thought our good friend a little changed, and out of spirits, +after he came this morning?' said Clennam. + +'Yes,' returned Doyce. + +'But not his daughter?' said Clennam. + +'No,' said Doyce. + +There was a pause on both sides. Mr Doyce, still looking at the +flame of his candle, slowly resumed: + +'The truth is, he has twice taken his daughter abroad in the hope +of separating her from Mr Gowan. He rather thinks she is disposed +to like him, and he has painful doubts (I quite agree with him, as +I dare say you do) of the hopefulness of such a marriage.' + +'There--' Clennam choked, and coughed, and stopped. + +'Yes, you have taken cold,' said Daniel Doyce. But without looking +at him. + +'There is an engagement between them, of course?' said Clennam +airily. + +'No. As I am told, certainly not. It has been solicited on the +gentleman's part, but none has been made. Since their recent +return, our friend has yielded to a weekly visit, but that is the +utmost. Minnie would not deceive her father and mother. You have +travelled with them, and I believe you know what a bond there is +among them, extending even beyond this present life. All that +there is between Miss Minnie and Mr Gowan, I have no doubt we see.' + +'Ah! We see enough!' cried Arthur. + +Mr Doyce wished him Good Night in the tone of a man who had heard +a mournful, not to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought to +infuse some encouragement and hope into the mind of the person by +whom it had been uttered. Such tone was probably a part of his +oddity, as one of a crotchety band; for how could he have heard +anything of that kind, without Clennam's hearing it too? + +The rain fell heavily on the roof, and pattered on the ground, and +dripped among the evergreens and the leafless branches of the +trees. The rain fell heavily, drearily. It was a night of tears. + +If Clennam had not decided against falling in love with Pet; if he +had had the weakness to do it; if he had, little by little, +persuaded himself to set all the earnestness of his nature, all the +might of his hope, and all the wealth of his matured character, on +that cast; if he had done this and found that all was lost; he +would have been, that night, unutterably miserable. As it was-- As +it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily. + + + + +CHAPTER 18 + +Little Dorrit's Lover + + +Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without +finding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young +Archer shot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy +bow, and winged a Collegian or two. + +Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the +sentimental son of a turnkey. His father hoped, in the fulness of +time, to leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had +from his early youth familiarised him with the duties of his +office, and with an ambition to retain the prison-lock in the +family. While the succession was yet in abeyance, he assisted his +mother in the conduct of a snug tobacco business round the corner +of Horsemonger Lane (his father being a non-resident turnkey), +which could usually command a neat connection within the College +walls. + +Years agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in +her little arm-chair by the high Lodge-fender, Young John (family +name, Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with +admiring wonder. When he had played with her in the yard, his +favourite game had been to counterfeit locking her up in corners, +and to counterfeit letting her out for real kisses. When he grew +tall enough to peep through the keyhole of the great lock of the +main door, he had divers times set down his father's dinner, or +supper, to get on as it might on the outer side thereof, while he +stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her through that +airy perspective. + +If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less +penetrable days of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its +boots unlaced and is happily unconscious of digestive organs, he +had soon strung it up again and screwed it tight. At nineteen, his +hand had inscribed in chalk on that part of the wall which fronted +her lodgings, on the occasion of her birthday, 'Welcome sweet +nursling of the Fairies!' At twenty-three, the same hand +falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of the +Marshalsea, and Father of the queen of his soul. + +Young John was small of stature, with rather weak legs and very +weak light hair. One of his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to +peep through the keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger than the +other, as if it couldn't collect itself. Young John was gentle +likewise. But he was great of soul. Poetical, expansive, +faithful. + +Though too humble before the ruler of his heart to be sanguine, +Young John had considered the object of his attachment in all its +lights and shades. Following it out to blissful results, he had +descried, without self-commendation, a fitness in it. Say things +prospered, and they were united. She, the child of the Marshalsea; +he, the lock-keeper. There was a fitness in that. Say he became +a resident turnkey. She would officially succeed to the chamber +she had rented so long. There was a beautiful propriety in that. +It looked over the wall, if you stood on tip-toe; and, with a +trellis-work of scarlet beans and a canary or so, would become a +very Arbour. There was a charming idea in that. Then, being all +in all to one another, there was even an appropriate grace in the +lock. With the world shut out (except that part of it which would +be shut in); with its troubles and disturbances only known to them +by hearsay, as they would be described by the pilgrims tarrying +with them on their way to the Insolvent Shrine; with the Arbour +above, and the Lodge below; they would glide down the stream of +time, in pastoral domestic happiness. Young John drew tears from +his eyes by finishing the picture with a tombstone in the adjoining +churchyard, close against the prison wall, bearing the following +touching inscription: 'Sacred to the Memory Of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty +years Turnkey, and fifty years Head Turnkey, Of the neighbouring +Marshalsea, Who departed this life, universally respected, on the +thirty-first of December, One thousand eight hundred and eighty- +six, Aged eighty-three years. Also of his truly beloved and truly +loving wife, AMY, whose maiden name was DORRIT, Who survived his +loss not quite forty-eight hours, And who breathed her last in the +Marshalsea aforesaid. There she was born, There she lived, There +she died.' + +The Chivery parents were not ignorant of their son's attachment -- +indeed it had, on some exceptional occasions, thrown him into a +state of mind that had impelled him to conduct himself with +irascibility towards the customers, and damage the business--but +they, in their turns, had worked it out to desirable conclusions. +Mrs Chivery, a prudent woman, had desired her husband to take +notice that their john's prospects of the Lock would certainly be +strengthened by an alliance with Miss Dorrit, who had herself a +kind of claim upon the College and was much respected there. Mrs +Chivery had desired her husband to take notice that if, on the one +hand, their John had means and a post of trust, on the other hand, +Miss Dorrit had family; and that her (Mrs Chivery's) sentiment was, +that two halves made a whole. Mrs Chivery, speaking as a mother +and not as a diplomatist, had then, from a different point of view, +desired her husband to recollect that their John had never been +strong, and that his love had fretted and worrited him enough as it +was, without his being driven to do himself a mischief, as nobody +couldn't say he wouldn't be if he was crossed. These arguments had +so powerfully influenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of +few words, that he had on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy +what he termed 'a lucky touch,' signifying that he considered such +commendation of him to Good Fortune, preparatory to his that day +declaring his passion and becoming triumphant. But Young John had +never taken courage to make the declaration; and it was principally +on these occasions that he had returned excited to the tobacco +shop, and flown at the customers. +In this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit herself was the +last person considered. Her brother and sister were aware of it, +and attained a sort of station by making a peg of it on which to +air the miserably ragged old fiction of the family gentility. Her +sister asserted the family gentility by flouting the poor swain as +he loitered about the prison for glimpses of his dear. Tip +asserted the family gentility, and his own, by coming out in the +character of the aristocratic brother, and loftily swaggering in +the little skittle ground respecting seizures by the scruff of the +neck, which there were looming probabilities of some gentleman +unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned. These were +not the only members of the Dorrit family who turned it to account. + +No, no. The Father of the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing +about the matter, of course: his poor dignity could not see so low. + +But he took the cigars, on Sundays, and was glad to get them; and +sometimes even condescended to walk up and down the yard with the +donor (who was proud and hopeful then), and benignantly to smoke +one in his society. With no less readiness and condescension did +he receive attentions from Chivery Senior, who always relinquished +his arm-chair and newspaper to him, when he came into the Lodge +during one of his spells of duty; and who had even mentioned to +him, that, if he would like at any time after dusk quietly to step +out into the fore-court and take a look at the street, there was +not much to prevent him. If he did not avail himself of this +latter civility, it was only because he had lost the relish for it; +inasmuch as he took everything else he could get, and would say at +times, 'Extremely civil person, Chivery; very attentive man and +very respectful. Young Chivery, too; really almost with a delicate +perception of one's position here. A very well conducted family +indeed, the Chiveries. Their behaviour gratifies me.' + +The devoted Young John all this time regarded the family with +reverence. He never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but +did homage to the miserable Mumbo jumbo they paraded. As to +resenting any affront from her brother, he would have felt, even if +he had not naturally been of a most pacific disposition, that to +wag his tongue or lift his hand against that sacred gentleman would +be an unhallowed act. He was sorry that his noble mind should take +offence; still, he felt the fact to be not incompatible with its +nobility, and sought to propitiate and conciliate that gallant +soul. Her father, a gentleman in misfortune--a gentleman of a fine +spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with him--he deeply +honoured. Her sister he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a +young lady of infinite accomplishments, who could not forget the +past. It was an instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit's worth and +difference from all the rest, that the poor young fellow honoured +and loved her for being simply what she was. + +The tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was +carried out in a rural establishment one story high, which had the +benefit of the air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane jail, and the +advantage of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant +establishment. The business was of too modest a character to +support a life-size Highlander, but it maintained a little one on +a bracket on the door-post, who looked like a fallen Cherub that +had found it necessary to take to a kilt. +From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of +baked viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand; +not empty-handed, but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly +attired in a plum-coloured coat, with as large a collar of black +velvet as his figure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with +golden sprigs; a chaste neckerchief much in vogue at that day, +representing a preserve of lilac pheasants on a buff ground; +pantaloons so highly decorated with side-stripes that each leg was +a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state very high and hard. When +the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that in addition to these +adornments her John carried a pair of white kid gloves, and a cane +like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory hand marshalling +him the way that he should go; and when she saw him, in this heavy +marching order, turn the corner to the right; she remarked to Mr +Chivery, who was at home at the time, that she thought she knew +which way the wind blew. + +The Collegians were entertaining a considerable number of visitors +that Sunday afternoon, and their Father kept his room for the +purpose of receiving presentations. After making the tour of the +yard, Little Dorrit's lover with a hurried heart went up-stairs, +and knocked with his knuckles at the Father's door. + +'Come in, come in!' said a gracious voice. The Father's voice, her +father's, the Marshalsea's father's. He was seated in his black +velvet cap, with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence accidentally +left on the table, and two chairs arranged. Everything prepared +for holding his Court. + +'Ah, Young John! How do you do, how do you do!' + +'Pretty well, I thank you, sir. I hope you are the same.' + +'Yes, John Chivery; yes. Nothing to complain of.' + +'I have taken the liberty, sir, of--' + +'Eh?' The Father of the Marshalsea always lifted up his eyebrows +at this point, and became amiably distraught and smilingly absent +in mind. + +'--A few cigars, sir.' + +'Oh!' (For the moment, excessively surprised.) 'Thank you, Young +John, thank you. But really, I am afraid I am too-- No? Well +then, I will say no more about it. Put them on the mantelshelf, if +you please, Young John. And sit down, sit down. You are not a +stranger, John.' + +'Thank you, sir, I am sure-- Miss;' here Young John turned the +great hat round and round upon his left-hand, like a slowly +twirling mouse-cage; 'Miss Amy quite well, sir?' +'Yes, John, yes; very well. She is out.' +'Indeed, sir?' + +'Yes, John. Miss Amy is gone for an airing. My young people all +go out a good deal. But at their time of life, it's natural, +John.' + +'Very much so, I am sure, sir.' + +'An airing. An airing. Yes.' He was blandly tapping his fingers +on the table, and casting his eyes up at the window. 'Amy has gone +for an airing on the Iron Bridge. She has become quite partial to +the Iron Bridge of late, and seems to like to walk there better +than anywhere.' He returned to conversation. 'Your father is not +on duty at present, I think, John?' + +'No, sir, he comes on later in the afternoon.' Another twirl of +the great hat, and then Young John said, rising, 'I am afraid I +must wish you good day, sir.' + +'So soon? Good day, Young John. Nay, nay,' with the utmost +condescension, 'never mind your glove, John. Shake hands with it +on. You are no stranger here, you know.' + +Highly gratified by the kindness of his reception, Young John +descended the staircase. On his way down he met some Collegians +bringing up visitors to be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit +happened to call over the banisters with particular distinctness, +'Much obliged to you for your little testimonial, John!' + +Little Dorrit's lover very soon laid down his penny on the +tollplate of the Iron Bridge, and came upon it looking about him +for the well-known and well-beloved figure. At first he feared she +was not there; but as he walked on towards the Middlesex side, he +saw her standing still, looking at the water. She was absorbed in +thought, and he wondered what she might be thinking about. There +were the piles of city roofs and chimneys, more free from smoke +than on week-days; and there were the distant masts and steeples. +Perhaps she was thinking about them. + +Little Dorrit mused so long, and was so entirely preoccupied, that +although her lover stood quiet for what he thought was a long time, +and twice or thrice retired and came back again to the former spot, +still she did not move. So, in the end, he made up his mind to go +on, and seem to come upon her casually in passing, and speak to +her. The place was quiet, and now or never was the time to speak +to her. + +He walked on, and she did not appear to hear his steps until he was +close upon her. When he said 'Miss Dorrit!' she started and fell +back from him, with an expression in her face of fright and +something like dislike that caused him unutterable dismay. She had +often avoided him before--always, indeed, for a long, long while. +She had turned away and glided off so often when she had seen him +coming toward her, that the unfortunate Young John could not think +it accidental. But he had hoped that it might be shyness, her +retiring character, her foreknowledge of the state of his heart, +anything short of aversion. Now, that momentary look had said, +'You, of all people! I would rather have seen any one on earth +than you!' + +It was but a momentary look, inasmuch as she checked it, and said +in her soft little voice, 'Oh, Mr John! Is it you?' But she felt +what it had been, as he felt what it had been; and they stood +looking at one another equally confused. + +'Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you.' + +'Yes, rather. I--I came here to be alone, and I thought I was.' + +'Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this way, because Mr +Dorrit chanced to mention, when I called upon him just now, that +you--' + +She caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, 'O +father, father!' in a heartrending tone, and turning her face away. + +'Miss Amy, I hope I don't give you any uneasiness by naming Mr +Dorrit. I assure you I found him very well and in the best of +Spirits, and he showed me even more than his usual kindness; being +so very kind as to say that I was not a stranger there, and in all +ways gratifying me very much.' + +To the inexpressible consternation of her lover, Little Dorrit, +with her hands to her averted face, and rocking herself where she +stood as if she were in pain, murmured, 'O father, how can you! O +dear, dear father, how can you, can you, do it!' + +The poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflowing with sympathy, but +not knowing what to make of this, until, having taken out her +handkerchief and put it to her still averted face, she hurried +away. At first he remained stock still; then hurried after her. + +'Miss Amy, pray! Will you have the goodness to stop a moment? +Miss Amy, if it comes to that, let ME go. I shall go out of my +senses, if I have to think that I have driven you away like this.' + +His trembling voice and unfeigned earnestness brought Little Dorrit +to a stop. 'Oh, I don't know what to do,' she cried, 'I don't know +what to do!' + +To Young John, who had never seen her bereft of her quiet self- +command, who had seen her from her infancy ever so reliable and +self-suppressed, there was a shock in her distress, and in having +to associate himself with it as its cause, that shook him from his +great hat to the pavement. He felt it necessary to explain +himself. He might be misunderstood--supposed to mean something, or +to have done something, that had never entered into his +imagination. He begged her to hear him explain himself, as the +greatest favour she could show him. + +'Miss Amy, I know very well that your family is far above mine. It +were vain to conceal it. There never was a Chivery a gentleman +that ever I heard of, and I will not commit the meanness of making +a false representation on a subject so momentous. Miss Amy, I know +very well that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited +sister, spurn me from a height. What I have to do is to respect +them, to wish to be admitted to their friendship, to look up at the +eminence on which they are placed from my lowlier station--for, +whether viewed as tobacco or viewed as the lock, I well know it is +lowly--and ever wish them well and happy.' + +There really was a genuineness in the poor fellow, and a contrast +between the hardness of his hat and the softness of his heart +(albeit, perhaps, of his head, too), that was moving. Little +Dorrit entreated him to disparage neither himself nor his station, +and, above all things, to divest himself of any idea that she +supposed hers to be superior. This gave him a little comfort. + +'Miss Amy,' he then stammered, 'I have had for a long time --ages +they seem to me--Revolving ages--a heart-cherished wish to say +something to you. May I say it?' + +Little Dorrit involuntarily started from his side again, with the +faintest shadow of her former look; conquering that, she went on at +great speed half across the Bridge without replying! + +'May I--Miss Amy, I but ask the question humbly--may I say it? I +have been so unlucky already in giving you pain without having any +such intentions, before the holy Heavens! that there is no fear of +my saying it unless I have your leave. I can be miserable alone, +I can be cut up by myself, why should I also make miserable and cut +up one that I would fling myself off that parapet to give half a +moment's joy to! Not that that's much to do, for I'd do it for +twopence.' + +The mournfulness of his spirits, and the gorgeousness of his +appearance, might have made him ridiculous, but that his delicacy +made him respectable. Little Dorrit learnt from it what to do. + +'If you please, John Chivery,' she returned, trembling, but in a +quiet way, 'since you are so considerate as to ask me whether you +shall say any more--if you please, no.' + +'Never, Miss Amy?' + +'No, if you please. Never.' + +'O Lord!' gasped Young John. + +'But perhaps you will let me, instead, say something to you. I +want to say it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is +possible to express. When you think of us, John--I mean my +brother, and sister, and me--don't think of us as being any +different from the rest; for, whatever we once were (which I hardly +know) we ceased to be long ago, and never can be any more. It will +be much better for you, and much better for others, if you will do +that instead of what you are doing now.' + +Young John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in +mind, and would be heartily glad to do anything she wished. + +'As to me,' said Little Dorrit, 'think as little of me as you can; +the less, the better. When you think of me at all, John, let it +only be as the child you have seen grow up in the prison with one +set of duties always occupying her; as a weak, retired, contented, +unprotected girl. I particularly want you to remember, that when +I come outside the gate, I am unprotected and solitary.' + +He would try to do anything she wished. But why did Miss Amy so +much want him to remember that? + +'Because,' returned Little Dorrit, 'I know I can then quite trust +you not to forget to-day, and not to say any more to me. You are +so generous that I know I can trust to you for that; and I do and +I always will. I am going to show you, at once, that I fully trust +you. I like this place where we are speaking better than any place +I know;' her slight colour had faded, but her lover thought he saw +it coming back just then; 'and I may be often here. I know it is +only necessary for me to tell you so, to be quite sure that you +will never come here again in search of me. And I am--quite sure!' + +She might rely upon it, said Young John. He was a miserable +wretch, but her word was more than a law for him. + +'And good-bye, John,' said Little Dorrit. 'And I hope you will +have a good wife one day, and be a happy man. I am sure you will +deserve to be happy, and you will be, John.' + +As she held out her hand to him with these words, the heart that +was under the waistcoat of sprigs--mere slop-work, if the truth +must be known--swelled to the size of the heart of a gentleman; and +the poor common little fellow, having no room to hold it, burst +into tears. + +'Oh, don't cry,' said Little Dorrit piteously. 'Don't, don't! +Good-bye, John. God bless you!' + +'Good-bye, Miss Amy. Good-bye!' + +And so he left her: first observing that she sat down on the corner +of a seat, and not only rested her little hand upon the rough wall, +but laid her face against it too, as if her head were heavy, and +her mind were sad. +It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects, +to behold her lover, with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the +velvet collar turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat +buttoned to conceal the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the +little direction-post pointing inexorably home, creeping along by +the worst back-streets, and composing, as he went, the following +new inscription for a tombstone in St George's Churchyard: + +'Here lie the mortal remains Of JOHN CHIVERY, Never anything worth +mentioning, Who died about the end of the year one thousand eight +hundred and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Requesting with his last +breath that the word AMY might be inscribed over his ashes, which +was accordingly directed to be done, By his afflicted Parents.' + + + + +CHAPTER 19 + +The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations + + +The brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the +College-yard--of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the +Father made it a point of his state to be chary of going among his +children on the Poor side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas +Days, and other occasions of ceremony, in the observance whereof he +was very punctual, and at which times he laid his hand upon the +heads of their infants, and blessed those young insolvents with a +benignity that was highly edifying--the brothers, walking up and +down the College-yard together, were a memorable sight. Frederick +the free, was so humbled, bowed, withered, and faded; William the +bond, was so courtly, condescending, and benevolently conscious of +a position; that in this regard only, if in no other, the brothers +were a spectacle to wonder at. + +They walked up and down the yard on the evening of Little Dorrit's +Sunday interview with her lover on the Iron Bridge. The cares of +state were over for that day, the Drawing Room had been well +attended, several new presentations had taken place, the three-and- +sixpence accidentally left on the table had accidentally increased +to twelve shillings, and the Father of the Marshalsea refreshed +himself with a whiff of cigar. As he walked up and down, affably +accommodating his step to the shuffle of his brother, not proud in +his superiority, but considerate of that poor creature, bearing +with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities in every +little puff of smoke that issued from his lips and aspired to get +over the spiked wall, he was a sight to wonder at. + +His brother Frederick of the dim eye, palsied hand, bent form, and +groping mind, submissively shuffled at his side, accepting his +patronage as he accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world +in which he had got lost. He held the usual screwed bit of whitey- +brown paper in his hand, from which he ever and again unscrewed a +spare pinch of snuff. That falteringly taken, he would glance at +his brother not unadmiringly, put his hands behind him, and shuffle +on so at his side until he took another pinch, or stood still to +look about him--perchance suddenly missing his clarionet. +The College visitors were melting away as the shades of night drew +on, but the yard was still pretty full, the Collegians being mostly +out, seeing their friends to the Lodge. As the brothers paced the +yard, William the bond looked about him to receive salutes, +returned them by graciously lifting off his hat, and, with an +engaging air, prevented Frederick the free from running against the +company, or being jostled against the wall. The Collegians as a +body were not easily impressible, but even they, according to their +various ways of wondering, appeared to find in the two brothers a +sight to wonder at. + +'You are a little low this evening, Frederick,' said the Father of +the Marshalsea. 'Anything the matter?' + +'The matter?' He stared for a moment, and then dropped his head +and eyes again. 'No, William, no. Nothing is the matter.' + +'If you could be persuaded to smarten yourself up a little, +Frederick--' + +'Aye, aye!' said the old man hurriedly. 'But I can't be. I can't +be. Don't talk so. That's all over.' + +The Father of the Marshalsea glanced at a passing Collegian with +whom he was on friendly terms, as who should say, 'An enfeebled old +man, this; but he is my brother, sir, my brother, and the voice of +Nature is potent!' and steered his brother clear of the handle of +the pump by the threadbare sleeve. Nothing would have been wanting +to the perfection of his character as a fraternal guide, +philosopher and friend, if he had only steered his brother clear of +ruin, instead of bringing it upon him. + +'I think, William,' said the object of his affectionate +consideration, 'that I am tired, and will go home to bed.' + +'My dear Frederick,' returned the other, 'don't let me detain you; +don't sacrifice your inclination to me.' + +'Late hours, and a heated atmosphere, and years, I suppose,' said +Frederick, 'weaken me.' + +'My dear Frederick,' returned the Father of the Marshalsea, 'do you +think you are sufficiently careful of yourself? Do you think your +habits are as precise and methodical as--shall I say as mine are? +Not to revert again to that little eccentricity which I mentioned +just now, I doubt if you take air and exercise enough, Frederick. +Here is the parade, always at your service. Why not use it more +regularly than you do?' + +'Hah!' sighed the other. 'Yes, yes, yes, yes.' + +'But it is of no use saying yes, yes, my dear Frederick,' the +Father of the Marshalsea in his mild wisdom persisted, 'unless you +act on that assent. Consider my case, Frederick. I am a kind of +example. Necessity and time have taught me what to do. At certain +stated hours of the day, you will find me on the parade, in my +room, in the Lodge, reading the paper, receiving company, eating +and drinking. I have impressed upon Amy during many years, that I +must have my meals (for instance) punctually. Amy has grown up in +a sense of the importance of these arrangements, and you know what +a good girl she is.' + +The brother only sighed again, as he plodded dreamily along, 'Hah! +Yes, yes, yes, yes.' + +'My dear fellow,' said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his +hand upon his shoulder, and mildly rallying him--mildly, because of +his weakness, poor dear soul; 'you said that before, and it does +not express much, Frederick, even if it means much. I wish I could +rouse you, my good Frederick; you want to be roused.' + +'Yes, William, yes. No doubt,' returned the other, lifting his dim +eyes to his face. 'But I am not like you.' + +The Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self- +depreciation, 'Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you +might be, if you chose!' and forbore, in the magnanimity of his +strength, to press his fallen brother further. + +There was a great deal of leave-taking going on in corners, as was +usual on Sunday nights; and here and there in the dark, some poor +woman, wife or mother, was weeping with a new Collegian. The time +had been when the Father himself had wept, in the shades of that +yard, as his own poor wife had wept. But it was many years ago; +and now he was like a passenger aboard ship in a long voyage, who +has recovered from sea-sickness, and is impatient of that weakness +in the fresher passengers taken aboard at the last port. He was +inclined to remonstrate, and to express his opinion that people who +couldn't get on without crying, had no business there. In manner, +if not in words, he always testified his displeasure at these +interruptions of the general harmony; and it was so well +understood, that delinquents usually withdrew if they were aware of +him. + +On this Sunday evening, he accompanied his brother to the gate with +an air of endurance and clemency; being in a bland temper and +graciously disposed to overlook the tears. In the flaring gaslight +of the Lodge, several Collegians were basking; some taking leave of +visitors, and some who had no visitors, watching the frequent +turning of the key, and conversing with one another and with Mr +Chivery. The paternal entrance made a sensation of course; and Mr +Chivery, touching his hat (in a short manner though) with his key, +hoped he found himself tolerable. + +'Thank you, Chivery, quite well. And you?' + +Mr Chivery said in a low growl, 'Oh! he was all right.' Which was +his general way of acknowledging inquiries after his health when a +little sullen. + +'I had a visit from Young John to-day, Chivery. And very smart he +looked, I assure you.' + +So Mr Chivery had heard. Mr Chivery must confess, however, that +his wish was that the boy didn't lay out so much money upon it. +For what did it bring him in? It only brought him in wexation. +And he could get that anywhere for nothing. + +'How vexation, Chivery?' asked the benignant father. + +'No odds,' returned Mr Chivery. 'Never mind. Mr Frederick going +out?' + +'Yes, Chivery, my brother is going home to bed. He is tired, and +not quite well. Take care, Frederick, take care. Good night, my +dear Frederick!' + +Shaking hands with his brother, and touching his greasy hat to the +company in the Lodge, Frederick slowly shuffled out of the door +which Mr Chivery unlocked for him. The Father of the Marshalsea +showed the amiable solicitude of a superior being that he should +come to no harm. + +'Be so kind as to keep the door open a moment, Chivery, that I may +see him go along the passage and down the steps. Take care, +Frederick! (He is very infirm.) Mind the steps! (He is so very +absent.) Be careful how you cross, Frederick. (I really don't like +the notion of his going wandering at large, he is so extremely +liable to be run over.)' + +With these words, and with a face expressive of many uneasy doubts +and much anxious guardianship, he turned his regards upon the +assembled company in the Lodge: so plainly indicating that his +brother was to be pitied for not being under lock and key, that an +opinion to that effect went round among the Collegians assembled. + +But he did not receive it with unqualified assent; on the contrary, +he said, No, gentlemen, no; let them not misunderstand him. His +brother Frederick was much broken, no doubt, and it might be more +comfortable to himself (the Father of the Marshalsea) to know that +he was safe within the walls. Still, it must be remembered that to +support an existence there during many years, required a certain +combination of qualities--he did not say high qualities, but +qualities--moral qualities. Now, had his brother Frederick that +peculiar union of qualities? Gentlemen, he was a most excellent +man, a most gentle, tender, and estimable man, with the simplicity +of a child; but would he, though unsuited for most other places, do +for that place? No; he said confidently, no! And, he said, Heaven +forbid that Frederick should be there in any other character than +in his present voluntary character! Gentlemen, whoever came to +that College, to remain there a length of time, must have strength +of character to go through a good deal and to come out of a good +deal. Was his beloved brother Frederick that man? No. They saw +him, even as it was, crushed. Misfortune crushed him. He had not +power of recoil enough, not elasticity enough, to be a long time in +such a place, and yet preserve his self-respect and feel conscious +that he was a gentleman. Frederick had not (if he might use the +expression) Power enough to see in any delicate little attentions +and--and --Testimonials that he might under such circumstances +receive, the goodness of human nature, the fine spirit animating +the Collegians as a community, and at the same time no degradation +to himself, and no depreciation of his claims as a gentleman. +Gentlemen, God bless you! + +Such was the homily with which he improved and pointed the occasion +to the company in the Lodge before turning into the sallow yard +again, and going with his own poor shabby dignity past the +Collegian in the dressing-gown who had no coat, and past the +Collegian in the sea-side slippers who had no shoes, and past the +stout greengrocer Collegian in the corduroy knee-breeches who had +no cares, and past the lean clerk Collegian in buttonless black who +had no hopes, up his own poor shabby staircase to his own poor +shabby room. + +There, the table was laid for his supper, and his old grey gown was +ready for him on his chair-back at the fire. His daughter put her +little prayer-book in her pocket--had she been praying for pity on +all prisoners and captives!--and rose to welcome him. + +Uncle had gone home, then? she asked @ as she changed his coat and +gave him his black velvet cap. Yes, uncle had gone home. Had her +father enjoyed his walk? Why, not much, Amy; not much. No! Did +he not feel quite well? + +As she stood behind him, leaning over his chair so lovingly, he +looked with downcast eyes at the fire. An uneasiness stole over +him that was like a touch of shame; and when he spoke, as he +presently did, it was in an unconnected and embarrassed manner. + +'Something, I--hem!--I don't know what, has gone wrong with +Chivery. He is not--ha!--not nearly so obliging and attentive as +usual to-night. It--hem!--it's a little thing, but it puts me out, +my love. It's impossible to forget,' turning his hands over and +over and looking closely at them, 'that--hem!--that in such a life +as mine, I am unfortunately dependent on these men for something +every hour in the day.' + +Her arm was on his shoulder, but she did not look in his face while +he spoke. Bending her head she looked another way. + +'I--hem!--I can't think, Amy, what has given Chivery offence. He +is generally so--so very attentive and respectful. And to-night he +was quite--quite short with me. Other people there too! Why, good +Heaven! if I was to lose the support and recognition of Chivery +and his brother officers, I might starve to death here.' While he +spoke, he was opening and shutting his hands like valves; so +conscious all the time of that touch of shame, that he shrunk +before his own knowledge of his meaning. + +'I--ha!--I can't think what it's owing to. I am sure I cannot +imagine what the cause of it is. There was a certain Jackson here +once, a turnkey of the name of Jackson (I don't think you can +remember him, my dear, you were very young), and--hem!--and he had +a--brother, and this--young brother paid his addresses to--at +least, did not go so far as to pay his addresses to--but admired-- +respectfully admired--the--not daughter, the sister--of one of us; +a rather distinguished Collegian; I may say, very much so. His +name was Captain Martin; and he consulted me on the question +whether It was necessary that his daughter--sister--should hazard +offending the turnkey brother by being too--ha!--too plain with the +other brother. Captain Martin was a gentleman and a man of honour, +and I put it to him first to give me his--his own opinion. Captain +Martin (highly respected in the army) then unhesitatingly said that +it appeared to him that his--hem!--sister was not called upon to +understand the young man too distinctly, and that she might lead +him on--I am doubtful whether "lead him on" was Captain Martin's +exact expression: indeed I think he said tolerate him--on her +father's--I should say, brother's--account. I hardly know how I +have strayed into this story. I suppose it has been through being +unable to account for Chivery; but as to the connection between the +two, I don't see--' + +His voice died away, as if she could not bear the pain of hearing +him, and her hand had gradually crept to his lips. For a little +while there was a dead silence and stillness; and he remained +shrunk in his chair, and she remained with her arm round his neck +and her head bowed down upon his shoulder. + +His supper was cooking in a saucepan on the fire, and, when she +moved, it was to make it ready for him on the table. He took his +usual seat, she took hers, and he began his meal. They did not, as +yet, look at one another. By little and little he began; laying +down his knife and fork with a noise, taking things up sharply, +biting at his bread as if he were offended with it, and in other +similar ways showing that he was out of sorts. At length he pushed +his plate from him, and spoke aloud; with the strangest +inconsistency. + +'What does it matter whether I eat or starve? What does it matter +whether such a blighted life as mine comes to an end, now, next +week, or next year? What am I worth to anyone? A poor prisoner, +fed on alms and broken victuals; a squalid, disgraced wretch!' + +'Father, father!' As he rose she went on her knees to him, and held +up her hands to him. + +'Amy,' he went on in a suppressed voice, trembling violently, and +looking at her as wildly as if he had gone mad. 'I tell you, if +you could see me as your mother saw me, you wouldn't believe it to +be the creature you have only looked at through the bars of this +cage. I was young, I was accomplished, I was good-looking, I was +independent--by God I was, child!--and people sought me out, and +envied me. Envied me!' + +'Dear father!' She tried to take down the shaking arm that he +flourished in the air, but he resisted, and put her hand away. + +'If I had but a picture of myself in those days, though it was ever +so ill done, you would be proud of it, you would be proud of it. +But I have no such thing. Now, let me be a warning! Let no man,' +he cried, looking haggardly about, 'fail to preserve at least that +little of the times of his prosperity and respect. Let his +children have that clue to what he was. Unless my face, when I am +dead, subsides into the long departed look--they say such things +happen, I don't know--my children will have never seen me.' + +'Father, father!' + +'O despise me, despise me! Look away from me, don't listen to me, +stop me, blush for me, cry for me--even you, Amy! Do it, do it! +I do it to myself! I am hardened now, I have sunk too low to care +long even for that.' + +'Dear father, loved father, darling of my heart!' She was clinging +to him with her arms, and she got him to drop into his chair again, +and caught at the raised arm, and tried to put it round her neck. + +'Let it lie there, father. Look at me, father, kiss me, father! +Only think of me, father, for one little moment!' + +Still he went on in the same wild way, though it was gradually +breaking down into a miserable whining. + +'And yet I have some respect here. I have made some stand against +it. I am not quite trodden down. Go out and ask who is the chief +person in the place. They'll tell you it's your father. Go out +and ask who is never trifled with, and who is always treated with +some delicacy. They'll say, your father. Go out and ask what +funeral here (it must be here, I know it can be nowhere else) will +make more talk, and perhaps more grief, than any that has ever gone +out at the gate. They'll say your father's. Well then. Amy! +Amy! Is your father so universally despised? Is there nothing to +redeem him? Will you have nothing to remember him by but his ruin +and decay? Will you be able to have no affection for him when he +is gone, poor castaway, gone?' + +He burst into tears of maudlin pity for himself, and at length +suffering her to embrace him and take charge of him, let his grey +head rest against her cheek, and bewailed his wretchedness. +Presently he changed the subject of his lamentations, and clasping +his hands about her as she embraced him, cried, O Amy, his +motherless, forlorn child! O the days that he had seen her careful +and laborious for him! Then he reverted to himself, and weakly +told her how much better she would have loved him if she had known +him in his vanished character, and how he would have married her to +a gentleman who should have been proud of her as his daughter, and +how (at which he cried again) she should first have ridden at his +fatherly side on her own horse, and how the crowd (by which he +meant in effect the people who had given him the twelve shillings +he then had in his pocket) should have trudged the dusty roads +respectfully. + +Thus, now boasting, now despairing, in either fit a captive with +the jail-rot upon him, and the impurity of his prison worn into the +grain of his soul, he revealed his degenerate state to his +affectionate child. No one else ever beheld him in the details of +his humiliation. Little recked the Collegians who were laughing in +their rooms over his late address in the Lodge, what a serious +picture they had in their obscure gallery of the Marshalsea that +Sunday night. + +There was a classical daughter once--perhaps--who ministered to her +father in his prison as her mother had ministered to her. Little +Dorrit, though of the unheroic modern stock and mere English, did +much more, in comforting her father's wasted heart upon her +innocent breast, and turning to it a fountain of love and fidelity +that never ran dry or waned through all his years of famine. + +She soothed him; asked him for his forgiveness if she had been, or +seemed to have been, undutiful; told him, Heaven knows truly, that +she could not honour him more if he were the favourite of Fortune +and the whole world acknowledged him. When his tears were dried, +and he sobbed in his weakness no longer, and was free from that +touch of shame, and had recovered his usual bearing, she prepared +the remains of his supper afresh, and, sitting by his side, +rejoiced to see him eat and drink. For now he sat in his black +velvet cap and old grey gown, magnanimous again; and would have +comported himself towards any Collegian who might have looked in to +ask his advice, like a great moral Lord Chesterfield, or Master of +the ethical ceremonies of the Marshalsea. + +To keep his attention engaged, she talked with him about his +wardrobe; when he was pleased to say, that Yes, indeed, those +shirts she proposed would be exceedingly acceptable, for those he +had were worn out, and, being ready-made, had never fitted him. +Being conversational, and in a reasonable flow of spirits, he then +invited her attention to his coat as it hung behind the door: +remarking that the Father of the place would set an indifferent +example to his children, already disposed to be slovenly, if he +went among them out at elbows. He was jocular, too, as to the +heeling of his shoes; but became grave on the subject of his +cravat, and promised her that, when she could afford it, she should +buy him a new one. + +While he smoked out his cigar in peace, she made his bed, and put +the small room in order for his repose. Being weary then, owing to +the advanced hour and his emotions, he came out of his chair to +bless her and wish her Good night. All this time he had never once +thought of HER dress, her shoes, her need of anything. No other +person upon earth, save herself, could have been so unmindful of +her wants. + + +He kissed her many times with 'Bless you, my love. Good night, MY +dear!' + +But her gentle breast had been so deeply wounded by what she had +seen of him that she was unwilling to leave him alone, lest he +should lament and despair again. 'Father, dear, I am not tired; +let me come back presently, when you are in bed, and sit by you.' + +He asked her, with an air of protection, if she felt solitary? + +'Yes, father.' + +'Then come back by all means, my love.' + +'I shall be very quiet, father.' + + +'Don't think of me, my dear,' he said, giving her his kind +permission fully. 'Come back by all means.' + +He seemed to be dozing when she returned, and she put the low fire +together very softly lest she should awake him. But he overheard +her, and called out who was that? + +'Only Amy, father.' + +'Amy, my child, come here. I want to say a word to you.' He +raised himself a little in his low bed, as she kneeled beside it to +bring her face near him; and put his hand between hers. O! Both +the private father and the Father of the Marshalsea were strong +within him then. + +'My love, you have had a life of hardship here. No companions, no +recreations, many cares I am afraid?' + +'Don't think of that, dear. I never do.' + +'You know my position, Amy. I have not been able to do much for +you; but all I have been able to do, I have done.' + +'Yes, my dear father,' she rejoined, kissing him. 'I know, I +know.' + +'I am in the twenty-third year of my life here,' he said, with a +catch in his breath that was not so much a sob as an irrepressible +sound of self-approval, the momentary outburst of a noble +consciousness. 'It is all I could do for my children--I have done +it. Amy, my love, you are by far the best loved of the three; I +have had you principally in my mind--whatever I have done for your +sake, my dear child, I have done freely and without murmuring.' + +Only the wisdom that holds the clue to all hearts and all +mysteries, can surely know to what extent a man, especially a man +brought down as this man had been, can impose upon himself. +Enough, for the present place, that he lay down with wet eyelashes, +serene, in a manner majestic, after bestowing his life of +degradation as a sort of portion on the devoted child upon whom its +miseries had fallen so heavily, and whose love alone had saved him +to be even what he was. + +That child had no doubts, asked herself no question, for she was +but too content to see him with a lustre round his head. Poor +dear, good dear, truest, kindest, dearest, were the only words she +had for him, as she hushed him to rest. + +She never left him all that night. As if she had done him a wrong +which her tenderness could hardly repair, she sat by him in his +sleep, at times softly kissing him with suspended breath, and +calling him in a whisper by some endearing name. At times she +stood aside so as not to intercept the low fire-light, and, +watching him when it fell upon his sleeping face, wondered did he +look now at all as he had looked when he was prosperous and happy; +as he had so touched her by imagining that he might look once more +in that awful time. At the thought of that time, she kneeled +beside his bed again, and prayed, 'O spare his life! O save him to +me! O look down upon my dear, long-suffering, unfortunate, much- +changed, dear dear father!' + +Not until the morning came to protect him and encourage him, did +she give him a last kiss and leave the small room. When she had +stolen down-stairs, and along the empty yard, and had crept up to +her own high garret, the smokeless housetops and the distant +country hills were discernible over the wall in the clear morning. +As she gently opened the window, and looked eastward down the +prison yard, the spikes upon the wall were tipped with red, then +made a sullen purple pattern on the sun as it came flaming up into +the heavens. The spikes had never looked so sharp and cruel, nor +the bars so heavy, nor the prison space so gloomy and contracted. +She thought of the sunrise on rolling rivers, of the sunrise on +wide seas, of the sunrise on rich landscapes, of the sunrise on +great forests where the birds were waking and the trees were +rustling; and she looked down into the living grave on which the +sun had risen, with her father in it three-and-twenty years, and +said, in a burst of sorrow and compassion, 'No, no, I have never +seen him in my life!' + + + + +CHAPTER 20 + +Moving in Society + +If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to +write a satire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for +an avenging illustration out of the family of his beloved. He +would have found it amply in that gallant brother and that dainty +sister, so steeped in mean experiences, and so loftily conscious of +the family name; so ready to beg or borrow from the poorest, to eat +of anybody's bread, spend anybody's money, drink from anybody's cup +and break it afterwards. To have painted the sordid facts of their +lives, and they throughout invoking the death's head apparition of +the family gentility to come and scare their benefactors, would +have made Young John a satirist of the first water. + +Tip had turned his liberty to hopeful account by becoming a +billiard-marker. He had troubled himself so little as to the means +of his release, that Clennam scarcely needed to have been at the +pains of impressing the mind of Mr Plornish on that subject. +Whoever had paid him the compliment, he very readily accepted the +compliment with HIS compliments, and there was an end of it. +Issuing forth from the gate on these easy terms, he became a +billiard-marker; and now occasionally looked in at the little +skittle-ground in a green Newmarket coat (second-hand), with a +shining collar and bright buttons (new), and drank the beer of the +Collegians. + +One solid stationary point in the looseness of this gentleman's +character was, that he respected and admired his sister Amy. The +feeling had never induced him to spare her a moment's uneasiness, +or to put himself to any restraint or inconvenience on her account; +but with that Marshalsea taint upon his love, he loved her. The +same rank Marshalsea flavour was to be recognised in his distinctly +perceiving that she sacrificed her life to her father, and in his +having no idea that she had done anything for himself. + +When this spirited young man and his sister had begun +systematically to produce the family skeleton for the overawing of +the College, this narrative cannot precisely state. Probably at +about the period when they began to dine on the College charity. +It is certain that the more reduced and necessitous they were, the +more pompously the skeleton emerged from its tomb; and that when +there was anything particularly shabby in the wind, the skeleton +always came out with the ghastliest flourish. + +Little Dorrit was late on the Monday morning, for her father slept +late, and afterwards there was his breakfast to prepare and his +room to arrange. She had no engagement to go out to work, however, +and therefore stayed with him until, with Maggy's help, she had put +everything right about him, and had seen him off upon his morning +walk (of twenty yards or so) to the coffee-house to read the paper. + +She then got on her bonnet and went out, having been anxious to get +out much sooner. There was, as usual, a cessation of the small- +talk in the Lodge as she passed through it; and a Collegian who had +come in on Saturday night, received the intimation from the elbow +of a more seasoned Collegian, 'Look out. Here she is!' +She wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr +Cripples's, she found that both her sister and her uncle had gone +to the theatre where they were engaged. Having taken thought of +this probability by the way, and having settled that in such case +she would follow them, she set off afresh for the theatre, which +was on that side of the river, and not very far away. + +Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of +the ways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort +of door, with a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to +be ashamed of itself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to +approach it; being further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen +close-shaved gentlemen with their hats very strangely on, who were +lounging about the door, looking not at all unlike Collegians. On +her applying to them, reassured by this resemblance, for a +direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for her to enter a dark +hall--it was more like a great grim lamp gone out than anything +else--where she could hear the distant playing of music and the +sound of dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he had +a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in +a corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a +message up to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went +through. The first lady who went through had a roll of music, half +in her muff and half out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition +altogether, that it seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to +iron her. But as she was very good-natured, and said, 'Come with +me; I'll soon find Miss Dorrit for you,' Miss Dorrit's sister went +with her, drawing nearer and nearer at every step she took in the +darkness to the sound of music and the sound of dancing feet. + +At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people +were tumbling over one another, and where there was such a +confusion of unaccountable shapes of beams, bulkheads, brick walls, +ropes, and rollers, and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight, +that they seemed to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of +the universe. Little Dorrit, left to herself, and knocked against +by somebody every moment, was quite bewildered, when she heard her +sister's voice. + +'Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?' + +'I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day to- +morrow, and knew you might be engaged all day to-day, I thought--' + +'But the idea, Amy, of YOU coming behind! I never did!' As her +sister said this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she conducted +her to a more open part of the maze, where various golden chairs +and tables were heaped together, and where a number of young ladies +were sitting on anything they could find, chattering. All these +young ladies wanted ironing, and all had a curious way of looking +everywhere while they chattered. + +just as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap +put his head round a beam on the left, and said, 'Less noise there, +ladies!' and disappeared. Immediately after which, a sprightly +gentleman with a quantity of long black hair looked round a beam on +the right, and said, 'Less noise there, darlings!' and also +disappeared. + +'The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last +thing I could have conceived!' said her sister. 'Why, how did you +ever get here?' + +'I don't know. The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to +bring me in.' + +'Like you quiet little things! You can make your way anywhere, I +believe. I couldn't have managed it, Amy, though I know so much +more of the world.' + +It was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was +a plain domestic little creature, without the great and sage +experience of the rest. This family fiction was the family +assertion of itself against her services. Not to make too much of +them. + +'Well! And what have you got on your mind, Amy? Of course you +have got something on your mind about me?' said Fanny. She spoke +as if her sister, between two and three years her junior, were her +prejudiced grandmother. + +'It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the +bracelet, Fanny--' + +The monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the left, and +said, 'Look out there, ladies!' and disappeared. The sprightly +gentleman with the black hair as suddenly put his head round the +beam on the right, and said, 'Look out there, darlings!' and also +disappeared. Thereupon all the young ladies rose and began shaking +their skirts out behind. + +'Well, Amy?' said Fanny, doing as the rest did; 'what were you +going to say?' + +'Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me, +Fanny, I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want +to know a little more if you will confide more to me.' + +'Now, ladies!' said the boy in the Scotch cap. 'Now, darlings!' +said the gentleman with the black hair. They were every one gone +in a moment, and the music and the dancing feet were heard again. + +Little Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these +rapid interruptions. Her sister and the rest were a long time +gone; and during their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of +the gentleman with the black hair) was continually calling out +through the music, 'One, two, three, four, five, six--go! One, +two, three, four, five, six--go! Steady, darlings! One, two, +three, four, five, six--go!' Ultimately the voice stopped, and +they all came back again, more or less out of breath, folding +themselves in their shawls, and making ready for the streets. +'Stop a moment, Amy, and let them get away before us,' whispered +Fanny. They were soon left alone; nothing more important +happening, in the meantime, than the boy looking round his old +beam, and saying, 'Everybody at eleven to-morrow, ladies!' and the +gentleman with the black hair looking round his old beam, and +saying, 'Everybody at eleven to-morrow, darlings!' each in his own +accustomed manner. + +When they were alone, something was rolled up or by other means got +out of the way, and there was a great empty well before them, +looking down into the depths of which Fanny said, 'Now, uncle!' +Little Dorrit, as her eyes became used to the darkness, faintly +made him out at the bottom of the well, in an obscure corner by +himself, with his instrument in its ragged case under his arm. + +The old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows, with +their little strip of sky, might have been the point of his better +fortunes, from which he had descended, until he had gradually sunk +down below there to the bottom. He had been in that place six +nights a week for many years, but had never been observed to raise +his eyes above his music-book, and was confidently believed to have +never seen a play. There were legends in the place that he did not +so much as know the popular heroes and heroines by sight, and that +the low comedian had 'mugged' at him in his richest manner fifty +nights for a wager, and he had shown no trace of consciousness. +The carpenters had a joke to the effect that he was dead without +being aware of it; and the frequenters of the pit supposed him to +pass his whole life, night and day, and Sunday and all, in the +orchestra. They had tried him a few times with pinches of snuff +offered over the rails, and he had always responded to this +attention with a momentary waking up of manner that had the pale +phantom of a gentleman in it: beyond this he never, on any +occasion, had any other part in what was going on than the part +written out for the clarionet; in private life, where there was no +part for the clarionet, he had no part at all. Some said he was +poor, some said he was a wealthy miser; but he said nothing, never +lifted up his bowed head, never varied his shuffling gait by +getting his springless foot from the ground. Though expecting now +to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her until she had +spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all surprised by +the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said in his +tremulous voice, 'I am coming, I am coming!' and crept forth by +some underground way which emitted a cellarous smell. + +'And so, Amy,' said her sister, when the three together passed out +at the door that had such a shame-faced consciousness of being +different from other doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy's +arm as the arm to be relied on: 'so, Amy, you are curious about +me?' + +She was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting; and the +condescension with which she put aside the superiority of her +charms, and of her worldly experience, and addressed her sister on +almost equal terms, had a vast deal of the family in it. + +'I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns +you.' + +'So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys. If I am +ever a little provoking, I am sure you'll consider what a thing it +is to occupy my position and feel a consciousness of being superior +to it. I shouldn't care,' said the Daughter of the Father of the +Marshalsea, 'if the others were not so common. None of them have +come down in the world as we have. They are all on their own +level. Common.' + +Little Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt +her. Fanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her +eyes. 'I was not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps +that makes a difference. My dear child, when we get rid of Uncle, +you shall know all about it. We'll drop him at the cook's shop +where he is going to dine.' + +They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop window in +a dirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot +meats, vegetables, and puddings. But glimpses were to be caught of +a roast leg of pork bursting into tears of sage and onion in a +metal reservoir full of gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef +and blisterous Yorkshire pudding, bubbling hot in a similar +receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of veal in rapid cut, of a ham in +a perspiration with the pace it was going at, of a shallow tank of +baked potatoes glued together by their own richness, of a truss or +two of boiled greens, and other substantial delicacies. Within, +were a few wooden partitions, behind which such customers as found +it more convenient to take away their dinners in stomachs than in +their hands, Packed their purchases in solitude. Fanny opening her +reticule, as they surveyed these things, produced from that +repository a shilling and handed it to Uncle. Uncle, after not +looking at it a little while, divined its object, and muttering +'Dinner? Ha! Yes, yes, yes!' slowly vanished from them into the +mist. + +'Now, Amy,' said her sister, 'come with me, if you are not too +tired to walk to Harley Street, Cavendish Square.' + +The air with which she threw off this distinguished address and the +toss she gave to her new bonnet (which was more gauzy than +serviceable), made her sister wonder; however, she expressed her +readiness to go to Harley Street, and thither they directed their +steps. Arrived at that grand destination, Fanny singled out the +handsomest house, and knocking at the door, inquired for Mrs +Merdle. The footman who opened the door, although he had powder on +his head and was backed up by two other footmen likewise powdered, +not only admitted Mrs Merdle to be at home, but asked Fanny to walk +in. Fanny walked in, taking her sister with her; and they went up- +stairs with powder going before and powder stopping behind, and +were left in a spacious semicircular drawing-room, one of several +drawing-rooms, where there was a parrot on the outside of a golden +cage holding on by its beak, with its scaly legs in the air, and +putting itself into many strange upside-down postures. This +peculiarity has been observed in birds of quite another feather, +climbing upon golden wires. + +The room was far more splendid than anything Little Dorrit had ever +imagined, and would have been splendid and costly in any eyes. She +looked in amazement at her sister and would have asked a question, +but that Fanny with a warning frown pointed to a curtained doorway +of communication with another room. The curtain shook next moment, +and a lady, raising it with a heavily ringed hand, dropped it +behind her again as she entered. + +The lady was not young and fresh from the hand of Nature, but was +young and fresh from the hand of her maid. She had large unfeeling +handsome eyes, and dark unfeeling handsome hair, and a broad +unfeeling handsome bosom, and was made the most of in every +particular. Either because she had a cold, or because it suited +her face, she wore a rich white fillet tied over her head and under +her chin. And if ever there were an unfeeling handsome chin that +looked as if, for certain, it had never been, in familiar parlance, +'chucked' by the hand of man, it was the chin curbed up so tight +and close by that laced bridle. + +'Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny. 'My sister, ma'am.' + +'I am glad to see your sister, Miss Dorrit. I did not remember +that you had a sister.' + +'I did not mention that I had,' said Fanny. + +'Ah!' Mrs Merdle curled the little finger of her left hand as who +should say, 'I have caught you. I know you didn't!' All her +action was usually with her left hand because her hands were not a +pair; and left being much the whiter and plumper of the two. Then +she added: 'Sit down,' and composed herself voluptuously, in a nest +of crimson and gold cushions, on an ottoman near the parrot. + +'Also professional?' said Mrs Merdle, looking at Little Dorrit +through an eye-glass. + +Fanny answered No. 'No,' said Mrs Merdle, dropping her glass. +'Has not a professional air. Very pleasant; but not professional.' + +'My sister, ma'am,' said Fanny, in whom there was a singular +mixture of deference and hardihood, 'has been asking me to tell +her, as between sisters, how I came to have the honour of knowing +you. And as I had engaged to call upon you once more, I thought I +might take the liberty of bringing her with me, when perhaps you +would tell her. I wish her to know, and perhaps you will tell +her?' +'Do you think, at your sister's age--' hinted Mrs Merdle. + +'She is much older than she looks,' said Fanny; 'almost as old as +I am.' + +'Society,' said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little +finger, 'is so difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so +difficult to explain to most persons), that I am glad to hear that. + +I wish Society was not so arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting +-- Bird, be quiet!' + +The parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were +Society and it asserted its right to its exactions. + +'But,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'we must take it as we find it. We know +it is hollow and conventional and worldly and very shocking, but +unless we are Savages in the Tropical seas (I should have been +charmed to be one myself--most delightful life and perfect climate, +I am told), we must consult it. It is the common lot. Mr Merdle +is a most extensive merchant, his transactions are on the vastest +scale, his wealth and influence are very great, but even he-- Bird, +be quiet!' + +The parrot had shrieked another shriek; and it filled up the +sentence so expressively that Mrs Merdle was under no necessity to +end it. + +'Since your sister begs that I would terminate our personal +acquaintance,' she began again, addressing Little Dorrit, 'by +relating the circumstances that are much to her credit, I cannot +object to comply with her request, I am sure. I have a son (I was +first married extremely young) of two or three-and-twenty.' + +Fanny set her lips, and her eyes looked half triumphantly at her +sister. + +'A son of two or three-and-twenty. He is a little gay, a thing +Society is accustomed to in young men, and he is very impressible. +Perhaps he inherits that misfortune. I am very impressible myself, +by nature. The weakest of creatures--my feelings are touched in a +moment.' + +She said all this, and everything else, as coldly as a woman of +snow; quite forgetting the sisters except at odd times, and +apparently addressing some abstraction of Society; for whose +behoof, too, she occasionally arranged her dress, or the +composition of her figure upon the ottoman. + +'So he is very impressible. Not a misfortune in our natural state +I dare say, but we are not in a natural state. Much to be +lamented, no doubt, particularly by myself, who am a child of +nature if I could but show it; but so it is. Society suppresses us +and dominates us-- Bird, be quiet!' +The parrot had broken into a violent fit of laughter, after +twisting divers bars of his cage with his crooked bill, and licking +them with his black tongue. + +'It is quite unnecessary to say to a person of your good sense, +wide range of experience, and cultivated feeling,' said Mrs Merdle +from her nest of crimson and gold--and there put up her glass to +refresh her memory as to whom she was addressing,--'that the stage +sometimes has a fascination for young men of that class of +character. In saying the stage, I mean the people on it of the +female sex. Therefore, when I heard that my son was supposed to be +fascinated by a dancer, I knew what that usually meant in Society, +and confided in her being a dancer at the Opera, where young men +moving in Society are usually fascinated.' + +She passed her white hands over one another, observant of the +sisters now; and the rings upon her fingers grated against each +other with a hard sound. + +'As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was I +was much surprised and much distressed. But when I found that your +sister, by rejecting my son's advances (I must add, in an +unexpected manner), had brought him to the point of proposing +marriage, my feelings were of the profoundest anguish--acute.' She +traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right. + +'In a distracted condition, which only a mother--moving in +Society--can be susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the +theatre, and represent my state of mind to the dancer. I made +myself known to your sister. I found her, to my surprise, in many +respects different from my expectations; and certainly in none more +so, than in meeting me with--what shall I say--a sort of family +assertion on her own part?' Mrs Merdle smiled. + +'I told you, ma'am,' said Fanny, with a heightening colour, 'that +although you found me in that situation, I was so far above the +rest, that I considered my family as good as your son's; and that +I had a brother who, knowing the circumstances, would be of the +same opinion, and would not consider such a connection any honour.' + +'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Merdle, after frostily looking at her +through her glass, 'precisely what I was on the point of telling +your sister, in pursuance of your request. Much obliged to you for +recalling it so accurately and anticipating me. I immediately,' +addressing Little Dorrit, '(for I am the creature of impulse), took +a bracelet from my arm, and begged your sister to let me clasp it +on hers, in token of the delight I had in our being able to +approach the subject so far on a common footing.' (This was +perfectly true, the lady having bought a cheap and showy article on +her way to the interview, with a general eye to bribery.) + +'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that we might be +unfortunate, but we are not common.' + +'I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle. + +'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that if you spoke to me +of the superiority of your son's standing in Society, it was barely +possible that you rather deceived yourself in your suppositions +about my origin; and that my father's standing, even in the Society +in which he now moved (what that was, was best known to myself), +was eminently superior, and was acknowledged by every one.' + +'Quite accurate,' rejoined Mrs Merdle. 'A most admirable memory.' + +'Thank you, ma'am. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my +sister the rest.' + +'There is very little to tell,' said Mrs Merdle, reviewing the +breadth of bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough +to be unfeeling in, 'but it is to your sister's credit. I pointed +out to your sister the plain state of the case; the impossibility +of the Society in which we moved recognising the Society in which +she moved--though charming, I have no doubt; the immense +disadvantage at which she would consequently place the family she +had so high an opinion of, upon which we should find ourselves +compelled to look down with contempt, and from which (socially +speaking) we should feel obliged to recoil with abhorrence. In +short, I made an appeal to that laudable pride in your sister.' + +'Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs Merdle,' Fanny pouted, with +a toss of her gauzy bonnet, 'that I had already had the honour of +telling your son that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to +him.' + +'Well, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle, 'perhaps I might have +mentioned that before. If I did not think of it, perhaps it was +because my mind reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time +that he might persevere and you might have something to say to him. + +I also mentioned to your sister--I again address the non- +professional Miss Dorrit--that my son would have nothing in the +event of such a marriage, and would be an absolute beggar. (I +mention that merely as a fact which is part of the narrative, and +not as supposing it to have influenced your sister, except in the +prudent and legitimate way in which, constituted as our artificial +system is, we must all be influenced by such considerations.) +Finally, after some high words and high spirit on the part of your +sister, we came to the complete understanding that there was no +danger; and your sister was so obliging as to allow me to present +her with a mark or two of my appreciation at my dressmaker's.' + +Little Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled +face. + +'Also,' said Mrs Merdle, 'as to promise to give me the present +pleasure of a closing interview, and of parting with her on the +best of terms. On which occasion,' added Mrs Merdle, quitting her +nest, and putting something in Fanny's hand, 'Miss Dorrit will +permit me to say Farewell with best wishes in my own dull manner.' + +The sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage +of the parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it +out, seemed to mock them with a pompous dance of his body without +moving his feet, and suddenly turned himself upside down and +trailed himself all over the outside of his golden cage, with the +aid of his cruel beak and black tongue. + +'Adieu, Miss Dorrit, with best wishes,' said Mrs Merdle. 'If we +could only come to a Millennium, or something of that sort, I for +one might have the pleasure of knowing a number of charming and +talented persons from whom I am at present excluded. A more +primitive state of society would be delicious to me. There used to +be a poem when I learnt lessons, something about Lo the poor +Indians whose something mind! If a few thousand persons moving in +Society, could only go and be Indians, I would put my name down +directly; but as, moving in Society, we can't be Indians, +unfortunately--Good morning!' + +They came down-stairs with powder before them and powder behind, +the elder sister haughty and the younger sister humbled, and were +shut out into unpowdered Harley Street, Cavendish Square. + + +'Well?' said Fanny, when they had gone a little way without +speaking. 'Have you nothing to say, Amy?' + +'Oh, I don't know what to say!' she answered, distressed. 'You +didn't like this young man, Fanny?' + +'Like him? He is almost an idiot.' + +'I am so sorry--don't be hurt--but, since you ask me what I have to +say, I am so very sorry, Fanny, that you suffered this lady to give +you anything.' + +'You little Fool!' returned her sister, shaking her with the sharp +pull she gave her arm. 'Have you no spirit at all? But that's +just the way! You have no self-respect, you have no becoming +pride. just as you allow yourself to be followed about by a +contemptible little Chivery of a thing,' with the scornfullest +emphasis, 'you would let your family be trodden on, and never +turn.' + +'Don't say that, dear Fanny. I do what I can for them.' + +'You do what you can for them!' repeated Fanny, walking her on very +fast. 'Would you let a woman like this, whom you could see, if you +had any experience of anything, to be as false and insolent as a +woman can be--would you let her put her foot upon your family, and +thank her for it?' + +'No, Fanny, I am sure.' +'Then make her pay for it, you mean little thing. What else can +you make her do? Make her pay for it, you stupid child; and do +your family some credit with the money!' + +They spoke no more all the way back to the lodging where Fanny and +her uncle lived. When they arrived there, they found the old man +practising his clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of +the room. Fanny had a composite meal to make, of chops, and +porter, and tea; and indignantly pretended to prepare it for +herself, though her sister did all that in quiet reality. When at +last Fanny sat down to eat and drink, she threw the table +implements about and was angry with her bread, much as her father +had been last night. + +'If you despise me,' she said, bursting into vehement tears, +'because I am a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one? + +It was your doing. You would have me stoop as low as the ground +before this Mrs Merdle, and let her say what she liked and do what +she liked, and hold us all in contempt, and tell me so to my face. +Because I am a dancer!' + +'O Fanny!' + +'And Tip, too, poor fellow. She is to disparage him just as much +as she likes, without any check--I suppose because he has been in +the law, and the docks, and different things. Why, it was your +doing, Amy. You might at least approve of his being defended.' + +All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the +corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a +moment while he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression +that somebody had said something. + +'And your father, your poor father, Amy. Because he is not free to +show himself and to speak for himself, you would let such people +insult him with impunity. If you don't feel for yourself because +you go out to work, you might at least feel for him, I should +think, knowing what he has undergone so long.' + +Poor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply. + +The remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it. She said +nothing in reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the +fire. Uncle, after making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and +went on again. + +Fanny was passionate with the tea-cups and the bread as long as her +passion lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest +girl in the world, and she wished she was dead. After that, her +crying became remorseful, and she got up and put her arms round her +sister. Little Dorrit tried to stop her from saying anything, but +she answered that she would, she must! Thereupon she said again, +and again, 'I beg your pardon, Amy,' and 'Forgive me, Amy,' almost +as passionately as she had said what she regretted. + +'But indeed, indeed, Amy,' she resumed when they were seated in +sisterly accord side by side, 'I hope and I think you would have +seen this differently, if you had known a little more of Society.' + +'Perhaps I might, Fanny,' said the mild Little Dorrit. + +'You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up +there, Amy,' pursued her sister, gradually beginning to patronise, +'I have been out, moving more in Society, and may have been getting +proud and spirited--more than I ought to be, perhaps?' + +Little Dorrit answered 'Yes. O yes!' + +'And while you have been thinking of the dinner or the clothes, I +may have been thinking, you know, of the family. Now, may it not +be so, Amy?' + +Little Dorrit again nodded 'Yes,' with a more cheerful face than +heart. + +'Especially as we know,' said Fanny, 'that there certainly is a +tone in the place to which you have been so true, which does belong +to it, and which does make it different from other aspects of +Society. So kiss me once again, Amy dear, and we will agree that +we may both be right, and that you are a tranquil, domestic, home- +loving, good girl.' + +The clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this +dialogue, but was cut short now by Fanny's announcement that it was +time to go; which she conveyed to her uncle by shutting up his +scrap of music, and taking the clarionet out of his mouth. + +Little Dorrit parted from them at the door, and hastened back to +the Marshalsea. It fell dark there sooner than elsewhere, and +going into it that evening was like going into a deep trench. The +shadow of the wall was on every object. Not least upon the figure +in the old grey gown and the black velvet cap, as it turned towards +her when she opened the door of the dim room. + +'Why not upon me too!' thought Little Dorrit, with the door Yet in +her hand. 'It was not unreasonable in Fanny.' + + + + +CHAPTER 21 + +Mr Merdle's Complaint + + +Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in +Harley Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more +common wall than the fronts of other establishments of state on the +opposite side of the street. Like unexceptionable Society, the +opposing rows of houses in Harley Street were very grim with one +another. Indeed, the mansions and their inhabitants were so much +alike in that respect, that the people were often to be found drawn +up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in the shade of their own +loftiness, staring at the other side of the way with the dullness +of the houses. + +Everybody knows how like the street the two dinner-rows of people +who take their stand by the street will be. The expressionless +uniform twenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same +form, all approachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by +the same pattern of railing, all with the same impracticable fire- +escapes, the same inconvenient fixtures in their heads, and +everything without exception to be taken at a high valuation--who +has not dined with these? The house so drearily out of repair, the +occasional bow-window, the stuccoed house, the newly-fronted house, +the corner house with nothing but angular rooms, the house with the +blinds always down, the house with the hatchment always up, the +house where the collector has called for one quarter of an Idea, +and found nobody at home--who has not dined with these? The house +that nobody will take, and is to be had a bargain--who does not +know her? The showy house that was taken for life by the +disappointed gentleman, and which does not suit him at all--who is +unacquainted with that haunted habitation? + +Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs +Merdle. Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not +aware; but Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was +aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. Society had said 'Let us license them; +let us know them.' + +Mr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a +Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was +in everything good, from banking to building. He was in +Parliament, of course. He was in the City, necessarily. He was +Chairman of this, Trustee of that, President of the other. The +weightiest of men had said to projectors, 'Now, what name have you +got? Have you got Merdle?' And, the reply being in the negative, +had said, 'Then I won't look at you.' + +This great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom +which required so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest +of crimson and gold some fifteen years before. It was not a bosom +to repose upon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr +Merdle wanted something to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for +the purpose. Storr and Mortimer might have married on the same +speculation. + +Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The +jewels showed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in +Society with the jewels displayed upon it, attracted general +admiration. Society approving, Mr Merdle was satisfied. He was +the most disinterested of men,--did everything for Society, and got +as little for himself out of all his gain and care, as a man might. + +That is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted, +otherwise with unlimited wealth he would have got it. But his +desire was to the utmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was), +and take up all its drafts upon him for tribute. He did not shine +in company; he had not very much to say for himself; he was a +reserved man, with a broad, overhanging, watchful head, that +particular kind of dull red colour in his cheeks which is rather +stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy expression about his coat- +cuffs, as if they were in his confidence, and had reasons for being +anxious to hide his hands. In the little he said, he was a +pleasant man enough; plain, emphatic about public and private +confidence, and tenacious of the utmost deference being shown by +every one, in all things, to Society. In this same Society (if +that were it which came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle's +receptions and concerts), he hardly seemed to enjoy himself much, +and was mostly to be found against walls and behind doors. Also +when he went out to it, instead of its coming home to him, he +seemed a little fatigued, and upon the whole rather more disposed +for bed; but he was always cultivating it nevertheless, and always +moving in it--and always laying out money on it with the greatest +liberality. + +Mrs Merdle's first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices +the bosom had entered into competition with the snows of North +America, and had come off at little disadvantage in point of +whiteness, and at none in point of coldness. The colonel's son was +Mrs Merdle's only child. He was of a chuckle-headed, high- +shouldered make, with a general appearance of being, not so much a +young man as a swelled boy. He had given so few signs of reason, +that a by-word went among his companions that his brain had been +frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St john's, New +Brunswick, at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed +from that hour. Another by-word represented him as having in his +infancy, through the negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high +window on his head, which had been heard by responsible witnesses +to crack. It is probable that both these representations were of +ex post facto origin; the young gentleman (whose expressive name +was Sparkler) being monomaniacal in offering marriage to all manner +of undesirable young ladies, and in remarking of every successive +young lady to whom he tendered a matrimonial proposal that she was +'a doosed fine gal--well educated too--with no biggodd nonsense +about her.' + +A son-in-law with these limited talents, might have been a clog +upon another man; but Mr Merdle did not want a son-in-law for +himself; he wanted a son-in-law for Society. Mr Sparkler having +been in the Guards, and being in the habit of frequenting all the +races, and all the lounges, and all the parties, and being well +known, Society was satisfied with its son-in-law. This happy +result Mr Merdle would have considered well attained, though Mr +Sparkler had been a more expensive article. And he did not get Mr +Sparkler by any means cheap for Society, even as it was. +There was a dinner giving in the Harley Street establishment, while +Little Dorrit was stitching at her father's new shirts by his side +that night; and there were magnates from the Court and magnates +from the City, magnates from the Commons and magnates from the +Lords, magnates from the bench and magnates from the bar, Bishop +magnates, Treasury magnates, Horse Guard magnates, Admiralty +magnates,--all the magnates that keep us going, and sometimes trip +us up. + +'I am told,' said Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, 'that Mr Merdle +has made another enormous hit. They say a hundred thousand +pounds.' + +Horse Guards had heard two. + +Treasury had heard three. + +Bar, handling his persuasive double eye-glass, was by no means +clear but that it might be four. It was one of those happy strokes +of calculation and combination, the result of which it was +difficult to estimate. It was one of those instances of a +comprehensive grasp, associated with habitual luck and +characteristic boldness, of which an age presented us but few. But +here was Brother Bellows, who had been in the great Bank case, and +who could probably tell us more. What did Brother Bellows put this +new success at? + +Brother Bellows was on his way to make his bow to the bosom, and +could only tell them in passing that he had heard it stated, with +great appearance of truth, as being worth, from first to last, +half-a-million of money. + +Admiralty said Mr Merdle was a wonderful man, Treasury said he was +a new power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole +House of Commons. Bishop said he was glad to think that this +wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman who was always +disposed to maintain the best interests of Society. + +Mr Merdle himself was usually late on these occasions, as a man +still detained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men +had shaken off their dwarfs for the day. On this occasion, he was +the last arrival. Treasury said Merdle's work punished him a +little. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed +into the coffers of a gentleman who accepted it with meekness. + +Powder! There was so much Powder in waiting, that it flavoured the +dinner. Pulverous particles got into the dishes, and Society's +meats had a seasoning of first-rate footmen. Mr Merdle took down +a countess who was secluded somewhere in the core of an immense +dress, to which she was in the proportion of the heart to the +overgrown cabbage. If so low a simile may be admitted, the dress +went down the staircase like a richly brocaded Jack in the Green, +and nobody knew what sort of small person carried it. + +Society had everything it could want, and could not want, for +dinner. It had everything to look at, and everything to eat, and +everything to drink. It is to be hoped it enjoyed itself; for Mr +Merdle's own share of the repast might have been paid for with +eighteenpence. Mrs Merdle was magnificent. The chief butler was +the next magnificent institution of the day. He was the stateliest +man in the company. He did nothing, but he looked on as few other +men could have done. He was Mr Merdle's last gift to Society. Mr +Merdle didn't want him, and was put out of countenance when the +great creature looked at him; but inappeasable Society would have +him--and had got him. + +The invisible countess carried out the Green at the usual stage of +the entertainment, and the file of beauty was closed up by the +bosom. Treasury said, Juno. Bishop said, Judith. + +Bar fell into discussion with Horse Guards concerning courts- +martial. Brothers Bellows and Bench struck in. Other magnates +paired off. Mr Merdle sat silent, and looked at the table-cloth. +Sometimes a magnate addressed him, to turn the stream of his own +particular discussion towards him; but Mr Merdle seldom gave much +attention to it, or did more than rouse himself from his +calculations and pass the wine. + +When they rose, so many of the magnates had something to say to Mr +Merdle individually that he held little levees by the sideboard, +and checked them off as they went out at the door. + +Treasury hoped he might venture to congratulate one of England's +world-famed capitalists and merchant-princes (he had turned that +original sentiment in the house a few times, and it came easy to +him) on a new achievement. To extend the triumphs of such men was +to extend the triumphs and resources of the nation; and Treasury +felt--he gave Mr Merdle to understand--patriotic on the subject. + +'Thank you, my lord,' said Mr Merdle; 'thank you. I accept your +congratulations with pride, and I am glad you approve.' + +'Why, I don't unreservedly approve, my dear Mr Merdle. Because,' +smiling Treasury turned him by the arm towards the sideboard and +spoke banteringly, 'it never can be worth your while to come among +us and help us.' + +Mr Merdle felt honoured by the-- + +'No, no,' said Treasury, 'that is not the light in which one so +distinguished for practical knowledge and great foresight, can be +expected to regard it. If we should ever be happily enabled, by +accidentally possessing the control over circumstances, to propose +to one so eminent to--to come among us, and give us the weight of +his influence, knowledge, and character, we could only propose it +to him as a duty. In fact, as a duty that he owed to Society.' + +Mr Merdle intimated that Society was the apple of his eye, and that +its claims were paramount to every other consideration. Treasury +moved on, and Bar came up. +Bar, with his little insinuating jury droop, and fingering his +persuasive double eye-glass, hoped he might be excused if he +mentioned to one of the greatest converters of the root of all evil +into the root of all good, who had for a long time reflected a +shining lustre on the annals even of our commercial country--if he +mentioned, disinterestedly, and as, what we lawyers called in our +pedantic way, amicus curiae, a fact that had come by accident +within his knowledge. He had been required to look over the title +of a very considerable estate in one of the eastern counties-- +lying, in fact, for Mr Merdle knew we lawyers loved to be +particular, on the borders of two of the eastern counties. Now, +the title was perfectly sound, and the estate was to be purchased +by one who had the command of--Money (jury droop and persuasive +eye-glass), on remarkably advantageous terms. This had come to +Bar's knowledge only that day, and it had occurred to him, 'I shall +have the honour of dining with my esteemed friend Mr Merdle this +evening, and, strictly between ourselves, I will mention the +opportunity.' Such a purchase would involve not only a great +legitimate political influence, but some half-dozen church +presentations of considerable annual value. Now, that Mr Merdle +was already at no loss to discover means of occupying even his +capital, and of fully employing even his active and vigorous +intellect, Bar well knew: but he would venture to suggest that the +question arose in his mind, whether one who had deservedly gained +so high a position and so European a reputation did not owe it--we +would not say to himself, but we would say to Society, to possess +himself of such influences as these; and to exercise them--we would +not say for his own, or for his party's, but we would say for +Society's--benefit. + +Mr Merdle again expressed himself as wholly devoted to that object +of his constant consideration, and Bar took his persuasive eye- +glass up the grand staircase. Bishop then came undesignedly +sidling in the direction of the sideboard. + +Surely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to +Bishop to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels +than when they accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and +sagacious, who, while they knew the just value of riches (Bishop +tried here to look as if he were rather poor himself), were aware +of their importance, judiciously governed and rightly distributed, +to the welfare of our brethren at large. + +Mr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop +couldn't mean him, and with inconsistency expressed his high +gratification in Bishop's good opinion. + +Bishop then--jauntily stepping out a little with his well-shaped +right leg, as though he said to Mr Merdle 'don't mind the apron; a +mere form!' put this case to his good friend: + +Whether it had occurred to his good friend, that Society might not +unreasonably hope that one so blest in his undertakings, and whose +example on his pedestal was so influential with it, would shed a +little money in the direction of a mission or so to Africa? + +Mr Merdle signifying that the idea should have his best attention, +Bishop put another case: + +Whether his good friend had at all interested himself in the +proceedings of our Combined Additional Endowed Dignitaries +Committee, and whether it had occurred to him that to shed a little +money in that direction might be a great conception finely +executed? + +Mr Merdle made a similar reply, and Bishop explained his reason for +inquiring. + +Society looked to such men as his good friend to do such things. +It was not that HE looked to them, but that Society looked to them. + +just as it was not Our Committee who wanted the Additional Endowed +Dignitaries, but it was Society that was in a state of the most +agonising uneasiness of mind until it got them. He begged to +assure his good friend that he was extremely sensible of his good +friend's regard on all occasions for the best interests of Society; +and he considered that he was at once consulting those interests +and expressing the feeling of Society, when he wished him continued +prosperity, continued increase of riches, and continued things in +general. + +Bishop then betook himself up-stairs, and the other magnates +gradually floated up after him until there was no one left below +but Mr Merdle. That gentleman, after looking at the table-cloth +until the soul of the chief butler glowed with a noble resentment, +went slowly up after the rest, and became of no account in the +stream of people on the grand staircase. Mrs Merdle was at home, +the best of the jewels were hung out to be seen, Society got what +it came for, Mr Merdle drank twopennyworth of tea in a corner and +got more than he wanted. + +Among the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew +everybody, and whom everybody knew. On entering at the door, he +came upon Mr Merdle drinking his tea in a corner, and touched him +on the arm. + +Mr Merdle started. 'Oh! It's you!' + +'Any better to-day?' + +'No,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am no better.' + +'A pity I didn't see you this morning. Pray come to me to-morrow, +or let me come to you. ' + +'Well!' he replied. 'I will come to-morrow as I drive by.' +Bar and Bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue, +and as Mr Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their +remarks upon it to the Physician. Bar said, there was a certain +point of mental strain beyond which no man could go; that the point +varied with various textures of brain and peculiarities of +constitution, as he had had occasion to notice in several of his +learned brothers; but the point of endurance passed by a line's +breadth, depression and dyspepsia ensued. Not to intrude on the +sacred mysteries of medicine, he took it, now (with the jury droop +and persuasive eye-glass), that this was Merdle's case? Bishop +said that when he was a young man, and had fallen for a brief space +into the habit of writing sermons on Saturdays, a habit which all +young sons of the church should sedulously avoid, he had frequently +been sensible of a depression, arising as he supposed from an over- +taxed intellect, upon which the yolk of a new-laid egg, beaten up +by the good woman in whose house he at that time lodged, with a +glass of sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered sugar acted like a +charm. Without presuming to offer so simple a remedy to the +consideration of so profound a professor of the great healing art, +he would venture to inquire whether the strain, being by way of +intricate calculations, the spirits might not (humanly speaking) be +restored to their tone by a gentle and yet generous stimulant? + +'Yes,' said the physician, 'yes, you are both right. But I may as +well tell you that I can find nothing the matter with Mr Merdle. +He has the constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an +ostrich, and the concentration of an oyster. As to nerves, Mr +Merdle is of a cool temperament, and not a sensitive man: is about +as invulnerable, I should say, as Achilles. How such a man should +suppose himself unwell without reason, you may think strange. But +I have found nothing the matter with him. He may have some deep- +seated recondite complaint. I can't say. I only say, that at +present I have not found it out.' + +There was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the bosom now +displaying precious stones in rivalry with many similar superb +jewel-stands; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on young +Sparkler hovering about the rooms, monomaniacally seeking any +sufficiently ineligible young lady with no nonsense about her; +there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the Barnacles and +Stiltstalkings, of whom whole colonies were present; or on any of +the company. Even on himself, its shadow was faint enough as he +moved about among the throng, receiving homage. + +Mr Merdle's complaint. Society and he had so much to do with one +another in all things else, that it is hard to imagine his +complaint, if he had one, being solely his own affair. Had he that +deep-seated recondite complaint, and did any doctor find it out? +Patience. in the meantime, the shadow of the Marshalsea wall was +a real darkening influence, and could be seen on the Dorrit Family +at any stage of the sun's course. + + + + +CHAPTER 22 + +A Puzzle + + +Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the +Marshalsea in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness +on the great Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken +admiration in the paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to +give offence in that sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a +positive shortcoming in point of gentlemanly feeling. An +impression of disappointment, occasioned by the discovery that Mr +Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for which, in the +confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give him credit, +began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that +gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family +circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts. +He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and +representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called +to pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him +personally. There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it +was) wanting in him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any +outward show of politeness, but, on the contrary, honoured him with +much attention; perhaps cherishing the hope that, although not a +man of a sufficiently brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to +repeat his former testimonial unsolicited, it might still be within +the compass of his nature to bear the part of a responsive +gentleman, in any correspondence that way tending. + +In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had +been accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, +of the gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of +the Father of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting +him out, and of the gentleman from outside who took an interest in +the child of the Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark. + +He was not surprised by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery +when that officer was on the lock, for he made little distinction +between Mr Chivery's politeness and that of the other turnkeys. It +was on one particular afternoon that Mr Chivery surprised him all +at once, and stood forth from his companions in bold relief. + +Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the +Lodge, had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so +that Clennam, coming out of the prison, should find him on duty +alone. + +'(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,' said Mr Chivery in a secret +manner; 'but which way might you be going?' + +'I am going over the Bridge.' He saw in Mr Chivery, with some +astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his +key on his lips. + +'(Private) I ask your pardon again,' said Mr Chivery, 'but could +you go round by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time +to look in at that address?' handing him a little card, printed for +circulation among the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, +Importers of pure Havannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine- +flavoured Cubas, Dealers in Fancy Snuffs, &C. &C. + +'(Private) It an't tobacco business,' said Mr Chivery. 'The truth +is, it's my wife. She's wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a +point respecting--yes,' said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam's look +of apprehension with a nod, 'respecting her.' + +'I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.' + +'Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an't above ten minutes out of +your way. Please to ask for Mrs Chivery!' These instructions, Mr +Chivery, who had already let him out, cautiously called through a +little slide in the outer door, which he could draw back from +within for the inspection of visitors when it pleased him. + +Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the +address set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a +very small establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the +counter working at her needle. Little jars of tobacco, little +boxes of cigars, a little assortment of pipes, a little jar or two +of snuff, and a little instrument like a shoeing horn for serving +it out, composed the retail stock in trade. + +Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the +solicitation of Mr Chivery. About something relating to Miss +Dorrit, he believed. Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose +up from her seat behind the counter, and deploringly shook her +head. + +'You may see him now,' said she, 'if you'll condescend to take a +peep.' + +With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little +parlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a +very little dull back-yard. In this yard a wash of sheets and +table-cloths tried (in vain, for want of air) to get itself dried +on a line or two; and among those flapping articles was sitting in +a chair, like the last mariner left alive on the deck of a damp +ship without the power of furling the sails, a little woe-begone +young man. + +'Our John,' said Mrs Chivery. + +Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be +doing there? + +'It's the only change he takes,' said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head +afresh. 'He won't go out, even in the back-yard, when there's no +linen; but when there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off, +he'll sit there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was +groves!' Mrs Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a +motherly way to her eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the +regions of the business. + +'Please to take a seat, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Miss Dorrit is +the matter with Our John, sir; he's a breaking his heart for her, +and I would wish to take the liberty to ask how it's to be made +good to his parents when bust?' + +Mrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected +about Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, +uttered this speech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards +began again to shake her head and dry her eyes. + +'Sir,' said she in continuation, 'you are acquainted with the +family, and have interested yourself with the family, and are +influential with the family. If you can promote views calculated +to make two young people happy, let me, for Our john's sake, and +for both their sakes, implore you so to do!' + +'I have been so habituated,' returned Arthur, at a loss, 'during +the short time I have known her, to consider Little-- I have been +so habituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed +from that in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by +surprise. Does she know your son?' + +'Brought up together, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Played together.' + +'Does she know your son as her admirer?' + +'Oh! bless you, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant +shiver, 'she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing +he was that. His cane alone would have told it long ago, if +nothing else had. Young men like John don't take to ivory hands a +pinting, for nothing. How did I first know it myself? Similarly.' + +'Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.' + +'Then she knows it, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'by word of mouth.' + +'Are you sure?' + +'Sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'sure and certain as in this house I am. +I see my son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and +I see my son come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and +I know he done it!' Mrs Chivery derived a surprising force of +emphasis from the foregoing circumstantiality and repetition. + +'May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which +causes you so much uneasiness?' + +'That,' said Mrs Chivery, 'took place on that same day when to this +house I see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself +in this house since. Never was like what he has been since, not +from the hour when to this house seven year ago me and his father, +as tenants by the quarter, came!' An effect in the nature of an +affidavit was gained from this speech by Mrs Chivery's peculiar +power of construction. +'May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?' + +'You may,' said Mrs Chivery, 'and I will give it to you in honour +and in word as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has every +one's good word and every one's good wish. He played with her as +a child when in that yard a child she played. He has known her +ever since. He went out upon the Sunday afternoon when in this +very parlour he had dined, and met her, with appointment or without +appointment; which, I do not pretend to say. He made his offer to +her. Her brother and sister is high in their views, and against +Our John. Her father is all for himself in his views and against +sharing her with any one. Under which circumstances she has +answered Our John, "No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have any +husband, it is not my intentions ever to become a wife, it is my +intentions to be always a sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy +of you, and forget me!" This is the way in which she is doomed to +be a constant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant +slave she unto them should be. This is the way in which Our John +has come to find no pleasure but in taking cold among the linen, +and in showing in that yard, as in that yard I have myself shown +you, a broken-down ruin that goes home to his mother's heart!' +Here the good woman pointed to the little window, whence her son +might be seen sitting disconsolate in the tuneless groves; and +again shook her head and wiped her eyes, and besought him, for the +united sakes of both the young people, to exercise his influence +towards the bright reversal of these dismal events. + +She was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so +undeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative +positions of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that +Clennam could not feel positive on the other side. He had come to +attach to Little Dorrit an interest so peculiar--an interest that +removed her from, while it grew out of, the common and coarse +things surrounding her--that he found it disappointing, +disagreeable, almost painful, to suppose her in love with young Mr +Chivery in the back-yard, or any such person. On the other hand, +he reasoned with himself that she was just as good and just as true +in love with him, as not in love with him; and that to make a kind +of domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty of isolation at heart +from the only people she knew, would be but a weakness of his own +fancy, and not a kind one. Still, her youthful and ethereal +appearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice and +eyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out of +her own individuality, and the strong difference between herself +and those about her, were not in unison, and were determined not to +be in unison, with this newly presented idea. + +He told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in +his mind--he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking--that he +might be relied upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the +happiness of Miss Dorrit, and to further the wishes of her heart if +it were in his power to do so, and if he could discover what they +were. At the same time he cautioned her against assumptions and +appearances; enjoined strict silence and secrecy, lest Miss Dorrit +should be made unhappy; and particularly advised her to endeavour +to win her son's confidence and so to make quite sure of the state +of the case. Mrs Chivery considered the latter precaution +superfluous, but said she would try. She shook her head as if she +had not derived all the comfort she had fondly expected from this +interview, but thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had +kindly taken. They then parted good friends, and Arthur walked +away. + +The crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two +crowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off +in the quieter direction of the Iron Bridge. He had scarcely set +foot upon it, when he saw Little Dorrit walking on before him. It +was a pleasant day, with a light breeze blowing, and she seemed to +have that minute come there for air. He had left her in her +father's room within an hour. + +It was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her +face and manner when no one else was by. He quickened his pace; +but before he reached her, she turned her head. + +'Have I startled you?' he asked. + +'I thought I knew the step,' she answered, hesitating. + +'And did you know it, Little Dorrit? You could hardly have +expected mine.' + +'I did not expect any. But when I heard a step, I thought it-- +sounded like yours.' + +'Are you going further?' + +'No, sir, I am only walking her for a little change.' + +They walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with +him, and looked up in his face as she said, after glancing around: + +'It is so strange. Perhaps you can hardly understand it. I +sometimes have a sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk +here.' + +'Unfeeling?' + +'To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such +change and motion. Then to go back, you know, and find him in the +same cramped place.' + +'Ah yes! But going back, you must remember that you take with you +the spirit and influence of such things to cheer him.' + +'Do I? I hope I may! I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and +make me out too powerful. If you were in prison, could I bring +such comfort to you?' +'Yes, Little Dorrit, I am sure of it.' + +He gathered from a tremor on her lip, and a passing shadow of great +agitation on her face, that her mind was with her father. He +remained silent for a few moments, that she might regain her +composure. The Little Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in +unison than ever with Mrs Chivery's theory, and yet was not +irreconcilable with a new fancy which sprung up within him, that +there might be some one else in the hopeless--newer fancy still--in +the hopeless unattainable distance. + +They turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggy coming! Little +Dorrit looked up, surprised, and they confronted Maggy, who brought +herself at sight of them to a dead stop. She had been trotting +along, so preoccupied and busy that she had not recognised them +until they turned upon her. She was now in a moment so conscience- +stricken that her very basket partook of the change. + +'Maggy, you promised me to stop near father.' + +'So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn't let me. If he takes +and sends me out I must go. If he takes and says, "Maggy, you +hurry away and back with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence +if the answer's a good 'un," I must take it. Lor, Little Mother, +what's a poor thing of ten year old to do? And if Mr Tip--if he +happens to be a coming in as I come out, and if he says "Where are +you going, Maggy?" and if I says, "I'm a going So and So," and if +he says, "I'll have a Try too," and if he goes into the George and +writes a letter and if he gives it me and says, "Take that one to +the same place, and if the answer's a good 'un I'll give you a +shilling," it ain't my fault, mother!' + +Arthur read, in Little Dorrit's downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw +that the letters were addressed. + +'I'm a going So and So. There! That's where I am a going to,' +said Maggy. 'I'm a going So and So. It ain't you, Little Mother, +that's got anything to do with it--it's you, you know,' said Maggy, +addressing Arthur. 'You'd better come, So and So, and let me take +and give 'em to you.' + +'We will not be so particular as that, Maggy. Give them me here,' +said Clennam in a low voice. + +'Well, then, come across the road,' answered Maggy in a very loud +whisper. 'Little Mother wasn't to know nothing of it, and she +would never have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and +So, instead of bothering and loitering about. It ain't my fault. +I must do what I am told. They ought to be ashamed of themselves +for telling me.' + +Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the +letters. That from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly +finding himself in the novel position of having been disappointed +of a remittance from the City on which he had confidently counted, +he took up his pen, being restrained by the unhappy circumstance of +his incarceration during three-and-twenty years (doubly +underlined), from coming himself, as he would otherwise certainly +have done--took up his pen to entreat Mr Clennam to advance him the +sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his I.O.U., which he begged +to enclose. That from the son set forth that Mr Clennam would, he +knew, be gratified to hear that he had at length obtained permanent +employment of a highly satisfactory nature, accompanied with every +prospect of complete success in life; but that the temporary +inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary to that +date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that +generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting +towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of +a false friend and the present high price of provisions, had +reduced him to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter +before six that evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, +Mr Clennam would be happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude +of several friends who had a lively confidence in his probity, +already raised, with the exception of a trifling balance of one +pound seventeen and fourpence; the loan of which balance, for the +period of one month, would be fraught with the usual beneficent +consequences. + +These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and +pocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and +excusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son. He +then commissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her +the shilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise +would have disappointed her otherwise. + +When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as +before, she said all at once: + +'I think I had better go. I had better go home.' + +'Don't be distressed,' said Clennam, 'I have answered the letters. +They were nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing.' + +'But I am afraid,' she returned, 'to leave him, I am afraid to +leave any of them. When I am gone, they pervert--but they don't +mean it--even Maggy.' + +'It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. +And in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she +was only saving you uneasiness.' + +'Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but +the other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the +prison that I had its tone and character. It must be so. I am +sure it must be when I see these things. My place is there. I am +better there. it is unfeeling in me to be here, when I can do the +least thing there. Good-bye. I had far better stay at home!' + +The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of +itself from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to +keep the tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her. + +'Don't call it home, my child!' he entreated. 'It is always +painful to me to hear you call it home.' + +'But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever +forget it for a single moment?' + +'You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.' + +'I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; +much better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don't go with +me, let me go by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you, +thank you.' + +He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not +move while her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had +fluttered out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and +stood thinking. + +She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the +letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way? + +No. + +When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise +on, when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she +had been distressed, but not like this. Something had made her +keenly and additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some +one in the hopeless unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion +been brought into his mind, by his own associations of the troubled +river running beneath the bridge with the same river higher up, its +changeless tune upon the prow of the ferry-boat, so many miles an +hour the peaceful flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the +lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet? + +He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; +he thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he +thought of her when the day came round again. And the poor child +Little Dorrit thought of him--too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!-- +in the shadow of the Marshalsea wall. + + + + +CHAPTER 23 + +Machinery in Motion + + +Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the +matter of the negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had +entrusted to him, that he soon brought it into business train, and +called on Clennam at nine o'clock one morning to make his report. +'Doyce is highly gratified by your good opinion,' he opened the +business by saying, 'and desires nothing so much as that you should +examine the affairs of the Works for yourself, and entirely +understand them. He has handed me the keys of all his books and +papers--here they are jingling in this pocket--and the only charge +he has given me is "Let Mr Clennam have the means of putting +himself on a perfect equality with me as to knowing whatever I +know. If it should come to nothing after all, he will respect my +confidence. Unless I was sure of that to begin with, I should have +nothing to do with him." And there, you see,' said Mr Meagles, +'you have Daniel Doyce all over.' + +'A very honourable character.' + +'Oh, yes, to be sure. Not a doubt of it. Odd, but very +honourable. Very odd though. Now, would you believe, Clennam,' +said Mr Meagles, with a hearty enjoyment of his friend's +eccentricity, 'that I had a whole morning in What's-his-name Yard-- +' + +'Bleeding Heart?' + +'A whole morning in Bleeding Heart Yard, before I could induce him +to pursue the subject at all?' + +'How was that?' + +'How was that, my friend? I no sooner mentioned your name in +connection with it than he declared off.' + +'Declared off on my account?' + +'I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, "That will +never do!" What did he mean by that? I asked him. No matter, +Meagles; that would never do. Why would it never do? You'll +hardly believe it, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, laughing within +himself, 'but it came out that it would never do, because you and +he, walking down to Twickenham together, had glided into a friendly +conversation in the course of which he had referred to his +intention of taking a partner, supposing at the time that you were +as firmly and finally settled as St Paul's Cathedral. "Whereas," +says he, "Mr Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his +proposition, that I had a sinister and designing motive in what was +open free speech. Which I can't bear," says he, "which I really + +am too proud to bear."' + +'I should as soon suspect--' + +'Of course you would,' interrupted Mr Meagles, 'and so I told him. +But it took a morning to scale that wall; and I doubt if any other +man than myself (he likes me of old) could have got his leg over +it. Well, Clennam. This business-like obstacle surmounted, he +then stipulated that before resuming with you I should look over +the books and form my own opinion. I looked over the books, and +formed my own opinion. "Is it, on the whole, for, or against?" +says he. "For," says I. "Then," says he, "you may now, my good +friend, give Mr Clennam the means of forming his opinion. To +enable him to do which, without bias and with perfect freedom, I +shall go out of town for a week." And he's gone,' said Mr Meagles; +that's the rich conclusion of the thing.' + +'Leaving me,' said Clennam, 'with a high sense, I must say, of his +candour and his--' + +'Oddity,' Mr Meagles struck in. 'I should think so!' + +It was not exactly the word on Clennam's lips, but he forbore to +interrupt his good-humoured friend. + +'And now,' added Mr Meagles, 'you can begin to look into matters as +soon as you think proper. I have undertaken to explain where you +may want explanation, but to be strictly impartial, and to do +nothing more.' + +They began their perquisitions in Bleeding Heart Yard that same +forenoon. Little peculiarities were easily to be detected by +experienced eyes in Mr Doyce's way of managing his affairs, but +they almost always involved some ingenious simplification of a +difficulty, and some plain road to the desired end. That his +papers were in arrear, and that he stood in need of assistance to +develop the capacity of his business, was clear enough; but all the +results of his undertakings during many years were distinctly set +forth, and were ascertainable with ease. Nothing had been done for +the purposes of the pending investigation; everything was in its +genuine working dress, and in a certain honest rugged order. The +calculations and entries, in his own hand, of which there were +many, were bluntly written, and with no very neat precision; but +were always plain and directed straight to the purpose. It +occurred to Arthur that a far more elaborate and taking show of +business--such as the records of the Circumlocution Office made +perhaps--might be far less serviceable, as being meant to be far +less intelligible. + +Three or four days of steady application tendered him master of all +the facts it was essential to become acquainted with. Mr Meagles +was at hand the whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim +place with the bright little safety-lamp belonging to the scales +and scoop. Between them they agreed upon the sum it would be fair +to offer for the purchase of a half-share in the business, and then +Mr Meagles unsealed a paper in which Daniel Doyce had noted the +amount at which he valued it; which was even something less. Thus, +when Daniel came back, he found the affair as good as concluded. + +'And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,' said he, with a cordial shake of +the hand, 'that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I +believe I could not have found one more to my mind.' + +'I say the same,' said Clennam. + +'And I say of both of you,' added Mr Meagles, 'that you are well +matched. You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense, +and you stick to the Works, Dan, with your--' + +'Uncommon sense?' suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile. + +'You may call it so, if you like--and each of you will be a right +hand to the other. Here's my own right hand upon it, as a +practical man, to both of you.' + +The purchase was completed within a month. It left Arthur in +possession of private personal means not exceeding a few hundred +pounds; but it opened to him an active and promising career. The +three friends dined together on the auspicious occasion; the +factory and the factory wives and children made holiday and dined +too; even Bleeding Heart Yard dined and was full of meat. Two +months had barely gone by in all, when Bleeding Heart Yard had +become so familiar with short-commons again, that the treat was +forgotten there; when nothing seemed new in the partnership but the +paint of the inscription on the door-posts, DOYCE AND CLENNAM; when +it appeared even to Clennam himself, that he had had the affairs of +the firm in his mind for years. + +The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a +room of wood and glass at the end of a long low workshop, filled +with benches, and vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, +when they were in gear with the steam-engine, went tearing round as +though they had a suicidal mission to grind the business to dust +and tear the factory to pieces. A communication of great trap- +doors in the floor and roof with the workshop above and the +workshop below, made a shaft of light in this perspective, which +brought to Clennam's mind the child's old picture-book, where +similar rays were the witnesses of Abel's murder. The noises were +sufficiently removed and shut out from the counting-house to blend +into a busy hum, interspersed with periodical clinks and thumps. +The patient figures at work were swarthy with the filings of iron +and steel that danced on every bench and bubbled up through every +chink in the planking. The workshop was arrived at by a step- +ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for +the large grindstone where tools were sharpened. The whole had at +once a fanciful and practical air in Clennam's eyes, which was a +welcome change; and, as often as he raised them from his first work +of getting the array of business documents into perfect order, he +glanced at these things with a feeling of pleasure in his pursuit +that was new to him. + +Raising his eyes thus one day, he was surprised to see a bonnet +labouring up the step-ladder. The unusual apparition was followed +by another bonnet. He then perceived that the first bonnet was on +the head of Mr F.'s Aunt, and that the second bonnet was on the +head of Flora, who seemed to have propelled her legacy up the steep +ascent with considerable difficulty. +Though not altogether enraptured at the sight of these visitors, +Clennam lost no time in opening the counting-house door, and +extricating them from the workshop; a rescue which was rendered the +more necessary by Mr F.'s Aunt already stumbling over some +impediment, and menacing steam power as an Institution with a stony +reticule she carried. + +'Good gracious, Arthur,--I should say Mr Clennam, far more proper-- +the climb we have had to get up here and how ever to get down again +without a fire-escape and Mr F.'s Aunt slipping through the steps +and bruised all over and you in the machinery and foundry way too +only think, and never told us!' + +Thus, Flora, out of breath. Meanwhile, Mr F.'s Aunt rubbed her +esteemed insteps with her umbrella, and vindictively glared. + +'Most unkind never to have come back to see us since that day, +though naturally it was not to be expected that there should be any +attraction at our house and you were much more pleasantly engaged, +that's pretty certain, and is she fair or dark blue eyes or black +I wonder, not that I expect that she should be anything but a +perfect contrast to me in all particulars for I am a disappointment +as I very well know and you are quite right to be devoted no doubt +though what I am saying Arthur never mind I hardly know myself Good +gracious!' + +By this time he had placed chairs for them in the counting-house. +As Flora dropped into hers, she bestowed the old look upon him. + +'And to think of Doyce and Clennam, and who Doyce can be,' said +Flora; 'delightful man no doubt and married perhaps or perhaps a +daughter, now has he really? then one understands the partnership +and sees it all, don't tell me anything about it for I know I have +no claim to ask the question the golden chain that once was forged +being snapped and very proper.' + +Flora put her hand tenderly on his, and gave him another of the +youthful glances. + +'Dear Arthur--force of habit, Mr Clennam every way more delicate +and adapted to existing circumstances--I must beg to be excused for +taking the liberty of this intrusion but I thought I might so far +presume upon old times for ever faded never more to bloom as to +call with Mr F.'s Aunt to congratulate and offer best wishes, A +great deal superior to China not to be denied and much nearer +though higher up!' + +'I am very happy to see you,' said Clennam, 'and I thank you, +Flora, very much for your kind remembrance.' + +'More than I can say myself at any rate,' returned Flora, 'for I +might have been dead and buried twenty distinct times over and no +doubt whatever should have been before you had genuinely remembered +Me or anything like it in spite of which one last remark I wish to +make, one last explanation I wish to offer--' + +'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur remonstrated in alarm. + +'Oh not that disagreeable name, say Flora!' + +'Flora, is it worth troubling yourself afresh to enter into +explanations? I assure you none are needed. I am satisfied--I am +perfectly satisfied.' + +A diversion was occasioned here, by Mr F.'s Aunt making the +following inexorable and awful statement: + +'There's mile-stones on the Dover road!' + +With such mortal hostility towards the human race did she discharge +this missile, that Clennam was quite at a loss how to defend +himself; the rather as he had been already perplexed in his mind by +the honour of a visit from this venerable lady, when it was plain +she held him in the utmost abhorrence. He could not but look at +her with disconcertment, as she sat breathing bitterness and scorn, +and staring leagues away. Flora, however, received the remark as +if it had been of a most apposite and agreeable nature; approvingly +observing aloud that Mr F.'s Aunt had a great deal of spirit. +Stimulated either by this compliment, or by her burning +indignation, that illustrious woman then added, 'Let him meet it if +he can!' And, with a rigid movement of her stony reticule (an +appendage of great size and of a fossil appearance), indicated that +Clennam was the unfortunate person at whom the challenge was +hurled. + +'One last remark,' resumed Flora, 'I was going to say I wish to +make one last explanation I wish to offer, Mr F.'s Aunt and myself +would not have intruded on business hours Mr F. having been in +business and though the wine trade still business is equally +business call it what you will and business habits are just the +same as witness Mr F. himself who had his slippers always on the +mat at ten minutes before six in the afternoon and his boots inside +the fender at ten minutes before eight in the morning to the moment +in all weathers light or dark--would not therefore have intruded +without a motive which being kindly meant it may be hoped will be +kindly taken Arthur, Mr Clennam far more proper, even Doyce and +Clennam probably more business-like.' + +'Pray say nothing in the way of apology,' Arthur entreated. 'You +are always welcome.' + +'Very polite of you to say so Arthur--cannot remember Mr Clennam +until the word is out, such is the habit of times for ever fled, +and so true it is that oft in the stilly night ere slumber's chain +has bound people, fond memory brings the light of other days around +people--very polite but more polite than true I am afraid, for to +go into the machinery business without so much as sending a line or +a card to papa--I don't say me though there was a time but that is +past and stern reality has now my gracious never mind--does not +look like it you must confess.' + +Even Flora's commas seemed to have fled on this occasion; she was +so much more disjointed and voluble than in the preceding +interview. + +'Though indeed,' she hurried on, 'nothing else is to be expected +and why should it be expected and if it's not to be expected why +should it be, and I am far from blaming you or any one, When your +mama and my papa worried us to death and severed the golden bowl--I +mean bond but I dare say you know what I mean and if you don't you +don't lose much and care just as little I will venture to add--when +they severed the golden bond that bound us and threw us into fits +of crying on the sofa nearly choked at least myself everything was +changed and in giving my hand to Mr F. I know I did so with my eyes +open but he was so very unsettled and in such low spirits that he +had distractedly alluded to the river if not oil of something from +the chemist's and I did it for the best.' + +'My good Flora, we settled that before. It was all quite right.' + +'It's perfectly clear you think so,' returned Flora, 'for you take +it very coolly, if I hadn't known it to be China I should have +guessed myself the Polar regions, dear Mr Clennam you are right +however and I cannot blame you but as to Doyce and Clennam papa's +property being about here we heard it from Pancks and but for him +we never should have heard one word about it I am satisfied.' + +'No, no, don't say that.' + +'What nonsense not to say it Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--easier and +less trying to me than Mr Clennam--when I know it and you know it +too and can't deny it.' + +'But I do deny it, Flora. I should soon have made you a friendly +visit.' + +'Ah!' said Flora, tossing her head. 'I dare say!' and she gave him +another of the old looks. 'However when Pancks told us I made up +my mind that Mr F.'s Aunt and I would come and call because when +papa--which was before that--happened to mention her name to me and +to say that you were interested in her I said at the moment Good +gracious why not have her here then when there's anything to do +instead of putting it out.' + +'When you say Her,' observed Clennam, by this time pretty well +bewildered, 'do you mean Mr F.'s--' + +'My goodness, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam really easier to me with +old remembrances--who ever heard of Mr F.'s Aunt doing needlework +and going out by the day?' + +'Going out by the day! Do you speak of Little Dorrit?' +'Why yes of course,' returned Flora; 'and of all the strangest +names I ever heard the strangest, like a place down in the country +with a turnpike, or a favourite pony or a puppy or a bird or +something from a seed-shop to be put in a garden or a flower-pot +and come up speckled.' + +'Then, Flora,' said Arthur, with a sudden interest in the +conversation, 'Mr Casby was so kind as to mention Little Dorrit to +you, was he? What did he say?' + +'Oh you know what papa is,' rejoined Flora, 'and how aggravatingly +he sits looking beautiful and turning his thumbs over and over one +another till he makes one giddy if one keeps one's eyes upon him, +he said when we were talking of you--I don't know who began the +subject Arthur (Doyce and Clennam) but I am sure it wasn't me, at +least I hope not but you really must excuse my confessing more on +that point.' + +'Certainly,' said Arthur. 'By all means.' + +'You are very ready,' pouted Flora, coming to a sudden stop in a +captivating bashfulness, 'that I must admit, Papa said you had +spoken of her in an earnest way and I said what I have told you and +that's all.' + +'That's all?' said Arthur, a little disappointed. + +'Except that when Pancks told us of your having embarked in this +business and with difficulty persuaded us that it was really you I +said to Mr F.'s Aunt then we would come and ask you if it would be +agreeable to all parties that she should be engaged at our house +when required for I know she often goes to your mama's and I know +that your mama has a very touchy temper Arthur--Doyce and Clennam-- +or I never might have married Mr F. and might have been at this +hour but I am running into nonsense.' + +'It was very kind of you, Flora, to think of this.' + +Poor Flora rejoined with a plain sincerity which became her better +than her youngest glances, that she was glad he thought so. She +said it with so much heart that Clennam would have given a great +deal to buy his old character of her on the spot, and throw it and +the mermaid away for ever. + +'I think, Flora,' he said, 'that the employment you can give Little +Dorrit, and the kindness you can show her--' + +'Yes and I will,' said Flora, quickly. + +'I am sure of it--will be a great assistance and support to her. +I do not feel that I have the right to tell you what I know of her, +for I acquired the knowledge confidentially, and under +circumstances that bind me to silence. But I have an interest in +the little creature, and a respect for her that I cannot express to +you. Her life has been one of such trial and devotion, and such +quiet goodness, as you can scarcely imagine. I can hardly think of +her, far less speak of her, without feeling moved. Let that +feeling represent what I could tell you, and commit her to your +friendliness with my thanks.' + +Once more he put out his hand frankly to poor Flora; once more poor +Flora couldn't accept it frankly, found it worth nothing openly, +must make the old intrigue and mystery of it. As much to her own +enjoyment as to his dismay, she covered it with a corner of her +shawl as she took it. Then, looking towards the glass front of the +counting-house, and seeing two figures approaching, she cried with +infinite relish, 'Papa! Hush, Arthur, for Mercy's sake!' and +tottered back to her chair with an amazing imitation of being in +danger of swooning, in the dread surprise and maidenly flutter of +her spirits. + +The Patriarch, meanwhile, came inanely beaming towards the +counting-house in the wake of Pancks. Pancks opened the door for +him, towed him in, and retired to his own moorings in a corner. + +'I heard from Flora,' said the Patriarch with his benevolent smile, +'that she was coming to call, coming to call. And being out, I +thought I'd come also, thought I'd come also.' + +The benign wisdom he infused into this declaration (not of itself +profound), by means of his blue eyes, his shining head, and his +long white hair, was most impressive. It seemed worth putting down +among the noblest sentiments enunciated by the best of men. Also, +when he said to Clennam, seating himself in the proffered chair, +'And you are in a new business, Mr Clennam? I wish you well, sir, +I wish you well!' he seemed to have done benevolent wonders. + +'Mrs Finching has been telling me, sir,' said Arthur, after making +his acknowledgments; the relict of the late Mr F. meanwhile +protesting, with a gesture, against his use of that respectable +name; 'that she hopes occasionally to employ the young needlewoman +you recommended to my mother. For which I have been thanking her.' + +The Patriarch turning his head in a lumbering way towards Pancks, +that assistant put up the note-book in which he had been absorbed, +and took him in tow. + +'You didn't recommend her, you know,' said Pancks; 'how could you? +You knew nothing about her, you didn't. The name was mentioned to +you, and you passed it on. That's what YOU did.' + +'Well!' said Clennam. 'As she justifies any recommendation, it is +much the same thing.' + +'You are glad she turns out well,' said Pancks, 'but it wouldn't +have been your fault if she had turned out ill. The credit's not +yours as it is, and the blame wouldn't have been yours as it might +have been. You gave no guarantee. You knew nothing about her.' +'You are not acquainted, then,' said Arthur, hazarding a random +question, 'with any of her family?' + +'Acquainted with any of her family?' returned Pancks. 'How should +you be acquainted with any of her family? You never heard of 'em. +You can't be acquainted with people you never heard of, can you? +You should think not!' + +All this time the Patriarch sat serenely smiling; nodding or +shaking his head benevolently, as the case required. + +'As to being a reference,' said Pancks, 'you know, in a general +way, what being a reference means. It's all your eye, that is! +Look at your tenants down the Yard here. They'd all be references +for one another, if you'd let 'em. What would be the good of +letting 'em? It's no satisfaction to be done by two men instead of +one. One's enough. A person who can't pay, gets another person +who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with +two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to +guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either +of them able to do a walking match. And four wooden legs are more +troublesome to you than two, when you don't want any.' Mr Pancks +concluded by blowing off that steam of his. + +A momentary silence that ensued was broken by Mr F.'s Aunt, who had +been sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public +remark. She now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce +a startling effect on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with the +deadliest animosity observed: + +'You can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing +in it. You couldn't do it when your Uncle George was living; much +less when he's dead.' + +Mr Pancks was not slow to reply, with his usual calmness, 'Indeed, +ma'am! Bless my soul! I'm surprised to hear it.' Despite his +presence of mind, however, the speech of Mr F.'s Aunt produced a +depressing effect on the little assembly; firstly, because it was +impossible to disguise that Clennam's unoffending head was the +particular temple of reason depreciated; and secondly, because +nobody ever knew on these occasions whose Uncle George was referred +to, or what spectral presence might be invoked under that +appellation. + +Therefore Flora said, though still not without a certain +boastfulness and triumph in her legacy, that Mr F.'s Aunt was 'very +lively to-day, and she thought they had better go.' But Mr F.'s +Aunt proved so lively as to take the suggestion in unexpected +dudgeon and declare that she would not go; adding, with several +injurious expressions, that if 'He'--too evidently meaning +Clennam--wanted to get rid of her, 'let him chuck her out of +winder;' and urgently expressing her desire to see 'Him' perform +that ceremony. + +In this dilemma, Mr Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any +emergency in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped +out at the counting-house door, and slipped in again a moment +afterwards with an artificial freshness upon him, as if he had been +in the country for some weeks. 'Why, bless my heart, ma'am!' said +Mr Pancks, rubbing up his hair in great astonishment, 'is that you? + +How do you do, ma'am? You are looking charming to-day! I am +delighted to see you. Favour me with your arm, ma'am; we'll have +a little walk together, you and me, if you'll honour me with your +company.' And so escorted Mr F.'s Aunt down the private staircase +of the counting-house with great gallantry and success. The +patriarchal Mr Casby then rose with the air of having done it +himself, and blandly followed: leaving his daughter, as she +followed in her turn, to remark to her former lover in a distracted +whisper (which she very much enjoyed), that they had drained the +cup of life to the dregs; and further to hint mysteriously that the +late Mr F. was at the bottom of it. + +Alone again, Clennam became a prey to his old doubts in reference +to his mother and Little Dorrit, and revolved the old thoughts and +suspicions. They were all in his mind, blending themselves with +the duties he was mechanically discharging, when a shadow on his +papers caused him to look up for the cause. The cause was Mr +Pancks. With his hat thrown back upon his ears as if his wiry +prongs of hair had darted up like springs and cast it off, with his +jet-black beads of eyes inquisitively sharp, with the fingers of +his right hand in his mouth that he might bite the nails, and with +the fingers of his left hand in reserve in his pocket for another +course, Mr Pancks cast his shadow through the glass upon the books +and papers. + +Mr Pancks asked, with a little inquiring twist of his head, if he +might come in again? Clennam replied with a nod of his head in the +affirmative. Mr Pancks worked his way in, came alongside the desk, +made himself fast by leaning his arms upon it, and started +conversation with a puff and a snort. + +'Mr F.'s Aunt is appeased, I hope?' said Clennam. + +'All right, sir,' said Pancks. + +'I am so unfortunate as to have awakened a strong animosity in the +breast of that lady,' said Clennam. 'Do you know why?' + +'Does SHE know why?' said Pancks. + +'I suppose not.' + +'_I_ suppose not,' said Pancks. + +He took out his note-book, opened it, shut it, dropped it into his +hat, which was beside him on the desk, and looked in at it as it +lay at the bottom of the hat: all with a great appearance of +consideration. + +'Mr Clennam,' he then began, 'I am in want of information, sir.' + +'Connected with this firm?' asked Clennam. + +'No,' said Pancks. + +'With what then, Mr Pancks? That is to say, assuming that you want +it of me.' + +'Yes, sir; yes, I want it of you,' said Pancks, 'if I can persuade +you to furnish it. A, B, C, D. DA, DE, DI, DO. Dictionary order. + +Dorrit. That's the name, sir?' + +Mr Pancks blew off his peculiar noise again, and fell to at his +right-hand nails. Arthur looked searchingly at him; he returned +the look. + +'I don't understand you, Mr Pancks.' + +'That's the name that I want to know about.' + +'And what do you want to know?' + +'Whatever you can and will tell me.' This comprehensive summary of +his desires was not discharged without some heavy labouring on the +part of Mr Pancks's machinery. + +'This is a singular visit, Mr Pancks. It strikes me as rather +extraordinary that you should come, with such an object, to me.' + +'It may be all extraordinary together,' returned Pancks. 'It may +be out of the ordinary course, and yet be business. In short, it +is business. I am a man of business. What business have I in this +present world, except to stick to business? No business.' + +With his former doubt whether this dry hard personage were quite in +earnest, Clennam again turned his eyes attentively upon his face. +It was as scrubby and dingy as ever, and as eager and quick as +ever, and he could see nothing lurking in it that was at all +expressive of a latent mockery that had seemed to strike upon his +ear in the voice. + +'Now,' said Pancks, 'to put this business on its own footing, it's +not my proprietor's.' + +'Do you refer to Mr Casby as your proprietor?' + +Pancks nodded. 'My proprietor. Put a case. Say, at my +proprietor's I hear name--name of young person Mr Clennam wants to +serve. Say, name first mentioned to my proprietor by Plornish in +the Yard. Say, I go to Plornish. Say, I ask Plornish as a matter +of business for information. Say, Plornish, though six weeks in +arrear to my proprietor, declines. Say, Mrs Plornish declines. +Say, both refer to Mr Clennam. Put the case.' +'Well?' + +'Well, sir,' returned Pancks, 'say, I come to him. Say, here I +am.' + +With those prongs of hair sticking up all over his head, and his +breath coming and going very hard and short, the busy Pancks fell +back a step (in Tug metaphor, took half a turn astern) as if to +show his dingy hull complete, then forged a-head again, and +directed his quick glance by turns into his hat where his note-book +was, and into Clennam's face. + +'Mr Pancks, not to trespass on your grounds of mystery, I will be +as plain with you as I can. Let me ask two questions. First--' + +'All right!' said Pancks, holding up his dirty forefinger with his +broken nail. 'I see! "What's your motive?"' + +'Exactly.' + +'Motive,' said Pancks, 'good. Nothing to do with my proprietor; +not stateable at present, ridiculous to state at present; but good. + +Desiring to serve young person, name of Dorrit,' said Pancks, with +his forefinger still up as a caution. 'Better admit motive to be +good.' + +'Secondly, and lastly, what do you want to know?' + +Mr Pancks fished up his note-book before the question was put, and +buttoning it with care in an inner breast-pocket, and looking +straight at Clennam all the time, replied with a pause and a puff, +'I want supplementary information of any sort.' + +Clennam could not withhold a smile, as the panting little steam- +tug, so useful to that unwieldy ship, the Casby, waited on and +watched him as if it were seeking an opportunity of running in and +rifling him of all he wanted before he could resist its manoeuvres; +though there was that in Mr Pancks's eagerness, too, which awakened +many wondering speculations in his mind. After a little +consideration, he resolved to supply Mr Pancks with such leading +information as it was in his power to impart him; well knowing that +Mr Pancks, if he failed in his present research, was pretty sure to +find other means of getting it. + +He, therefore, first requesting Mr Pancks to remember his voluntary +declaration that his proprietor had no part in the disclosure, and +that his own intentions were good (two declarations which that +coaly little gentleman with the greatest ardour repeated), openly +told him that as to the Dorrit lineage or former place of +habitation, he had no information to communicate, and that his +knowledge of the family did not extend beyond the fact that it +appeared to be now reduced to five members; namely, to two +brothers, of whom one was single, and one a widower with three +children. The ages of the whole family he made known to Mr Pancks, +as nearly as he could guess at them; and finally he described to +him the position of the Father of the Marshalsea, and the course of +time and events through which he had become invested with that +character. To all this, Mr Pancks, snorting and blowing in a more +and more portentous manner as he became more interested, listened +with great attention; appearing to derive the most agreeable +sensations from the painfullest parts of the narrative, and +particularly to be quite charmed by the account of William Dorrit's +long imprisonment. + +'In conclusion, Mr Pancks,' said Arthur, 'I have but to say this. +I have reasons beyond a personal regard for speaking as little as +I can of the Dorrit family, particularly at my mother's house' (Mr +Pancks nodded), 'and for knowing as much as I can. So devoted a +man of business as you are--eh?' + +For Mr Pancks had suddenly made that blowing effort with unusual +force. + +'It's nothing,' said Pancks. + +'So devoted a man of business as yourself has a perfect +understanding of a fair bargain. I wish to make a fair bargain +with you, that you shall enlighten me concerning the Dorrit family +when you have it in your power, as I have enlightened you. It may +not give you a very flattering idea of my business habits, that I +failed to make my terms beforehand,' continued Clennam; 'but I +prefer to make them a point of honour. I have seen so much +business done on sharp principles that, to tell you the truth, Mr +Pancks, I am tired of them.' + +Mr Pancks laughed. 'It's a bargain, sir,' said he. 'You shall +find me stick to it.' + +After that, he stood a little while looking at Clennam, and biting +his ten nails all round; evidently while he fixed in his mind what +he had been told, and went over it carefully, before the means of +supplying a gap in his memory should be no longer at hand. 'It's +all right,' he said at last, 'and now I'll wish you good day, as +it's collecting day in the Yard. By-the-bye, though. A lame +foreigner with a stick.' + +'Ay, ay. You do take a reference sometimes, I see?' said Clennam. + +'When he can pay, sir,' replied Pancks. 'Take all you can get, and +keep back all you can't be forced to give up. That's business. +The lame foreigner with the stick wants a top room down the Yard. +Is he good for it?' + +'I am,' said Clennam, 'and I will answer for him.' + +'That's enough. What I must have of Bleeding Heart Yard,' said +Pancks, making a note of the case in his book, 'is my bond. I want +my bond, you see. Pay up, or produce your property! That's the +watchword down the Yard. The lame foreigner with the stick +represented that you sent him; but he could represent (as far as +that goes) that the Great Mogul sent him. He has been in the +hospital, I believe?' + +'Yes. Through having met with an accident. He is only just now +discharged.' + +'It's pauperising a man, sir, I have been shown, to let him into a +hospital?' said Pancks. And again blew off that remarkable sound. + +'I have been shown so too,' said Clennam, coldly. + +Mr Pancks, being by that time quite ready for a start, got under +steam in a moment, and, without any other signal or ceremony, was +snorting down the step-ladder and working into Bleeding Heart Yard, +before he seemed to be well out of the counting-house. + +Throughout the remainder of the day, Bleeding Heart Yard was in +consternation, as the grim Pancks cruised in it; haranguing the +inhabitants on their backslidings in respect of payment, demanding +his bond, breathing notices to quit and executions, running down +defaulters, sending a swell of terror on before him, and leaving it +in his wake. Knots of people, impelled by a fatal attraction, +lurked outside any house in which he was known to be, listening for +fragments of his discourses to the inmates; and, when he was +rumoured to be coming down the stairs, often could not disperse so +quickly but that he would be prematurely in among them, demanding +their own arrears, and rooting them to the spot. Throughout the +remainder of the day, Mr Pancks's What were they up to? and What +did they mean by it? sounded all over the Yard. Mr Pancks +wouldn't hear of excuses, wouldn't hear of complaints, wouldn't +hear of repairs, wouldn't hear of anything but unconditional money +down. Perspiring and puffing and darting about in eccentric +directions, and becoming hotter and dingier every moment, he lashed +the tide of the yard into a most agitated and turbid state. It had +not settled down into calm water again full two hours after he had +been seen fuming away on the horizon at the top of the steps. + +There were several small assemblages of the Bleeding Hearts at the +popular points of meeting in the Yard that night, among whom it was +universally agreed that Mr Pancks was a hard man to have to do +with; and that it was much to be regretted, so it was, that a +gentleman like Mr Casby should put his rents in his hands, and +never know him in his true light. For (said the Bleeding Hearts), +if a gentleman with that head of hair and them eyes took his rents +into his own hands, ma'am, there would be none of this worriting +and wearing, and things would be very different. + +At which identical evening hour and minute, the Patriarch--who had +floated serenely through the Yard in the forenoon before the +harrying began, with the express design of getting up this +trustfulness in his shining bumps and silken locks--at which +identical hour and minute, that first-rate humbug of a thousand +guns was heavily floundering in the little Dock of his exhausted +Tug at home, and was saying, as he turned his thumbs: + +'A very bad day's work, Pancks, very bad day's work. It seems to +me, sir, and I must insist on making this observation forcibly in +justice to myself, that you ought to have got much more money, much +more money.' + + + + +CHAPTER 24 + +Fortune-Telling + + +Little Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish, +who, having intimated that he wished to speak to her privately, in +a series of coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that +her father, as regarded her seamstress occupation, was an +illustration of the axiom that there are no such stone-blind men as +those who will not see, obtained an audience with her on the common +staircase outside the door. + +'There's been a lady at our place to-day, Miss Dorrit,' Plornish +growled, 'and another one along with her as is a old wixen if ever +I met with such. The way she snapped a person's head off, dear +me!' + +The mild Plornish was at first quite unable to get his mind away +from Mr F.'s Aunt. 'For,' said he, to excuse himself, 'she is, I +do assure you, the winegariest party.' + +At length, by a great effort, he detached himself from the subject +sufficiently to observe: + +'But she's neither here nor there just at present. The other lady, +she's Mr Casby's daughter; and if Mr Casby an't well off, none +better, it an't through any fault of Pancks. For, as to Pancks, he +does, he really does, he does indeed!' + +Mr Plornish, after his usual manner, was a little obscure, but +conscientiously emphatic. + +'And what she come to our place for,' he pursued, 'was to leave +word that if Miss Dorrit would step up to that card--which it's Mr +Casby's house that is, and Pancks he has a office at the back, +where he really does, beyond belief--she would be glad for to +engage her. She was a old and a dear friend, she said particular, +of Mr Clennam, and hoped for to prove herself a useful friend to +his friend. Them was her words. Wishing to know whether Miss +Dorrit could come to-morrow morning, I said I would see you, Miss, +and inquire, and look round there to-night, to say yes, or, if you +was engaged to-morrow, when.' + +'I can go to-morrow, thank you,' said Little Dorrit. 'This is very +kind of you, but you are always kind.' + +Mr Plornish, with a modest disavowal of his merits, opened the room +door for her readmission, and followed her in with such an +exceedingly bald pretence of not having been out at all, that her +father might have observed it without being very suspicious. In +his affable unconsciousness, however, he took no heed. Plornish, +after a little conversation, in which he blended his former duty as +a Collegian with his present privilege as a humble outside friend, +qualified again by his low estate as a plasterer, took his leave; +making the tour of the prison before he left, and looking on at a +game of skittles with the mixed feelings of an old inhabitant who +had his private reasons for believing that it might be his destiny +to come back again. + +Early in the morning, Little Dorrit, leaving Maggy in high domestic +trust, set off for the Patriarchal tent. She went by the Iron +Bridge, though it cost her a penny, and walked more slowly in that +part of her journey than in any other. At five minutes before +eight her hand was on the Patriarchal knocker, which was quite as +high as she could reach. + +She gave Mrs Finching's card to the young woman who opened the +door, and the young woman told her that 'Miss Flora'--Flora having, +on her return to the parental roof, reinvested herself with the +title under which she had lived there--was not yet out of her +bedroom, but she was to please to walk up into Miss Flora's +sitting-room. She walked up into Miss Flora's sitting-room, as in +duty bound, and there found a breakfast-table comfortably laid for +two, with a supplementary tray upon it laid for one. The young +woman, disappearing for a few moments, returned to say that she was +to please to take a chair by the fire, and to take off her bonnet +and make herself at home. But Little Dorrit, being bashful, and +not used to make herself at home on such occasions, felt at a loss +how to do it; so she was still sitting near the door with her +bonnet on, when Flora came in in a hurry half an hour afterwards. + +Flora was so sorry to have kept her waiting, and good gracious why +did she sit out there in the cold when she had expected to find her +by the fire reading the paper, and hadn't that heedless girl given +her the message then, and had she really been in her bonnet all +this time, and pray for goodness sake let Flora take it off! Flora +taking it off in the best-natured manner in the world, was so +struck with the face disclosed, that she said, 'Why, what a good +little thing you are, my dear!' and pressed her face between her +hands like the gentlest of women. + +It was the word and the action of a moment. Little Dorrit had +hardly time to think how kind it was, when Flora dashed at the +breakfast-table full of business, and plunged over head and ears +into loquacity. + +'Really so sorry that I should happen to be late on this morning of +all mornings because my intention and my wish was to be ready to +meet you when you came in and to say that any one that interested +Arthur Clennam half so much must interest me and that I gave you +the heartiest welcome and was so glad, instead of which they never +called me and there I still am snoring I dare say if the truth was +known and if you don't like either cold fowl or hot boiled ham +which many people don't I dare say besides Jews and theirs are +scruples of conscience which we must all respect though I must say +I wish they had them equally strong when they sell us false +articles for real that certainly ain't worth the money I shall be +quite vexed,' said Flora. + +Little Dorrit thanked her, and said, shyly, bread-and-butter and +tea was all she usually-- + +'Oh nonsense my dear child I can never hear of that,' said Flora, +turning on the urn in the most reckless manner, and making herself +wink by splashing hot water into her eyes as she bent down to look +into the teapot. 'You are coming here on the footing of a friend +and companion you know if you will let me take that liberty and I +should be ashamed of myself indeed if you could come here upon any +other, besides which Arthur Clennam spoke in such terms--you are +tired my dear.' + +'No, ma'am.' + + +'You turn so pale you have walked too far before breakfast and I +dare say live a great way off and ought to have had a ride,' said +Flora, 'dear dear is there anything that would do you good?' + +'Indeed I am quite well, ma'am. I thank you again and again, but +I am quite well.' + +'Then take your tea at once I beg,' said Flora, 'and this wing of +fowl and bit of ham, don't mind me or wait for me, because I always +carry in this tray myself to Mr F.'s Aunt who breakfasts in bed and +a charming old lady too and very clever, Portrait of Mr F. behind +the door and very like though too much forehead and as to a pillar +with a marble pavement and balustrades and a mountain, I never saw +him near it nor not likely in the wine trade, excellent man but not +at all in that way.' + +Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait, very imperfectly following +the references to that work of art. + +'Mr F. was so devoted to me that he never could bear me out of his +sight,' said Flora, 'though of course I am unable to say how long +that might have lasted if he hadn't been cut short while I was a +new broom, worthy man but not poetical manly prose but not +romance.' + +Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait again. The artist had given +it a head that would have been, in an intellectual point of view, +top-heavy for Shakespeare. +'Romance, however,' Flora went on, busily arranging Mr F.'s Aunt's +toast, 'as I openly said to Mr F. when he proposed to me and you +will be surprised to hear that he proposed seven times once in a +hackney-coach once in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at +Tunbridge Wells and the rest on his knees, Romance was fled with +the early days of Arthur Clennam, our parents tore us asunder we +became marble and stern reality usurped the throne, Mr F. said very +much to his credit that he was perfectly aware of it and even +preferred that state of things accordingly the word was spoken the +fiat went forth and such is life you see my dear and yet we do not +break but bend, pray make a good breakfast while I go in with the +tray.' + +She disappeared, leaving Little Dorrit to ponder over the meaning +of her scattered words. She soon came back again; and at last +began to take her own breakfast, talking all the while. + +'You see, my dear,' said Flora, measuring out a spoonful or two of +some brown liquid that smelt like brandy, and putting it into her +tea, 'I am obliged to be careful to follow the directions of my +medical man though the flavour is anything but agreeable being a +poor creature and it may be have never recovered the shock received +in youth from too much giving way to crying in the next room when +separated from Arthur, have you known him long?' + +As soon as Little Dorrit comprehended that she had been asked this +question--for which time was necessary, the galloping pace of her +new patroness having left her far behind--she answered that she had +known Mr Clennam ever since his return. + +'To be sure you couldn't have known him before unless you had been +in China or had corresponded neither of which is likely,' returned +Flora, 'for travelling-people usually get more or less mahogany and +you are not at all so and as to corresponding what about? that's +very true unless tea, so it was at his mother's was it really that +you knew him first, highly sensible and firm but dreadfully +severe--ought to be the mother of the man in the iron mask." + +'Mrs Clennam has been kind to me,' said Little Dorrit. + +'Really? I am sure I am glad to hear it because as Arthur's mother +it's naturally pleasant to my feelings to have a better opinion of +her than I had before, though what she thinks of me when I run on +as I am certain to do and she sits glowering at me like Fate in a +go-cart--shocking comparison really--invalid and not her fault--I +never know or can imagine.' + +'Shall I find my work anywhere, ma'am?' asked Little Dorrit, +looking timidly about; 'can I get it?' + +'You industrious little fairy,' returned Flora, taking, in another +cup of tea, another of the doses prescribed by her medical man, +'there's not the slightest hurry and it's better that we should +begin by being confidential about our mutual friend--too cold a +word for me at least I don't mean that, very proper expression +mutual friend--than become through mere formalities not you but me +like the Spartan boy with the fox biting him, which I hope you'll +excuse my bringing up for of all the tiresome boys that will go +tumbling into every sort of company that boy's the tiresomest.' + +Little Dorrit, her face very pale, sat down again to listen. +'Hadn't I better work the while?' she asked. 'I can work and +attend too. I would rather, if I may.' + +Her earnestness was so expressive of her being uneasy without her +work, that Flora answered, 'Well my dear whatever you like best,' +and produced a basket of white handkerchiefs. Little Dorrit gladly +put it by her side, took out her little pocket-housewife, threaded +the needle, and began to hem. + +'What nimble fingers you have,' said Flora, 'but are you sure you +are well?' + +'Oh yes, indeed!' + +Flora put her feet upon the fender, and settled herself for a +thorough good romantic disclosure. She started off at score, +tossing her head, sighing in the most demonstrative manner, making +a great deal of use of her eyebrows, and occasionally, but not +often, glancing at the quiet face that bent over the work. + +'You must know my dear,' said Flora, 'but that I have no doubt you +know already not only because I have already thrown it out in a +general way but because I feel I carry it stamped in burning what's +his names upon my brow that before I was introduced to the late Mr +F. I had been engaged to Arthur Clennam--Mr Clennam in public where +reserve is necessary Arthur here--we were all in all to one another +it was the morning of life it was bliss it was frenzy it was +everything else of that sort in the highest degree, when rent +asunder we turned to stone in which capacity Arthur went to China +and I became the statue bride of the late Mr F.' + +Flora, uttering these words in a deep voice, enjoyed herself +immensely. + +'To paint,' said she, 'the emotions of that morning when all was +marble within and Mr F.'s Aunt followed in a glass-coach which it +stands to reason must have been in shameful repair or it never +could have broken down two streets from the house and Mr F.'s Aunt +brought home like the fifth of November in a rush-bottomed chair I +will not attempt, suffice it to say that the hollow form of +breakfast took place in the dining-room downstairs that papa +partaking too freely of pickled salmon was ill for weeks and that +Mr F. and myself went upon a continental tour to Calais where the +people fought for us on the pier until they separated us though not +for ever that was not yet to be.' + +The statue bride, hardly pausing for breath, went on, with the +greatest complacency, in a rambling manner sometimes incidental to +flesh and blood. + +'I will draw a veil over that dreamy life, Mr F. was in good +spirits his appetite was good he liked the cookery he considered +the wine weak but palatable and all was well, we returned to the +immediate neighbourhood of Number Thirty Little Gosling Street +London Docks and settled down, ere we had yet fully detected the +housemaid in selling the feathers out of the spare bed Gout flying +upwards soared with Mr F. to another sphere.' + +His relict, with a glance at his portrait, shook her head and wiped +her eyes. + +'I revere the memory of Mr F. as an estimable man and most +indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it +appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it +came like magic in a pint bottle it was not ecstasy but it was +comfort, I returned to papa's roof and lived secluded if not happy +during some years until one day papa came smoothly blundering in +and said that Arthur Clennam awaited me below, I went below and +found him ask me not what I found him except that he was still +unmarried still unchanged!' + +The dark mystery with which Flora now enshrouded herself might have +stopped other fingers than the nimble fingers that worked near her. + +They worked on without pause, and the busy head bent over them +watching the stitches. + +'Ask me not,' said Flora, 'if I love him still or if he still loves +me or what the end is to be or when, we are surrounded by watchful +eyes and it may be that we are destined to pine asunder it may be +never more to be reunited not a word not a breath not a look to +betray us all must be secret as the tomb wonder not therefore that +even if I should seem comparatively cold to Arthur or Arthur should +seem comparatively cold to me we have fatal reasons it is enough if +we understand them hush!' + +All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she +really believed it. There is not much doubt that when she worked +herself into full mermaid condition, she did actually believe +whatever she said in it. + +'Hush!' repeated Flora, 'I have now told you all, confidence is +established between us hush, for Arthur's sake I will always be a +friend to you my dear girl and in Arthur's name you may always rely +upon me.' + +The nimble fingers laid aside the work, and the little figure rose +and kissed her hand. 'You are very cold,' said Flora, changing to +her own natural kind-hearted manner, and gaining greatly by the +change. 'Don't work to-day. I am sure you are not well I am sure +you are not strong.' + +'It is only that I feel a little overcome by your kindness, and by +Mr Clennam's kindness in confiding me to one he has known and loved +so long.' + +'Well really my dear,' said Flora, who had a decided tendency to be +always honest when she gave herself time to think about it, 'it's +as well to leave that alone now, for I couldn't undertake to say +after all, but it doesn't signify lie down a little!' + +'I have always been strong enough to do what I want to do, and I +shall be quite well directly,' returned Little Dorrit, with a faint +smile. 'You have overpowered me with gratitude, that's all. If I +keep near the window for a moment I shall be quite myself.' + +Flora opened a window, sat her in a chair by it, and considerately +retired to her former place. It was a windy day, and the air +stirring on Little Dorrit's face soon brightened it. In a very few +minutes she returned to her basket of work, and her nimble fingers +were as nimble as ever. + +Quietly pursuing her task, she asked Flora if Mr Clennam had told +her where she lived? When Flora replied in the negative, Little +Dorrit said that she understood why he had been so delicate, but +that she felt sure he would approve of her confiding her secret to +Flora, and that she would therefore do so now with Flora's +permission. Receiving an encouraging answer, she condensed the +narrative of her life into a few scanty words about herself and a +glowing eulogy upon her father; and Flora took it all in with a +natural tenderness that quite understood it, and in which there was +no incoherence. + +When dinner-time came, Flora drew the arm of her new charge through +hers, and led her down-stairs, and presented her to the Patriarch +and Mr Pancks, who were already in the dining-room waiting to +begin. (Mr F.'s Aunt was, for the time, laid up in ordinary in her +chamber.) By those gentlemen she was received according to their +characters; the Patriarch appearing to do her some inestimable +service in saying that he was glad to see her, glad to see her; and +Mr Pancks blowing off his favourite sound as a salute. + +In that new presence she would have been bashful enough under any +circumstances, and particularly under Flora's insisting on her +drinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but +her constraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour +of that gentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be +a taker of likenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so +frequently did he glance at the little note-book by his side. +Observing that he made no sketch, however, and that he talked about +business only, she began to have suspicions that he represented +some creditor of her father's, the balance due to whom was noted in +that pocket volume. Regarded from this point of view Mr Pancks's +puffings expressed injury and impatience, and each of his louder +snorts became a demand for payment. + +But here again she was undeceived by anomalous and incongruous +conduct on the part of Mr Pancks himself. She had left the table +half an hour, and was at work alone. Flora had 'gone to lie down' +in the next room, concurrently with which retirement a smell of +something to drink had broken out in the house. The Patriarch was +fast asleep, with his philanthropic mouth open under a yellow +pocket-handkerchief in the dining-room. At this quiet time, Mr +Pancks softly appeared before her, urbanely nodding. + +'Find it a little dull, Miss Dorrit?' inquired Pancks in a low +voice. + +'No, thank you, sir,' said Little Dorrit. + +'Busy, I see,' observed Mr Pancks, stealing into the room by +inches. 'What are those now, Miss Dorrit?' + +'Handkerchiefs.' + +'Are they, though!' said Pancks. 'I shouldn't have thought it.' +Not in the least looking at them, but looking at Little Dorrit. +'Perhaps you wonder who I am. Shall I tell you? I am a fortune- +teller.' + +Little Dorrit now began to think he was mad. + +'I belong body and soul to my proprietor,' said Pancks; 'you saw my +proprietor having his dinner below. But I do a little in the other +way, sometimes; privately, very privately, Miss Dorrit.' + +Little Dorrit looked at him doubtfully, and not without alarm. + +'I wish you'd show me the palm of your hand,' said Pancks. 'I +should like to have a look at it. Don't let me be troublesome.' +He was so far troublesome that he was not at all wanted there, but +she laid her work in her lap for a moment, and held out her left +hand with her thimble on it. + +'Years of toil, eh?' said Pancks, softly, touching it with his +blunt forefinger. 'But what else are we made for? Nothing. +Hallo!' looking into the lines. 'What's this with bars? It's a +College! And what's this with a grey gown and a black velvet cap? +it's a father! And what's this with a clarionet? It's an uncle! +And what's this in dancing-shoes? It's a sister! And what's this +straggling about in an idle sort of a way? It's a brother! And +what's this thinking for 'em all? Why, this is you, Miss Dorrit!' +Her eyes met his as she looked up wonderingly into his face, and +she thought that although his were sharp eyes, he was a brighter +and gentler-looking man than she had supposed at dinner. His eyes +were on her hand again directly, and her opportunity of confirming +or correcting the impression was gone. + +'Now, the deuce is in it,' muttered Pancks, tracing out a line in +her hand with his clumsy finger, 'if this isn't me in the corner +here! What do I want here? What's behind me?' + +He carried his finger slowly down to the wrist, and round the +wrist, and affected to look at the back of the hand for what was +behind him. + +'Is it any harm?' asked Little Dorrit, smiling. + +'Deuce a bit!' said Pancks. 'What do you think it's worth?' + +'I ought to ask you that. I am not the fortune-teller.' + +'True,' said Pancks. 'What's it worth? You shall live to see, +Miss Dorrit.' + +Releasing the hand by slow degrees, he drew all his fingers through +his prongs of hair, so that they stood up in their most portentous +manner; and repeated slowly, 'Remember what I say, Miss Dorrit. +You shall live to see.' + +She could not help showing that she was much surprised, if it were +only by his knowing so much about her. + +'Ah! That's it!' said Pancks, pointing at her. 'Miss Dorrit, not +that, ever!' + +More surprised than before, and a little more frightened, she +looked to him for an explanation of his last words. + +'Not that,' said Pancks, making, with great seriousness, an +imitation of a surprised look and manner that appeared to be +unintentionally grotesque. 'Don't do that. Never on seeing me, no +matter when, no matter where. I am nobody. Don't take on to mind +me. Don't mention me. Take no notice. Will you agree, Miss +Dorrit?' + +'I hardly know what to say,' returned Little Dorrit, quite +astounded. 'Why?' + +'Because I am a fortune-teller. Pancks the gipsy. I haven't told +you so much of your fortune yet, Miss Dorrit, as to tell you what's +behind me on that little hand. I have told you you shall live to +see. Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?' + +'Agreed that I--am--to--' + +'To take no notice of me away from here, unless I take on first. +Not to mind me when I come and go. It's very easy. I am no loss, +I am not handsome, I am not good company, I am only my proprietors +grubber. You need do no more than think, "Ah! Pancks the gipsy at +his fortune-telling--he'll tell the rest of my fortune one day--I +shall live to know it." Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?' + +'Ye-es,' faltered Little Dorrit, whom he greatly confused, 'I +suppose so, while you do no harm.' + +'Good!' Mr Pancks glanced at the wall of the adjoining room, and +stooped forward. 'Honest creature, woman of capital points, but +heedless and a loose talker, Miss Dorrit.' With that he rubbed his +hands as if the interview had been very satisfactory to him, panted +away to the door, and urbanely nodded himself out again. + +If Little Dorrit were beyond measure perplexed by this curious +conduct on the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself +involved in this singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished +by ensuing circumstances. Besides that Mr Pancks took every +opportunity afforded him in Mr Casby's house of significantly +glancing at her and snorting at her--which was not much, after what +he had done already--he began to pervade her daily life. She saw +him in the street, constantly. When she went to Mr Casby's, he was +always there. When she went to Mrs Clennam's, he came there on any +pretence, as if to keep her in his sight. A week had not gone by, +when she found him to her astonishment in the Lodge one night, +conversing with the turnkey on duty, and to all appearance one of +his familiar companions. Her next surprise was to find him equally +at his ease within the prison; to hear of his presenting himself +among the visitors at her father's Sunday levee; to see him arm in +arm with a Collegiate friend about the yard; to learn, from Fame, +that he had greatly distinguished himself one evening at the social +club that held its meetings in the Snuggery, by addressing a speech +to the members of the institution, singing a song, and treating the +company to five gallons of ale--report madly added a bushel of +shrimps. The effect on Mr Plornish of such of these phenomena as +he became an eye-witness of in his faithful visits, made an +impression on Little Dorrit only second to that produced by the +phenomena themselves. They seemed to gag and bind him. He could +only stare, and sometimes weakly mutter that it wouldn't be +believed down Bleeding Heart Yard that this was Pancks; but he +never said a word more, or made a sign more, even to Little Dorrit. + +Mr Pancks crowned his mysteries by making himself acquainted with +Tip in some unknown manner, and taking a Sunday saunter into the +College on that gentleman's arm. Throughout he never took any +notice of Little Dorrit, save once or twice when he happened to +come close to her and there was no one very near; on which +occasions, he said in passing, with a friendly look and a puff of +encouragement, 'Pancks the gipsy--fortune-telling.' + +Little Dorrit worked and strove as usual, wondering at all this, +but keeping her wonder, as she had from her earliest years kept +many heavier loads, in her own breast. A change had stolen, and +was stealing yet, over the patient heart. Every day found her +something more retiring than the day before. To pass in and out of +the prison unnoticed, and elsewhere to be overlooked and forgotten, +were, for herself, her chief desires. + +To her own room too, strangely assorted room for her delicate youth +and character, she was glad to retreat as often as she could +without desertion of any duty. There were afternoon times when she +was unemployed, when visitors dropped in to play a hand at cards +with her father, when she could be spared and was better away. +Then she would flit along the yard, climb the scores of stairs that +led to her room, and take her seat at the window. Many +combinations did those spikes upon the wall assume, many light +shapes did the strong iron weave itself into, many golden touches +fell upon the rust, while Little Dorrit sat there musing. New zig- +zags sprung into the cruel pattern sometimes, when she saw it +through a burst of tears; but beautified or hardened still, always +over it and under it and through it, she was fain to look in her +solitude, seeing everything with that ineffaceable brand. + +A garret, and a Marshalsea garret without compromise, was Little +Dorrit's room. Beautifully kept, it was ugly in itself, and had +little but cleanliness and air to set it off; for what +embellishment she had ever been able to buy, had gone to her +father's room. Howbeit, for this poor place she showed an +increasing love; and to sit in it alone became her favourite rest. + +Insomuch, that on a certain afternoon during the Pancks mysteries, +when she was seated at her window, and heard Maggy's well-known +step coming up the stairs, she was very much disturbed by the +apprehension of being summoned away. As Maggy's step came higher +up and nearer, she trembled and faltered; and it was as much as she +could do to speak, when Maggy at length appeared. + +'Please, Little Mother,' said Maggy, panting for breath, 'you must +come down and see him. He's here.' + +'Who, Maggy?' + +'Who, o' course Mr Clennam. He's in your father's room, and he +says to me, Maggy, will you be so kind and go and say it's only +me.' + +'I am not very well, Maggy. I had better not go. I am going to +lie down. See! I lie down now, to ease my head. Say, with my +grateful regard, that you left me so, or I would have come.' + +'Well, it an't very polite though, Little Mother,' said the staring +Maggy, 'to turn your face away, neither!' + +Maggy was very susceptible to personal slights, and very ingenious +in inventing them. 'Putting both your hands afore your face too!' +she went on. 'If you can't bear the looks of a poor thing, it +would be better to tell her so at once, and not go and shut her out +like that, hurting her feelings and breaking her heart at ten year +old, poor thing!' + +'It's to ease my head, Maggy.' + +'Well, and if you cry to ease your head, Little Mother, let me cry +too. Don't go and have all the crying to yourself,' expostulated +Maggy, 'that an't not being greedy.' And immediately began to +blubber. + +It was with some difficulty that she could be induced to go back +with the excuse; but the promise of being told a story--of old her +great delight--on condition that she concentrated her faculties +upon the errand and left her little mistress to herself for an hour +longer, combined with a misgiving on Maggy's part that she had left +her good temper at the bottom of the staircase, prevailed. So away +she went, muttering her message all the way to keep it in her mind, +and, at the appointed time, came back. + +'He was very sorry, I can tell you,' she announced, 'and wanted to +send a doctor. And he's coming again to-morrow he is and I don't +think he'll have a good sleep to-night along o' hearing about your +head, Little Mother. Oh my! Ain't you been a-crying!' + +'I think I have, a little, Maggy.' + +'A little! Oh!' + +'But it's all over now--all over for good, Maggy. And my head is +much better and cooler, and I am quite comfortable. I am very glad +I did not go down.' + +Her great staring child tenderly embraced her; and having smoothed +her hair, and bathed her forehead and eyes with cold water (offices +in which her awkward hands became skilful), hugged her again, +exulted in her brighter looks, and stationed her in her chair by +the window. Over against this chair, Maggy, with apoplectic +exertions that were not at all required, dragged the box which was +her seat on story-telling occasions, sat down upon it, hugged her +own knees, and said, with a voracious appetite for stories, and +with widely-opened eyes: + +'Now, Little Mother, let's have a good 'un!' + +'What shall it be about, Maggy?' + +'Oh, let's have a princess,' said Maggy, 'and let her be a reg'lar +one. Beyond all belief, you know!' + +Little Dorrit considered for a moment; and with a rather sad smile +upon her face, which was flushed by the sunset, began: + +'Maggy, there was once upon a time a fine King, and he had +everything he could wish for, and a great deal more. He had gold +and silver, diamonds and rubies, riches of every kind. He had +palaces, and he had--' + +'Hospitals,' interposed Maggy, still nursing her knees. 'Let him +have hospitals, because they're so comfortable. Hospitals with +lots of Chicking.' + +'Yes, he had plenty of them, and he had plenty of everything.' + +'Plenty of baked potatoes, for instance?' said Maggy. + +'Plenty of everything.' + +'Lor!' chuckled Maggy, giving her knees a hug. 'Wasn't it prime!' + +'This King had a daughter, who was the wisest and most beautiful +Princess that ever was seen. When she was a child she understood +all her lessons before her masters taught them to her; and when she +was grown up, she was the wonder of the world. Now, near the +Palace where this Princess lived, there was a cottage in which +there was a poor little tiny woman, who lived all alone by +herself.' + +'An old woman,' said Maggy, with an unctuous smack of her lips. + +'No, not an old woman. Quite a young one.' + +'I wonder she warn't afraid,' said Maggy. 'Go on, please.' + +'The Princess passed the cottage nearly every day, and whenever she +went by in her beautiful carriage, she saw the poor tiny woman +spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the +tiny woman looked at her. So, one day she stopped the coachman a +little way from the cottage, and got out and walked on and peeped +in at the door, and there, as usual, was the tiny woman spinning at +her wheel, and she looked at the Princess, and the Princess looked +at her.' + +'Like trying to stare one another out,' said Maggy. 'Please go on, +Little Mother.' + +'The Princess was such a wonderful Princess that she had the power +of knowing secrets, and she said to the tiny woman, Why do you keep +it there? This showed her directly that the Princess knew why she +lived all alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she kneeled +down at the Princess's feet, and asked her never to betray her. So +the Princess said, I never will betray you. Let me see it. So the +tiny woman closed the shutter of the cottage window and fastened +the door, and trembling from head to foot for fear that any one +should suspect her, opened a very secret place and showed the +Princess a shadow.' + +'Lor!' said Maggy. +'It was the shadow of Some one who had gone by long before: of Some +one who had gone on far away quite out of reach, never, never to +come back. It was bright to look at; and when the tiny woman +showed it to the Princess, she was proud of it with all her heart, +as a great, great treasure. When the Princess had considered it a +little while, she said to the tiny woman, And you keep watch over +this every day? And she cast down her eyes, and whispered, Yes. +Then the Princess said, Remind me why. To which the other replied, +that no one so good and kind had ever passed that way, and that was +why in the beginning. She said, too, that nobody missed it, that +nobody was the worse for it, that Some one had gone on, to those +who were expecting him--' + +'Some one was a man then?' interposed Maggy. + +Little Dorrit timidly said Yes, she believed so; and resumed: + +'--Had gone on to those who were expecting him, and that this +remembrance was stolen or kept back from nobody. The Princess made +answer, Ah! But when the cottager died it would be discovered +there. The tiny woman told her No; when that time came, it would +sink quietly into her own grave, and would never be found.' + +'Well, to be sure!' said Maggy. 'Go on, please.' + +'The Princess was very much astonished to hear this, as you may +suppose, Maggy.' ('And well she might be,' said Maggy.) + +'So she resolved to watch the tiny woman, and see what came of it. +Every day she drove in her beautiful carriage by the cottage-door, +and there she saw the tiny woman always alone by herself spinning +at her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman +looked at her. At last one day the wheel was still, and the tiny +woman was not to be seen. When the Princess made inquiries why the +wheel had stopped, and where the tiny woman was, she was informed +that the wheel had stopped because there was nobody to turn it, the +tiny woman being dead.' + +('They ought to have took her to the Hospital,' said Maggy, and +then she'd have got over it.') + +'The Princess, after crying a very little for the loss of the tiny +woman, dried her eyes and got out of her carriage at the place +where she had stopped it before, and went to the cottage and peeped +in at the door. There was nobody to look at her now, and nobody +for her to look at, so she went in at once to search for the +treasured shadow. But there was no sign of it to be found +anywhere; and then she knew that the tiny woman had told her the +truth, and that it would never give anybody any trouble, and that +it had sunk quietly into her own grave, and that she and it were at +rest together. + +'That's all, Maggy.' + +The sunset flush was so bright on Little Dorrit's face when she +came thus to the end of her story, that she interposed her hand to +shade it. + +'Had she got to be old?' Maggy asked. + +'The tiny woman?' +'Ah!' + +'I don't know,' said Little Dorrit. 'But it would have been just +the same if she had been ever so old.' + +'Would it raly!' said Maggy. 'Well, I suppose it would though.' +And sat staring and ruminating. + +She sat so long with her eyes wide open, that at length Little +Dorrit, to entice her from her box, rose and looked out of window. +As she glanced down into the yard, she saw Pancks come in and leer +up with the corner of his eye as he went by. + +'Who's he, Little Mother?' said Maggy. She had joined her at the +window and was leaning on her shoulder. 'I see him come in and out +often.' + +'I have heard him called a fortune-teller,' said Little Dorrit. +'But I doubt if he could tell many people even their past or +present fortunes.' + +'Couldn't have told the Princess hers?' said Maggy. + +Little Dorrit, looking musingly down into the dark valley of the +prison, shook her head. + +'Nor the tiny woman hers?' said Maggy. + +'No,' said Little Dorrit, with the sunset very bright upon her. +'But let us come away from the window.' + + + + +CHAPTER 25 + +Conspirators and Others + + +The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he +lodged on the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an +extremely small way, who had an inner-door within the street door, +poised on a spring and starting open with a click like a trap; and +who wrote up in the fan-light, RUGG, GENERAL AGENT, ACCOUNTANT, +DEBTS RECOVERED. + +This scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a +little slip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high-road, +where a few of the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and +led a life of choking. A professor of writing occupied the first- +floor, and enlivened the garden railings with glass-cases +containing choice examples of what his pupils had been before six +lessons and while the whole of his young family shook the table, +and what they had become after six lessons when the young family +was under restraint. The tenancy of Mr Pancks was limited to one +airy bedroom; he covenanting and agreeing with Mr Rugg his +landlord, that in consideration of a certain scale of payments +accurately defined, and on certain verbal notice duly given, he +should be at liberty to elect to share the Sunday breakfast, +dinner, tea, or supper, or each or any or all of those repasts or +meals of Mr and Miss Rugg (his daughter) in the back-parlour. + +Miss Rugg was a lady of a little property which she had acquired, +together with much distinction in the neighbourhood, by having her +heart severely lacerated and her feelings mangled by a middle-aged +baker resident in the vicinity, against whom she had, by the agency +of Mr Rugg, found it necessary to proceed at law to recover damages +for a breach of promise of marriage. The baker having been, by the +counsel for Miss Rugg, witheringly denounced on that occasion up to +the full amount of twenty guineas, at the rate of about eighteen- +pence an epithet, and having been cast in corresponding damages, +still suffered occasional persecution from the youth of +Pentonville. But Miss Rugg, environed by the majesty of the law, +and having her damages invested in the public securities, was +regarded with consideration. + +In the society of Mr Rugg, who had a round white visage, as if all +his blushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a +ragged yellow head like a worn-out hearth broom; and in the society +of Miss Rugg, who had little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all +over her face, and whose own yellow tresses were rather scrubby +than luxuriant; Mr Pancks had usually dined on Sundays for some few +years, and had twice a week, or so, enjoyed an evening collation of +bread, Dutch cheese, and porter. Mr Pancks was one of the very few +marriageable men for whom Miss Rugg had no terrors, the argument +with which he reassured himself being twofold; that is to say, +firstly, 'that it wouldn't do twice,' and secondly, 'that he wasn't +worth it.' Fortified within this double armour, Mr Pancks snorted +at Miss Rugg on easy terms. + +Up to this time, Mr Pancks had transacted little or no business at +his quarters in Pentonville, except in the sleeping line; but now +that he had become a fortune-teller, he was often closeted after +midnight with Mr Rugg in his little front-parlour office, and even +after those untimely hours, burnt tallow in his bed-room. Though +his duties as his proprietor's grubber were in no wise lessened; +and though that service bore no greater resemblance to a bed of +roses than was to be discovered in its many thorns; some new branch +of industry made a constant demand upon him. When he cast off the +Patriarch at night, it was only to take an anonymous craft in tow, +and labour away afresh in other waters. + +The advance from a personal acquaintance with the elder Mr Chivery +to an introduction to his amiable wife and disconsolate son, may +have been easy; but easy or not, Mr Pancks soon made it. He +nestled in the bosom of the tobacco business within a week or two +after his first appearance in the College, and particularly +addressed himself to the cultivation of a good understanding with +Young John. In this endeavour he so prospered as to lure that +pining shepherd forth from the groves, and tempt him to undertake +mysterious missions; on which he began to disappear at uncertain +intervals for as long a space as two or three days together. The +prudent Mrs Chivery, who wondered greatly at this change, would +have protested against it as detrimental to the Highland +typification on the doorpost but for two forcible reasons; one, +that her John was roused to take strong interest in the business +which these starts were supposed to advance--and this she held to +be good for his drooping spirits; the other, that Mr Pancks +confidentially agreed to pay her, for the occupation of her son's +time, at the handsome rate of seven and sixpence per day. The +proposal originated with himself, and was couched in the pithy +terms, 'If your John is weak enough, ma'am, not to take it, that is +no reason why you should be, don't you see? So, quite between +ourselves, ma'am, business being business, here it is!' + +What Mr Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little +he knew about them, was never gathered from himself. It has been +already remarked that he was a man of few words; and it may be here +observed that he had imbibed a professional habit of locking +everything up. He locked himself up as carefully as he locked up +the Marshalsea debtors. Even his custom of bolting his meals may +have been a part of an uniform whole; but there is no question, +that, as to all other purposes, he kept his mouth as he kept the +Marshalsea door. He never opened it without occasion. When it was +necessary to let anything out, he opened it a little way, held it +open just as long as sufficed for the purpose, and locked it again. + +Even as he would be sparing of his trouble at the Marshalsea door, +and would keep a visitor who wanted to go out, waiting for a few +moments if he saw another visitor coming down the yard, so that one +turn of the key should suffice for both, similarly he would often +reserve a remark if he perceived another on its way to his lips, +and would deliver himself of the two together. As to any key to +his inner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea +key was as legible as an index to the individual characters and +histories upon which it was turned. + +That Mr Pancks should be moved to invite any one to dinner at +Pentonville, was an unprecedented fact in his calendar. But he +invited Young John to dinner, and even brought him within range of +the dangerous (because expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg. The +banquet was appointed for a Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own +hands stuffed a leg of mutton with oysters on the occasion, and +sent it to the baker's--not THE baker's but an opposition +establishment. Provision of oranges, apples, and nuts was also +made. And rum was brought home by Mr Pancks on Saturday night, to +gladden the visitor's heart. +The store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the +visitor's reception. Its special feature was a foregone family +confidence and sympathy. When Young John appeared at half-past one +without the ivory hand and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun +shorn of his beams by disastrous clouds, Mr Pancks presented him to +the yellow-haired Ruggs as the young man he had so often mentioned +who loved Miss Dorrit. +'I am glad,' said Mr Rugg, challenging him specially in that +character, 'to have the distinguished gratification of making your +acquaintance, sir. Your feelings do you honour. You are young; +may you never outlive your feelings! If I was to outlive my own +feelings, sir,' said Mr Rugg, who was a man of many words, and was +considered to possess a remarkably good address; 'if I was to +outlive my own feelings, I'd leave fifty pound in my will to the +man who would put me out of existence.' + +Miss Rugg heaved a sigh. + +'My daughter, sir,' said Mr Rugg. 'Anastatia, you are no stranger +to the state of this young man's affections. My daughter has had +her trials, sir'--Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly +in the singular number--'and she can feel for you.' + +Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this +greeting, professed himself to that effect. + +'What I envy you, sir, is,' said Mr Rugg, 'allow me to take your +hat--we are rather short of pegs--I'll put it in the corner, nobody +will tread on it there--What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your +own feelings. I belong to a profession in which that luxury is +sometimes denied us.' + +Young John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did +what was right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss +Dorrit. He wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished +to do anything as laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, +altogether putting himself out of sight; and he hoped he did. It +was but little that he could do, but he hoped he did it. + +'Sir,' said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, 'you are a young man +that it does one good to come across. You are a young man that I +should like to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the +legal profession. I hope you have brought your appetite with you, +and intend to play a good knife and fork?' + +'Thank you, sir,' returned Young John, 'I don't eat much at +present.' + +Mr Rugg drew him a little apart. 'My daughter's case, sir,' said +he, 'at the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and +her sex, she became the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins. I suppose +I could have put it in evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it +worth my while, that the amount of solid sustenance my daughter +consumed at that period did not exceed ten ounces per week.' +'I think I go a little beyond that, sir,' returned the other, +hesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame. + +'But in your case there's no fiend in human form,' said Mr Rugg, +with argumentative smile and action of hand. 'Observe, Mr Chivery! + +No fiend in human form!' +'No, sir, certainly,' Young John added with simplicity, 'I should +be very sorry if there was.' + +'The sentiment,' said Mr Rugg, 'is what I should have expected from +your known principles. It would affect my daughter greatly, sir, +if she heard it. As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn't +hear it. Mr Pancks, on this occasion, pray face me. My dear, face +Mr Chivery. For what we are going to receive, may we (and Miss +Dorrit) be truly thankful!' + +But for a grave waggishness in Mr Rugg's manner of delivering this +introduction to the feast, it might have appeared that Miss Dorrit +was expected to be one of the company. Pancks recognised the sally +in his usual way, and took in his provender in his usual way. Miss +Rugg, perhaps making up some of her arrears, likewise took very +kindly to the mutton, and it rapidly diminished to the bone. A +bread-and-butter pudding entirely disappeared, and a considerable +amount of cheese and radishes vanished by the same means. Then +came the dessert. + +Then also, and before the broaching of the rum and water, came Mr +Pancks's note-book. The ensuing business proceedings were brief +but curious, and rather in the nature of a conspiracy. Mr Pancks +looked over his note-book, which was now getting full, studiously; +and picked out little extracts, which he wrote on separate slips of +paper on the table; Mr Rugg, in the meanwhile, looking at him with +close attention, and Young John losing his uncollected eye in mists +of meditation. When Mr Pancks, who supported the character of +chief conspirator, had completed his extracts, he looked them over, +corrected them, put up his note-book, and held them like a hand at +cards. + +'Now, there's a churchyard in Bedfordshire,' said Pancks. 'Who +takes it?' + +'I'll take it, sir,' returned Mr Rugg, 'if no one bids.' + +Mr Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his hand again. + +'Now, there's an Enquiry in York,' said Pancks. 'Who takes it?' + +'I'm not good for York,' said Mr Rugg. + +'Then perhaps,' pursued Pancks, 'you'll be so obliging, John +Chivery?' Young John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and +consulted his hand again. + +'There's a Church in London; I may as well take that. And a Family +Bible; I may as well take that, too. That's two to me. Two to +me,' repeated Pancks, breathing hard over his cards. 'Here's a +Clerk at Durham for you, John, and an old seafaring gentleman at +Dunstable for you, Mr Rugg. Two to me, was it? Yes, two to me. +Here's a Stone; three to me. And a Still-born Baby; four to me. +And all, for the present, told.' +When he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done very quietly +and in a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed his way into his own +breast-pocket and tugged out a canvas bag; from which, with a +sparing hand, he told forth money for travelling expenses in two +little portions. 'Cash goes out fast,' he said anxiously, as he +pushed a portion to each of his male companions, 'very fast.' + +'I can only assure you, Mr Pancks,' said Young John, 'that I deeply +regret my circumstances being such that I can't afford to pay my +own charges, or that it's not advisable to allow me the time +necessary for my doing the distances on foot; because nothing would +give me greater satisfaction than to walk myself off my legs +without fee or reward.' + +This young man's disinterestedness appeared so very ludicrous in +the eyes of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged to effect a precipitate +retirement from the company, and to sit upon the stairs until she +had had her laugh out. Meanwhile Mr Pancks, looking, not without +some pity, at Young John, slowly and thoughtfully twisted up his +canvas bag as if he were wringing its neck. The lady, returning as +he restored it to his pocket, mixed rum and water for the party, +not forgetting her fair self, and handed to every one his glass. +When all were supplied, Mr Rugg rose, and silently holding out his +glass at arm's length above the centre of the table, by that +gesture invited the other three to add theirs, and to unite in a +general conspiratorial clink. The ceremony was effective up to a +certain point, and would have been wholly so throughout, if Miss +Rugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in completion of it, had +not happened to look at Young John; when she was again so overcome +by the contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness as to +splutter some ambrosial drops of rum and water around, and withdraw +in confusion. + +Such was the dinner without precedent, given by Pancks at +Pentonville; and such was the busy and strange life Pancks led. +The only waking moments at which he appeared to relax from his +cares, and to recreate himself by going anywhere or saying anything +without a pervading object, were when he showed a dawning interest +in the lame foreigner with the stick, down Bleeding Heart Yard. + +The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto--they called him Mr +Baptist in the Yard--was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little +fellow, that his attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of +contrast. Solitary, weak, and scantily acquainted with the most +necessary words of the only language in which he could communicate +with the people about him, he went with the stream of his fortunes, +in a brisk way that was new in those parts. With little to eat, +and less to drink, and nothing to wear but what he wore upon him, +or had brought tied up in one of the smallest bundles that ever +were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as if he were in the +most flourishing circumstances when he first hobbled up and down +the Yard, humbly propitiating the general good-will with his white +teeth. + +It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way +with the Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely +persuaded that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the +second, they held it to be a sound constitutional national axiom +that he ought to go home to his own country. They never thought of +inquiring how many of their own countrymen would be returned upon +their hands from divers parts of the world, if the principle were +generally recognised; they considered it particularly and +peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a notion that it +was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an +Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to his +country because it did things that England did not, and did not do +things that England did. In this belief, to be sure, they had long +been carefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who +were always proclaiming to them, officially, that no country which +failed to submit itself to those two large families could possibly +hope to be under the protection of Providence; and who, when they +believed it, disparaged them in private as the most prejudiced +people under the sun. + +This, therefore, might be called a political position of the +Bleeding Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having +foreigners in the Yard. They believed that foreigners were always +badly off; and though they were as ill off themselves as they could +desire to be, that did not diminish the force of the objection. +They believed that foreigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and +though they certainly got their own skulls promptly fractured if +they showed any ill-humour, still it was with a blunt instrument, +and that didn't count. They believed that foreigners were always +immoral; and though they had an occasional assize at home, and now +and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing to do with it. +They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit, as never +being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, +with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing. Not to +be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar kind. + +Against these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to +make head as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed, +because Mr Arthur Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he +lived at the top of the same house), but still at heavy odds. +However, the Bleeding Hearts were kind hearts; and when they saw +the little fellow cheerily limping about with a good-humoured face, +doing no harm, drawing no knives, committing no outrageous +immoralities, living chiefly on farinaceous and milk diet, and +playing with Mrs Plornish's children of an evening, they began to +think that although he could never hope to be an Englishman, still +it would be hard to visit that affliction on his head. They began +to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him 'Mr Baptist,' +but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his +lively gestures and his childish English--more, because he didn't +mind it, and laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as +if he were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of +teaching him the language in its purity, such as were addressed by +the savages to Captain Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs +Plornish was particularly ingenious in this art; and attained so +much celebrity for saying 'Me ope you leg well soon,' that it was +considered in the Yard but a very short remove indeed from speaking +Italian. Even Mrs Plornish herself began to think that she had a +natural call towards that language. As he became more popular, +household objects were brought into requisition for his instruction +in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the Yard +ladies would fly out at their doors crying 'Mr Baptist--tea-pot!' +'Mr Baptist--dust-pan!' 'Mr Baptist--flour-dredger!' 'Mr +Baptist--coffee-biggin!' At the same time exhibiting those +articles, and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling +difficulties of the Anglo-Saxon tongue. + +It was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week +of his occupation, that Mr Pancks's fancy became attracted by the +little man. Mounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as +interpreter, he found Mr Baptist with no furniture but his bed on +the ground, a table, and a chair, carving with the aid of a few +simple tools, in the blithest way possible. + +'Now, old chap,' said Mr Pancks, 'pay up!' + +He had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly +handed it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of +his right hand as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in +the air for an odd sixpence. + +'Oh!' said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly. 'That's it, is +it? You're a quick customer. It's all right. I didn't expect to +receive it, though.' + +Mrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and +explained to Mr Baptist. 'E please. E glad get money.' + +The little man smiled and nodded. His bright face seemed +uncommonly attractive to Mr Pancks. 'How's he getting on in his +limb?' he asked Mrs Plornish. + +'Oh, he's a deal better, sir,' said Mrs Plornish. 'We expect next +week he'll be able to leave off his stick entirely.' (The +opportunity being too favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed +her great accomplishment by explaining with pardonable pride to Mr +Baptist, 'E ope you leg well soon.') + +'He's a merry fellow, too,' said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he +were a mechanical toy. 'How does he live?' + +'Why, sir,' rejoined Mrs Plornish, 'he turns out to have quite a +power of carving them flowers that you see him at now.' (Mr +Baptist, watching their faces as they spoke, held up his work. Mrs +Plornish interpreted in her Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks, +'E please. Double good!') + +'Can he live by that?' asked Mr Pancks. +'He can live on very little, sir, and it is expected as he will be +able, in time, to make a very good living. Mr Clennam got it him +to do, and gives him odd jobs besides in at the Works next door-- +makes 'em for him, in short, when he knows he wants 'em.' + +'And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain't hard at it?' +said Mr Pancks. + +'Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able +to walk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without +particular understanding or being understood, and he plays with the +children, and he sits in the sun--he'll sit down anywhere, as if it +was an arm-chair--and he'll sing, and he'll laugh!' + +'Laugh!' echoed Mr Pancks. 'He looks to me as if every tooth in +his head was always laughing.' + +'But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t'other end of the +Yard,' said Mrs Plornish, 'he'll peep out in the curiousest way! +So that some of us thinks he's peeping out towards where his own +country is, and some of us thinks he's looking for somebody he +don't want to see, and some of us don't know what to think.' + +Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; +or perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of +peeping. In any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with +the air of a man who had sufficient reasons for what he did, and +said in his own tongue, it didn't matter. Altro! + +'What's Altro?' said Pancks. + +'Hem! It's a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,' said Mrs +Plornish. + +'Is it?' said Pancks. 'Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good +afternoon. Altro!' + +Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, +Mr Pancks in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time +it became a frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home +jaded at night, to pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up +the stairs, look in at Mr Baptist's door, and, finding him in his +room, to say, 'Hallo, old chap! Altro!' To which Mr Baptist would +reply with innumerable bright nods and smiles, 'Altro, signore, +altro, altro, altro!' After this highly condensed conversation, Mr +Pancks would go his way with an appearance of being lightened and +refreshed. + + + + +CHAPTER 26 + +Nobody's State of Mind + + +If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to +restrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state +of much perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own +heart. Not the least of these would have been a contention, always +waging within it, between a tendency to dislike Mr Henry Gowan, if +not to regard him with positive repugnance, and a whisper that the +inclination was unworthy. A generous nature is not prone to strong +aversions, and is slow to admit them even dispassionately; but when +it finds ill-will gaining upon it, and can discern between-whiles +that its origin is not dispassionate, such a nature becomes +distressed. + +Therefore Mr Henry Gowan would have clouded Clennam's mind, and +would have been far oftener present to it than more agreeable +persons and subjects but for the great prudence of his decision +aforesaid. As it was, Mr Gowan seemed transferred to Daniel +Doyce's mind; at all events, it so happened that it usually fell to +Mr Doyce's turn, rather than to Clennam's, to speak of him in the +friendly conversations they held together. These were of frequent +occurrence now; as the two partners shared a portion of a roomy +house in one of the grave old-fashioned City streets, lying not far +from the Bank of England, by London Wall. + +Mr Doyce had been to Twickenham to pass the day. Clennam had +excused himself. Mr Doyce was just come home. He put in his head +at the door of Clennam's sitting-room to say Good night. + +'Come in, come in!' said Clennam. + +'I saw you were reading,' returned Doyce, as he entered, 'and +thought you might not care to be disturbed.' + +But for the notable resolution he had made, Clennam really might +not have known what he had been reading; really might not have had +his eyes upon the book for an hour past, though it lay open before +him. He shut it up, rather quickly. + +'Are they well?' he asked. + +'Yes,' said Doyce; 'they are well. They are all well.' + +Daniel had an old workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket- +handkerchief in his hat. He took it out and wiped his forehead +with it, slowly repeating, 'They are all well. Miss Minnie looking +particularly well, I thought.' + +'Any company at the cottage?' + +'No, no company.' +'And how did you get on, you four?' asked Clennam gaily. + +'There were five of us,' returned his partner. 'There was What's- +his-name. He was there.' +'Who is he?' said Clennam. + +'Mr Henry Gowan.' + +'Ah, to be sure!' cried Clennam with unusual vivacity, 'Yes!--I +forgot him.' + +'As I mentioned, you may remember,' said Daniel Doyce, 'he is +always there on Sunday.' + +'Yes, yes,' returned Clennam; 'I remember now.' + +Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated. +'Yes. He was there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his +dog. He was there too.' + +'Miss Meagles is quite attached to--the--dog,' observed Clennam. + +'Quite so,' assented his partner. 'More attached to the dog than +I am to the man.' + +'You mean Mr--?' + +'I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly,' said Daniel Doyce. + +There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to +winding up his watch. + +'Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment,' he said. 'Our +judgments--I am supposing a general case--' + +'Of course,' said Doyce. + +'Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which, +almost without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to +keep a guard upon them. For instance, Mr--' + +'Gowan,' quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name +almost always devolved. + +'Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a +good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give +an unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.' + +'Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,' returned his partner. 'I +see him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into +my old friend's house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old +friend's face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, +the face of his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the +pretty and affectionate creature whom he will never make happy.' +'We don't know,' said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, +'that he will not make her happy.' + +'We don't know,' returned his partner, 'that the earth will last +another hundred years, but we think it highly probable.' + +'Well, well!' said Clennam, 'we must be hopeful, and we must at +least try to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no +opportunity of being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman, +because he is successful in his addresses to the beautiful object +of his ambition; and we will not question her natural right to +bestow her love on one whom she finds worthy of it.' + +'Maybe, my friend,' said Doyce. 'Maybe also, that she is too young +and petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well.' + +'That,' said Clennam, 'would be far beyond our power of +correction.' + +Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, 'I fear so.' + +'Therefore, in a word,' said Clennam, 'we should make up our minds +that it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would +be a poor thing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve, +for my part, not to depreciate him.' + +'I am not quite so sure of myself, and therefore I reserve my +privilege of objecting to him,' returned the other. 'But, if I am +not sure of myself, I am sure of you, Clennam, and I know what an +upright man you are, and how much to be respected. Good night, MY +friend and partner!' He shook his hand in saying this, as if there +had been something serious at the bottom of their conversation; and +they separated. + +By this time they had visited the family on several occasions, and +had always observed that even a passing allusion to Mr Henry Gowan +when he was not among them, brought back the cloud which had +obscured Mr Meagles's sunshine on the morning of the chance +encounter at the Ferry. If Clennam had ever admitted the forbidden +passion into his breast, this period might have been a period of +real trial; under the actual circumstances, doubtless it was +nothing--nothing. + +Equally, if his heart had given entertainment to that prohibited +guest, his silent fighting of his way through the mental condition +of this period might have been a little meritorious. In the +constant effort not to be betrayed into a new phase of the +besetting sin of his experience, the pursuit of selfish objects by +low and small means, and to hold instead to some high principle of +honour and generosity, there might have been a little merit. In +the resolution not even to avoid Mr Meagles's house, lest, in the +selfish sparing of himself, he should bring any slight distress +upon the daughter through making her the cause of an estrangement +which he believed the father would regret, there might have been a +little merit. In the modest truthfulness of always keeping in view +the greater equality of Mr Gowan's years and the greater +attractions of his person and manner, there might have been a +little merit. In doing all this and much more, in a perfectly +unaffected way and with a manful and composed constancy, while the +pain within him (peculiar as his life and history) was very sharp, +there might have been some quiet strength of character. But, after +the resolution he had made, of course he could have no such merits +as these; and such a state of mind was nobody's--nobody's. + +Mr Gowan made it no concern of his whether it was nobody's or +somebody's. He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all +occasions, as if the possibility of Clennam's presuming to have +debated the great question were too distant and ridiculous to be +imagined. He had always an affability to bestow on Clennam and an +ease to treat him with, which might of itself (in the +supposititious case of his not having taken that sagacious course) +have been a very uncomfortable element in his state of mind. + +'I quite regret you were not with us yesterday,' said Mr Henry +Gowan, calling on Clennam the next morning. 'We had an agreeable +day up the river there.' + +So he had heard, Arthur said. + +'From your partner?' returned Henry Gowan. 'What a dear old fellow +he is!' + +'I have a great regard for him.' + +'By Jove, he is the finest creature!' said Gowan. 'So fresh, so +green, trusts in such wonderful things!' + +Here was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to +grate on Clennam's hearing. He put it aside by merely repeating +that he had a high regard for Mr Doyce. + +'He is charming! To see him mooning along to that time of life, +laying down nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way, +is delightful. It warms a man. So unspoilt, so simple, such a +good soul! Upon my life Mr Clennam, one feels desperately worldly +and wicked in comparison with such an innocent creature. I speak +for myself, let me add, without including you. You are genuine +also.' + +'Thank you for the compliment,' said Clennam, ill at ease; 'you are +too, I hope?' + +'So so,' rejoined the other. 'To be candid with you, tolerably. +I am not a great impostor. Buy one of my pictures, and I assure +you, in confidence, it will not be worth the money. Buy one of +another man's--any great professor who beats me hollow--and the +chances are that the more you give him, the more he'll impose upon +you. They all do it.' +'All painters?' + +'Painters, writers, patriots, all the rest who have stands in the +market. Give almost any man I know ten pounds, and he will impose +upon you to a corresponding extent; a thousand pounds--to a +corresponding extent; ten thousand pounds--to a corresponding +extent. So great the success, so great the imposition. But what +a capital world it is!' cried Gowan with warm enthusiasm. 'What a +jolly, excellent, lovable world it is!' + +'I had rather thought,' said Clennam, 'that the principle you +mention was chiefly acted on by--' + +'By the Barnacles?' interrupted Gowan, laughing. + +'By the political gentlemen who condescend to keep the +Circumlocution Office.' + +'Ah! Don't be hard upon the Barnacles,' said Gowan, laughing +afresh, 'they are darling fellows! Even poor little Clarence, the +born idiot of the family, is the most agreeable and most endearing +blockhead! And by Jupiter, with a kind of cleverness in him too +that would astonish you!' + +'It would. Very much,' said Clennam, drily. + +'And after all,' cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of +his which reduced everything in the wide world to the same light +weight, 'though I can't deny that the Circumlocution Office may +ultimately shipwreck everybody and everything, still, that will +probably not be in our time--and it's a school for gentlemen.' + +'It's a very dangerous, unsatisfactory, and expensive school to the +people who pay to keep the pupils there, I am afraid,' said +Clennam, shaking his head. + +'Ah! You are a terrible fellow,' returned Gowan, airily. 'I can +understand how you have frightened that little donkey, Clarence, +the most estimable of moon-calves (I really love him) nearly out of +his wits. But enough of him, and of all the rest of them. I want +to present you to my mother, Mr Clennam. Pray do me the favour to +give me the opportunity.' + +In nobody's state of mind, there was nothing Clennam would have +desired less, or would have been more at a loss how to avoid. + +'My mother lives in a most primitive manner down in that dreary +red-brick dungeon at Hampton Court,' said Gowan. 'If you would +make your own appointment, suggest your own day for permitting me +to take you there to dinner, you would be bored and she would be +charmed. Really that's the state of the case.' + +What could Clennam say after this? His retiring character included +a great deal that was simple in the best sense, because unpractised +and unused; and in his simplicity and modesty, he could only say +that he was happy to place himself at Mr Gowan's disposal. +Accordingly he said it, and the day was fixed. And a dreaded day +it was on his part, and a very unwelcome day when it came and they +went down to Hampton Court together. + +The venerable inhabitants of that venerable pile seemed, in those +times, to be encamped there like a sort of civilised gipsies. +There was a temporary air about their establishments, as if they +were going away the moment they could get anything better; there +was also a dissatisfied air about themselves, as if they took it +very ill that they had not already got something much better. +Genteel blinds and makeshifts were more or less observable as soon +as their doors were opened; screens not half high enough, which +made dining-rooms out of arched passages, and warded off obscure +corners where footboys slept at nights with their heads among the +knives and forks; curtains which called upon you to believe that +they didn't hide anything; panes of glass which requested you not +to see them; many objects of various forms, feigning to have no +connection with their guilty secret, a bed; disguised traps in +walls, which were clearly coal-cellars; affectations of no +thoroughfares, which were evidently doors to little kitchens. +Mental reservations and artful mysteries grew out of these things. +Callers looking steadily into the eyes of their receivers, +pretended not to smell cooking three feet off; people, confronting +closets accidentally left open, pretended not to see bottles; +visitors with their heads against a partition of thin canvas, and +a page and a young female at high words on the other side, made +believe to be sitting in a primeval silence. There was no end to +the small social accommodation-bills of this nature which the +gipsies of gentility were constantly drawing upon, and accepting +for, one another. + +Some of these Bohemians were of an irritable temperament, as +constantly soured and vexed by two mental trials: the first, the +consciousness that they had never got enough out of the public; the +second, the consciousness that the public were admitted into the +building. Under the latter great wrong, a few suffered +dreadfully--particularly on Sundays, when they had for some time +expected the earth to open and swallow the public up; but which +desirable event had not yet occurred, in consequence of some +reprehensible laxity in the arrangements of the Universe. + +Mrs Gowan's door was attended by a family servant of several years' +standing, who had his own crow to pluck with the public concerning +a situation in the Post-Office which he had been for some time +expecting, and to which he was not yet appointed. He perfectly +knew that the public could never have got him in, but he grimly +gratified himself with the idea that the public kept him out. +Under the influence of this injury (and perhaps of some little +straitness and irregularity in the matter of wages), he had grown +neglectful of his person and morose in mind; and now beholding in +Clennam one of the degraded body of his oppressors, received him +with ignominy. +Mrs Gowan, however, received him with condescension. He found her +a courtly old lady, formerly a Beauty, and still sufficiently well- +favoured to have dispensed with the powder on her nose and a +certain impossible bloom under each eye. She was a little lofty +with him; so was another old lady, dark-browed and high-nosed, and +who must have had something real about her or she could not have +existed, but it was certainly not her hair or her teeth or her +figure or her complexion; so was a grey old gentleman of dignified +and sullen appearance; both of whom had come to dinner. But, as +they had all been in the British Embassy way in sundry parts of the +earth, and as a British Embassy cannot better establish a character +with the Circumlocution Office than by treating its compatriots +with illimitable contempt (else it would become like the Embassies +of other countries), Clennam felt that on the whole they let him +off lightly. + +The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster +Stiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office +for many years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad. + +This noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his +time, and had done it with such complete success that the very name +of Englishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had +the distinguished honour of remembering him at a distance of a +quarter of a century. + +He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, +like a stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. +There was a whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the +nomadic nature of the service and its curious races of plates and +dishes; but the noble Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or +porcelain, made it superb. He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, +chilled the gravy, and blighted the vegetables. + +There was only one other person in the room: a microscopically +small footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into +the Post-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been +unbuttoned and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a +distant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a +situation under Government. + +Mrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her +son's being reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of +the low Arts, instead of asserting his birthright and putting a +ring through its nose as an acknowledged Barnacle, headed the +conversation at dinner on the evil days. It was then that Clennam +learned for the first time what little pivots this great world goes +round upon. + +'If John Barnacle,' said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the +times had been fully ascertained, 'if John Barnacle had but +abandoned his most unfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all +would have been well, and I think the country would have been +preserved.' +The old lady with the high nose assented; but added that if +Augustus Stiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out +with instructions to charge, she thought the country would have +been preserved. + +The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle +and Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and +formed their ever-memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the +newspapers, and rendered it penal for any Editor-person to presume +to discuss the conduct of any appointed authority abroad or at +home, he thought the country would have been preserved. + +It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and +Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want +preserving was not so clear. It was only clear that the question +was all about John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William +Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or +Stiltstalking, because there was nobody else but mob. And this was +the feature of the conversation which impressed Clennam, as a man +not used to it, very disagreeably: making him doubt if it were +quite right to sit there, silently hearing a great nation narrowed +to such little bounds. Remembering, however, that in the +Parliamentary debates, whether on the life of that nation's body or +the life of its soul, the question was usually all about and +between John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and +Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, +and nobody else; he said nothing on the part of mob, bethinking +himself that mob was used to it. + +Mr Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off +the three talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam +startled by what they said. Having as supreme a contempt for the +class that had thrown him off as for the class that had not taken +him on, he had no personal disquiet in anything that passed. His +healthy state of mind appeared even to derive a gratification from +Clennam's position of embarrassment and isolation among the good +company; and if Clennam had been in that condition with which +Nobody was incessantly contending, he would have suspected it, and +would have struggled with the suspicion as a meanness, even while +he sat at the table. + +In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no +time less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five +centuries in arrears, and delivered solemn political oracles +appropriate to that epoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea +for his own drinking, and retiring at his lowest temperature. Then +Mrs Gowan, who had been accustomed in her days of a vacant arm- +chair beside her to which to summon state to retain her devoted +slaves, one by one, for short audiences as marks of her especial +favour, invited Clennam with a turn of her fan to approach the +presence. He obeyed, and took the tripod recently vacated by Lord +Lancaster Stiltstalking. + +'Mr Clennam,' said Mrs Gowan, 'apart from the happiness I have in +becoming known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place-- +a mere barrack--there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to +you. It is the subject in connection with which my son first had, +I believe, the pleasure of cultivating your acquaintance.' + +Clennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he +did not yet quite understand. + +'First,' said Mrs Gowan, 'now, is she really pretty?' + +In nobody's difficulties, he would have found it very difficult to +answer; very difficult indeed to smile, and say 'Who?' + +'Oh! You know!' she returned. 'This flame of Henry's. This +unfortunate fancy. There! If it is a point of honour that I +should originate the name--Miss Mickles--Miggles.' + +'Miss Meagles,' said Clennam, 'is very beautiful.' + +'Men are so often mistaken on those points,' returned Mrs Gowan, +shaking her head, 'that I candidly confess to you I feel anything +but sure of it, even now; though it is something to have Henry +corroborated with so much gravity and emphasis. He picked the +people up at Rome, I think?' + +The phrase would have given nobody mortal offence. Clennam +replied, 'Excuse me, I doubt if I understand your expression.' + +'Picked the people up,' said Mrs Gowan, tapping the sticks of her +closed fan (a large green one, which she used as a hand-screen) on +her little table. 'Came upon them. Found them out. Stumbled UP +against them.' + +'The people?' + +'Yes. The Miggles people.' + +'I really cannot say,' said Clennam, 'where my friend Mr Meagles +first presented Mr Henry Gowan to his daughter.' + +'I am pretty sure he picked her up at Rome; but never mind where-- +somewhere. Now (this is entirely between ourselves), is she very +plebeian?' + +'Really, ma'am,' returned Clennam, 'I am so undoubtedly plebeian +myself, that I do not feel qualified to judge.' + +'Very neat!' said Mrs Gowan, coolly unfurling her screen. 'Very +happy! From which I infer that you secretly think her manner equal +to her looks?' + +Clennam, after a moment's stiffness, bowed. + +'That's comforting, and I hope you may be right. Did Henry tell me +you had travelled with them?' +'I travelled with my friend Mr Meagles, and his wife and daughter, +during some months.' (Nobody's heart might have been wrung by the +remembrance.) + +'Really comforting, because you must have had a large experience of +them. You see, Mr Clennam, this thing has been going on for a long +time, and I find no improvement in it. Therefore to have the +opportunity of speaking to one so well informed about it as +yourself, is an immense relief to me. Quite a boon. Quite a +blessing, I am sure.' + +'Pardon me,' returned Clennam, 'but I am not in Mr Henry Gowan's +confidence. I am far from being so well informed as you suppose me +to be. Your mistake makes my position a very delicate one. No +word on this topic has ever passed between Mr Henry Gowan and +myself.' + +Mrs Gowan glanced at the other end of the room, where her son was +playing ecarte on a sofa, with the old lady who was for a charge of +cavalry. + +'Not in his confidence? No,' said Mrs Gowan. 'No word has passed +between you? No. That I can imagine. But there are unexpressed +confidences, Mr Clennam; and as you have been together intimately +among these people, I cannot doubt that a confidence of that sort +exists in the present case. Perhaps you have heard that I have +suffered the keenest distress of mind from Henry's having taken to +a pursuit which--well!' shrugging her shoulders, 'a very +respectable pursuit, I dare say, and some artists are, as artists, +quite superior persons; still, we never yet in our family have gone +beyond an Amateur, and it is a pardonable weakness to feel a +little--' + +As Mrs Gowan broke off to heave a sigh, Clennam, however resolute +to be magnanimous, could not keep down the thought that there was +mighty little danger of the family's ever going beyond an Amateur, +even as it was. + +'Henry,' the mother resumed, 'is self-willed and resolute; and as +these people naturally strain every nerve to catch him, I can +entertain very little hope, Mr Clennam, that the thing will be +broken off. I apprehend the girl's fortune will be very small; +Henry might have done much better; there is scarcely anything to +compensate for the connection: still, he acts for himself; and if +I find no improvement within a short time, I see no other course +than to resign myself and make the best of these people. I am +infinitely obliged to you for what you have told me.' +As she shrugged her shoulders, Clennam stiffly bowed again. With +an uneasy flush upon his face, and hesitation in his manner, he +then said in a still lower tone than he had adopted yet: + +'Mrs Gowan, I scarcely know how to acquit myself of what I feel to +be a duty, and yet I must ask you for your kind consideration in +attempting to discharge it. A misconception on your part, a very +great misconception if I may venture to call it so, seems to +require setting right. You have supposed Mr Meagles and his family +to strain every nerve, I think you said--' + +'Every nerve,' repeated Mrs Gowan, looking at him in calm +obstinacy, with her green fan between her face and the fire. + +'To secure Mr Henry Gowan?' + +The lady placidly assented. + +'Now that is so far,' said Arthur, 'from being the case, that I +know Mr Meagles to be unhappy in this matter; and to have +interposed all reasonable obstacles with the hope of putting an end +to it.' + +Mrs Gowan shut up her great green fan, tapped him on the arm with +it, and tapped her smiling lips. 'Why, of course,' said she. +'Just what I mean.' + +Arthur watched her face for some explanation of what she did mean. + +'Are you really serious, Mr Clennam? Don't you see?' + +Arthur did not see; and said so. + +'Why, don't I know my son, and don't I know that this is exactly +the way to hold him?' said Mrs Gowan, contemptuously; 'and do not +these Miggles people know it, at least as well as I? Oh, shrewd +people, Mr Clennam: evidently people of business! I believe +Miggles belonged to a Bank. It ought to have been a very +profitable Bank, if he had much to do with its management. This is +very well done, indeed.' + +'I beg and entreat you, ma'am--' Arthur interposed. + +'Oh, Mr Clennam, can you really be so credulous?' + +It made such a painful impression upon him to hear her talking in +this haughty tone, and to see her patting her contemptuous lips +with her fan, that he said very earnestly, 'Believe me, ma'am, this +is unjust, a perfectly groundless suspicion.' + +'Suspicion?' repeated Mrs Gowan. 'Not suspicion, Mr Clennam, +Certainty. It is very knowingly done indeed, and seems to have +taken YOU in completely.' She laughed; and again sat tapping her +lips with her fan, and tossing her head, as if she added, 'Don't +tell me. I know such people will do anything for the honour of +such an alliance.' + +At this opportune moment, the cards were thrown up, and Mr Henry +Gowan came across the room saying, 'Mother, if you can spare Mr +Clennam for this time, we have a long way to go, and it's getting +late.' Mr Clennam thereupon rose, as he had no choice but to do; +and Mrs Gowan showed him, to the last, the same look and the same +tapped contemptuous lips. + +'You have had a portentously long audience of my mother,' said +Gowan, as the door closed upon them. 'I fervently hope she has not +bored you?' + +'Not at all,' said Clennam. + +They had a little open phaeton for the journey, and were soon in it +on the road home. Gowan, driving, lighted a cigar; Clennam +declined one. Do what he would, he fell into such a mood of +abstraction that Gowan said again, 'I am very much afraid my mother +has bored you?' To which he roused himself to answer, 'Not at +all!' and soon relapsed again. + +In that state of mind which rendered nobody uneasy, his +thoughtfulness would have turned principally on the man at his +side. He would have thought of the morning when he first saw him +rooting out the stones with his heel, and would have asked himself, +'Does he jerk me out of the path in the same careless, cruel way?' +He would have thought, had this introduction to his mother been +brought about by him because he knew what she would say, and that +he could thus place his position before a rival and loftily warn +him off, without himself reposing a word of confidence in him? He +would have thought, even if there were no such design as that, had +he brought him there to play with his repressed emotions, and +torment him? The current of these meditations would have been +stayed sometimes by a rush of shame, bearing a remonstrance to +himself from his own open nature, representing that to shelter such +suspicions, even for the passing moment, was not to hold the high, +unenvious course he had resolved to keep. At those times, the +striving within him would have been hardest; and looking up and +catching Gowan's eyes, he would have started as if he had done him +an injury. + +Then, looking at the dark road and its uncertain objects, he would +have gradually trailed off again into thinking, 'Where are we +driving, he and I, I wonder, on the darker road of life? How will +it be with us, and with her, in the obscure distance?' Thinking of +her, he would have been troubled anew with a reproachful misgiving +that it was not even loyal to her to dislike him, and that in being +so easily prejudiced against him he was less deserving of her than +at first. + +'You are evidently out of spirits,' said Gowan; 'I am very much +afraid my mother must have bored you dreadfully.' +'Believe me, not at all,' said Clennam. 'It's nothing--nothing!' + + + + +CHAPTER 27 + +Five-and-Twenty + +A frequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks's desire to collect +information relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible +bearing on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his +return from his long exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness +at this period. What Mr Pancks already knew about the Dorrit +family, what more he really wanted to find out, and why he should +trouble his busy head about them at all, were questions that often +perplexed him. Mr Pancks was not a man to waste his time and +trouble in researches prompted by idle curiosity. That he had a +specific object Clennam could not doubt. And whether the +attainment of that object by Mr Pancks's industry might bring to +light, in some untimely way, secret reasons which had induced his +mother to take Little Dorrit by the hand, was a serious +speculation. + +Not that he ever wavered either in his desire or his determination +to repair a wrong that had been done in his father's time, should +a wrong come to light, and be reparable. The shadow of a supposed +act of injustice, which had hung over him since his father's death, +was so vague and formless that it might be the result of a reality +widely remote from his idea of it. But, if his apprehensions +should prove to be well founded, he was ready at any moment to lay +down all he had, and begin the world anew. As the fierce dark +teaching of his childhood had never sunk into his heart, so that +first article in his code of morals was, that he must begin, in +practical humility, with looking well to his feet on Earth, and +that he could never mount on wings of words to Heaven. Duty on +earth, restitution on earth, action on earth; these first, as the +first steep steps upward. Strait was the gate and narrow was the +way; far straiter and narrower than the broad high road paved with +vain professions and vain repetitions, motes from other men's eyes +and liberal delivery of others to the judgment--all cheap materials +costing absolutely nothing. + +No. It was not a selfish fear or hesitation that rendered him +uneasy, but a mistrust lest Pancks might not observe his part of +the understanding between them, and, making any discovery, might +take some course upon it without imparting it to him. On the other +hand, when he recalled his conversation with Pancks, and the little +reason he had to suppose that there was any likelihood of that +strange personage being on that track at all, there were times when +he wondered that he made so much of it. Labouring in this sea, as +all barks labour in cross seas, he tossed about and came to no +haven. + +The removal of Little Dorrit herself from their customary +association, did not mend the matter. She was so much out, and so +much in her own room, that he began to miss her and to find a blank +in her place. He had written to her to inquire if she were better, +and she had written back, very gratefully and earnestly telling him +not to be uneasy on her behalf, for she was quite well; but he had +not seen her, for what, in their intercourse, was a long time. + +He returned home one evening from an interview with her father, who +had mentioned that she was out visiting--which was what he always +said when she was hard at work to buy his supper--and found Mr +Meagles in an excited state walking up and down his room. On his +opening the door, Mr Meagles stopped, faced round, and said: + +'Clennam!--Tattycoram!' + +'What's the matter?' + +'Lost!' + +'Why, bless my heart alive!' cried Clennam in amazement. 'What do +you mean?' + +'Wouldn't count five-and-twenty, sir; couldn't be got to do it; +stopped at eight, and took herself off.' + +'Left your house?' + +'Never to come back,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head. 'You +don't know that girl's passionate and proud character. A team of +horses couldn't draw her back now; the bolts and bars of the old +Bastille couldn't keep her.' + +'How did it happen? Pray sit down and tell me.' + +'As to how it happened, it's not so easy to relate: because you +must have the unfortunate temperament of the poor impetuous girl +herself, before you can fully understand it. But it came about in +this way. Pet and Mother and I have been having a good deal of +talk together of late. I'll not disguise from you, Clennam, that +those conversations have not been of as bright a kind as I could +wish; they have referred to our going away again. In proposing to +do which, I have had, in fact, an object.' + +Nobody's heart beat quickly. + +'An object,' said Mr Meagles, after a moment's pause, 'that I will +not disguise from you, either, Clennam. There's an inclination on +the part of my dear child which I am sorry for. Perhaps you guess +the person. Henry Gowan.' + +'I was not unprepared to hear it.' + +'Well!' said Mr Meagles, with a heavy sigh, 'I wish to God you had +never had to hear it. However, so it is. Mother and I have done +all we could to get the better of it, Clennam. We have tried +tender advice, we have tried time, we have tried absence. As yet, +of no use. Our late conversations have been upon the subject of +going away for another year at least, in order that there might be +an entire separation and breaking off for that term. Upon that +question, Pet has been unhappy, and therefore Mother and I have +been unhappy.' +Clennam said that he could easily believe it. + +'Well!' continued Mr Meagles in an apologetic way, 'I admit as a +practical man, and I am sure Mother would admit as a practical +woman, that we do, in families, magnify our troubles and make +mountains of our molehills in a way that is calculated to be rather +trying to people who look on--to mere outsiders, you know, Clennam. + +Still, Pet's happiness or unhappiness is quite a life or death +question with us; and we may be excused, I hope, for making much of +it. At all events, it might have been borne by Tattycoram. Now, +don't you think so?' + +'I do indeed think so,' returned Clennam, in most emphatic +recognition of this very moderate expectation. + +'No, sir,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head ruefully. 'She +couldn't stand it. The chafing and firing of that girl, the +wearing and tearing of that girl within her own breast, has been +such that I have softly said to her again and again in passing her, +'Five-and-twenty, Tattycoram, five-and-twenty!" I heartily wish she +could have gone on counting five-and-twenty day and night, and then +it wouldn't have happened.' + +Mr Meagles with a despondent countenance in which the goodness of +his heart was even more expressed than in his times of cheerfulness +and gaiety, stroked his face down from his forehead to his chin, +and shook his head again. + +'I said to Mother (not that it was necessary, for she would have +thought it all for herself), we are practical people, my dear, and +we know her story; we see in this unhappy girl some reflection of +what was raging in her mother's heart before ever such a creature +as this poor thing was in the world; we'll gloss her temper over, +Mother, we won't notice it at present, my dear, we'll take +advantage of some better disposition in her another time. So we +said nothing. But, do what we would, it seems as if it was to be; +she broke out violently one night.' + +'How, and why?' + +'If you ask me Why,' said Mr Meagles, a little disturbed by the +question, for he was far more intent on softening her case than the +family's, 'I can only refer you to what I have just repeated as +having been pretty near my words to Mother. As to How, we had said +Good night to Pet in her presence (very affectionately, I must +allow), and she had attended Pet up-stairs--you remember she was +her maid. Perhaps Pet, having been out of sorts, may have been a +little more inconsiderate than usual in requiring services of her: +but I don't know that I have any right to say so; she was always +thoughtful and gentle.' + +'The gentlest mistress in the world.' + +'Thank you, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand; +'you have often seen them together. Well! We presently heard this +unfortunate Tattycoram loud and angry, and before we could ask what +was the matter, Pet came back in a tremble, saying she was +frightened of her. Close after her came Tattycoram in a flaming +rage. "I hate you all three," says she, stamping her foot at us. +"I am bursting with hate of the whole house."' + +'Upon which you--?' + +'I?' said Mr Meagles, with a plain good faith that might have +commanded the belief of Mrs Gowan herself. 'I said, count five- +and-twenty, Tattycoram.' + +Mr Meagles again stroked his face and shook his head, with an air +of profound regret. + +'She was so used to do it, Clennam, that even then, such a picture +of passion as you never saw, she stopped short, looked me full in +the face, and counted (as I made out) to eight. But she couldn't +control herself to go any further. There she broke down, poor +thing, and gave the other seventeen to the four winds. Then it all +burst out. She detested us, she was miserable with us, she +couldn't bear it, she wouldn't bear it, she was determined to go +away. She was younger than her young mistress, and would she +remain to see her always held up as the only creature who was young +and interesting, and to be cherished and loved? No. She wouldn't, +she wouldn't, she wouldn't! What did we think she, Tattycoram, +might have been if she had been caressed and cared for in her +childhood, like her young mistress? As good as her? Ah! Perhaps +fifty times as good. When we pretended to be so fond of one +another, we exulted over her; that was what we did; we exulted over +her and shamed her. And all in the house did the same. They +talked about their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters; +they liked to drag them up before her face. There was Mrs Tickit, +only yesterday, when her little grandchild was with her, had been +amused by the child's trying to call her (Tattycoram) by the +wretched name we gave her; and had laughed at the name. Why, who +didn't; and who were we that we should have a right to name her +like a dog or a cat? But she didn't care. She would take no more +benefits from us; she would fling us her name back again, and she +would go. She would leave us that minute, nobody should stop her, +and we should never hear of her again.' + +Mr Meagles had recited all this with such a vivid remembrance of +his original, that he was almost as flushed and hot by this time as +he described her to have been. + +'Ah, well!' he said, wiping his face. 'It was of no use trying +reason then, with that vehement panting creature (Heaven knows what +her mother's story must have been); so I quietly told her that she +should not go at that late hour of night, and I gave her MY hand +and took her to her room, and locked the house doors. But she was +gone this morning.' +'And you know no more of her?' + +'No more,' returned Mr Meagles. 'I have been hunting about all +day. She must have gone very early and very silently. I have +found no trace of her down about us.' + +'Stay! You want,' said Clennam, after a moment's reflection, 'to +see her? I assume that?' + +'Yes, assuredly; I want to give her another chance; Mother and Pet +want to give her another chance; come! You yourself,' said Mr +Meagles, persuasively, as if the provocation to be angry were not +his own at all, 'want to give the poor passionate girl another +chance, I know, Clennam.' + +'It would be strange and hard indeed if I did not,' said Clennam, +'when you are all so forgiving. What I was going to ask you was, +have you thought of that Miss Wade?' + +'I have. I did not think of her until I had pervaded the whole of +our neighbourhood, and I don't know that I should have done so then +but for finding Mother and Pet, when I went home, full of the idea +that Tattycoram must have gone to her. Then, of course, I recalled +what she said that day at dinner when you were first with US.' + +'Have you any idea where Miss Wade is to be found?' + +'To tell you the truth,' returned Mr Meagles, 'it's because I have +an addled jumble of a notion on that subject that you found me +waiting here. There is one of those odd impressions in my house, +which do mysteriously get into houses sometimes, which nobody seems +to have picked up in a distinct form from anybody, and yet which +everybody seems to have got hold of loosely from somebody and let +go again, that she lives, or was living, thereabouts.' Mr Meagles +handed him a slip of paper, on which was written the name of one of +the dull by-streets in the Grosvenor region, near Park Lane. + +'Here is no number,' said Arthur looking over it. + +'No number, my dear Clennam?' returned his friend. 'No anything! +The very name of the street may have been floating in the air; for, +as I tell you, none of my people can say where they got it from. +However, it's worth an inquiry; and as I would rather make it in +company than alone, and as you too were a fellow-traveller of that +immovable woman's, I thought perhaps--' Clennam finished the +sentence for him by taking up his hat again, and saying he was +ready. + +It was now summer-time; a grey, hot, dusty evening. They rode to +the top of Oxford Street, and there alighting, dived in among the +great streets of melancholy stateliness, and the little streets +that try to be as stately and succeed in being more melancholy, of +which there is a labyrinth near Park Lane. Wildernesses of corner +houses, with barbarous old porticoes and appurtenances; horrors +that came into existence under some wrong-headed person in some +wrong-headed time, still demanding the blind admiration of all +ensuing generations and determined to do so until they tumbled +down; frowned upon the twilight. Parasite little tenements, with +the cramp in their whole frame, from the dwarf hall-door on the +giant model of His Grace's in the Square to the squeezed window of +the boudoir commanding the dunghills in the Mews, made the evening +doleful. Rickety dwellings of undoubted fashion, but of a capacity +to hold nothing comfortably except a dismal smell, looked like the +last result of the great mansions' breeding in-and-in; and, where +their little supplementary bows and balconies were supported on +thin iron columns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon crutches. + +Here and there a Hatchment, with the whole science of Heraldry in +it, loomed down upon the street, like an Archbishop discoursing on +Vanity. The shops, few in number, made no show; for popular +opinion was as nothing to them. The pastrycook knew who was on his +books, and in that knowledge could be calm, with a few glass +cylinders of dowager peppermint-drops in his window, and half-a- +dozen ancient specimens of currant-jelly. A few oranges formed the +greengrocer's whole concession to the vulgar mind. A single basket +made of moss, once containing plovers' eggs, held all that the +poulterer had to say to the rabble. Everybody in those streets +seemed (which is always the case at that hour and season) to be +gone out to dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the dinners they +had gone to. On the doorsteps there were lounging footmen with +bright parti-coloured plumage and white polls, like an extinct race +of monstrous birds; and butlers, solitary men of recluse demeanour, +each of whom appeared distrustful of all other butlers. The roll +of carriages in the Park was done for the day; the street lamps +were lighting; and wicked little grooms in the tightest fitting +garments, with twists in their legs answering to the twists in +their minds, hung about in pairs, chewing straws and exchanging +fraudulent secrets. The spotted dogs who went out with the +carriages, and who were so associated with splendid equipages that +it looked like a condescension in those animals to come out without +them, accompanied helpers to and fro on messages. Here and there +was a retiring public-house which did not require to be supported +on the shoulders of the people, and where gentlemen out of livery +were not much wanted. + +This last discovery was made by the two friends in pursuing their +inquiries. Nothing was there, or anywhere, known of such a person +as Miss Wade, in connection with the street they sought. It was +one of the parasite streets; long, regular, narrow, dull and +gloomy; like a brick and mortar funeral. They inquired at several +little area gates, where a dejected youth stood spiking his chin on +the summit of a precipitous little shoot of wooden steps, but could +gain no information. They walked up the street on one side of the +way, and down it on the other, what time two vociferous news- +sellers, announcing an extraordinary event that had never happened +and never would happen, pitched their hoarse voices into the secret +chambers; but nothing came of it. At length they stood at the +corner from which they had begun, and it had fallen quite dark, and +they were no wiser. + +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. + +She was exactly the same as when they had parted. just as +handsome, just as scornful, just as repressed. She manifested no +surprise in seeing them, nor any other emotion. She requested them +to be seated; and declining to take a seat herself, at once +anticipated any introduction of their business. + +'I apprehend,' she said, 'that I know the cause of your favouring +me with this visit. We may come to it at once.' + +'The cause then, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'is Tattycoram.' + +'So I supposed.' + +'Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, 'will you be so kind as to say +whether you know anything of her?' + +'Surely. I know she is here with me.' + +'Then, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'allow me to make known to you that +I shall be happy to have her back, and that my wife and daughter +will be happy to have her back. She has been with us a long time: +we don't forget her claims upon us, and I hope we know how to make +allowances.' + +'You hope to know how to make allowances?' she returned, in a +level, measured voice. 'For what?' + +'I think my friend would say, Miss Wade,' Arthur Clennam +interposed, seeing Mr Meagles rather at a loss, 'for the passionate +sense that sometimes comes upon the poor girl, of being at a +disadvantage. Which occasionally gets the better of better +remembrances.' + +The lady broke into a smile as she turned her eyes upon him. +'Indeed?' was all she answered. + +She stood by the table so perfectly composed and still after this +acknowledgment of his remark that Mr Meagles stared at her under a +sort of fascination, and could not even look to Clennam to make +another move. After waiting, awkwardly enough, for some moments, +Arthur said: +'Perhaps it would be well if Mr Meagles could see her, Miss Wade?' + +'That is easily done,' said she. 'Come here, child.' She had +opened a door while saying this, and now led the girl in by the +hand. It was very curious to see them standing together: the girl +with her disengaged fingers plaiting the bosom of her dress, half +irresolutely, half passionately; Miss Wade with her composed face +attentively regarding her, and suggesting to an observer, with +extraordinary force, in her composure itself (as a veil will +suggest the form it covers), the unquenchable passion of her own +nature. + +'See here,' she said, in the same level way as before. 'Here is +your patron, your master. He is willing to take you back, my dear, +if you are sensible of the favour and choose to go. You can be, +again, a foil to his pretty daughter, a slave to her pleasant +wilfulness, and a toy in the house showing the goodness of the +family. You can have your droll name again, playfully pointing you +out and setting you apart, as it is right that you should be +pointed out and set apart. (Your birth, you know; you must not +forget your birth.) You can again be shown to this gentleman's +daughter, Harriet, and kept before her, as a living reminder of her +own superiority and her gracious condescension. You can recover +all these advantages and many more of the same kind which I dare +say start up in your memory while I speak, and which you lose in +taking refuge with me--you can recover them all by telling these +gentlemen how humbled and penitent you are, and by going back to +them to be forgiven. What do you say, Harriet? Will you go?' + +The girl who, under the influence of these words, had gradually +risen in anger and heightened in colour, answered, raising her +lustrous black eyes for the moment, and clenching her hand upon the +folds it had been puckering up, 'I'd die sooner!' + +Miss Wade, still standing at her side holding her hand, looked +quietly round and said with a smile, 'Gentlemen! What do you do +upon that?' + +Poor Mr Meagles's inexpressible consternation in hearing his +motives and actions so perverted, had prevented him from +interposing any word until now; but now he regained the power of +speech. + +'Tattycoram,' said he, 'for I'll call you by that name still, my +good girl, conscious that I meant nothing but kindness when I gave +it to you, and conscious that you know it--' + +'I don't!' said she, looking up again, and almost rending herself +with the same busy hand. + +'No, not now, perhaps,' said Mr Meagles; 'not with that lady's eyes +so intent upon you, Tattycoram,' she glanced at them for a moment, +'and that power over you, which we see she exercises; not now, +perhaps, but at another time. Tattycoram, I'll not ask that lady +whether she believes what she has said, even in the anger and ill +blood in which I and my friend here equally know she has spoken, +though she subdues herself, with a determination that any one who +has once seen her is not likely to forget. I'll not ask you, with +your remembrance of my house and all belonging to it, whether you +believe it. I'll only say that you have no profession to make to +me or mine, and no forgiveness to entreat; and that all in the +world that I ask you to do, is, to count five-and-twenty, +Tattycoram.' + +She looked at him for an instant, and then said frowningly, 'I +won't. Miss Wade, take me away, please.' + +The contention that raged within her had no softening in it now; it +was wholly between passionate defiance and stubborn defiance. Her +rich colour, her quick blood, her rapid breath, were all setting +themselves against the opportunity of retracing their steps. 'I +won't. I won't. I won't!' she repeated in a low, thick voice. +'I'd be torn to pieces first. I'd tear myself to pieces first!' + +Miss Wade, who had released her hold, laid her hand protectingly on +the girl's neck for a moment, and then said, looking round with her +former smile and speaking exactly in her former tone, 'Gentlemen! +What do you do upon that?' + +'Oh, Tattycoram, Tattycoram!' cried Mr Meagles, adjuring her +besides with an earnest hand. 'Hear that lady's voice, look at +that lady's face, consider what is in that lady's heart, and think +what a future lies before you. My child, whatever you may think, +that lady's influence over you--astonishing to us, and I should +hardly go too far in saying terrible to us to see--is founded in +passion fiercer than yours, and temper more violent than yours. +What can you two be together? What can come of it?' + +'I am alone here, gentlemen,' observed Miss Wade, with no change of +voice or manner. 'Say anything you will.' + +'Politeness must yield to this misguided girl, ma'am,' said Mr +Meagles, 'at her present pass; though I hope not altogether to +dismiss it, even with the injury you do her so strongly before me. +Excuse me for reminding you in her hearing--I must say it--that you +were a mystery to all of us, and had nothing in common with any of +us when she unfortunately fell in your way. I don't know what you +are, but you don't hide, can't hide, what a dark spirit you have +within you. If it should happen that you are a woman, who, from +whatever cause, has a perverted delight in making a sister-woman as +wretched as she is (I am old enough to have heard of such), I warn +her against you, and I warn you against yourself.' + +'Gentlemen!' said Miss Wade, calmly. 'When you have concluded--Mr +Clennam, perhaps you will induce your friend--' + +'Not without another effort,' said Mr Meagles, stoutly. +'Tattycoram, my poor dear girl, count five-and-twenty.' +'Do not reject the hope, the certainty, this kind man offers you,' +said Clennam in a low emphatic voice. 'Turn to the friends you +have not forgotten. Think once more!' + +'I won't! Miss Wade,' said the girl, with her bosom swelling high, +and speaking with her hand held to her throat, 'take me away!' + +'Tattycoram,' said Mr Meagles. 'Once more yet! The only thing I +ask of you in the world, my child! Count five-and-twenty!' + +She put her hands tightly over her ears, confusedly tumbling down +her bright black hair in the vehemence of the action, and turned +her face resolutely to the wall. Miss Wade, who had watched her +under this final appeal with that strange attentive smile, and that +repressing hand upon her own bosom with which she had watched her +in her struggle at Marseilles, then put her arm about her waist as +if she took possession of her for evermore. + +And there was a visible triumph in her face when she turned it to +dismiss the visitors. + +'As it is the last time I shall have the honour,' she said, 'and as +you have spoken of not knowing what I am, and also of the +foundation of my influence here, you may now know that it is +founded in a common cause. What your broken plaything is as to +birth, I am. She has no name, I have no name. Her wrong is my +wrong. I have nothing more to say to you.' + +This was addressed to Mr Meagles, who sorrowfully went out. As +Clennam followed, she said to him, with the same external composure +and in the same level voice, but with a smile that is only seen on +cruel faces: a very faint smile, lifting the nostril, scarcely +touching the lips, and not breaking away gradually, but instantly +dismissed when done with: + +'I hope the wife of your dear friend Mr Gowan, may be happy in the +contrast of her extraction to this girl's and mine, and in the high +good fortune that awaits her.' + + + + +CHAPTER 28 + +Nobody's Disappearance + + +Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover +his lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, +breathing nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade +too. No answer coming to these epistles, or to another written to +the stubborn girl by the hand of her late young mistress, which +might have melted her if anything could (all three letters were +returned weeks afterwards as having been refused at the house- +door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make the experiment of a personal +interview. That worthy lady being unable to obtain one, and being +steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought Arthur to essay +once more what he could do. All that came of his compliance was, +his discovery that the empty house was left in charge of the old +woman, that Miss Wade was gone, that the waifs and strays of +furniture were gone, and that the old woman would accept any number +of half-crowns and thank the donor kindly, but had no information +whatever to exchange for those coins, beyond constantly offering +for perusal a memorandum relative to fixtures, which the house- +agent's young man had left in the hall. + +Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and +leave her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining +the mastery over the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for +six successive days, published a discreetly covert advertisement in +the morning papers, to the effect that if a certain young person +who had lately left home without reflection, would at any time +apply to his address at Twickenham, everything would be as it had +been before, and no reproaches need be apprehended. The unexpected +consequences of this notification suggested to the dismayed Mr +Meagles for the first time that some hundreds of young persons must +be leaving their homes without reflection every day; for shoals of +wrong young people came down to Twickenham, who, not finding +themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded +compensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and +back. Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the +advertisement produced. The swarm of begging-letter writers, who +would seem to be always watching eagerly for any hook, however +small, to hang a letter upon, wrote to say that having seen the +advertisement, they were induced to apply with confidence for +various sums, ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds: not +because they knew anything about the young person, but because they +felt that to part with those donations would greatly relieve the +advertiser's mind. Several projectors, likewise, availed +themselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles; +as, for example, to apprise him that their attention having been +called to the advertisement by a friend, they begged to state that +if they should ever hear anything of the young person, they would +not fail to make it known to him immediately, and that in the +meantime if he would oblige them with the funds necessary for +bringing to perfection a certain entirely novel description of +Pump, the happiest results would ensue to mankind. + +Mr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements, +had begun reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when +the new and active firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private +capacities, went down on a Saturday to stay at the cottage until +Monday. The senior partner took the coach, and the junior partner +took his walking-stick. + +A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of +his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had +that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, +which country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns. +Everything within his view was lovely and placid. The rich foliage +of the trees, the luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers, +the little green islands in the river, the beds of rushes, the +water-lilies floating on the surface of the stream, the distant +voices in boats borne musically towards him on the ripple of the +water and the evening air, were all expressive of rest. In the +occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar, or twittering of a +bird not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog, or lowing of a +cow--in all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath of rest, +which seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened the +fragrant air. The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the +glorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm. Upon +the purple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand +up which the shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush. +Between the real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was +no division; both were so untroubled and clear, and, while so +fraught with solemn mystery of life and death, so hopefully +reassuring to the gazer's soothed heart, because so tenderly and +mercifully beautiful. + +Clennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times, to look +about him and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the +shadows, looked at, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the +water. He was slowly resuming his way, when he saw a figure in the +path before him which he had, perhaps, already associated with the +evening and its impressions. + +Minnie was there, alone. She had some roses in her hand, and +seemed to have stood still on seeing him, waiting for him. Her +face was towards him, and she appeared to have been coming from the +opposite direction. There was a flutter in her manner, which +Clennam had never seen in it before; and as he came near her, it +entered his mind all at once that she was there of a set purpose to +speak to him. + +She gave him her hand, and said, 'You wonder to see me here by +myself? But the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than +I meant at first. I thought it likely I might meet you, and that +made me more confident. You always come this way, do you not?' + +As Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand +falter on his arm, and saw the roses shake. + +'Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam? I gathered them as I +came out of the garden. Indeed, I almost gathered them for you, +thinking it so likely I might meet you. Mr Doyce arrived more than +an hour ago, and told us you were walking down.' + +His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and +thanked her. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they +turned into it on his movement or on hers matters little. He never +knew how that was. + +'It is very grave here,' said Clennam, 'but very pleasant at this +hour. Passing along this deep shade, and out at that arch of light +at the other end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the +best approach, I think.' +In her simple garden-hat and her light summer dress, with her rich +brown hair naturally clustering about her, and her wonderful eyes +raised to his for a moment with a look in which regard for him and +trustfulness in him were strikingly blended with a kind of timid +sorrow for him, she was so beautiful that it was well for his +peace--or ill for his peace, he did not quite know which--that he +had made that vigorous resolution he had so often thought about. + +She broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa had +been thinking of another tour abroad? He said he had heard it +mentioned. She broke another momentary silence by adding, with +some hesitation, that papa had abandoned the idea. + +At this, he thought directly, 'they are to be married.' + +'Mr Clennam,' she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and speaking +so low that he bent his head to hear her. 'I should very much like +to give you my confidence, if you would not mind having the +goodness to receive it. I should have very much liked to have +given it to you long ago, because--I felt that you were becoming so +much our friend.' + +'How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time! Pray give it +to me. Pray trust me.' + +'I could never have been afraid of trusting you,' she returned, +raising her eyes frankly to his face. 'I think I would have done +so some time ago, if I had known how. But I scarcely know how, +even now.' + +'Mr Gowan,' said Arthur Clennam, 'has reason to be very happy. God +bless his wife and him!' + +She wept, as she tried to thank him. He reassured her, took her +hand as it lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the +remaining roses from it, and put it to his lips. At that time, it +seemed to him, he first finally resigned the dying hope that had +flickered in nobody's heart so much to its pain and trouble; and +from that time he became in his own eyes, as to any similar hope or +prospect, a very much older man who had done with that part of +life. + +He put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little +while, slowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees. Then he +asked her, in a voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else +that she would say to him as her friend and her father's friend, +many years older than herself; was there any trust she would repose +in him, any service she would ask of him, any little aid to her +happiness that she could give him the lasting gratification of +believing it was in his power to render? + +She was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little +hidden sorrow or sympathy--what could it have been?--that she said, +bursting into tears again: 'O Mr Clennam! Good, generous, Mr +Clennam, pray tell me you do not blame me.' + +'I blame you?' said Clennam. 'My dearest girl! I blame you? No!' + +After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking +confidentially up into his face, with some hurried words to the +effect that she thanked him from her heart (as she did, if it be +the source of earnestness), she gradually composed herself, with +now and then a word of encouragement from him, as they walked on +slowly and almost silently under the darkening trees. + +'And, now, Minnie Gowan,' at length said Clennam, smiling; 'will +you ask me nothing?' + +'Oh! I have very much to ask of you.' + +'That's well! I hope so; I am not disappointed.' + +'You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can +hardly think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,' she spoke with great +agitation, 'seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice, +but I do so dearly love it!' + +'I am sure of that,' said Clennam. 'Can you suppose I doubt it?' + +'No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and +being so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It seems +so neglectful of it, so unthankful.' + +'My dear girl,' said Clennam, 'it is in the natural progress and +change of time. All homes are left so.' + +'Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them +as there will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any +scarcity of far better and more endearing and more accomplished +girls than I am; not that I am much, but that they have made so +much of me!' + +Pet's affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while she +pictured what would happen. + +'I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that at +first I cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many +years. And it is then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time, +that I beg and entreat you to remember him, and sometimes to keep +him company when you can spare a little while; and to tell him that +you know I was fonder of him when I left him, than I ever was in +all my life. For there is nobody--he told me so himself when he +talked to me this very day--there is nobody he likes so well as +you, or trusts so much.' + +A clue to what had passed between the father and daughter dropped +like a heavy stone into the well of Clennam's heart, and swelled +the water to his eyes. He said, cheerily, but not quite so +cheerily as he tried to say, that it should be done--that he gave +her his faithful promise. + +'If I do not speak of mama,' said Pet, more moved by, and more +pretty in, her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself +even to consider--for which reason he counted the trees between +them and the fading light as they slowly diminished in number--'it +is because mama will understand me better in this action, and will +feel my loss in a different way, and will look forward in a +different manner. But you know what a dear, devoted mother she is, +and you will remember her too; will you not?' + +Let Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do all +she wished. + +'And, dear Mr Clennam,' said Minnie, 'because papa and one whom I +need not name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another +yet, as they will by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and +the pride, and pleasure of my new life, to draw them to a better +knowledge of one another, and to be a happiness to one another, and +to be proud of one another, and to love one another, both loving me +so dearly; oh, as you are a kind, true man! when I am first +separated from home (I am going a long distance away), try to +reconcile papa to him a little more, and use your great influence +to keep him before papa's mind free from prejudice and in his real +form. Will you do this for me, as you are a noble-hearted friend?' + +Poor Pet! Self-deceived, mistaken child! When were such changes +ever made in men's natural relations to one another: when was such +reconcilement of ingrain differences ever effected! It has been +tried many times by other daughters, Minnie; it has never +succeeded; nothing has ever come of it but failure. + +So Clennam thought. So he did not say; it was too late. He bound +himself to do all she asked, and she knew full well that he would +do it. + +They were now at the last tree in the avenue. She stopped, and +withdrew her arm. Speaking to him with her eyes lifted up to his, +and with the hand that had lately rested on his sleeve trembling by +touching one of the roses in his breast as an additional appeal to +him, she said: + +'Dear Mr Clennam, in my happiness--for I am happy, though you have +seen me crying--I cannot bear to leave any cloud between us. If +you have anything to forgive me (not anything that I have wilfully +done, but any trouble I may have caused you without meaning it, or +having it in my power to help it), forgive me to-night out of your +noble heart!' + +He stooped to meet the guileless face that met his without +shrinking. He kissed it, and answered, Heaven knew that he had +nothing to forgive. As he stooped to meet the innocent face once +again, she whispered, 'Good-bye!' and he repeated it. It was +taking leave of all his old hopes--all nobody's old restless +doubts. They came out of the avenue next moment, arm-in-arm as +they had entered it: and the trees seemed to close up behind them +in the darkness, like their own perspective of the past. + +The voices of Mr and Mrs Meagles and Doyce were audible directly, +speaking near the garden gate. Hearing Pet's name among them, +Clennam called out, 'She is here, with me.' There was some little +wondering and laughing until they came up; but as soon as they had +all come together, it ceased, and Pet glided away. + +Mr Meagles, Doyce, and Clennam, without speaking, walked up and +down on the brink of the river, in the light of the rising moon, +for a few minutes; and then Doyce lingered behind, and went into +the house. Mr Meagles and Clennam walked up and down together for +a few minutes more without speaking, until at length the former +broke silence. + +'Arthur,' said he, using that familiar address for the first time +in their communication, 'do you remember my telling you, as we +walked up and down one hot morning, looking over the harbour at +Marseilles, that Pet's baby sister who was dead seemed to Mother +and me to have grown as she had grown, and changed as she had +changed?' + +'Very well.' + +'You remember my saying that our thoughts had never been able to +separate those twin sisters, and that, in our fancy, whatever Pet +was, the other was?' + +'Yes, very well.' + +'Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, much subdued, 'I carry that fancy +further to-night. I feel to-night, my dear fellow, as if you had +loved my dead child very tenderly, and had lost her when she was +like what Pet is now.' + +'Thank you!' murmured Clennam, 'thank you!' And pressed his hand. + +'Will you come in?' said Mr Meagles, presently. + +'In a little while.' + +Mr Meagles fell away, and he was left alone. When he had walked on +the river's brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour, +he put his hand in his breast and tenderly took out the handful of +roses. Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to +his lips, but certainly he bent down on the shore and gently +launched them on the flowing river. Pale and unreal in the +moonlight, the river floated them away. +The lights were bright within doors when he entered, and the faces +on which they shone, his own face not excepted, were soon quietly +cheerful. They talked of many subjects (his partner never had had +such a ready store to draw upon for the beguiling of the time), and +so to bed, and to sleep. While the flowers, pale and unreal in the +moonlight, floated away upon the river; and thus do greater things +that once were in our breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to +the eternal seas. + + + + +CHAPTER 29 + +Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming + + +The house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these +transactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying +round of life. Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night, +each recurring with its accompanying monotony, always the same +reluctant return of the same sequences of machinery, like a +dragging piece of clockwork. + +The wheeled chair had its associated remembrances and reveries, one +may suppose, as every place that is made the station of a human +being has. Pictures of demolished streets and altered houses, as +they formerly were when the occupant of the chair was familiar with +them, images of people as they too used to be, with little or no +allowance made for the lapse of time since they were seen; of +these, there must have been many in the long routine of gloomy +days. To stop the clock of busy existence at the hour when we were +personally sequestered from it, to suppose mankind stricken +motionless when we were brought to a stand-still, to be unable to +measure the changes beyond our view by any larger standard than the +shrunken one of our own uniform and contracted existence, is the +infirmity of many invalids, and the mental unhealthiness of almost +all recluses. + +What scenes and actors the stern woman most reviewed, as she sat +from season to season in her one dark room, none knew but herself. +Mr Flintwinch, with his wry presence brought to bear upon her daily +like some eccentric mechanical force, would perhaps have screwed it +out of her, if there had been less resistance in her; but she was +too strong for him. So far as Mistress Affery was concerned, to +regard her liege-lord and her disabled mistress with a face of +blank wonder, to go about the house after dark with her apron over +her head, always to listen for the strange noises and sometimes to +hear them, and never to emerge from her ghostly, dreamy, sleep- +waking state, was occupation enough for her. + +There was a fair stroke of business doing, as Mistress Affery made +out, for her husband had abundant occupation in his little office, +and saw more people than had been used to come there for some +years. This might easily be, the house having been long deserted; +but he did receive letters, and comers, and keep books, and +correspond. Moreover, he went about to other counting-houses, and +to wharves, and docks, and to the Custom House,' and to Garraway's +Coffee House, and the Jerusalem Coffee House, and on 'Change; so +that he was much in and out. He began, too, sometimes of an +evening, when Mrs Clennam expressed no particular wish for his +society, to resort to a tavern in the neighbourhood to look at the +shipping news and closing prices in the evening paper, and even to +exchange Small socialities with mercantile Sea Captains who +frequented that establishment. At some period of every day, he and +Mrs Clennam held a council on matters of business; and it appeared +to Affery, who was always groping about, listening and watching, +that the two clever ones were making money. + +The state of mind into which Mr Flintwinch's dazed lady had fallen, +had now begun to be so expressed in all her looks and actions that +she was held in very low account by the two clever ones, as a +person, never of strong intellect, who was becoming foolish. +Perhaps because her appearance was not of a commercial cast, or +perhaps because it occurred to him that his having taken her to +wife might expose his judgment to doubt in the minds of customers, +Mr Flintwinch laid his commands upon her that she should hold her +peace on the subject of her conjugal relations, and should no +longer call him Jeremiah out of the domestic trio. Her frequent +forgetfulness of this admonition intensified her startled manner, +since Mr Flintwinch's habit of avenging himself on her remissness +by making springs after her on the staircase, and shaking her, +occasioned her to be always nervously uncertain when she might be +thus waylaid next. + +Little Dorrit had finished a long day's work in Mrs Clennam's room, +and was neatly gathering up her shreds and odds and ends before +going home. Mr Pancks, whom Affery had just shown in, was +addressing an inquiry to Mrs Clennam on the subject of her health, +coupled with the remark that, 'happening to find himself in that +direction,' he had looked in to inquire, on behalf of his +proprietor, how she found herself. Mrs Clennam, with a deep +contraction of her brows, was looking at him. + +'Mr Casby knows,' said she, 'that I am not subject to changes. The +change that I await here is the great change.' + +'Indeed, ma'am?' returned Mr Pancks, with a wandering eye towards +the figure of the little seamstress on her knee picking threads and +fraying of her work from the carpet. 'You look nicely, ma'am.' + +'I bear what I have to bear,' she answered. 'Do you what you have +to do.' +'Thank you, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks, 'such is my endeavour.' + +'You are often in this direction, are you not?' asked Mrs Clennam. + +'Why, yes, ma'am,' said Pancks, 'rather so lately; I have lately +been round this way a good deal, owing to one thing and another.' +'Beg Mr Casby and his daughter not to trouble themselves, by +deputy, about me. When they wish to see me, they know I am here to +see them. They have no need to trouble themselves to send. You +have no need to trouble yourself to come.' +'Not the least trouble, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks. 'You really are +looking uncommonly nicely, ma'am.' + +'Thank you. Good evening.' + +The dismissal, and its accompanying finger pointed straight at the +door, was so curt and direct that Mr Pancks did not see his way to +prolong his visit. He stirred up his hair with his sprightliest +expression, glanced at the little figure again, said 'Good evening, +ma 'am; don't come down, Mrs Affery, I know the road to the door,' +and steamed out. Mrs Clennam, her chin resting on her hand, +followed him with attentive and darkly distrustful eyes; and Affery +stood looking at her as if she were spell-bound. + +Slowly and thoughtfully, Mrs Clennam's eyes turned from the door by +which Pancks had gone out, to Little Dorrit, rising from the +carpet. With her chin drooping more heavily on her hand, and her +eyes vigilant and lowering, the sick woman sat looking at her until +she attracted her attention. Little Dorrit coloured under such a +gaze, and looked down. Mrs Clennam still sat intent. + +'Little Dorrit,' she said, when she at last broke silence, 'what do +you know of that man?' + +'I don't know anything of him, ma'am, except that I have seen him +about, and that he has spoken to me.' + +'What has he said to you?' + +'I don't understand what he has said, he is so strange. But +nothing rough or disagreeable.' + +'Why does he come here to see you?' + +'I don't know, ma'am,' said Little Dorrit, with perfect frankness. + +'You know that he does come here to see you?' + +'I have fancied so,' said Little Dorrit. 'But why he should come +here or anywhere for that, ma'am, I can't think.' + +Mrs Clennam cast her eyes towards the ground, and with her strong, +set face, as intent upon a subject in her mind as it had lately +been upon the form that seemed to pass out of her view, sat +absorbed. Some minutes elapsed before she came out of this +thoughtfulness, and resumed her hard composure. + +Little Dorrit in the meanwhile had been waiting to go, but afraid +to disturb her by moving. She now ventured to leave the spot where +she had been standing since she had risen, and to pass gently round +by the wheeled chair. She stopped at its side to say 'Good night, +ma'am.' + +Mrs Clennam put out her hand, and laid it on her arm. Little +Dorrit, confused under the touch, stood faltering. Perhaps some +momentary recollection of the story of the Princess may have been +in her mind. + +'Tell me, Little Dorrit,' said Mrs Clennam, 'have you many friends +now?' + +'Very few, ma'am. Besides you, only Miss Flora and--one more.' + +'Meaning,' said Mrs Clennam, with her unbent finger again pointing +to the door, 'that man?' + +'Oh no, ma'am!' + +'Some friend of his, perhaps?' + +'No ma'am.' Little Dorrit earnestly shook her head. 'Oh no! No +one at all like him, or belonging to him.' + +'Well!' said Mrs Clennam, almost smiling. 'It is no affair of +mine. I ask, because I take an interest in you; and because I +believe I was your friend when you had no other who could serve +you. Is that so?' + +'Yes, ma'am; indeed it is. I have been here many a time when, but +for you and the work you gave me, we should have wanted +everything.' + +'We,' repeated Mrs Clennam, looking towards the watch, once her +dead husband's, which always lay upon her table. 'Are there many +of you?' + +'Only father and I, now. I mean, only father and I to keep +regularly out of what we get.' + +'Have you undergone many privations? You and your father and who +else there may be of you?' asked Mrs Clennam, speaking +deliberately, and meditatively turning the watch over and over. + +'Sometimes it has been rather hard to live,' said Little Dorrit, in +her soft voice, and timid uncomplaining way; 'but I think not +harder--as to that--than many people find it.' + +'That's well said!' Mrs Clennam quickly returned. 'That's the +truth! You are a good, thoughtful girl. You are a grateful girl +too, or I much mistake you.' + +'It is only natural to be that. There is no merit in being that,' +said Little Dorrit. 'I am indeed.' +Mrs Clennam, with a gentleness of which the dreaming Affery had +never dreamed her to be capable, drew down the face of her little +seamstress, and kissed her on the forehead. 'Now go, Little +Dorrit,' said she,'or you will be late, poor child!' + +In all the dreams Mistress Affery had been piling up since she +first became devoted to the pursuit, she had dreamed nothing more +astonishing than this. Her head ached with the idea that she would +find the other clever one kissing Little Dorrit next, and then the +two clever ones embracing each other and dissolving into tears of +tenderness for all mankind. The idea quite stunned her, as she +attended the light footsteps down the stairs, that the house door +might be safely shut. + +On opening it to let Little Dorrit out, she found Mr Pancks, +instead of having gone his way, as in any less wonderful place and +among less wonderful phenomena he might have been reasonably +expected to do, fluttering up and down the court outside the house. + +The moment he saw Little Dorrit, he passed her briskly, said with +his finger to his nose (as Mrs Affery distinctly heard), 'Pancks +the gipsy, fortune-telling,' and went away. 'Lord save us, here's +a gipsy and a fortune-teller in it now!' cried Mistress Affery. +'What next! She stood at the open door, staggering herself with +this enigma, on a rainy, thundery evening. The clouds were flying +fast, and the wind was coming up in gusts, banging some +neighbouring shutters that had broken loose, twirling the rusty +chimney-cowls and weather-cocks, and rushing round and round a +confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to blow the dead +citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering in all +quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for this +attempted desecration, and to mutter, 'Let them rest! Let them +rest!' + +Mistress Affery, whose fear of thunder and lightning was only to be +equalled by her dread of the haunted house with a premature and +preternatural darkness in it, stood undecided whether to go in or +not, until the question was settled for her by the door blowing +upon her in a violent gust of wind and shutting her out. 'What's +to be done now, what's to be done now!' cried Mistress Affery, +wringing her hands in this last uneasy dream of all; 'when she's +all alone by herself inside, and can no more come down to open it +than the churchyard dead themselves!' + +In this dilemma, Mistress Affery, with her apron as a hood to keep +the rain off, ran crying up and down the solitary paved enclosure +several times. Why she should then stoop down and look in at the +keyhole of the door as if an eye would open it, it would be +difficult to say; but it is none the less what most people would +have done in the same situation, and it is what she did. + +From this posture she started up suddenly, with a half scream, +feeling something on her shoulder. It was the touch of a hand; of +a man's hand. + +The man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur +about it, and a heap of cloak. He looked like a foreigner. He had +a quantity of hair and moustache--jet black, except at the shaggy +ends, where it had a tinge of red--and a high hook nose. He +laughed at Mistress Affery's start and cry; and as he laughed, his +moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his +moustache. + +'What's the matter?' he asked in plain English. 'What are you +frightened at?' + +'At you,' panted Affery. + +'Me, madam?' + +'And the dismal evening, and--and everything,' said Affery. 'And +here! The wind has been and blown the door to, and I can't get +in.' + +'Hah!' said the gentleman, who took that very coolly. 'Indeed! Do +you know such a name as Clennam about here?' + +'Lord bless us, I should think I did, I should think I did!' cried +Affery, exasperated into a new wringing of hands by the inquiry. + +'Where about here?' + +'Where!' cried Affery, goaded into another inspection of the +keyhole. 'Where but here in this house? And she's all alone in +her room, and lost the use of her limbs and can't stir to help +herself or me, and t'other clever one's out, and Lord forgive me!' +cried Affery, driven into a frantic dance by these accumulated +considerations, 'if I ain't a-going headlong out of my mind!' + +Taking a warmer view of the matter now that it concerned himself, +the gentleman stepped back to glance at the house, and his eye soon +rested on the long narrow window of the little room near the hall- +door. + +'Where may the lady be who has lost the use of her limbs, madam?' +he inquired, with that peculiar smile which Mistress Affery could +not choose but keep her eyes upon. + +'Up there!' said Affery. 'Them two windows.' + +'Hah! I am of a fair size, but could not have the honour of +presenting myself in that room without a ladder. Now, madam, +frankly --frankness is a part of my character--shall I open the +door for you?' + +'Yes, bless you, sir, for a dear creetur, and do it at once,' cried +Affery, 'for she may be a-calling to me at this very present +minute, or may be setting herself a fire and burning herself to +death, or there's no knowing what may be happening to her, and me +a-going out of my mind at thinking of it!' + +'Stay, my good madam!' He restrained her impatience with a smooth +white hand. 'Business-hours, I apprehend, are over for the day?' +'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Affery. 'Long ago.' + +'Let me make, then, a fair proposal. Fairness is a part of my +character. I am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see.' + +He showed her that his cloak was very wet, and that his boots were +saturated with water; she had previously observed that he was +dishevelled and sallow, as if from a rough voyage, and so chilled +that he could not keep his teeth from chattering. 'I am just +landed from the packet-boat, madam, and have been delayed by the +weather: the infernal weather! In consequence of this, madam, some +necessary business that I should otherwise have transacted here +within the regular hours (necessary business because money- +business), still remains to be done. Now, if you will fetch any +authorised neighbouring somebody to do it in return for my opening +the door, I'll open the door. If this arrangement should be +objectionable, I'll--' and with the same smile he made a +significant feint of backing away. + +Mistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise, +gave in her willing adhesion to it. The gentleman at once +requested her to do him the favour of holding his cloak, took a +short run at the narrow window, made a leap at the sill, clung his +way up the bricks, and in a moment had his hand at the sash, +raising it. His eyes looked so very sinister, as he put his leg +into the room and glanced round at Mistress Affery, that she +thought with a sudden coldness, if he were to go straight up-stairs +to murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent him? + +Happily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at +the house door. 'Now, my dear madam,' he said, as he took back his +cloak and threw it on, 'if you have the goodness to--what the +Devil's that!' + +The strangest of sounds. Evidently close at hand from the peculiar +shock it communicated to the air, yet subdued as if it were far +off. A tremble, a rumble, and a fall of some light dry matter. + +'What the Devil is it?' + +'I don't know what it is, but I've heard the like of it over and +over again,' said Affery, who had caught his arm. +He could hardly be a very brave man, even she thought in her dreamy +start and fright, for his trembling lips had turned colourless. +After listening a few moments, he made light of it. + +'Bah! Nothing! Now, my dear madam, I think you spoke of some +clever personage. Will you be so good as to confront me with that +genius?' He held the door in his hand, as though he were quite +ready to shut her out again if she failed. + +'Don't you say anything about the door and me, then,' whispered +Affery. + +'Not a word.' + +'And don't you stir from here, or speak if she calls, while I run +round the corner.' + +'Madam, I am a statue.' + +Affery had so vivid a fear of his going stealthily up-stairs the +moment her back was turned, that after hurrying out of sight, she +returned to the gateway to peep at him. Seeing him still on the +threshold, more out of the house than in it, as if he had no love +for darkness and no desire to probe its mysteries, she flew into +the next street, and sent a message into the tavern to Mr +Flintwinch, who came out directly. The two returning together--the +lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up briskly behind, +animated with the hope of shaking her before she could get housed-- +saw the gentleman standing in the same place in the dark, and heard +the strong voice of Mrs Clennam calling from her room, 'Who is it? +What is it? Why does no one answer? Who is that, down there?' + + + + +CHAPTER 30 + +The Word of a Gentleman + + +When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house +in the twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger +started back. 'Death of my soul!' he exclaimed. 'Why, how did you +get here?' + +Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the +stranger's wonder in full. He gazed at him with blank +astonishment; he looked over his own shoulder, as expecting to see +some one he had not been aware of standing behind him; he gazed at +the stranger again, speechlessly, at a loss to know what he meant; +he looked to his wife for explanation; receiving none, he pounced +upon her, and shook her with such heartiness that he shook her cap +off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim raillery, as he +did it, 'Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my woman! This is +some of your tricks! You have been dreaming again, mistress. +What's it about? Who is it? What does it mean! Speak out or be +choked! It's the only choice I'll give you.' + +Supposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the +moment, her choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not +a syllable to this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging +violently backwards and forwards, resigned herself to her +punishment. The stranger, however, picking up her cap with an air +of gallantry, interposed. + +'Permit me,' said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah, +who stopped and released his victim. 'Thank you. Excuse me. +Husband and wife I know, from this playfulness. Haha! Always +agreeable to see that relation playfully maintained. Listen! May +I suggest that somebody up-stairs, in the dark, is becoming +energetically curious to know what is going on here?' + +This reference to Mrs Clennam's voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to +step into the hall and call up the staircase. 'It's all right, I +am here, Affery is coming with your light.' Then he said to the +latter flustered woman, who was putting her cap on, 'Get out with +you, and get up-stairs!' and then turned to the stranger and said +to him, 'Now, sir, what might you please to want?' + +'I am afraid,' said the stranger, 'I must be so troublesome as to +propose a candle.' + +'True,' assented Jeremiah. 'I was going to do so. Please to stand +where you are while I get one.' + +The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into +the gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him +with his eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a +phosphorus box. When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of +order; and match after match that he struck into it lighted +sufficiently to throw a dull glare about his groping face, and to +sprinkle his hands with pale little spots of fire, but not +sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger, taking advantage +of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked intently and +wonderingly at him. Jeremiah, when he at last lighted the candle, +knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of a lowering +watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the +doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression. + +'Be so good,' said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a +pretty sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, 'as to step +into my counting-house.-- It's all right, I tell you!' petulantly +breaking off to answer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied, +though Affery was there, speaking in persuasive tones. 'Don't I +tell you it's all right? Preserve the woman, has she no reason at +all in her!' + +'Timorous,' remarked the stranger. + +'Timorous?' said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he +went before with the candle. 'More courageous than ninety men in +a hundred, sir, let me tell you.' + +'Though an invalid?' + +'Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name +left in the House now. My partner.' +Saying something apologetically as he crossed the hall, to the +effect that at that time of night they were not in the habit of +receiving any one, and were always shut up, Mr Flintwinch led the +way into his own office, which presented a sufficiently business- +like appearance. Here he put the light on his desk, and said to +the stranger, with his wryest twist upon him, 'Your commands.' + +'MY name is Blandois.' + +'Blandois. I don't know it,' said Jeremiah. + +'I thought it possible,' resumed the other, 'that you might have +been advised from Paris--' + +'We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of +Blandois,' said Jeremiah. + +'No?' + +'No.' + +Jeremiah stood in his favourite attitude. The smiling Mr Blandois, +opening his cloak to get his hand to a breast-pocket, paused to +say, with a laugh in his glittering eyes, which it occurred to Mr +Flintwinch were too near together: + +'You are so like a friend of mine! Not so identically the same as +I supposed when I really did for the moment take you to be the same +in the dusk--for which I ought to apologise; permit me to do so; a +readiness to confess my errors is, I hope, a part of the frankness +of my character--still, however, uncommonly like.' + +'Indeed?' said Jeremiah, perversely. 'But I have not received any +letter of advice from anywhere respecting anybody of the name of +Blandois.' + +'Just so,' said the stranger. + +'JUST so,' said Jeremiah. + +Mr Blandois, not at all put out by this omission on the part of the +correspondents of the house of Clennam and Co., took his pocket- +book from his breast-pocket, selected a letter from that +receptacle, and handed it to Mr Flintwinch. 'No doubt you are well +acquainted with the writing. Perhaps the letter speaks for itself, +and requires no advice. You are a far more competent judge of such +affairs than I am. It is my misfortune to be, not so much a man of +business, as what the world calls (arbitrarily) a gentleman.' + +Mr Flintwinch took the letter, and read, under date of Paris, 'We +have to present to you, on behalf of a highly esteemed +correspondent of our Firm, M. Blandois, of this city,' &c. &c. +'Such facilities as he may require and such attentions as may lie +in your power,' &c. &c. 'Also have to add that if you will honour +M. Blandois' drafts at sight to the extent of, say Fifty Pounds +sterling (l50),' &c. &c. + +'Very good, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Take a chair. To the +extent of anything that our House can do--we are in a retired, old- +fashioned, steady way of business, sir--we shall be happy to render +you our best assistance. I observe, from the date of this, that we +could not yet be advised of it. Probably you came over with the +delayed mail that brings the advice.' + +'That I came over with the delayed mail, sir,' returned Mr +Blandois, passing his white hand down his high-hooked nose, 'I know +to the cost of my head and stomach: the detestable and intolerable +weather having racked them both. You see me in the plight in which +I came out of the packet within this half-hour. I ought to have +been here hours ago, and then I should not have to apologise-- +permit me to apologise--for presenting myself so unreasonably, and +frightening--no, by-the-bye, you said not frightening; permit me to +apologise again--the esteemed lady, Mrs Clennam, in her invalid +chamber above stairs.' + +Swagger and an air of authorised condescension do so much, that Mr +Flintwinch had already begun to think this a highly gentlemanly +personage. Not the less unyielding with him on that account, he +scraped his chin and said, what could he have the honour of doing +for Mr Blandois to-night, out of business hours? + +'Faith!' returned that gentleman, shrugging his cloaked shoulders, +'I must change, and eat and drink, and be lodged somewhere. Have +the kindness to advise me, a total stranger, where, and money is a +matter of perfect indifference until to-morrow. The nearer the +place, the better. Next door, if that's all.' + +Mr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, 'For a gentleman of your +habits, there is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel--' +when Mr Blandois took him up. + +'So much for my habits! my dear sir,' snapping his fingers. 'A +citizen of the world has no habits. That I am, in my poor way, a +gentleman, by Heaven! I will not deny, but I have no +unaccommodating prejudiced habits. A clean room, a hot dish for +dinner, and a bottle of not absolutely poisonous wine, are all I +want tonight. But I want that much without the trouble of going +one unnecessary inch to get it.' + +'There is,' said Mr Flintwinch, with more than his usual +deliberation, as he met, for a moment, Mr Blandois' shining eyes, +which were restless; 'there is a coffee-house and tavern close +here, which, so far, I can recommend; but there's no style about +it.' + +'I dispense with style!' said Mr Blandois, waving his hand. 'Do me +the honour to show me the house, and introduce me there (if I am +not too troublesome), and I shall be infinitely obliged.' +Mr Flintwinch, upon this, looked up his hat, and lighted Mr +Blandois across the hall again. As he put the candle on a bracket, +where the dark old panelling almost served as an extinguisher for +it, he bethought himself of going up to tell the invalid that he +would not be absent five minutes. +'Oblige me,' said the visitor, on his saying so, 'by presenting my +card of visit. Do me the favour to add that I shall be happy to +wait on Mrs Clennam, to offer my personal compliments, and to +apologise for having occasioned any agitation in this tranquil +corner, if it should suit her convenience to endure the presence of +a stranger for a few minutes, after he shall have changed his wet +clothes and fortified himself with something to eat and drink.' + +Jeremiah made all despatch, and said, on his return, 'She'll be +glad to see you, sir; but, being conscious that her sick room has +no attractions, wishes me to say that she won't hold you to your +offer, in case you should think better of it.' + +'To think better of it,' returned the gallant Blandois, 'would be +to slight a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in +chivalry towards the sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of +my character!' Thus expressing himself, he threw the draggled +skirt of his cloak over his shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch +to the tavern; taking up on the road a porter who was waiting with +his portmanteau on the outer side of the gateway. + +The house was kept in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr +Blandois was infinite. It seemed to fill to inconvenience the +little bar in which the widow landlady and her two daughters +received him; it was much too big for the narrow wainscoted room +with a bagatelle-board in it, that was first proposed for his +reception; it perfectly swamped the little private holiday sitting- +room of the family, which was finally given up to him. Here, in +dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked hair, a great ring on +each forefinger and a massive show of watch-chain, Mr Blandois +waiting for his dinner, lolling on a window-seat with his knees +drawn up, looked (for all the difference in the setting of the +jewel) fearfully and wonderfully like a certain Monsieur Rigaud who +had once so waited for his breakfast, lying on the stone ledge of +the iron grating of a cell in a villainous dungeon at Marseilles. + +His greed at dinner, too, was closely in keeping with the greed of +Monsieur Rigaud at breakfast. His avaricious manner of collecting +all the eatables about him, and devouring some with his eyes while +devouring others with his jaws, was the same manner. His utter +disregard of other people, as shown in his way of tossing the +little womanly toys of furniture about, flinging favourite cushions +under his boots for a softer rest, and crushing delicate coverings +with his big body and his great black head, had the same brute +selfishness at the bottom of it. The softly moving hands that were +so busy among the dishes had the old wicked facility of the hands +that had clung to the bars. And when he could eat no more, and sat +sucking his delicate fingers one by one and wiping them on a cloth, +there wanted nothing but the substitution of vine-leaves to finish +the picture. + +On this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down +in that most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as +if they belonged to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power +of reflecting light stopped by some similar process, Nature, always +true, and never working in vain, had set the mark, Beware! It was +not her fault, if the warning were fruitless. She is never to +blame in any such instance. + +Mr Blandois, having finished his repast and cleaned his fingers, +took a cigar from his pocket, and, lying on the window-seat again, +smoked it out at his leisure, occasionally apostrophising the smoke +as it parted from his thin lips in a thin stream: + +'Blandois, you shall turn the tables on society, my little child. +Haha! Holy blue, you have begun well, Blandois! At a pinch, an +excellent master in English or French; a man for the bosom of +families! You have a quick perception, you have humour, you have +ease, you have insinuating manners, you have a good appearance; in +effect, you are a gentleman! A gentleman you shall live, my small +boy, and a gentleman you shall die. You shall win, however the +game goes. They shall all confess your merit, Blandois. You shall +subdue the society which has grievously wronged you, to your own +high spirit. Death of my soul! You are high spirited by right and +by nature, my Blandois!' + +To such soothing murmurs did this gentleman smoke out his cigar and +drink out his bottle of wine. Both being finished, he shook +himself into a sitting attitude; and with the concluding serious +apostrophe, 'Hold, then! Blandois, you ingenious one, have all +your wits about you!' arose and went back to the house of Clennam +and Co. + +He was received at the door by Mistress Affery, who, under +instructions from her lord, had lighted up two candles in the hall +and a third on the staircase, and who conducted him to Mrs +Clennam's room. Tea was prepared there, and such little company +arrangements had been made as usually attended the reception of +expected visitors. They were slight on the greatest occasion, +never extending beyond the production of the China tea-service, and +the covering of the bed with a sober and sad drapery. For the +rest, there was the bier-like sofa with the block upon it, and the +figure in the widow's dress, as if attired for execution; the fire +topped by the mound of damped ashes; the grate with its second +little mound of ashes; the kettle and the smell of black dye; all +as they had been for fifteen years. + +Mr Flintwinch presented the gentleman commended to the +consideration of Clennam and Co. Mrs Clennam, who had the letter +lying before her, bent her head and requested him to sit. They +looked very closely at one another. That was but natural +curiosity. +'I thank you, sir, for thinking of a disabled woman like me. Few +who come here on business have any remembrance to bestow on one so +removed from observation. It would be idle to expect that they +should have. Out of sight, out of mind. While I am grateful for +the exception, I don't complain of the rule. ' + +Mr Blandois, in his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had +disturbed her by unhappily presenting himself at such an +unconscionable time. For which he had already offered his best +apologies to Mr--he begged pardon--but by name had not the +distinguished honour-- + +'Mr Flintwinch has been connected with the House many years.' + +Mr Blandois was Mr Flintwinch's most obedient humble servant. He +entreated Mr Flintwinch to receive the assurance of his profoundest +consideration. + +'My husband being dead,' said Mrs Clennam, 'and my son preferring +another pursuit, our old House has no other representative in these +days than Mr Flintwinch. ' + + +'What do you call yourself?' was the surly demand of that +gentleman. 'You have the head of two men.' + +'My sex disqualifies me,' she proceeded with merely a slight turn +of her eyes in jeremiah's direction, 'from taking a responsible +part in the business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr +Flintwinch combines my interest with his own, and conducts it. It +is not what it used to be; but some of our old friends (principally +the writers of this letter) have the kindness not to forget us, and +we retain the power of doing what they entrust to us as efficiently +as we ever did. This however is not interesting to you. You are +English, sir?' + +'Faith, madam, no; I am neither born nor bred in England. In +effect, I am of no country,' said Mr Blandois, stretching out his +leg and smiting it: 'I descend from half-a-dozen countries.' + +'You have been much about the world?' + +'It is true. By Heaven, madam, I have been here and there and +everywhere!' + +'You have no ties, probably. Are not married?' + +'Madam,' said Mr Blandois, with an ugly fall of his eyebrows, 'I +adore your sex, but I am not married--never was.' + +Mistress Affery, who stood at the table near him, pouring out the +tea, happened in her dreamy state to look at him as he said these +words, and to fancy that she caught an expression in his eyes which +attracted her own eyes so that she could not get them away. The +effect of this fancy was to keep her staring at him with the tea- +pot in her hand, not only to her own great uneasiness, but +manifestly to his, too; and, through them both, to Mrs Clennam's +and Mr Flintwinch's. Thus a few ghostly moments supervened, when +they were all confusedly staring without knowing why. + +'Affery,' her mistress was the first to say, 'what is the matter +with you?' + +'I don't know,' said Mistress Affery, with her disengaged left hand +extended towards the visitor. 'It ain't me. It's him!' + +'What does this good woman mean?' cried Mr Blandois, turning white, +hot, and slowly rising with a look of such deadly wrath that it +contrasted surprisingly with the slight force of his words. 'How +is it possible to understand this good creature?' + +'It's NOT possible,' said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself rapidly +in that direction. 'She don't know what she means. She's an +idiot, a wanderer in her mind. She shall have a dose, she shall +have such a dose! Get along with you, my woman,' he added in her +ear, 'get along with you, while you know you're Affery, and before +you're shaken to yeast.' + +Mistress Affery, sensible of the danger in which her identity +stood, relinquished the tea-pot as her husband seized it, put her +apron over her head, and in a twinkling vanished. The visitor +gradually broke into a smile, and sat down again. + +'You'll excuse her, Mr Blandois,' said Jeremiah, pouring out the +tea himself, 'she's failing and breaking up; that's what she's +about. Do you take sugar, sir? ' + +'Thank you, no tea for me.--Pardon my observing it, but that's a +very remarkable watch!' + +The tea-table was drawn up near the sofa, with a small interval +between it and Mrs Clennam's own particular table. Mr Blandois in +his gallantry had risen to hand that lady her tea (her dish of +toast was already there), and it was in placing the cup +conveniently within her reach that the watch, lying before her as +it always did, attracted his attention. Mrs Clennam looked +suddenly up at him. + +'May I be permitted? Thank you. A fine old-fashioned watch,' he +said, taking it in his hand. 'Heavy for use, but massive and +genuine. I have a partiality for everything genuine. Such as I +am, I am genuine myself. Hah! A gentleman's watch with two cases +in the old fashion. May I remove it from the outer case? Thank +you. Aye? An old silk watch-lining, worked with beads! I have +often seen these among old Dutch people and Belgians. Quaint +things!' + +'They are old-fashioned, too,' said Mrs Clennam. +'Very. But this is not so old as the watch, I think?' + +'I think not.' + +'Extraordinary how they used to complicate these cyphers!' remarked +Mr Blandois, glancing up with his own smile again. 'Now is this D. +N. F.? It might be almost anything.' + +'Those are the letters.' + +Mr Flintwinch, who had been observantly pausing all this time with +a cup of tea in his hand, and his mouth open ready to swallow the +contents, began to do so: always entirely filling his mouth before +he emptied it at a gulp; and always deliberating again before he +refilled it. + +'D. N. F. was some tender, lovely, fascinating fair-creature, I +make no doubt,' observed Mr Blandois, as he snapped on the case +again. 'I adore her memory on the assumption. Unfortunately for +my peace of mind, I adore but too readily. It may be a vice, it +may be a virtue, but adoration of female beauty and merit +constitutes three parts of my character, madam.' + +Mr Flintwinch had by this time poured himself out another cup of +tea, which he was swallowing in gulps as before, with his eyes +directed to the invalid. + +'You may be heart-free here, sir,' she returned to Mr Blandois. +'Those letters are not intended, I believe, for the initials of any +name.' + +'Of a motto, perhaps,' said Mr Blandois, casually. + +'Of a sentence. They have always stood, I believe, for Do Not +Forget!' + +'And naturally,' said Mr Blandois, replacing the watch and stepping +backward to his former chair, 'you do not forget.' + +Mr Flintwinch, finishing his tea, not only took a longer gulp than +he had taken yet, but made his succeeding pause under new +circumstances: that is to say, with his head thrown back and his +cup held still at his lips, while his eyes were still directed at +the invalid. She had that force of face, and that concentrated air +of collecting her firmness or obstinacy, which represented in her +case what would have been gesture and action in another, as she +replied with her deliberate strength of speech: +'No, sir, I do not forget. To lead a life as monotonous as mine +has been during many years, is not the way to forget. To lead a +life of self-correction is not the way to forget. To be sensible +of having (as we all have, every one of us, all the children of +Adam!) offences to expiate and peace to make, does not justify the +desire to forget. Therefore I have long dismissed it, and I +neither forget nor wish to forget.' + +Mr Flintwinch, who had latterly been shaking the sediment at the +bottom of his tea-cup, round and round, here gulped it down, and +putting the cup in the tea-tray, as done with, turned his eyes upon +Mr Blandois as if to ask him what he thought of that? + +'All expressed, madam,' said Mr Blandois, with his smoothest bow +and his white hand on his breast, 'by the word "naturally," which +I am proud to have had sufficient apprehension and appreciation +(but without appreciation I could not be Blandois) to employ.' + +'Pardon me, sir,' she returned, 'if I doubt the likelihood of a +gentleman of pleasure, and change, and politeness, accustomed to +court and to be courted--' + +'Oh madam! By Heaven!' + +'--If I doubt the likelihood of such a character quite +comprehending what belongs to mine in my circumstances. Not to +obtrude doctrine upon you,' she looked at the rigid pile of hard +pale books before her, '(for you go your own way, and the +consequences are on your own head), I will say this much: that I +shape my course by pilots, strictly by proved and tried pilots, +under whom I cannot be shipwrecked--can not be--and that if I were +unmindful of the admonition conveyed in those three letters, I +should not be half as chastened as I am.' + +It was curious how she seized the occasion to argue with some +invisible opponent. Perhaps with her own better sense, always +turning upon herself and her own deception. + +'If I forgot my ignorances in my life of health and freedom, I +might complain of the life to which I am now condemned. I never +do; I never have done. If I forgot that this scene, the Earth, is +expressly meant to be a scene of gloom, and hardship, and dark +trial, for the creatures who are made out of its dust, I might have +some tenderness for its vanities. But I have no such tenderness. +If I did not know that we are, every one, the subject (most justly +the subject) of a wrath that must be satisfied, and against which +mere actions are nothing, I might repine at the difference between +me, imprisoned here, and the people who pass that gateway yonder. +But I take it as a grace and favour to be elected to make the +satisfaction I am making here, to know what I know for certain +here, and to work out what I have worked out here. My affliction +might otherwise have had no meaning to me. Hence I would forget, +and I do forget, nothing. Hence I am contented, and say it is +better with me than with millions.' +As she spoke these words, she put her hand upon the watch, and +restored it to the precise spot on her little table which it always +occupied. With her touch lingering upon it, she sat for some +moments afterwards, looking at it steadily and half-defiantly. + +Mr Blandois, during this exposition, had been strictly attentive, +keeping his eyes fastened on the lady, and thoughtfully stroking +his moustache with his two hands. Mr Flintwinch had been a little +fidgety, and now struck in. + +'There, there, there!' said he. 'That is quite understood, Mrs +Clennam, and you have spoken piously and well. Mr Blandois, I +suspect, is not of a pious cast.' +'On the contrary, sir!' that gentleman protested, snapping his +fingers. 'Your pardon! It's a part of my character. I am +sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and imaginative. A sensitive, +ardent, conscientious, and imaginative man, Mr Flintwinch, must be +that, or nothing!' + +There was an inkling of suspicion in Mr Flintwinch's face that he +might be nothing, as he swaggered out of his chair (it was +characteristic of this man, as it is of all men similarly marked, +that whatever he did, he overdid, though it were sometimes by only +a hairsbreadth), and approached to take his leave of Mrs Clennam. + +'With what will appear to you the egotism of a sick old woman, +sir,' she then said, 'though really through your accidental +allusion, I have been led away into the subject of myself and my +infirmities. Being so considerate as to visit me, I hope you will +be likewise so considerate as to overlook that. Don't compliment +me, if you please.' For he was evidently going to do it. 'Mr +Flintwinch will be happy to render you any service, and I hope your +stay in this city may prove agreeable.' + +Mr Blandois thanked her, and kissed his hand several times. 'This +is an old room,' he remarked, with a sudden sprightliness of +manner, looking round when he got near the door, 'I have been so +interested that I have not observed it. But it's a genuine old +room.' + +'It is a genuine old house,' said Mrs Clennam, with her frozen +smile. 'A place of no pretensions, but a piece of antiquity.' + +'Faith!' cried the visitor. 'If Mr Flintwinch would do me the +favour to take me through the rooms on my way out, he could hardly +oblige me more. An old house is a weakness with me. I have many +weaknesses, but none greater. I love and study the picturesque in +all its varieties. I have been called picturesque myself. It is +no merit to be picturesque--I have greater merits, perhaps--but I +may be, by an accident. Sympathy, sympathy!' + +'I tell you beforehand, Mr Blandois, that you'll find it very dingy +and very bare,' said Jeremiah, taking up the candle. 'It's not +worth your looking at.'But Mr Blandois, smiting him in a friendly +manner on the back, only laughed; so the said Blandois kissed his +hand again to Mrs Clennam, and they went out of the room together. + +'You don't care to go up-stairs?' said Jeremiah, on the landing. +'On the contrary, Mr Flintwinch; if not tiresome to you, I shall be +ravished!' + +Mr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr +Blandois followed close. They ascended to the great garret bed- +room which Arthur had occupied on the night of his return. 'There, +Mr Blandois!' said Jeremiah, showing it, 'I hope you may think that +worth coming so high to see. I confess I don't.' + +Mr Blandois being enraptured, they walked through other garrets and +passages, and came down the staircase again. By this time Mr +Flintwinch had remarked that he never found the visitor looking at +any room, after throwing one quick glance around, but always found +the visitor looking at him, Mr Flintwinch. With this discovery in +his thoughts, he turned about on the staircase for another +experiment. He met his eyes directly; and on the instant of their +fixing one another, the visitor, with that ugly play of nose and +moustache, laughed (as he had done at every similar moment since +they left Mrs Clennam's chamber) a diabolically silent laugh. + +As a much shorter man than the visitor, Mr Flintwinch was at the +physical disadvantage of being thus disagreeably leered at from a +height; and as he went first down the staircase, and was usually a +step or two lower than the other, this disadvantage was at the time +increased. He postponed looking at Mr Blandois again until this +accidental inequality was removed by their having entered the late +Mr Clennam's room. But, then twisting himself suddenly round upon +him, he found his look unchanged. + +'A most admirable old house,' smiled Mr Blandois. 'So mysterious. +Do you never hear any haunted noises here?' + +'Noises,' returned Mr Flintwinch. 'No.' + +'Nor see any devils?' + +'Not,' said Mr Flintwinch, grimly screwing himself at his +questioner, 'not any that introduce themselves under that name and +in that capacity.' + +'Haha! A portrait here, I see.' + +(Still looking at Mr Flintwinch, as if he were the portrait.) + +'It's a portrait, sir, as you observe.' + +'May I ask the subject, Mr Flintwinch?' + +'Mr Clennam, deceased. Her husband.' +'Former owner of the remarkable watch, perhaps?' said the visitor. + +Mr Flintwinch, who had cast his eyes towards the portrait, twisted +himself about again, and again found himself the subject of the +same look and smile. 'Yes, Mr Blandois,' he replied tartly. 'It +was his, and his uncle's before him, and Lord knows who before him; +and that's all I can tell you of its pedigree.' + +'That's a strongly marked character, Mr Flintwinch, our friend up- +stairs.' + +'Yes, sir,' said Jeremiah, twisting himself at the visitor again, +as he did during the whole of this dialogue, like some screw- +machine that fell short of its grip; for the other never changed, +and he always felt obliged to retreat a little. 'She is a +remarkable woman. Great fortitude--great strength of mind.' + +'They must have been very happy,' said Blandois. + +'Who?' demanded Mr Flintwinch, with another screw at him. + +Mr Blandois shook his right forefinger towards the sick room, and +his left forefinger towards the portrait, and then, putting his +arms akimbo and striding his legs wide apart, stood smiling down at +Mr Flintwinch with the advancing nose and the retreating moustache. + +'As happy as most other married people, I suppose,' returned Mr +Flintwinch. 'I can't say. I don't know. There are secrets in all +families.' + +'Secrets!' cried Mr Blandois, quickly. 'Say it again, my son.' + +'I say,' replied Mr Flintwinch, upon whom he had swelled himself so +suddenly that Mr Flintwinch found his face almost brushed by the +dilated chest. 'I say there are secrets in all families.' + +'So there are,' cried the other, clapping him on both shoulders, +and rolling him backwards and forwards. 'Haha! you are right. So +there are! Secrets! Holy Blue! There are the devil's own secrets +in some families, Mr Flintwinch!' With that, after clapping Mr +Flintwinch on both shoulders several times, as if in a friendly and +humorous way he were rallying him on a joke he had made, he threw +up his arms, threw back his head, hooked his hands together behind +it, and burst into a roar of laughter. It was in vain for Mr +Flintwinch to try another screw at him. He had his laugh out. + +'But, favour me with the candle a moment,' he said, when he had +done. 'Let us have a look at the husband of the remarkable lady. +Hah!' holding up the light at arm's length. 'A decided expression +of face here too, though not of the same character. Looks as if he +were saying, what is it--Do Not Forget--does he not, Mr Flintwinch? + +By Heaven, sir, he does!' + +As he returned the candle, he looked at him once more; and then, +leisurely strolling out with him into the hall, declared it to be +a charming old house indeed, and one which had so greatly pleased +him that he would not have missed inspecting it for a hundred +pounds. +Throughout these singular freedoms on the part of Mr Blandois, +which involved a general alteration in his demeanour, making it +much coarser and rougher, much more violent and audacious than +before, Mr Flintwinch, whose leathern face was not liable to many +changes, preserved its immobility intact. Beyond now appearing +perhaps, to have been left hanging a trifle too long before that +friendly operation of cutting down, he outwardly maintained an +equable composure. They had brought their survey to a close in the +little room at the side of the hall, and he stood there, eyeing Mr +Blandois. + +'I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir,' was his calm remark. +'I didn't expect it. You seem to be quite in good spirits.' + +'In admirable spirits,' returned Blandois. 'Word of honour! never +more refreshed in spirits. Do you ever have presentiments, Mr +Flintwinch?' + +'I am not sure that I know what you mean by the term, sir,' replied +that gentleman. + +'Say, in this case, Mr Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of +pleasure to come.' + +'I can't say I'm sensible of such a sensation at present,' returned +Mr Flintwinch with the utmost gravity. 'If I should find it coming +on, I'll mention it.' + +'Now I,' said Blandois, 'I, my son, have a presentiment to-night +that we shall be well acquainted. Do you find it coming on?' + +'N-no,' returned Mr Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself. +'I can't say I do.' + +'I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately +acquainted.--You have no feeling of that sort yet?' + +'Not yet,' said Mr Flintwinch. + +Mr Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about +a little in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his +own, and invited him to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a +dear deep old dog as he was. + +Without a moment's indecision, Mr Flintwinch accepted the +invitation, and they went out to the quarters where the traveller +was lodged, through a heavy rain which had rattled on the windows, +roofs, and pavements, ever since nightfall. The thunder and +lightning had long ago passed over, but the rain was furious. On +their arrival at Mr Blandois' room, a bottle of port wine was +ordered by that gallant gentleman; who (crushing every pretty thing +he could collect, in the soft disposition of his dainty figure) +coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr Flintwinch took a +chair opposite to him, with the table between them. Mr Blandois +proposed having the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr +Flintwinch assented. The bumpers filled, Mr Blandois, with a +roystering gaiety, clinked the top of his glass against the bottom +of Mr Flintwinch's, and the bottom of his glass against the top of +Mr Flintwinch's, and drank to the intimate acquaintance he foresaw. + +Mr Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all the wine he could +get, and said nothing. As often as Mr Blandois clinked glasses +(which was at every replenishment), Mr Flintwinch stolidly did his +part of the clinking, and would have stolidly done his companion's +part of the wine as well as his own: being, except in the article +of palate, a mere cask. + +In short, Mr Blandois found that to pour port wine into the +reticent Flintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up. +Moreover, he had the appearance of a perfect ability to go on all +night; or, if occasion were, all next day and all next night; +whereas Mr Blandois soon grew indistinctly conscious of swaggering +too fiercely and boastfully. He therefore terminated the +entertainment at the end of the third bottle. + +'You will draw upon us to-morrow, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch, with a +business-like face at parting. + +'My Cabbage,' returned the other, taking him by the collar with +both hands, 'I'll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my +Flintwinch. Receive at parting;' here he gave him a southern +embrace, and kissed him soundly on both cheeks; 'the word of a +gentleman! By a thousand Thunders, you shall see me again!' + +He did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice +came duly to hand. Inquiring after him at night, Mr Flintwinch +found, with surprise, that he had paid his bill and gone back to +the Continent by way of Calais. Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out +of his cogitating face a lively conviction that Mr Blandois would +keep his word on this occasion, and would be seen again. + + + + +CHAPTER 31 + +Spirit + + +Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the +metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be +supposed to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in +the Heavens dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a +spark), creeping along with a scared air, as though bewildered and +a little frightened by the noise and bustle. This old man is +always a little old man. If he were ever a big old man, he has +shrunk into a little old man; if he were always a little old man, +he has dwindled into a less old man. His coat is a colour, and +cut, that never was the mode anywhere, at any period. Clearly, it +was not made for him, or for any individual mortal. Some wholesale +contractor measured Fate for five thousand coats of such quality, +and Fate has lent this old coat to this old man, as one of a long +unfinished line of many old men. It has always large dull metal +buttons, similar to no other buttons. This old man wears a hat, a +thumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has never +adapted itself to the shape of his poor head. His coarse shirt and +his coarse neckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and +hat; they have the same character of not being his--of not being +anybody's. Yet this old man wears these clothes with a certain +unaccustomed air of being dressed and elaborated for the public +ways; as though he passed the greater part of his time in a +nightcap and gown. And so, like the country mouse in the second +year of a famine, come to see the town mouse, and timidly threading +his way to the town-mouse's lodging through a city of cats, this +old man passes in the streets. + +Sometimes, on holidays towards evening, he will be seen to walk +with a slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer +with a moist and marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. +A very small measure will overset him; he may be bowled off his +unsteady legs with a half-pint pot. Some pitying acquaintance-- +chance acquaintance very often--has warmed up his weakness with a +treat of beer, and the consequence will be the lapse of a longer +time than usual before he shall pass again. For the little old man +is going home to the Workhouse; and on his good behaviour they do +not let him out often (though methinks they might, considering the +few years he has before him to go out in, under the sun); and on +his bad behaviour they shut him up closer than ever in a grove of +two score and nineteen more old men, every one of whom smells of +all the others. + + +Mrs Plornish's father,--a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, +like a worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music- +binding business, and met with great misfortunes, and who had +seldom been able to make his way, or to see it or to pay it, or to +do anything at all with it but find it no thoroughfare,--had +retired of his own accord to the Workhouse which was appointed by +law to be the Good Samaritan of his district (without the twopence, +which was bad political economy), on the settlement of that +execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the Marshalsea College. +Previous to his son-in-law's difficulties coming to that head, Old +Nandy (he was always so called in his legal Retreat, but he was Old +Mr Nandy among the Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of the +Plornish fireside, and taken his bite and sup out of the Plornish +cupboard. He still hoped to resume that domestic position when +Fortune should smile upon his son-in-law; in the meantime, while +she preserved an immovable countenance, he was, and resolved to +remain, one of these little old men in a grove of little old men +with a community of flavour. + +But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, +and no Old Men's Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his +daughter's admiration. Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father's +talents as she could possibly have been if they had made him Lord +Chancellor. She had as firm a belief in the sweetness and +propriety of his manners as she could possibly have had if he had +been Lord Chamberlain. The poor little old man knew some pale and +vapid little songs, long out of date, about Chloe, and Phyllis, and +Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus; and for Mrs Plornish +there was no such music at the Opera as the small internal +flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself of +these ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by +a baby. On his 'days out,' those flecks of light in his flat vista +of pollard old men,' it was at once Mrs Plornish's delight and +sorrow, when he was strong with meat, and had taken his full +halfpenny-worth of porter, to say, 'Sing us a song, Father.' Then +he would give them Chloe, and if he were in pretty good spirits, +Phyllis also--Strephon he had hardly been up to since he went into +retirement--and then would Mrs Plornish declare she did believe +there never was such a singer as Father, and wipe her eyes. + +If he had come from Court on these occasions, nay, if he had been +the noble Refrigerator come home triumphantly from a foreign court +to be presented and promoted on his last tremendous failure, Mrs +Plornish could not have handed him with greater elevation about +Bleeding Heart Yard. 'Here's Father,' she would say, presenting +him to a neighbour. 'Father will soon be home with us for good, +now. Ain't Father looking well? Father's a sweeter singer than +ever; you'd never have forgotten it, if you'd aheard him just now.' + +As to Mr Plornish, he had married these articles of belief in +marrying Mr Nandy's daughter, and only wondered how it was that so +gifted an old gentleman had not made a fortune. This he +attributed, after much reflection, to his musical genius not having +been scientifically developed in his youth. 'For why,' argued Mr +Plornish, 'why go a-binding music when you've got it in yourself? +That's where it is, I consider.' + +Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a +certain sumptuous way--an apologetic way, as if he constantly took +an admiring audience to witness that he really could not help being +more free with this old fellow than they might have expected, on +account of his simplicity and poverty--was mightily good to him. +Old Nandy had been several times to the Marshalsea College, +communicating with his son-in-law during his short durance there; +and had happily acquired to himself, and had by degrees and in +course of time much improved, the patronage of the Father of that +national institution. + +Mr Dorrit was in the habit of receiving this old man as if the old +man held of him in vassalage under some feudal tenure. He made +little treats and teas for him, as if he came in with his homage +from some outlying district where the tenantry were in a primitive +state. + +It seemed as if there were moments when he could by no means have +sworn but that the old man was an ancient retainer of his, who had +been meritoriously faithful. When he mentioned him, he spoke of +him casually as his old pensioner. He had a wonderful satisfaction +in seeing him, and in commenting on his decayed condition after he +was gone. It appeared to him amazing that he could hold up his +head at all, poor creature. 'In the Workhouse, sir, the Union; no +privacy, no visitors, no station, no respect, no speciality. Most +deplorable!' + +It was Old Nandy's birthday, and they let him out. He said nothing +about its being his birthday, or they might have kept him in; for +such old men should not be born. He passed along the streets as +usual to Bleeding Heart Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter +and son-in-law, and gave them Phyllis. He had hardly concluded, +when Little Dorrit looked in to see how they all were. + +'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Plornish, 'here's Father! Ain't he looking +nice? And such voice he's in!' + +Little Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not +seen him this long time. + +'No, they're rather hard on poor Father,' said Mrs Plornish with a +lengthening face, 'and don't let him have half as much change and +fresh air as would benefit him. But he'll soon be home for good, +now. Won't you, Father?' + +'Yes, my dear, I hope so. In good time, please God.' + +Here Mr Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he +invariably made, word for word the same, on all such opportunities. + +It was couched in the following terms: + +'John Edward Nandy. Sir. While there's a ounce of wittles or +drink of any sort in this present roof, you're fully welcome to +your share on it. While there's a handful of fire or a mouthful of +bed in this present roof, you're fully welcome to your share on it. + +If so be as there should be nothing in this present roof, you +should be as welcome to your share on it as if it was something, +much or little. And this is what I mean and so I don't deceive +you, and consequently which is to stand out is to entreat of you, +and therefore why not do it?' + +To this lucid address, which Mr Plornish always delivered as if he +had composed it (as no doubt he had) with enormous labour, Mrs +Plornish's father pipingly replied: + +'I thank you kindly, Thomas, and I know your intentions well, which +is the same I thank you kindly for. But no, Thomas. Until such +times as it's not to take it out of your children's mouths, which +take it is, and call it by what name you will it do remain and +equally deprive, though may they come, and too soon they can not +come, no Thomas, no!' + +Mrs Plornish, who had been turning her face a little away with a +corner of her apron in her hand, brought herself back to the +conversation again by telling Miss Dorrit that Father was going +over the water to pay his respects, unless she knew of any reason +why it might not be agreeable. + +Her answer was, 'I am going straight home, and if he will come with +me I shall be so glad to take care of him--so glad,' said Little +Dorrit, always thoughtful of the feelings of the weak, 'of his +company.' + +'There, Father!' cried Mrs Plornish. 'Ain't you a gay young man to +be going for a walk along with Miss Dorrit! Let me tie your neck- +handkerchief into a regular good bow, for you're a regular beau +yourself, Father, if ever there was one.' + +With this filial joke his daughter smartened him up, and gave him +a loving hug, and stood at the door with her weak child in her +arms, and her strong child tumbling down the steps, looking after +her little old father as he toddled away with his arm under Little +Dorrit's. + +They walked at a slow pace, and Little Dorrit took him by the Iron +Bridge and sat him down there for a rest, and they looked over at +the water and talked about the shipping, and the old man mentioned +what he would do if he had a ship full of gold coming home to him +(his plan was to take a noble lodging for the Plornishes and +himself at a Tea Gardens, and live there all the rest of their +lives, attended on by the waiter), and it was a special birthday of +the old man. They were within five minutes of their destination, +when, at the corner of her own street, they came upon Fanny in her +new bonnet bound for the same port. + +'Why, good gracious me, Amy!' cried that young lady starting. 'You +never mean it!' + +'Mean what, Fanny dear?' + +'Well! I could have believed a great deal of you,' returned the +young lady with burning indignation, 'but I don't think even I +could have believed this, of even you!' + +'Fanny!' cried Little Dorrit, wounded and astonished. + +'Oh! Don't Fanny me, you mean little thing, don't! The idea of +coming along the open streets, in the broad light of day, with a +Pauper!' (firing off the last word as if it were a ball from an +air-gun). +'O Fanny!' + +'I tell you not to Fanny me, for I'll not submit to it! I never +knew such a thing. The way in which you are resolved and +determined to disgrace us on all occasions, is really infamous. +You bad little thing!' + +'Does it disgrace anybody,' said Little Dorrit, very gently, 'to +take care of this poor old man?' + +'Yes, miss,' returned her sister, 'and you ought to know it does. +And you do know it does, and you do it because you know it does. +The principal pleasure of your life is to remind your family of +their misfortunes. And the next great pleasure of your existence +is to keep low company. But, however, if you have no sense of +decency, I have. You'll please to allow me to go on the other side +of the way, unmolested.' + +With this, she bounced across to the opposite pavement. The old +disgrace, who had been deferentially bowing a pace or two off (for +Little Dorrit had let his arm go in her wonder, when Fanny began), +and who had been hustled and cursed by impatient passengers for +stopping the way, rejoined his companion, rather giddy, and said, +'I hope nothing's wrong with your honoured father, Miss? I hope +there's nothing the matter in the honoured family?' + +'No, no,' returned Little Dorrit. 'No, thank you. Give me your +arm again, Mr Nandy. We shall soon be there now.' + +So she talked to him as she had talked before, and they came to the +Lodge and found Mr Chivery on the lock, and went in. Now, it +happened that the Father of the Marshalsea was sauntering towards +the Lodge at the moment when they were coming out of it, entering +the prison arm in arm. As the spectacle of their approach met his +view, he displayed the utmost agitation and despondency of mind; +and--altogether regardless of Old Nandy, who, making his reverence, +stood with his hat in his hand, as he always did in that gracious +presence--turned about, and hurried in at his own doorway and up +the staircase. + +Leaving the old unfortunate, whom in an evil hour she had taken +under her protection, with a hurried promise to return to him +directly, Little Dorrit hastened after her father, and, on the +staircase, found Fanny following her, and flouncing up with +offended dignity. The three came into the room almost together; +and the Father sat down in his chair, buried his face in his hands, +and uttered a groan. + +'Of course,' said Fanny. 'Very proper. Poor, afflicted Pa! Now, +I hope you believe me, Miss?' + +'What is it, father?' cried Little Dorrit, bending over him. 'Have +I made you unhappy, father? Not I, I hope!' + +'You hope, indeed! I dare say! Oh, you'--Fanny paused for a +sufficiently strong expression--'you Common-minded little Amy! You +complete prison-child!' + +He stopped these angry reproaches with a wave of his hand, and +sobbed out, raising his face and shaking his melancholy head at his +younger daughter, 'Amy, I know that you are innocent in intention. +But you have cut me to the soul.' +'Innocent in intention!' the implacable Fanny struck in. 'Stuff in +intention! Low in intention! Lowering of the family in +intention!' + +'Father!' cried Little Dorrit, pale and trembling. 'I am very +sorry. Pray forgive me. Tell me how it is, that I may not do it +again!' + +'How it is, you prevaricating little piece of goods!' cried Fanny. +'You know how it is. I have told you already, so don't fly in the +face of Providence by attempting to deny it!' + +'Hush! Amy,' said the father, passing his pocket-handkerchief +several times across his face, and then grasping it convulsively in +the hand that dropped across his knee, 'I have done what I could to +keep you select here; I have done what I could to retain you a +position here. I may have succeeded; I may not. You may know it; +you may not. I give no opinion. I have endured everything here +but humiliation. That I have happily been spared--until this day.' + +Here his convulsive grasp unclosed itself, and he put his pocket- +handkerchief to his eyes again. Little Dorrit, on the ground +beside him, with her imploring hand upon his arm, watched him +remorsefully. Coming out of his fit of grief, he clenched his +pocket-handkerchief once more. + +'Humiliation I have happily been spared until this day. Through +all my troubles there has been that--Spirit in myself, and that-- +that submission to it, if I may use the term, in those about me, +which has spared me--ha--humiliation. But this day, this minute, +I have keenly felt it.' + +'Of course! How could it be otherwise?' exclaimed the +irrepressible Fanny. 'Careering and prancing about with a Pauper!' +(air-gun again). + +'But, dear father,' cried Little Dorrit, 'I don't justify myself +for having wounded your dear heart--no! Heaven knows I don't!' +She clasped her hands in quite an agony of distress. 'I do nothing +but beg and pray you to be comforted and overlook it. But if I had +not known that you were kind to the old man yourself, and took much +notice of him, and were always glad to see him, I would not have +come here with him, father, I would not, indeed. What I have been +so unhappy as to do, I have done in mistake. I would not wilfully +bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!' said Little Dorrit, her +heart well-nigh broken, 'for anything the world could give me, or +anything it could take away.' + +Fanny, with a partly angry and partly repentant sob, began to cry +herself, and to say--as this young lady always said when she was +half in passion and half out of it, half spiteful with herself and +half spiteful with everybody else--that she wished she were dead. + +The Father of the Marshalsea in the meantime took his younger +daughter to his breast, and patted her head. +'There, there! Say no more, Amy, say no more, my child. I will +forget it as soon as I can. I,' with hysterical cheerfulness, 'I-- +shall soon be able to dismiss it. It is perfectly true, my dear, +that I am always glad to see my old pensioner--as such, as such-- +and that I do--ha--extend as much protection and kindness to the-- +hum--the bruised reed--I trust I may so call him without +impropriety--as in my circumstances, I can. It is quite true that +this is the case, my dear child. At the same time, I preserve in +doing this, if I may--ha--if I may use the expression--Spirit. +Becoming Spirit. And there are some things which are,' he stopped +to sob, 'irreconcilable with that, and wound that--wound it deeply. + +It is not that I have seen my good Amy attentive, and--ha-- +condescending to my old pensioner--it is not that that hurts me. +It is, if I am to close the painful subject by being explicit, that +I have seen my child, my own child, my own daughter, coming into +this College out of the public streets--smiling! smiling!--arm in +arm with--O my God, a livery!' + +This reference to the coat of no cut and no time, the unfortunate +gentleman gasped forth, in a scarcely audible voice, and with his +clenched pocket-handkerchief raised in the air. His excited +feelings might have found some further painful utterance, but for +a knock at the door, which had been already twice repeated, and to +which Fanny (still wishing herself dead, and indeed now going so +far as to add, buried) cried 'Come in!' + +'Ah, Young John!' said the Father, in an altered and calmed voice. +'What is it, Young John?' + +'A letter for you, sir, being left in the Lodge just this minute, +and a message with it, I thought, happening to be there myself, +sir, I would bring it to your room.' The speaker's attention was +much distracted by the piteous spectacle of Little Dorrit at her +father's feet, with her head turned away. + +'Indeed, John? Thank you.' + +'The letter is from Mr Clennam, sir--it's the answer--and the +message was, sir, that Mr Clennam also sent his compliments, and +word that he would do himself the pleasure of calling this +afternoon, hoping to see you, and likewise,' attention more +distracted than before, 'Miss Amy.' + +'Oh!' As the Father glanced into the letter (there was a bank-note +in it), he reddened a little, and patted Amy on the head afresh. +'Thank you, Young John. Quite right. Much obliged to you for your +attention. No one waiting?' + +'No, sir, no one waiting.' + +'Thank you, John. How is your mother, Young John?' + +'Thank you, sir, she's not quite as well as we could wish--in fact, +we none of us are, except father--but she's pretty well, sir.' +'Say we sent our remembrances, will you? Say kind remembrances, if +you please, Young John.' + +'Thank you, sir, I will.' And Mr Chivery junior went his way, +having spontaneously composed on the spot an entirely new epitaph +for himself, to the effect that Here lay the body of John Chivery, +Who, Having at such a date, Beheld the idol of his life, In grief +and tears, And feeling unable to bear the harrowing spectacle, +Immediately repaired to the abode of his inconsolable parents, And +terminated his existence by his own rash act. + +'There, there, Amy!' said the Father, when Young John had closed +the door, 'let us say no more about it.' The last few minutes had +improved his spirits remarkably, and he was quite lightsome. +'Where is my old pensioner all this while? We must not leave him +by himself any longer, or he will begin to suppose he is not +welcome, and that would pain me. Will you fetch him, my child, or +shall I?' + +'If you wouldn't mind, father,' said Little Dorrit, trying to bring +her sobbing to a close. + +'Certainly I will go, my dear. I forgot; your eyes are rather red. + +There! Cheer up, Amy. Don't be uneasy about me. I am quite +myself again, my love, quite myself. Go to your room, Amy, and +make yourself look comfortable and pleasant to receive Mr Clennam.' + +'I would rather stay in my own room, Father,' returned Little +Dorrit, finding it more difficult than before to regain her +composure. 'I would far rather not see Mr Clennam.' + +'Oh, fie, fie, my dear, that's folly. Mr Clennam is a very +gentlemanly man--very gentlemanly. A little reserved at times; but +I will say extremely gentlemanly. I couldn't think of your not +being here to receive Mr Clennam, my dear, especially this +afternoon. So go and freshen yourself up, Amy; go and freshen +yourself up, like a good girl.' + +Thus directed, Little Dorrit dutifully rose and obeyed: only +pausing for a moment as she went out of the room, to give her +sister a kiss of reconciliation. Upon which, that young lady, +feeling much harassed in her mind, and having for the time worn out +the wish with which she generally relieved it, conceived and +executed the brilliant idea of wishing Old Nandy dead, rather than +that he should come bothering there like a disgusting, tiresome, +wicked wretch, and making mischief between two sisters. + +The Father of the Marshalsea, even humming a tune, and wearing his +black velvet cap a little on one side, so much improved were his +spirits, went down into the yard, and found his old pensioner +standing there hat in hand just within the gate, as he had stood +all this time. 'Come, Nandy!' said he, with great suavity. 'Come +up-stairs, Nandy; you know the way; why don't you come up-stairs?' +He went the length, on this occasion, of giving him his hand and +saying, 'How are you, Nandy? Are you pretty well?' To which that +vocalist returned, 'I thank you, honoured sir, I am all the better +for seeing your honour.' As they went along the yard, the Father +of the Marshalsea presented him to a Collegian of recent date. 'An +old acquaintance of mine, sir, an old pensioner.' And then said, +'Be covered, my good Nandy; put your hat on,' with great +consideration. + +His patronage did not stop here; for he charged Maggy to get the +tea ready, and instructed her to buy certain tea-cakes, fresh +butter, eggs, cold ham, and shrimps: to purchase which collation he +gave her a bank-note for ten pounds, laying strict injunctions on +her to be careful of the change. These preparations were in an +advanced stage of progress, and his daughter Amy had come back with +her work, when Clennam presented himself; whom he most graciously +received, and besought to join their meal. + +'Amy, my love, you know Mr Clennam even better than I have the +happiness of doing. Fanny, my dear, you are acquainted with Mr +Clennam.' Fanny acknowledged him haughtily; the position she +tacitly took up in all such cases being that there was a vast +conspiracy to insult the family by not understanding it, or +sufficiently deferring to it, and here was one of the conspirators. + +'This, Mr Clennam, you must know, is an old pensioner of mine, Old +Nandy, a very faithful old man.' (He always spoke of him as an +object of great antiquity, but he was two or three years younger +than himself.) 'Let me see. You know Plornish, I think? I think +my daughter Amy has mentioned to me that you know poor Plornish?' + +'O yes!' said Arthur Clennam. + +'Well, sir, this is Mrs Plornish's father.' + +'Indeed? I am glad to see him.' + +'You would be more glad if you knew his many good qualities, +Mr Clennam.' + +'I hope I shall come to know them through knowing him,' said +Arthur, secretly pitying the bowed and submissive figure. + +'It is a holiday with him, and he comes to see his old friends, who +are always glad to see him,' observed the Father of the Marshalsea. + +Then he added behind his hand, ('Union, poor old fellow. Out for +the day.') + +By this time Maggy, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had +spread the board, and the repast was ready. It being hot weather +and the prison very close, the window was as wide open as it could +be pushed. 'If Maggy will spread that newspaper on the window- +sill, my dear,' remarked the Father complacently and in a half +whisper to Little Dorrit, 'my old pensioner can have his tea there, +while we are having ours.' + +So, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in +width, standard measure, Mrs Plornish's father was handsomely +regaled. Clennam had never seen anything like his magnanimous +protection by that other Father, he of the Marshalsea; and was lost +in the contemplation of its many wonders. + +The most striking of these was perhaps the relishing manner in +which he remarked on the pensioner's infirmities and failings, as +if he were a gracious Keeper making a running commentary on the +decline of the harmless animal he exhibited. + +'Not ready for more ham yet, Nandy? Why, how slow you are! (His +last teeth,' he explained to the company, 'are going, poor old +boy.') + +At another time, he said, 'No shrimps, Nandy?' and on his not +instantly replying, observed, ('His hearing is becoming very +defective. He'll be deaf directly.') + +At another time he asked him, 'Do you walk much, Nandy, about the +yard within the walls of that place of yours?' + +'No, sir; no. I haven't any great liking for that.' + +'No, to be sure,' he assented. 'Very natural.' Then he privately +informed the circle ('Legs going.') + +Once he asked the pensioner, in that general clemency which asked +him anything to keep him afloat, how old his younger grandchild +was? + +'John Edward,' said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and +fork to consider. 'How old, sir? Let me think now.' + +The Father of the Marshalsea tapped his forehead ('Memory weak.') + +'John Edward, sir? Well, I really forget. I couldn't say at this +minute, sir, whether it's two and two months, or whether it's two +and five months. It's one or the other.' + +'Don't distress yourself by worrying your mind about it,' he +returned, with infinite forbearance. ('Faculties evidently +decaying--old man rusts in the life he leads!') + +The more of these discoveries that he persuaded himself he made in +the pensioner, the better he appeared to like him; and when he got +out of his chair after tea to bid the pensioner good-bye, on his +intimating that he feared, honoured sir, his time was running out, +he made himself look as erect and strong as possible. + +'We don't call this a shilling, Nandy, you know,' he said, putting +one in his hand. 'We call it tobacco.' + +'Honoured sir, I thank you. It shall buy tobacco. My thanks and +duty to Miss Amy and Miss Fanny. I wish you good night, Mr +Clennam.' + +'And mind you don't forget us, you know, Nandy,' said the Father. +'You must come again, mind, whenever you have an afternoon. You +must not come out without seeing us, or we shall be jealous. Good +night, Nandy. Be very careful how you descend the stairs, Nandy; +they are rather uneven and worn.' With that he stood on the +landing, watching the old man down: and when he came into the room +again, said, with a solemn satisfaction on him, 'A melancholy sight +that, Mr Clennam, though one has the consolation of knowing that he +doesn't feel it himself. The poor old fellow is a dismal wreck. +Spirit broken and gone--pulverised--crushed out of him, sir, +completely!' + +As Clennam had a purpose in remaining, he said what he could +responsive to these sentiments, and stood at the window with their +enunciator, while Maggy and her Little Mother washed the tea- +service and cleared it away. He noticed that his companion stood +at the window with the air of an affable and accessible Sovereign, +and that, when any of his people in the yard below looked up, his +recognition of their salutes just stopped short of a blessing. + +When Little Dorrit had her work on the table, and Maggy hers on the +bedstead, Fanny fell to tying her bonnet as a preliminary to her +departure. Arthur, still having his purpose, still remained. At +this time the door opened, without any notice, and Mr Tip came in. +He kissed Amy as she started up to meet him, nodded to Fanny, +nodded to his father, gloomed on the visitor without further +recognition, and sat down. + +'Tip, dear,' said Little Dorrit, mildly, shocked by this, 'don't +you see--' + + +'Yes, I see, Amy. If you refer to the presence of any visitor you +have here--I say, if you refer to that,' answered Tip, jerking his +head with emphasis towards his shoulder nearest Clennam, 'I see!' + +'Is that all you say?' + +'That's all I say. And I suppose,' added the lofty young man, +after a moment's pause, 'that visitor will understand me, when I +say that's all I say. In short, I suppose the visitor will +understand that he hasn't used me like a gentleman.' + +'I do not understand that,' observed the obnoxious personage +referred to with tranquillity. + +'No? Why, then, to make it clearer to you, sir, I beg to let you +know that when I address what I call a properly-worded appeal, and +an urgent appeal, and a delicate appeal, to an individual, for a +small temporary accommodation, easily within his power--easily +within his power, mind!--and when that individual writes back word +to me that he begs to be excused, I consider that he doesn't treat +me like a gentleman.' + +The Father of the Marshalsea, who had surveyed his son in silence, +no sooner heard this sentiment, than he began in angry voice:-- + +'How dare you--' But his son stopped him. + +'Now, don't ask me how I dare, father, because that's bosh. As to +the fact of the line of conduct I choose to adopt towards the +individual present, you ought to be proud of my showing a proper +spirit.' + +'I should think so!' cried Fanny. + +'A proper spirit?' said the Father. 'Yes, a proper spirit; a +becoming spirit. Is it come to this that my son teaches me--ME-- +spirit!' + +'Now, don't let us bother about it, father, or have any row on the +subject. I have fully made up my mind that the individual present +has not treated me like a gentleman. And there's an end of it.' + +'But there is not an end of it, sir,' returned the Father. 'But +there shall not be an end of it. You have made up your mind? You +have made up your mind?' + +'Yes, I have. What's the good of keeping on like that?' + +'Because,' returned the Father, in a great heat, 'you had no right +to make up your mind to what is monstrous, to what is--ha--immoral, +to what is--hum--parricidal. No, Mr Clennam, I beg, sir. Don't +ask me to desist; there is a--hum--a general principle involved +here, which rises even above considerations of--ha--hospitality. +I object to the assertion made by my son. I--ha--I personally +repel it.' + +'Why, what is it to you, father?' returned the son, over his +shoulder. + +'What is it to me, sir? I have a--hum--a spirit, sir, that will +not endure it. I,' he took out his pocket-handkerchief again and +dabbed his face. 'I am outraged and insulted by it. Let me +suppose the case that I myself may at a certain time--ha--or times, +have made a--hum--an appeal, and a properly-worded appeal, and a +delicate appeal, and an urgent appeal to some individual for a +small temporary accommodation. Let me suppose that that +accommodation could have been easily extended, and was not +extended, and that that individual informed me that he begged to be +excused. Am I to be told by my own son, that I therefore received +treatment not due to a gentleman, and that I--ha--I submitted to +it?' + +His daughter Amy gently tried to calm him, but he would not on any +account be calmed. He said his spirit was up, and wouldn't endure +this. + +Was he to be told that, he wished to know again, by his own son on +his own hearth, to his own face? Was that humiliation to be put +upon him by his own blood? + +'You are putting it on yourself, father, and getting into all this +injury of your own accord!' said the young gentleman morosely. +'What I have made up my mind about has nothing to do with you. +What I said had nothing to do with you. Why need you go trying on +other people's hats?' + +'I reply it has everything to do with me,' returned the Father. 'I +point out to you, sir, with indignation, that--hum--the--ha-- +delicacy and peculiarity of your father's position should strike +you dumb, sir, if nothing else should, in laying down such--ha-- +such unnatural principles. Besides; if you are not filial, sir, if +you discard that duty, you are at least--hum--not a Christian? Are +you--ha--an Atheist? And is it Christian, let me ask you, to +stigmatise and denounce an individual for begging to be excused +this time, when the same individual may--ha--respond with the +required accommodation next time? Is it the part of a Christian +not to--hum--not to try him again?' He had worked himself into +quite a religious glow and fervour. + +'I see precious well,' said Mr Tip, rising, 'that I shall get no +sensible or fair argument here to-night, and so the best thing I +can do is to cut. Good night, Amy. Don't be vexed. I am very +sorry it happens here, and you here, upon my soul I am; but I can't +altogether part with my spirit, even for your sake, old girl.' + +With those words he put on his hat and went out, accompanied by +Miss Fanny; who did not consider it spirited on her part to take +leave of Clennam with any less opposing demonstration than a stare, +importing that she had always known him for one of the large body +of conspirators. + +When they were gone, the Father of the Marshalsea was at first +inclined to sink into despondency again, and would have done so, +but that a gentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to +attend him to the Snuggery. It was the gentleman Clennam had seen +on the night of his own accidental detention there, who had that +impalpable grievance about the misappropriated Fund on which the +Marshal was supposed to batten. He presented himself as deputation +to escort the Father to the Chair, it being an occasion on which he +had promised to preside over the assembled Collegians in the +enjoyment of a little Harmony. + +'Such, you see, Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'are the +incongruities of my position here. But a public duty! No man, I +am sure, would more readily recognise a public duty than yourself.' + +Clennam besought him not to delay a moment. +'Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr Clennam to stay longer, I can +leave the honours of our poor apology for an establishment with +confidence in your hands, and perhaps you may do something towards +erasing from Mr Clennam's mind the--ha--untoward and unpleasant +circumstance which has occurred since tea-time.' + +Clennam assured him that it had made no impression on his mind, and +therefore required no erasure. + +'My dear sir,' said the Father, with a removal of his black cap and +a grasp of Clennam's hand, combining to express the safe receipt of +his note and enclosure that afternoon, 'Heaven ever bless you!' + +So, at last, Clennam's purpose in remaining was attained, and he +could speak to Little Dorrit with nobody by. Maggy counted as +nobody, and she was by. + + + + +CHAPTER 32 + +More Fortune-Telling + + +Maggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of +opaque frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to +spare), and her serviceable eye brought to bear upon her +occupation, on the window side of the room. What with her flapping +cap, and what with her unserviceable eye, she was quite partitioned +off from her Little Mother, whose seat was opposite the window. +The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement of the yard had much +diminished since the taking of the Chair, the tide of Collegians +having set strongly in the direction of Harmony. Some few who had +no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled +about; and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife and the depressed +unseasoned prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs +and such unsightly discomforts draggle in corners of other places. +It was the quietest time the College knew, saving the night hours +when the Collegians took the benefit of the act of sleep. The +occasional rattle of applause upon the tables of the Snuggery, +denoted the successful termination of a morsel of Harmony; or the +responsive acceptance, by the united children, of some toast or +sentiment offered to them by their Father. Occasionally, a vocal +strain more sonorous than the generality informed the listener that +some boastful bass was in blue water, or in the hunting field, or +with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among the heather; but +the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got him hard and +fast. + +As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, +she trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam +gently put his hand upon her work, and said, 'Dear Little Dorrit, +let me lay it down.' + +She yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then +nervously clasping together, but he took one of them. +'How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit!' + +'I have been busy, sir.' + +'But I heard only to-day,' said Clennam, 'by mere accident, of your +having been with those good people close by me. Why not come to +me, then?' + +'I--I don't know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You +generally are now, are you not?' + +He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the +eyes that drooped the moment they were raised to his--he saw them +almost with as much concern as tenderness. + +'My child, your manner is so changed!' + +The trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing +her hand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with +her head bent and her whole form trembling. + +'My own Little Dorrit,' said Clennam, compassionately. + +She burst into tears. Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared +for at least a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some +little while before he spoke again. + +'I cannot bear,' he said then, 'to see you weep; but I hope this is +a relief to an overcharged heart.' + +'Yes it is, sir. Nothing but that.' + +'Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here +just now. It is of no moment; not the least. I am only +unfortunate to have come in the way. Let it go by with these +tears. It is not worth one of them. One of them? Such an idle +thing should be repeated, with my glad consent, fifty times a day, +to save you a moment's heart-ache, Little Dorrit.' + +She had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual +manner, 'You are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it +to be sorry for and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you--' + +'Hush!' said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand. +'Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be +new indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never +was, anything but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You +remember it, don't you?' + +'I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when +my mistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in +this place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!' +In raising her eyes with these words, she observed his face more +nearly than she had done yet, and said, with a quick change of +tone, 'You have not been ill, Mr Clennam?' + +'No.' + +'Nor tried? Nor hurt?' she asked him, anxiously. + +It fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He +said in reply: + +'To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over. + +Do I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self- +command than that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you. +Who could teach me better!' + +He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. +He never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes +that looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers. + +'But it brings me to something that I wish to say,' he continued, +'and therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling +tales and being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and +pleasure to confide in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess then, +that, forgetting how grave I was, and how old I was, and how the +time for such things had gone by me with the many years of sameness +and little happiness that made up my long life far away, without +marking it--that, forgetting all this, I fancied I loved some one.' + +'Do I know her, sir?' asked Little Dorrit. + +'No, my child.' + +'Not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?' + +'Flora. No, no. Do you think--' + +'I never quite thought so,' said Little Dorrit, more to herself +than him. 'I did wonder at it a little.' + +'Well!' said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him +in the avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an +older man, who had done with that tender part of life, 'I found out +my mistake, and I thought about it a little--in short, a good +deal--and got wiser. Being wiser, I counted up my years and +considered what I am, and looked back, and looked forward, and +found that I should soon be grey. I found that I had climbed the +hill, and passed the level ground upon the top, and was descending +quickly.' + +If he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient +heart, in speaking thus! While doing it, too, with the purpose of +easing and serving her. + +'I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful +in me, or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me or any one in +connection with me, was gone, and would never shine again.' + +O! If he had known, if he had known! If he could have seen the +dagger in his hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful +bleeding breast of his Little Dorrit! + +'All that is over, and I have turned my face from it. Why do I +speak of this to Little Dorrit? Why do I show you, my child, the +space of years that there is between us, and recall to you that I +have passed, by the amount of your whole life, the time that is +present to you?' + +'Because you trust me, I hope. Because you know that nothing can +touch you without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or +unhappy, but it must make me, who am so grateful to you, the same.' + +He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw +her clear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have +joyfully thrown itself before him to receive a mortal wound +directed at his breast, with the dying cry, 'I love him!' and the +remotest suspicion of the truth never dawned upon his mind. No. +He saw the devoted little creature with her worn shoes, in her +common dress, in her jail-home; a slender child in body, a strong +heroine in soul; and the light of her domestic story made all else +dark to him. + +'For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too. +So far removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better +fitted for your friend and adviser. I mean, I am the more easily +to be trusted; and any little constraint that you might feel with +another, may vanish before me. Why have you kept so retired from +me? Tell me.' + +'I am better here. My place and use are here. I am much better +here,' said Little Dorrit, faintly. + +'So you said that day upon the bridge. I thought of it much +afterwards. Have you no secret you could entrust to me, with hope +and comfort, if you would!' + +'Secret? No, I have no secret,' said Little Dorrit in some +trouble. + +They had been speaking in low voices; more because it was natural +to what they said to adopt that tone, than with any care to reserve +it from Maggy at her work. All of a sudden Maggy stared again, and +this time spoke: + +'I say! Little Mother!' + +'Yes, Maggy.' + +'If you an't got no secret of your own to tell him, tell him that +about the Princess. She had a secret, you know.' + +'The Princess had a secret?' said Clennam, in some surprise. 'What +Princess was that, Maggy?' + +'Lor! How you do go and bother a gal of ten,' said Maggy, +'catching the poor thing up in that way. Whoever said the Princess +had a secret? _I_ never said so.' + +'I beg your pardon. I thought you did.' + +'No, I didn't. How could I, when it was her as wanted to find it +out? It was the little woman as had the secret, and she was always +a spinning at her wheel. And so she says to her, why do you keep +it there? And so the t'other one says to her, no I don't; and so +the t'other one says to her, yes you do; and then they both goes to +the cupboard, and there it is. And she wouldn't go into the +Hospital, and so she died. You know, Little Mother; tell him that. + +For it was a reg'lar good secret, that was!' cried Maggy, hugging +herself. + +Arthur looked at Little Dorrit for help to comprehend this, and was +struck by seeing her so timid and red. But, when she told him that +it was only a Fairy Tale she had one day made up for Maggy, and +that there was nothing in it which she wouldn't be ashamed to tell +again to anybody else, even if she could remember it, he left the +subject where it was. + +However, he returned to his own subject by first entreating her to +see him oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a +stronger interest in her welfare than he had, or to be more set +upon promoting it than he was. When she answered fervently, she +well knew that, she never forgot it, he touched upon his second and +more delicate point--the suspicion he had formed. + +'Little Dorrit,' he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower +than he had spoken yet, so that even Maggy in the small room could +not hear him, 'another word. I have wanted very much to say this +to you; I have tried for opportunities. Don't mind me, who, for +the matter of years, might be your father or your uncle. Always +think of me as quite an old man. I know that all your devotion +centres in this room, and that nothing to the last will ever tempt +you away from the duties you discharge here. If I were not sure of +it, I should, before now, have implored you, and implored your +father, to let me make some provision for you in a more suitable +place. But you may have an interest--I will not say, now, though +even that might be--may have, at another time, an interest in some +one else; an interest not incompatible with your affection here.' + +She was very, very pale, and silently shook her head. + +'It may be, dear Little Dorrit.' + +'No. No. No.' She shook her head, after each slow repetition of +the word, with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long +afterwards. The time came when he remembered it well, long +afterwards, within those prison walls; within that very room. + +'But, if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child. Entrust the +truth to me, point out the object of such an interest to me, and I +will try with all the zeal, and honour, and friendship and respect +that I feel for you, good Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a +lasting service.' + +'O thank you, thank you! But, O no, O no, O no!' She said this, +looking at him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the +same resigned accents as before. + +'I press for no confidence now. I only ask you to repose +unhesitating trust in me.' + +'Can I do less than that, when you are so good!' + +'Then you will trust me fully? Will have no secret unhappiness, or +anxiety, concealed from me?' + +'Almost none.' + +'And you have none now?' + +She shook her head. But she was very pale. + +'When I lie down to-night, and my thoughts come back--as they will, +for they do every night, even when I have not seen you--to this sad +place, I may believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, +and its usual occupants, which preys on Little Dorrit's mind?' + +She seemed to catch at these words--that he remembered, too, long +afterwards--and said, more brightly, 'Yes, Mr Clennam; yes, you +may!' + +The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one +was coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a +further sound was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with +more steam than it knew what to do with, were working towards the +room. As it approached, which it did very rapidly, it laboured +with increased energy; and, after knocking at the door, it sounded +as if it were stooping down and snorting in at the keyhole. + +Before Maggy could open the door, Mr Pancks, opening it from +without, stood without a hat and with his bare head in the wildest +condition, looking at Clennam and Little Dorrit, over her shoulder. + +He had a lighted cigar in his hand, and brought with him airs of +ale and tobacco smoke. + +'Pancks the gipsy,' he observed out of breath, 'fortune-telling.' +He stood dingily smiling, and breathing hard at them, with a most +curious air; as if, instead of being his proprietor's grubber, he +were the triumphant proprietor of the Marshalsea, the Marshal, all +the turnkeys, and all the Collegians. In his great self- +satisfaction he put his cigar to his lips (being evidently no +smoker), and took such a pull at it, with his right eye shut up +tight for the purpose, that he underwent a convulsion of shuddering +and choking. But even in the midst of that paroxysm, he still +essayed to repeat his favourite introduction of himself, 'Pa-ancks +the gi-ipsy, fortune-telling.' + +'I am spending the evening with the rest of 'em,' said Pancks. +'I've been singing. I've been taking a part in White sand and grey +sand. I don't know anything about it. Never mind. I'll take any +part in anything. It's all the same, if you're loud enough.' + +At first Clennam supposed him to be intoxicated. But he soon +perceived that though he might be a little the worse (or better) +for ale, the staple of his excitement was not brewed from malt, or +distilled from any grain or berry. + +'How d'ye do, Miss Dorrit?' said Pancks. 'I thought you wouldn't +mind my running round, and looking in for a moment. Mr Clennam I +heard was here, from Mr Dorrit. How are you, Sir?' + +Clennam thanked him, and said he was glad to see him so gay. + +'Gay!' said Pancks. 'I'm in wonderful feather, sir. I can't stop +a minute, or I shall be missed, and I don't want 'em to miss me.-- +Eh, Miss Dorrit?' + +He seemed to have an insatiate delight in appealing to her and +looking at her; excitedly sticking his hair up at the same moment, +like a dark species of cockatoo. + +'I haven't been here half an hour. I knew Mr Dorrit was in the +chair, and I said, "I'll go and support him!" I ought to be down in +Bleeding Heart Yard by rights; but I can worry them to-morrow.--Eh, +Miss Dorrit?' + +His little black eyes sparkled electrically. His very hair seemed +to sparkle as he roughened it. He was in that highly-charged state +that one might have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by +presenting a knuckle to any part of his figure. + +'Capital company here,' said Pancks.--'Eh, Miss Dorrit?' + + +She was half afraid of him, and irresolute what to say. He +laughed, with a nod towards Clennam. + +'Don't mind him, Miss Dorrit. He's one of us. We agreed that you +shouldn't take on to mind me before people, but we didn't mean Mr +Clennam. He's one of us. He's in it. An't you, Mr Clennam?--Eh, +Miss Dorrit?' +The excitement of this strange creature was fast communicating +itself to Clennam. Little Dorrit with amazement, saw this, and +observed that they exchanged quick looks. + +'I was making a remark,' said Pancks, 'but I declare I forget what +it was. Oh, I know! Capital company here. I've been treating 'em +all round.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?' + +'Very generous of you,' she returned, noticing another of the quick +looks between the two. + +'Not at all,' said Pancks. 'Don't mention it. I'm coming into my +property, that's the fact. I can afford to be liberal. I think +I'll give 'em a treat here. Tables laid in the yard. Bread in +stacks. Pipes in faggots. Tobacco in hayloads. Roast beef and +plum-pudding for every one. Quart of double stout a head. Pint of +wine too, if they like it, and the authorities give permission.-- +Eh, Miss Dorrit?' + +She was thrown into such a confusion by his manner, or rather by +Clennam's growing understanding of his manner (for she looked to +him after every fresh appeal and cockatoo demonstration on the part +of Mr Pancks), that she only moved her lips in answer, without +forming any word. + +'And oh, by-the-bye!' said Pancks, 'you were to live to know what +was behind us on that little hand of yours. And so you shall, you +shall, my darling.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?' + +He had suddenly checked himself. Where he got all the additional +black prongs from, that now flew up all over his head like the +myriads of points that break out in the large change of a great +firework, was a wonderful mystery. + +'But I shall be missed;' he came back to that; 'and I don't want +'em to miss me. Mr Clennam, you and I made a bargain. I said you +should find me stick to it. You shall find me stick to it now, +sir, if you'll step out of the room a moment. Miss Dorrit, I wish +you good night. Miss Dorrit, I wish you good fortune.' + +He rapidly shook her by both hands, and puffed down stairs. Arthur +followed him with such a hurried step, that he had very nearly +tumbled over him on the last landing, and rolled him down into the +yard. + +'What is it, for Heaven's sake!' Arthur demanded, when they burst +out there both together. + +'Stop a moment, sir. Mr Rugg. Let me introduce him.' With those +words he presented another man without a hat, and also with a +cigar, and also surrounded with a halo of ale and tobacco smoke, +which man, though not so excited as himself, was in a state which +would have been akin to lunacy but for its fading into sober method +when compared with the rampancy of Mr Pancks. +'Mr Clennam, Mr Rugg,' said Pancks. 'Stop a moment. Come to the +pump.' + +They adjourned to the pump. Mr Pancks, instantly putting his head +under the spout, requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at +the handle. Mr Rugg complying to the letter, Mr Pancks came forth +snorting and blowing to some purpose, and dried himself on his +handkerchief. + +'I am the clearer for that,' he gasped to Clennam standing +astonished. 'But upon my soul, to hear her father making speeches +in that chair, knowing what we know, and to see her up in that room +in that dress, knowing what we know, is enough to--give me a back, +Mr Rugg--a little higher, sir,--that'll do!' + +Then and there, on that Marshalsea pavement, in the shades of +evening, did Mr Pancks, of all mankind, fly over the head and +shoulders of Mr Rugg of Pentonville, General Agent, Accountant, and +Recoverer of Debts. Alighting on his feet, he took Clennam by the +button-hole, led him behind the pump, and pantingly produced from +his pocket a bundle of papers. Mr Rugg, also, pantingly produced +from his pocket a bundle of papers. + +'Stay!' said Clennam in a whisper.'You have made a discovery.' + +Mr Pancks answered, with an unction which there is no language to +convey, 'We rather think so.' + +'Does it implicate any one?' + +'How implicate, sir?' + +'In any suppression or wrong dealing of any kind?' + +'Not a bit of it.' + +'Thank God!' said Clennam to himself. 'Now show me.' +'You are to understand'--snorted Pancks, feverishly unfolding +papers, and speaking in short high-pressure blasts of sentences, +'Where's the Pedigree? Where's Schedule number four, Mr Rugg? Oh! + +all right! Here we are.--You are to understand that we are this +very day virtually complete. We shan't be legally for a day or +two. Call it at the outside a week. We've been at it night and +day for I don't know how long. Mr Rugg, you know how long? Never +mind. Don't say. You'll only confuse me. You shall tell her, Mr +Clennam. Not till we give you leave. Where's that rough total, Mr +Rugg? Oh! Here we are! There sir! That's what you'll have to +break to her. That man's your Father of the Marshalsea!' + + + + +CHAPTER 33 + +Mrs Merdle's Complaint + +Resigning herself to inevitable fate by making the best of those +people, the Miggleses, and submitting her philosophy to the draught +upon it, of which she had foreseen the likelihood in her interview +with Arthur, Mrs Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son's +marriage. In her progress to, and happy arrival at, this +resolution, she was possibly influenced, not only by her maternal +affections but by three politic considerations. + +Of these, the first may have been that her son had never signified +the smallest intention to ask her consent, or any mistrust of his +ability to dispense with it; the second, that the pension bestowed +upon her by a grateful country (and a Barnacle) would be freed from +any little filial inroads, when her Henry should be married to the +darling only child of a man in very easy circumstances; the third, +that Henry's debts must clearly be paid down upon the altar-railing +by his father-in-law. When, to these three-fold points of prudence +there is added the fact that Mrs Gowan yielded her consent the +moment she knew of Mr Meagles having yielded his, and that Mr +Meagles's objection to the marriage had been the sole obstacle in +its way all along, it becomes the height of probability that the +relict of the deceased Commissioner of nothing particular, turned +these ideas in her sagacious mind. + +Among her connections and acquaintances, however, she maintained +her individual dignity and the dignity of the blood of the +Barnacles, by diligently nursing the pretence that it was a most +unfortunate business; that she was sadly cut up by it; that this +was a perfect fascination under which Henry laboured; that she had +opposed it for a long time, but what could a mother do; and the +like. She had already called Arthur Clennam to bear witness to +this fable, as a friend of the Meagles family; and she followed up +the move by now impounding the family itself for the same purpose. +In the first interview she accorded to Mr Meagles, she slided +herself into the position of disconsolately but gracefully yielding +to irresistible pressure. With the utmost politeness and good- +breeding, she feigned that it was she--not he--who had made the +difficulty, and who at length gave way; and that the sacrifice was +hers--not his. The same feint, with the same polite dexterity, she +foisted on Mrs Meagles, as a conjuror might have forced a card on +that innocent lady; and, when her future daughter-in-law was +presented to her by her son, she said on embracing her, 'My dear, +what have you done to Henry that has bewitched him so!' at the same +time allowing a few tears to carry before them, in little pills, +the cosmetic powder on her nose; as a delicate but touching signal +that she suffered much inwardly for the show of composure with +which she bore her misfortune. + +Among the friends of Mrs Gowan (who piqued herself at once on being +Society, and on maintaining intimate and easy relations with that +Power), Mrs Merdle occupied a front row. True, the Hampton Court +Bohemians, without exception, turned up their noses at Merdle as an +upstart; but they turned them down again, by falling flat on their +faces to worship his wealth. In which compensating adjustment of +their noses, they were pretty much like Treasury, Bar, and Bishop, +and all the rest of them. + +To Mrs Merdle, Mrs Gowan repaired on a visit of self-condolence, +after having given the gracious consent aforesaid. She drove into +town for the purpose in a one-horse carriage irreverently called at +that period of English history, a pill-box. It belonged to a job- +master in a small way, who drove it himself, and who jobbed it by +the day, or hour, to most of the old ladies in Hampton Court +Palace; but it was a point of ceremony, in that encampment, that +the whole equipage should be tacitly regarded as the private +property of the jobber for the time being, and that the job-master +should betray personal knowledge of nobody but the jobber in +possession. So the Circumlocution Barnacles, who were the largest +job-masters in the universe, always pretended to know of no other +job but the job immediately in hand. + +Mrs Merdle was at home, and was in her nest of crimson and gold, +with the parrot on a neighbouring stem watching her with his head +on one side, as if he took her for another splendid parrot of a +larger species. To whom entered Mrs Gowan, with her favourite +green fan, which softened the light on the spots of bloom. + +'My dear soul,' said Mrs Gowan, tapping the back of her friend's +hand with this fan after a little indifferent conversation, 'you +are my only comfort. That affair of Henry's that I told you of, is +to take place. Now, how does it strike you? I am dying to know, +because you represent and express Society so well.' + +Mrs Merdle reviewed the bosom which Society was accustomed to +review; and having ascertained that show-window of Mr Merdle's and +the London jewellers' to be in good order, replied: + +'As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires +that he should retrieve his fortunes by marriage. Society requires +that he should gain by marriage. Society requires that he should +found a handsome establishment by marriage. Society does not see, +otherwise, what he has to do with marriage. Bird, be quiet!' + +For the parrot on his cage above them, presiding over the +conference as if he were a judge (and indeed he looked rather like +one), had wound up the exposition with a shriek. + +'Cases there are,' said Mrs Merdle, delicately crooking the little +finger of her favourite hand, and making her remarks neater by that +neat action; 'cases there are where a man is not young or elegant, +and is rich, and has a handsome establishment already. Those are +of a different kind. In such cases--' + +Mrs Merdle shrugged her snowy shoulders and put her hand upon the +jewel-stand, checking a little cough, as though to add, 'why, a man +looks out for this sort of thing, my dear.' Then the parrot +shrieked again, and she put up her glass to look at him, and said, +'Bird! Do be quiet!' +'But, young men,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'and by young men you know +what I mean, my love--I mean people's sons who have the world +before them--they must place themselves in a better position +towards Society by marriage, or Society really will not have any +patience with their making fools of themselves. Dreadfully worldly +all this sounds,' said Mrs Merdle, leaning back in her nest and +putting up her glass again, 'does it not?' + +'But it is true,' said Mrs Gowan, with a highly moral air. + +'My dear, it is not to be disputed for a moment,' returned Mrs +Merdle; 'because Society has made up its mind on the subject, and +there is nothing more to be said. If we were in a more primitive +state, if we lived under roofs of leaves, and kept cows and sheep +and creatures instead of banker's accounts (which would be +delicious; my dear, I am pastoral to a degree, by nature), well and +good. But we don't live under leaves, and keep cows and sheep and +creatures. I perfectly exhaust myself sometimes, in pointing out +the distinction to Edmund Sparkler.' + +Mrs Gowan, looking over her green fan when this young gentleman's +name was mentioned, replied as follows: + +'My love, you know the wretched state of the country--those +unfortunate concessions of John Barnacle's!--and you therefore know +the reasons for my being as poor as Thingummy.' + +'A church mouse?' Mrs Merdle suggested with a smile. + +'I was thinking of the other proverbial church person--Job,' said +Mrs Gowan. 'Either will do. It would be idle to disguise, +consequently, that there is a wide difference between the position +of your son and mine. I may add, too, that Henry has talent--' + +'Which Edmund certainly has not,' said Mrs Merdle, with the +greatest suavity. + +'--and that his talent, combined with disappointment,' Mrs Gowan +went on, 'has led him into a pursuit which--ah dear me! You know, +my dear. Such being Henry's different position, the question is +what is the most inferior class of marriage to which I can +reconcile myself.' + +Mrs Merdle was so much engaged with the contemplation of her arms +(beautiful-formed arms, and the very thing for bracelets), that she +omitted to reply for a while. Roused at length by the silence, she +folded the arms, and with admirable presence of mind looked her +friend full in the face, and said interrogatively, 'Ye-es? And +then?' + +'And then, my dear,' said Mrs Gowan not quite so sweetly as before, +'I should be glad to hear what you have to say to it.' + +Here the parrot, who had been standing on one leg since he screamed +last, burst into a fit of laughter, bobbed himself derisively up +and down on both legs, and finished by standing on one leg again, +and pausing for a reply, with his head as much awry as he could +possibly twist it. + +'Sounds mercenary to ask what the gentleman is to get with the +lady,' said Mrs Merdle; 'but Society is perhaps a little mercenary, +you know, my dear.' + +'From what I can make out,' said Mrs Gowan, 'I believe I may say +that Henry will be relieved from debt--' + +'Much in debt?' asked Mrs Merdle through her eyeglass. + +'Why tolerably, I should think,' said Mrs Gowan. + +'Meaning the usual thing; I understand; just so,' Mrs Merdle +observed in a comfortable sort of way. + +'And that the father will make them an allowance of three hundred +a-year, or perhaps altogether something more, which, in Italy-' + +'Oh! Going to Italy?' said Mrs Merdle. + +'For Henry to study. You need be at no loss to guess why, my dear. + +That dreadful Art--' + +True. Mrs Merdle hastened to spare the feelings of her afflicted +friend. She understood. Say no more! + +'And that,' said Mrs Gowan, shaking her despondent head, 'that's +all. That,' repeated Mrs Gowan, furling her green fan for the +moment, and tapping her chin with it (it was on the way to being a +double chin; might be called a chin and a half at present), 'that's +all! On the death of the old people, I suppose there will be more +to come; but how it may be restricted or locked up, I don't know. +And as to that, they may live for ever. My dear, they are just the +kind of people to do it.' + +Now, Mrs Merdle, who really knew her friend Society pretty well, +and who knew what Society's mothers were, and what Society's +daughters were, and what Society's matrimonial market was, and how +prices ruled in it, and what scheming and counter-scheming took +place for the high buyers, and what bargaining and huckstering went +on, thought in the depths of her capacious bosom that this was a +sufficiently good catch. Knowing, however, what was expected of +her, and perceiving the exact nature of the fiction to be nursed, +she took it delicately in her arms, and put her required +contribution of gloss upon it. + +'And that is all, my dear?' said she, heaving a friendly sigh. +'Well, well! The fault is not yours. You have nothing to reproach +yourself with. You must exercise the strength of mind for which +you are renowned, and make the best of it.' +'The girl's family have made,' said Mrs Gowan, 'of course, the most +strenuous endeavours to--as the lawyers say--to have and to hold +Henry.' + +'Of course they have, my dear,' said Mrs Merdle. + +'I have persisted in every possible objection, and have worried +myself morning, noon, and night, for means to detach Henry from the +connection.' + +'No doubt you have, my dear,' said Mrs Merdle. + +'And all of no use. All has broken down beneath me. Now tell me, +my love. Am I justified in at last yielding my most reluctant +consent to Henry's marrying among people not in Society; or, have +I acted with inexcusable weakness?' + +In answer to this direct appeal, Mrs Merdle assured Mrs Gowan +(speaking as a Priestess of Society) that she was highly to be +commended, that she was much to be sympathised with, that she had +taken the highest of parts, and had come out of the furnace +refined. And Mrs Gowan, who of course saw through her own +threadbare blind perfectly, and who knew that Mrs Merdle saw +through it perfectly, and who knew that Society would see through +it perfectly, came out of this form, notwithstanding, as she had +gone into it, with immense complacency and gravity. + +The conference was held at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, +when all the region of Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was +resonant of carriage-wheels and double-knocks. It had reached this +point when Mr Merdle came home from his daily occupation of causing +the British name to be more and more respected in all parts of the +civilised globe capable of the appreciation of world-wide +commercial enterprise and gigantic combinations of skill and +capital. For, though nobody knew with the least precision what Mr +Merdle's business was, except that it was to coin money, these were +the terms in which everybody defined it on all ceremonious +occasions, and which it was the last new polite reading of the +parable of the camel and the needle's eye to accept without +inquiry. + +For a gentleman who had this splendid work cut out for him, Mr +Merdle looked a little common, and rather as if, in the course of +his vast transactions, he had accidentally made an interchange of +heads with some inferior spirit. He presented himself before the +two ladies in the course of a dismal stroll through his mansion, +which had no apparent object but escape from the presence of the +chief butler. + +'I beg your pardon,' he said, stopping short in confusion; 'I +didn't know there was anybody here but the parrot.' + +However, as Mrs Merdle said, 'You can come in!' and as Mrs Gowan +said she was just going, and had already risen to take her leave, +he came in, and stood looking out at a distant window, with his +hands crossed under his uneasy coat-cuffs, clasping his wrists as +if he were taking himself into custody. In this attitude he fell +directly into a reverie from which he was only aroused by his +wife's calling to him from her ottoman, when they had been for some +quarter of an hour alone. + +'Eh? Yes?' said Mr Merdle, turning towards her. 'What is it?' + +'What is it?' repeated Mrs Merdle. 'It is, I suppose, that you +have not heard a word of my complaint.' + +'Your complaint, Mrs Merdle?' said Mr Merdle. 'I didn't know that +you were suffering from a complaint. What complaint?' + +'A complaint of you,' said Mrs Merdle. + +'Oh! A complaint of me,' said Mr Merdle. 'What is the--what have +I--what may you have to complain of in me, Mrs Merdle?' In his +withdrawing, abstracted, pondering way, it took him some time to +shape this question. As a kind of faint attempt to convince +himself that he was the master of the house, he concluded by +presenting his forefinger to the parrot, who expressed his opinion +on that subject by instantly driving his bill into it. + +'You were saying, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle, with his wounded +finger in his mouth, 'that you had a complaint against me?' + +'A complaint which I could scarcely show the justice of more +emphatically, than by having to repeat it,' said Mrs Merdle. 'I +might as well have stated it to the wall. I had far better have +stated it to the bird. He would at least have screamed.' + +'You don't want me to scream, Mrs Merdle, I suppose,' said Mr +Merdle, taking a chair. + +'Indeed I don't know,' retorted Mrs Merdle, 'but that you had +better do that, than be so moody and distraught. One would at +least know that you were sensible of what was going on around you.' + +'A man might scream, and yet not be that, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr +Merdle, heavily. + +'And might be dogged, as you are at present, without screaming,' +returned Mrs Merdle. 'That's very true. If you wish to know the +complaint I make against you, it is, in so many plain words, that +you really ought not to go into Society unless you can accommodate +yourself to Society.' + +Mr Merdle, so twisting his hands into what hair he had upon his +head that he seemed to lift himself up by it as he started out of +his chair, cried: +'Why, in the name of all the infernal powers, Mrs Merdle, who does +more for Society than I do? Do you see these premises, Mrs Merdle? + +Do you see this furniture, Mrs Merdle? Do you look in the glass +and see yourself, Mrs Merdle? Do you know the cost of all this, +and who it's all provided for? And yet will you tell me that I +oughtn't to go into Society? I, who shower money upon it in this +way? I, who might always be said--to--to--to harness myself to a +watering-cart full of money, and go about saturating Society every +day of my life.' + +'Pray, don't be violent, Mr Merdle,' said Mrs Merdle. + +'Violent?' said Mr Merdle. 'You are enough to make me desperate. +You don't know half of what I do to accommodate Society. You don't +know anything of the sacrifices I make for it.' + +'I know,' returned Mrs Merdle, 'that you receive the best in the +land. I know that you move in the whole Society of the country. +And I believe I know (indeed, not to make any ridiculous pretence +about it, I know I know) who sustains you in it, Mr Merdle.' + +'Mrs Merdle,' retorted that gentleman, wiping his dull red and +yellow face, 'I know that as well as you do. If you were not an +ornament to Society, and if I was not a benefactor to Society, you +and I would never have come together. When I say a benefactor to +it, I mean a person who provides it with all sorts of expensive +things to eat and drink and look at. But, to tell me that I am not +fit for it after all I have done for it--after all I have done for +it,' repeated Mr Merdle, with a wild emphasis that made his wife +lift up her eyelids, 'after all--all!--to tell me I have no right +to mix with it after all, is a pretty reward.' + +'I say,' answered Mrs Merdle composedly, 'that you ought to make +yourself fit for it by being more degage, and less preoccupied. +There is a positive vulgarity in carrying your business affairs +about with you as you do.' +'How do I carry them about, Mrs Merdle?' asked Mr Merdle. + +'How do you carry them about?' said Mrs Merdle. 'Look at yourself +in the glass.' + +Mr Merdle involuntarily turned his eyes in the direction of the +nearest mirror, and asked, with a slow determination of his turbid +blood to his temples, whether a man was to be called to account for +his digestion? + +'You have a physician,' said Mrs Merdle. + +'He does me no good,' said Mr Merdle. + +Mrs Merdle changed her ground. + +'Besides,' said she, 'your digestion is nonsense. I don't speak of +your digestion. I speak of your manner.' +'Mrs Merdle,' returned her husband, 'I look to you for that. You +supply manner, and I supply money.' + +'I don't expect you,' said Mrs Merdle, reposing easily among her +cushions, 'to captivate people. I don't want you to take any +trouble upon yourself, or to try to be fascinating. I simply +request you to care about nothing--or seem to care about nothing-- +as everybody else does.' + +'Do I ever say I care about anything?' asked Mr Merdle. + +'Say? No! Nobody would attend to you if you did. But you show +it.' + +'Show what? What do I show?' demanded Mr Merdle hurriedly. + +'I have already told you. You show that you carry your business +cares an projects about, instead of leaving them in the City, or +wherever else they belong to,' said Mrs Merdle. 'Or seeming to. +Seeming would be quite enough: I ask no more. Whereas you couldn't +be more occupied with your day's calculations and combinations than +you habitually show yourself to be, if you were a carpenter.' + +'A carpenter!' repeated Mr Merdle, checking something like a groan. + +'I shouldn't so much mind being a carpenter, Mrs Merdle.' + +'And my complaint is,' pursued the lady, disregarding the low +remark, 'that it is not the tone of Society, and that you ought to +correct it, Mr Merdle. If you have any doubt of my judgment, ask +even Edmund Sparkler.' The door of the room had opened, and Mrs +Merdle now surveyed the head of her son through her glass. +'Edmund; we want you here.' + +Mr Sparkler, who had merely put in his head and looked round the +room without entering (as if he were searching the house for that +young lady with no nonsense about her), upon this followed up his +head with his body, and stood before them. To whom, in a few easy +words adapted to his capacity, Mrs Merdle stated the question at +issue. + +The young gentleman, after anxiously feeling his shirt-collar as if +it were his pulse and he were hypochondriacal, observed, 'That he +had heard it noticed by fellers.' + +'Edmund Sparkler has heard it noticed,' said Mrs Merdle, with +languid triumph. 'Why, no doubt everybody has heard it noticed!' +Which in truth was no unreasonable inference; seeing that Mr +Sparkler would probably be the last person, in any assemblage of +the human species, to receive an impression from anything that +passed in his presence. + +'And Edmund Sparkler will tell you, I dare say,' said Mrs Merdle, +waving her favourite hand towards her husband, 'how he has heard it +noticed.' +'I couldn't,' said Mr Sparkler, after feeling his pulse as before, +'couldn't undertake to say what led to it--'cause memory desperate +loose. But being in company with the brother of a doosed fine +gal--well educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her--at the +period alluded to--' + +'There! Never mind the sister,' remarked Mrs Merdle, a little +impatiently. 'What did the brother say?' + +'Didn't say a word, ma'am,' answered Mr Sparkler. 'As silent a +feller as myself. Equally hard up for a remark.' + +'Somebody said something,' returned Mrs Merdle. 'Never mind who it +was.' + +('Assure you I don't in the least,' said Mr Sparkler.) + + +'But tell us what it was.' + +Mr Sparkler referred to his pulse again, and put himself through +some severe mental discipline before he replied: + +'Fellers referring to my Governor--expression not my own-- +occasionally compliment my Governor in a very handsome way on being +immensely rich and knowing--perfect phenomenon of Buyer and Banker +and that--but say the Shop sits heavily on him. Say he carried the +Shop about, on his back rather--like Jew clothesmen with too much +business.' + +'Which,' said Mrs Merdle, rising, with her floating drapery about +her, 'is exactly my complaint. Edmund, give me your arm up- +stairs.' + +Mr Merdle, left alone to meditate on a better conformation of +himself to Society, looked out of nine windows in succession, and +appeared to see nine wastes of space. When he had thus entertained +himself he went down-stairs, and looked intently at all the carpets +on the ground-floor; and then came up-stairs again, and looked +intently at all the carpets on the first-floor; as if they were +gloomy depths, in unison with his oppressed soul. Through all the +rooms he wandered, as he always did, like the last person on earth +who had any business to approach them. Let Mrs Merdle announce, +with all her might, that she was at Home ever so many nights in a +season, she could not announce more widely and unmistakably than Mr +Merdle did that he was never at home. + +At last he met the chief butler, the sight of which splendid +retainer always finished him. Extinguished by this great creature, +he sneaked to his dressing-room, and there remained shut up until +he rode out to dinner, with Mrs Merdle, in her own handsome +chariot. At dinner, he was envied and flattered as a being of +might, was Treasuried, Barred, and Bishoped, as much as he would; +and an hour after midnight came home alone, and being instantly put +out again in his own hall, like a rushlight, by the chief butler, +went sighing to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER 34 + +A Shoal of Barnacles + + +Mr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the +cottage, and the day was fixed for the wedding. There was to be a +convocation of Barnacles on the occasion, in order that that very +high and very large family might shed as much lustre on the +marriage as so dim an event was capable of receiving. + +To have got the whole Barnacle family together would have been +impossible for two reasons. Firstly, because no building could +have held all the members and connections of that illustrious +house. Secondly, because wherever there was a square yard of +ground in British occupation under the sun or moon, with a public +post upon it, sticking to that post was a Barnacle. No intrepid +navigator could plant a flag-staff upon any spot of earth, and take +possession of it in the British name, but to that spot of earth, so +soon as the discovery was known, the Circumlocution Office sent out +a Barnacle and a despatch-box. Thus the Barnacles were all over +the world, in every direction--despatch-boxing the compass. + +But, while the so-potent art of Prospero himself would have failed +in summoning the Barnacles from every speck of ocean and dry land +on which there was nothing (except mischief) to be done and +anything to be pocketed, it was perfectly feasible to assemble a +good many Barnacles. This Mrs Gowan applied herself to do; calling +on Mr Meagles frequently with new additions to the list, and +holding conferences with that gentleman when he was not engaged (as +he generally was at this period) in examining and paying the debts +of his future son-in-law, in the apartment of scales and scoops. + +One marriage guest there was, in reference to whose presence Mr +Meagles felt a nearer interest and concern than in the attendance +of the most elevated Barnacle expected; though he was far from +insensible of the honour of having such company. This guest was +Clennam. But Clennam had made a promise he held sacred, among the +trees that summer night, and, in the chivalry of his heart, +regarded it as binding him to many implied obligations. In +forgetfulness of himself, and delicate service to her on all +occasions, he was never to fail; to begin it, he answered Mr +Meagles cheerfully, 'I shall come, of course.' + +His partner, Daniel Doyce, was something of a stumbling-block in Mr +Meagles's way, the worthy gentleman being not at all clear in his +own anxious mind but that the mingling of Daniel with official +Barnacleism might produce some explosive combination, even at a +marriage breakfast. The national offender, however, lightened him +of his uneasiness by coming down to Twickenham to represent that he +begged, with the freedom of an old friend, and as a favour to one, +that he might not be invited. 'For,' said he, 'as my business with +this set of gentlemen was to do a public duty and a public service, +and as their business with me was to prevent it by wearing my soul +out, I think we had better not eat and drink together with a show +of being of one mind.' Mr Meagles was much amused by his friend's +oddity; and patronised him with a more protecting air of allowance +than usual, when he rejoined: 'Well, well, Dan, you shall have your +own crotchety way.' + +To Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey +by all quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and +disinterestedly desirous of tendering him any friendship he would +accept. Mr Gowan treated him in return with his usual ease, and +with his usual show of confidence, which was no confidence at all. + +'You see, Clennam,' he happened to remark in the course of +conversation one day, when they were walking near the Cottage +within a week of the marriage, 'I am a disappointed man. That you +know already.' + +'Upon my word,' said Clennam, a little embarrassed, 'I scarcely +know how.' + +'Why,' returned Gowan, 'I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a +family, or a connection, or whatever you like to call it, that +might have provided for me in any one of fifty ways, and that took +it into its head not to do it at all. So here I am, a poor devil +of an artist.' + +Clennam was beginning, 'But on the other hand--' when Gowan took +him up. + +'Yes, yes, I know. I have the good fortune of being beloved by a +beautiful and charming girl whom I love with all my heart.' +('Is there much of it?' Clennam thought. And as he thought it, +felt ashamed of himself.) + +'And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a +liberal good old boy. Still, I had other prospects washed and +combed into my childish head when it was washed and combed for me, +and I took them to a public school when I washed and combed it for +myself, and I am here without them, and thus I am a disappointed +man.' + +Clennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of +himself), was this notion of being disappointed in life, an +assertion of station which the bridegroom brought into the family +as his property, having already carried it detrimentally into his +pursuit? And was it a hopeful or a promising thing anywhere? + +'Not bitterly disappointed, I think,' he said aloud. +'Hang it, no; not bitterly,' laughed Gowan. 'My people are not +worth that--though they are charming fellows, and I have the +greatest affection for them. Besides, it's pleasant to show them +that I can do without them, and that they may all go to the Devil. +And besides, again, most men are disappointed in life, somehow or +other, and influenced by their disappointment. But it's a dear +good world, and I love it!' + +'It lies fair before you now,' said Arthur. + +'Fair as this summer river,' cried the other, with enthusiasm, 'and +by Jove I glow with admiration of it, and with ardour to run a race +in it. It's the best of old worlds! And my calling! The best of +old callings, isn't it?' + +'Full of interest and ambition, I conceive,' said Clennam. + +'And imposition,' added Gowan, laughing; 'we won't leave out the +imposition. I hope I may not break down in that; but there, my +being a disappointed man may show itself. I may not be able to +face it out gravely enough. Between you and me, I think there is +some danger of my being just enough soured not to be able to do +that.' + +'To do what?' asked Clennam. + +'To keep it up. To help myself in my turn, as the man before me +helps himself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke. To keep up the +pretence as to labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted +to my art, and giving up many solitary days to it, and abandoning +many pleasures for it, and living in it, and all the rest of it--in +short, to pass the bottle of smoke according to rule.' + +'But it is well for a man to respect his own vocation, whatever it +is; and to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it +the respect it deserves; is it not?' Arthur reasoned. 'And your +vocation, Gowan, may really demand this suit and service. I +confess I should have thought that all Art did.' + +'What a good fellow you are, Clennam!' exclaimed the other, +stopping to look at him, as if with irrepressible admiration. +'What a capital fellow! You have never been disappointed. That's +easy to see.' + +It would have been so cruel if he had meant it, that Clennam firmly +resolved to believe he did not mean it. Gowan, without pausing, +laid his hand upon his shoulder, and laughingly and lightly went +on: + +'Clennam, I don't like to dispel your generous visions, and I would +give any money (if I had any), to live in such a rose-coloured +mist. But what I do in my trade, I do to sell. What all we +fellows do, we do to sell. If we didn't want to sell it for the +most we can get for it, we shouldn't do it. Being work, it has to +be done; but it's easily enough done. All the rest is hocus-pocus. + +Now here's one of the advantages, or disadvantages, of knowing a +disappointed man. You hear the truth.' + +Whatever he had heard, and whether it deserved that name or +another, it sank into Clennam's mind. It so took root there, that +he began to fear Henry Gowan would always be a trouble to him, and +that so far he had gained little or nothing from the dismissal of +Nobody, with all his inconsistencies, anxieties, and +contradictions. He found a contest still always going on in his +breast between his promise to keep Gowan in none but good aspects +before the mind of Mr Meagles, and his enforced observation of +Gowan in aspects that had no good in them. Nor could he quite +support his own conscientious nature against misgivings that he +distorted and discoloured himself, by reminding himself that he +never sought those discoveries, and that he would have avoided them +with willingness and great relief. For he never could forget what +he had been; and he knew that he had once disliked Gowan for no +better reason than that he had come in his way. + +Harassed by these thoughts, he now began to wish the marriage over, +Gowan and his young wife gone, and himself left to fulfil his +promise, and discharge the generous function he had accepted. This +last week was, in truth, an uneasy interval for the whole house. +Before Pet, or before Gowan, Mr Meagles was radiant; but Clennam +had more than once found him alone, with his view of the scales and +scoop much blurred, and had often seen him look after the lovers, +in the garden or elsewhere when he was not seen by them, with the +old clouded face on which Gowan had fallen like a shadow. In the +arrangement of the house for the great occasion, many little +reminders of the old travels of the father and mother and daughter +had to be disturbed and passed from hand to hand; and sometimes, in +the midst of these mute witnesses, to the life they had had +together, even Pet herself would yield to lamenting and weeping. +Mrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest of mothers, went about +singing and cheering everybody; but she, honest soul, had her +flights into store rooms, where she would cry until her eyes were +red, and would then come out, attributing that appearance to +pickled onions and pepper, and singing clearer than ever. Mrs +Tickit, finding no balsam for a wounded mind in Buchan's Domestic +Medicine, suffered greatly from low spirits, and from moving +recollections of Minnie's infancy. When the latter was powerful +with her, she usually sent up secret messages importing that she +was not in parlour condition as to her attire, and that she +solicited a sight of 'her child' in the kitchen; there, she would +bless her child's face, and bless her child's heart, and hug her +child, in a medley of tears and congratulations, chopping-boards, +rolling-pins, and pie-crust, with the tenderness of an old attached +servant, which is a very pretty tenderness indeed. + +But all days come that are to be; and the marriage-day was to be, +and it came; and with it came all the Barnacles who were bidden to +the feast. +There was Mr Tite Barnacle, from the Circumlocution Office, and +Mews Street, Grosvenor Square, with the expensive Mrs Tite Barnacle +NEE Stiltstalking, who made the Quarter Days so long in coming, and +the three expensive Miss Tite Barnacles, double-loaded with +accomplishments and ready to go off, and yet not going off with the +sharpness of flash and bang that might have been expected, but +rather hanging fire. There was Barnacle junior, also from the +Circumlocution Office, leaving the Tonnage of the country, which he +was somehow supposed to take under his protection, to look after +itself, and, sooth to say, not at all impairing the efficiency of +its protection by leaving it alone. There was the engaging Young +Barnacle, deriving from the sprightly side of the family, also from +the Circumlocution Office, gaily and agreeably helping the occasion +along, and treating it, in his sparkling way, as one of the +official forms and fees of the Church Department of How not to do +it. There were three other Young Barnacles from three other +offices, insipid to all the senses, and terribly in want of +seasoning, doing the marriage as they would have 'done' the Nile, +Old Rome, the new singer, or Jerusalem. + +But there was greater game than this. There was Lord Decimus Tite +Barnacle himself, in the odour of Circumlocution--with the very +smell of Despatch-Boxes upon him. Yes, there was Lord Decimus Tite +Barnacle, who had risen to official heights on the wings of one +indignant idea, and that was, My Lords, that I am yet to be told +that it behoves a Minister of this free country to set bounds to +the philanthropy, to cramp the charity, to fetter the public +spirit, to contract the enterprise, to damp the independent self- +reliance, of its people. That was, in other words, that this great +statesman was always yet to be told that it behoved the Pilot of +the ship to do anything but prosper in the private loaf and fish +trade ashore, the crew being able, by dint of hard pumping, to keep +the ship above water without him. On this sublime discovery in the +great art How not to do it, Lord Decimus had long sustained the +highest glory of the Barnacle family; and let any ill-advised +member of either House but try How to do it by bringing in a Bill +to do it, that Bill was as good as dead and buried when Lord +Decimus Tite Barnacle rose up in his place and solemnly said, +soaring into indignant majesty as the Circumlocution cheering +soared around him, that he was yet to be told, My Lords, that it +behoved him as the Minister of this free country, to set bounds to +the philanthropy, to cramp the charity, to fetter the public +spirit, to contract the enterprise, to damp the independent self- +reliance, of its people. The discovery of this Behoving Machine +was the discovery of the political perpetual motion. It never wore +out, though it was always going round and round in all the State +Departments. + +And there, with his noble friend and relative Lord Decimus, was +William Barnacle, who had made the ever-famous coalition with Tudor +Stiltstalking, and who always kept ready his own particular recipe +for How not to do it; sometimes tapping the Speaker, and drawing it +fresh out of him, with a 'First, I will beg you, sir, to inform the +House what Precedent we have for the course into which the +honourable gentleman would precipitate us;' sometimes asking the +honourable gentleman to favour him with his own version of the +Precedent; sometimes telling the honourable gentleman that he +(William Barnacle) would search for a Precedent; and oftentimes +crushing the honourable gentleman flat on the spot by telling him +there was no Precedent. But Precedent and Precipitate were, under +all circumstances, the well-matched pair of battle-horses of this +able Circumlocutionist. No matter that the unhappy honourable +gentleman had been trying in vain, for twenty-five years, to +precipitate William Barnacle into this--William Barnacle still put +it to the House, and (at second-hand or so) to the country, whether +he was to be precipitated into this. No matter that it was utterly +irreconcilable with the nature of things and course of events that +the wretched honourable gentleman could possibly produce a +Precedent for this--William Barnacle would nevertheless thank the +honourable gentleman for that ironical cheer, and would close with +him upon that issue, and would tell him to his teeth that there Was +NO Precedent for this. It might perhaps have been objected that +the William Barnacle wisdom was not high wisdom or the earth it +bamboozled would never have been made, or, if made in a rash +mistake, would have remained blank mud. But Precedent and +Precipitate together frightened all objection out of most people. + +And there, too, was another Barnacle, a lively one, who had leaped +through twenty places in quick succession, and was always in two or +three at once, and who was the much-respected inventor of an art +which he practised with great success and admiration in all +Barnacle Governments. This was, when he was asked a Parliamentary +question on any one topic, to return an answer on any other. It +had done immense service, and brought him into high esteem with the +Circumlocution Office. + +And there, too, was a sprinkling of less distinguished +Parliamentary Barnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and +were going through their probation to prove their worthiness. +These Barnacles perched upon staircases and hid in passages, +waiting their orders to make houses or not to make houses; and they +did all their hearing, and ohing, and cheering, and barking, under +directions from the heads of the family; and they put dummy motions +on the paper in the way of other men's motions; and they stalled +disagreeable subjects off until late in the night and late in the +session, and then with virtuous patriotism cried out that it was +too late; and they went down into the country, whenever they were +sent, and swore that Lord Decimus had revived trade from a swoon, +and commerce from a fit, and had doubled the harvest of corn, +quadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented no end of gold from +flying out of the Bank. Also these Barnacles were dealt, by the +heads of the family, like so many cards below the court-cards, to +public meetings and dinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts +of services on the part of their noble and honourable relatives, +and buttered the Barnacles on all sorts of toasts. And they stood, +under similar orders, at all sorts of elections; and they turned +out of their own seats, on the shortest notice and the most +unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and they fetched and +carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate heaps of +dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service. And there was +not a list, in all the Circumlocution Office, of places that might +fall vacant anywhere within half a century, from a lord of the +Treasury to a Chinese consul, and up again to a governor-general of +India, but as applicants for such places, the names of some or of +every one of these hungry and adhesive Barnacles were down. + +It was necessarily but a sprinkling of any class of Barnacles that +attended the marriage, for there were not two score in all, and +what is that subtracted from Legion! But the sprinkling was a +swarm in the Twickenham cottage, and filled it. A Barnacle +(assisted by a Barnacle) married the happy pair, and it behoved +Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle himself to conduct Mrs Meagles to +breakfast. + +The entertainment was not as agreeable and natural as it might have +been. Mr Meagles, hove down by his good company while he highly +appreciated it, was not himself. Mrs Gowan was herself, and that +did not improve him. The fiction that it was not Mr Meagles who +had stood in the way, but that it was the Family greatness, and +that the Family greatness had made a concession, and there was now +a soothing unanimity, pervaded the affair, though it was never +openly expressed. Then the Barnacles felt that they for their +parts would have done with the Meagleses when the present +patronising occasion was over; and the Meagleses felt the same for +their parts. Then Gowan asserting his rights as a disappointed man +who had his grudge against the family, and who, perhaps, had +allowed his mother to have them there, as much in the hope it might +give them some annoyance as with any other benevolent object, aired +his pencil and his poverty ostentatiously before them, and told +them he hoped in time to settle a crust of bread and cheese on his +wife, and that he begged such of them as (more fortunate than +himself) came in for any good thing, and could buy a picture, to +please to remember the poor painter. Then Lord Decimus, who was a +wonder on his own Parliamentary pedestal, turned out to be the +windiest creature here: proposing happiness to the bride and +bridegroom in a series of platitudes that would have made the hair +of any sincere disciple and believer stand on end; and trotting, +with the complacency of an idiotic elephant, among howling +labyrinths of sentences which he seemed to take for high roads, and +never so much as wanted to get out of. Then Mr Tite Barnacle could +not but feel that there was a person in company, who would have +disturbed his life-long sitting to Sir Thomas Lawrence in full +official character, if such disturbance had been possible: while +Barnacle junior did, with indignation, communicate to two vapid +gentlemen, his relatives, that there was a feller here, look here, +who had come to our Department without an appointment and said he +wanted to know, you know; and that, look here, if he was to break +out now, as he might you know (for you never could tell what an +ungentlemanly Radical of that sort would be up to next), and was to +say, look here, that he wanted to know this moment, you know, that +would be jolly; wouldn't it? + +The pleasantest part of the occasion by far, to Clennam, was the +painfullest. When Mr and Mrs Meagles at last hung about Pet in the +room with the two pictures (where the company were not), before +going with her to the threshold which she could never recross to be +the old Pet and the old delight, nothing could be more natural and +simple than the three were. Gowan himself was touched, and +answered Mr Meagles's 'O Gowan, take care of her, take care of +her!' with an earnest 'Don't be so broken-hearted, sir. By Heaven +I will!' + +And so, with the last sobs and last loving words, and a last look +to Clennam of confidence in his promise, Pet fell back in the +carriage, and her husband waved his hand, and they were away for +Dover; though not until the faithful Mrs Tickit, in her silk gown +and jet black curls, had rushed out from some hiding-place, and +thrown both her shoes after the carriage: an apparition which +occasioned great surprise to the distinguished company at the +windows. + +The said company being now relieved from further attendance, and +the chief Barnacles being rather hurried (for they had it in hand +just then to send a mail or two which was in danger of going +straight to its destination, beating about the seas like the Flying +Dutchman, and to arrange with complexity for the stoppage of a good +deal of important business otherwise in peril of being done), went +their several ways; with all affability conveying to Mr and Mrs +Meagles that general assurance that what they had been doing there, +they had been doing at a sacrifice for Mr and Mrs Meagles's good, +which they always conveyed to Mr John Bull in their official +condescension to that most unfortunate creature. + +A miserable blank remained in the house and in the hearts of the +father and mother and Clennam. Mr Meagles called only one +remembrance to his aid, that really did him good. + +'It's very gratifying, Arthur,' he said, 'after all, to look back +upon.' + +'The past?' said Clennam. + +'Yes--but I mean the company.' + +It had made him much more low and unhappy at the time, but now it +really did him good. 'It's very gratifying,' he said, often +repeating the remark in the course of the evening. 'Such high +company!' + + + + +CHAPTER 35 + +What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit's Hand + + +It was at this time that Mr Pancks, in discharge of his compact +with Clennam, revealed to him the whole of his gipsy story, and +told him Little Dorrit's fortune. Her father was heir-at-law to a +great estate that had long lain unknown of, unclaimed, and +accumulating. His right was now clear, nothing interposed in his +way, the Marshalsea gates stood open, the Marshalsea walls were +down, a few flourishes of his pen, and he was extremely rich. + +In his tracking out of the claim to its complete establishment, Mr +Pancks had shown a sagacity that nothing could baffle, and a +patience and secrecy that nothing could tire. 'I little thought, +sir,' said Pancks, 'when you and I crossed Smithfield that night, +and I told you what sort of a Collector I was, that this would come +of it. I little thought, sir, when I told you you were not of the +Clennams of Cornwall, that I was ever going to tell you who were of +the Dorrits of Dorsetshire.' He then went on to detail. How, +having that name recorded in his note-book, he was first attracted +by the name alone. How, having often found two exactly similar +names, even belonging to the same place, to involve no traceable +consanguinity, near or distant, he did not at first give much heed +to this, except in the way of speculation as to what a surprising +change would be made in the condition of a little seamstress, if +she could be shown to have any interest in so large a property. +How he rather supposed himself to have pursued the idea into its +next degree, because there was something uncommon in the quiet +little seamstress, which pleased him and provoked his curiosity. + +How he had felt his way inch by inch, and 'Moled it out, sir' (that +was Mr Pancks's expression), grain by grain. How, in the beginning +of the labour described by this new verb, and to render which the +more expressive Mr Pancks shut his eyes in pronouncing it and shook +his hair over them, he had alternated from sudden lights and hopes +to sudden darkness and no hopes, and back again, and back again. +How he had made acquaintances in the Prison, expressly that he +might come and go there as all other comers and goers did; and how +his first ray of light was unconsciously given him by Mr Dorrit +himself and by his son; to both of whom he easily became known; +with both of whom he talked much, casually ('but always Moleing +you'll observe,' said Mr Pancks): and from whom he derived, without +being at all suspected, two or three little points of family +history which, as he began to hold clues of his own, suggested +others. How it had at length become plain to Mr Pancks that he had +made a real discovery of the heir-at-law to a great fortune, and +that his discovery had but to be ripened to legal fulness and +perfection. How he had, thereupon, sworn his landlord, Mr Rugg, to +secrecy in a solemn manner, and taken him into Moleing partnership. + +How they had employed John Chivery as their sole clerk and agent, +seeing to whom he was devoted. And how, until the present hour, +when authorities mighty in the Bank and learned in the law declared +their successful labours ended, they had confided in no other human +being. + +'So if the whole thing had broken down, sir,' concluded Pancks, 'at +the very last, say the day before the other day when I showed you +our papers in the Prison yard, or say that very day, nobody but +ourselves would have been cruelly disappointed, or a penny the +worse.' + +Clennam, who had been almost incessantly shaking hands with him +throughout the narrative, was reminded by this to say, in an +amazement which even the preparation he had had for the main +disclosure smoothed down, 'My dear Mr Pancks, this must have cost +you a great sum of money.' + +'Pretty well, sir,' said the triumphant Pancks. 'No trifle, though +we did it as cheap as it could be done. And the outlay was a +difficulty, let me tell you.' + +'A difficulty!' repeated Clennam. 'But the difficulties you have +so wonderfully conquered in the whole business!' shaking his hand +again. + +'I'll tell you how I did it,' said the delighted Pancks, putting +his hair into a condition as elevated as himself. 'First, I spent +all I had of my own. That wasn't much.' + +'I am sorry for it,' said Clennam: 'not that it matters now, +though. Then, what did you do?' + +'Then,' answered Pancks, 'I borrowed a sum of my proprietor.' + +'Of Mr Casby?' said Clennam. 'He's a fine old fellow.' + +'Noble old boy; an't he?' said Mr Pancks, entering on a series of +the dryest snorts. 'Generous old buck. Confiding old boy. +Philanthropic old buck. Benevolent old boy! Twenty per cent. I +engaged to pay him, sir. But we never do business for less at our +shop.' + +Arthur felt an awkward consciousness of having, in his exultant +condition, been a little premature. + +'I said to that boiling-over old Christian,' Mr Pancks pursued, +appearing greatly to relish this descriptive epithet, 'that I had +got a little project on hand; a hopeful one; I told him a hopeful +one; which wanted a certain small capital. I proposed to him to +lend me the money on my note. Which he did, at twenty; sticking +the twenty on in a business-like way, and putting it into the note, +to look like a part of the principal. If I had broken down after +that, I should have been his grubber for the next seven years at +half wages and double grind. But he's a perfect Patriarch; and it +would do a man good to serve him on such terms--on any terms.' + +Arthur for his life could not have said with confidence whether +Pancks really thought so or not. + +'When that was gone, sir,' resumed Pancks, 'and it did go, though +I dribbled it out like so much blood, I had taken Mr Rugg into the +secret. I proposed to borrow of Mr Rugg (or of Miss Rugg; it's the +same thing; she made a little money by a speculation in the Common +Pleas once). He lent it at ten, and thought that pretty high. But +Mr Rugg's a red-haired man, sir, and gets his hair cut. And as to +the crown of his hat, it's high. And as to the brim of his hat, +it's narrow. And there's no more benevolence bubbling out of him, +than out of a ninepin.' + +'Your own recompense for all this, Mr Pancks,' said Clennam, 'ought +to be a large one.' + +'I don't mistrust getting it, sir,' said Pancks. 'I have made no +bargain. I owed you one on that score; now I have paid it. Money +out of pocket made good, time fairly allowed for, and Mr Rugg's +bill settled, a thousand pounds would be a fortune to me. That +matter I place in your hands. I authorize you now to break all +this to the family in any way you think best. Miss Amy Dorrit will +be with Mrs Finching this morning. The sooner done the better. +Can't be done too soon.' + +This conversation took place in Clennam's bed-room, while he was +yet in bed. For Mr Pancks had knocked up the house and made his +way in, very early in the morning; and, without once sitting down +or standing still, had delivered himself of the whole of his +details (illustrated with a variety of documents) at the bedside. +He now said he would 'go and look up Mr Rugg', from whom his +excited state of mind appeared to require another back; and +bundling up his papers, and exchanging one more hearty shake of the +hand with Clennam, he went at full speed down-stairs, and steamed +off. + +Clennam, of course, resolved to go direct to Mr Casby's. He +dressed and got out so quickly that he found himself at the corner +of the patriarchal street nearly an hour before her time; but he +was not sorry to have the opportunity of calming himself with a +leisurely walk. + +When he returned to the street, and had knocked at the bright brass +knocker, he was informed that she had come, and was shown up-stairs +to Flora's breakfast-room. Little Dorrit was not there herself, +but Flora was, and testified the greatest amazement at seeing him. + +'Good gracious, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam!' cried that lady, 'who +would have ever thought of seeing such a sight as this and pray +excuse a wrapper for upon my word I really never and a faded check +too which is worse but our little friend is making me a, not that +I need mind mentioning it to you for you must know that there are +such things a skirt, and having arranged that a trying on should +take place after breakfast is the reason though I wish not so badly +starched.' + +'I ought to make an apology,' said Arthur, 'for so early and abrupt +a visit; but you will excuse it when I tell you the cause.' + +'In times for ever fled Arthur,' returned Mrs Finching, 'pray +excuse me Doyce and Clennam infinitely more correct and though +unquestionably distant still 'tis distance lends enchantment to the +view, at least I don't mean that and if I did I suppose it would +depend considerably on the nature of the view, but I'm running on +again and you put it all out of my head.' + +She glanced at him tenderly, and resumed: + +'In times for ever fled I was going to say it would have sounded +strange indeed for Arthur Clennam--Doyce and Clennam naturally +quite different--to make apologies for coming here at any time, but +that is past and what is past can never be recalled except in his +own case as poor Mr F. said when he was in spirits Cucumber and +therefore never ate it.' + +She was making the tea when Arthur came in, and now hastily +finished that operation. + +'Papa,' she said, all mystery and whisper, as she shut down the +tea-pot lid, 'is sitting prosingly breaking his new laid egg in the +back parlour over the City article exactly like the Woodpecker +Tapping and need never know that you are here, and our little +friend you are well aware may be fully trusted when she comes down +from cutting out on the large table overhead.' + +Arthur then told her, in the fewest words, that it was their little +friend he came to see; and what he had to announce to their little +friend. At which astounding intelligence, Flora clasped her hands, +fell into a tremble, and shed tears of sympathy and pleasure, like +the good-natured creature she really was. + +'For goodness sake let me get out of the way first,' said Flora, +putting her hands to her ears and moving towards the door, 'or I +know I shall go off dead and screaming and make everybody worse, +and the dear little thing only this morning looking so nice and +neat and good and yet so poor and now a fortune is she really and +deserves it too! and might I mention it to Mr F.'s Aunt Arthur not +Doyce and Clennam for this once or if objectionable not on any +account.' + +Arthur nodded his free permission, since Flora shut out all verbal +communication. Flora nodded in return to thank him, and hurried +out of the room. + +Little Dorrit's step was already on the stairs, and in another +moment she was at the door. Do what he could to compose his face, +he could not convey so much of an ordinary expression into it, but +that the moment she saw it she dropped her work, and cried, 'Mr +Clennam! What's the matter?' + +' Nothing, nothing. That is, no misfortune has happened. I have +come to tell you something, but it is a piece of great good- +fortune.' +'Good-fortune?' + +'Wonderful fortune!' + +They stood in a window, and her eyes, full of light, were fixed +upon his face. He put an arm about her, seeing her likely to sink +down. She put a hand upon that arm, partly to rest upon it, and +partly so to preserve their relative positions as that her intent +look at him should be shaken by no change of attitude in either of +them. Her lips seemed to repeat 'Wonderful fortune?' He repeated +it again, aloud. + +'Dear Little Dorrit! Your father.' + +The ice of the pale face broke at the word, and little lights and +shoots of expression passed all over it. They were all expressions +of pain. Her breath was faint and hurried. Her heart beat fast. +He would have clasped the little figure closer, but he saw that the +eyes appealed to him not to be moved. + +'Your father can be free within this week. He does not know it; we +must go to him from here, to tell him of it. Your father will be +free within a few days. Your father will be free within a few +hours. Remember we must go to him from here, to tell him of it!' + +That brought her back. Her eyes were closing, but they opened +again. + +'This is not all the good-fortune. This is not all the wonderful +good-fortune, my dear Little Dorrit. Shall I tell you more?' + +Her lips shaped 'Yes.' + +'Your father will be no beggar when he is free. He will want for +nothing. Shall I tell you more? Remember! He knows nothing of +it; we must go to him, from here, to tell him of it!' + +She seemed to entreat him for a little time. He held her in his +arm, and, after a pause, bent down his ear to listen. + +'Did you ask me to go on?' + +'Yes.' + +'He will be a rich man. He is a rich man. A great sum of money is +waiting to be paid over to him as his inheritance; you are all +henceforth very wealthy. Bravest and best of children, I thank +Heaven that you are rewarded!' + +As he kissed her, she turned her head towards his shoulder, and +raised her arm towards his neck; cried out 'Father! Father! +Father!' and swooned away. + +Upon which Flora returned to take care of her, and hovered about +her on a sofa, intermingling kind offices and incoherent scraps of +conversation in a manner so confounding, that whether she pressed +the Marshalsea to take a spoonful of unclaimed dividends, for it +would do her good; or whether she congratulated Little Dorrit's +father on coming into possession of a hundred thousand smelling- +bottles; or whether she explained that she put seventy-five +thousand drops of spirits of lavender on fifty thousand pounds of +lump sugar, and that she entreated Little Dorrit to take that +gentle restorative; or whether she bathed the foreheads of Doyce +and Clennam in vinegar, and gave the late Mr F. more air; no one +with any sense of responsibility could have undertaken to decide. +A tributary stream of confusion, moreover, poured in from an +adjoining bedroom, where Mr F.'s Aunt appeared, from the sound of +her voice, to be in a horizontal posture, awaiting her breakfast; +and from which bower that inexorable lady snapped off short taunts, +whenever she could get a hearing, as, 'Don't believe it's his +doing!' and 'He needn't take no credit to himself for it!' and +'It'll be long enough, I expect, afore he'll give up any of his own +money!' all designed to disparage Clennam's share in the discovery, +and to relieve those inveterate feelings with which Mr F.'s Aunt +regarded him. + +But Little Dorrit's solicitude to get to her father, and to carry +the joyful tidings to him, and not to leave him in his jail a +moment with this happiness in store for him and still unknown to +him, did more for her speedy restoration than all the skill and +attention on earth could have done. 'Come with me to my dear +father. Pray come and tell my dear father!' were the first words +she said. Her father, her father. She spoke of nothing but him, +thought of nothing but him. Kneeling down and pouring out her +thankfulness with uplifted hands, her thanks were for her father. + +Flora's tenderness was quite overcome by this, and she launched out +among the cups and saucers into a wonderful flow of tears and +speech. + +'I declare,' she sobbed, 'I never was so cut up since your mama and +my papa not Doyce and Clennam for this once but give the precious +little thing a cup of tea and make her put it to her lips at least +pray Arthur do, not even Mr F.'s last illness for that was of +another kind and gout is not a child's affection though very +painful for all parties and Mr F. a martyr with his leg upon a rest +and the wine trade in itself inflammatory for they will do it more +or less among themselves and who can wonder, it seems like a dream +I am sure to think of nothing at all this morning and now Mines of +money is it really, but you must know my darling love because you +never will be strong enough to tell him all about it upon +teaspoons, mightn't it be even best to try the directions of my own +medical man for though the flavour is anything but agreeable still +I force myself to do it as a prescription and find the benefit, +you'd rather not why no my dear I'd rather not but still I do it as +a duty, everybody will congratulate you some in earnest and some +not and many will congratulate you with all their hearts but none +more so I do assure you from the bottom of my own I do myself +though sensible of blundering and being stupid, and will be judged +by Arthur not Doyce and Clennam for this once so good-bye darling +and God bless you and may you be very happy and excuse the liberty, +vowing that the dress shall never be finished by anybody else but +shall be laid by for a keepsake just as it is and called Little +Dorrit though why that strangest of denominations at any time I +never did myself and now I never shall!' + +Thus Flora, in taking leave of her favourite. Little Dorrit +thanked her, and embraced her, over and over again; and finally +came out of the house with Clennam, and took coach for the +Marshalsea. + +It was a strangely unreal ride through the old squalid streets, +with a sensation of being raised out of them into an airy world of +wealth and grandeur. When Arthur told her that she would soon ride +in her own carriage through very different scenes, when all the +familiar experiences would have vanished away, she looked +frightened. But when he substituted her father for herself, and +told her how he would ride in his carriage, and how great and grand +he would be, her tears of joy and innocent pride fell fast. Seeing +that the happiness her mind could realise was all shining upon him, +Arthur kept that single figure before her; and so they rode +brightly through the poor streets in the prison neighbourhood to +carry him the great news. + +When Mr Chivery, who was on duty, admitted them into the Lodge, he +saw something in their faces which filled him with astonishment. +He stood looking after them, when they hurried into the prison, as +though he perceived that they had come back accompanied by a ghost +a-piece. Two or three Collegians whom they passed, looked after +them too, and presently joining Mr Chivery, formed a little group +on the Lodge steps, in the midst of which there spontaneously +originated a whisper that the Father was going to get his +discharge. Within a few minutes, it was heard in the remotest room +in the College. + +Little Dorrit opened the door from without, and they both entered. +He was sitting in his old grey gown and his old black cap, in the +sunlight by the window, reading his newspaper. His glasses were in +his hand, and he had just looked round; surprised at first, no +doubt, by her step upon the stairs, not expecting her until night; +surprised again, by seeing Arthur Clennam in her company. As they +came in, the same unwonted look in both of them which had already +caught attention in the yard below, struck him. He did not rise or +speak, but laid down his glasses and his newspaper on the table +beside him, and looked at them with his mouth a little open and his +lips trembling. When Arthur put out his hand, he touched it, but +not with his usual state; and then he turned to his daughter, who +had sat down close beside him with her hands upon his shoulder, and +looked attentively in her face. + +'Father! I have been made so happy this morning!' + +'You have been made so happy, my dear?' + +'By Mr Clennam, father. He brought me such joyful and wonderful +intelligence about you! If he had not with his great kindness and +gentleness, prepared me for it, father--prepared me for it, +father--I think I could not have borne it.' + +Her agitation was exceedingly great, and the tears rolled down her +face. He put his hand suddenly to his heart, and looked at +Clennam. + +'Compose yourself, sir,' said Clennam, 'and take a little time to +think. To think of the brightest and most fortunate accidents of +life. We have all heard of great surprises of joy. They are not +at an end, sir. They are rare, but not at an end.' + +'Mr Clennam? Not at an end? Not at an end for--' He touched +himself upon the breast, instead of saying 'me.' + +'No,' returned Clennam. + +'What surprise,' he asked, keeping his left hand over his heart, +and there stopping in his speech, while with his right hand he put +his glasses exactly level on the table: 'what such surprise can be +in store for me?' + +'Let me answer with another question. Tell me, Mr Dorrit, what +surprise would be the most unlooked for and the most acceptable to +you. Do not be afraid to imagine it, or to say what it would be.' + +He looked steadfastly at Clennam, and, so looking at him, seemed to +change into a very old haggard man. The sun was bright upon the +wall beyond the window, and on the spikes at top. He slowly +stretched out the hand that had been upon his heart, and pointed at +the wall. + +'It is down,' said Clennam. 'Gone!' + +He remained in the same attitude, looking steadfastly at him. + +'And in its place,' said Clennam, slowly and distinctly, 'are the +means to possess and enjoy the utmost that they have so long shut +out. Mr Dorrit, there is not the smallest doubt that within a few +days you will be free, and highly prosperous. I congratulate you +with all my soul on this change of fortune, and on the happy future +into which you are soon to carry the treasure you have been blest +with here--the best of all the riches you can have elsewhere--the +treasure at your side.' + +With those words, he pressed his hand and released it; and his +daughter, laying her face against his, encircled him in the hour of +his prosperity with her arms, as she had in the long years of his +adversity encircled him with her love and toil and truth; and +poured out her full heart in gratitude, hope, joy, blissful +ecstasy, and all for him. + +'I shall see him as I never saw him yet. I shall see my dear love, +with the dark cloud cleared away. I shall see him, as my poor +mother saw him long ago. O my dear, my dear! O father, father! +O thank God, thank God!' + +He yielded himself to her kisses and caresses, but did not return +them, except that he put an arm about her. Neither did he say one +word. His steadfast look was now divided between her and Clennam, +and he began to shake as if he were very cold. Explaining to +Little Dorrit that he would run to the coffee-house for a bottle of +wine, Arthur fetched it with all the haste he could use. While it +was being brought from the cellar to the bar, a number of excited +people asked him what had happened; when he hurriedly informed them +that Mr Dorrit had succeeded to a fortune. + +On coming back with the wine in his hand, he found that she had +placed her father in his easy chair, and had loosened his shirt and +neckcloth. They filled a tumbler with wine, and held it to his +lips. When he had swallowed a little, he took the glass himself +and emptied it. Soon after that, he leaned back in his chair and +cried, with his handkerchief before his face. + +After this had lasted a while Clennam thought it a good season for +diverting his attention from the main surprise, by relating its +details. Slowly, therefore, and in a quiet tone of voice, he +explained them as best he could, and enlarged on the nature of +Pancks's service. + +'He shall be--ha--he shall be handsomely recompensed, sir,' said +the Father, starting up and moving hurriedly about the room. +'Assure yourself, Mr Clennam, that everybody concerned shall be-- +ha--shall be nobly rewarded. No one, my dear sir, shall say that +he has an unsatisfied claim against me. I shall repay the--hum-- +the advances I have had from you, sir, with peculiar pleasure. I +beg to be informed at your earliest convenience, what advances you +have made my son.' + +He had no purpose in going about the room, but he was not still a +moment. + +'Everybody,' he said, 'shall be remembered. I will not go away +from here in anybody's debt. All the people who have been--ha-- +well behaved towards myself and my family, shall be rewarded. +Chivery shall be rewarded. Young John shall be rewarded. I +particularly wish, and intend, to act munificently, Mr Clennam.' + +'Will you allow me,' said Arthur, laying his purse on the table, +'to supply any present contingencies, Mr Dorrit? I thought it best +to bring a sum of money for the purpose.' + +'Thank you, sir, thank you. I accept with readiness, at the +present moment, what I could not an hour ago have conscientiously +taken. I am obliged to you for the temporary accommodation. +Exceedingly temporary, but well timed--well timed.' His hand had +closed upon the money, and he carried it about with him. 'Be so +kind, sir, as to add the amount to those former advances to which +I have already referred; being careful, if you please, not to omit +advances made to my son. A mere verbal statement of the gross +amount is all I shall--ha--all I shall require.' + +His eye fell upon his daughter at this point, and he stopped for a +moment to kiss her, and to pat her head. + +'It will be necessary to find a milliner, my love, and to make a +speedy and complete change in your very plain dress. Something +must be done with Maggy too, who at present is--ha--barely +respectable, barely respectable. And your sister, Amy, and your +brother. And my brother, your uncle--poor soul, I trust this will +rouse him--messengers must be despatched to fetch them. They must +be informed of this. We must break it to them cautiously, but they +must be informed directly. We owe it as a duty to them and to +ourselves, from this moment, not to let them--hum--not to let them +do anything.' + +This was the first intimation he had ever given, that he was privy +to the fact that they did something for a livelihood. + +He was still jogging about the room, with the purse clutched in his +hand, when a great cheering arose in the yard. 'The news has +spread already,' said Clennam, looking down from the window. 'Will +you show yourself to them, Mr Dorrit? They are very earnest, and +they evidently wish it.' + +'I--hum--ha--I confess I could have desired, Amy my dear,' he said, +jogging about in a more feverish flutter than before, 'to have made +some change in my dress first, and to have bought a-- +hum--a watch and chain. But if it must be done as it is, it--ha-- +it must be done. Fasten the collar of my shirt, my dear. Mr +Clennam, would you oblige me--hum--with a blue neckcloth you will +find in that drawer at your elbow. Button my coat across at the +chest, my love. It looks--ha--it looks broader, buttoned.' + +With his trembling hand he pushed his grey hair up, and then, +taking Clennam and his daughter for supporters, appeared at the +window leaning on an arm of each. The Collegians cheered him very +heartily, and he kissed his hand to them with great urbanity and +protection. When he withdrew into the room again, he said 'Poor +creatures!' in a tone of much pity for their miserable condition. + +Little Dorrit was deeply anxious that he should lie down to compose +himself. On Arthur's speaking to her of his going to inform Pancks +that he might now appear as soon as he would, and pursue the joyful +business to its close, she entreated him in a whisper to stay with +her until her father should be quite calm and at rest. He needed +no second entreaty; and she prepared her father's bed, and begged +him to lie down. For another half-hour or more he would be +persuaded to do nothing but go about the room, discussing with +himself the probabilities for and against the Marshal's allowing +the whole of the prisoners to go to the windows of the official +residence which commanded the street, to see himself and family +depart for ever in a carriage--which, he said, he thought would be +a Sight for them. But gradually he began to droop and tire, and at +last stretched himself upon the bed. + +She took her faithful place beside him, fanning him and cooling his +forehead; and he seemed to be falling asleep (always with the money +in his hand), when he unexpectedly sat up and said: + +'Mr Clennam, I beg your pardon. Am I to understand, my dear sir, +that I could--ha--could pass through the Lodge at this moment, +and--hum--take a walk?' + +'I think not, Mr Dorrit,' was the unwilling reply. 'There are +certain forms to be completed; and although your detention here is +now in itself a form, I fear it is one that for a little longer has +to be observed too.' + +At this he shed tears again. + +'It is but a few hours, sir,' Clennam cheerfully urged upon him. + +'A few hours, sir,' he returned in a sudden passion. 'You talk +very easily of hours, sir! How long do you suppose, sir, that an +hour is to a man who is choking for want of air?' + +It was his last demonstration for that time; as, after shedding +some more tears and querulously complaining that he couldn't +breathe, he slowly fell into a slumber. Clennam had abundant +occupation for his thoughts, as he sat in the quiet room watching +the father on his bed, and the daughter fanning his face. +Little Dorrit had been thinking too. After softly putting his grey +hair aside, and touching his forehead with her lips, she looked +towards Arthur, who came nearer to her, and pursued in a low +whisper the subject of her thoughts. + +'Mr Clennam, will he pay all his debts before he leaves here?' + +'No doubt. All.' + +'All the debts for which he had been imprisoned here, all my life +and longer?' + +'No doubt.' + +There was something of uncertainty and remonstrance in her look; +something that was not all satisfaction. He wondered to detect it, +and said: + +'You are glad that he should do so?' + +'Are you?' asked Little Dorrit, wistfully. + +'Am I? Most heartily glad!' + +'Then I know I ought to be.' + +'And are you not?' + +'It seems to me hard,' said Little Dorrit, 'that he should have +lost so many years and suffered so much, and at last pay all the +debts as well. It seems to me hard that he should pay in life and +money both.' + +'My dear child--' Clennam was beginning. + +'Yes, I know I am wrong,' she pleaded timidly, 'don't think any +worse of me; it has grown up with me here.' + +The prison, which could spoil so many things, had tainted Little +Dorrit's mind no more than this. Engendered as the confusion was, +in compassion for the poor prisoner, her father, it was the first +speck Clennam had ever seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever +saw, of the prison atmosphere upon her. + +He thought this, and forebore to say another word. With the +thought, her purity and goodness came before him in their brightest +light. The little spot made them the more beautiful. + +Worn out with her own emotions, and yielding to the silence of the +room, her hand slowly slackened and failed in its fanning movement, +and her head dropped down on the pillow at her father's side. +Clennam rose softly, opened and closed the door without a sound, +and passed from the prison, carrying the quiet with him into the +turbulent streets. + + + + +CHAPTER 36 + +The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan + + +And now the day arrived when Mr Dorrit and his family were to leave +the prison for ever, and the stones of its much-trodden pavement +were to know them no more. + +The interval had been short, but he had greatly complained of its +length, and had been imperious with Mr Rugg touching the delay. He +had been high with Mr Rugg, and had threatened to employ some one +else. He had requested Mr Rugg not to presume upon the place in +which he found him, but to do his duty, sir, and to do it with +promptitude. He had told Mr Rugg that he knew what lawyers and +agents were, and that he would not submit to imposition. On that +gentleman's humbly representing that he exerted himself to the +utmost, Miss Fanny was very short with him; desiring to know what +less he could do, when he had been told a dozen times that money +was no object, and expressing her suspicion that he forgot whom he +talked to. + +Towards the Marshal, who was a Marshal of many years' standing, and +with whom he had never had any previous difference, Mr Dorrit +comported himself with severity. That officer, on personally +tendering his congratulations, offered the free use of two rooms in +his house for Mr Dorrit's occupation until his departure. Mr +Dorrit thanked him at the moment, and replied that he would think +of it; but the Marshal was no sooner gone than he sat down and +wrote him a cutting note, in which he remarked that he had never on +any former occasion had the honour of receiving his congratulations +(which was true, though indeed there had not been anything +particular to congratulate him upon), and that he begged, on behalf +of himself and family, to repudiate the Marshal's offer, with all +those thanks which its disinterested character and its perfect +independence of all worldly considerations demanded. + +Although his brother showed so dim a glimmering of interest in +their altered fortunes that it was very doubtful whether he +understood them, Mr Dorrit caused him to be measured for new +raiment by the hosiers, tailors, hatters, and bootmakers whom he +called in for himself; and ordered that his old clothes should be +taken from him and burned. Miss Fanny and Mr Tip required no +direction in making an appearance of great fashion and elegance; +and the three passed this interval together at the best hotel in +the neighbourhood--though truly, as Miss Fanny said, the best was +very indifferent. In connection with that establishment, Mr Tip +hired a cabriolet, horse, and groom, a very neat turn out, which +was usually to be observed for two or three hours at a time gracing +the Borough High Street, outside the Marshalsea court-yard. A +modest little hired chariot and pair was also frequently to be seen +there; in alighting from and entering which vehicle, Miss Fanny +fluttered the Marshal's daughters by the display of inaccessible +bonnets. + +A great deal of business was transacted in this short period. +Among other items, Messrs Peddle and Pool, solicitors, of Monument +Yard, were instructed by their client Edward Dorrit, Esquire, to +address a letter to Mr Arthur Clennam, enclosing the sum of twenty- +four pounds nine shillings and eightpence, being the amount of +principal and interest computed at the rate of five per cent. per +annum, in which their client believed himself to be indebted to Mr +Clennam. In making this communication and remittance, Messrs +Peddle and Pool were further instructed by their client to remind +Mr Clennam that the favour of the advance now repaid (including +gate-fees) had not been asked of him, and to inform him that it +would not have been accepted if it had been openly proffered in his +name. With which they requested a stamped receipt, and remained +his obedient servants. A great deal of business had likewise to be +done, within the so-soon-to-be-orphaned Marshalsea, by Mr Dorrit so +long its Father, chiefly arising out of applications made to him by +Collegians for small sums of money. To these he responded with the +greatest liberality, and with no lack of formality; always first +writing to appoint a time at which the applicant might wait upon +him in his room, and then receiving him in the midst of a vast +accumulation of documents, and accompanying his donation (for he +said in every such case, 'it is a donation, not a loan') with a +great deal of good counsel: to the effect that he, the expiring +Father of the Marshalsea, hoped to be long remembered, as an +example that a man might preserve his own and the general respect +even there. + +The Collegians were not envious. Besides that they had a personal +and traditional regard for a Collegian of so many years' standing, +the event was creditable to the College, and made it famous in the +newspapers. Perhaps more of them thought, too, than were quite +aware of it, that the thing might in the lottery of chances have +happened to themselves, or that something of the sort might yet +happen to themselves some day or other. They took it very well. +A few were low at the thought of being left behind, and being left +poor; but even these did not grudge the family their brilliant +reverse. There might have been much more envy in politer places. +It seems probable that mediocrity of fortune would have been +disposed to be less magnanimous than the Collegians, who lived from +hand to mouth--from the pawnbroker's hand to the day's dinner. + +They got up an address to him, which they presented in a neat frame +and glass (though it was not afterwards displayed in the family +mansion or preserved among the family papers); and to which he +returned a gracious answer. In that document he assured them, in +a Royal manner, that he received the profession of their attachment +with a full conviction of its sincerity; and again generally +exhorted them to follow his example--which, at least in so far as +coming into a great property was concerned, there is no doubt they +would have gladly imitated. He took the same occasion of inviting +them to a comprehensive entertainment, to be given to the whole +College in the yard, and at which he signified he would have the +honour of taking a parting glass to the health and happiness of all +those whom he was about to leave behind. + +He did not in person dine at this public repast (it took place at +two in the afternoon, and his dinners now came in from the hotel at +six), but his son was so good as to take the head of the principal +table, and to be very free and engaging. He himself went about +among the company, and took notice of individuals, and saw that the +viands were of the quality he had ordered, and that all were +served. On the whole, he was like a baron of the olden time in a +rare good humour. At the conclusion of the repast, he pledged his +guests in a bumper of old Madeira; and told them that he hoped they +had enjoyed themselves, and what was more, that they would enjoy +themselves for the rest of the evening; that he wished them well; +and that he bade them welcome. + +His health being drunk with acclamations, he was not so baronial +after all but that in trying to return thanks he broke down, in the +manner of a mere serf with a heart in his breast, and wept before +them all. After this great success, which he supposed to be a +failure, he gave them 'Mr Chivery and his brother officers;' whom +he had beforehand presented with ten pounds each, and who were all +in attendance. Mr Chivery spoke to the toast, saying, What you +undertake to lock up, lock up; but remember that you are, in the +words of the fettered African, a man and a brother ever. The list +of toasts disposed of, Mr Dorrit urbanely went through the motions +of playing a game of skittles with the Collegian who was the next +oldest inhabitant to himself; and left the tenantry to their +diversions. + +But all these occurrences preceded the final day. And now the day +arrived when he and his family were to leave the prison for ever, +and when the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to know them +no more. + +Noon was the hour appointed for the departure. As it approached, +there was not a Collegian within doors, nor a turnkey absent. The +latter class of gentlemen appeared in their Sunday clothes, and the +greater part of the Collegians were brightened up as much as +circumstances allowed. Two or three flags were even displayed, and +the children put on odds and ends of ribbon. Mr Dorrit himself, at +this trying time, preserved a serious but graceful dignity. Much +of his great attention was given to his brother, as to whose +bearing on the great occasion he felt anxious. + +'My dear Frederick,' said he, 'if you will give me your arm we will +pass among our friends together. I think it is right that we +should go out arm in arm, my dear Frederick.' + +'Hah!' said Frederick. 'Yes, yes, yes, yes.' + +'And if, my dear Frederick--if you could, without putting any great +constraint upon yourself, throw a little (pray excuse me, +Frederick), a little Polish into your usual demeanour--' + +'William, William,' said the other, shaking his head, 'it's for you +to do all that. I don't know how. All forgotten, forgotten!' + +'But, my dear fellow,' returned William, 'for that very reason, if +for no other, you must positively try to rouse yourself. What you +have forgotten you must now begin to recall, my dear Frederick. +Your position--' + +'Eh?' said Frederick. + +'Your position, my dear Frederick.' + +'Mine?' He looked first at his own figure, and then at his +brother's, and then, drawing a long breath, cried, 'Hah, to be +sure! Yes, yes, yes.' +'Your position, my dear Frederick, is now a fine one. Your +position, as my brother, is a very fine one. And I know that it +belongs to your conscientious nature to try to become worthy of it, +my dear Frederick, and to try to adorn it. To be no discredit to +it, but to adorn it.' + +'William,' said the other weakly, and with a sigh, 'I will do +anything you wish, my brother, provided it lies in my power. Pray +be so kind as to recollect what a limited power mine is. What +would you wish me to do to-day, brother? Say what it is, only say +what it is.' + +'My dearest Frederick, nothing. It is not worth troubling so good +a heart as yours with.' + +'Pray trouble it,' returned the other. 'It finds it no trouble, +William, to do anything it can for you.' + +William passed his hand across his eyes, and murmured with august +satisfaction, 'Blessings on your attachment, my poor dear fellow!' +Then he said aloud, 'Well, my dear Frederick, if you will only try, +as we walk out, to show that you are alive to the occasion --that +you think about it--' + +'What would you advise me to think about it?' returned his +submissive brother. + +'Oh! my dear Frederick, how can I answer you? I can only say +what, in leaving these good people, I think myself.' + +'That's it!' cried his brother. 'That will help me.' + +'I find that I think, my dear Frederick, and with mixed emotions in +which a softened compassion predominates, What will they do without +me!' + +'True,' returned his brother. 'Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'll think +that as we go, What will they do without my brother! Poor things! +What will they do without him!' + +Twelve o'clock having just struck, and the carriage being reported +ready in the outer court-yard, the brothers proceeded down-stairs +arm-in-arm. Edward Dorrit, Esquire (once Tip), and his sister +Fanny followed, also arm-in-arm; Mr Plornish and Maggy, to whom had +been entrusted the removal of such of the family effects as were +considered worth removing, followed, bearing bundles and burdens to +be packed in a cart. + +In the yard, were the Collegians and turnkeys. In the yard, were +Mr Pancks and Mr Rugg, come to see the last touch given to their +work. In the yard, was Young John making a new epitaph for +himself, on the occasion of his dying of a broken heart. In the +yard, was the Patriarchal Casby, looking so tremendously benevolent +that many enthusiastic Collegians grasped him fervently by the +hand, and the wives and female relatives of many more Collegians +kissed his hand, nothing doubting that he had done it all. In the +yard, was the man with the shadowy grievance respecting the Fund +which the Marshal embezzled, who had got up at five in the morning +to complete the copying of a perfectly unintelligible history of +that transaction, which he had committed to Mr Dorrit's care, as a +document of the last importance, calculated to stun the Government +and effect the Marshal's downfall. In the yard, was the insolvent +whose utmost energies were always set on getting into debt, who +broke into prison with as much pains as other men have broken out +of it, and who was always being cleared and complimented; while the +insolvent at his elbow--a mere little, snivelling, striving +tradesman, half dead of anxious efforts to keep out of debt--found +it a hard matter, indeed, to get a Commissioner to release him with +much reproof and reproach. In the yard, was the man of many +children and many burdens, whose failure astonished everybody; in +the yard, was the man of no children and large resources, whose +failure astonished nobody. There, were the people who were always +going out to-morrow, and always putting it off; there, were the +people who had come in yesterday, and who were much more jealous +and resentful of this freak of fortune than the seasoned birds. +There, were some who, in pure meanness of spirit, cringed and bowed +before the enriched Collegian and his family; there, were others +who did so really because their eyes, accustomed to the gloom of +their imprisonment and poverty, could not support the light of such +bright sunshine. There, were many whose shillings had gone into +his pocket to buy him meat and drink; but none who were now +obtrusively Hail fellow well met! with him, on the strength of +that assistance. It was rather to be remarked of the caged birds, +that they were a little shy of the bird about to be so grandly +free, and that they had a tendency to withdraw themselves towards +the bars, and seem a little fluttered as he passed. + +Through these spectators the little procession, headed by the two +brothers, moved slowly to the gate. Mr Dorrit, yielding to the +vast speculation how the poor creatures were to get on without him, +was great, and sad, but not absorbed. He patted children on the +head like Sir Roger de Coverley +going to church, he spoke to people in the background by their +Christian names, he condescended to all present, and seemed for +their consolation to walk encircled by the legend in golden +characters, 'Be comforted, my people! Bear it!' + +At last three honest cheers announced that he had passed the gate, +and that the Marshalsea was an orphan. Before they had ceased to +ring in the echoes of the prison walls, the family had got into +their carriage, and the attendant had the steps in his hand. + +Then, and not before, 'Good Gracious!' cried Miss Fanny all at +once, 'Where's Amy!' + +Her father had thought she was with her sister. Her sister had +thought she was 'somewhere or other.' They had all trusted to +finding her, as they had always done, quietly in the right place at +the right moment. This going away was perhaps the very first +action of their joint lives that they had got through without her. + +A minute might have been consumed in the ascertaining of these +points, when Miss Fanny, who, from her seat in the carriage, +commanded the long narrow passage leading to the Lodge, flushed +indignantly. + +'Now I do say, Pa,' cried she, 'that this is disgraceful!' + +'What is disgraceful, Fanny?' + +'I do say,' she repeated, 'this is perfectly infamous! Really +almost enough, even at such a time as this, to make one wish one +was dead! Here is that child Amy, in her ugly old shabby dress, +which she was so obstinate about, Pa, which I over and over again +begged and prayed her to change, and which she over and over again +objected to, and promised to change to-day, saying she wished to +wear it as long as ever she remained in there with you--which was +absolutely romantic nonsense of the lowest kind--here is that child +Amy disgracing us to the last moment and at the last moment, by +being carried out in that dress after all. And by that Mr Clennam +too!' + +The offence was proved, as she delivered the indictment. Clennam +appeared at the carriage-door, bearing the little insensible figure +in his arms. + +'She has been forgotten,' he said, in a tone of pity not free from +reproach. 'I ran up to her room (which Mr Chivery showed me) and +found the door open, and that she had fainted on the floor, dear +child. She appeared to have gone to change her dress, and to have +sunk down overpowered. It may have been the cheering, or it may +have happened sooner. Take care of this poor cold hand, Miss +Dorrit. Don't let it fall.' + +'Thank you, sir,' returned Miss Dorrit, bursting into tears. 'I +believe I know what to do, if you will give me leave. Dear Amy, +open your eyes, that's a love! Oh, Amy, Amy, I really am so vexed +and ashamed! Do rouse yourself, darling! Oh, why are they not +driving on! Pray, Pa, do drive on!' + +The attendant, getting between Clennam and the carriage-door, with +a sharp 'By your leave, sir!' bundled up the steps, and they drove +away. + + + + + +BOOK THE SECOND +RICHES + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +Fellow Travellers + + +In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to +the highest ridges of the Alps. + +It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of +the Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva. + +The air there was charged with the scent of gathered grapes. +Baskets, troughs, and tubs of grapes stood in the dim village +doorways, stopped the steep and narrow village streets, and had +been carrying all day along the roads and lanes. Grapes, split and +crushed under foot, lay about everywhere. The child carried in a +sling by the laden peasant woman toiling home, was quieted with +picked-up grapes; the idiot sunning his big goitre under the leaves +of the wooden chalet by the way to the Waterfall, sat Munching +grapes; the breath of the cows and goats was redolent of leaves and +stalks of grapes; the company in every little cabaret were eating, +drinking, talking grapes. A pity that no ripe touch of this +generous abundance could be given to the thin, hard, stony wine, +which after all was made from the grapes! + +The air had been warm and transparent through the whole of the +bright day. Shining metal spires and church-roofs, distant and +rarely seen, had sparkled in the view; and the snowy mountain-tops +had been so clear that unaccustomed eyes, cancelling the +intervening country, and slighting their rugged heights for +something fabulous, would have measured them as within a few hours +easy reach. Mountain-peaks of great celebrity in the valleys, +whence no trace of their existence was visible sometimes for months +together, had been since morning plain and near in the blue sky. +And now, when it was dark below, though they seemed solemnly to +recede, like spectres who were going to vanish, as the red dye of +the sunset faded out of them and left them coldly white, they were +yet distinctly defined in their loneliness above the mists and +shadows. +Seen from these solitudes, and from the Pass of the Great Saint +Bernard, which was one of them, the ascending Night came up the +mountain like a rising water. When it at last rose to the walls of +the convent of the Great Saint Bernard, it was as if that weather- +beaten structure were another Ark, and floated on the shadowy +waves. + +Darkness, outstripping some visitors on mules, had risen thus to +the rough convent walls, when those travellers were yet climbing +the mountain. As the heat of the glowing day when they had stopped +to drink at the streams of melted ice and snow, was changed to the +searching cold of the frosty rarefied night air at a great height, +so the fresh beauty of the lower journey had yielded to barrenness +and desolation. A craggy track, up which the mules in single file +scrambled and turned from block to block, as though they were +ascending the broken staircase of a gigantic ruin, was their way +now. No trees were to be seen, nor any vegetable growth save a +poor brown scrubby moss, freezing in the chinks of rock. Blackened +skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent +as if the ghosts of former travellers overwhelmed by the snow +haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars +built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of +the perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist +wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting +danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken, +drifted sharply down. + +The file of mules, jaded by their day's work, turned and wound +slowly up the deep ascent; the foremost led by a guide on foot, in +his broad-brimmed hat and round jacket, carrying a mountain staff +or two upon his shoulder, with whom another guide conversed. There +was no speaking among the string of riders. The sharp cold, the +fatigue of the journey, and a new sensation of a catching in the +breath, partly as if they had just emerged from very clear crisp +water, and partly as if they had been sobbing, kept them silent. + +At length, a light on the summit of the rocky staircase gleamed +through the snow and mist. The guides called to the mules, the +mules pricked up their drooping heads, the travellers' tongues were +loosened, and in a sudden burst of slipping, climbing, jingling, +clinking, and talking, they arrived at the convent door. + +Other mules had arrived not long before, some with peasant riders +and some with goods, and had trodden the snow about the door into +a pool of mud. Riding-saddles and bridles, pack-saddles and +strings of bells, mules and men, lanterns, torches, sacks, +provender, barrels, cheeses, kegs of honey and butter, straw +bundles and packages of many shapes, were crowded confusedly +together in this thawed quagmire and about the steps. Up here in +the clouds, everything was seen through cloud, and seemed +dissolving into cloud. The breath of the men was cloud, the breath +of the mules was cloud, the lights were encircled by cloud, +speakers close at hand were not seen for cloud, though their voices +and all other sounds were surprisingly clear. Of the cloudy line +of mules hastily tied to rings in the wall, one would bite another, +or kick another, and then the whole mist would be disturbed: with +men diving into it, and cries of men and beasts coming out of it, +and no bystander discerning what was wrong. In the midst of this, +the great stable of the convent, occupying the basement story and +entered by the basement door, outside which all the disorder was, +poured forth its contribution of cloud, as if the whole rugged +edifice were filled with nothing else, and would collapse as soon +as it had emptied itself, leaving the snow to fall upon the bare +mountain summit. + +While all this noise and hurry were rife among the living +travellers, there, too, silently assembled in a grated house half- +a-dozen paces removed, with the same cloud enfolding them and the +same snow flakes drifting in upon them, were the dead travellers +found upon the mountain. The mother, storm-belated many winters +ago, still standing in the corner with her baby at her breast; the +man who had frozen with his arm raised to his mouth in fear or +hunger, still pressing it with his dry lips after years and years. +An awful company, mysteriously come together! A wild destiny for +that mother to have foreseen! 'Surrounded by so many and such +companions upon whom I never looked, and never shall look, I and my +child will dwell together inseparable, on the Great Saint Bernard, +outlasting generations who will come to see us, and will never know +our name, or one word of our story but the end.' + +The living travellers thought little or nothing of the dead just +then. They thought much more of alighting at the convent door, and +warming themselves at the convent fire. Disengaged from the +turmoil, which was already calming down as the crowd of mules began +to be bestowed in the stable, they hurried shivering up the steps +and into the building. There was a smell within, coming up from +the floor, of tethered beasts, like the smell of a menagerie of +wild animals. There were strong arched galleries within, huge +stone piers, great staircases, and thick walls pierced with small +sunken windows--fortifications against the mountain storms, as if +they had been human enemies. There were gloomy vaulted sleeping- +rooms within, intensely cold, but clean and hospitably prepared for +guests. Finally, there was a parlour for guests to sit in and sup +in, where a table was already laid, and where a blazing fire shone +red and high. + +In this room, after having had their quarters for the night +allotted to them by two young Fathers, the travellers presently +drew round the hearth. They were in three parties; of whom the +first, as the most numerous and important, was the slowest, and had +been overtaken by one of the others on the way up. It consisted of +an elderly lady, two grey-haired gentlemen, two young ladies, and +their brother. These were attended (not to mention four guides), +by a courier, two footmen, and two waiting-maids: which strong body +of inconvenience was accommodated elsewhere under the same roof. +The party that had overtaken them, and followed in their train, +consisted of only three members: one lady and two gentlemen. The +third party, which had ascended from the valley on the Italian side +of the Pass, and had arrived first, were four in number: a +plethoric, hungry, and silent German tutor in spectacles, on a tour +with three young men, his pupils, all plethoric, hungry, and +silent, and all in spectacles. + +These three groups sat round the fire eyeing each other drily, and +waiting for supper. Only one among them, one of the gentlemen +belonging to the party of three, made advances towards +conversation. Throwing out his lines for the Chief of the +important tribe, while addressing himself to his own companions, he +remarked, in a tone of voice which included all the company if they +chose to be included, that it had been a long day, and that he felt +for the ladies. That he feared one of the young ladies was not a +strong or accustomed traveller, and had been over-fatigued two or +three hours ago. That he had observed, from his station in the +rear, that she sat her mule as if she were exhausted. That he had, +twice or thrice afterwards, done himself the honour of inquiring of +one of the guides, when he fell behind, how the lady did. That he +had been enchanted to learn that she had recovered her spirits, and +that it had been but a passing discomfort. That he trusted (by +this time he had secured the eyes of the Chief, and addressed him) +he might be permitted to express his hope that she was now none the +worse, and that she would not regret having made the journey. + +'My daughter, I am obliged to you, sir,' returned the Chief, 'is +quite restored, and has been greatly interested.' + +'New to mountains, perhaps?' said the insinuating traveller. + +'New to--ha--to mountains,' said the Chief. + +'But you are familiar with them, sir?' the insinuating traveller +assumed. + +'I am--hum--tolerably familiar. Not of late years. Not of late +years,' replied the Chief, with a flourish of his hand. + +The insinuating traveller, acknowledging the flourish with an +inclination of his head, passed from the Chief to the second young +lady, who had not yet been referred to otherwise than as one of the +ladies in whose behalf he felt so sensitive an interest. + +He hoped she was not incommoded by the fatigues of the day. + +'Incommoded, certainly,' returned the young lady, 'but not tired.' + +The insinuating traveller complimented her on the justice of the +distinction. It was what he had meant to say. Every lady must +doubtless be incommoded by having to do with that proverbially +unaccommodating animal, the mule. + +'We have had, of course,' said the young lady, who was rather +reserved and haughty, 'to leave the carriages and fourgon at +Martigny. And the impossibility of bringing anything that one +wants to this inaccessible place, and the necessity of leaving +every comfort behind, is not convenient.' + +'A savage place indeed,' said the insinuating traveller. + +The elderly lady, who was a model of accurate dressing, and whose +manner was perfect, considered as a piece of machinery, here +interposed a remark in a low soft voice. + +'But, like other inconvenient places,' she observed, 'it must be +seen. As a place much spoken of, it is necessary to see it.' + +'O! I have not the least objection to seeing it, I assure you, Mrs +General,' returned the other, carelessly. + +'You, madam,' said the insinuating traveller, 'have visited this +spot before?' +'Yes,' returned Mrs General. 'I have been here before. Let me +commend you, my dear,' to the former young lady, 'to shade your +face from the hot wood, after exposure to the mountain air and +snow. You, too, my dear,' to the other and younger lady, who +immediately did so; while the former merely said, 'Thank you, Mrs +General, I am Perfectly comfortable, and prefer remaining as I am.' + +The brother, who had left his chair to open a piano that stood in +the room, and who had whistled into it and shut it up again, now +came strolling back to the fire with his glass in his eye. He was +dressed in the very fullest and completest travelling trim. The +world seemed hardly large enough to yield him an amount of travel +proportionate to his equipment. + +'These fellows are an immense time with supper,' he drawled. 'I +wonder what they'll give us! Has anybody any idea?' + +'Not roast man, I believe,' replied the voice of the second +gentleman of the party of three. + +'I suppose not. What d'ye mean?' he inquired. + +'That, as you are not to be served for the general supper, perhaps +you will do us the favour of not cooking yourself at the general +fire,' returned the other. + +The young gentleman who was standing in an easy attitude on the +hearth, cocking his glass at the company, with his back to the +blaze and his coat tucked under his arms, something as if he were +Of the Poultry species and were trussed for roasting, lost +countenance at this reply; he seemed about to demand further +explanation, when it was discovered--through all eyes turning on +the speaker--that the lady with him, who was young and beautiful, +had not heard what had passed through having fainted with her head +upon his shoulder. + +'I think,' said the gentleman in a subdued tone, 'I had best carry +her straight to her room. Will you call to some one to bring a +light?' addressing his companion, 'and to show the way? In this +strange rambling place I don't know that I could find it.' + +'Pray, let me call my maid,' cried the taller of the young ladies. + +'Pray, let me put this water to her lips,' said the shorter, who +had not spoken yet. + +Each doing what she suggested, there was no want of assistance. +Indeed, when the two maids came in (escorted by the courier, lest +any one should strike them dumb by addressing a foreign language to +them on the road), there was a prospect of too much assistance. +Seeing this, and saying as much in a few words to the slighter and +younger of the two ladies, the gentleman put his wife's arm over +his shoulder, lifted her up, and carried her away. + +His friend, being left alone with the other visitors, walked slowly +up and down the room without coming to the fire again, pulling his +black moustache in a contemplative manner, as if he felt himself +committed to the late retort. While the subject of it was +breathing injury in a corner, the Chief loftily addressed this +gentleman. + +'Your friend, sir,' said he, 'is--ha--is a little impatient; and, +in his impatience, is not perhaps fully sensible of what he owes +to--hum--to--but we will waive that, we will waive that. Your +friend is a little impatient, sir.' + +'It may be so, sir,' returned the other. 'But having had the +honour of making that gentleman's acquaintance at the hotel at +Geneva, where we and much good company met some time ago, and +having had the honour of exchanging company and conversation with +that gentleman on several subsequent excursions, I can hear +nothing--no, not even from one of your appearance and station, +sir--detrimental to that gentleman.' + +'You are in no danger, sir, of hearing any such thing from me. In +remarking that your friend has shown impatience, I say no such +thing. I make that remark, because it is not to be doubted that my +son, being by birth and by--ha--by education a--hum--a gentleman, +would have readily adapted himself to any obligingly expressed wish +on the subject of the fire being equally accessible to the whole of +the present circle. Which, in principle, I--ha--for all are--hum-- +equal on these occasions--I consider right.' + +'Good,' was the reply. 'And there it ends! I am your son's +obedient servant. I beg your son to receive the assurance of my +profound consideration. And now, sir, I may admit, freely admit, +that my friend is sometimes of a sarcastic temper.' + +'The lady is your friend's wife, sir?' + +'The lady is my friend's wife, sir.' +'She is very handsome.' + +'Sir, she is peerless. They are still in the first year of their +marriage. They are still partly on a marriage, and partly on an +artistic, tour.' + +'Your friend is an artist, sir?' + +The gentleman replied by kissing the fingers of his right hand, and +wafting the kiss the length of his arm towards Heaven. As who +should say, I devote him to the celestial Powers as an immortal +artist! + +'But he is a man of family,' he added. 'His connections are of the +best. He is more than an artist: he is highly connected. He may, +in effect, have repudiated his connections, proudly, impatiently, +sarcastically (I make the concession of both words); but he has +them. Sparks that have been struck out during our intercourse have +shown me this.' + +'Well! I hope,' said the lofty gentleman, with the air of finally +disposing of the subject, 'that the lady's indisposition may be +only temporary.' + +'Sir, I hope so.' + +'Mere fatigue, I dare say.' + +'Not altogether mere fatigue, sir, for her mule stumbled to-day, +and she fell from the saddle. She fell lightly, and was up again +without assistance, and rode from us laughing; but she complained +towards evening of a slight bruise in the side. She spoke of it +more than once, as we followed your party up the mountain.' + +The head of the large retinue, who was gracious but not familiar, +appeared by this time to think that he had condescended more than +enough. He said no more, and there was silence for some quarter of +an hour until supper appeared. + +With the supper came one of the young Fathers (there seemed to be +no old Fathers) to take the head of the table. It was like the +supper of an ordinary Swiss hotel, and good red wine grown by the +convent in more genial air was not wanting. The artist traveller +calmly came and took his place at table when the rest sat down, +with no apparent sense upon him of his late skirmish with the +completely dressed traveller. + +'Pray,' he inquired of the host, over his soup, 'has your convent +many of its famous dogs now?' + +'Monsieur, it has three.' + +'I saw three in the gallery below. Doubtless the three in +question.' +The host, a slender, bright-eyed, dark young man of polite manners, +whose garment was a black gown with strips of white crossed over it +like braces, and who no more resembled the conventional breed of +Saint Bernard monks than he resembled the conventional breed of +Saint Bernard dogs, replied, doubtless those were the three in +question. + +'And I think,' said the artist traveller, 'I have seen one of them +before.' + +It was possible. He was a dog sufficiently well known. Monsieur +might have easily seen him in the valley or somewhere on the lake, +when he (the dog) had gone down with one of the order to solicit +aid for the convent. + +'Which is done in its regular season of the year, I think?' + +Monsieur was right. + +'And never without a dog. The dog is very important.' +Again Monsieur was right. The dog was very important. People were +justly interested in the dog. As one of the dogs celebrated +everywhere, Ma'amselle would observe. + +Ma'amselle was a little slow to observe it, as though she were not +yet well accustomed to the French tongue. Mrs General, however, +observed it for her. + +'Ask him if he has saved many lives?' said, in his native English, +the young man who had been put out of countenance. + +The host needed no translation of the question. He promptly +replied in French, 'No. Not this one.' + +'Why not?' the same gentleman asked. + +'Pardon,' returned the host composedly, 'give him the opportunity +and he will do it without doubt. For example, I am well +convinced,' smiling sedately, as he cut up the dish of veal to be +handed round, on the young man who had been put out of countenance, +'that if you, Monsieur, would give him the opportunity, he would +hasten with great ardour to fulfil his duty.' + +The artist traveller laughed. The insinuating traveller (who +evinced a provident anxiety to get his full share of the supper), +wiping some drops of wine from his moustache with a piece of bread, +joined the conversation. + +'It is becoming late in the year, my Father,' said he, 'for +tourist-travellers, is it not?' + +'Yes, it is late. Yet two or three weeks, at most, and we shall be +left to the winter snows.' +'And then,' said the insinuating traveller, 'for the scratching +dogs and the buried children, according to the pictures!' + +'Pardon,' said the host, not quite understanding the allusion. +'How, then the scratching dogs and the buried children according to +the pictures?' + +The artist traveller struck in again before an answer could be +given. + +'Don't you know,' he coldly inquired across the table of his +companion, 'that none but smugglers come this way in the winter or +can have any possible business this way?' + +'Holy blue! No; never heard of it.' + +'So it is, I believe. And as they know the signs of the weather +tolerably well, they don't give much employment to the dogs--who +have consequently died out rather--though this house of +entertainment is conveniently situated for themselves. Their young +families, I am told, they usually leave at home. But it's a grand +idea!' cried the artist traveller, unexpectedly rising into a tone +of enthusiasm. 'It's a sublime idea. It's the finest idea in the +world, and brings tears into a man's eyes, by Jupiter!' He then +went on eating his veal with great composure. + +There was enough of mocking inconsistency at the bottom of this +speech to make it rather discordant, though the manner was refined +and the person well-favoured, and though the depreciatory part of +it was so skilfully thrown off as to be very difficult for one not +perfectly acquainted with the English language to understand, or , +even understanding, to take offence at: so simple and dispassionate +was its tone. After finishing his veal in the midst of silence, +the speaker again addressed his friend. + +'Look,' said he, in his former tone, 'at this gentleman our host, +not yet in the prime of life, who in so graceful a way and with +such courtly urbanity and modesty presides over us! Manners fit +for a crown! Dine with the Lord Mayor of London (if you can get an +invitation) and observe the contrast. This dear fellow, with the +finest cut face I ever saw, a face in perfect drawing, leaves some +laborious life and comes up here I don't know how many feet above +the level of the sea, for no other purpose on earth (except +enjoying himself, I hope, in a capital refectory) than to keep an +hotel for idle poor devils like you and me, and leave the bill to +our consciences! Why, isn't it a beautiful sacrifice? What do we +want more to touch us? Because rescued people of interesting +appearance are not, for eight or nine months out of every twelve, +holding on here round the necks of the most sagacious of dogs +carrying wooden bottles, shall we disparage the place? No! Bless +the place. It's a great place, a glorious place!' + +The chest of the grey-haired gentleman who was the Chief of the +important party, had swelled as if with a protest against his being +numbered among poor devils. No sooner had the artist traveller +ceased speaking than he himself spoke with great dignity, as having +it incumbent on him to take the lead in most places, and having +deserted that duty for a little while. + +He weightily communicated his opinion to their host, that his life +must be a very dreary life here in the winter. + +The host allowed to Monsieur that it was a little monotonous. The +air was difficult to breathe for a length of time consecutively. +The cold was very severe. One needed youth and strength to bear +it. However, having them and the blessing of Heaven-- + +Yes, that was very good. 'But the confinement,' said the grey- +haired gentleman. + +There were many days, even in bad weather, when it was possible to +walk about outside. It was the custom to beat a little track, and +take exercise there. + +'But the space,' urged the grey-haired gentleman. 'So small. So-- +ha--very limited.' + +Monsieur would recall to himself that there were the refuges to +visit, and that tracks had to be made to them also. + +Monsieur still urged, on the other hand, that the space was so-- +ha--hum--so very contracted. More than that, it was always the +same, always the same. + +With a deprecating smile, the host gently raised and gently lowered +his shoulders. That was true, he remarked, but permit him to say +that almost all objects had their various points of view. Monsieur +and he did not see this poor life of his from the same point of +view. Monsieur was not used to confinement. + +'I--ha--yes, very true,' said the grey-haired gentleman. He seemed +to receive quite a shock from the force of the argument. + +Monsieur, as an English traveller, surrounded by all means of +travelling pleasantly; doubtless possessing fortune, carriages, and +servants-- + +'Perfectly, perfectly. Without doubt,' said the gentleman. + +Monsieur could not easily place himself in the position of a person +who had not the power to choose, I will go here to-morrow, or there +next day; I will pass these barriers, I will enlarge those bounds. +Monsieur could not realise, perhaps, how the mind accommodated +itself in such things to the force of necessity. + +'It is true,' said Monsieur. 'We will--ha--not pursue the subject. + +You are--hum--quite accurate, I have no doubt. We will say no +more.' + +The supper having come to a close, he drew his chair away as he +spoke, and moved back to his former place by the fire. As it was +very cold at the greater part of the table, the other guests also +resumed their former seats by the fire, designing to toast +themselves well before going to bed. The host, when they rose from +the table, bowed to all present, wished them good night, and +withdrew. But first the insinuating traveller had asked him if +they could have some wine made hot; and as he had answered Yes, and +had presently afterwards sent it in, that traveller, seated in the +centre of the group, and in the full heat of the fire, was soon +engaged in serving it out to the rest. + +At this time, the younger of the two young ladies, who had been +silently attentive in her dark corner (the fire-light was the chief +light in the sombre room, the lamp being smoky and dull) to what +had been said of the absent lady, glided out. She was at a loss +which way to turn when she had softly closed the door; but, after +a little hesitation among the sounding passages and the many ways, +came to a room in a corner of the main gallery, where the servants +were at their supper. From these she obtained a lamp, and a +direction to the lady's room. + +It was up the great staircase on the story above. Here and there, +the bare white walls were broken by an iron grate, and she thought +as she went along that the place was something like a prison. The +arched door of the lady's room, or cell, was not quite shut. After +knocking at it two or three times without receiving an answer, she +pushed it gently open, and looked in. + +The lady lay with closed eyes on the outside of the bed, protected +from the cold by the blankets and wrappers with which she had been +covered when she revived from her fainting fit. A dull light +placed in the deep recess of the window, made little impression on +the arched room. The visitor timidly stepped to the bed, and said, +in a soft whisper, 'Are you better?' + +The lady had fallen into a slumber, and the whisper was too low to +awake her. Her visitor, standing quite still, looked at her +attentively. + +'She is very pretty,' she said to herself. 'I never saw so +beautiful a face. O how unlike me!' + +It was a curious thing to say, but it had some hidden meaning, for +it filled her eyes with tears. + +'I know I must be right. I know he spoke of her that evening. I +could very easily be wrong on any other subject, but not on this, +not on this!' + +With a quiet and tender hand she put aside a straying fold of the +sleeper's hair, and then touched the hand that lay outside the +covering. + +'I like to look at her,' she breathed to herself. 'I like to see +what has affected him so much.' + +She had not withdrawn her hand, when the sleeper opened her eyes +and started. + +'Pray don't be alarmed. I am only one of the travellers from down- +stairs. I came to ask if you were better, and if I could do +anything for you.' + +'I think you have already been so kind as to send your servants to +my assistance?' + +'No, not I; that was my sister. Are you better?' + +'Much better. It is only a slight bruise, and has been well looked +to, and is almost easy now. It made me giddy and faint in a +moment. It had hurt me before; but at last it overpowered me all +at once.' +'May I stay with you until some one comes? Would you like it?' + +'I should like it, for it is lonely here; but I am afraid you will +feel the cold too much.' + +'I don't mind cold. I am not delicate, if I look so.' She quickly +moved one of the two rough chairs to the bedside, and sat down. +The other as quickly moved a part of some travelling wrapper from +herself, and drew it over her, so that her arm, in keeping it about +her, rested on her shoulder. + +'You have so much the air of a kind nurse,' said the lady, smiling +on her, 'that you seem as if you had come to me from home.' + +'I am very glad of it.' + +'I was dreaming of home when I woke just now. Of my old home, I +mean, before I was married.' + +'And before you were so far away from it.' + +'I have been much farther away from it than this; but then I took +the best part of it with me, and missed nothing. I felt solitary +as I dropped asleep here, and, missing it a little, wandered back +to it.' There was a sorrowfully affectionate and regretful sound +in her voice, which made her visitor refrain from looking at her +for the moment. + +'It is a curious chance which at last brings us together, under +this covering in which you have wrapped me,' said the visitor after +a pause;'for do you know, I think I have been looking for you some +time.' +'Looking for me?' + +'I believe I have a little note here, which I was to give to you +whenever I found you. This is it. Unless I greatly mistake, it is +addressed to you? Is it not?' + +The lady took it, and said yes, and read it. Her visitor watched +her as she did so. It was very short. She flushed a little as she +put her lips to her visitor's cheek, and pressed her hand. + +'The dear young friend to whom he presents me, may be a comfort to +me at some time, he says. She is truly a comfort to me the first +time I see her.' + +'Perhaps you don't,' said the visitor, hesitating--'perhaps you +don't know my story? Perhaps he never told you my story ?' + +'No.' + +'Oh no, why should he! I have scarcely the right to tell it myself +at present, because I have been entreated not to do so. There is +not much in it, but it might account to you for my asking you not +to say anything about the letter here. You saw my family with me, +perhaps? Some of them--I only say this to you--are a little proud, +a little prejudiced.' + +'You shall take it back again,' said the other; 'and then my +husband is sure not to see it. He might see it and speak of it, +otherwise, by some accident. Will you put it in your bosom again, +to be certain?' + +She did so with great care. Her small, slight hand was still upon +the letter, when they heard some one in the gallery outside. + +'I promised,' said the visitor, rising, 'that I would write to him +after seeing you (I could hardly fail to see you sooner or later), +and tell him if you were well and happy. I had better say you were +well and happy.' + +'Yes, yes, yes! Say I was very well and very happy. And that I +thanked him affectionately, and would never forget him.' + +'I shall see you in the morning. After that we are sure to meet +again before very long. Good night!' + +'Good night. Thank you, thank you. Good night, my dear!' + +Both of them were hurried and fluttered as they exchanged this +parting, and as the visitor came out of the door. She had expected +to meet the lady's husband approaching it; but the person in the +gallery was not he: it was the traveller who had wiped the wine- +drops from his moustache with the piece of bread. When he heard +the step behind him, he turned round--for he was walking away in +the dark. +His politeness, which was extreme, would not allow of the young +lady's lighting herself down-stairs, or going down alone. He took +her lamp, held it so as to throw the best light on the stone steps, +and followed her all the way to the supper-room. She went down, +not easily hiding how much she was inclined to shrink and tremble; +for the appearance of this traveller was particularly disagreeable +to her. She had sat in her quiet corner before supper imagining +what he would have been in the scenes and places within her +experience, until he inspired her with an aversion that made him +little less than terrific. + +He followed her down with his smiling politeness, followed her in, +and resumed his seat in the best place in the hearth. There with +the wood-fire, which was beginning to burn low, rising and falling +upon him in the dark room, he sat with his legs thrust out to warm, +drinking the hot wine down to the lees, with a monstrous shadow +imitating him on the wall and ceiling. + +The tired company had broken up, and all the rest were gone to bed +except the young lady's father, who dozed in his chair by the fire. + +The traveller had been at the pains of going a long way up-stairs +to his sleeping-room to fetch his pocket-flask of brandy. He told +them so, as he poured its contents into what was left of the wine, +and drank with a new relish. + +'May I ask, sir, if you are on your way to Italy?' + +The grey-haired gentleman had roused himself, and was preparing to +withdraw. He answered in the affirmative. + +'I also!' said the traveller. 'I shall hope to have the honour of +offering my compliments in fairer scenes, and under softer +circumstances, than on this dismal mountain.' + +The gentleman bowed, distantly enough, and said he was obliged to +him. + +'We poor gentlemen, sir,' said the traveller, pulling his moustache +dry with his hand, for he had dipped it in the wine and brandy; 'we +poor gentlemen do not travel like princes, but the courtesies and +graces of life are precious to us. To your health, sir!' + +'Sir, I thank you.' + +'To the health of your distinguished family--of the fair ladies, +your daughters!' + +'Sir, I thank you again, I wish you good night. My dear, are our-- +ha--our people in attendance?' + +'They are close by, father.' + +'Permit me!' said the traveller, rising and holding the door open, +as the gentleman crossed the room towards it with his arm drawn +through his daughter's. 'Good repose! To the pleasure of seeing +you once more! To to-morrow!' + +As he kissed his hand, with his best manner and his daintiest +smile, the young lady drew a little nearer to her father, and +passed him with a dread of touching him. + +'Humph!' said the insinuating traveller, whose manner shrunk, and +whose voice dropped when he was left alone. 'If they all go to +bed, why I must go. They are in a devil of a hurry. One would +think the night would be long enough, in this freezing silence and +solitude, if one went to bed two hours hence.' + +Throwing back his head in emptying his glass, he cast his eyes upon +the travellers' book, which lay on the piano, open, with pens and +ink beside it, as if the night's names had been registered when he +was absent. Taking it in his hand, he read these entries. + + + William Dorrit, Esquire + Frederick Dorrit, Esquire + Edward Dorrit, Esquire + Miss Dorrit + Miss Amy Dorrit + Mrs General + and Suite. + From France to Italy. + + Mr and Mrs Henry Gowan. + From France to Italy. + + +To which he added, in a small complicated hand, ending with a long +lean flourish, not unlike a lasso thrown at all the rest of the +names: + + + Blandois. Paris. + From France to Italy. + + +And then, with his nose coming down over his moustache and his +moustache going up and under his nose, repaired to his allotted +cell. + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +Mrs General + + +It is indispensable to present the accomplished lady who was of +sufficient importance in the suite of the Dorrit Family to have a +line to herself in the Travellers' Book. + +Mrs General was the daughter of a clerical dignitary in a cathedral +town, where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty- +five as a single lady can be. A stiff commissariat officer of +sixty, famous as a martinet, had then become enamoured of the +gravity with which she drove the proprieties four-in-hand through +the cathedral town society, and had solicited to be taken beside +her on the box of the cool coach of ceremony to which that team was +harnessed. His proposal of marriage being accepted by the lady, +the commissary took his seat behind the proprieties with great +decorum, and Mrs General drove until the commissary died. In the +course of their united journey, they ran over several people who +came in the way of the proprieties; but always in a high style and +with composure. + +The commissary having been buried with all the decorations suitable +to the service (the whole team of proprieties were harnessed to his +hearse, and they all had feathers and black velvet housings with +his coat of arms in the corner), Mrs General began to inquire what +quantity of dust and ashes was deposited at the bankers'. It then +transpired that the commissary had so far stolen a march on Mrs +General as to have bought himself an annuity some years before his +marriage, and to have reserved that circumstance in mentioning, at +the period of his proposal, that his income was derived from the +interest of his money. Mrs General consequently found her means so +much diminished, that, but for the perfect regulation of her mind, +she might have felt disposed to question the accuracy of that +portion of the late service which had declared that the commissary +could take nothing away with him. + +In this state of affairs it occurred to Mrs General, that she might +'form the mind,' and eke the manners of some young lady of +distinction. Or, that she might harness the proprieties to the +carriage of some rich young heiress or widow, and become at once +the driver and guard of such vehicle through the social mazes. Mrs +General's communication of this idea to her clerical and +commissariat connection was so warmly applauded that, but for the +lady's undoubted merit, it might have appeared as though they +wanted to get rid of her. Testimonials representing Mrs General as +a prodigy of piety, learning, virtue, and gentility, were lavishly +contributed from influential quarters; and one venerable archdeacon +even shed tears in recording his testimony to her perfections +(described to him by persons on whom he could rely), though he had +never had the honour and moral gratification of setting eyes on Mrs +General in all his life. + +Thus delegated on her mission, as it were by Church and State, Mrs +General, who had always occupied high ground, felt in a condition +to keep it, and began by putting herself up at a very high figure. +An interval of some duration elapsed, in which there was no bid for +Mrs General. At length a county-widower, with a daughter of +fourteen, opened negotiations with the lady; and as it was a part +either of the native dignity or of the artificial policy of Mrs +General (but certainly one or the other) to comport herself as if +she were much more sought than seeking, the widower pursued Mrs +General until he prevailed upon her to form his daughter's mind and +manners. + +The execution of this trust occupied Mrs General about seven years, +in the course of which time she made the tour of Europe, and saw +most of that extensive miscellany of objects which it is essential +that all persons of polite cultivation should see with other +people's eyes, and never with their own. When her charge was at +length formed, the marriage, not only of the young lady, but +likewise of her father, the widower, was resolved on. The widower +then finding Mrs General both inconvenient and expensive, became of +a sudden almost as much affected by her merits as the archdeacon +had been, and circulated such praises of her surpassing worth, in +all quarters where he thought an opportunity might arise of +transferring the blessing to somebody else, that Mrs General was a +name more honourable than ever. + +The phoenix was to let, on this elevated perch, when Mr Dorrit, who +had lately succeeded to his property, mentioned to his bankers that +he wished to discover a lady, well-bred, accomplished, well +connected, well accustomed to good society, who was qualified at +once to complete the education of his daughters, and to be their +matron or chaperon. Mr Dorrit's bankers, as bankers of the county- +widower, instantly said, 'Mrs General.' + +Pursuing the light so fortunately hit upon, and finding the +concurrent testimony of the whole of Mrs General's acquaintance to +be of the pathetic nature already recorded, Mr Dorrit took the +trouble of going down to the county of the county-widower to see +Mrs General, in whom he found a lady of a quality superior to his +highest expectations. + +'Might I be excused,' said Mr Dorrit, 'if I inquired--ha--what +remune--' + +'Why, indeed,' returned Mrs General, stopping the word, 'it is a +subject on which I prefer to avoid entering. I have never entered +on it with my friends here; and I cannot overcome the delicacy, Mr +Dorrit, with which I have always regarded it. I am not, as I hope +you are aware, a governess--' + +'O dear no!' said Mr Dorrit. 'Pray, madam, do not imagine for a +moment that I think so.' He really blushed to be suspected of it. + +Mrs General gravely inclined her head. 'I cannot, therefore, put +a price upon services which it is a pleasure to me to render if I +can render them spontaneously, but which I could not render in mere +return for any consideration. Neither do I know how, or where, to +find a case parallel to my own. It is peculiar.' + +No doubt. But how then (Mr Dorrit not unnaturally hinted) could +the subject be approached. +'I cannot object,' said Mrs General--'though even that is +disagreeable to me--to Mr Dorrit's inquiring, in confidence of my +friends here, what amount they have been accustomed, at quarterly +intervals, to pay to my credit at my bankers'.' + +Mr Dorrit bowed his acknowledgements. + +'Permit me to add,' said Mrs General, 'that beyond this, I can +never resume the topic. Also that I can accept no second or +inferior position. If the honour were proposed to me of becoming +known to Mr Dorrit's family--I think two daughters were +mentioned?--' + +'Two daughters.' + +'I could only accept it on terms of perfect equality, as a +companion, protector, Mentor, and friend.' + +Mr Dorrit, in spite of his sense of his importance, felt as if it +would be quite a kindness in her to accept it on any conditions. +He almost said as much. + +'I think,' repeated Mrs General, 'two daughters were mentioned?' + +'Two daughters,' said Mr Dorrit again. + +'It would therefore,' said Mrs General, 'be necessary to add a +third more to the payment (whatever its amount may prove to be), +which my friends here have been accustomed to make to my bankers'.' + +Mr Dorrit lost no time in referring the delicate question to the +county-widower, and finding that he had been accustomed to pay +three hundred pounds a-year to the credit of Mrs General, arrived, +without any severe strain on his arithmetic, at the conclusion that +he himself must pay four. Mrs General being an article of that +lustrous surface which suggests that it is worth any money, he made +a formal proposal to be allowed to have the honour and pleasure of +regarding her as a member of his family. Mrs General conceded that +high privilege, and here she was. + +In person, Mrs General, including her skirts which had much to do +with it, was of a dignified and imposing appearance; ample, +rustling, gravely voluminous; always upright behind the +proprieties. She might have been taken--had been taken--to the top +of the Alps and the bottom of Herculaneum, without disarranging a +fold in her dress, or displacing a pin. If her countenance and +hair had rather a floury appearance, as though from living in some +transcendently genteel Mill, it was rather because she was a chalky +creation altogether, than because she mended her complexion with +violet powder, or had turned grey. If her eyes had no expression, +it was probably because they had nothing to express. If she had +few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or +any other inscription on her face. A cool, waxy, blown-out woman, +who had never lighted well. +Mrs General had no opinions. Her way of forming a mind was to +prevent it from forming opinions. She had a little circular set of +mental grooves or rails on which she started little trains of other +people's opinions, which never overtook one another, and never got +anywhere. Even her propriety could not dispute that there was +impropriety in the world; but Mrs General's way of getting rid of +it was to put it out of sight, and make believe that there was no +such thing. This was another of her ways of forming a mind--to +cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, lock them up, and +say they had no existence. It was the easiest way, and, beyond all +comparison, the properest. + +Mrs General was not to be told of anything shocking. Accidents, +miseries, and offences, were never to be mentioned before her. +Passion was to go to sleep in the presence of Mrs General, and +blood was to change to milk and water. The little that was left in +the world, when all these deductions were made, it was Mrs +General's province to varnish. In that formation process of hers, +she dipped the smallest of brushes into the largest of pots, and +varnished the surface of every object that came under +consideration. The more cracked it was, the more Mrs General +varnished it. +There was varnish in Mrs General's voice, varnish in Mrs General's +touch, an atmosphere of varnish round Mrs General's figure. Mrs +General's dreams ought to have been varnished--if she had any-- +lying asleep in the arms of the good Saint Bernard, with the +feathery snow falling on his house-top. + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +On the Road + + +The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the +mists had vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that +the new sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a +new existence. To help the delusion, the solid ground itself +seemed gone, and the mountain, a shining waste of immense white +heaps and masses, to be a region of cloud floating between the blue +sky above and the earth far below. + +Some dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, +beginning at the convent door and winding away down the descent in +broken lengths which were not yet pieced together, showed where the +Brethren were at work in several places clearing the track. +Already the snow had begun to be foot-thawed again about the door. +Mules were busily brought out, tied to the rings in the wall, and +laden; strings of bells were buckled on, burdens were adjusted, the +voices of drivers and riders sounded musically. Some of the +earliest had even already resumed their journey; and, both on the +level summit by the dark water near the convent, and on the +downward way of yesterday's ascent, little moving figures of men +and mules, reduced to miniatures by the immensity around, went with +a clear tinkling of bells and a pleasant harmony of tongues. + +In the supper-room of last night, a new fire, piled upon the +feathery ashes of the old one, shone upon a homely breakfast of +loaves, butter, and milk. It also shone on the courier of the +Dorrit family, making tea for his party from a supply he had +brought up with him, together with several other small stores which +were chiefly laid in for the use of the strong body of +inconvenience. Mr Gowan and Blandois of Paris had already +breakfasted, and were walking up and down by the lake, smoking +their cigars. +'Gowan, eh?' muttered Tip, otherwise Edward Dorrit, Esquire, +turning over the leaves of the book, when the courier had left them +to breakfast. 'Then Gowan is the name of a puppy, that's all I +have got to say! If it was worth my while, I'd pull his nose. But +it isn't worth my while--fortunately for him. How's his wife, Amy? + +I suppose you know. You generally know things of that sort.' + +'She is better, Edward. But they are not going to-day.' + +'Oh! They are not going to-day! Fortunately for that fellow too,' +said Tip, 'or he and I might have come into collision.' + +'It is thought better here that she should lie quiet to-day, and +not be fatigued and shaken by the ride down until to-morrow.' + +'With all my heart. But you talk as if you had been nursing her. +You haven't been relapsing into (Mrs General is not here) into old +habits, have you, Amy?' + +He asked her the question with a sly glance of observation at Miss +Fanny, and at his father too. + +'I have only been in to ask her if I could do anything for her, +Tip,' said Little Dorrit. + +'You needn't call me Tip, Amy child,' returned that young gentleman +with a frown; 'because that's an old habit, and one you may as well +lay aside.' + +'I didn't mean to say so, Edward dear. I forgot. It was so +natural once, that it seemed at the moment the right word.' + +'Oh yes!' Miss Fanny struck in. 'Natural, and right word, and +once, and all the rest of it! Nonsense, you little thing! I know +perfectly well why you have been taking such an interest in this +Mrs Gowan. You can't blind me.' + +'I will not try to, Fanny. Don't be angry.' + +'Oh! angry!' returned that young lady with a flounce. 'I have no +patience' (which indeed was the truth). +'Pray, Fanny,' said Mr Dorrit, raising his eyebrows, 'what do you +mean? Explain yourself.' + +'Oh! Never mind, Pa,' replied Miss Fanny, 'it's no great matter. +Amy will understand me. She knew, or knew of, this Mrs Gowan +before yesterday, and she may as well admit that she did.' + +'My child,' said Mr Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, 'has +your sister--any--ha--authority for this curious statement?' + +'However meek we are,' Miss Fanny struck in before she could +answer, 'we don't go creeping into people's rooms on the tops of +cold mountains, and sitting perishing in the frost with people, +unless we know something about them beforehand. It's not very hard +to divine whose friend Mrs Gowan is.' + +'Whose friend?' inquired her father. + +'Pa, I am sorry to say,' returned Miss Fanny, who had by this time +succeeded in goading herself into a state of much ill-usage and +grievance, which she was often at great pains to do: 'that I +believe her to be a friend of that very objectionable and +unpleasant person, who, with a total absence of all delicacy, which +our experience might have led us to expect from him, insulted us +and outraged our feelings in so public and wilful a manner on an +occasion to which it is understood among us that we will not more +pointedly allude.' + +'Amy, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, tempering a bland severity with a +dignified affection, 'is this the case?' + +Little Dorrit mildly answered, yes it was. + +'Yes it is!' cried Miss Fanny. 'Of course! I said so! And now, +Pa, I do declare once for all'--this young lady was in the habit of +declaring the same thing once for all every day of her life, and +even several times in a day--'that this is shameful! I do declare +once for all that it ought to be put a stop to. Is it not enough +that we have gone through what is only known to ourselves, but are +we to have it thrown in our faces, perseveringly and +systematically, by the very person who should spare our feelings +most? Are we to be exposed to this unnatural conduct every moment +of our lives? Are we never to be permitted to forget? I say +again, it is absolutely infamous!' + +'Well, Amy,' observed her brother, shaking his head, 'you know I +stand by you whenever I can, and on most occasions. But I must +say, that, upon my soul, I do consider it rather an unaccountable +mode of showing your sisterly affection, that you should back up a +man who treated me in the most ungentlemanly way in which one man +can treat another. And who,' he added convincingly, must be a low- +minded thief, you know, or he never could have conducted himself as +he did.' + +'And see,' said Miss Fanny, 'see what is involved in this! Can we +ever hope to be respected by our servants? Never. Here are our +two women, and Pa's valet, and a footman, and a courier, and all +sorts of dependents, and yet in the midst of these, we are to have +one of ourselves rushing about with tumblers of cold water, like a +menial! Why, a policeman,' said Miss Fanny, 'if a beggar had a fit +in the street, could but go plunging about with tumblers, as this +very Amy did in this very room before our very eyes last night!' + +'I don't so much mind that, once in a way,' remarked Mr Edward; +'but your Clennam, as he thinks proper to call himself, is another +thing.' +'He is part of the same thing,' returned Miss Fanny, 'and of a +piece with all the rest. He obtruded himself upon us in the first +instance. We never wanted him. I always showed him, for one, that +I could have dispensed with his company with the greatest pleasure. + +He then commits that gross outrage upon our feelings, which he +never could or would have committed but for the delight he took in +exposing us; and then we are to be demeaned for the service of his +friends! Why, I don't wonder at this Mr Gowan's conduct towards +you. What else was to be expected when he was enjoying our past +misfortunes--gloating over them at the moment!' +'Father--Edward--no indeed!' pleaded Little Dorrit. 'Neither Mr +nor Mrs Gowan had ever heard our name. They were, and they are, +quite ignorant of our history.' + +'So much the worse,' retorted Fanny, determined not to admit +anything in extenuation, 'for then you have no excuse. If they had +known about us, you might have felt yourself called upon to +conciliate them. That would have been a weak and ridiculous +mistake, but I can respect a mistake, whereas I can't respect a +wilful and deliberate abasing of those who should be nearest and +dearest to us. No. I can't respect that. I can do nothing but +denounce that.' + +'I never offend you wilfully, Fanny,' said Little Dorrit, 'though +you are so hard with me.' + +'Then you should be more careful, Amy,' returned her sister. 'If +you do such things by accident, you should be more careful. If I +happened to have been born in a peculiar place, and under peculiar +circumstances that blunted my knowledge of propriety, I fancy I +should think myself bound to consider at every step, "Am I going, +ignorantly, to compromise any near and dear relations?" That is +what I fancy I should do, if it was my case.' + +Mr Dorrit now interposed, at once to stop these painful subjects by +his authority, and to point their moral by his wisdom. + +'My dear,' said he to his younger daughter, 'I beg you to--ha--to +say no more. Your sister Fanny expresses herself strongly, but not +without considerable reason. You have now a--hum--a great position +to support. That great position is not occupied by yourself alone, +but by--ha--by me, and--ha hum--by us. Us. Now, it is incumbent +upon all people in an exalted position, but it is particularly so +on this family, for reasons which I--ha--will not dwell upon, to +make themselves respected. To be vigilant in making themselves +respected. Dependants, to respect us, must be--ha--kept at a +distance and--hum--kept down. Down. Therefore, your not exposing +yourself to the remarks of our attendants by appearing to have at +any time dispensed with their services and performed them for +yourself, is--ha--highly important.' + +'Why, who can doubt it?' cried Miss Fanny. 'It's the essence of +everything.' +'Fanny,' returned her father, grandiloquently, 'give me leave, my +dear. We then come to--ha--to Mr Clennam. I am free to say that +I do not, Amy, share your sister's sentiments--that is to say +altogether--hum--altogether--in reference to Mr Clennam. I am +content to regard that individual in the light of--ha--generally-- +a well-behaved person. Hum. A well-behaved person. Nor will I +inquire whether Mr Clennam did, at any time, obtrude himself on-- +ha--my society. He knew my society to be--hum--sought, and his +plea might be that he regarded me in the light of a public +character. But there were circumstances attending my--ha--slight +knowledge of Mr Clennam (it was very slight), which,' here Mr +Dorrit became extremely grave and impressive, 'would render it +highly indelicate in Mr Clennam to--ha--to seek to renew +communication with me or with any member of my family under +existing circumstances. If Mr Clennam has sufficient delicacy to +perceive the impropriety of any such attempt, I am bound as a +responsible gentleman to--ha--defer to that delicacy on his part. +If, on the other hand, Mr Clennam has not that delicacy, I cannot +for a moment--ha--hold any correspondence with so--hum--coarse a +mind. In either case, it would appear that Mr Clennam is put +altogether out of the question, and that we have nothing to do with +him or he with us. Ha--Mrs General!' + +The entrance of the lady whom he announced, to take her place at +the breakfast-table, terminated the discussion. Shortly +afterwards, the courier announced that the valet, and the footman, +and the two maids, and the four guides, and the fourteen mules, +were in readiness; so the breakfast party went out to the convent +door to join the cavalcade. + +Mr Gowan stood aloof with his cigar and pencil, but Mr Blandois was +on the spot to pay his respects to the ladies. When he gallantly +pulled off his slouched hat to Little Dorrit, she thought he had +even a more sinister look, standing swart and cloaked in the snow, +than he had in the fire-light over-night. But, as both her father +and her sister received his homage with some favour, she refrained +from expressing any distrust of him, lest it should prove to be a +new blemish derived from her prison birth. + +Nevertheless, as they wound down the rugged way while the convent +was yet in sight, she more than once looked round, and descried Mr +Blandois, backed by the convent smoke which rose straight and high +from the chimneys in a golden film, always standing on one jutting +point looking down after them. Long after he was a mere black +stick in the snow, she felt as though she could yet see that smile +of his, that high nose, and those eyes that were too near it. And +even after that, when the convent was gone and some light morning +clouds veiled the pass below it, the ghastly skeleton arms by the +wayside seemed to be all pointing up at him. + +More treacherous than snow, perhaps, colder at heart, and harder to +melt, Blandois of Paris by degrees passed out of her mind, as they +came down into the softer regions. Again the sun was warm, again +the streams descending from glaciers and snowy caverns were +refreshing to drink at, again they came among the pine-trees, the +rocky rivulets, the verdant heights and dales, the wooden chalets +and rough zigzag fences of Swiss country. Sometimes the way so +widened that she and her father could ride abreast. And then to +look at him, handsomely clothed in his fur and broadcloths, rich, +free, numerously served and attended, his eyes roving far away +among the glories of the landscape, no miserable screen before them +to darken his sight and cast its shadow on him, was enough. + +Her uncle was so far rescued from that shadow of old, that he wore +the clothes they gave him, and performed some ablutions as a +sacrifice to the family credit, and went where he was taken, with +a certain patient animal enjoyment, which seemed to express that +the air and change did him good. In all other respects, save one, +he shone with no light but such as was reflected from his brother. +His brother's greatness, wealth, freedom, and grandeur, pleased him +without any reference to himself. Silent and retiring, he had no +use for speech when he could hear his brother speak; no desire to +be waited on, so that the servants devoted themselves to his +brother. The only noticeable change he originated in himself, was +an alteration in his manner to his younger niece. Every day it +refined more and more into a marked respect, very rarely shown by +age to youth, and still more rarely susceptible, one would have +said, of the fitness with which he invested it. On those occasions +when Miss Fanny did declare once for all, he would take the next +opportunity of baring his grey head before his younger niece, and +of helping her to alight, or handing her to the carriage, or +showing her any other attention, with the profoundest deference. +Yet it never appeared misplaced or forced, being always heartily +simple, spontaneous, and genuine. Neither would he ever consent, +even at his brother's request, to be helped to any place before +her, or to take precedence of her in anything. So jealous was he +of her being respected, that, on this very journey down from the +Great Saint Bernard, he took sudden and violent umbrage at the +footman's being remiss to hold her stirrup, though standing near +when she dismounted; and unspeakably astonished the whole retinue +by charging at him on a hard-headed mule, riding him into a corner, +and threatening to trample him to death. + +They were a goodly company, and the Innkeepers all but worshipped +them. Wherever they went, their importance preceded them in the +person of the courier riding before, to see that the rooms of state +were ready. He was the herald of the family procession. The great +travelling-carriage came next: containing, inside, Mr Dorrit, Miss +Dorrit, Miss Amy Dorrit, and Mrs General; outside, some of the +retainers, and (in fine weather) Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for whom +the box was reserved. Then came the chariot containing Frederick +Dorrit, Esquire, and an empty place occupied by Edward Dorrit, +Esquire, in wet weather. Then came the fourgon with the rest of +the retainers, the heavy baggage, and as much as it could carry of +the mud and dust which the other vehicles left behind. + +These equipages adorned the yard of the hotel at Martigny, on the +return of the family from their mountain excursion. Other vehicles +were there, much company being on the road, from the patched +Italian Vettura--like the body of a swing from an English fair put +upon a wooden tray on wheels, and having another wooden tray +without wheels put atop of it--to the trim English carriage. But +there was another adornment of the hotel which Mr Dorrit had not +bargained for. Two strange travellers embellished one of his +rooms. + +The Innkeeper, hat in hand in the yard, swore to the courier that +he was blighted, that he was desolated, that he was profoundly +afflicted, that he was the most miserable and unfortunate of +beasts, that he had the head of a wooden pig. He ought never to +have made the concession, he said, but the very genteel lady had so +passionately prayed him for the accommodation of that room to dine +in, only for a little half-hour, that he had been vanquished. The +little half-hour was expired, the lady and gentleman were taking +their little dessert and half-cup of coffee, the note was paid, the +horses were ordered, they would depart immediately; but, owing to +an unhappy destiny and the curse of Heaven, they were not yet gone. + +Nothing could exceed Mr Dorrit's indignation, as he turned at the +foot of the staircase on hearing these apologies. He felt that the +family dignity was struck at by an assassin's hand. He had a sense +of his dignity, which was of the most exquisite nature. He could +detect a design upon it when nobody else had any perception of the +fact. His life was made an agony by the number of fine scalpels +that he felt to be incessantly engaged in dissecting his dignity. + +'Is it possible, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, reddening excessively, 'that +you have--ha--had the audacity to place one of my rooms at the +disposition of any other person?' + +Thousands of pardons! It was the host's profound misfortune to +have been overcome by that too genteel lady. He besought +Monseigneur not to enrage himself. He threw himself on Monseigneur +for clemency. If Monseigneur would have the distinguished goodness +to occupy the other salon especially reserved for him, for but five +minutes, all would go well. + +'No, sir,' said Mr Dorrit. 'I will not occupy any salon. I will +leave your house without eating or drinking, or setting foot in it. + +How do you dare to act like this? Who am I that you--ha--separate +me from other gentlemen?' + +Alas! The host called all the universe to witness that Monseigneur +was the most amiable of the whole body of nobility, the most +important, the most estimable, the most honoured. If he separated +Monseigneur from others, it was only because he was more +distinguished, more cherished, more generous, more renowned. + +'Don't tell me so, sir,' returned Mr Dorrit, in a mighty heat. +'You have affronted me. You have heaped insults upon me. How dare +you? Explain yourself.' + +Ah, just Heaven, then, how could the host explain himself when he +had nothing more to explain; when he had only to apologise, and +confide himself to the so well-known magnanimity of Monseigneur! + +'I tell you, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, panting with anger, 'that you +separate me--ha--from other gentlemen; that you make distinctions +between me and other gentlemen of fortune and station. I demand of +you, why? I wish to know on--ha--what authority, on whose +authority. Reply sir. Explain. Answer why.' + +Permit the landlord humbly to submit to Monsieur the Courier then, +that Monseigneur, ordinarily so gracious, enraged himself without +cause. There was no why. Monsieur the Courier would represent to +Monseigneur, that he deceived himself in suspecting that there was +any why, but the why his devoted servant had already had the honour +to present to him. The very genteel lady-- + +'Silence!' cried Mr Dorrit. 'Hold your tongue! I will hear no +more of the very genteel lady; I will hear no more of you. Look at +this family--my family--a family more genteel than any lady. You +have treated this family with disrespect; you have been insolent to +this family. I'll ruin you. Ha--send for the horses, pack the +carriages, I'll not set foot in this man's house again!' + +No one had interfered in the dispute, which was beyond the French +colloquial powers of Edward Dorrit, Esquire, and scarcely within +the province of the ladies. Miss Fanny, however, now supported her +father with great bitterness; declaring, in her native tongue, that +it was quite clear there was something special in this man's +impertinence; and that she considered it important that he should +be, by some means, forced to give up his authority for making +distinctions between that family and other wealthy families. What +the reasons of his presumption could be, she was at a loss to +imagine; but reasons he must have, and they ought to be torn from +him. + +All the guides, mule-drivers, and idlers in the yard, had made +themselves parties to the angry conference, and were much impressed +by the courier's now bestirring himself to get the carriages out. +With the aid of some dozen people to each wheel, this was done at +a great cost of noise; and then the loading was proceeded with, +pending the arrival of the horses from the post-house. + +But the very genteel lady's English chariot being already horsed +and at the inn-door, the landlord had slipped up-stairs to +represent his hard case. This was notified to the yard by his now +coming down the staircase in attendance on the gentleman and the +lady, and by his pointing out the offended majesty of Mr Dorrit to +them with a significant motion of his hand. + +'Beg your pardon,' said the gentleman, detaching himself from the +lady, and coming forward. 'I am a man of few words and a bad hand +at an explanation--but lady here is extremely anxious that there +should be no Row. Lady--a mother of mine, in point of fact--wishes +me to say that she hopes no Row.' + +Mr Dorrit, still panting under his injury, saluted the gentleman, +and saluted the lady, in a distant, final, and invincible manner. + +'No, but really--here, old feller; you!' This was the gentleman's +way of appealing to Edward Dorrit, Esquire, on whom he pounced as +a great and providential relief. 'Let you and I try to make this +all right. Lady so very much wishes no Row.' + +Edward Dorrit, Esquire, led a little apart by the button, assumed +a diplomatic expression of countenance in replying, 'Why you must +confess, that when you bespeak a lot of rooms beforehand, and they +belong to you, it's not pleasant to find other people in 'em.' + +'No,' said the other, 'I know it isn't. I admit it. Still, let +you and I try to make it all right, and avoid Row. The fault is +not this chap's at all, but my mother's. Being a remarkably fine +woman with no bigodd nonsense about her--well educated, too--she +was too many for this chap. Regularly pocketed him.' + +'If that's the case--' Edward Dorrit, Esquire, began. + +'Assure you 'pon my soul 'tis the case. Consequently,' said the +other gentleman, retiring on his main position, 'why Row?' + +'Edmund,' said the lady from the doorway, 'I hope you have +explained, or are explaining, to the satisfaction of this gentleman +and his family that the civil landlord is not to blame?' + +'Assure you, ma'am,' returned Edmund, 'perfectly paralysing myself +with trying it on.' He then looked steadfastly at Edward Dorrit, +Esquire, for some seconds, and suddenly added, in a burst of +confidence, 'Old feller! Is it all right?' + +'I don't know, after all,' said the lady, gracefully advancing a +step or two towards Mr Dorrit, 'but that I had better say myself, +at once, that I assured this good man I took all the consequences +on myself of occupying one of a stranger's suite of rooms during +his absence, for just as much (or as little) time as I could dine +in. I had no idea the rightful owner would come back so soon, nor +had I any idea that he had come back, or I should have hastened to +make restoration of my ill-gotten chamber, and to have offered my +explanation and apology. I trust in saying this--' + +For a moment the lady, with a glass at her eye, stood transfixed +and speechless before the two Miss Dorrits. At the same moment, +Miss Fanny, in the foreground of a grand pictorial composition, +formed by the family, the family equipages, and the family +servants, held her sister tight under one arm to detain her on the +spot, and with the other arm fanned herself with a distinguished +air, and negligently surveyed the lady from head to foot. + +The lady, recovering herself quickly--for it was Mrs Merdle and she +was not easily dashed--went on to add that she trusted in saying +this, she apologised for her boldness, and restored this well- +behaved landlord to the favour that was so very valuable to him. +Mr Dorrit, on the altar of whose dignity all this was incense, made +a gracious reply; and said that his people should--ha--countermand +his horses, and he would--hum--overlook what he had at first +supposed to be an affront, but now regarded as an honour. Upon +this the bosom bent to him; and its owner, with a wonderful command +of feature, addressed a winning smile of adieu to the two sisters, +as young ladies of fortune in whose favour she was much +prepossessed, and whom she had never had the gratification of +seeing before. + +Not so, however, Mr Sparkler. This gentleman, becoming transfixed +at the same moment as his lady-mother, could not by any means unfix +himself again, but stood stiffly staring at the whole composition +with Miss Fanny in the Foreground. On his mother saying, 'Edmund, +we are quite ready; will you give me your arm?' he seemed, by the +motion of his lips, to reply with some remark comprehending the +form of words in which his shining talents found the most frequent +utterance, but he relaxed no muscle. So fixed was his figure, that +it would have been matter of some difficulty to bend him +sufficiently to get him in the carriage-door, if he had not +received the timely assistance of a maternal pull from within. He +was no sooner within than the pad of the little window in the back +of the chariot disappeared, and his eye usurped its place. There +it remained as long as so small an object was discernible, and +probably much longer, staring (as though something inexpressibly +surprising should happen to a codfish) like an ill-executed eye in +a large locket. + +This encounter was so highly agreeable to Miss Fanny, and gave her +so much to think of with triumph afterwards, that it softened her +asperities exceedingly. When the procession was again in motion +next day, she occupied her place in it with a new gaiety; and +showed such a flow of spirits indeed, that Mrs General looked +rather surprised. + +Little Dorrit was glad to be found no fault with, and to see that +Fanny was pleased; but her part in the procession was a musing +part, and a quiet one. Sitting opposite her father in the +travelling-carriage, and recalling the old Marshalsea room, her +present existence was a dream. All that she saw was new and +wonderful, but it was not real; it seemed to her as if those +visions of mountains and picturesque countries might melt away at +any moment, and the carriage, turning some abrupt corner, bring up +with a jolt at the old Marshalsea gate. + +To have no work to do was strange, but not half so strange as +having glided into a corner where she had no one to think for, +nothing to plan and contrive, no cares of others to load herself +with. Strange as that was, it was far stranger yet to find a space +between herself and her father, where others occupied themselves in +taking care of him, and where she was never expected to be. At +first, this was so much more unlike her old experience than even +the mountains themselves, that she had been unable to resign +herself to it, and had tried to retain her old place about him. +But he had spoken to her alone, and had said that people--ha-- +people in an exalted position, my dear, must scrupulously exact +respect from their dependents; and that for her, his daughter, Miss +Amy Dorrit, of the sole remaining branch of the Dorrits of +Dorsetshire, to be known to--hum--to occupy herself in fulfilling +the functions of--ha hum--a valet, would be incompatible with that +respect. Therefore, my dear, he--ha--he laid his parental +injunctions upon her, to remember that she was a lady, who had now +to conduct herself with--hum--a proper pride, and to preserve the +rank of a lady; and consequently he requested her to abstain from +doing what would occasion--ha--unpleasant and derogatory remarks. +She had obeyed without a murmur. Thus it had been brought about +that she now sat in her corner of the luxurious carriage with her +little patient hands folded before her, quite displaced even from +the last point of the old standing ground in life on which her feet +had lingered. + +It was from this position that all she saw appeared unreal; the +more surprising the scenes, the more they resembled the unreality +of her own inner life as she went through its vacant places all day +long. The gorges of the Simplon, its enormous depths and +thundering waterfalls, the wonderful road, the points of danger +where a loose wheel or a faltering horse would have been +destruction, the descent into Italy, the opening of that beautiful +land as the rugged mountain-chasm widened and let them out from a +gloomy and dark imprisonment--all a dream--only the old mean +Marshalsea a reality. Nay, even the old mean Marshalsea was shaken +to its foundations when she pictured it without her father. She +could scarcely believe that the prisoners were still lingering in +the close yard, that the mean rooms were still every one tenanted, +and that the turnkey still stood in the Lodge letting people in and +out, all just as she well knew it to be. + +With a remembrance of her father's old life in prison hanging about +her like the burden of a sorrowful tune, Little Dorrit would wake +from a dream of her birth-place into a whole day's dream. The +painted room in which she awoke, often a humbled state-chamber in +a dilapidated palace, would begin it; with its wild red autumnal +vine-leaves overhanging the glass, its orange-trees on the cracked +white terrace outside the window, a group of monks and peasants in +the little street below, misery and magnificence wrestling with +each other upon every rood of ground in the prospect, no matter how +widely diversified, and misery throwing magnificence with the +strength of fate. To this would succeed a labyrinth of bare +passages and pillared galleries, with the family procession already +preparing in the quadrangle below, through the carriages and +luggage being brought together by the servants for the day's +journey. Then breakfast in another painted chamber, damp-stained +and of desolate proportions; and then the departure, which, to her +timidity and sense of not being grand enough for her place in the +ceremonies, was always an uneasy thing. For then the courier (who +himself would have been a foreign gentleman of high mark in the +Marshalsea) would present himself to report that all was ready; and +then her father's valet would pompously induct him into his +travelling-cloak; and then Fanny's maid, and her own maid (who was +a weight on Little Dorrit's mind--absolutely made her cry at first, +she knew so little what to do with her), would be in attendance; +and then her brother's man would complete his master's equipment; +and then her father would give his arm to Mrs General, and her +uncle would give his to her, and, escorted by the landlord and Inn +servants, they would swoop down-stairs. There, a crowd would be +collected to see them enter their carriages, which, amidst much +bowing, and begging, and prancing, and lashing, and clattering, +they would do; and so they would be driven madly through narrow +unsavoury streets, and jerked out at the town gate. + +Among the day's unrealities would be roads where the bright red +vines were looped and garlanded together on trees for many miles; +woods of olives; white villages and towns on hill-sides, lovely +without, but frightful in their dirt and poverty within; crosses by +the way; deep blue lakes with fairy islands, and clustering boats +with awnings of bright colours and sails of beautiful forms; vast +piles of building mouldering to dust; hanging-gardens where the +weeds had grown so strong that their stems, like wedges driven +home, had split the arch and rent the wall; stone-terraced lanes, +with the lizards running into and out of every chink; beggars of +all sorts everywhere: pitiful, picturesque, hungry, merry; children +beggars and aged beggars. Often at posting-houses and other +halting places, these miserable creatures would appear to her the +only realities of the day; and many a time, when the money she had +brought to give them was all given away, she would sit with her +folded hands, thoughtfully looking after some diminutive girl +leading her grey father, as if the sight reminded her of something +in the days that were gone. + +Again, there would be places where they stayed the week together in +splendid rooms, had banquets every day, rode out among heaps of +wonders, walked through miles of palaces, and rested in dark +corners of great churches; where there were winking lamps of gold +and silver among pillars and arches, kneeling figures dotted about +at confessionals and on the pavements; where there was the mist and +scent of incense; where there were pictures, fantastic images, +gaudy altars, great heights and distances, all softly lighted +through stained glass, and the massive curtains that hung in the +doorways. From these cities they would go on again, by the roads +of vines and olives, through squalid villages, where there was not +a hovel without a gap in its filthy walls, not a window with a +whole inch of glass or paper; where there seemed to be nothing to +support life, nothing to eat, nothing to make, nothing to grow, +nothing to hope, nothing to do but die. + +Again they would come to whole towns of palaces, whose proper +inmates were all banished, and which were all changed into +barracks: troops of idle soldiers leaning out of the state windows, +where their accoutrements hung drying on the marble architecture, +and showing to the mind like hosts of rats who were (happily) +eating away the props of the edifices that supported them, and must +soon, with them, be smashed on the heads of the other swarms of +soldiers and the swarms of priests, and the swarms of spies, who +were all the ill-looking population left to be ruined, in the +streets below. + +Through such scenes, the family procession moved on to Venice. And +here it dispersed for a time, as they were to live in Venice some +few months in a palace (itself six times as big as the whole +Marshalsea) on the Grand Canal. + +In this crowning unreality, where all the streets were paved with +water, and where the deathlike stillness of the days and nights was +broken by no sound but the softened ringing of church-bells, the +rippling of the current, and the cry of the gondoliers turning the +corners of the flowing streets, Little Dorrit, quite lost by her +task being done, sat down to muse. The family began a gay life, +went here and there, and turned night into day; but she was timid +of joining in their gaieties, and only asked leave to be left +alone. + +Sometimes she would step into one of the gondolas that were always +kept in waiting, moored to painted posts at the door--when she +could escape from the attendance of that oppressive maid, who was +her mistress, and a very hard one--and would be taken all over the +strange city. Social people in other gondolas began to ask each +other who the little solitary girl was whom they passed, sitting in +her boat with folded hands, looking so pensively and wonderingly +about her. Never thinking that it would be worth anybody's while +to notice her or her doings, Little Dorrit, in her quiet, scared, +lost manner, went about the city none the less. + +But her favourite station was the balcony of her own room, +overhanging the canal, with other balconies below, and none above. +It was of massive stone darkened by ages, built in a wild fancy +which came from the East to that collection of wild fancies; and +Little Dorrit was little indeed, leaning on the broad-cushioned +ledge, and looking over. As she liked no place of an evening half +so well, she soon began to be watched for, and many eyes in passing +gondolas were raised, and many people said, There was the little +figure of the English girl who was always alone. + +Such people were not realities to the little figure of the English +girl; such people were all unknown to her. She would watch the +sunset, in its long low lines of purple and red, and its burning +flush high up into the sky: so glowing on the buildings, and so +lightening their structure, that it made them look as if their +strong walls were transparent, and they shone from within. She +would watch those glories expire; and then, after looking at the +black gondolas underneath, taking guests to music and dancing, +would raise her eyes to the shining stars. Was there no party of +her own, in other times, on which the stars had shone? To think of +that old gate now! She would think of that old gate, and of +herself sitting at it in the dead of the night, pillowing Maggy's +head; and of other places and of other scenes associated with those +different times. And then she would lean upon her balcony, and +look over at the water, as though they all lay underneath it. When +she got to that, she would musingly watch its running, as if, in +the general vision, it might run dry, and show her the prison +again, and herself, and the old room , and the old inmates, and the +old visitors: all lasting realities that had never changed. + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +A Letter from Little Dorrit + + +Dear Mr Clennam, + +I write to you from my own room at Venice, thinking you will be +glad to hear from me. But I know you cannot be so glad to hear +from me as I am to write to you; for everything about you is as you +have been accustomed to see it, and you miss nothing--unless it +should be me, which can only be for a very little while together +and very seldom--while everything in my life is so strange, and I +miss so much. + +When we were in Switzerland, which appears to have been years ago, +though it was only weeks, I met young Mrs Gowan, who was on a +mountain excursion like ourselves. She told me she was very well +and very happy. She sent you the message, by me, that she thanked +you affectionately and would never forget you. She was quite +confiding with me, and I loved her almost as soon as I spoke to +her. But there is nothing singular in that; who could help loving +so beautiful and winning a creature! I could not wonder at any one +loving her. No indeed. + +It will not make you uneasy on Mrs Gowan's account, I hope--for I +remember that you said you had the interest of a true friend in +her--if I tell you that I wish she could have married some one +better suited to her. Mr Gowan seems fond of her, and of course +she is very fond of him, but I thought he was not earnest enough--I +don't mean in that respect--I mean in anything. I could not keep +it out of my mind that if I was Mrs Gowan (what a change that would +be, and how I must alter to become like her!) I should feel that I +was rather lonely and lost, for the want of some one who was +steadfast and firm in purpose. I even thought she felt this want +a little, almost without knowing it. But mind you are not made +uneasy by this, for she was 'very well and very happy.' And she +looked most beautiful. + +I expect to meet her again before long, and indeed have been +expecting for some days past to see her here. I will ever be as +good a friend to her as I can for your sake. Dear Mr Clennam, I +dare say you think little of having been a friend to me when I had +no other (not that I have any other now, for I have made no new +friends), but I think much of it, and I never can forget it. + +I wish I knew--but it is best for no one to write to me--how Mr and +Mrs Plornish prosper in the business which my dear father bought +for them, and that old Mr Nandy lives happily with them and his two +grandchildren, and sings all his songs over and over again. I +cannot quite keep back the tears from my eyes when I think of my +poor Maggy, and of the blank she must have felt at first, however +kind they all are to her, without her Little Mother. Will you go +and tell her, as a strict secret, with my love, that she never can +have regretted our separation more than I have regretted it? And +will you tell them all that I have thought of them every day, and +that my heart is faithful to them everywhere? O, if you could know +how faithful, you would almost pity me for being so far away and +being so grand! + +You will be glad, I am sure, to know that my dear father is very +well in health, and that all these changes are highly beneficial to +him, and that he is very different indeed from what he used to be +when you used to see him. There is an improvement in my uncle too, +I think, though he never complained of old, and never exults now. +Fanny is very graceful, quick, and clever. It is natural to her to +be a lady; she has adapted herself to our new fortunes with +wonderful ease. + +This reminds me that I have not been able to do so, and that I +sometimes almost despair of ever being able to do so. I find that +I cannot learn. Mrs General is always with us, and we speak French +and speak Italian, and she takes pains to form us in many ways. +When I say we speak French and Italian, I mean they do. As for me, +I am so slow that I scarcely get on at all. As soon as I begin to +plan, and think, and try, all my planning, thinking, and trying go +in old directions, and I begin to feel careful again about the +expenses of the day, and about my dear father, and about my work, +and then I remember with a start that there are no such cares left, +and that in itself is so new and improbable that it sets me +wandering again. I should not have the courage to mention this to +any one but you. + +It is the same with all these new countries and wonderful sights. +They are very beautiful, and they astonish me, but I am not +collected enough--not familiar enough with myself, if you can quite +understand what I mean--to have all the pleasure in them that I +might have. What I knew before them, blends with them, too, so +curiously. For instance, when we were among the mountains, I often +felt (I hesitate to tell such an idle thing, dear Mr Clennam, even +to you) as if the Marshalsea must be behind that great rock; or as +if Mrs Clennam's room where I have worked so many days, and where +I first saw you, must be just beyond that snow. Do you remember +one night when I came with Maggy to your lodging in Covent Garden? +That room I have often and often fancied I have seen before me, +travelling along for miles by the side of our carriage, when I have +looked out of the carriage-window after dark. We were shut out +that night, and sat at the iron gate, and walked about till +morning. I often look up at the stars, even from the balcony of +this room, and believe that I am in the street again, shut out with +Maggy. It is the same with people that I left in England. + +When I go about here in a gondola, I surprise myself looking into +other gondolas as if I hoped to see them. It would overcome me +with joy to see them, but I don't think it would surprise me much, +at first. In my fanciful times, I fancy that they might be +anywhere; and I almost expect to see their dear faces on the +bridges or the quays. + +Another difficulty that I have will seem very strange to you. It +must seem very strange to any one but me, and does even to me: I +often feel the old sad pity for--I need not write the word--for +him. Changed as he is, and inexpressibly blest and thankful as I +always am to know it, the old sorrowful feeling of compassion comes +upon me sometimes with such strength that I want to put my arms +round his neck, tell him how I love him, and cry a little on his +breast. I should be glad after that, and proud and happy. But I +know that I must not do this; that he would not like it, that Fanny +would be angry, that Mrs General would be amazed; and so I quiet +myself. Yet in doing so, I struggle with the feeling that I have +come to be at a distance from him; and that even in the midst of +all the servants and attendants, he is deserted, and in want of me. + +Dear Mr Clennam, I have written a great deal about myself, but I +must write a little more still, or what I wanted most of all to say +in this weak letter would be left out of it. In all these foolish +thoughts of mine, which I have been so hardy as to confess to you +because I know you will understand me if anybody can, and will make +more allowance for me than anybody else would if you cannot--in all +these thoughts, there is one thought scarcely ever--never--out of +my memory, and that is that I hope you sometimes, in a quiet +moment, have a thought for me. I must tell you that as to this, I +have felt, ever since I have been away, an anxiety which I am very +anxious to relieve. I have been afraid that you may think of me in +a new light, or a new character. Don't do that, I could not bear +that--it would make me more unhappy than you can suppose. It would +break my heart to believe that you thought of me in any way that +would make me stranger to you than I was when you were so good to +me. What I have to pray and entreat of you is, that you will never +think of me as the daughter of a rich person; that you will never +think of me as dressing any better, or living any better, than when +you first knew me. That you will remember me only as the little +shabby girl you protected with so much tenderness, from whose +threadbare dress you have kept away the rain, and whose wet feet +you have dried at your fire. That you will think of me (when you +think of me at all), and of my true affection and devoted +gratitude, always without change, as of your poor child, + LITTLE DORRIT. + +P.S.--Particularly remember that you are not to be uneasy about Mrs +Gowan. Her words were, 'Very well and very happy.' And she looked +most beautiful. + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +Something Wrong Somewhere + + +The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who +was much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set +an hour of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding +some conference with Mrs General. + +The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler, +his valet, to Mrs General's apartment (which would have absorbed +about a third of the area of the Marshalsea), to present his +compliments to that lady, and represent him as desiring the favour +of an interview. It being that period of the forenoon when the +various members of the family had coffee in their own chambers, +some couple of hours before assembling at breakfast in a faded hall +which had once been sumptuous, but was now the prey of watery +vapours and a settled melancholy, Mrs General was accessible to the +valet. That envoy found her on a little square of carpet, so +extremely diminutive in reference to the size of her stone and +marble floor that she looked as if she might have had it spread for +the trying on of a ready-made pair of shoes; or as if she had come +into possession of the enchanted piece of carpet, bought for forty +purses by one of the three princes in the Arabian Nights, and had +that moment been transported on it, at a wish, into a palatial +saloon with which it had no connection. + +Mrs General, replying to the envoy, as she set down her empty +coffee-cup, that she was willing at once to proceed to Mr Dorrit's +apartment, and spare him the trouble of coming to her (which, in +his gallantry, he had proposed), the envoy threw open the door, and +escorted Mrs General to the presence. It was quite a walk, by +mysterious staircases and corridors, from Mrs General's apartment, +--hoodwinked by a narrow side street with a low gloomy bridge in +it, and dungeon-like opposite tenements, their walls besmeared with +a thousand downward stains and streaks, as if every crazy aperture +in them had been weeping tears of rust into the Adriatic for +centuries--to Mr Dorrit's apartment: with a whole English house- +front of window, a prospect of beautiful church-domes rising into +the blue sky sheer out of the water which reflected them, and a +hushed murmur of the Grand Canal laving the doorways below, where +his gondolas and gondoliers attended his pleasure, drowsily +swinging in a little forest of piles. + +Mr Dorrit, in a resplendent dressing-gown and cap--the dormant grub +that had so long bided its time among the Collegians had burst into +a rare butterfly--rose to receive Mrs General. A chair to Mrs +General. An easier chair, sir; what are you doing, what are you +about, what do you mean? Now, leave us! + +'Mrs General,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty--' + +'By no means,' Mrs General interposed. 'I was quite at your +disposition. I had had my coffee.' + +'--I took the liberty,' said Mr Dorrit again, with the magnificent +placidity of one who was above correction, 'to solicit the favour +of a little private conversation with you, because I feel rather +worried respecting my--ha--my younger daughter. You will have +observed a great difference of temperament, madam, between my two +daughters?' + +Said Mrs General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was +never without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted), +'There is a great difference.' + +'May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?' said Mr Dorrit, +with a deference not incompatible with majestic serenity. + +'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'has force of character and self- +reliance. Amy, none.' + +None? O Mrs General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars. O Mrs +General, ask the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing- +master who taught her sister to dance. O Mrs General, Mrs General, +ask me, her father, what I owe her; and hear my testimony touching +the life of this slighted little creature from her childhood up! + +No such adjuration entered Mr. Dorrit's head. He looked at Mrs +General, seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind +the proprieties, and he said in a thoughtful manner, 'True, madam.' + +'I would not,' said Mrs General, 'be understood to say, observe, +that there is nothing to improve in Fanny. But there is material +there--perhaps, indeed, a little too much.' + +'Will you be kind enough, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'to be--ha--more +explicit? I do not quite understand my elder daughter's having-- +hum--too much material. What material?' + +'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'at present forms too many opinions. + +Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.' + +Lest he himself should be found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr +Dorrit hastened to reply, 'Unquestionably, madam, you are right.' +Mrs General returned, in her emotionless and expressionless manner, +'I believe so.' + +'But you are aware, my dear madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'that my +daughters had the misfortune to lose their lamented mother when +they were very young; and that, in consequence of my not having +been until lately the recognised heir to my property, they have +lived with me as a comparatively poor, though always proud, +gentleman, in--ha hum--retirement!' + +'I do not,' said Mrs General, 'lose sight of the circumstance.' +'Madam,'pursued Mr Dorrit, 'of my daughter Fanny, under her present +guidance and with such an example constantly before her--' + +(Mrs General shut her eyes.) + +--'I have no misgivings. There is adaptability of character in +Fanny. But my younger daughter, Mrs General, rather worries and +vexes my thoughts. I must inform you that she has always been my +favourite.' + +'There is no accounting,' said Mrs General, 'for these +partialities.' + +'Ha--no,' assented Mr Dorrit. 'No. Now, madam, I am troubled by +noticing that Amy is not, so to speak, one of ourselves. She does +not Care to go about with us; she is lost in the society we have +here; our tastes are evidently not her tastes. Which,' said Mr +Dorrit, summing up with judicial gravity, 'is to say, in other +words, that there is something wrong in--ha--Amy.' + +'May we incline to the supposition,' said Mrs General, with a +little touch of varnish, 'that something is referable to the +novelty of the position?' + +'Excuse me, madam,' observed Mr Dorrit, rather quickly. 'The +daughter of a gentleman, though--ha--himself at one time +comparatively far from affluent--comparatively--and herself reared +in--hum--retirement, need not of necessity find this position so +very novel.' + +'True,' said Mrs General, 'true.' + +'Therefore, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty' (he laid +an emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, +with urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), 'I +took the liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I +might mention the topic to you, and inquire how you would advise +me?' + +'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, 'I have conversed with Amy +several times since we have been residing here, on the general +subject of the formation of a demeanour. She has expressed herself +to me as wondering exceedingly at Venice. I have mentioned to her +that it is better not to wonder. I have pointed out to her that +the celebrated Mr Eustace, the classical tourist, did not think +much of it; and that he compared the Rialto, greatly to its +disadvantage, with Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges. I need not +add, after what you have said, that I have not yet found my +arguments successful. You do me the honour to ask me what to +advise. It always appears to me (if this should prove to be a +baseless assumption, I shall be pardoned), that Mr Dorrit has been +accustomed to exercise influence over the minds of others.' + +'Hum--madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I have been at the head of--ha of a +considerable community. You are right in supposing that I am not +unaccustomed to--an influential position.' + +'I am happy,' returned Mrs General, 'to be so corroborated. I +would therefore the more confidently recommend that Mr Dorrit +should speak to Amy himself, and make his observations and wishes +known to her. Being his favourite, besides, and no doubt attached +to him, she is all the more likely to yield to his influence.' + +'I had anticipated your suggestion, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'but-- +ha--was not sure that I might--hum--not encroach on--' + +'On my province, Mr Dorrit?' said Mrs General, graciously. 'Do not +mention it.' + +'Then, with your leave, madam,' resumed Mr Dorrit, ringing his +little bell to summon his valet, 'I will send for her at once.' + +'Does Mr Dorrit wish me to remain?' + +'Perhaps, if you have no other engagement, you would not object for +a minute or two--' + +'Not at all.' + +So, Tinkler the valet was instructed to find Miss Amy's maid, and +to request that subordinate to inform Miss Amy that Mr Dorrit +wished to see her in his own room. In delivering this charge to +Tinkler, Mr Dorrit looked severely at him, and also kept a jealous +eye upon him until he went out at the door, mistrusting that he +might have something in his mind prejudicial to the family dignity; +that he might have even got wind of some Collegiate joke before he +came into the service, and might be derisively reviving its +remembrance at the present moment. If Tinkler had happened to +smile, however faintly and innocently, nothing would have persuaded +Mr Dorrit, to the hour of his death, but that this was the case. +As Tinkler happened, however, very fortunately for himself, to be +of a serious and composed countenance, he escaped the secret danger +that threatened him. And as on his return--when Mr Dorrit eyed him +again--he announced Miss Amy as if she had come to a funeral, he +left a vague impression on Mr Dorrit's mind that he was a well- +conducted young fellow, who had been brought up in the study of his +Catechism by a widowed mother. + +'Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, 'you have just now been the subject of some +conversation between myself and Mrs General. We agree that you +scarcely seem at home here. Ha--how is this?' + +A pause. + +'I think, father, I require a little time.' + +'Papa is a preferable mode of address,' observed Mrs General. +'Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives +a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and +prism are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and +prism. You will find it serviceable, in the formation of a +demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company--on entering +a room, for instance--Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, +prunes and prism.' + +'Pray, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, 'attend to the--hum--precepts of +Mrs General.' + +Poor Little Dorrit, with a rather forlorn glance at that eminent +varnisher, promised to try. + +'You say, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, 'that you think you require +time. Time for what?' + +Another pause. + +'To become accustomed to the novelty of my life, was all I meant,' +said Little Dorrit, with her loving eyes upon her father; whom she +had very nearly addressed as poultry, if not prunes and prism too, +in her desire to submit herself to Mrs General and please him. + +Mr Dorrit frowned, and looked anything but pleased. 'Amy,' he +returned, 'it appears to me, I must say, that you have had +abundance of time for that. Ha--you surprise me. You disappoint +me. Fanny has conquered any such little difficulties, and--hum-- +why not you?' + +'I hope I shall do better soon,' said Little Dorrit. + +'I hope so,' returned her father. 'I--ha--I most devoutly hope so, +Amy. I sent for you, in order that I might say--hum--impressively +say, in the presence of Mrs General, to whom we are all so much +indebted for obligingly being present among us, on--ha--on this or +any other occasion,' Mrs General shut her eyes, 'that I--ha hum--am +not pleased with you. You make Mrs General's a thankless task. +You--ha--embarrass me very much. You have always (as I have +informed Mrs General) been my favourite child; I have always made +you a--hum--a friend and companion; in return, I beg--I--ha--I do +beg, that you accommodate yourself better to --hum--circumstances, +and dutifully do what becomes your--your station.' + +Mr Dorrit was even a little more fragmentary than usual, being +excited on the subject and anxious to make himself particularly +emphatic. + +'I do beg,' he repeated, 'that this may be attended to, and that +you will seriously take pains and try to conduct yourself in a +manner both becoming your position as--ha--Miss Amy Dorrit, and +satisfactory to myself and Mrs General.' + +That lady shut her eyes again, on being again referred to; then, +slowly opening them and rising, added these words: +'If Miss Amy Dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will +accept of my poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, Mr. +Dorrit will have no further cause of anxiety. May I take this +opportunity of remarking, as an instance in point, that it is +scarcely delicate to look at vagrants with the attention which I +have seen bestowed upon them by a very dear young friend of mine? +They should not be looked at. Nothing disagreeable should ever be +looked at. Apart from such a habit standing in the way of that +graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive of good +breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. A +truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of +anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.' +Having delivered this exalted sentiment, Mrs General made a +sweeping obeisance, and retired with an expression of mouth +indicative of Prunes and Prism. + +Little Dorrit, whether speaking or silent, had preserved her quiet +earnestness and her loving look. It had not been clouded, except +for a passing moment, until now. But now that she was left alone +with him the fingers of her lightly folded hands were agitated, and +there was repressed emotion in her face. + +Not for herself. She might feel a little wounded, but her care was +not for herself. Her thoughts still turned, as they always had +turned, to him. A faint misgiving, which had hung about her since +their accession to fortune, that even now she could never see him +as he used to be before the prison days, had gradually begun to +assume form in her mind. She felt that, in what he had just now +said to her and in his whole bearing towards her, there was the +well-known shadow of the Marshalsea wall. It took a new shape, but +it was the old sad shadow. She began with sorrowful unwillingness +to acknowledge to herself that she was not strong enough to keep +off the fear that no space in the life of man could overcome that +quarter of a century behind the prison bars. She had no blame to +bestow upon him, therefore: nothing to reproach him with, no +emotions in her faithful heart but great compassion and unbounded +tenderness. + +This is why it was, that, even as he sat before her on his sofa, in +the brilliant light of a bright Italian day, the wonderful city +without and the splendours of an old palace within, she saw him at +the moment in the long-familiar gloom of his Marshalsea lodging, +and wished to take her seat beside him, and comfort him, and be +again full of confidence with him, and of usefulness to him. If he +divined what was in her thoughts, his own were not in tune with it. + +After some uneasy moving in his seat, he got up and walked about, +looking very much dissatisfied. + +'Is there anything else you wish to say to me, dear father?' + +'No, no. Nothing else.' + +'I am sorry you have not been pleased with me, dear. I hope you +will not think of me with displeasure now. I am going to try, more +than ever, to adapt myself as you wish to what surrounds me --for +indeed I have tried all along, though I have failed, I know.' + +'Amy,' he returned, turning short upon her. 'You--ha--habitually +hurt me.' + +'Hurt you, father! I!' + +'There is a--hum--a topic,' said Mr Dorrit, looking all about the +ceiling of the room, and never at the attentive, uncomplainingly +shocked face, 'a painful topic, a series of events which I wish -- +ha--altogether to obliterate. This is understood by your sister, +who has already remonstrated with you in my presence; it is +understood by your brother; it is understood by--ha hum--by every +one of delicacy and sensitiveness except yourself--ha--I am sorry +to say, except yourself. You, Amy--hum--you alone and only you -- +constantly revive the topic, though not in words.' + +She laid her hand on his arm. She did nothing more. She gently +touched him. The trembling hand may have said, with some +expression, 'Think of me, think how I have worked, think of my many +cares!' But she said not a syllable herself. + +There was a reproach in the touch so addressed to him that she had +not foreseen, or she would have withheld her hand. He began to +justify himself in a heated, stumbling, angry manner, which made +nothing of it. + +'I was there all those years. I was--ha--universally acknowledged +as the head of the place. I--hum--I caused you to be respected +there, Amy. I--ha hum--I gave my family a position there. I +deserve a return. I claim a return. I say, sweep it off the face +of the earth and begin afresh. Is that much? I ask, is that +much?' He did not once look at her, as he rambled on in this way; +but gesticulated at, and appealed to, the empty air. + +'I have suffered. Probably I know how much I have suffered better +than any one--ha--I say than any one! If I can put that aside, if +I can eradicate the marks of what I have endured, and can emerge +before the world--a--ha--gentleman unspoiled, unspotted --is it a +great deal to expect--I say again, is it a great deal to expect-- +that my children should--hum--do the same and sweep that accursed +experience off the face of the earth?' + +In spite of his flustered state, he made all these exclamations in +a carefully suppressed voice, lest the valet should overhear +anything. + +'Accordingly, they do it. Your sister does it. Your brother does +it. You alone, my favourite child, whom I made the friend and +companion of my life when you were a mere--hum--Baby, do not do it. + +You alone say you can't do it. I provide you with valuable +assistance to do it. I attach an accomplished and highly bred lady +--ha--Mrs General, to you, for the purpose of doing it. Is it +surprising that I should be displeased? Is it necessary that I +should defend myself for expressing my displeasure? No!' + +Notwithstanding which, he continued to defend himself, without any +abatement of his flushed mood. + +'I am careful to appeal to that lady for confirmation, before I +express any displeasure at all. I--hum--I necessarily make that +appeal within limited bounds, or I--ha--should render legible, by +that lady, what I desire to be blotted out. Am I selfish? Do I +complain for my own sake? No. No. Principally for--ha hum--your +sake, Amy.' + +This last consideration plainly appeared, from his manner of +pursuing it, to have just that instant come into his head. + +'I said I was hurt. So I am. So I--ha--am determined to be, +whatever is advanced to the contrary. I am hurt that my daughter, +seated in the--hum--lap of fortune, should mope and retire and +proclaim herself unequal to her destiny. I am hurt that she should +--ha--systematically reproduce what the rest of us blot out; and +seem--hum--I had almost said positively anxious--to announce to +wealthy and distinguished society that she was born and bred in--ha +hum--a place that I myself decline to name. But there is no +inconsistency--ha--not the least, in my feeling hurt, and yet +complaining principally for your sake, Amy. I do; I say again, I +do. It is for your sake that I wish you, under the auspices of Mrs +General, to form a--hum--a surface. It is for your sake that I +wish you to have a--ha--truly refined mind, and (in the striking +words of Mrs General) to be ignorant of everything that is not +perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.' + +He had been running down by jerks, during his last speech, like a +sort of ill-adjusted alarum. The touch was still upon his arm. He +fell silent; and after looking about the ceiling again for a little +while, looked down at her. Her head drooped, and he could not see +her face; but her touch was tender and quiet, and in the expression +of her dejected figure there was no blame--nothing but love. He +began to whimper, just as he had done that night in the prison when +she afterwards sat at his bedside till morning; exclaimed that he +was a poor ruin and a poor wretch in the midst of his wealth; and +clasped her in his arms. 'Hush, hush, my own dear! Kiss me!' was +all she said to him. His tears were soon dried, much sooner than +on the former occasion; and he was presently afterwards very high +with his valet, as a way of righting himself for having shed any. + +With one remarkable exception, to be recorded in its place, this +was the only time, in his life of freedom and fortune, when he +spoke to his daughter Amy of the old days. + +But, now, the breakfast hour arrived; and with it Miss Fanny from +her apartment, and Mr Edward from his apartment. Both these young +persons of distinction were something the worse for late hours. As +to Miss Fanny, she had become the victim of an insatiate mania for +what she called 'going into society;'and would have gone into it +head-foremost fifty times between sunset and sunrise, if so many +opportunities had been at her disposal. As to Mr Edward, he, too, +had a large acquaintance, and was generally engaged (for the most +part, in diceing circles, or others of a kindred nature), during +the greater part of every night. For this gentleman, when his +fortunes changed, had stood at the great advantage of being already +prepared for the highest associates, and having little to learn: so +much was he indebted to the happy accidents which had made him +acquainted with horse-dealing and billiard-marking. + +At breakfast, Mr Frederick Dorrit likewise appeared. As the old +gentleman inhabited the highest story of the palace, where he might +have practised pistol-shooting without much chance of discovery by +the other inmates, his younger niece had taken courage to propose +the restoration to him of his clarionet, which Mr Dorrit had +ordered to be confiscated, but which she had ventured to preserve. +Notwithstanding some objections from Miss Fanny, that it was a low +instrument, and that she detested the sound of it, the concession +had been made. But it was then discovered that he had had enough +of it, and never played it, now that it was no longer his means of +getting bread. He had insensibly acquired a new habit of shuffling +into the picture-galleries, always with his twisted paper of snuff +in his hand (much to the indignation of Miss Fanny, who had +proposed the purchase of a gold box for him that the family might +not be discredited, which he had absolutely refused to carry when +it was bought); and of passing hours and hours before the portraits +of renowned Venetians. It was never made out what his dazed eyes +saw in them; whether he had an interest in them merely as pictures, +or whether he confusedly identified them with a glory that was +departed, like the strength of his own mind. But he paid his court +to them with great exactness, and clearly derived pleasure from the +pursuit. After the first few days, Little Dorrit happened one +morning to assist at these attentions. It so evidently heightened +his gratification that she often accompanied him afterwards, and +the greatest delight of which the old man had shown himself +susceptible since his ruin, arose out of these excursions, when he +would carry a chair about for her from picture to picture, and +stand behind it, in spite of all her remonstrances, silently +presenting her to the noble Venetians. + +It fell out that, at this family breakfast, he referred to their +having seen in a gallery, on the previous day, the lady and +gentleman whom they had encountered on the Great Saint Bernard, 'I +forget the name,' said he. 'I dare say you remember them, William? + +I dare say you do, Edward?' + +'_I_ remember 'em well enough,' said the latter. + +'I should think so,' observed Miss Fanny, with a toss of her head +and a glance at her sister. 'But they would not have been recalled +to our remembrance, I suspect, if Uncle hadn't tumbled over the +subject.' + +'My dear, what a curious phrase,' said Mrs General. 'Would not +inadvertently lighted upon, or accidentally referred to, be +better?' + +'Thank you very much, Mrs General,' returned the young lady, no ) +I think not. On the whole I prefer my own expression.' This was +always Miss Fanny's way of receiving a suggestion from Mrs General. +But she always stored it up in her mind, and adopted it at another +time. + +'I should have mentioned our having met Mr and Mrs Gowan, Fanny,' +said Little Dorrit, 'even if Uncle had not. I have scarcely seen +you since, you know. I meant to have spoken of it at breakfast; +because I should like to pay a visit to Mrs Gowan, and to become +better acquainted with her, if Papa and Mrs General do not object.' + +'Well, Amy,' said Fanny, 'I am sure I am glad to find you at last +expressing a wish to become better acquainted with anybody in +Venice. Though whether Mr and Mrs Gowan are desirable +acquaintances, remains to be determined.' + +'Mrs Gowan I spoke of, dear.' + +'No doubt,' said Fanny. 'But you can't separate her from her +husband, I believe, without an Act of Parliament.' + +'Do you think, Papa,' inquired Little Dorrit, with diffidence and +hesitation, 'there is any objection to my making this visit?' + +'Really,' he replied, 'I--ha--what is Mrs General's view?' + +Mrs General's view was, that not having the honour of any +acquaintance with the lady and gentleman referred to, she was not +in a position to varnish the present article. She could only +remark, as a general principle observed in the varnishing trade, +that much depended on the quarter from which the lady under +consideration was accredited to a family so conspicuously niched in +the social temple as the family of Dorrit. + +At this remark the face of Mr Dorrit gloomed considerably. He was +about (connecting the accrediting with an obtrusive person of the +name of Clennam, whom he imperfectly remembered in some former +state of existence) to black-ball the name of Gowan finally, when +Edward Dorrit, Esquire, came into the conversation, with his glass +in his eye, and the preliminary remark of 'I say--you there! Go +out, will you!'--which was addressed to a couple of men who were +handing the dishes round, as a courteous intimation that their +services could be temporarily dispensed with. + +Those menials having obeyed the mandate, Edward Dorrit, Esquire, +proceeded. + +'Perhaps it's a matter of policy to let you all know that these +Gowans--in whose favour, or at least the gentleman's, I can't be +supposed to be much prepossessed myself--are known to people +of importance, if that makes any difference.' + +'That, I would say,' observed the fair varnisher, 'Makes the +greatest difference. The connection in question, being really +people of importance and consideration--' + +'As to that,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'I'll give you the means +of judging for yourself. You are acquainted, perhaps, with the +famous name of Merdle?' + +'The great Merdle!' exclaimed Mrs General. + +'THE Merdle,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire. 'They are known to him. + +Mrs Gowan--I mean the dowager, my polite friend's mother --is +intimate with Mrs Merdle, and I know these two to be on their +visiting list.' + +'If so, a more undeniable guarantee could not be given,' said Mrs +General to Mr Dorrit, raising her gloves and bowing her head, as if +she were doing homage to some visible graven image. + +'I beg to ask my son, from motives of--ah--curiosity,' Mr Dorrit +observed, with a decided change in his manner, 'how he becomes +possessed of this--hum--timely information?' + +'It's not a long story, sir,' returned Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'and +you shall have it out of hand. To begin with, Mrs Merdle is the +lady you had the parley with at what's-his-name place.' + +'Martigny,' interposed Miss Fanny with an air of infinite languor. + +'Martigny,' assented her brother, with a slight nod and a slight +wink; in acknowledgment of which, Miss Fanny looked surprised, and +laughed and reddened. + +'How can that be, Edward?' said Mr Dorrit. 'You informed me that +the name of the gentleman with whom you conferred was--ha-- +Sparkler. Indeed, you showed me his card. Hum. Sparkler.' + +'No doubt of it, father; but it doesn't follow that his mother's +name must be the same. Mrs Merdle was married before, and he is +her son. She is in Rome now; where probably we shall know more of +her, as you decide to winter there. Sparkler is just come here. +I passed last evening in company with Sparkler. Sparkler is a very +good fellow on the whole, though rather a bore on one subject, in +consequence of being tremendously smitten with a certain young +lady.' Here Edward Dorrit, Esquire, eyed Miss Fanny through his +glass across the table. 'We happened last night to compare notes +about our travels, and I had the information I have given you from +Sparkler himself.' Here he ceased; continuing to eye Miss Fanny +through his glass, with a face much twisted, and not ornamentally +so, in part by the action of keeping his glass in his eye, and in +part by the great subtlety of his smile. +'Under these circumstances,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I believe I express +the sentiments of--ha--Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say +that there is no objection, but--ha hum--quite the contrary--to +your gratifying your desire, Amy. I trust I may--ha--hail--this +desire,' said Mr Dorrit, in an encouraging and forgiving manner, +'as an auspicious omen. It is quite right to know these people. +It is a very proper thing. Mr Merdle's is a name of--ha--world- +wide repute. Mr Merdle's undertakings are immense. They bring him +in such vast sums of money that they are regarded as--hum--national +benefits. Mr Merdle is the man of this time. The name of Merdle +is the name of the age. Pray do everything on my behalf that is +civil to Mr and Mrs Gowan, for we will--ha--we will certainly +notice them.' + +This magnificent accordance of Mr Dorrit's recognition settled the +matter. It was not observed that Uncle had pushed away his plate, +and forgotten his breakfast; but he was not much observed at any +time, except by Little Dorrit. The servants were recalled, and the +meal proceeded to its conclusion. Mrs General rose and left the +table. Little Dorrit rose and left the table. When Edward and +Fanny remained whispering together across it, and when Mr Dorrit +remained eating figs and reading a French newspaper, Uncle suddenly +fixed the attention of all three by rising out of his chair, +striking his hand upon the table, and saying, 'Brother! I protest +against it!' + +If he had made a proclamation in an unknown tongue, and given up +the ghost immediately afterwards, he could not have astounded his +audience more. The paper fell from Mr Dorrit's hand, and he sat +petrified, with a fig half way to his mouth. + +'Brother!' said the old man, conveying a surprising energy into his +trembling voice, 'I protest against it! I love you; you know I +love you dearly. In these many years I have never been untrue to +you in a single thought. Weak as I am, I would at any time have +struck any man who spoke ill of you. But, brother, brother, +brother, I protest against it!' + +It was extraordinary to see of what a burst of earnestness such a +decrepit man was capable. His eyes became bright, his grey hair +rose on his head, markings of purpose on his brow and face which +had faded from them for five-and-twenty years, started out again, +and there was an energy in his hand that made its action nervous +once more. + +'My dear Frederick!' exclaimed Mr Dorrit faintly. 'What is wrong? +What is the matter?' + +'How dare you,' said the old man, turning round on Fanny, 'how dare +you do it? Have you no memory? Have you no heart?' + +'Uncle?' cried Fanny, affrighted and bursting into tears, 'why do +you attack me in this cruel manner? What have I done?' + +'Done?' returned the old man, pointing to her sister's place, +'where's your affectionate invaluable friend? Where's your devoted +guardian? Where's your more than mother? How dare you set up +superiorities against all these characters combined in your sister? + +For shame, you false girl, for shame!' +'I love Amy,' cried Miss Fanny, sobbing and weeping, 'as well as I +love my life--better than I love my life. I don't deserve to be so +treated. I am as grateful to Amy, and as fond of Amy, as it's +possible for any human being to be. I wish I was dead. I never +was so wickedly wronged. And only because I am anxious for the +family credit.' + +'To the winds with the family credit!' cried the old man, with +great scorn and indignation. 'Brother, I protest against pride. +I protest against ingratitude. I protest against any one of us +here who have known what we have known, and have seen what we have +seen, setting up any pretension that puts Amy at a moment's +disadvantage, or to the cost of a moment's pain. We may know that +it's a base pretension by its having that effect. It ought to +bring a judgment on us. Brother, I protest against it in the sight +of God!' + +As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it +might have been a blacksmith's. After a few moments' silence, it +had relaxed into its usual weak condition. He went round to his +brother with his ordinary shuffling step, put the hand on his +shoulder, and said, in a softened voice, 'William, my dear, I felt +obliged to say it; forgive me, for I felt obliged to say it!' and +then went, in his bowed way, out of the palace hall, just as he +might have gone out of the Marshalsea room. + +All this time Fanny had been sobbing and crying, and still +continued to do so. Edward, beyond opening his mouth in amazement, +had not opened his lips, and had done nothing but stare. Mr Dorrit +also had been utterly discomfited, and quite unable to assert +himself in any way. Fanny was now the first to speak. + +'I never, never, never was so used!' she sobbed. 'There never was +anything so harsh and unjustifiable, so disgracefully violent and +cruel! Dear, kind, quiet little Amy, too, what would she feel if +she could know that she had been innocently the means of exposing +me to such treatment! But I'll never tell her! No, good darling, +I'll never tell her!' + +This helped Mr Dorrit to break his silence. + +'My dear,' said he, 'I--ha--approve of your resolution. It will +be--ha hum--much better not to speak of this to Amy. It might-- +hum--it might distress her. Ha. No doubt it would distress her +greatly. It is considerate and right to avoid doing so. We will-- +ha--keep this to ourselves.' + +'But the cruelty of Uncle!' cried Miss Fanny. 'O, I never can +forgive the wanton cruelty of Uncle!' + +'My dear,' said Mr Dorrit, recovering his tone, though he remained +unusually pale, 'I must request you not to say so. You must +remember that your uncle is--ha--not what he formerly was. You +must remember that your uncle's state requires--hum--great +forbearance from us, great forbearance.' + +'I am sure,' cried Fanny, piteously, 'it is only charitable to +suppose that there Must be something wrong in him somewhere, or he +never could have so attacked Me, of all the people in the world.' + +'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit in a deeply fraternal tone, 'you know, +with his innumerable good points, what a--hum--wreck your uncle is; +an(] I entreat you by the fondness that I have for him, and by the +fidelity that you know I have always shown him, to--ha--to draw +your own conclusions, and to spare my brotherly feelings.' + +This ended the scene; Edward Dorrit, Esquire, saying nothing +throughout, but looking, to the last, perplexed and doubtful. Miss +Fanny awakened much affectionate uneasiness in her sister's mind +that day by passing the greater part of it in violent fits of +embracing her, and in alternately giving her brooches, and wishing +herself dead. + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +Something Right Somewhere + + +To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of +two powers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for +finding promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about +on neutral ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation +unwholesome for the mind, which time is not likely to improve. The +worst class of sum worked in the every-day world is cyphered by the +diseased arithmeticians who are always in the rule of Subtraction +as to the merits and successes of others, and never in Addition as +to their own. + +The habit, too, of seeking some sort of recompense in the +discontented boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with +degeneracy. A certain idle carelessness and recklessness of +consistency soon comes of it. To bring deserving things down by +setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and +there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game, +without growing the worse for it. + +In his expressed opinions of all performances in the Art of +painting that were completely destitute of merit, Gowan was the +most liberal fellow on earth. He would declare such a man to have +more power in his little finger (provided he had none), than such +another had (provided he had much) in his whole mind and body. If +the objection were taken that the thing commended was trash, he +would reply, on behalf of his art, 'My good fellow, what do we all +turn out but trash? I turn out nothing else, and I make you a +present of the confession.' + +To make a vaunt of being poor was another of the incidents of his +splenetic state, though this may have had the design in it of +showing that he ought to be rich; just as he would publicly laud +and decry the Barnacles, lest it should be forgotten that he +belonged to the family. Howbeit, these two subjects were very +often on his lips; and he managed them so well that he might have +praised himself by the month together, and not have made himself +out half so important a man as he did by his light disparagement of +his claims on anybody's consideration. + +Out of this same airy talk of his, it always soon came to be +understood, wherever he and his wife went, that he had married +against the wishes of his exalted relations, and had had much ado +to prevail on them to countenance her. He never made the +representation, on the contrary seemed to laugh the idea to scorn; +but it did happen that, with all his pains to depreciate himself, +he was always in the superior position. From the days of their +honeymoon, Minnie Gowan felt sensible of being usually regarded as +the wife of a man who had made a descent in marrying her, but whose +chivalrous love for her had cancelled that inequality. + +To Venice they had been accompanied by Monsieur Blandois of Paris, +and at Venice Monsieur Blandois of Paris was very much in the +society of Gowan. When they had first met this gallant gentleman +at Geneva, Gowan had been undecided whether to kick him or +encourage him; and had remained for about four-and-twenty hours, so +troubled to settle the point to his satisfaction, that he had +thought of tossing up a five-franc piece on the terms, 'Tails, +kick; heads, encourage,' and abiding by the voice of the oracle. +It chanced, however, that his wife expressed a dislike to the +engaging Blandois, and that the balance of feeling in the hotel was +against him. Upon it, Gowan resolved to encourage him. + +Why this perversity, if it were not in a generous fit?--which it +was not. Why should Gowan, very much the superior of Blandois of +Paris, and very well able to pull that prepossessing gentleman to +pieces and find out the stuff he was made of, take up with such a +man? In the first place, he opposed the first separate wish he +observed in his wife, because her father had paid his debts and it +was desirable to take an early opportunity of asserting his +independence. In the second place, he opposed the prevalent +feeling, because with many capacities of being otherwise, he was an +ill-conditioned man. He found a pleasure in declaring that a +courtier with the refined manners of Blandois ought to rise to the +greatest distinction in any polished country. He found a pleasure +in setting up Blandois as the type of elegance, and making him a +satire upon others who piqued themselves on personal graces. He +seriously protested that the bow of Blandois was perfect, that the +address of Blandois was irresistible, and that the picturesque ease +of Blandois would be cheaply purchased (if it were not a gift, and +unpurchasable) for a hundred thousand francs. That exaggeration in +the manner of the man which has been noticed as appertaining to him +and to every such man, whatever his original breeding, as certainly +as the sun belongs to this system, was acceptable to Gowan as a +caricature, which he found it a humorous resource to have at hand +for the ridiculing of numbers of people who necessarily did more or +less of what Blandois overdid. Thus he had taken up with him; and +thus, negligently strengthening these inclinations with habit, and +idly deriving some amusement from his talk, he had glided into a +way of having him for a companion. This, though he supposed him to +live by his wits at play-tables and the like; though he suspected +him to be a coward, while he himself was daring and courageous; +though he thoroughly knew him to be disliked by Minnie; and though +he cared so little for him, after all, that if he had given her any +tangible personal cause to regard him with aversion, he would have +had no compunction whatever in flinging him out of the highest +window in Venice into the deepest water of the city. + +Little Dorrit would have been glad to make her visit to Mrs Gowan, +alone; but as Fanny, who had not yet recovered from her Uncle's +protest, though it was four-and-twenty hours of age, pressingly +offered her company, the two sisters stepped together into one of +the gondolas under Mr Dorrit's window, and, with the courier in +attendance, were taken in high state to Mrs Gowan's lodging. In +truth, their state was rather too high for the lodging, which was, +as Fanny complained, 'fearfully out of the way,' and which took +them through a complexity of narrow streets of water, which the +same lady disparaged as 'mere ditches.' + +The house, on a little desert island, looked as if it had broken +away from somewhere else, and had floated by chance into its +present anchorage in company with a vine almost as much in want of +training as the poor wretches who were lying under its leaves. The +features of the surrounding picture were, a church with hoarding +and scaffolding about it, which had been under suppositious repair +so long that the means of repair looked a hundred years old, and +had themselves fallen into decay; a quantity of washed linen, +spread to dry in the sun; a number of houses at odds with one +another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like rotten pre- +Adamite cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites; and a +feverish bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all +hanging askew, and something draggled and dirty dangling out of +most of them. + +On the first-floor of the house was a Bank--a surprising experience +for any gentleman of commercial pursuits bringing laws for all +mankind from a British city--where two spare clerks, like dried +dragoons, in green velvet caps adorned with golden tassels, stood, +bearded, behind a small counter in a small room, containing no +other visible objects than an empty iron-safe with the door open, +a jug of water, and a papering of garland of roses; but who, on +lawful requisition, by merely dipping their hands out of sight, +could produce exhaustless mounds of five-franc pieces. Below the +Bank was a suite of three or four rooms with barred windows, which +had the appearance of a jail for criminal rats. Above the Bank was +Mrs Gowan's residence. + +Notwithstanding that its walls were blotched, as if missionary maps +were bursting out of them to impart geographical knowledge; +notwithstanding that its weird furniture was forlornly faded and +musty, and that the prevailing Venetian odour of bilge water and an +ebb tide on a weedy shore was very strong; the place was better +within, than it promised. The door was opened by a smiling man +like a reformed assassin--a temporary servant--who ushered them +into the room where Mrs Gowan sat, with the announcement that two +beautiful English ladies were come to see the mistress. + +Mrs Gowan, who was engaged in needlework, put her work aside in a +covered basket, and rose, a little hurriedly. Miss Fanny was +excessively courteous to her, and said the usual nothings with the +skill of a veteran. + +'Papa was extremely sorry,' proceeded Fanny, 'to be engaged to-day +(he is so much engaged here, our acquaintance being so wretchedly +large!); and particularly requested me to bring his card for Mr +Gowan. That I may be sure to acquit myself of a commission which +he impressed upon me at least a dozen times, allow me to relieve my +conscience by placing it on the table at once.' + +Which she did with veteran ease. + +'We have been,' said Fanny, 'charmed to understand that you know +the Merdles. We hope it may be another means of bringing us +together.' + +'They are friends,' said Mrs Gowan, 'of Mr Gowan's family. I have +not yet had the pleasure of a personal introduction to Mrs Merdle, +but I suppose I shall be presented to her at Rome.' + +'Indeed?' returned Fanny, with an appearance of amiably quenching +her own superiority. 'I think you'll like her.' + +'You know her very well?' + +'Why, you see,' said Fanny, with a frank action of her pretty +shoulders, 'in London one knows every one. We met her on our way +here, and, to say the truth, papa was at first rather cross with +her for taking one of the rooms that our people had ordered for us. + +However, of course, that soon blew over, and we were all good +friends again.' + +Although the visit had as yet given Little Dorrit no opportunity of +conversing with Mrs Gowan, there was a silent understanding between +them, which did as well. She looked at Mrs Gowan with keen and +unabated interest; the sound of her voice was thrilling to her; +nothing that was near her, or about her, or at all concerned her, +escaped Little Dorrit. She was quicker to perceive the slightest +matter here, than in any other case--but one. + +'You have been quite well,' she now said, 'since that night?' + +'Quite, my dear. And you?' +'Oh! I am always well,' said Little Dorrit, timidly. 'I--yes, +thank you.' + +There was no reason for her faltering and breaking off, other than +that Mrs Gowan had touched her hand in speaking to her, and their +looks had met. Something thoughtfully apprehensive in the large, +soft eyes, had checked Little Dorrit in an instant. + +'You don't know that you are a favourite of my husband's, and that +I am almost bound to be jealous of you?' said Mrs Gowan. + +Little Dorrit, blushing, shook her head. + +'He will tell you, if he tells you what he tells me, that you are +quieter and quicker of resource than any one he ever saw.' + +'He speaks far too well of me,' said Little Dorrit. + +'I doubt that; but I don't at all doubt that I must tell him you +are here. I should never be forgiven, if I were to let you--and +Miss Dorrit--go, without doing so. May I? You can excuse the +disorder and discomfort of a painter's studio?' + +The inquiries were addressed to Miss Fanny, who graciously replied +that she would be beyond anything interested and enchanted. Mrs +Gowan went to a door, looked in beyond it, and came back. 'Do +Henry the favour to come in,' said she, 'I knew he would be +pleased!' + +The first object that confronted Little Dorrit, entering first, was +Blandois of Paris in a great cloak and a furtive slouched hat, +standing on a throne platform in a corner, as he had stood on the +Great Saint Bernard, when the warning arms seemed to be all +pointing up at him. She recoiled from this figure, as it smiled at +her. + +'Don't be alarmed,' said Gowan, coming from his easel behind the +door. 'It's only Blandois. He is doing duty as a model to-day. +I am making a study of him. It saves me money to turn him to some +use. We poor painters have none to spare.' + +Blandois of Paris pulled off his slouched hat, and saluted the +ladies without coming out of his corner. + +'A thousand pardons!' said he. 'But the Professore here is so +inexorable with me, that I am afraid to stir.' + +'Don't stir, then,' said Gowan coolly, as the sisters approached +the easel. 'Let the ladies at least see the original of the daub, +that they may know what it's meant for. There he stands, you see. +A bravo waiting for his prey, a distinguished noble waiting to save +his country, the common enemy waiting to do somebody a bad turn, an +angelic messenger waiting to do somebody a good turn--whatever you +think he looks most like!' +'Say, Professore Mio, a poor gentleman waiting to do homage to +elegance and beauty,' remarked Blandois. + +'Or say, Cattivo Soggetto Mio,' returned Gowan, touching the +painted face with his brush in the part where the real face had +moved, 'a murderer after the fact. Show that white hand of yours, +Blandois. Put it outside the cloak. Keep it still.' + +Blandois' hand was unsteady; but he laughed, and that would +naturally shake it. + +'He was formerly in some scuffle with another murderer, or with a +victim, you observe,' said Gowan, putting in the markings of the +hand with a quick, impatient, unskilful touch, 'and these are the +tokens of it. Outside the cloak, man!--Corpo di San Marco, what +are you thinking of?' + +Blandois of Paris shook with a laugh again, so that his hand shook +more; now he raised it to twist his moustache, which had a damp +appearance; and now he stood in the required position, with a +little new swagger. + +His face was so directed in reference to the spot where Little +Dorrit stood by the easel, that throughout he looked at her. Once +attracted by his peculiar eyes, she could not remove her own, and +they had looked at each other all the time. She trembled now; +Gowan, feeling it, and supposing her to be alarmed by the large dog +beside him, whose head she caressed in her hand, and who had just +uttered a low growl, glanced at her to say, 'He won't hurt you, +Miss Dorrit.' + +'I am not afraid of him,' she returned in the same breath; 'but +will you look at him?' + +In a moment Gowan had thrown down his brush, and seized the dog +with both hands by the collar. + + +'Blandois! How can you be such a fool as to provoke him! By +Heaven, and the other place too, he'll tear you to bits! Lie down! + +Lion! Do you hear my voice, you rebel! + +'The great dog, regardless of being half-choked by his collar, was +obdurately pulling with his dead weight against his master, +resolved to get across the room. He had been crouching for a +spring at the moment when his master caught him. + +'Lion! Lion!' He was up on his hind legs, and it was a wrestle +between master and dog. 'Get back! Down, Lion! Get out of his +sight, Blandois! What devil have you conjured into the dog?' + +'I have done nothing to him.' + +'Get out of his sight or I can't hold the wild beast! Get out of +the room! By my soul, he'll kill you!' + +The dog, with a ferocious bark, made one other struggle as Blandois +vanished; then, in the moment of the dog's submission, the master, +little less angry than the dog, felled him with a blow on the head, +and standing over him, struck him many times severely with the heel +of his boot, so that his mouth was presently bloody. + +'Now get you into that corner and lie down,' said Gowan, 'or I'll +take you out and shoot you.' + +Lion did as he was ordered, and lay down licking his mouth and +chest. Lion's master stopped for a moment to take breath, and +then, recovering his usual coolness of manner, turned to speak to +his frightened wife and her visitors. Probably the whole +occurrence had not occupied two minutes. + +'Come, come, Minnie! You know he is always good-humoured and +tractable. Blandois must have irritated him,--made faces at him. +The dog has his likings and dislikings, and Blandois is no great +favourite of his; but I am sure you will give him a character, +Minnie, for never having been like this before.' + +Minnie was too much disturbed to say anything connected in reply; +Little Dorrit was already occupied in soothing her; Fanny, who had +cried out twice or thrice, held Gowan's arm for protection; Lion, +deeply ashamed of having caused them this alarm, came trailing +himself along the ground to the feet of his mistress. + +'You furious brute,' said Gowan, striking him with his foot again. +'You shall do penance for this.' And he struck him again, and yet +again. + +'O, pray don't punish him any more,' cried Little Dorrit. 'Don't +hurt him. See how gentle he is!' At her entreaty, Gowan spared +him; and he deserved her intercession, for truly he was as +submissive, and as sorry, and as wretched as a dog could be. + +It was not easy to recover this shock and make the visit +unrestrained, even though Fanny had not been, under the best of +circumstances, the least trifle in the way. In such further +communication as passed among them before the sisters took their +departure, Little Dorrit fancied it was revealed to her that Mr +Gowan treated his wife, even in his very fondness, too much like a +beautiful child. He seemed so unsuspicious of the depths of +feeling which she knew must lie below that surface, that she +doubted if there could be any such depths in himself. She wondered +whether his want of earnestness might be the natural result of his +want of such qualities, and whether it was with people as with +ships, that, in too shallow and rocky waters, their anchors had no +hold, and they drifted anywhere. + +He attended them down the staircase, jocosely apologising for the +poor quarters to which such poor fellows as himself were limited, +and remarking that when the high and mighty Barnacles, his +relatives, who would be dreadfully ashamed of them, presented him +with better, he would live in better to oblige them. At the +water's edge they were saluted by Blandois, who looked white enough +after his late adventure, but who made very light of it +notwithstanding,--laughing at the mention of Lion. + +Leaving the two together under the scrap of vine upon the causeway, +Gowan idly scattering the leaves from it into the water, and +Blandois lighting a cigarette, the sisters were paddled away in +state as they had come. They had not glided on for many minutes, +when Little Dorrit became aware that Fanny was more showy in manner +than the occasion appeared to require, and, looking about for the +cause through the window and through the open door, saw another +gondola evidently in waiting on them. + +As this gondola attended their progress in various artful ways; +sometimes shooting on a-head, and stopping to let them pass; +sometimes, when the way was broad enough, skimming along side by +side with them; and sometimes following close astern; and as Fanny +gradually made no disguise that she was playing off graces upon +somebody within it, of whom she at the same time feigned to be +unconscious; Little Dorrit at length asked who it was? + +To which Fanny made the short answer, 'That gaby.' + +'Who?' said Little Dorrit. + +'My dear child,' returned Fanny (in a tone suggesting that before +her Uncle's protest she might have said, You little fool, instead), +'how slow you are! Young Sparkler.' + +She lowered the window on her side, and, leaning back and resting +her elbow on it negligently, fanned herself with a rich Spanish fan +of black and gold. The attendant gondola, having skimmed forward +again, with some swift trace of an eye in the + +window, Fanny laughed coquettishly and said, 'Did you ever see such +a fool, my love?' + +'Do you think he means to follow you all the way?' asked Little +Dorrit. + +'My precious child,' returned Fanny, 'I can't possibly answer for +what an idiot in a state of desperation may do, but I should think +it highly probable. It's not such an enormous distance. All +Venice would scarcely be that, I imagine, if he's dying for a +glimpse of me.' + +'And is he?' asked Little Dorrit in perfect simplicity. + +'Well, my love, that really is an awkward question for me to +answer,' said her sister. 'I believe he is. You had better ask +Edward. He tells Edward he is, I believe. I understand he makes +a perfect spectacle of himself at the Casino, and that sort of +places, by going on about me. But you had better ask Edward if you +want to know.' + +'I wonder he doesn't call,' said Little Dorrit after thinking a +moment. + +'My dear Amy, your wonder will soon cease, if I am rightly +informed. I should not be at all surprised if he called to-day. +The creature has only been waiting to get his courage up, I +suspect.' + +'Will you see him?' + +'Indeed, my darling,' said Fanny, 'that's just as it may happen. +Here he is again. Look at him. O, you simpleton!' + +Mr Sparkler had, undeniably, a weak appearance; with his eye in the +window like a knot in the glass, and no reason on earth for +stopping his bark suddenly, except the real reason. + +'When you asked me if I will see him, my dear,' said Fanny, almost +as well composed in the graceful indifference of her attitude as +Mrs Merdle herself, 'what do you mean?' +'I mean,' said Little Dorrit--'I think I rather mean what do you +mean, dear Fanny?' + +Fanny laughed again, in a manner at once condescending, arch, and +affable; and said, putting her arm round her sister in a playfully +affectionate way: + +'Now tell me, my little pet. When we saw that woman at Martigny, +how did you think she carried it off? Did you see what she decided +on in a moment?' + +'No, Fanny.' + +'Then I'll tell you, Amy. She settled with herself, now I'll never +refer to that meeting under such different circumstances, and I'll +never pretend to have any idea that these are the same girls. +That's her way out of a difficulty. What did I tell you when we +came away from Harley Street that time? She is as insolent and +false as any woman in the world. But in the first capacity, my +love, she may find people who can match her.' + +A significant turn of the Spanish fan towards Fanny's bosom, +indicated with great expression where one of these people was to be +found. + +'Not only that,' pursued Fanny, 'but she gives the same charge to +Young Sparkler; and doesn't let him come after me until she has got +it thoroughly into his most ridiculous of all ridiculous noddles +(for one really can't call it a head), that he is to pretend to +have been first struck with me in that Inn Yard.' + +'Why?' asked Little Dorrit. + +'Why? Good gracious, my love!' (again very much in the tone of You +stupid little creature) 'how can you ask? Don't you see that I may +have become a rather desirable match for a noddle? And don't you +see that she puts the deception upon us, and makes a pretence, +while she shifts it from her own shoulders (very good shoulders +they are too, I must say),' observed Miss Fanny, glancing +complacently at herself, 'of considering our feelings?' + +'But we can always go back to the plain truth.' + +'Yes, but if you please we won't,' retorted Fanny. 'No; I am not +going to have that done, Amy. The pretext is none of mine; it's +hers, and she shall have enough of it.' + +In the triumphant exaltation of her feelings, Miss Fanny, using her +Spanish fan with one hand, squeezed her sister's waist with the +other, as if she were crushing Mrs Merdle. + +'No,' repeated Fanny. 'She shall find me go her way. She took it, +and I'll follow it. And, with the blessing of fate and fortune, +I'll go on improving that woman's acquaintance until I have given +her maid, before her eyes, things from my dressmaker's ten times as +handsome and expensive as she once gave me from hers!' + +Little Dorrit was silent; sensible that she was not to be heard on +any question affecting the family dignity, and unwilling to lose to +no purpose her sister's newly and unexpectedly restored favour. +She could not concur, but she was silent. Fanny well knew what she +was thinking of; so well, that she soon asked her. + +Her reply was, 'Do you mean to encourage Mr Sparkler, Fanny?' + +'Encourage him, my dear?' said her sister, smiling contemptuously, +'that depends upon what you call encourage. No, I don't mean to +encourage him. But I'll make a slave of him.' + +Little Dorrit glanced seriously and doubtfully in her face, but +Fanny was not to be so brought to a check. She furled her fan of +black and gold, and used it to tap her sister's nose; with the air +of a proud beauty and a great spirit, who toyed with and playfully +instructed a homely companion. + +'I shall make him fetch and carry, my dear, and I shall make him +subject to me. And if I don't make his mother subject to me, too, +it shall not be my fault.' + +'Do you think--dear Fanny, don't be offended, we are so comfortable +together now--that you can quite see the end of that course?' + +'I can't say I have so much as looked for it yet, my dear,' +answered Fanny, with supreme indifference; 'all in good time. Such +are my intentions. And really they have taken me so long to +develop, that here we are at home. And Young Sparkler at the door, +inquiring who is within. By the merest accident, of course!' + +In effect, the swain was standing up in his gondola, card-case in +hand, affecting to put the question to a servant. This conjunction +of circumstances led to his immediately afterwards presenting +himself before the young ladies in a posture, which in ancient +times would not have been considered one of favourable augury for +his suit; since the gondoliers of the young ladies, having been put +to some inconvenience by the chase, so neatly brought their own +boat in the gentlest collision with the bark of Mr Sparkler, as to +tip that gentleman over like a larger species of ninepin, and cause +him to exhibit the soles of his shoes to the object of his dearest +wishes: while the nobler portions of his anatomy struggled at the +bottom of his boat in the arms of one of his men. + +However, as Miss Fanny called out with much concern, Was the +gentleman hurt, Mr Sparkler rose more restored than might have been +expected, and stammered for himself with blushes, 'Not at all so.' +Miss Fanny had no recollection of having ever seen him before, and +was passing on, with a distant inclination of her head, when he +announced himself by name. Even then she was in a difficulty from +being unable to call it to mind, until he explained that he had had +the honour of seeing her at Martigny. Then she remembered him, and +hoped his lady-mother was well. + +'Thank you,' stammered Mr Sparkler, 'she's uncommonly well--at +least, poorly.' + +'In Venice?' said Miss Fanny. + +'In Rome,' Mr Sparkler answered. 'I am here by myself, myself. I +came to call upon Mr Edward Dorrit myself. Indeed, upon Mr Dorrit +likewise. In fact, upon the family.' + +Turning graciously to the attendants, Miss Fanny inquired whether +her papa or brother was within? The reply being that they were +both within, Mr Sparkler humbly offered his arm. Miss Fanny +accepting it, was squired up the great staircase by Mr Sparkler, +who, if he still believed (which there is not any reason to doubt) +that she had no nonsense about her, rather deceived himself. + +Arrived in a mouldering reception-room, where the faded hangings, +of a sad sea-green, had worn and withered until they looked as if +they might have claimed kindred with the waifs of seaweed drifting +under the windows, or clinging to the walls and weeping for their +imprisoned relations, Miss Fanny despatched emissaries for her +father and brother. Pending whose appearance, she showed to great +advantage on a sofa, completing Mr Sparkler's conquest with some +remarks upon Dante--known to that gentleman as an eccentric man in +the nature of an Old File, who used to put leaves round his head, +and sit upon a stool for some unaccountable purpose, outside the +cathedral at Florence. + +Mr Dorrit welcomed the visitor with the highest urbanity, and most +courtly manners. He inquired particularly after Mrs Merdle. He +inquired particularly after Mr Merdle. Mr Sparkler said, or rather +twitched out of himself in small pieces by the shirt-collar, that +Mrs Merdle having completely used up her place in the country, and +also her house at Brighton, and being, of course, unable, don't you +see, to remain in London when there wasn't a soul there, and not +feeling herself this year quite up to visiting about at people's +places, had resolved to have a touch at Rome, where a woman like +herself, with a proverbially fine appearance, and with no nonsense +about her, couldn't fail to be a great acquisition. As to Mr +Merdle, he was so much wanted by the men in the City and the rest +of those places, and was such a doosed extraordinary phenomenon in +Buying and Banking and that, that Mr Sparkler doubted if the +monetary system of the country would be able to spare him; though +that his work was occasionally one too many for him, and that he +would be all the better for a temporary shy at an entirely new +scene and climate, Mr Sparkler did not conceal. As to himself, Mr +Sparkler conveyed to the Dorrit family that he was going, on rather +particular business, wherever they were going. + +This immense conversational achievement required time, but was +effected. Being effected, Mr Dorrit expressed his hope that Mr +Sparkler would shortly dine with them. Mr Sparkler received the +idea so kindly that Mr Dorrit asked what he was going to do that +day, for instance? As he was going to do nothing that day (his +usual occupation, and one for which he was particularly qualified), +he was secured without postponement; being further bound over to +accompany the ladies to the Opera in the evening. + +At dinner-time Mr Sparkler rose out of the sea, like Venus's son +taking after his mother, and made a splendid appearance ascending +the great staircase. If Fanny had been charming in the morning, +she was now thrice charming, very becomingly dressed in her most +suitable colours, and with an air of negligence upon her that +doubled Mr Sparkler's fetters, and riveted them. + + +'I hear you are acquainted, Mr Sparkler,' said his host at dinner, +'with--ha--Mr Gowan. Mr Henry Gowan?' + +'Perfectly, sir,' returned Mr Sparkler. 'His mother and my mother +are cronies in fact.' + +'If I had thought of it, Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, with a patronage as +magnificent as that of Lord Decimus himself, 'you should have +despatched a note to them, asking them to dine to-day. Some of our +people could have--ha--fetched them, and taken them home. We could +have spared a--hum--gondola for that purpose. I am sorry to have +forgotten this. Pray remind me of them to-morrow.' + +Little Dorrit was not without doubts how Mr Henry Gowan might take +their patronage; but she promised not to fail in the reminder. + +'Pray, does Mr Henry Gowan paint--ha--Portraits?' inquired Mr +Dorrit. + +Mr Sparkler opined that he painted anything, if he could get the +job. + +'He has no particular walk?' said Mr Dorrit. + +Mr Sparkler, stimulated by Love to brilliancy, replied that for a +particular walk a man ought to have a particular pair of shoes; as, +for example, shooting, shooting-shoes; cricket, cricket-shoes. +Whereas, he believed that Henry Gowan had no particular pair of +shoes. + +'No speciality?' said Mr Dorrit. + +This being a very long word for Mr Sparkler, and his mind being +exhausted by his late effort, he replied, 'No, thank you. I seldom +take it.' + +'Well!' said Mr Dorrit. 'It would be very agreeable to me to +present a gentleman so connected, with some--ha--Testimonial of my +desire to further his interests, and develop the--hum--germs of his +genius. I think I must engage Mr Gowan to paint my picture. If +the result should be--ha--mutually satisfactory, I might afterwards +engage him to try his hand upon my family.' + +The exquisitely bold and original thought presented itself to Mr +Sparkler, that there was an opening here for saying there were some +of the family (emphasising 'some' in a marked manner) to whom no +painter could render justice. But, for want of a form of words in +which to express the idea, it returned to the skies. + +This was the more to be regretted as Miss Fanny greatly applauded +the notion of the portrait, and urged her papa to act upon it. She +surmised, she said, that Mr Gowan had lost better and higher +opportunities by marrying his pretty wife; and Love in a cottage, +painting pictures for dinner, was so delightfully interesting, that +she begged her papa to give him the commission whether he could +paint a likeness or not: though indeed both she and Amy knew he +could, from having seen a speaking likeness on his easel that day, +and having had the opportunity of comparing it with the original. +These remarks made Mr Sparkler (as perhaps they were intended to +do) nearly distracted; for while on the one hand they expressed +Miss Fanny's susceptibility of the tender passion, she herself +showed such an innocent unconsciousness of his admiration that his +eyes goggled in his head with jealousy of an unknown rival. + +Descending into the sea again after dinner, and ascending out of it +at the Opera staircase, preceded by one of their gondoliers, like +an attendant Merman, with a great linen lantern, they entered their +box, and Mr Sparkler entered on an evening of agony. The theatre +being dark, and the box light, several visitors lounged in during +the representation; in whom Fanny was so interested, and in +conversation with whom she fell into such charming attitudes, as +she had little confidences with them, and little disputes +concerning the identity of people in distant boxes, that the +wretched Sparkler hated all mankind. But he had two consolations +at the close of the performance. She gave him her fan to hold +while she adjusted her cloak, and it was his blessed privilege to +give her his arm down-stairs again. These crumbs of encouragement, +Mr Sparkler thought, would just keep him going; and it is not +impossible that Miss Dorrit thought so too. + +The Merman with his light was ready at the box-door, and other +Mermen with other lights were ready at many of the doors. The +Dorrit Merman held his lantern low, to show the steps, and Mr +Sparkler put on another heavy set of fetters over his former set, +as he watched her radiant feet twinkling down the stairs beside +him. Among the loiterers here, was Blandois of Paris. He spoke, +and moved forward beside Fanny. + +Little Dorrit was in front with her brother and Mrs General (Mr +Dorrit had remained at home), but on the brink of the quay they all +came together. She started again to find Blandois close to her, +handing Fanny into the boat. + +'Gowan has had a loss,' he said, 'since he was made happy to-day by +a visit from fair ladies.' + +'A loss?' repeated Fanny, relinquished by the bereaved Sparkler, +and taking her seat. + +'A loss,' said Blandois. 'His dog Lion.' + +Little Dorrit's hand was in his, as he spoke. + +'He is dead,' said Blandois. + +'Dead?' echoed Little Dorrit. 'That noble dog?' + +'Faith, dear ladies!' said Blandois, smiling and shrugging his +shoulders, 'somebody has poisoned that noble dog. He is as dead as +the Doges!' + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +Mostly, Prunes and Prism + + +Mrs General, always on her coach-box keeping the proprieties well +together, took pains to form a surface on her very dear young +friend, and Mrs General's very dear young friend tried hard to +receive it. Hard as she had tried in her laborious life to attain +many ends, she had never tried harder than she did now, to be +varnished by Mrs General. It made her anxious and ill at ease to +be operated upon by that smoothing hand, it is true; but she +submitted herself to the family want in its greatness as she had +submitted herself to the family want in its littleness, and yielded +to her own inclinations in this thing no more than she had yielded +to her hunger itself, in the days when she had saved her dinner +that her father might have his supper. + +One comfort that she had under the Ordeal by General was more +sustaining to her, and made her more grateful than to a less +devoted and affectionate spirit, not habituated to her struggles +and sacrifices, might appear quite reasonable; and, indeed, it may +often be observed in life, that spirits like Little Dorrit do not +appear to reason half as carefully as the folks who get the better +of them. The continued kindness of her sister was this comfort to +Little Dorrit. It was nothing to her that the kindness took the +form of tolerant patronage; she was used to that. It was nothing +to her that it kept her in a tributary position, and showed her in +attendance on the flaming car in which Miss Fanny sat on an +elevated seat, exacting homage; she sought no better place. Always +admiring Fanny's beauty, and grace, and readiness, and not now +asking herself how much of her disposition to be strongly attached +to Fanny was due to her own heart, and how much to Fanny's, she +gave her all the sisterly fondness her great heart contained. + +The wholesale amount of Prunes and Prism which Mrs General infused +into the family life, combined with the perpetual plunges made by +Fanny into society, left but a very small residue of any natural +deposit at the bottom of the mixture. This rendered confidences +with Fanny doubly precious to Little Dorrit, and heightened the +relief they afforded her. + +'Amy,' said Fanny to her one night when they were alone, after a +day so tiring that Little Dorrit was quite worn out, though Fanny +would have taken another dip into society with the greatest +pleasure in life, 'I am going to put something into your little +head. You won't guess what it is, I suspect.' + +'I don't think that's likely, dear,' said Little Dorrit. + +'Come, I'll give you a clue, child,' said Fanny. 'Mrs General.' + +Prunes and Prism, in a thousand combinations, having been wearily +in the ascendant all day--everything having been surface and +varnish and show without substance--Little Dorrit looked as if she +had hoped that Mrs General was safely tucked up in bed for some +hours. + +'Now, can you guess, Amy?' said Fanny. + +'No, dear. Unless I have done anything,' said Little Dorrit, +rather alarmed, and meaning anything calculated to crack varnish +and ruffle surface. + +Fanny was so very much amused by the misgiving, that she took up +her favourite fan (being then seated at her dressing-table with her +armoury of cruel instruments about her, most of them reeking from +the heart of Sparkler), and tapped her sister frequently on the +nose with it, laughing all the time. + +'Oh, our Amy, our Amy!' said Fanny. 'What a timid little goose our +Amy is! But this is nothing to laugh at. On the contrary, I am +very cross, my dear.' + +'As it is not with me, Fanny, I don't mind,' returned her sister, +smiling. + +'Ah! But I do mind,' said Fanny, 'and so will you, Pet, when I +enlighten you. Amy, has it never struck you that somebody is +monstrously polite to Mrs General?' + +'Everybody is polite to Mrs General,' said Little Dorrit. +'Because--' + +'Because she freezes them into it?' interrupted Fanny. 'I don't +mean that; quite different from that. Come! Has it never struck +you, Amy, that Pa is monstrously polite to Mrs General.' + +Amy, murmuring 'No,' looked quite confounded. +'No; I dare say not. But he is,' said Fanny. 'He is, Amy. And +remember my words. Mrs General has designs on Pa!' + +'Dear Fanny, do you think it possible that Mrs General has designs +on any one?' + +'Do I think it possible?' retorted Fanny. 'My love, I know it. I +tell you she has designs on Pa. And more than that, I tell you Pa +considers her such a wonder, such a paragon of accomplishment, and +such an acquisition to our family, that he is ready to get himself +into a state of perfect infatuation with her at any moment. And +that opens a pretty picture of things, I hope? Think of me with +Mrs General for a Mama!' + +Little Dorrit did not reply, 'Think of me with Mrs General for a +Mama;' but she looked anxious, and seriously inquired what had led +Fanny to these conclusions. + +'Lord, my darling,' said Fanny, tartly. 'You might as well ask me +how I know when a man is struck with myself! But, of course I do +know. It happens pretty often: but I always know it. I know this +in much the same way, I suppose. At all events, I know it.' + +'You never heard Papa say anything?' + +'Say anything?' repeated Fanny. 'My dearest, darling child, what +necessity has he had, yet awhile, to say anything?' + +'And you have never heard Mrs General say anything?' +'My goodness me, Amy,' returned Fanny, 'is she the sort of woman to +say anything? Isn't it perfectly plain and clear that she has +nothing to do at present but to hold herself upright, keep her +aggravating gloves on, and go sweeping about? Say anything! If +she had the ace of trumps in her hand at whist, she wouldn't say +anything, child. It would come out when she played it.' + +'At least, you may be mistaken, Fanny. Now, may you not?' + +'O yes, I MAY be,' said Fanny, 'but I am not. However, I am glad +you can contemplate such an escape, my dear, and I am glad that you +can take this for the present with sufficient coolness to think of +such a chance. It makes me hope that you may be able to bear the +connection. I should not be able to bear it, and I should not try. + +I'd marry young Sparkler first.' + +'O, you would never marry him, Fanny, under any circumstances.' + +'Upon my word, my dear,' rejoined that young lady with exceeding +indifference, 'I wouldn't positively answer even for that. There's +no knowing what might happen. Especially as I should have many +opportunities, afterwards, of treating that woman, his mother, in +her own style. Which I most decidedly should not be slow to avail +myself of, Amy.' + +No more passed between the sisters then; but what had passed gave +the two subjects of Mrs General and Mr Sparkler great prominence in +Little Dorrit's mind, and thenceforth she thought very much of +both. + +Mrs General, having long ago formed her own surface to such +perfection that it hid whatever was below it (if anything), no +observation was to be made in that quarter. Mr Dorrit was +undeniably very polite to her and had a high opinion of her; but +Fanny, impetuous at most times, might easily be wrong for all that. + +Whereas, the Sparkler question was on the different footing that +any one could see what was going on there, and Little Dorrit saw it +and pondered on it with many doubts and wonderings. + +The devotion of Mr Sparkler was only to be equalled by the caprice +and cruelty of his enslaver. Sometimes she would prefer him to +such distinction of notice, that he would chuckle aloud with joy; +next day, or next hour, she would overlook him so completely, and +drop him into such an abyss of obscurity, that he would groan under +a weak pretence of coughing. The constancy of his attendance never +touched Fanny: though he was so inseparable from Edward, that, when +that gentleman wished for a change of society, he was under the +irksome necessity of gliding out like a conspirator in disguised +boats and by secret doors and back ways; though he was so +solicitous to know how Mr Dorrit was, that he called every other +day to inquire, as if Mr Dorrit were the prey of an intermittent +fever; though he was so constantly being paddled up and down before +the principal windows, that he might have been supposed to have +made a wager for a large stake to be paddled a thousand miles in a +thousand hours; though whenever the gondola of his mistress left +the gate, the gondola of Mr Sparkler shot out from some watery +ambush and gave chase, as if she were a fair smuggler and he a +custom-house officer. It was probably owing to this fortification +of the natural strength of his constitution with so much exposure +to the air, and the salt sea, that Mr Sparkler did not pine +outwardly; but, whatever the cause, he was so far from having any +prospect of moving his mistress by a languishing state of health, +that he grew bluffer every day, and that peculiarity in his +appearance of seeming rather a swelled boy than a young man, became +developed to an extraordinary degree of ruddy puffiness. + +Blandois calling to pay his respects, Mr Dorrit received him with +affability as the friend of Mr Gowan, and mentioned to him his idea +of commissioning Mr Gowan to transmit him to posterity. Blandois +highly extolling it, it occurred to Mr Dorrit that it might be +agreeable to Blandois to communicate to his friend the great +opportunity reserved for him. Blandois accepted the commission +with his own free elegance of manner, and swore he would discharge +it before he was an hour older. On his imparting the news to +Gowan, that Master gave Mr Dorrit to the Devil with great +liberality some round dozen of times (for he resented patronage +almost as much as he resented the want of it), and was inclined to +quarrel with his friend for bringing him the message. + +'It may be a defect in my mental vision, Blandois,' said he, 'but +may I die if I see what you have to do with this.' + +'Death of my life,' replied Blandois, 'nor I neither, except that +I thought I was serving my friend.' + +'By putting an upstart's hire in his pocket?' said Gowan, frowning. + +'Do you mean that? Tell your other friend to get his head painted +for the sign of some public-house, and to get it done by a sign- +painter. Who am I, and who is he?' + +'Professore,' returned the ambassador, 'and who is Blandois?' + +Without appearing at all interested in the latter question, Gowan +angrily whistled Mr Dorrit away. But, next day, he resumed the +subject by saying in his off-hand manner and with a slighting +laugh, 'Well, Blandois, when shall we go to this Maecenas of yours? + +We journeymen must take jobs when we can get them. When shall we +go and look after this job?' +'When you will,' said the injured Blandois, 'as you please. What +have I to do with it? What is it to me?' + +'I can tell you what it is to me,' said Gowan. 'Bread and cheese. +One must eat! So come along, my Blandois.' + +Mr Dorrit received them in the presence of his daughters and of Mr +Sparkler, who happened, by some surprising accident, to be calling +there. 'How are you, Sparkler?' said Gowan carelessly. 'When you +have to live by your mother wit, old boy, I hope you may get on +better than I do.' + +Mr Dorrit then mentioned his proposal. 'Sir,' said Gowan, +laughing, after receiving it gracefully enough, 'I am new to the +trade, and not expert at its mysteries. I believe I ought to look +at you in various lights, tell you you are a capital subject, and +consider when I shall be sufficiently disengaged to devote myself +with the necessary enthusiasm to the fine picture I mean to make of +you. I assure you,' and he laughed again, 'I feel quite a traitor +in the camp of those dear, gifted, good, noble fellows, my brother +artists, by not doing the hocus-pocus better. But I have not been +brought up to it, and it's too late to learn it. Now, the fact is, +I am a very bad painter, but not much worse than the generality. +If you are going to throw away a hundred guineas or so, I am as +poor as a poor relation of great people usually is, and I shall be +very much obliged to you, if you'll throw them away upon me. I'll +do the best I can for the money; and if the best should be bad, why +even then, you may probably have a bad picture with a small name to +it, instead of a bad picture with a large name to it.' + +This tone, though not what he had expected, on the whole suited Mr +Dorrit remarkably well. It showed that the gentleman, highly +connected, and not a mere workman, would be under an obligation to +him. He expressed his satisfaction in placing himself in Mr +Gowan's hands, and trusted that he would have the pleasure, in +their characters of private gentlemen, of improving his +acquaintance. + +'You are very good,' said Gowan. 'I have not forsworn society +since I joined the brotherhood of the brush (the most delightful +fellows on the face of the earth), and am glad enough to smell the +old fine gunpowder now and then, though it did blow me into mid-air +and my present calling. You'll not think, Mr Dorrit,' and here he +laughed again in the easiest way, 'that I am lapsing into the +freemasonry of the craft--for it's not so; upon my life I can't +help betraying it wherever I go, though, by Jupiter, I love and +honour the craft with all my might--if I propose a stipulation as +to time and place?' + +Ha! Mr Dorrit could erect no--hum--suspicion of that kind on Mr +Gowan's frankness. + +'Again you are very good,' said Gowan. 'Mr Dorrit, I hear you are +going to Rome. I am going to Rome, having friends there. Let me +begin to do you the injustice I have conspired to do you, there-- +not here. We shall all be hurried during the rest of our stay +here; and though there's not a poorer man with whole elbows in +Venice, than myself, I have not quite got all the Amateur out of me +yet--comprising the trade again, you see!--and can't fall on to +order, in a hurry, for the mere sake of the sixpences.' +These remarks were not less favourably received by Mr Dorrit than +their predecessors. They were the prelude to the first reception +of Mr and Mrs Gowan at dinner, and they skilfully placed Gowan on +his usual ground in the new family. + +His wife, too, they placed on her usual ground. Miss Fanny +understood, with particular distinctness, that Mrs Gowan's good +looks had cost her husband very dear; that there had been a great +disturbance about her in the Barnacle family; and that the Dowager +Mrs Gowan, nearly heart-broken, had resolutely set her face against +the marriage until overpowered by her maternal feelings. Mrs +General likewise clearly understood that the attachment had +occasioned much family grief and dissension. Of honest Mr Meagles +no mention was made; except that it was natural enough that a +person of that sort should wish to raise his daughter out of his +own obscurity, and that no one could blame him for trying his best +to do so. + +Little Dorrit's interest in the fair subject of this easily +accepted belief was too earnest and watchful to fail in accurate +observation. She could see that it had its part in throwing upon +Mrs Gowan the touch of a shadow under which she lived, and she even +had an instinctive knowledge that there was not the least truth in +it. But it had an influence in placing obstacles in the way of her +association with Mrs Gowan by making the Prunes and Prism school +excessively polite to her, but not very intimate with her; and +Little Dorrit, as an enforced sizar of that college, was obliged to +submit herself humbly to its ordinances. + +Nevertheless, there was a sympathetic understanding already +established between the two, which would have carried them over +greater difficulties, and made a friendship out of a more +restricted intercourse. As though accidents were determined to be +favourable to it, they had a new assurance of congeniality in the +aversion which each perceived that the other felt towards Blandois +of Paris; an aversion amounting to the repugnance and horror of a +natural antipathy towards an odious creature of the reptile kind. + +And there was a passive congeniality between them, besides this +active one. To both of them, Blandois behaved in exactly the same +manner; and to both of them his manner had uniformly something in +it, which they both knew to be different from his bearing towards +others. The difference was too minute in its expression to be +perceived by others, but they knew it to be there. A mere trick of +his evil eyes, a mere turn of his smooth white hand, a mere hair's- +breadth of addition to the fall of his nose and the rise of the +moustache in the most frequent movement of his face, conveyed to +both of them, equally, a swagger personal to themselves. It was as +if he had said, 'I have a secret power in this quarter. I know +what I know.' + +This had never been felt by them both in so great a degree, and +never by each so perfectly to the knowledge of the other, as on a +day when he came to Mr Dorrit's to take his leave before quitting +Venice. Mrs Gowan was herself there for the same purpose, and he +came upon the two together; the rest of the family being out. The +two had not been together five minutes, and the peculiar manner +seemed to convey to them, 'You were going to talk about me. Ha! +Behold me here to prevent it!' + +'Gowan is coming here?' said Blandois, with a smile. + +Mrs Gowan replied he was not coming. + +'Not coming!' said Blandois. 'Permit your devoted servant, when +you leave here, to escort you home.' + +'Thank you: I am not going home.' + +'Not going home!' said Blandois. 'Then I am forlorn.' + +That he might be; but he was not so forlorn as to roam away and +leave them together. He sat entertaining them with his finest +compliments, and his choicest conversation; but he conveyed to +them, all the time, 'No, no, no, dear ladies. Behold me here +expressly to prevent it!' + +He conveyed it to them with so much meaning, and he had such a +diabolical persistency in him, that at length, Mrs Gowan rose to +depart. On his offering his hand to Mrs Gowan to lead her down the +staircase, she retained Little Dorrit's hand in hers, with a +cautious pressure, and said, 'No, thank you. But, if you will +please to see if my boatman is there, I shall be obliged to you.' + +It left him no choice but to go down before them. As he did so, +hat in hand, Mrs Gowan whispered: + +'He killed the dog.' + +'Does Mr Gowan know it?' Little Dorrit whispered. + +'No one knows it. Don't look towards me; look towards him. He +will turn his face in a moment. No one knows it, but I am sure he +did. You are?' + +'I--I think so,' Little Dorrit answered. + +'Henry likes him, and he will not think ill of him; he is so +generous and open himself. But you and I feel sure that we think +of him as he deserves. He argued with Henry that the dog had been +already poisoned when he changed so, and sprang at him. Henry +believes it, but we do not. I see he is listening, but can't hear. + +Good-bye, my love! Good-bye!' + +The last words were spoken aloud, as the vigilant Blandois stopped, +turned his head, and looked at them from the bottom of the +staircase. Assuredly he did look then, though he looked his +politest, as if any real philanthropist could have desired no +better employment than to lash a great stone to his neck, and drop +him into the water flowing beyond the dark arched gateway in which +he stood. No such benefactor to mankind being on the spot, he +handed Mrs Gowan to her boat, and stood there until it had shot out +of the narrow view; when he handed himself into his own boat and +followed. + +Little Dorrit had sometimes thought, and now thought again as she +retraced her steps up the staircase, that he had made his way too +easily into her father's house. But so many and such varieties of +people did the same, through Mr Dorrit's participation in his elder +daughter's society mania, that it was hardly an exceptional case. +A perfect fury for making acquaintances on whom to impress their +riches and importance, had seized the House of Dorrit. + +It appeared on the whole, to Little Dorrit herself, that this same +society in which they lived, greatly resembled a superior sort of +Marshalsea. Numbers of people seemed to come abroad, pretty much +as people had come into the prison; through debt, through idleness, +relationship, curiosity, and general unfitness for getting on at +home. They were brought into these foreign towns in the custody of +couriers and local followers, just as the debtors had been brought +into the prison. They prowled about the churches and picture- +galleries, much in the old, dreary, prison-yard manner. They were +usually going away again to-morrow or next week, and rarely knew +their own minds, and seldom did what they said they would do, or +went where they said they would go: in all this again, very like +the prison debtors. They paid high for poor accommodation, and +disparaged a place while they pretended to like it: which was +exactly the Marshalsea custom. They were envied when they went +away by people left behind, feigning not to want to go: and that +again was the Marshalsea habit invariably. A certain set of words +and phrases, as much belonging to tourists as the College and the +Snuggery belonged to the jail, was always in their mouths. They +had precisely the same incapacity for settling down to anything, as +the prisoners used to have; they rather deteriorated one another, +as the prisoners used to do; and they wore untidy dresses, and fell +into a slouching way of life: still, always like the people in the +Marshalsea. + +The period of the family's stay at Venice came, in its course, to +an end, and they moved, with their retinue, to Rome. Through a +repetition of the former Italian scenes, growing more dirty and +more haggard as they went on, and bringing them at length to where +the very air was diseased, they passed to their destination. A +fine residence had been taken for them on the Corso, and there they +took up their abode, in a city where everything seemed to be trying +to stand still for ever on the ruins of something else--except the +water, which, following eternal laws, tumbled and rolled from its +glorious multitude of fountains. + +Here it seemed to Little Dorrit that a change came over the +Marshalsea spirit of their society, and that Prunes and Prism got +the upper hand. Everybody was walking about St Peter's and the +Vatican on somebody else's cork legs, and straining every visible +object through somebody else's sieve. Nobody said what anything +was, but everybody said what the Mrs Generals, Mr Eustace, or +somebody else said it was. The whole body of travellers seemed to +be a collection of voluntary human sacrifices, bound hand and foot, +and delivered over to Mr Eustace and his attendants, to have the +entrails of their intellects arranged according to the taste of +that sacred priesthood. Through the rugged remains of temples and +tombs and palaces and senate halls and theatres and amphitheatres +of ancient days, hosts of tongue-tied and blindfolded moderns were +carefully feeling their way, incessantly repeating Prunes and Prism +in the endeavour to set their lips according to the received form. +Mrs General was in her pure element. Nobody had an opinion. There +was a formation of surface going on around her on an amazing scale, +and it had not a flaw of courage or honest free speech in it. + +Another modification of Prunes and Prism insinuated itself on +Little Dorrit's notice very shortly after their arrival. They +received an early visit from Mrs Merdle, who led that extensive +department of life in the Eternal City that winter; and the skilful +manner in which she and Fanny fenced with one another on the +occasion, almost made her quiet sister wink, like the glittering of +small-swords. + +'So delighted,' said Mrs Merdle, 'to resume an acquaintance so +inauspiciously begun at Martigny.' + +'At Martigny, of course,' said Fanny. 'Charmed, I am sure!' + +'I understand,' said Mrs Merdle, 'from my son Edmund Sparkler, that +he has already improved that chance occasion. He has returned +quite transported with Venice.' + +'Indeed?' returned the careless Fanny. 'Was he there long?' + +'I might refer that question to Mr Dorrit,' said Mrs Merdle, +turning the bosom towards that gentleman; 'Edmund having been so +much indebted to him for rendering his stay agreeable.' + +'Oh, pray don't speak of it,' returned Fanny. 'I believe Papa had +the pleasure of inviting Mr Sparkler twice or thrice,--but it was +nothing. We had so many people about us, and kept such open house, +that if he had that pleasure, it was less than nothing.' + +'Except, my dear,' said Mr Dorrit, 'except--ha--as it afforded me +unusual gratification to--hum--show by any means, however slight +and worthless, the--ha, hum--high estimation in which, in--ha-- +common with the rest of the world, I hold so distinguished and +princely a character as Mr Merdle's.' + +The bosom received this tribute in its most engaging manner. 'Mr +Merdle,' observed Fanny, as a means of dismissing Mr Sparkler into +the background, 'is quite a theme of Papa's, you must know, Mrs +Merdle.' + +'I have been--ha--disappointed, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'to +understand from Mr Sparkler that there is no great--hum-- +probability of Mr Merdle's coming abroad.' + +'Why, indeed,' said Mrs Merdle, 'he is so much engaged and in such +request, that I fear not. He has not been able to get abroad for +years. You, Miss Dorrit, I believe have been almost continually +abroad for a long time.' + +'Oh dear yes,' drawled Fanny, with the greatest hardihood. 'An +immense number of years.' + +'So I should have inferred,' said Mrs Merdle. + +'Exactly,' said Fanny. + +'I trust, however,' resumed Mr Dorrit, 'that if I have not the-- +hum--great advantage of becoming known to Mr Merdle on this side of +the Alps or Mediterranean, I shall have that honour on returning to +England. It is an honour I particularly desire and shall +particularly esteem.' +'Mr Merdle,' said Mrs Merdle, who had been looking admiringly at +Fanny through her eye-glass, 'will esteem it, I am sure, no less.' + +Little Dorrit, still habitually thoughtful and solitary though no +longer alone, at first supposed this to be mere Prunes and Prism. +But as her father when they had been to a brilliant reception at +Mrs Merdle's, harped at their own family breakfast-table on his +wish to know Mr Merdle, with the contingent view of benefiting by +the advice of that wonderful man in the disposal of his fortune, +she began to think it had a real meaning, and to entertain a +curiosity on her own part to see the shining light of the time. + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that + 'It Never Does' + + +While the waters of Venice and the ruins of Rome were sunning +themselves for the pleasure of the Dorrit family, and were daily +being sketched out of all earthly proportion, lineament, and +likeness, by travelling pencils innumerable, the firm of Doyce and +Clennam hammered away in Bleeding Heart Yard, and the vigorous +clink of iron upon iron was heard there through the working hours. + +The younger partner had, by this time, brought the business into +sound trim; and the elder, left free to follow his own ingenious +devices, had done much to enhance the character of the factory. As +an ingenious man, he had necessarily to encounter every +discouragement that the ruling powers for a length of time had been +able by any means to put in the way of this class of culprits; but +that was only reasonable self-defence in the powers, since How to +do it must obviously be regarded as the natural and mortal enemy of +How not to do it. In this was to be found the basis of the wise +system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution Office, of +warning every ingenious British subject to be ingenious at his +peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by +making his remedy uncertain, and expensive) to plunder him, and at +the best of confiscating his property after a short term of +enjoyment, as though invention were on a par with felony. The +system had uniformly found great favour with the Barnacles, and +that was only reasonable, too; for one who worthily invents must be +in earnest, and the Barnacles abhorred and dreaded nothing half so +much. That again was very reasonable; since in a country suffering +under the affliction of a great amount of earnestness, there might, +in an exceeding short space of time, be not a single Barnacle left +sticking to a post. + +Daniel Doyce faced his condition with its pains and penalties +attached to it, and soberly worked on for the work's sake. Clennam +cheering him with a hearty co-operation, was a moral support to +him, besides doing good service in his business relation. The +concern prospered, and the partners were fast friends. +But Daniel could not forget the old design of so many years. It +was not in reason to be expected that he should; if he could have +lightly forgotten it, he could never have conceived it, or had the +patience and perseverance to work it out. So Clennam thought, when +he sometimes observed him of an evening looking over the models and +drawings, and consoling himself by muttering with a sigh as he put +them away again, that the thing was as true as it ever was. + +To show no sympathy with so much endeavour, and so much +disappointment, would have been to fail in what Clennam regarded as +among the implied obligations of his partnership. A revival of the +passing interest in the subject which had been by chance awakened +at the door of the Circumlocution Office, originated in this +feeling. He asked his partner to explain the invention to him; +'having a lenient consideration,' he stipulated, 'for my being no +workman, Doyce.' + +'No workman?' said Doyce. 'You would have been a thorough workman +if you had given yourself to it. You have as good a head for +understanding such things as I have met with.' + +'A totally uneducated one, I am sorry to add,' said Clennam. + +'I don't know that,' returned Doyce, 'and I wouldn't have you say +that. No man of sense who has been generally improved, and has +improved himself, can be called quite uneducated as to anything. +I don't particularly favour mysteries. I would as soon, on a fair +and clear explanation, be judged by one class of man as another, +provided he had the qualification I have named.' + +'At all events,' said Clennam--'this sounds as if we were +exchanging compliments, but we know we are not--I shall have the +advantage of as plain an explanation as can be given.' + +'Well!' said Daniel, in his steady even way,'I'll try to make it +so.' + +He had the power, often to be found in union with such a character, +of explaining what he himself perceived, and meant, with the direct +force and distinctness with which it struck his own mind. His +manner of demonstration was so orderly and neat and simple, that it +was not easy to mistake him. There was something almost ludicrous +in the complete irreconcilability of a vague conventional notion +that he must be a visionary man, with the precise, sagacious +travelling of his eye and thumb over the plans, their patient +stoppages at particular points, their careful returns to other +points whence little channels of explanation had to be traced up, +and his steady manner of making everything good and everything +sound at each important stage, before taking his hearer on a +line's-breadth further. His dismissal of himself from his +description, was hardly less remarkable. He never said, I +discovered this adaptation or invented that combination; but showed +the whole thing as if the Divine artificer had made it, and he had +happened to find it; so modest he was about it, such a pleasant +touch of respect was mingled with his quiet admiration of it, and +so calmly convinced he was that it was established on irrefragable +laws. + +Not only that evening, but for several succeeding evenings, Clennam +was quite charmed by this investigation. The more he pursued it, +and the oftener he glanced at the grey head bending over it, and +the shrewd eye kindling with pleasure in it and love of it-- +instrument for probing his heart though it had been made for twelve +long years--the less he could reconcile it to his younger energy to +let it go without one effort more. At length he said: + +'Doyce, it came to this at last--that the business was to be sunk +with Heaven knows how many more wrecks, or begun all over again?' + +'Yes,' returned Doyce, 'that's what the noblemen and gentlemen made +of it after a dozen years.' + +'And pretty fellows too!' said Clennam, bitterly. + +'The usual thing!' observed Doyce. 'I must not make a martyr of +myself, when I am one of so large a company.' + +'Relinquish it, or begin it all over again?' mused Clennam. + +'That was exactly the long and the short of it,' said Doyce. + +'Then, my friend,' cried Clennam, starting up and taking his work- +roughened hand, 'it shall be begun all over again!' + +Doyce looked alarmed, and replied in a hurry--for him, 'No, no. +Better put it by. Far better put it by. It will be heard of, one +day. I can put it by. You forget, my good Clennam; I HAVE put it +by. It's all at an end.' + +'Yes, Doyce,' returned Clennam, 'at an end as far as your efforts +and rebuffs are concerned, I admit, but not as far as mine are. I +am younger than you: I have only once set foot in that precious +office, and I am fresh game for them. Come! I'll try them. You +shall do exactly as you have been doing since we have been +together. I will add (as I easily can) to what I have been doing, +the attempt to get public justice done to you; and, unless I have +some success to report, you shall hear no more of it.' + +Daniel Doyce was still reluctant to consent, and again and again +urged that they had better put it by. But it was natural that he +should gradually allow himself to be over-persuaded by Clennam, and +should yield. Yield he did. So Arthur resumed the long and +hopeless labour of striving to make way with the Circumlocution +Office. + +The waiting-rooms of that Department soon began to be familiar with +his presence, and he was generally ushered into them by its +janitors much as a pickpocket might be shown into a police-office; +the principal difference being that the object of the latter class +of public business is to keep the pickpocket, while the +Circumlocution object was to get rid of Clennam. However, he was +resolved to stick to the Great Department; and so the work of form- +filling, corresponding, minuting, memorandum-making, signing, +counter-signing, counter-counter-signing, referring backwards and +forwards, and referring sideways, crosswise, and zig-zag, +recommenced. + +Here arises a feature of the Circumlocution Office, not previously +mentioned in the present record. When that admirable Department +got into trouble, and was, by some infuriated members of Parliament +whom the smaller Barnacles almost suspected of labouring under +diabolic possession, attacked on the merits of no individual case, +but as an Institution wholly abominable and Bedlamite; then the +noble or right honourable Barnacle who represented it in the House, +would smite that member and cleave him asunder, with a statement of +the quantity of business (for the prevention of business) done by +the Circumlocution Office. Then would that noble or right +honourable Barnacle hold in his hand a paper containing a few +figures, to which, with the permission of the House, he would +entreat its attention. Then would the inferior Barnacles exclaim, +obeying orders,'Hear, Hear, Hear!' and 'Read!' Then would the +noble or right honourable Barnacle perceive, sir, from this little +document, which he thought might carry conviction even to the +perversest mind (Derisive laughter and cheering from the Barnacle +fry), that within the short compass of the last financial half- +year, this much-maligned Department (Cheers) had written and +received fifteen thousand letters (Loud cheers), had written +twenty-four thousand minutes (Louder cheers), and thirty-two +thousand five hundred and seventeen memoranda (Vehement cheering). +Nay, an ingenious gentleman connected with the Department, and +himself a valuable public servant, had done him the favour to make +a curious calculation of the amount of stationery consumed in it +during the same period. It formed a part of this same short +document; and he derived from it the remarkable fact that the +sheets of foolscap paper it had devoted to the public service would +pave the footways on both sides of Oxford Street from end to end, +and leave nearly a quarter of a mile to spare for the park (Immense +cheering and laughter); while of tape--red tape--it had used enough +to stretch, in graceful festoons, from Hyde Park Corner to the +General Post Office. Then, amidst a burst of official exultation, +would the noble or right honourable Barnacle sit down, leaving the +mutilated fragments of the Member on the field. No one, after that +exemplary demolition of him, would have the hardihood to hint that +the more the Circumlocution Office did, the less was done, and that +the greatest blessing it could confer on an unhappy public would be +to do nothing. + +With sufficient occupation on his hands, now that he had this +additional task--such a task had many and many a serviceable man +died of before his day--Arthur Clennam led a life of slight +variety. Regular visits to his mother's dull sick room, and visits +scarcely less regular to Mr Meagles at Twickenham, were its only +changes during many months. + +He sadly and sorely missed Little Dorrit. He had been prepared to +miss her very much, but not so much. He knew to the full extent +only through experience, what a large place in his life was left +blank when her familiar little figure went out of it. He felt, +too, that he must relinquish the hope of its return, understanding +the family character sufficiently well to be assured that he and +she were divided by a broad ground of separation. The old interest +he had had in her, and her old trusting reliance on him, were +tinged with melancholy in his mind: so soon had change stolen over +them, and so soon had they glided into the past with other secret +tendernesses. + +When he received her letter he was greatly moved, but did not the +less sensibly feel that she was far divided from him by more than +distance. It helped him to a clearer and keener perception of the +place assigned him by the family. He saw that he was cherished in +her grateful remembrance secretly, and that they resented him with +the jail and the rest of its belongings. + +Through all these meditations which every day of his life crowded +about her, he thought of her otherwise in the old way. She was his +innocent friend, his delicate child, his dear Little Dorrit. This +very change of circumstances fitted curiously in with the habit, +begun on the night when the roses floated away, of considering +himself as a much older man than his years really made him. He +regarded her from a point of view which in its remoteness, tender +as it was, he little thought would have been unspeakable agony to +her. He speculated about her future destiny, and about the husband +she might have, with an affection for her which would have drained +her heart of its dearest drop of hope, and broken it. + +Everything about him tended to confirm him in the custom of looking +on himself as an elderly man, from whom such aspirations as he had +combated in the case of Minnie Gowan (though that was not so long +ago either, reckoning by months and seasons), were finally +departed. His relations with her father and mother were like those +on which a widower son-in-law might have stood. If the twin sister +who was dead had lived to pass away in the bloom of womanhood, and +he had been her husband, the nature of his intercourse with Mr and +Mrs Meagles would probably have been just what it was. This +imperceptibly helped to render habitual the impression within him, +that he had done with, and dismissed that part of life. + +He invariably heard of Minnie from them, as telling them in her +letters how happy she was, and how she loved her husband; but +inseparable from that subject, he invariably saw the old cloud on +Mr Meagles's face. Mr Meagles had never been quite so radiant +since the marriage as before. He had never quite recovered the +separation from Pet. He was the same good-humoured, open creature; +but as if his face, from being much turned towards the pictures of +his two children which could show him only one look, unconsciously +adopted a characteristic from them, it always had now, through all +its changes of expression, a look of loss in it. + +One wintry Saturday when Clennam was at the cottage, the Dowager +Mrs Gowan drove up, in the Hampton Court equipage which pretended +to be the exclusive equipage of so many individual proprietors. +She descended, in her shady ambuscade of green fan, to favour Mr +and Mrs Meagles with a call. + +'And how do you both do, Papa and Mama Meagles?' said she, +encouraging her humble connections. 'And when did you last hear +from or about my poor fellow?' + +My poor fellow was her son; and this mode of speaking of him +politely kept alive, without any offence in the world, the pretence +that he had fallen a victim to the Meagles' wiles. + +'And the dear pretty one?' said Mrs Gowan. 'Have you later news of +her than I have?' + +Which also delicately implied that her son had been captured by +mere beauty, and under its fascination had forgone all sorts of +worldly advantages. + +' I am sure,' said Mrs Gowan, without straining her attention on +the answers she received, 'it's an unspeakable comfort to know they +continue happy. My poor fellow is of such a restless disposition, +and has been so used to roving about, and to being inconstant and +popular among all manner of people, that it's the greatest comfort +in life. I suppose they're as poor as mice, Papa Meagles?' + +Mr Meagles, fidgety under the question, replied, 'I hope not, +ma'am. I hope they will manage their little income.' + +'Oh! my dearest Meagles!' returned the lady, tapping him on the +arm with the green fan and then adroitly interposing it between a +yawn and the company, 'how can you, as a man of the world and one +of the most business-like of human beings--for you know you are +business-like, and a great deal too much for us who are not--' + +(Which went to the former purpose, by making Mr Meagles out to be +an artful schemer.) + +'--How can you talk about their managing their little means? My +poor dear fellow! The idea of his managing hundreds! And the +sweet pretty creature too. The notion of her managing! Papa +Meagles! Don't!' + +'Well, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, gravely, 'I am sorry to admit, +then, that Henry certainly does anticipate his means.' + +'My dear good man--I use no ceremony with you, because we are a +kind of relations;--positively, Mama Meagles,' exclaimed Mrs Gowan +cheerfully, as if the absurd coincidence then flashed upon her for +the first time, 'a kind of relations! My dear good man, in this +world none of us can have everything our own way.' + +This again went to the former point, and showed Mr Meagles with all +good breeding that, so far, he had been brilliantly successful in +his deep designs. Mrs Gowan thought the hit so good a one, that +she dwelt upon it; repeating 'Not everything. No, no; in this +world we must not expect everything, Papa Meagles.' + +'And may I ask, ma'am,' retorted Mr Meagles, a little heightened in +colour, 'who does expect everything?' + +'Oh, nobody, nobody!' said Mrs Gowan. 'I was going to say--but you +put me out. You interrupting Papa, what was I going to say?' + +Drooping her large green fan, she looked musingly at Mr Meagles +while she thought about it; a performance not tending to the +cooling of that gentleman's rather heated spirits. + +'Ah! Yes, to be sure!' said Mrs Gowan. 'You must remember that my +poor fellow has always been accustomed to expectations. They may +have been realised, or they may not have been realised--' + +'Let us say, then, may not have been realised,' observed Mr +Meagles. + +The Dowager for a moment gave him an angry look; but tossed it off +with her head and her fan, and pursued the tenor of her way in her +former manner. + +'It makes no difference. My poor fellow has been accustomed to +that sort of thing, and of course you knew it, and were prepared +for the consequences. I myself always clearly foresaw the +consequences, and am not surprised. And you must not be surprised. + +In fact, can't be surprised. Must have been prepared for it.' + +Mr Meagles looked at his wife and at Clennam; bit his lip; and +coughed. + +'And now here's my poor fellow,' Mrs Gowan pursued, 'receiving +notice that he is to hold himself in expectation of a baby, and all +the expenses attendant on such an addition to his family! Poor +Henry! But it can't be helped now; it's too late to help it now. +Only don't talk of anticipating means, Papa Meagles, as a +discovery; because that would be too much.' + +'Too much, ma'am?' said Mr Meagles, as seeking an explanation. + +'There, there!' said Mrs Gowan, putting him in his inferior place +with an expressive action of her hand. 'Too much for my poor +fellow's mother to bear at this time of day. They are fast +married, and can't be unmarried. There, there! I know that! You +needn't tell me that, Papa Meagles. I know it very well. What was +it I said just now? That it was a great comfort they continued +happy. It is to be hoped they will still continue happy. It is to +be hoped Pretty One will do everything she can to make my poor +fellow happy, and keep him contented. Papa and Mama Meagles, we +had better say no more about it. We never did look at this subject +from the same side, and we never shall. There, there! Now I am +good.' + +Truly, having by this time said everything she could say in +maintenance of her wonderfully mythical position, and in admonition +to Mr Meagles that he must not expect to bear his honours of +alliance too cheaply, Mrs Gowan was disposed to forgo the rest. If +Mr Meagles had submitted to a glance of entreaty from Mrs Meagles, +and an expressive gesture from Clennam, he would have left her in +the undisturbed enjoyment of this state of mind. But Pet was the +darling and pride of his heart; and if he could ever have +championed her more devotedly, or loved her better, than in the +days when she was the sunlight of his house, it would have been +now, when, as its daily grace and delight, she was lost to it. + +'Mrs Gowan, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'I have been a plain man all +my life. If I was to try--no matter whether on myself, on somebody +else, or both--any genteel mystifications, I should probably not +succeed in them.' + +'Papa Meagles,' returned the Dowager, with an affable smile, but +with the bloom on her cheeks standing out a little more vividly +than usual as the neighbouring surface became paler,'probably not.' + +'Therefore, my good madam,' said Mr Meagles, at great pains to +restrain himself, 'I hope I may, without offence, ask to have no +such mystification played off upon me.' +'Mama Meagles,' observed Mrs Gowan, 'your good man is +incomprehensible.' + +Her turning to that worthy lady was an artifice to bring her into +the discussion, quarrel with her, and vanquish her. Mr Meagles +interposed to prevent that consummation. + +'Mother,' said he, 'you are inexpert, my dear, and it is not a fair +match. Let me beg of you to remain quiet. Come, Mrs Gowan, come! +Let us try to be sensible; let us try to be good-natured; let us +try to be fair. Don't you pity Henry, and I won't pity Pet. And +don't be one-sided, my dear madam; it's not considerate, it's not +kind. Don't let us say that we hope Pet will make Henry happy, or +even that we hope Henry will make Pet happy,' (Mr Meagles himself +did not look happy as he spoke the words,) 'but let us hope they +will make each other happy.' + +'Yes, sure, and there leave it, father,' said Mrs Meagles the kind- +hearted and comfortable. + +'Why, mother, no,' returned Mr Meagles, 'not exactly there. I +can't quite leave it there; I must say just half-a-dozen words +more. Mrs Gowan, I hope I am not over-sensitive. I believe I +don't look it.' + +'Indeed you do not,' said Mrs Gowan, shaking her head and the great +green fan together, for emphasis. + +'Thank you, ma'am; that's well. Notwithstanding which, I feel a +little--I don't want to use a strong word--now shall I say hurt?' +asked Mr Meagles at once with frankness and moderation, and with a +conciliatory appeal in his tone. + +'Say what you like,' answered Mrs Gowan. 'It is perfectly +indifferent to me.' + +'No, no, don't say that,' urged Mr Meagles, 'because that's not +responding amiably. I feel a little hurt when I hear references +made to consequences having been foreseen, and to its being too +late now, and so forth.' + +'Do you, Papa Meagles?' said Mrs Gowan. 'I am not surprised.' + +'Well, ma'am,' reasoned Mr Meagles, 'I was in hopes you would have +been at least surprised, because to hurt me wilfully on so tender +a subject is surely not generous.' +'I am not responsible,' said Mrs Gowan, 'for your conscience, you +know.' + +Poor Mr Meagles looked aghast with astonishment. + +'If I am unluckily obliged to carry a cap about with me, which is +yours and fits you,' pursued Mrs Gowan, 'don't blame me for its +pattern, Papa Meagles, I beg!' +'Why, good Lord, ma'am!' Mr Meagles broke out, 'that's as much as +to state--' + +'Now, Papa Meagles, Papa Meagles,' said Mrs Gowan, who became +extremely deliberate and prepossessing in manner whenever that +gentleman became at all warm, 'perhaps to prevent confusion, I had +better speak for myself than trouble your kindness to speak for me. + +It's as much as to state, you begin. If you please, I will finish +the sentence. It is as much as to state--not that I wish to press +it or even recall it, for it is of no use now, and my only wish is +to make the best of existing circumstances--that from the first to +the last I always objected to this match of yours, and at a very +late period yielded a most unwilling consent to it.' + +'Mother!' cried Mr Meagles. 'Do you hear this! Arthur! Do you +hear this!' + +'The room being of a convenient size,' said Mrs Gowan, looking +about as she fanned herself, 'and quite charmingly adapted in all +respects to conversation, I should imagine I am audible in any part +of it.' + +Some moments passed in silence, before Mr Meagles could hold +himself in his chair with sufficient security to prevent his +breaking out of it at the next word he spoke. At last he said: +'Ma'am, I am very unwilling to revive them, but I must remind you +what my opinions and my course were, all along, on that unfortunate +subject.' + +'O, my dear sir!' said Mrs Gowan, smiling and shaking her head with +accusatory intelligence, 'they were well understood by me, I assure +you.' + +'I never, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'knew unhappiness before that +time, I never knew anxiety before that time. It was a time of such +distress to me that--' That Mr Meagles could really say no more +about it, in short, but passed his handkerchief before his Face. + +'I understood the whole affair,' said Mrs Gowan, composedly looking +over her fan. 'As you have appealed to Mr Clennam, I may appeal to +Mr Clennam, too. He knows whether I did or not.' + +'I am very unwilling,' said Clennam, looked to by all parties, 'to +take any share in this discussion, more especially because I wish +to preserve the best understanding and the clearest relations with +Mr Henry Gowan. I have very strong reasons indeed, for +entertaining that wish. Mrs Gowan attributed certain views of +furthering the marriage to my friend here, in conversation with me +before it took place; and I endeavoured to undeceive her. I +represented that I knew him (as I did and do) to be strenuously +opposed to it, both in opinion and action.' + +'You see?' said Mrs Gowan, turning the palms of her hands towards +Mr Meagles, as if she were Justice herself, representing to him +that he had better confess, for he had not a leg to stand on. 'You +see? Very good! Now Papa and Mama Meagles both!' here she rose; +'allow me to take the liberty of putting an end to this rather +formidable controversy. I will not say another word upon its +merits. I will only say that it is an additional proof of what one +knows from all experience; that this kind of thing never answers-- +as my poor fellow himself would say, that it never pays--in one +word, that it never does.' + +Mr Meagles asked, What kind of thing? + +'It is in vain,' said Mrs Gowan, 'for people to attempt to get on +together who have such extremely different antecedents; who are +jumbled against each other in this accidental, matrimonial sort of +way; and who cannot look at the untoward circumstance which has +shaken them together in the same light. It never does.' + +Mr Meagles was beginning, 'Permit me to say, ma'am--' + +'No, don't,' returned Mrs Gowan. 'Why should you! It is an +ascertained fact. It never does. I will therefore, if you please, +go my way, leaving you to yours. I shall at all times be happy to +receive my poor fellow's pretty wife, and I shall always make a +point of being on the most affectionate terms with her. But as to +these terms, semi-family and semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi- +boring, they form a state of things quite amusing in its +impracticability. I assure you it never does.' + +The Dowager here made a smiling obeisance, rather to the room than +to any one in it, and therewith took a final farewell of Papa and +Mama Meagles. Clennam stepped forward to hand her to the Pill-Box +which was at the service of all the Pills in Hampton Court Palace; +and she got into that vehicle with distinguished serenity, and was +driven away. + +Thenceforth the Dowager, with a light and careless humour, often +recounted to her particular acquaintance how, after a hard trial, +she had found it impossible to know those people who belonged to +Henry's wife, and who had made that desperate set to catch him. +Whether she had come to the conclusion beforehand, that to get rid +of them would give her favourite pretence a better air, might save +her some occasional inconvenience, and could risk no loss (the +pretty creature being fast married, and her father devoted to her), +was best known to herself. Though this history has its opinion on +that point too, and decidedly in the affirmative. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +Appearance and Disappearance + + +'Arthur, my dear boy,' said Mr Meagles, on the evening of the +following day, 'Mother and I have been talking this over, and we +don't feel comfortable in remaining as we are. That elegant +connection of ours--that dear lady who was here yesterday--' + +'I understand,' said Arthur. + +'Even that affable and condescending ornament of society,' pursued +Mr Meagles, 'may misrepresent us, we are afraid. We could bear a +great deal, Arthur, for her sake; but we think we would rather not +bear that, if it was all the same to her.' + +'Good,' said Arthur. 'Go on.' + +'You see,' proceeded Mr Meagles 'it might put us wrong with our +son-in-law, it might even put us wrong with our daughter, and it +might lead to a great deal of domestic trouble. You see, don't +you?' + +'Yes, indeed,' returned Arthur, 'there is much reason in what you +say.' He had glanced at Mrs Meagles, who was always on the good +and sensible side; and a petition had shone out of her honest face +that he would support Mr Meagles in his present inclinings. + +'So we are very much disposed, are Mother and I,' said Mr Meagles, +'to pack up bags and baggage and go among the Allongers and +Marshongers once more. I mean, we are very much disposed to be +off, strike right through France into Italy, and see our Pet.' + +'And I don't think,' replied Arthur, touched by the motherly +anticipation in the bright face of Mrs Meagles (she must have been +very like her daughter, once), 'that you could do better. And if +you ask me for my advice, it is that you set off to-morrow.' + +'Is it really, though?' said Mr Meagles. 'Mother, this is being +backed in an idea!' + +Mother, with a look which thanked Clennam in a manner very +agreeable to him, answered that it was indeed. + +'The fact is, besides, Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, the old cloud +coming over his face, 'that my son-in-law is already in debt again, +and that I suppose I must clear him again. It may be as well, even +on this account, that I should step over there, and look him up in +a friendly way. Then again, here's Mother foolishly anxious (and +yet naturally too) about Pet's state of health, and that she should +not be left to feel lonesome at the present time. It's undeniably +a long way off, Arthur, and a strange place for the poor love under +all the circumstances. Let her be as well cared for as any lady in +that land, still it is a long way off. just as Home is Home though +it's never so Homely, why you see,' said Mr Meagles, adding a new +version to the proverb, 'Rome is Rome, though it's never so +Romely.' + +'All perfectly true,' observed Arthur, 'and all sufficient reasons +for going.' + +'I am glad you think so; it decides me. Mother, my dear, you may +get ready. We have lost our pleasant interpreter (she spoke three +foreign languages beautifully, Arthur; you have heard her many a +time), and you must pull me through it, Mother, as well as you can. + +I require a deal of pulling through, Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, +shaking his head, 'a deal of pulling through. I stick at +everything beyond a noun-substantive--and I stick at him, if he's +at all a tight one.' + +'Now I think of it,' returned Clennam, 'there's Cavalletto. He +shall go with you, if you like. I could not afford to lose him, +but you will bring him safe back.' + +'Well! I am much obliged to you, my boy,' said Mr Meagles, turning +it over, 'but I think not. No, I think I'll be pulled through by +Mother. Cavallooro (I stick at his very name to start with, and it +sounds like the chorus to a comic song) is so necessary to you, +that I don't like the thought of taking him away. More than that, +there's no saying when we may come home again; and it would never +do to take him away for an indefinite time. The cottage is not +what it was. It only holds two little people less than it ever +did, Pet, and her poor unfortunate maid Tattycoram; but it seems +empty now. Once out of it, there's no knowing when we may come +back to it. No, Arthur, I'll be pulled through by Mother.' + +They would do best by themselves perhaps, after all, Clennam +thought; therefore did not press his proposal. + +'If you would come down and stay here for a change, when it +wouldn't trouble you,' Mr Meagles resumed, 'I should be glad to +think--and so would Mother too, I know--that you were brightening +up the old place with a bit of life it was used to when it was +full, and that the Babies on the wall there had a kind eye upon +them sometimes. You so belong to the spot, and to them, Arthur, +and we should every one of us have been so happy if it had fallen +out--but, let us see--how's the weather for travelling now?' Mr +Meagles broke off, cleared his throat, and got up to look out of +the window. + +They agreed that the weather was of high promise; and Clennam kept +the talk in that safe direction until it had become easy again, +when he gently diverted it to Henry Gowan and his quick sense and +agreeable qualities when he was delicately dealt With; he likewise +dwelt on the indisputable affection he entertained for his wife. +Clennam did not fail of his effect upon good Mr Meagles, whom these +commendations greatly cheered; and who took Mother to witness that +the single and cordial desire of his heart in reference to their +daughter's husband, was harmoniously to exchange friendship for +friendship, and confidence for confidence. Within a few hours the +cottage furniture began to be wrapped up for preservation in the +family absence--or, as Mr Meagles expressed it, the house began to +put its hair in papers--and within a few days Father and Mother +were gone, Mrs Tickit and Dr Buchan were posted, as of yore, behind +the parlour blind, and Arthur's solitary feet were rustling among +the dry fallen leaves in the garden walks. + +As he had a liking for the spot, he seldom let a week pass without +paying a visit. Sometimes, he went down alone from Saturday to +Monday; sometimes his partner accompanied him; sometimes, he merely +strolled for an hour or two about the house and garden, saw that +all was right, and returned to London again. At all times, and +under all circumstances, Mrs Tickit, with her dark row of curls, +and Dr Buchan, sat in the parlour window, looking out for the +family return. + +On one of his visits Mrs Tickit received him with the words, 'I +have something to tell you, Mr Clennam, that will surprise you.' +So surprising was the something in question, that it actually +brought Mrs Tickit out of the parlour window and produced her in +the garden walk, when Clennam went in at the gate on its being +opened for him. + +'What is it, Mrs Tickit?' said he. + +'Sir,' returned that faithful housekeeper, having taken him into +the parlour and closed the door; 'if ever I saw the led away and +deluded child in my life, I saw her identically in the dusk of +yesterday evening.' + +'You don't mean Tatty--' + +'Coram yes I do!' quoth Mrs Tickit, clearing the disclosure at a +leap. + +'Where?' + +'Mr Clennam,' returned Mrs Tickit, 'I was a little heavy in my +eyes, being that I was waiting longer than customary for my cup of +tea which was then preparing by Mary Jane. I was not sleeping, nor +what a person would term correctly, dozing. I was more what a +person would strictly call watching with my eyes closed.' + +Without entering upon an inquiry into this curious abnormal +condition, Clennam said, 'Exactly. Well?' + +'Well, sir,' proceeded Mrs Tickit, 'I was thinking of one thing and +thinking of another. just as you yourself might. just as anybody +might.' +'Precisely so,' said Clennam. 'Well?' + +'And when I do think of one thing and do think of another,' pursued +Mrs Tickit, 'I hardly need to tell you, Mr Clennam, that I think of +the family. Because, dear me! a person's thoughts,' Mrs Tickit +said this with an argumentative and philosophic air, 'however they +may stray, will go more or less on what is uppermost in their +minds. They will do it, sir, and a person can't prevent them.' + +Arthur subscribed to this discovery with a nod. + +'You find it so yourself, sir, I'll be bold to say,' said Mrs +Tickit, 'and we all find it so. It an't our stations in life that +changes us, Mr Clennam; thoughts is free!--As I was saying, I was +thinking of one thing and thinking of another, and thinking very +much of the family. Not of the family in the present times only, +but in the past times too. For when a person does begin thinking +of one thing and thinking of another in that manner, as it's +getting dark, what I say is, that all times seem to be present, and +a person must get out of that state and consider before they can +say which is which.' + +He nodded again; afraid to utter a word, lest it should present any +new opening to Mrs Tickit's conversational powers. + +'In consequence of which,' said Mrs Tickit, 'when I quivered my +eyes and saw her actual form and figure looking in at the gate, I +let them close again without so much as starting, for that actual +form and figure came so pat to the time when it belonged to the +house as much as mine or your own, that I never thought at the +moment of its having gone away. But, sir, when I quivered my eyes +again, and saw that it wasn't there, then it all flooded upon me +with a fright, and I jumped up.' + +'You ran out directly?' said Clennam. + +'I ran out,' assented Mrs Tickit, 'as fast as ever my feet would +carry me; and if you'll credit it, Mr Clennam, there wasn't in the +whole shining Heavens, no not so much as a finger of that young +woman.' + +Passing over the absence from the firmament of this novel +constellation, Arthur inquired of Mrs Tickit if she herself went +beyond the gate? + +'Went to and fro, and high and low,' said Mrs Tickit, 'and saw no +sign of her!' + + +He then asked Mrs Tickit how long a space of time she supposed +there might have been between the two sets of ocular quiverings she +had experienced? Mrs Tickit, though minutely circumstantial in her +reply, had no settled opinion between five seconds and ten minutes. + +She was so plainly at sea on this part of the case, and had so +clearly been startled out of slumber, that Clennam was much +disposed to regard the appearance as a dream. Without hurting Mrs +Tickit's feelings with that infidel solution of her mystery, he +took it away from the cottage with him; and probably would have +retained it ever afterwards if a circumstance had not soon happened +to change his opinion. +He was passing at nightfall along the Strand, and the lamp-lighter +was going on before him, under whose hand the street-lamps, blurred +by the foggy air, burst out one after another, like so many blazing +sunflowers coming into full-blow all at once,--when a stoppage on +the pavement, caused by a train of coal-waggons toiling up from the +wharves at the river-side, brought him to a stand-still. He had +been walking quickly, and going with some current of thought, and +the sudden check given to both operations caused him to look +freshly about him, as people under such circumstances usually do. + +Immediately, he saw in advance--a few people intervening, but still +so near to him that he could have touched them by stretching out +his arm--Tattycoram and a strange man of a remarkable appearance: +a swaggering man, with a high nose, and a black moustache as false +in its colour as his eyes were false in their expression, who wore +his heavy cloak with the air of a foreigner. His dress and general +appearance were those of a man on travel, and he seemed to have +very recently joined the girl. In bending down (being much taller +than she was), listening to whatever she said to him, he looked +over his shoulder with the suspicious glance of one who was not +unused to be mistrustful that his footsteps might be dogged. It +was then that Clennam saw his face; as his eyes lowered on the +people behind him in the aggregate, without particularly resting +upon Clennam's face or any other. + +He had scarcely turned his head about again, and it was still bent +down, listening to the girl, when the stoppage ceased, and the +obstructed stream of people flowed on. Still bending his head and +listening to the girl, he went on at her side, and Clennam followed +them, resolved to play this unexpected play out, and see where they +went. + +He had hardly made the determination (though he was not long about +it), when he was again as suddenly brought up as he had been by the +stoppage. They turned short into the Adelphi,--the girl evidently +leading,--and went straight on, as if they were going to the +Terrace which overhangs the river. + +There is always, to this day, a sudden pause in that place to the +roar of the great thoroughfare. The many sounds become so deadened +that the change is like putting cotton in the ears, or having the +head thickly muffled. At that time the contrast was far greater; +there being no small steam-boats on the river, no landing places +but slippery wooden stairs and foot-causeways, no railroad on the +opposite bank, no hanging bridge or fish-market near at hand, no +traffic on the nearest bridge of stone, nothing moving on the +stream but watermen's wherries and coal-lighters. Long and broad +black tiers of the latter, moored fast in the mud as if they were +never to move again, made the shore funereal and silent after dark; +and kept what little water-movement there was, far out towards mid- +stream. At any hour later than sunset, and not least at that hour +when most of the people who have anything to eat at home are going +home to eat it, and when most of those who have nothing have hardly +yet slunk out to beg or steal, it was a deserted place and looked +on a deserted scene. + +Such was the hour when Clennam stopped at the corner, observing the +girl and the strange man as they went down the street. The man's +footsteps were so noisy on the echoing stones that he was unwilling +to add the sound of his own. But when they had passed the turning +and were in the darkness of the dark corner leading to the terrace, +he made after them with such indifferent appearance of being a +casual passenger on his way, as he could assume. + +When he rounded the dark corner, they were walking along the +terrace towards a figure which was coming towards them. If he had +seen it by itself, under such conditions of gas-lamp, mist, and +distance, he might not have known it at first sight, but with the +figure of the girl to prompt him, he at once recognised Miss Wade. + +He stopped at the corner, seeming to look back expectantly up the +street as if he had made an appointment with some one to meet him +there; but he kept a careful eye on the three. When they came +together, the man took off his hat, and made Miss Wade a bow. The +girl appeared to say a few words as though she presented him, or +accounted for his being late, or early, or what not; and then fell +a pace or so behind, by herself. Miss Wade and the man then began +to walk up and down; the man having the appearance of being +extremely courteous and complimentary in manner; Miss Wade having +the appearance of being extremely haughty. + +When they came down to the corner and turned, she was saying, + +'If I pinch myself for it, sir, that is my business. Confine +yourself to yours, and ask me no question.' + +'By Heaven, ma'am!' he replied, making her another bow. 'It was my +profound respect for the strength of your character, and my +admiration of your beauty.' + +'I want neither the one nor the other from any one,' said she, 'and +certainly not from you of all creatures. Go on with your report.' + +'Am I pardoned?' he asked, with an air of half abashed gallantry. + +'You are paid,' she said, 'and that is all you want.' + +Whether the girl hung behind because she was not to hear the +business, or as already knowing enough about it, Clennam could not +determine. They turned and she turned. She looked away at the +river, as she walked with her hands folded before her; and that was +all he could make of her without showing his face. There happened, +by good fortune, to be a lounger really waiting for some one; and +he sometimes looked over the railing at the water, and sometimes +came to the dark corner and looked up the street, rendering Arthur +less conspicuous. + +When Miss Wade and the man came back again, she was saying, 'You +must wait until to-morrow.' + +'A thousand pardons?' he returned. 'My faith! Then it's not +convenient to-night?' + +'No. I tell you I must get it before I can give it to you.' + +She stopped in the roadway, as if to put an end to the conference. +He of course stopped too. And the girl stopped. + +'It's a little inconvenient,' said the man. 'A little. But, Holy +Blue! that's nothing in such a service. I am without money to- +night, by chance. I have a good banker in this city, but I would +not wish to draw upon the house until the time when I shall draw +for a round sum.' + +'Harriet,' said Miss Wade, 'arrange with him--this gentleman here-- +for sending him some money to-morrow.' She said it with a slur of +the word gentleman which was more contemptuous than any emphasis, +and walked slowly on. +The man bent his head again, and the girl spoke to him as they both +followed her. Clennam ventured to look at the girl as they Moved +away. He could note that her rich black eyes were fastened upon +the man with a scrutinising expression, and that she kept at a +little distance from him, as they walked side by side to the +further end of the terrace. + +A loud and altered clank upon the pavement warned him, before he +could discern what was passing there, that the man was coming back +alone. Clennam lounged into the road, towards the railing; and the +man passed at a quick swing, with the end of his cloak thrown over +his shoulder, singing a scrap of a French song. + +The whole vista had no one in it now but himself. The lounger had +lounged out of view, and Miss Wade and Tattycoram were gone. More +than ever bent on seeing what became of them, and on having some +information to give his good friend, Mr Meagles, he went out at the +further end of the terrace, looking cautiously about him. He +rightly judged that, at first at all events, they would go in a +contrary direction from their late companion. He soon saw them in +a neighbouring bye-street, which was not a thoroughfare, evidently +allowing time for the man to get well out of their way. They +walked leisurely arm-in-arm down one side of the street, and +returned on the opposite side. When they came back to the street- +corner, they changed their pace for the pace of people with an +object and a distance before them, and walked steadily away. +Clennam, no less steadily, kept them in sight. + + +They crossed the Strand, and passed through Covent Garden (under +the windows of his old lodging where dear Little Dorrit had come +that night), and slanted away north-east, until they passed the +great building whence Tattycoram derived her name, and turned into +the Gray's Inn Road. Clennam was quite at home here, in right of +Flora, not to mention the Patriarch and Pancks, and kept them in +view with ease. He was beginning to wonder where they might be +going next, when that wonder was lost in the greater wonder with +which he saw them turn into the Patriarchal street. That wonder +was in its turn swallowed up on the greater wonder with which he +saw them stop at the Patriarchal door. A low double knock at the +bright brass knocker, a gleam of light into the road from the +opened door, a brief pause for inquiry and answer and the door was +shut, and they were housed. + +After looking at the surrounding objects for assurance that he was +not in an odd dream, and after pacing a little while before the +house, Arthur knocked at the door. It was opened by the usual +maid-servant, and she showed him up at once, with her usual +alacrity, to Flora's sitting-room. + +There was no one with Flora but Mr F.'s Aunt, which respectable +gentlewoman, basking in a balmy atmosphere of tea and toast, was +ensconced in an easy-chair by the fireside, with a little table at +her elbow, and a clean white handkerchief spread over her lap on +which two pieces of toast at that moment awaited consumption. +Bending over a steaming vessel of tea, and looking through the +steam, and breathing forth the steam, like a malignant Chinese +enchantress engaged in the performance of unholy rites, Mr F.'s +Aunt put down her great teacup and exclaimed, 'Drat him, if he an't +come back again!' + +It would seem from the foregoing exclamation that this +uncompromising relative of the lamented Mr F., measuring time by +the acuteness of her sensations and not by the clock, supposed +Clennam to have lately gone away; whereas at least a quarter of a +year had elapsed since he had had the temerity to present himself +before her. + +'My goodness Arthur!' cried Flora, rising to give him a cordial +reception, 'Doyce and Clennam what a start and a surprise for +though not far from the machinery and foundry business and surely +might be taken sometimes if at no other time about mid-day when a +glass of sherry and a humble sandwich of whatever cold meat in the +larder might not come amiss nor taste the worse for being friendly +for you know you buy it somewhere and wherever bought a profit must +be made or they would never keep the place it stands to reason +without a motive still never seen and learnt now not to be +expected, for as Mr F. himself said if seeing is believing not +seeing is believing too and when you don't see you may fully +believe you're not remembered not that I expect you Arthur Doyce +and Clennam to remember me why should I for the days are gone but +bring another teacup here directly and tell her fresh toast and +pray sit near the fire.' + +Arthur was in the greatest anxiety to explain the object of his +visit; but was put off for the moment, in spite of himself, by what +he understood of the reproachful purport of these words, and by the +genuine pleasure she testified in seeing him. +'And now pray tell me something all you know,' said Flora, drawing +her chair near to his, 'about the good dear quiet little thing and +all the changes of her fortunes carriage people now no doubt and +horses without number most romantic, a coat of arms of course and +wild beasts on their hind legs showing it as if it was a copy they +had done with mouths from ear to ear good gracious, and has she her +health which is the first consideration after all for what is +wealth without it Mr F. himself so often saying when his twinges +came that sixpence a day and find yourself and no gout so much +preferable, not that he could have lived on anything like it being +the last man or that the previous little thing though far too +familiar an expression now had any tendency of that sort much too +slight and small but looked so fragile bless her?' + +Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten a piece of toast down to the crust, +here solemnly handed the crust to Flora, who ate it for her as a +matter of business. Mr F.'s Aunt then moistened her ten fingers in +slow succession at her lips, and wiped them in exactly the same +order on the white handkerchief; then took the other piece of +toast, and fell to work upon it. While pursuing this routine, she +looked at Clennam with an expression of such intense severity that +he felt obliged to look at her in return, against his personal +inclinations. + +'She is in Italy, with all her family, Flora,' he said, when the +dreaded lady was occupied again. + +'In Italy is she really?' said Flora, 'with the grapes growing +everywhere and lava necklaces and bracelets too that land of poetry +with burning mountains picturesque beyond belief though if the +organ-boys come away from the neighbourhood not to be scorched +nobody can wonder being so young and bringing their white mice with +them most humane, and is she really in that favoured land with +nothing but blue about her and dying gladiators and Belvederes +though Mr F. himself did not believe for his objection when in +spirits was that the images could not be true there being no medium +between expensive quantities of linen badly got up and all in +creases and none whatever, which certainly does not seem probable +though perhaps in consequence of the extremes of rich and poor +which may account for it.' + +Arthur tried to edge a word in, but Flora hurried on again. + +'Venice Preserved too,' said she, 'I think you have been there is +it well or ill preserved for people differ so and Maccaroni if they +really eat it like the conjurors why not cut it shorter, you are +acquainted Arthur--dear Doyce and Clennam at least not dear and +most assuredly not Doyce for I have not the pleasure but pray +excuse me--acquainted I believe with Mantua what has it got to do +with Mantua-making for I never have been able to conceive?' + +'I believe there is no connection, Flora, between the two,' Arthur +was beginning, when she caught him up again. + +'Upon your word no isn't there I never did but that's like me I run +away with an idea and having none to spare I keep it, alas there +was a time dear Arthur that is to say decidedly not dear nor Arthur +neither but you understand me when one bright idea gilded the +what's-his-name horizon of et cetera but it is darkly clouded now +and all is over.' + +Arthur's increasing wish to speak of something very different was +by this time so plainly written on his face, that Flora stopped in +a tender look, and asked him what it was? + +'I have the greatest desire, Flora, to speak to some one who is now +in this house--with Mr Casby no doubt. Some one whom I saw come +in, and who, in a misguided and deplorable way, has deserted the +house of a friend of mine.' + +'Papa sees so many and such odd people,' said Flora, rising, 'that +I shouldn't venture to go down for any one but you Arthur but for +you I would willingly go down in a diving-bell much more a dining- +room and will come back directly if you'll mind and at the same +time not mind Mr F.'s Aunt while I'm gone.' + +With those words and a parting glance, Flora bustled out, leaving +Clennam under dreadful apprehension of this terrible charge. + +The first variation which manifested itself in Mr F.'s Aunt's +demeanour when she had finished her piece of toast, was a loud and +prolonged sniff. Finding it impossible to avoid construing this +demonstration into a defiance of himself, its gloomy significance +being unmistakable, Clennam looked plaintively at the excellent +though prejudiced lady from whom it emanated, in the hope that she +might be disarmed by a meek submission. + +'None of your eyes at me,' said Mr F.'s Aunt, shivering with +hostility. 'Take that.' + +'That' was the crust of the piece of toast. Clennam accepted the +boon with a look of gratitude, and held it in his hand under the +pressure of a little embarrassment, which was not relieved when Mr +F.'s Aunt, elevating her voice into a cry of considerable power, +exclaimed, 'He has a proud stomach, this chap! He's too proud a +chap to eat it!' and, coming out of her chair, shook her venerable +fist so very close to his nose as to tickle the surface. But for +the timely return of Flora, to find him in this difficult +situation, further consequences might have ensued. Flora, without +the least discomposure or surprise, but congratulating the old lady +in an approving manner on being 'very lively to-night', handed her +back to her chair. + +'He has a proud stomach, this chap,' said Mr F.'s relation, on +being reseated. 'Give him a meal of chaff!' + +'Oh! I don't think he would like that, aunt,' returned Flora. + +'Give him a meal of chaff, I tell you,' said Mr F.'s Aunt, glaring +round Flora on her enemy. 'It's the only thing for a proud +stomach. Let him eat up every morsel. Drat him, give him a meal +of chaff!' + +Under a general pretence of helping him to this refreshment, Flora +got him out on the staircase; Mr F.'s Aunt even then constantly +reiterating, with inexpressible bitterness, that he was 'a chap,' +and had a 'proud stomach,' and over and over again insisting on +that equine provision being made for him which she had already so +strongly prescribed. + +'Such an inconvenient staircase and so many corner-stairs Arthur,' +whispered Flora, 'would you object to putting your arm round me +under my pelerine?' + +With a sense of going down-stairs in a highly-ridiculous manner, +Clennam descended in the required attitude, and only released his +fair burden at the dining-room door; indeed, even there she was +rather difficult to be got rid of, remaining in his embrace to +murmur, 'Arthur, for mercy's sake, don't breathe it to papa!' + +She accompanied Arthur into the room, where the Patriarch sat +alone, with his list shoes on the fender, twirling his thumbs as if +he had never left off. The youthful Patriarch, aged ten, looked +out of his picture-frame above him with no calmer air than he. +Both smooth heads were alike beaming, blundering, and bumpy. + +'Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. I hope you are well, sir, I +hope you are well. Please to sit down, please to sit down.' + +'I had hoped, sir,' said Clennam, doing so, and looking round with +a face of blank disappointment, 'not to find you alone.' + +'Ah, indeed?' said the Patriarch, sweetly. 'Ah, indeed?' + +'I told you so you know papa,' cried Flora. + +'Ah, to be sure!' returned the Patriarch. 'Yes, just so. Ah, to +be sure!' + +'Pray, sir,'demanded Clennam, anxiously, 'is Miss Wade gone?' + +'Miss--? Oh, you call her Wade,' returned Mr Casby. 'Highly +proper.' +Arthur quickly returned, 'What do you call her?' + +'Wade,' said Mr Casby. 'Oh, always Wade.' + +After looking at the philanthropic visage and the long silky white +hair for a few seconds, during which Mr Casby twirled his thumbs, +and smiled at the fire as if he were benevolently wishing it to +burn him that he might forgive it, Arthur began: + +'I beg your pardon, Mr Casby--' + +'Not so, not so,' said the Patriarch, 'not so.' + +'--But, Miss Wade had an attendant with her--a young woman brought +up by friends of mine, over whom her influence is not considered +very salutary, and to whom I should be glad to have the opportunity +of giving the assurance that she has not yet forfeited the interest +of those protectors.' + +'Really, really?' returned the Patriarch. + +'Will you therefore be so good as to give me the address of Miss +Wade?' + +'Dear, dear, dear!' said the Patriarch, 'how very unfortunate! If +you had only sent in to me when they were here! I observed the +young woman, Mr Clennam. A fine full-coloured young woman, Mr +Clennam, with very dark hair and very dark eyes. If I mistake not, +if I mistake not?' + +Arthur assented, and said once more with new expression, 'If you +would be so good as to give me the address.' + +'Dear, dear, dear!' exclaimed the Patriarch in sweet regret. 'Tut, +tut, tut! what a pity, what a pity! I have no address, sir. Miss +Wade mostly lives abroad, Mr Clennam. She has done so for some +years, and she is (if I may say so of a fellow-creature and a lady) +fitful and uncertain to a fault, Mr Clennam. I may not see her +again for a long, long time. I may never see her again. What a +pity, what a pity!' + +Clennam saw now, that he had as much hope of getting assistance out +of the Portrait as out of the Patriarch; but he said nevertheless: + +'Mr Casby, could you, for the satisfaction of the friends I have +mentioned, and under any obligation of secrecy that you may +consider it your duty to impose, give me any information at all +touching Miss Wade? I have seen her abroad, and I have seen her at +home, but I know nothing of her. Could you give me any account of +her whatever?' + +'None,' returned the Patriarch, shaking his big head with his +utmost benevolence. 'None at all. Dear, dear, dear! What a real +pity that she stayed so short a time, and you delayed! As +confidential agency business, agency business, I have occasionally +paid this lady money; but what satisfaction is it to you, sir, to +know that?' + +'Truly, none at all,' said Clennam. + +'Truly,' assented the Patriarch, with a shining face as he +philanthropically smiled at the fire, 'none at all, sir. You hit +the wise answer, Mr Clennam. Truly, none at all, sir.' +His turning of his smooth thumbs over one another as he sat there, +was so typical to Clennam of the way in which he would make the +subject revolve if it were pursued, never showing any new part of +it nor allowing it to make the smallest advance, that it did much +to help to convince him of his labour having been in vain. He +might have taken any time to think about it, for Mr Casby, well +accustomed to get on anywhere by leaving everything to his bumps +and his white hair, knew his strength to lie in silence. So there +Casby sat, twirling and twirling, and making his polished head and +forehead look largely benevolent in every knob. + +With this spectacle before him, Arthur had risen to go, when from +the inner Dock where the good ship Pancks was hove down when out in +no cruising ground, the noise was heard of that steamer labouring +towards him. It struck Arthur that the noise began demonstratively +far off, as though Mr Pancks sought to impress on any one who might +happen to think about it, that he was working on from out of +hearing. +Mr Pancks and he shook hands, and the former brought his employer +a letter or two to sign. Mr Pancks in shaking hands merely +scratched his eyebrow with his left forefinger and snorted once, +but Clennam, who understood him better now than of old, +comprehended that he had almost done for the evening and wished to +say a word to him outside. Therefore, when he had taken his leave +of Mr Casby, and (which was a more difficult process) of Flora, he +sauntered in the neighbourhood on Mr Pancks's line of road. + +He had waited but a short time when Mr Pancks appeared. Mr Pancks +shaking hands again with another expressive snort, and taking off +his hat to put his hair up, Arthur thought he received his cue to +speak to him as one who knew pretty well what had just now passed. +Therefore he said, without any preface: + +'I suppose they were really gone, Pancks?' + +'Yes,' replied Pancks. 'They were really gone.' + +'Does he know where to find that lady?' + +'Can't say. I should think so.' + +Mr Pancks did not? No, Mr Pancks did not. Did Mr Pancks know +anything about her? +'I expect,' rejoined that worthy, 'I know as much about her as she +knows about herself. She is somebody's child--anybody's--nobody's. + +Put her in a room in London here with any six people old enough to +be her parents, and her parents may be there for anything she +knows. They may be in any house she sees, they may be in any +churchyard she passes, she may run against 'em in any street, she +may make chance acquaintance of 'em at any time; and never know it. + +She knows nothing about 'em. She knows nothing about any relative +whatever. Never did. Never will.' +'Mr Casby could enlighten her, perhaps?' + +'May be,' said Pancks. 'I expect so, but don't know. He has long +had money (not overmuch as I make out) in trust to dole out to her +when she can't do without it. Sometimes she's proud and won't +touch it for a length of time; sometimes she's so poor that she +must have it. She writhes under her life. A woman more angry, +passionate, reckless, and revengeful never lived. She came for +money to-night. Said she had peculiar occasion for it.' + +'I think,' observed Clennam musing, 'I by chance know what +occasion--I mean into whose pocket the money is to go.' + +'Indeed?' said Pancks. 'If it's a compact, I recommend that party +to be exact in it. I wouldn't trust myself to that woman, young +and handsome as she is, if I had wronged her; no, not for twice my +proprietor's money! Unless,' Pancks added as a saving clause, 'I +had a lingering illness on me, and wanted to get it over.' + +Arthur, hurriedly reviewing his own observation of her, found it to +tally pretty nearly with Mr Pancks's view. + +'The wonder is to me,' pursued Pancks, 'that she has never done for +my proprietor, as the only person connected with her story she can +lay hold of. Mentioning that, I may tell you, between ourselves, +that I am sometimes tempted to do for him myself.' + +Arthur started and said, 'Dear me, Pancks, don't say that!' + +'Understand me,' said Pancks, extending five cropped coaly finger- +nails on Arthur's arm; 'I don't mean, cut his throat. But by all +that's precious, if he goes too far, I'll cut his hair!' + +Having exhibited himself in the new light of enunciating this +tremendous threat, Mr Pancks, with a countenance of grave import, +snorted several times and steamed away. + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken + + +The shady waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office, where he +passed a good deal of time in company with various troublesome +Convicts who were under sentence to be broken alive on that wheel, +had afforded Arthur Clennam ample leisure, in three or four +successive days, to exhaust the subject of his late glimpse of Miss +Wade and Tattycoram. He had been able to make no more of it and no +less of it, and in this unsatisfactory condition he was fain to +leave it. + +During this space he had not been to his mother's dismal old house. + +One of his customary evenings for repairing thither now coming +round, he left his dwelling and his partner at nearly nine o'clock, +and slowly walked in the direction of that grim home of his youth. + +It always affected his imagination as wrathful, mysterious, and +sad; and his imagination was sufficiently impressible to see the +whole neighbourhood under some tinge of its dark shadow. As he +went along, upon a dreary night, the dim streets by which he went, +seemed all depositories of oppressive secrets. The deserted +counting-houses, with their secrets of books and papers locked up +in chests and safes; the banking-houses, with their secrets of +strong rooms and wells, the keys of which were in a very few secret +pockets and a very few secret breasts; the secrets of all the +dispersed grinders in the vast mill, among whom there were +doubtless plunderers, forgers, and trust-betrayers of many sorts, +whom the light of any day that dawned might reveal; he could have +fancied that these things, in hiding, imparted a heaviness to the +air. The shadow thickening and thickening as he approached its +source, he thought of the secrets of the lonely church-vaults, +where the people who had hoarded and secreted in iron coffers were +in their turn similarly hoarded, not yet at rest from doing harm; +and then of the secrets of the river, as it rolled its turbid tide +between two frowning wildernesses of secrets, extending, thick and +dense, for many miles, and warding off the free air and the free +country swept by winds and wings of birds. + +The shadow still darkening as he drew near the house, the +melancholy room which his father had once occupied, haunted by the +appealing face he had himself seen fade away with him when there +was no other watcher by the bed, arose before his mind. Its close +air was secret. The gloom, and must, and dust of the whole +tenement, were secret. At the heart of it his mother presided, +inflexible of face, indomitable of will, firmly holding all the +secrets of her own and his father's life, and austerely opposing +herself, front to front, to the great final secret of all life. + +He had turned into the narrow and steep street from which the court +of enclosure wherein the house stood opened, when another footstep +turned into it behind him, and so close upon his own that he was +jostled to the wall. As his mind was teeming with these thoughts, +the encounter took him altogether unprepared, so that the other +passenger had had time to say, boisterously, 'Pardon! Not my +fault!' and to pass on before the instant had elapsed which was +requisite to his recovery of the realities about him. + +When that moment had flashed away, he saw that the man striding on +before him was the man who had been so much in his mind during the +last few days. It was no casual resemblance, helped out by the +force of the impression the man made upon him. It was the man; the +man he had followed in company with the girl, and whom he had +overheard talking to Miss Wade. + +The street was a sharp descent and was crooked too, and the man +(who although not drunk had the air of being flushed with some +strong drink) went down it so fast that Clennam lost him as he +looked at him. With no defined intention of following him, but +with an impulse to keep the figure in view a little longer, Clennam +quickened his pace to pass the twist in the street which hid him +from his sight. On turning it, he saw the man no more. + +Standing now, close to the gateway of his mother's house, he looked +down the street: but it was empty. There was no projecting shadow +large enough to obscure the man; there was no turning near that he +could have taken; nor had there been any audible sound of the +opening and closing of a door. Nevertheless, he concluded that the +man must have had a key in his hand, and must have opened one of +the many house-doors and gone in. + +Ruminating on this strange chance and strange glimpse, he turned +into the court-yard. As he looked, by mere habit, towards the +feebly lighted windows of his mother's room, his eyes encountered +the figure he had just lost, standing against the iron railings of +the little waste enclosure looking up at those windows and laughing +to himself. Some of the many vagrant cats who were always prowling +about there by night, and who had taken fright at him, appeared to +have stopped when he had stopped, and were looking at him with eyes +by no means unlike his own from tops of walls and porches, and +other safe points of pause. He had only halted for a moment to +entertain himself thus; he immediately went forward, throwing the +end of his cloak off his shoulder as he went, ascended the unevenly +sunken steps, and knocked a sounding knock at the door. + +Clennam's surprise was not so absorbing but that he took his +resolution without any incertitude. He went up to the door too, +and ascended the steps too. His friend looked at him with a +braggart air, and sang to himself. + + 'Who passes by this road so late? + Compagnon de la Majolaine; + Who passes by this road so late? + Always gay!' + + +After which he knocked again. + +'You are impatient, sir,' said Arthur. + +'I am, sir. Death of my life, sir,' returned the stranger, 'it's +my character to be impatient!' +The sound of Mistress Affery cautiously chaining the door before +she opened it, caused them both to look that way. Affery opened it +a very little, with a flaring candle in her hands and asked who was +that, at that time of night, with that knock! 'Why, Arthur!' she +added with astonishment, seeing him first. 'Not you sure? Ah, +Lord save us! No,' she cried out, seeing the other. 'Him again!' + +'It's true! Him again, dear Mrs Flintwinch,' cried the stranger. +'Open the door, and let me take my dear friend Jeremiah to my arms! +Open the door, and let me hasten myself to embrace my Flintwinch!' + +'He's not at home,' cried Affery. + +'Fetch him!' cried the stranger. 'Fetch my Flintwinch! Tell him +that it is his old Blandois, who comes from arriving in England; +tell him that it is his little boy who is here, his cabbage, his +well-beloved! Open the door, beautiful Mrs Flintwinch, and in the +meantime let me to pass upstairs, to present my compliments-- +homage of Blandois--to my lady! My lady lives always? It is well. + +Open then!' + +To Arthur's increased surprise, Mistress Affery, stretching her +eyes wide at himself, as if in warning that this was not a +gentleman for him to interfere with, drew back the chain, and +opened the door. The stranger, without ceremony, walked into the +hall, leaving Arthur to follow him. + +'Despatch then! Achieve then! Bring my Flintwinch! Announce me +to my lady!' cried the stranger, clanking about the stone floor. + +'Pray tell me, Affery,' said Arthur aloud and sternly, as he +surveyed him from head to foot with indignation; 'who is this +gentleman?' + +'Pray tell me, Affery,' the stranger repeated in his turn, 'who-- +ha, ha, ha!--who is this gentleman?' + +The voice of Mrs Clennam opportunely called from her chamber above, +'Affery, let them both come up. Arthur, come straight to me!' + +'Arthur?' exclaimed Blandois, taking off his hat at arm's length, +and bringing his heels together from a great stride in making him +a flourishing bow. 'The son of my lady? I am the all-devoted of +the son of my lady!' + +Arthur looked at him again in no more flattering manner than +before, and, turning on his heel without acknowledgment, went up- +stairs. The visitor followed him up-stairs. Mistress Affery took +the key from behind the door, and deftly slipped out to fetch her +lord. + +A bystander, informed of the previous appearance of Monsieur +Blandois in that room, would have observed a difference in Mrs +Clennam's present reception of him. Her face was not one to betray +it; and her suppressed manner, and her set voice, were equally +under her control. It wholly consisted in her never taking her +eyes off his face from the moment of his entrance, and in her twice +or thrice, when he was becoming noisy, swaying herself a very +little forward in the chair in which she sat upright, with her +hands immovable upon its elbows; as if she gave him the assurance +that he should be presently heard at any length he would. Arthur +did not fail to observe this; though the difference between the +present occasion and the former was not within his power of +observation. + +'Madame,' said Blandois, 'do me the honour to present me to +Monsieur, your son. It appears to me, madame, that Monsieur, your +son, is disposed to complain of me. He is not polite.' + +'Sir,' said Arthur, striking in expeditiously, 'whoever you are, +and however you come to be here, if I were the master of this house +I would lose no time in placing you on the outside of it.' + +'But you are not,' said his mother, without looking at him. +'Unfortunately for the gratification of your unreasonable temper, +you are not the master, Arthur.' + +'I make no claim to be, mother. If I object to this person's +manner of conducting himself here, and object to it so much, that +if I had any authority here I certainly would not suffer him to +remain a minute, I object on your account.' + +'In the case of objection being necessary,' she returned, 'I could +object for myself. And of course I should.' + +The subject of their dispute, who had seated himself, laughed +aloud, and rapped his legs with his hand. + +'You have no right,' said Mrs Clennam, always intent on Blandois, +however directly she addressed her son, 'to speak to the prejudice +of any gentleman (least of all a gentleman from another country), +because he does not conform to your standard, or square his +behaviour by your rules. It is possible that the gentleman may, on +similar grounds, object to you.' + +'I hope so,' returned Arthur. + +'The gentleman,' pursued Mrs Clennam, 'on a former occasion brought +a letter of recommendation to us from highly esteemed and +responsible correspondents. I am perfectly unacquainted with the +gentleman's object in coming here at present. I am entirely +ignorant of it, and cannot be supposed likely to be able to form +the remotest guess at its nature;' her habitual frown became +stronger, as she very slowly and weightily emphasised those words; +'but, when the gentleman proceeds to explain his object, as I shall +beg him to have the goodness to do to myself and Flintwinch, when +Flintwinch returns, it will prove, no doubt, to be one more or less +in the usual way of our business, which it will be both our +business and our pleasure to advance. It can be nothing else.' + +'We shall see, madame!' said the man of business. + + +'We shall see,' she assented. 'The gentleman is acquainted with +Flintwinch; and when the gentleman was in London last, I remember +to have heard that he and Flintwinch had some entertainment or +good-fellowship together. I am not in the way of knowing much that +passes outside this room, and the jingle of little worldly things +beyond it does not much interest me; but I remember to have heard +that.' + +'Right, madame. It is true.' He laughed again, and whistled the +burden of the tune he had sung at the door. + +'Therefore, Arthur,' said his mother, 'the gentleman comes here as +an acquaintance, and no stranger; and it is much to be regretted +that your unreasonable temper should have found offence in him. I +regret it. I say so to the gentleman. You will not say so, I +know; therefore I say it for myself and Flintwinch, since with us +two the gentleman's business lies.' + +The key of the door below was now heard in the lock, and the door +was heard to open and close. In due sequence Mr Flintwinch +appeared; on whose entrance the visitor rose from his chair, +laughing loud, and folded him in a close embrace. + +'How goes it, my cherished friend!' said he. 'How goes the world, +my Flintwinch? Rose-coloured? So much the better, so much the +better! Ah, but you look charming! Ah, but you look young and +fresh as the flowers of Spring! Ah, good little boy! Brave child, +brave child!' + +While heaping these compliments on Mr Flintwinch, he rolled him +about with a hand on each of his shoulders, until the staggerings +of that gentleman, who under the circumstances was dryer and more +twisted than ever, were like those of a teetotum nearly spent. + +'I had a presentiment, last time, that we should be better and more +intimately acquainted. Is it coming on you, Flintwinch? Is it yet +coming on?' + +'Why, no, sir,' retorted Mr Flintwinch. 'Not unusually. Hadn't +you better be seated? You have been calling for some more of that +port, sir, I guess?' + +'Ah, Little joker! Little pig!' cried the visitor. 'Ha ha ha ha!' +And throwing Mr Flintwinch away, as a closing piece of raillery, he +sat down again. + +The amazement, suspicion, resentment, and shame, with which Arthur +looked on at all this, struck him dumb. Mr Flintwinch, who had +spun backward some two or three yards under the impetus last given +to him, brought himself up with a face completely unchanged in its +stolidity except as it was affected by shortness of breath, and +looked hard at Arthur. Not a whit less reticent and wooden was Mr +Flintwinch outwardly, than in the usual course of things: the only +perceptible difference in him being that the knot of cravat which +was generally under his ear, had worked round to the back of his +head: where it formed an ornamental appendage not unlike a bagwig, +and gave him something of a courtly appearance. +As Mrs Clennam never removed her eyes from Blandois (on whom they +had some effect, as a steady look has on a lower sort of dog), so +Jeremiah never removed his from Arthur. It was as if they had +tacitly agreed to take their different provinces. Thus, in the +ensuing silence, Jeremiah stood scraping his chin and looking at +Arthur as though he were trying to screw his thoughts out of him +with an instrument. + +After a little, the visitor, as if he felt the silence irksome, +rose, and impatiently put himself with his back to the sacred fire +which had burned through so many years. Thereupon Mrs Clennam +said, moving one of her hands for the first time, and moving it +very slightly with an action of dismissal: + +'Please to leave us to our business, Arthur.' +'Mother, I do so with reluctance.' + +'Never mind with what,' she returned, 'or with what not. Please to +leave us. Come back at any other time when you may consider it a +duty to bury half an hour wearily here. Good night.' + +She held up her muffled fingers that he might touch them with his, +according to their usual custom, and he stood over her wheeled +chair to touch her face with his lips. He thought, then, that her +cheek was more strained than usual, and that it was colder. As he +followed the direction of her eyes, in rising again, towards Mr +Flintwinch's good friend, Mr Blandois, Mr Blandois snapped his +finger and thumb with one loud contemptuous snap. + +'I leave your--your business acquaintance in my mother's room, Mr +Flintwinch,' said Clennam, 'with a great deal of surprise and a +great deal of unwillingness.' + +The person referred to snapped his finger and thumb again. + +'Good night, mother.' + +'Good night.' + +'I had a friend once, my good comrade Flintwinch,' said Blandois, +standing astride before the fire, and so evidently saying it to +arrest Clennam's retreating steps, that he lingered near the door; +'I had a friend once, who had heard so much of the dark side of +this city and its ways, that he wouldn't have confided himself +alone by night with two people who had an interest in getting him +under the ground--my faith! not even in a respectable house like +this--unless he was bodily too strong for them. Bah! What a +poltroon, my Flintwinch! Eh?' + +'A cur, sir.' + +'Agreed! A cur. But he wouldn't have done it, my Flintwinch, +unless he had known them to have the will to silence him, without +the power. He wouldn't have drunk from a glass of water under such +circumstances--not even in a respectable house like this, my +Flintwinch--unless he had seen one of them drink first, and swallow +too!' + +Disdaining to speak, and indeed not very well able, for he was +half-choking, Clennam only glanced at the visitor as he passed out. + +The visitor saluted him with another parting snap, and his nose +came down over his moustache and his moustache went up under his +nose, in an ominous and ugly smile. + +'For Heaven's sake, Affery,' whispered Clennam, as she opened the +door for him in the dark hall, and he groped his way to the sight +of the night-sky, 'what is going on here?' + +Her own appearance was sufficiently ghastly, standing in the dark +with her apron thrown over her head, and speaking behind it in a +low, deadened voice. + +'Don't ask me anything, Arthur. I've been in a dream for ever so +long. Go away!' + +He went out, and she shut the door upon him. He looked up at the +windows of his mother's room, and the dim light, deadened by the +yellow blinds, seemed to say a response after Affery, and to +mutter, 'Don't ask me anything. Go away!' + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +A Letter from Little Dorrit + + +Dear Mr Clennam, + +As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, +and as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you +no other trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may +not find leisure for even that, though I hope you will some day), +I am now going to devote an hour to writing to you again. This +time, I write from Rome. + +We left Venice before Mr and Mrs Gowan did, but they were not so +long upon the road as we were, and did not travel by the same way, +and so when we arrived we found them in a lodging here, in a place +called the Via Gregoriana. I dare say you know it. + +Now I am going to tell you all I can about them, because I know +that is what you most want to hear. Theirs is not a very +comfortable lodging, but perhaps I thought it less so when I first +saw it than you would have done, because you have been in many +different countries and have seen many different customs. Of +course it is a far, far better place--millions of times--than any +I have ever been used to until lately; and I fancy I don't look at +it with my own eyes, but with hers. For it would be easy to see +that she has always been brought up in a tender and happy home, +even if she had not told me so with great love for it. + +Well, it is a rather bare lodging up a rather dark common +staircase, and it is nearly all a large dull room, where Mr Gowan +paints. The windows are blocked up where any one could look out, +and the walls have been all drawn over with chalk and charcoal by +others who have lived there before--oh,--I should think, for years! + +There is a curtain more dust-coloured than red, which divides it, +and the part behind the curtain makes the private sitting-room. + +When I first saw her there she was alone, and her work had fallen +out of her hand, and she was looking up at the sky shining through +the tops of the windows. Pray do not be uneasy when I tell you, +but it was not quite so airy, nor so bright, nor so cheerful, nor +so happy and youthful altogether as I should have liked it to be. + +On account of Mr Gowan's painting Papa's picture (which I am not +quite convinced I should have known from the likeness if I had not +seen him doing it), I have had more opportunities of being with her +since then than I might have had without this fortunate chance. +She is very much alone. Very much alone indeed. + +Shall I tell you about the second time I saw her? I went one day, +when it happened that I could run round by myself, at four or five +o'clock in the afternoon. She was then dining alone, and her +solitary dinner had been brought in from somewhere, over a kind of +brazier with a fire in it, and she had no company or prospect of +company, that I could see, but the old man who had brought it. He +was telling her a long story (of robbers outside the walls being +taken up by a stone statue of a Saint), to entertain her--as he +said to me when I came out, 'because he had a daughter of his own, +though she was not so pretty.' + +I ought now to mention Mr Gowan, before I say what little more I +have to say about her. He must admire her beauty, and he must be +proud of her, for everybody praises it, and he must be fond of her, +and I do not doubt that he is--but in his way. You know his way, +and if it appears as careless and discontented in your eyes as it +does in mine, I am not wrong in thinking that it might be better +suited to her. If it does not seem so to you, I am quite sure I am +wholly mistaken; for your unchanged poor child confides in your +knowledge and goodness more than she could ever tell you if she was +to try. But don't be frightened, I am not going to try. +Owing (as I think, if you think so too) to Mr Gowan's unsettled and +dissatisfied way, he applies himself to his profession very little. + +He does nothing steadily or patiently; but equally takes things up +and throws them down, and does them, or leaves them undone, without +caring about them. When I have heard him talking to Papa during +the sittings for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could +be that he has no belief in anybody else, because he has no belief +in himself. Is it so? I wonder what you will say when you come to +this! I know how you will look, and I can almost hear the voice in +which you would tell me on the Iron Bridge. + +Mr Gowan goes out a good deal among what is considered the best +company here--though he does not look as if he enjoyed it or liked +it when he is with it--and she sometimes accompanies him, but +lately she has gone out very little. I think I have noticed that +they have an inconsistent way of speaking about her, as if she had +made some great self-interested success in marrying Mr Gowan, +though, at the same time, the very same people, would not have +dreamed of taking him for themselves or their daughters. Then he +goes into the country besides, to think about making sketches; and +in all places where there are visitors, he has a large acquaintance +and is very well known. Besides all this, he has a friend who is +much in his society both at home and away from home, though he +treats this friend very coolly and is very uncertain in his +behaviour to him. I am quite sure (because she has told me so), +that she does not like this friend. He is so revolting to me, too, +that his being away from here, at present, is quite a relief to my +mind. How much more to hers! + +But what I particularly want you to know, and why I have resolved +to tell you so much while I am afraid it may make you a little +uncomfortable without occasion, is this. She is so true and so +devoted, and knows so completely that all her love and duty are his +for ever, that you may be certain she will love him, admire him, +praise him, and conceal all his faults, until she dies. I believe +she conceals them, and always will conceal them, even from herself. + +She has given him a heart that can never be taken back; and however +much he may try it, he will never wear out its affection. You know +the truth of this, as you know everything, far far better than I; +but I cannot help telling you what a nature she shows, and that you +can never think too well of her. + +I have not yet called her by her name in this letter, but we are +such friends now that I do so when we are quietly together, and she +speaks to me by my name--I mean, not my Christian name, but the +name you gave me. When she began to call me Amy, I told her my +short story, and that you had always called me Little Dorrit. I +told her that the name was much dearer to me than any other, and so +she calls me Little Dorrit too. + +Perhaps you have not heard from her father or mother yet, and may +not know that she has a baby son. He was born only two days ago, +and just a week after they came. It has made them very happy. +However, I must tell you, as I am to tell you all, that I fancy +they are under a constraint with Mr Gowan, and that they feel as if +his mocking way with them was sometimes a slight given to their +love for her. It was but yesterday, when I was there, that I saw +Mr Meagles change colour, and get up and go out, as if he was +afraid that he might say so, unless he prevented himself by that +means. Yet I am sure they are both so considerate, good-humoured, +and reasonable, that he might spare them. It is hard in him not to +think of them a little more. + +I stopped at the last full stop to read all this over. It looked +at first as if I was taking on myself to understand and explain so +much, that I was half inclined not to send it. But when I thought +it over a little, I felt more hopeful for your knowing at once that +I had only been watchful for you, and had only noticed what I think +I have noticed, because I was quickened by your interest in it. +Indeed, you may be sure that is the truth. + +And now I have done with the subject in the present letter, and +have little left to say. + +We are all quite well, and Fanny improves every day. You can +hardly think how kind she is to me, and what pains she takes with +me. She has a lover, who has followed her, first all the way from +Switzerland, and then all the way from Venice, and who has just +confided to me that he means to follow her everywhere. I was much +confused by his speaking to me about it, but he would. I did not +know what to say, but at last I told him that I thought he had +better not. For Fanny (but I did not tell him this) is much too +spirited and clever to suit him. Still, he said he would, all the +same. I have no lover, of course. + +If you should ever get so far as this in this long letter, you will +perhaps say, Surely Little Dorrit will not leave off without +telling me something about her travels, and surely it is time she +did. I think it is indeed, but I don't know what to tell you. +Since we left Venice we have been in a great many wonderful places, +Genoa and Florence among them, and have seen so many wonderful +sights, that I am almost giddy when I think what a crowd they make. + +But you can tell me so much more about them than I can tell you, +that why should I tire you with my accounts and descriptions? + +Dear Mr Clennam, as I had the courage to tell you what the familiar +difficulties in my travelling mind were before, I will not be a +coward now. One of my frequent thoughts is this:-- Old as these +cities are, their age itself is hardly so curious, to my +reflections, as that they should have been in their places all +through those days when I did not even know of the existence of +more than two or three of them, and when I scarcely knew of +anything outside our old walls. There is something melancholy in +it, and I don't know why. When we went to see the famous leaning +tower at Pisa, it was a bright sunny day, and it and the buildings +near it looked so old, and the earth and the sky looked so young, +and its shadow on the ground was so soft and retired! I could not +at first think how beautiful it was, or how curious, but I thought, +'O how many times when the shadow of the wall was falling on our +room, and when that weary tread of feet was going up and down the +yard--O how many times this place was just as quiet and lovely as +it is to-day!' It quite overpowered me. My heart was so full that +tears burst out of my eyes, though I did what I could to restrain +them. And I have the same feeling often--often. + +Do you know that since the change in our fortunes, though I appear +to myself to have dreamed more than before, I have always dreamed +of myself as very young indeed! I am not very old, you may say. +No, but that is not what I mean. I have always dreamed of myself +as a child learning to do needlework. I have often dreamed of +myself as back there, seeing faces in the yard little known, and +which I should have thought I had quite forgotten; but, as often as +not, I have been abroad here--in Switzerland, or France, or Italy-- +somewhere where we have been--yet always as that little child. I +have dreamed of going down to Mrs General, with the patches on my +clothes in which I can first remember myself. I have over and over +again dreamed of taking my place at dinner at Venice when we have +had a large company, in the mourning for my poor mother which I +wore when I was eight years old, and wore long after it was +threadbare and would mend no more. It has been a great distress to +me to think how irreconcilable the company would consider it with +my father's wealth, and how I should displease and disgrace him and +Fanny and Edward by so plainly disclosing what they wished to keep +secret. But I have not grown out of the little child in thinking +of it; and at the self-same moment I have dreamed that I have sat +with the heart-ache at table, calculating the expenses of the +dinner, and quite distracting myself with thinking how they were +ever to be made good. I have never dreamed of the change in our +fortunes itself; I have never dreamed of your coming back with me +that memorable morning to break it; I have never even dreamed of +you. + +Dear Mr Clennam, it is possible that I have thought of you--and +others--so much by day, that I have no thoughts left to wander +round you by night. For I must now confess to you that I suffer +from home-sickness--that I long so ardently and earnestly for home, +as sometimes, when no one sees me, to pine for it. I cannot bear +to turn my face further away from it. My heart is a little +lightened when we turn towards it, even for a few miles, and with +the knowledge that we are soon to turn away again. So dearly do I +love the scene of my poverty and your kindness. O so dearly, O so +dearly! + +Heaven knows when your poor child will see England again. We are +all fond of the life here (except me), and there are no plans for +our return. My dear father talks of a visit to London late in this +next spring, on some affairs connected with the property, but I +have no hope that he will bring me with him. + +I have tried to get on a little better under Mrs General's +instruction, and I hope I am not quite so dull as I used to be. I +have begun to speak and understand, almost easily, the hard +languages I told you about. I did not remember, at the moment when +I wrote last, that you knew them both; but I remembered it +afterwards, and it helped me on. God bless you, dear Mr Clennam. +Do not forget your ever grateful and affectionate + LITTLE DORRIT. + +P.S.--Particularly remember that Minnie Gowan deserves the best +remembrance in which you can hold her. You cannot think too +generously or too highly of her. I forgot Mr Pancks last time. +Please, if you should see him, give him your Little Dorrit's kind +regard. He was very good to Little D. + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden + + +The famous name of Merdle became, every day, more famous in the +land. Nobody knew that the Merdle of such high renown had ever +done any good to any one, alive or dead, or to any earthly thing; +nobody knew that he had any capacity or utterance of any sort in +him, which had ever thrown, for any creature, the feeblest +farthing-candle ray of light on any path of duty or diversion, pain +or pleasure, toil or rest, fact or fancy, among the multiplicity of +paths in the labyrinth trodden by the sons of Adam; nobody had the +smallest reason for supposing the clay of which this object of +worship was made, to be other than the commonest clay, with as +clogged a wick smouldering inside of it as ever kept an image of +humanity from tumbling to pieces. All people knew (or thought they +knew) that he had made himself immensely rich; and, for that reason +alone, prostrated themselves before him, more degradedly and less +excusably than the darkest savage creeps out of his hole in the +ground to propitiate, in some log or reptile, the Deity of his +benighted soul. + +Nay, the high priests of this worship had the man before them as a +protest against their meanness. The multitude worshipped on +trust--though always distinctly knowing why--but the officiators at +the altar had the man habitually in their view. They sat at his +feasts, and he sat at theirs. There was a spectre always attendant +on him, saying to these high priests, 'Are such the signs you +trust, and love to honour; this head, these eyes, this mode of +speech, the tone and manner of this man? You are the levers of the +Circumlocution Office, and the rulers of men. When half-a-dozen of +you fall out by the ears, it seems that mother earth can give birth +to no other rulers. Does your qualification lie in the superior +knowledge of men which accepts, courts, and puffs this man? Or, if +you are competent to judge aright the signs I never fail to show +you when he appears among you, is your superior honesty your +qualification?' Two rather ugly questions these, always going +about town with Mr Merdle; and there was a tacit agreement that +they must be stifled. In Mrs Merdle's absence abroad, Mr Merdle +still kept the great house open for the passage through it of a +stream Of visitors. A few of these took affable possession of the +establishment. Three or four ladies of distinction and liveliness +used to say to one another, 'Let us dine at our dear Merdle's next +Thursday. Whom shall we have?' Our dear Merdle would then receive +his instructions; and would sit heavily among the company at table +and wander lumpishly about his drawing-rooms afterwards, only +remarkable for appearing to have nothing to do with the +entertainment beyond being in its way. + +The Chief Butler, the Avenging Spirit of this great man's life, +relaxed nothing of his severity. He looked on at these dinners +when the bosom was not there, as he looked on at other dinners when +the bosom was there; and his eye was a basilisk to Mr Merdle. He +was a hard man, and would never bate an ounce of plate or a bottle +of wine. He would not allow a dinner to be given, unless it was up +to his mark. He set forth the table for his own dignity. If the +guests chose to partake of what was served, he saw no objection; +but it was served for the maintenance of his rank. As he stood by +the sideboard he seemed to announce, 'I have accepted office to +look at this which is now before me, and to look at nothing less +than this.' If he missed the presiding bosom, it was as a part of +his own state of which he was, from unavoidable circumstances, +temporarily deprived. just as he might have missed a centre-piece, +or a choice wine-cooler, which had been sent to the Banker's. + +Mr Merdle issued invitations for a Barnacle dinner. Lord Decimus +was to be there, Mr Tite Barnacle was to be there, the pleasant +young Barnacle was to be there; and the Chorus of Parliamentary +Barnacles who went about the provinces when the House was up, +warbling the praises of their Chief, were to be represented there. +It was understood to be a great occasion. Mr Merdle was going to +take up the Barnacles. Some delicate little negotiations had +occurred between him and the noble Decimus--the young Barnacle of +engaging manners acting as negotiator--and Mr Merdle had decided to +cast the weight of his great probity and great riches into the +Barnacle scale. jobbery was suspected by the malicious; perhaps +because it was indisputable that if the adherence of the immortal +Enemy of Mankind could have been secured by a job, the Barnacles +would have jobbed him--for the good of the country, for the good of +the country. + +Mrs Merdle had written to this magnificent spouse of hers, whom it +was heresy to regard as anything less than all the British +Merchants since the days of Whittington rolled into one, and gilded +three feet deep all over--had written to this spouse of hers, +several letters from Rome, in quick succession, urging upon him +with importunity that now or never was the time to provide for +Edmund Sparkler. Mrs Merdle had shown him that the case of Edmund +was urgent, and that infinite advantages might result from his +having some good thing directly. In the grammar of Mrs Merdle's +verbs on this momentous subject, there was only one mood, the +Imperative; and that Mood had only one Tense, the Present. Mrs +Merdle's verbs were so pressingly presented to Mr Merdle to +conjugate, that his sluggish blood and his long coat-cuffs became +quite agitated. + +In which state of agitation, Mr Merdle, evasively rolling his eyes +round the Chief Butler's shoes without raising them to the index of +that stupendous creature's thoughts, had signified to him his +intention of giving a special dinner: not a very large dinner, but +a very special dinner. The Chief Butler had signified, in return, +that he had no objection to look on at the most expensive thing in +that way that could be done; and the day of the dinner was now +come. + +Mr Merdle stood in one of his drawing-rooms, with his back to the +fire, waiting for the arrival of his important guests. He seldom +or never took the liberty of standing with his back to the fire +unless he was quite alone. In the presence of the Chief Butler, he +could not have done such a deed. He would have clasped himself by +the wrists in that constabulary manner of his, and have paced up +and down the hearthrug, or gone creeping about among the rich +objects of furniture, if his oppressive retainer had appeared in +the room at that very moment. The sly shadows which seemed to dart +out of hiding when the fire rose, and to dart back into it when the +fire fell, were sufficient witnesses of his making himself so easy. + +They were even more than sufficient, if his uncomfortable glances +at them might be taken to mean anything. + +Mr Merdle's right hand was filled with the evening paper, and the +evening paper was full of Mr Merdle. His wonderful enterprise, his +wonderful wealth, his wonderful Bank, were the fattening food of +the evening paper that night. The wonderful Bank, of which he was +the chief projector, establisher, and manager, was the latest of +the many Merdle wonders. So modest was Mr Merdle withal, in the +midst of these splendid achievements, that he looked far more like +a man in possession of his house under a distraint, than a +commercial Colossus bestriding his own hearthrug, while the little +ships were sailing into dinner. + +Behold the vessels coming into port! The engaging young Barnacle +was the first arrival; but Bar overtook him on the staircase. Bar, +strengthened as usual with his double eye-glass and his little jury +droop, was overjoyed to see the engaging young Barnacle; and opined +that we were going to sit in Banco, as we lawyers called it, to +take a special argument? + +'Indeed,' said the sprightly young Barnacle, whose name was +Ferdinand; 'how so?' + +'Nay,' smiled Bar. 'If you don't know, how can I know? You are in +the innermost sanctuary of the temple; I am one of the admiring +concourse on the plain without.' + +Bar could be light in hand, or heavy in hand, according to the +customer he had to deal with. With Ferdinand Barnacle he was +gossamer. Bar was likewise always modest and self-depreciatory--in +his way. Bar was a man of great variety; but one leading thread +ran through the woof of all his patterns. Every man with whom he +had to do was in his eyes a jury-man; and he must get that jury-man +over, if he could. + +'Our illustrious host and friend,' said Bar; 'our shining +mercantile star;--going into politics?' + +'Going? He has been in Parliament some time, you know,' returned +the engaging young Barnacle. + +'True,' said Bar, with his light-comedy laugh for special jury-men, +which was a very different thing from his low-comedy laugh for +comic tradesmen on common juries: 'he has been in Parliament for +some time. Yet hitherto our star has been a vacillating and +wavering star? Humph?' + +An average witness would have been seduced by the Humph? into an +affirmative answer, But Ferdinand Barnacle looked knowingly at Bar +as he strolled up-stairs, and gave him no answer at all. + +'Just so, just so,' said Bar, nodding his head, for he was not to +be put off in that way, 'and therefore I spoke of our sitting in +Banco to take a special argument--meaning this to be a high and +solemn occasion, when, as Captain Macheath says, "the judges are +met: a terrible show!" We lawyers are sufficiently liberal, you +see, to quote the Captain, though the Captain is severe upon us. +Nevertheless, I think I could put in evidence an admission of the +Captain's,' said Bar, with a little jocose roll of his head; for, +in his legal current of speech, he always assumed the air of +rallying himself with the best grace in the world; 'an admission of +the Captain's that Law, in the gross, is at least intended to be +impartial. For what says the Captain, if I quote him correctly-- +and if not,' with a light-comedy touch of his double eye-glass on +his companion's shoulder, 'my learned friend will set me right: + + + "Since laws were made for every degree, + To curb vice in others as well as in me, + I wonder we ha'n't better company + Upon Tyburn Tree!"' + + +These words brought them to the drawing-room, where Mr Merdle stood +before the fire. So immensely astounded was Mr Merdle by the +entrance of Bar with such a reference in his mouth, that Bar +explained himself to have been quoting Gay. 'Assuredly not one of +our Westminster Hall authorities,' said he, 'but still no +despicable one to a man possessing the largely-practical Mr +Merdle's knowledge of the world.' + +Mr Merdle looked as if he thought he would say something, but +subsequently looked as if he thought he wouldn't. The interval +afforded time for Bishop to be announced. +Bishop came in with meekness, and yet with a strong and rapid step +as if he wanted to get his seven-league dress-shoes on, and go +round the world to see that everybody was in a satisfactory state. +Bishop had no idea that there was anything significant in the +occasion. That was the most remarkable trait in his demeanour. He +was crisp, fresh, cheerful, affable, bland; but so surprisingly +innocent. + +Bar sidled up to prefer his politest inquiries in reference to the +health of Mrs Bishop. Mrs Bishop had been a little unfortunate in +the article of taking cold at a Confirmation, but otherwise was +well. Young Mr Bishop was also well. He was down, with his young +wife and little family, at his Cure of Souls. The representatives +of the Barnacle Chorus dropped in next, and Mr Merdle's physician +dropped in next. Bar, who had a bit of one eye and a bit of his +double eye-glass for every one who came in at the door, no matter +with whom he was conversing or what he was talking about, got among +them all by some skilful means, without being seen to get at them, +and touched each individual gentleman of the jury on his own +individual favourite spot. With some of the Chorus, he laughed +about the sleepy member who had gone out into the lobby the other +night, and voted the wrong way: with others, he deplored that +innovating spirit in the time which could not even be prevented +from taking an unnatural interest in the public service and the +public money: with the physician he had a word to say about the +general health; he had also a little information to ask him for, +concerning a professional man of unquestioned erudition and +polished manners--but those credentials in their highest +development he believed were the possession of other professors of +the healing art (jury droop)--whom he had happened to have in the +witness-box the day before yesterday, and from whom he had elicited +in cross-examination that he claimed to be one of the exponents of +this new mode of treatment which appeared to Bar to--eh?--well, Bar +thought so; Bar had thought, and hoped, Physician would tell him +so. Without presuming to decide where doctors disagreed, it did +appear to Bar, viewing it as a question of common sense and not of +so-called legal penetration, that this new system was--might be, in +the presence of so great an authority--say, Humbug? Ah! Fortified +by such encouragement, he could venture to say Humbug; and now +Bar's mind was relieved. + +Mr Tite Barnacle, who, like Dr johnson's celebrated acquaintance, +had only one idea in his head and that was a wrong one, had +appeared by this time. This eminent gentleman and Mr Merdle, +seated diverse ways and with ruminating aspects on a yellow ottoman +in the light of the fire, holding no verbal communication with each +other, bore a strong general resemblance to the two cows in the +Cuyp picture over against them. + +But now, Lord Decimus arrived. The Chief Butler, who up to this +time had limited himself to a branch of his usual function by +looking at the company as they entered (and that, with more of +defiance than favour), put himself so far out of his way as to come +up-stairs with him and announce him. Lord Decimus being an +overpowering peer, a bashful young member of the Lower House who +was the last fish but one caught by the Barnacles, and who had been +invited on this occasion to commemorate his capture, shut his eyes +when his Lordship came in. + +Lord Decimus, nevertheless, was glad to see the Member. He was +also glad to see Mr Merdle, glad to see Bishop, glad to see Bar, +glad to see Physician, glad to see Tite Barnacle, glad to see +Chorus, glad to see Ferdinand his private secretary. Lord Decimus, +though one of the greatest of the earth, was not remarkable for +ingratiatory manners, and Ferdinand had coached him up to the point +of noticing all the fellows he might find there, and saying he was +glad to see them. When he had achieved this rush of vivacity and +condescension, his Lordship composed himself into the picture after +Cuyp, and made a third cow in the group. + +Bar, who felt that he had got all the rest of the jury and must now +lay hold of the Foreman, soon came sidling up, double eye-glass in +hand. Bar tendered the weather, as a subject neatly aloof from +official reserve, for the Foreman's consideration. Bar said that +he was told (as everybody always is told, though who tells them, +and why, will ever remain a mystery), that there was to be no wall- +fruit this year. Lord Decimus had not heard anything amiss of his +peaches, but rather believed, if his people were correct, he was to +have no apples. No apples? Bar was lost in astonishment and +concern. It would have been all one to him, in reality, if there +had not been a pippin on the surface of the earth, but his show of +interest in this apple question was positively painful. Now, to +what, Lord Decimus--for we troublesome lawyers loved to gather +information, and could never tell how useful it might prove to us-- +to what, Lord Decimus, was this to be attributed? Lord Decimus +could not undertake to propound any theory about it. This might +have stopped another man; but Bar, sticking to him fresh as ever, +said, 'As to pears, now?' + +Long after Bar got made Attorney-General, this was told of him as +a master-stroke. Lord Decimus had a reminiscence about a pear-tree +formerly growing in a garden near the back of his dame's house at +Eton, upon which pear-tree the only joke of his life perennially +bloomed. It was a joke of a compact and portable nature, turning +on the difference between Eton pears and Parliamentary pairs; but +it was a joke, a refined relish of which would seem to have +appeared to Lord Decimus impossible to be had without a thorough +and intimate acquaintance with the tree. Therefore, the story at +first had no idea of such a tree, sir, then gradually found it in +winter, carried it through the changing season, saw it bud, saw it +blossom, saw it bear fruit, saw the fruit ripen; in short, +cultivated the tree in that diligent and minute manner before it +got out of the bed-room window to steal the fruit, that many thanks +had been offered up by belated listeners for the trees having been +planted and grafted prior to Lord Decimus's time. Bar's interest +in apples was so overtopped by the wrapt suspense in which he +pursued the changes of these pears, from the moment when Lord +Decimus solemnly opened with 'Your mentioning pears recalls to my +remembrance a pear-tree,' down to the rich conclusion, 'And so we +pass, through the various changes of life, from Eton pears to +Parliamentary pairs,' that he had to go down-stairs with Lord +Decimus, and even then to be seated next to him at table in order +that he might hear the anecdote out. By that time, Bar felt that +he had secured the Foreman, and might go to dinner with a good +appetite. + +It was a dinner to provoke an appetite, though he had not had one. +The rarest dishes, sumptuously cooked and sumptuously served; the +choicest fruits; the most exquisite wines; marvels of workmanship +in gold and silver, china and glass; innumerable things delicious +to the senses of taste, smell, and sight, were insinuated into its +composition. O, what a wonderful man this Merdle, what a great +man, what a master man, how blessedly and enviably endowed--in one +word, what a rich man! + +He took his usual poor eighteenpennyworth of food in his usual +indigestive way, and had as little to say for himself as ever a +wonderful man had. Fortunately Lord Decimus was one of those +sublimities who have no occasion to be talked to, for they can be +at any time sufficiently occupied with the contemplation of their +own greatness. This enabled the bashful young Member to keep his +eyes open long enough at a time to see his dinner. But, whenever +Lord Decimus spoke, he shut them again. + +The agreeable young Barnacle, and Bar, were the talkers of the +party. Bishop would have been exceedingly agreeable also, but that +his innocence stood in his way. He was so soon left behind. When +there was any little hint of anything being in the wind, he got +lost directly. Worldly affairs were too much for him; he couldn't +make them out at all. + +This was observable when Bar said, incidentally, that he was happy +to have heard that we were soon to have the advantage of enlisting +on the good side, the sound and plain sagacity--not demonstrative +or ostentatious, but thoroughly sound and practical--of our friend +Mr Sparkler. + +Ferdinand Barnacle laughed, and said oh yes, he believed so. A +vote was a vote, and always acceptable. + +Bar was sorry to miss our good friend Mr Sparkler to-day, Mr +Merdle. + +'He is away with Mrs Merdle,' returned that gentleman, slowly +coming out of a long abstraction, in the course of which he had +been fitting a tablespoon up his sleeve. 'It is not indispensable +for him to be on the spot.' + +'The magic name of Merdle,' said Bar, with the jury droop, 'no +doubt will suffice for all.' + +'Why--yes--I believe so,' assented Mr Merdle, putting the spoon +aside, and clumsily hiding each of his hands in the coat-cuff of +the other hand. 'I believe the people in my interest down there +will not make any difficulty.' + +'Model people!' said Bar. +'I am glad you approve of them,' said Mr Merdle. + +'And the people of those other two places, now,' pursued Bar, with +a bright twinkle in his keen eye, as it slightly turned in the +direction of his magnificent neighbour; 'we lawyers are always +curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for +our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they +may fit into some corner;--the people of those other two places +now? Do they yield so laudably to the vast and cumulative +influence of such enterprise and such renown; do those little rills +become absorbed so quietly and easily, and, as it were by the +influence of natural laws, so beautifully, in the swoop of the +majestic stream as it flows upon its wondrous way enriching the +surrounding lands; that their course is perfectly to be calculated, +and distinctly to be predicated?' + +Mr Merdle, a little troubled by Bar's eloquence, looked fitfully +about the nearest salt-cellar for some moments, and then said +hesitating: + +'They are perfectly aware, sir, of their duty to Society. They +will return anybody I send to them for that purpose.' + +'Cheering to know,' said Bar. 'Cheering to know.' + +The three places in question were three little rotten holes in this +Island, containing three little ignorant, drunken, guzzling, dirty, +out-of-the-way constituencies, that had reeled into Mr Merdle's +pocket. Ferdinand Barnacle laughed in his easy way, and airily +said they were a nice set of fellows. Bishop, mentally +perambulating among paths of peace, was altogether swallowed up in +absence of mind. + +'Pray,' asked Lord Decimus, casting his eyes around the table, +'what is this story I have heard of a gentleman long confined in a +debtors' prison proving to be of a wealthy family, and having come +into the inheritance of a large sum of money? I have met with a +variety of allusions to it. Do you know anything of it, +Ferdinand?' + +'I only know this much,' said Ferdinand, 'that he has given the +Department with which I have the honour to be associated;' this +sparkling young Barnacle threw off the phrase sportively, as who +should say, We know all about these forms of speech, but we must +keep it up, we must keep the game alive; 'no end of trouble, and +has put us into innumerable fixes.' + +'Fixes?' repeated Lord Decimus, with a majestic pausing and +pondering on the word that made the bashful Member shut his eyes +quite tight. 'Fixes?' + +'A very perplexing business indeed,' observed Mr Tite Barnacle, +with an air of grave resentment. + +'What,' said Lord Decimus, 'was the character of his business; what +was the nature of these--a--Fixes, Ferdinand?' + +'Oh, it's a good story, as a story,' returned that gentleman; 'as +good a thing of its kind as need be. This Mr Dorrit (his name is +Dorrit) had incurred a responsibility to us, ages before the fairy +came out of the Bank and gave him his fortune, under a bond he had +signed for the performance of a contract which was not at all +performed. He was a partner in a house in some large way--spirits, +or buttons, or wine, or blacking, or oatmeal, or woollen, or pork, +or hooks and eyes, or iron, or treacle, or shoes, or something or +other that was wanted for troops, or seamen, or somebody--and the +house burst, and we being among the creditors, detainees were +lodged on the part of the Crown in a scientific manner, and all the +rest Of it. When the fairy had appeared and he wanted to pay us +off, Egad we had got into such an exemplary state of checking and +counter-checking, signing and counter-signing, that it was six +months before we knew how to take the money, or how to give a +receipt for it. It was a triumph of public business,' said this +handsome young Barnacle, laughing heartily, 'You never saw such a +lot of forms in your life. "Why," the attorney said to me one day, +"if I wanted this office to give me two or three thousand pounds +instead of take it, I couldn't have more trouble about it." "You +are right, old fellow," I told him, "and in future you'll know that +we have something to do here."' The pleasant young Barnacle +finished by once more laughing heartily. He was a very easy, +pleasant fellow indeed, and his manners were exceedingly winning. + +Mr Tite Barnacle's view of the business was of a less airy +character. He took it ill that Mr Dorrit had troubled the +Department by wanting to pay the money, and considered it a grossly +informal thing to do after so many years. But Mr Tite Barnacle was +a buttoned-up man, and consequently a weighty one. All buttoned-up +men are weighty. All buttoned-up men are believed in. Whether or +no the reserved and never-exercised power of unbuttoning, +fascinates mankind; whether or no wisdom is supposed to condense +and augment when buttoned up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned; it +is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the +buttoned-up man. Mr Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half +his current value, unless his coat had been always buttoned-up to +his white cravat. + +'May I ask,' said Lord Decimus, 'if Mr Darrit--or Dorrit--has any +family?' + +Nobody else replying, the host said, 'He has two daughters, my +lord.' + +'Oh! you are acquainted with him?' asked Lord Decimus. + +'Mrs Merdle is. Mr Sparkler is, too. In fact,' said Mr Merdle, 'I +rather believe that one of the young ladies has made an impression +on Edmund Sparkler. He is susceptible, and--I--think--the +conquest--' Here Mr Merdle stopped, and looked at the table-cloth, +as he usually did when he found himself observed or listened to. + +Bar was uncommonly pleased to find that the Merdle family, and this +family, had already been brought into contact. He submitted, in a +low voice across the table to Bishop, that it was a kind of +analogical illustration of those physical laws, in virtue of which +Like flies to Like. He regarded this power of attraction in wealth +to draw wealth to it, as something remarkably interesting and +curious--something indefinably allied to the loadstone and +gravitation. Bishop, who had ambled back to earth again when the +present theme was broached, acquiesced. He said it was indeed +highly important to Society that one in the trying situation of +unexpectedly finding himself invested with a power for good or for +evil in Society, should become, as it were, merged in the superior +power of a more legitimate and more gigantic growth, the influence +of which (as in the case of our friend at whose board we sat) was +habitually exercised in harmony with the best interests of Society. + +Thus, instead of two rival and contending flames, a larger and a +lesser, each burning with a lurid and uncertain glare, we had a +blended and a softened light whose genial ray diffused an equable +warmth throughout the land. Bishop seemed to like his own way of +putting the case very much, and rather dwelt upon it; Bar, +meanwhile (not to throw away a jury-man), making a show of sitting +at his feet and feeding on his precepts. + +The dinner and dessert being three hours long, the bashful Member +cooled in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with +food and drink, and had but a chilly time of it. Lord Decimus, +like a tall tower in a flat country, seemed to project himself +across the table-cloth, hide the light from the honourable Member, +cool the honourable Member's marrow, and give him a woeful idea of +distance. When he asked this unfortunate traveller to take wine, +he encompassed his faltering steps with the gloomiest of shades; +and when he said, 'Your health sir!' all around him was barrenness +and desolation. + +At length Lord Decimus, with a coffee-cup in his hand, began to +hover about among the pictures, and to cause an interesting +speculation to arise in all minds as to the probabilities of his +ceasing to hover, and enabling the smaller birds to flutter up- +stairs; which could not be done until he had urged his noble +pinions in that direction. After some delay, and several stretches +of his wings which came to nothing, he soared to the drawing-rooms. + +And here a difficulty arose, which always does arise when two +people are specially brought together at a dinner to confer with +one another. Everybody (except Bishop, who had no suspicion of it) +knew perfectly well that this dinner had been eaten and drunk, +specifically to the end that Lord Decimus and Mr Merdle should have +five minutes' conversation together. The opportunity so +elaborately prepared was now arrived, and it seemed from that +moment that no mere human ingenuity could so much as get the two +chieftains into the same room. Mr Merdle and his noble guest +persisted in prowling about at opposite ends of the perspective. +It was in vain for the engaging Ferdinand to bring Lord Decimus to +look at the bronze horses near Mr Merdle. Then Mr Merdle evaded, +and wandered away. It was in vain for him to bring Mr Merdle to +Lord Decimus to tell him the history of the unique Dresden vases. +Then Lord Decimus evaded and wandered away, while he was getting +his man up to the mark. + +'Did you ever see such a thing as this?' said Ferdinand to Bar when +he had been baffled twenty times. + +'Often,' returned Bar. + +'Unless I butt one of them into an appointed corner, and you butt +the other,' said Ferdinand,'it will not come off after all.' + +'Very good,' said Bar. 'I'll butt Merdle, if you like; but not my +lord.' + +Ferdinand laughed, in the midst of his vexation. 'Confound them +both!' said he, looking at his watch. 'I want to get away. Why +the deuce can't they come together! They both know what they want +and mean to do. Look at them!' + +They were still looming at opposite ends of the perspective, each +with an absurd pretence of not having the other on his mind, which +could not have been more transparently ridiculous though his real +mind had been chalked on his back. Bishop, who had just now made +a third with Bar and Ferdinand, but whose innocence had again cut +him out of the subject and washed him in sweet oil, was seen to +approach Lord Decimus and glide into conversation. + +'I must get Merdle's doctor to catch and secure him, I suppose,' +said Ferdinand; 'and then I must lay hold of my illustrious +kinsman, and decoy him if I can--drag him if I can't--to the +conference.' + +'Since you do me the honour,' said Bar, with his slyest smile, to +ask for my poor aid, it shall be yours with the greatest pleasure. +I don't think this is to be done by one man. But if you will +undertake to pen my lord into that furthest drawing-room where he +is now so profoundly engaged, I will undertake to bring our dear +Merdle into the presence, without the possibility of getting away.' + +'Done!' said Ferdinand. + +'Done!' said Bar. + +Bar was a sight wondrous to behold, and full of matter, when, +jauntily waving his double eye-glass by its ribbon, and jauntily +drooping to an Universe of jurymen, he, in the most accidental +manner ever seen, found himself at Mr Merdle's shoulder, and +embraced that opportunity of mentioning a little point to him, on +which he particularly wished to be guided by the light of his +practical knowledge. (Here he took Mr Merdle's arm and walked him +gently away.) A banker, whom we would call A. B., advanced a +considerable sum of money, which we would call fifteen thousand +pounds, to a client or customer of his, whom he would call P. q. +(Here, as they were getting towards Lord Decimus, he held Mr Merdle +tight.) As a security for the repayment of this advance to P. Q. +whom we would call a widow lady, there were placed in A. B.'s hands +the title-deeds of a freehold estate, which we would call Blinkiter +Doddles. Now, the point was this. A limited right of felling and +lopping in the woods of Blinkiter Doddles, lay in the son of P. Q. +then past his majority, and whom we would call X. Y.--but really +this was too bad! In the presence of Lord Decimus, to detain the +host with chopping our dry chaff of law, was really too bad! +Another time! Bar was truly repentant, and would not say another +syllable. Would Bishop favour him with half-a-dozen words? (He +had now set Mr Merdle down on a couch, side by side with Lord +Decimus, and to it they must go, now or never.) + +And now the rest of the company, highly excited and interested, +always excepting Bishop, who had not the slightest idea that +anything was going on, formed in one group round the fire in the +next drawing-room, and pretended to be chatting easily on the +infinite variety of small topics, while everybody's thoughts and +eyes were secretly straying towards the secluded pair. The Chorus +were excessively nervous, perhaps as labouring under the dreadful +apprehension that some good thing was going to be diverted from +them! Bishop alone talked steadily and evenly. He conversed with +the great Physician on that relaxation of the throat with which +young curates were too frequently afflicted, and on the means of +lessening the great prevalence of that disorder in the church. +Physician, as a general rule, was of opinion that the best way to +avoid it was to know how to read, before you made a profession of +reading. Bishop said dubiously, did he really think so? And +Physician said, decidedly, yes he did. + +Ferdinand, meanwhile, was the only one of the party who skirmished +on the outside of the circle; he kept about mid-way between it and +the two, as if some sort of surgical operation were being performed +by Lord Decimus on Mr Merdle, or by Mr Merdle on Lord Decimus, and +his services might at any moment be required as Dresser. In fact, +within a quarter of an hour Lord Decimus called to him 'Ferdinand!' +and he went, and took his place in the conference for some five +minutes more. Then a half-suppressed gasp broke out among the +Chorus; for Lord Decimus rose to take his leave. Again coached up +by Ferdinand to the point of making himself popular, he shook hands +in the most brilliant manner with the whole company, and even said +to Bar, 'I hope you were not bored by my pears?' To which Bar +retorted, 'Eton, my lord, or Parliamentary?' neatly showing that he +had mastered the joke, and delicately insinuating that he could +never forget it while his life remained. + +All the grave importance that was buttoned up in Mr Tite Barnacle, +took itself away next; and Ferdinand took himself away next, to the +opera. Some of the rest lingered a little, marrying golden liqueur +glasses to Buhl tables with sticky rings; on the desperate chance +of Mr Merdle's saying something. But Merdle, as usual, oozed +sluggishly and muddily about his drawing-room, saying never a word. + +In a day or two it was announced to all the town, that Edmund +Sparkler, Esquire, son-in-law of the eminent Mr Merdle of worldwide +renown, was made one of the Lords of the Circumlocution Office; and +proclamation was issued, to all true believers, that this admirable +appointment was to be hailed as a graceful and gracious mark of +homage, rendered by the graceful and gracious Decimus, to that +commercial interest which must ever in a great commercial country-- +and all the rest of it, with blast of trumpet. So, bolstered by +this mark of Government homage, the wonderful Bank and all the +other wonderful undertakings went on and went up; and gapers came +to Harley Street, Cavendish Square, only to look at the house where +the golden wonder lived. + +And when they saw the Chief Butler looking out at the hall-door in +his moments of condescension, the gapers said how rich he looked, +and wondered how much money he had in the wonderful Bank. But, if +they had known that respectable Nemesis better, they would not have +wondered about it, and might have stated the amount with the utmost +precision. + + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +The Progress of an Epidemic + + +That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a +physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity +and rapidity of the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once +made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on +people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most +unlikely constitutions: is a fact as firmly established by +experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere. A +blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind, if +the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent +disorders are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in close +confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is +communicable. + +As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar, +so the sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused +the air to resound more and more with the name of Merdle. It was +deposited on every lip, and carried into every ear. There never +was, there never had been, there never again should be, such a man +as Mr Merdle. Nobody, as aforesaid, knew what he had done; but +everybody knew him to be the greatest that had appeared. + +Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, where there was not one unappropriated +halfpenny, as lively an interest was taken in this paragon of men +as on the Stock Exchange. Mrs Plornish, now established in the +small grocery and general trade in a snug little shop at the crack +end of the Yard, at the top of the steps, with her little old +father and Maggy acting as assistants, habitually held forth about +him over the counter in conversation with her customers. Mr +Plornish, who had a small share in a small builder's business in +the neighbourhood, said, trowel in hand, on the tops of scaffolds +and on the tiles of houses, that people did tell him as Mr Merdle +was the one, mind you, to put us all to rights in respects of that +which all on us looked to, and to bring us all safe home as much as +we needed, mind you, fur toe be brought. Mr Baptist, sole lodger +of Mr and Mrs Plornish was reputed in whispers to lay by the +savings which were the result of his simple and moderate life, for +investment in one of Mr Merdle's certain enterprises. The female +Bleeding Hearts, when they came for ounces of tea, and +hundredweights of talk, gave Mrs Plornish to understand, That how, +ma'am, they had heard from their cousin Mary Anne, which worked in +the line, that his lady's dresses would fill three waggons. That +how she was as handsome a lady, ma'am, as lived, no matter wheres, +and a busk like marble itself. That how, according to what they +was told, ma'am, it was her son by a former husband as was took +into the Government; and a General he had been, and armies he had +marched again and victory crowned, if all you heard was to be +believed. That how it was reported that Mr Merdle's words had +been, that if they could have made it worth his while to take the +whole Government he would have took it without a profit, but that +take it he could not and stand a loss. That how it was not to be +expected, ma'am, that he should lose by it, his ways being, as you +might say and utter no falsehood, paved with gold; but that how it +was much to be regretted that something handsome hadn't been got up +to make it worth his while; for it was such and only such that +knowed the heighth to which the bread and butchers' meat had rose, +and it was such and only such that both could and would bring that +heighth down. + +So rife and potent was the fever in Bleeding Heart Yard, that Mr +Pancks's rent-days caused no interval in the patients. The disease +took the singular form, on those occasions, of causing the infected +to find an unfathomable excuse and consolation in allusions to the +magic name. + +'Now, then!' Mr Pancks would say, to a defaulting lodger. 'Pay up! + +Come on!' + +'I haven't got it, Mr Pancks,' Defaulter would reply. 'I tell you +the truth, sir, when I say I haven't got so much as a single +sixpence of it to bless myself with.' + +'This won't do, you know,' Mr Pancks would retort. 'You don't +expect it will do; do you?' +Defaulter would admit, with a low-spirited 'No, sir,' having no +such expectation. + +'My proprietor isn't going to stand this, you know,' Mr Pancks +would proceed. 'He don't send me here for this. Pay up! Come!' + +The Defaulter would make answer, 'Ah, Mr Pancks. If I was the rich +gentleman whose name is in everybody's mouth--if my name was +Merdle, sir--I'd soon pay up, and be glad to do it.' + +Dialogues on the rent-question usually took place at the house- +doors or in the entries, and in the presence of several deeply +interested Bleeding Hearts. They always received a reference of +this kind with a low murmur of response, as if it were convincing; +and the Defaulter, however black and discomfited before, always +cheered up a little in making it. + +'If I was Mr Merdle, sir, you wouldn't have cause to complain of me +then. No, believe me!' the Defaulter would proceed with a shake of +the head. 'I'd pay up so quick then, Mr Pancks, that you shouldn't +have to ask me.' + +The response would be heard again here, implying that it was +impossible to say anything fairer, and that this was the next thing +to paying the money down. + +Mr Pancks would be now reduced to saying as he booked the case, +'Well! You'll have the broker in, and be turned out; that's +what'll happen to you. It's no use talking to me about Mr Merdle. +You are not Mr Merdle, any more than I am.' + +'No, sir,' the Defaulter would reply. 'I only wish you were him, +sir.' + +The response would take this up quickly; replying with great +feeling, 'Only wish you were him, sir.' + +'You'd be easier with us if you were Mr Merdle, sir,' the Defaulter +would go on with rising spirits, 'and it would be better for all +parties. Better for our sakes, and better for yours, too. You +wouldn't have to worry no one, then, sir. You wouldn't have to +worry us, and you wouldn't have to worry yourself. You'd be easier +in your own mind, sir, and you'd leave others easier, too, you +would, if you were Mr Merdle.' + +Mr Pancks, in whom these impersonal compliments produced an +irresistible sheepishness, never rallied after such a charge. He +could only bite his nails and puff away to the next Defaulter. The +responsive Bleeding Hearts would then gather round the Defaulter +whom he had just abandoned, and the most extravagant rumours would +circulate among them, to their great comfort, touching the amount +of Mr Merdle's ready money. + +From one of the many such defeats of one of many rent-days, Mr +Pancks, having finished his day's collection, repaired with his +note-book under his arm to Mrs Plornish's corner. Mr Pancks's +object was not professional, but social. He had had a trying day, +and wanted a little brightening. By this time he was on friendly +terms with the Plornish family, having often looked in upon them at +similar seasons, and borne his part in recollections of Miss +Dorrit. + +Mrs Plornish's shop-parlour had been decorated under her own eye, +and presented, on the side towards the shop, a little fiction in +which Mrs Plornish unspeakably rejoiced. This poetical heightening +of the parlour consisted in the wall being painted to represent the +exterior of a thatched cottage; the artist having introduced (in as +effective a manner as he found compatible with their highly +disproportionate dimensions) the real door and window. The modest +sunflower and hollyhock were depicted as flourishing with great +luxuriance on this rustic dwelling, while a quantity of dense smoke +issuing from the chimney indicated good cheer within, and also, +perhaps, that it had not been lately swept. A faithful dog was +represented as flying at the legs of the friendly visitor, from the +threshold; and a circular pigeon-house, enveloped in a cloud of +pigeons, arose from behind the garden-paling. On the door (when it +was shut), appeared the semblance of a brass-plate, presenting the +inscription, Happy Cottage, T. and M. Plornish; the partnership +expressing man and wife. No Poetry and no Art ever charmed the +imagination more than the union of the two in this counterfeit +cottage charmed Mrs Plornish. It was nothing to her that Plornish +had a habit of leaning against it as he smoked his pipe after work, +when his hat blotted out the pigeon-house and all the pigeons, when +his back swallowed up the dwelling, when his hands in his pockets +uprooted the blooming garden and laid waste the adjacent country. +To Mrs Plornish, it was still a most beautiful cottage, a most +wonderful deception; and it made no difference that Mr Plornish's +eye was some inches above the level of the gable bed-room in the +thatch. To come out into the shop after it was shut, and hear her +father sing a song inside this cottage, was a perfect Pastoral to +Mrs Plornish, the Golden Age revived. And truly if that famous +period had been revived, or had ever been at all, it may be doubted +whether it would have produced many more heartily admiring +daughters than the poor woman. + +Warned of a visitor by the tinkling bell at the shop-door, Mrs +Plornish came out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be. 'I +guessed it was you, Mr Pancks,' said she, 'for it's quite your +regular night; ain't it? Here's father, you see, come out to serve +at the sound of the bell, like a brisk young shopman. Ain't he +looking well? Father's more pleased to see you than if you was a +customer, for he dearly loves a gossip; and when it turns upon Miss +Dorrit, he loves it all the more. You never heard father in such +voice as he is at present,' said Mrs Plornish, her own voice +quavering, she was so proud and pleased. 'He gave us Strephon last +night to that degree that Plornish gets up and makes him this +speech across the table. "John Edward Nandy," says Plornish to +father, "I never heard you come the warbles as I have heard you +come the warbles this night." An't it gratifying, Mr Pancks, +though; really?' + +Mr Pancks, who had snorted at the old man in his friendliest +manner, replied in the affirmative, and casually asked whether that +lively Altro chap had come in yet? Mrs Plornish answered no, not +yet, though he had gone to the West-End with some work, and had +said he should be back by tea-time. Mr Pancks was then hospitably +pressed into Happy Cottage, where he encountered the elder Master +Plornish just come home from school. Examining that young student, +lightly, on the educational proceedings of the day, he found that +the more advanced pupils who were in the large text and the letter +M, had been set the copy 'Merdle, Millions.' + +'And how are you getting on, Mrs Plornish,' said Pancks, 'since +we're mentioning millions?' + +'Very steady, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs Plornish. 'Father, dear, +would you go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before +tea, your taste being so beautiful?' + +John Edward Nandy trotted away, much gratified, to comply with his +daughter's request. Mrs Plornish, who was always in mortal terror +of mentioning pecuniary affairs before the old gentleman, lest any +disclosure she made might rouse his spirit and induce him to run +away to the workhouse, was thus left free to be confidential with +Mr Pancks. + +'It's quite true that the business is very steady indeed,' said Mrs +Plornish, lowering her voice; 'and has a excellent connection. The +only thing that stands in its way, sir, is the Credit.' + +This drawback, rather severely felt by most people who engaged in +commercial transactions with the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart +Yard, was a large stumbling-block in Mrs Plornish's trade. When Mr +Dorrit had established her in the business, the Bleeding Hearts had +shown an amount of emotion and a determination to support her in +it, that did honour to human nature. Recognising her claim upon +their generous feelings as one who had long been a member of their +community, they pledged themselves, with great feeling, to deal +with Mrs Plornish, come what would and bestow their patronage on no +other establishment. Influenced by these noble sentiments, they +had even gone out of their way to purchase little luxuries in the +grocery and butter line to which they were unaccustomed; saying to +one another, that if they did stretch a point, was it not for a +neighbour and a friend, and for whom ought a point to be stretched +if not for such? So stimulated, the business was extremely brisk, +and the articles in stock went off with the greatest celerity. In +short, if the Bleeding Hearts had but paid, the undertaking would +have been a complete success; whereas, by reason of their +exclusively confining themselves to owing, the profits actually +realised had not yet begun to appear in the books. + +Mr Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his +hair up in the contemplation of this state of accounts, when old Mr +Nandy, re-entering the cottage with an air of mystery, entreated +them to come and look at the strange behaviour of Mr Baptist, who +seemed to have met with something that had scared him. All three +going into the shop, and watching through the window, then saw Mr +Baptist, pale and agitated, go through the following extraordinary +performances. First, he was observed hiding at the top of the +steps leading down into the Yard, and peeping up and down the +street with his head cautiously thrust out close to the side of the +shop-door. After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of his +retreat, and went briskly down the street as if he were going away +altogether; then, suddenly turned about, and went, at the same +pace, and with the same feint, up the street. He had gone no +further up the street than he had gone down, when he crossed the +road and disappeared. The object of this last manoeuvre was only +apparent, when his entering the shop with a sudden twist, from the +steps again, explained that he had made a wide and obscure circuit +round to the other, or Doyce and Clennam, end of the Yard, and had +come through the Yard and bolted in. He was out of breath by that +time, as he might well be, and his heart seemed to jerk faster than +the little shop-bell, as it quivered and jingled behind him with +his hasty shutting of the door. + +'Hallo, old chap!' said Mr Pancks. 'Altro, old boy! What's the +matter?' + +Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as +well as Mr Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too. +Nevertheless, Mrs Plornish, with a pardonable vanity in that +accomplishment of hers which made her all but Italian, stepped in +as interpreter. + +'E ask know,' said Mrs Plornish, 'What go wrong?' + +'Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona,' returned Mr Baptist, +imparting great stealthiness to his flurried back-handed shake of +his right forefinger. 'Come there!' + +Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as +signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the +Italian tongue. She immediately complied with Mr Baptist's +request, and they all went into the cottage. + +'E ope you no fright,' said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr +Pancks in a new way with her usual fertility of resource. 'What +appen? Peaka Padrona!' + +'I have seen some one,' returned Baptist. 'I have rincontrato +him.' + +'Im? Oo him?' asked Mrs Plornish. + +'A bad man. A baddest man. I have hoped that I should never see +him again.' +'Ow you know him bad?' asked Mrs Plornish. + +'It does not matter, Padrona. I know it too well.' + +''E see you?' asked Mrs Plornish. + +'No. I hope not. I believe not.' + +'He says,' Mrs Plornish then interpreted, addressing her father and +Pancks with mild condescension, 'that he has met a bad man, but he +hopes the bad man didn't see him--Why,' inquired Mrs Plornish, +reverting to the Italian language, 'why ope bad man no see?' + +'Padrona, dearest,' returned the little foreigner whom she so +considerately protected, 'do not ask, I pray. Once again I say it +matters not. I have fear of this man. I do not wish to see him, +I do not wish to be known of him--never again! Enough, most +beautiful. Leave it.' + +The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual +liveliness to the rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him +further: the rather as the tea had been drawing for some time on +the hob. But she was not the less surprised and curious for asking +no more questions; neither was Mr Pancks, whose expressive +breathing had been labouring hard since the entrance of the little +man, like a locomotive engine with a great load getting up a steep +incline. Maggy, now better dressed than of yore, though still +faithful to the monstrous character of her cap, had been in the +background from the first with open mouth and eyes, which staring +and gaping features were not diminished in breadth by the untimely +suppression of the subject. However, no more was said about it, +though much appeared to be thought on all sides: by no means +excepting the two young Plornishes, who partook of the evening meal +as if their eating the bread and butter were rendered almost +superfluous by the painful probability of the worst of men shortly +presenting himself for the purpose of eating them. Mr Baptist, by +degrees began to chirp a little; but never stirred from the seat he +had taken behind the door and close to the window, though it was +not his usual place. As often as the little bell rang, he started +and peeped out secretly, with the end of the little curtain in his +hand and the rest before his face; evidently not at all satisfied +but that the man he dreaded had tracked him through all his +doublings and turnings, with the certainty of a terrible +bloodhound. + +The entrance, at various times, of two or three customers and of Mr +Plornish, gave Mr Baptist just enough of this employment to keep +the attention of the company fixed upon him. Tea was over, and the +children were abed, and Mrs Plornish was feeling her way to the +dutiful proposal that her father should favour them with Chloe, +when the bell rang again, and Mr Clennam came in. + +Clennam had been poring late over his books and letters; for the +waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office ravaged his time sorely. + +Over and above that, he was depressed and made uneasy by the late +occurrence at his mother's. He looked worn and solitary. He felt +so, too; but, nevertheless, was returning home from his counting- +house by that end of the Yard to give them the intelligence that he +had received another letter from Miss Dorrit. + +The news made a sensation in the cottage which drew off the general +attention from Mr Baptist. Maggy, who pushed her way into the +foreground immediately, would have seemed to draw in the tidings of +her Little Mother equally at her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but +that the last were obstructed by tears. She was particularly +delighted when Clennam assured her that there were hospitals, and +very kindly conducted hospitals, in Rome. Mr Pancks rose into new +distinction in virtue of being specially remembered in the letter. +Everybody was pleased and interested, and Clennam was well repaid +for his trouble. +'But you are tired, sir. Let me make you a cup of tea,' said Mrs +Plornish, 'if you'd condescend to take such a thing in the cottage; +and many thanks to you, too, I am sure, for bearing us in mind so +kindly.' + +Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his +personal acknowledgments, tendered them in the form which always +expressed his highest ideal of a combination of ceremony with +sincerity. + +'John Edward Nandy,' said Mr Plornish, addressing the old +gentleman. 'Sir. It's not too often that you see unpretending +actions without a spark of pride, and therefore when you see them +give grateful honour unto the same, being that if you don't, and +live to want 'em, it follows serve you right.' + +To which Mr Nandy replied: + +'I am heartily of your opinion, Thomas, and which your opinion is +the same as mine, and therefore no more words and not being +backwards with that opinion, which opinion giving it as yes, +Thomas, yes, is the opinion in which yourself and me must ever be +unanimously jined by all, and where there is not difference of +opinion there can be none but one opinion, which fully no, Thomas, +Thomas, no !' + +Arthur, with less formality, expressed himself gratified by their +high appreciation of so very slight an attention on his part; and +explained as to the tea that he had not yet dined, and was going +straight home to refresh after a long day's labour, or he would +have readily accepted the hospitable offer. As Mr Pancks was +somewhat noisily getting his steam up for departure, he concluded +by asking that gentleman if he would walk with him? Mr Pancks said +he desired no better engagement, and the two took leave of Happy +Cottage. + +'If you will come home with me, Pancks,' said Arthur, when they got +into the street, 'and will share what dinner or supper there is, it +will be next door to an act of charity; for I am weary and out of +sorts to-night.' + +'Ask me to do a greater thing than that,' said Pancks, 'when you +want it done, and I'll do it.' + +Between this eccentric personage and Clennam, a tacit understanding +and accord had been always improving since Mr Pancks flew over Mr +Rugg's back in the Marshalsea Yard. When the carriage drove away +on the memorable day of the family's departure, these two had +looked after it together, and had walked slowly away together. +When the first letter came from little Dorrit, nobody was more +interested in hearing of her than Mr Pancks. The second letter, at +that moment in Clennam's breast-pocket, particularly remembered him +by name. Though he had never before made any profession or +protestation to Clennam, and though what he had just said was +little enough as to the words in which it was expressed, Clennam +had long had a growing belief that Mr Pancks, in his own odd way, +was becoming attached to him. All these strings intertwining made +Pancks a very cable of anchorage that night. + +'I am quite alone,' Arthur explained as they walked on. 'My +partner is away, busily engaged at a distance on his branch of our +business, and you shall do just as you like.' + +'Thank you. You didn't take particular notice of little Altro just +now; did you?' said Pancks. + +'No. Why?' + +'He's a bright fellow, and I like him,' said Pancks. 'Something +has gone amiss with him to-day. Have you any idea of any cause +that can have overset him?' + +'You surprise me! None whatever.' + +Mr Pancks gave his reasons for the inquiry. Arthur was quite +unprepared for them, and quite unable to suggest an explanation of +them. + +'Perhaps you'll ask him,' said Pancks, 'as he's a stranger?' + +'Ask him what?' returned Clennam. + +'What he has on his mind.' + +'I ought first to see for myself that he has something on his mind, +I think,' said Clennam. 'I have found him in every way so +diligent, so grateful (for little enough), and so trustworthy, that +it might look like suspecting him. And that would be very unjust.' + +'True,' said Pancks. 'But, I say! You oughtn't to be anybody's +proprietor, Mr Clennam. You're much too delicate.' +'For the matter of that,' returned Clennam laughing, 'I have not a +large proprietary share in Cavalletto. His carving is his +livelihood. He keeps the keys of the Factory, watches it every +alternate night, and acts as a sort of housekeeper to it generally; +but we have little work in the way of his ingenuity, though we give +him what we have. No! I am rather his adviser than his +proprietor. To call me his standing counsel and his banker would +be nearer the fact. Speaking of being his banker, is it not +curious, Pancks, that the ventures which run just now in so many +people's heads, should run even in little Cavalletto's?' + +'Ventures?' retorted Pancks, with a snort. 'What ventures?' + +'These Merdle enterprises.' + +'Oh! Investments,' said Pancks. 'Ay, ay! I didn't know you were +speaking of investments.' +His quick way of replying caused Clennam to look at him, with a +doubt whether he meant more than he said. As it was accompanied, +however, with a quickening of his pace and a corresponding increase +in the labouring of his machinery, Arthur did not pursue the +matter, and they soon arrived at his house. + +A dinner of soup and a pigeon-pie, served on a little round table +before the fire, and flavoured with a bottle of good wine, oiled Mr +Pancks's works in a highly effective manner; so that when Clennam +produced his Eastern pipe, and handed Mr Pancks another Eastern +pipe, the latter gentleman was perfectly comfortable. + +They puffed for a while in silence, Mr Pancks like a steam-vessel +with wind, tide, calm water, and all other sea-going conditions in +her favour. He was the first to speak, and he spoke thus: + +'Yes. Investments is the word.' + +Clennam, with his former look, said 'Ah!' + +'I am going back to it, you see,' said Pancks. + +'Yes. I see you are going back to it,' returned Clennam, wondering +why. + +'Wasn't it a curious thing that they should run in little Altro's +head? Eh?' said Pancks as he smoked. 'Wasn't that how you put +it?' + +'That was what I said.' + +'Ay! But think of the whole Yard having got it. Think of their +all meeting me with it, on my collecting days, here and there and +everywhere. Whether they pay, or whether they don't pay. Merdle, +Merdle, Merdle. Always Merdle.' + +'Very strange how these runs on an infatuation prevail,' said +Arthur. + +'An't it?' returned Pancks. After smoking for a minute or so, more +drily than comported with his recent oiling, he added: 'Because you +see these people don't understand the subject.' + +'Not a bit,' assented Clennam. + + +'Not a bit,' cried Pancks. 'Know nothing of figures. Know nothing +of money questions. Never made a calculation. Never worked it, +sir!' + +'If they had--' Clennam was going on to say; when Mr Pancks, +without change of countenance, produced a sound so far surpassing +all his usual efforts, nasal or bronchial, that he stopped. + +'If they had?' repeated Pancks in an inquiring tone. + +'I thought you--spoke,' said Arthur, hesitating what name to give +the interruption. + +'Not at all,' said Pancks. 'Not yet. I may in a minute. If they +had?' + +'If they had,' observed Clennam, who was a little at a loss how to +take his friend, 'why, I suppose they would have known better.' + +'How so, Mr Clennam?' Pancks asked quickly, and with an odd effect +of having been from the commencement of the conversation loaded +with the heavy charge he now fired off. 'They're right, you know. +They don't mean to be, but they're right.' + +'Right in sharing Cavalletto's inclination to speculate with Mr +Merdle?' + +'Per-fectly, sir,' said Pancks. 'I've gone into it. I've made the +calculations. I've worked it. They're safe and genuine.' +Relieved by having got to this, Mr Pancks took as long a pull as +his lungs would permit at his Eastern pipe, and looked sagaciously +and steadily at Clennam while inhaling and exhaling too. + +In those moments, Mr Pancks began to give out the dangerous +infection with which he was laden. It is the manner of +communicating these diseases; it is the subtle way in which they go +about. + +'Do you mean, my good Pancks,' asked Clennam emphatically, 'that +you would put that thousand pounds of yours, let us say, for +instance, out at this kind of interest?' + +'Certainly,' said Pancks. 'Already done it, sir.' + +Mr Pancks took another long inhalation, another long exhalation, +another long sagacious look at Clennam. + +'I tell you, Mr Clennam, I've gone into it,' said Pancks. 'He's a +man of immense resources--enormous capital--government influence. +They're the best schemes afloat. They're safe. They're certain.' + +'Well!' returned Clennam, looking first at him gravely and then at +the fire gravely. 'You surprise me!' + +'Bah!' Pancks retorted. 'Don't say that, sir. It's what you ought +to do yourself! Why don't you do as I do?' + +Of whom Mr Pancks had taken the prevalent disease, he could no more +have told than if he had unconsciously taken a fever. Bred at +first, as many physical diseases are, in the wickedness of men, and +then disseminated in their ignorance, these epidemics, after a +period, get communicated to many sufferers who are neither ignorant +nor wicked. Mr Pancks might, or might not, have caught the illness +himself from a subject of this class; but in this category he +appeared before Clennam, and the infection he threw off was all the +more virulent. + +'And you have really invested,' Clennam had already passed to that +word, 'your thousand pounds, Pancks?' + +'To be sure, sir!' replied Pancks boldly, with a puff of smoke. +'And only wish it ten!' + +Now, Clennam had two subjects lying heavy on his lonely mind that +night; the one, his partner's long-deferred hope; the other, what +he had seen and heard at his mother's. In the relief of having +this companion, and of feeling that he could trust him, he passed +on to both, and both brought him round again, with an increase and +acceleration of force, to his point of departure. + +It came about in the simplest manner. Quitting the investment +subject, after an interval of silent looking at the fire through +the smoke of his pipe, he told Pancks how and why he was occupied +with the great National Department. 'A hard case it has been, and +a hard case it is on Doyce,' he finished by saying, with all the +honest feeling the topic roused in him. + +'Hard indeed,' Pancks acquiesced. 'But you manage for him, Mr +Clennam?' + +'How do you mean ?' + +'Manage the money part of the business?' + +'Yes. As well as I can.' + +'Manage it better, sir,' said Pancks. 'Recompense him for his +toils and disappointments. Give him the chances of the time. +He'll never benefit himself in that way, patient and preoccupied +workman. He looks to you, sir.' + +'I do my best, Pancks,' returned Clennam, uneasily. 'As to duly +weighing and considering these new enterprises of which I have had +no experience, I doubt if I am fit for it, I am growing old.' + +'Growing old?' cried Pancks. 'Ha, ha!' + +There was something so indubitably genuine in the wonderful laugh, +and series of snorts and puffs, engendered in Mr Pancks's +astonishment at, and utter rejection of, the idea, that his being +quite in earnest could not be questioned. + +'Growing old?' cried Pancks. 'Hear, hear, hear! Old? Hear him, +hear him!' + +The positive refusal expressed in Mr Pancks's continued snorts, no +less than in these exclamations, to entertain the sentiment for a +single instant, drove Arthur away from it. Indeed, he was fearful +of something happening to Mr Pancks in the violent conflict that +took place between the breath he jerked out of himself and the +smoke he jerked into himself. This abandonment of the second topic +threw him on the third. + +'Young, old, or middle-aged, Pancks,' he said, when there was a +favourable pause, 'I am in a very anxious and uncertain state; a +state that even leads me to doubt whether anything now seeming to +belong to me, may be really mine. Shall I tell you how this is? +Shall I put a great trust in you?' + +'You shall, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you believe me worthy of it.' + +'I do.' + +'You may!' Mr Pancks's short and sharp rejoinder, confirmed by the +sudden outstretching of his coaly hand, was most expressive and +convincing. Arthur shook the hand warmly. + +He then, softening the nature of his old apprehensions as much as +was possible consistently with their being made intelligible and +never alluding to his mother by name, but speaking vaguely of a +relation of his, confided to Mr Pancks a broad outline of the +misgivings he entertained, and of the interview he had witnessed. +Mr Pancks listened with such interest that, regardless of the +charms of the Eastern pipe, he put it in the grate among the fire- +irons, and occupied his hands during the whole recital in so +erecting the loops and hooks of hair all over his head, that he +looked, when it came to a conclusion, like a journeyman Hamlet in +conversation with his father's spirit. + +'Brings me back, sir,' was his exclamation then, with a startling +touch on Clennam's knee, 'brings me back, sir, to the Investments! +I don't say anything of your making yourself poor to repair a wrong +you never committed. That's you. A man must be himself. But I +say this, fearing you may want money to save your own blood from +exposure and disgrace--make as much as you can!' + + +Arthur shook his head, but looked at him thoughtfully too. + +'Be as rich as you can, sir,' Pancks adjured him with a powerful +concentration of all his energies on the advice. 'Be as rich as +you honestly can. It's your duty. Not for your sake, but for the +sake of others. Take time by the forelock. Poor Mr Doyce (who +really is growing old) depends upon you. Your relative depends +upon you. You don't know what depends upon you.' + +'Well, well, well!' returned Arthur. 'Enough for to-night.' + +'One word more, Mr Clennam,' retorted Pancks, 'and then enough for +to-night. Why should you leave all the gains to the gluttons, +knaves, and impostors? Why should you leave all the gains that are +to be got to my proprietor and the like of him? Yet you're always +doing it. When I say you, I mean such men as you. You know you +are. Why, I see it every day of my life. I see nothing else. +It's my business to see it. Therefore I say,' urged Pancks, 'Go in +and win!' + +'But what of Go in and lose?' said Arthur. + +'Can't be done, sir,' returned Pancks. 'I have looked into it. +Name up everywhere--immense resources--enormous capital--great +position--high connection--government influence. Can't be done!' + +Gradually, after this closing exposition, Mr Pancks subsided; +allowed his hair to droop as much as it ever would droop on the +utmost persuasion; reclaimed the pipe from the fire-irons, filled +it anew, and smoked it out. They said little more; but were +company to one another in silently pursuing the same subjects, and +did not part until midnight. On taking his leave, Mr Pancks, when +he had shaken hands with Clennam, worked completely round him +before he steamed out at the door. This, Arthur received as an +assurance that he might implicitly rely on Pancks, if he ever +should come to need assistance; either in any of the matters of +which they had spoken that night, or any other subject that could +in any way affect himself. + +At intervals all next day, and even while his attention was fixed +on other things, he thought of Mr Pancks's investment of his +thousand pounds, and of his having 'looked into it.' He thought of +Mr Pancks's being so sanguine in this matter, and of his not being +usually of a sanguine character. He thought of the great National +Department, and of the delight it would be to him to see Doyce +better off. He thought of the darkly threatening place that went +by the name of Home in his remembrance, and of the gathering +shadows which made it yet more darkly threatening than of old. He +observed anew that wherever he went, he saw, or heard, or touched, +the celebrated name of Merdle; he found it difficult even to remain +at his desk a couple of hours, without having it presented to one +of his bodily senses through some agency or other. He began to +think it was curious too that it should be everywhere, and that +nobody but he should seem to have any mistrust of it. Though +indeed he began to remember, when he got to this, even he did not +mistrust it; he had only happened to keep aloof from it. + +Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the +signs of sickening. + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + +Taking Advice + + +When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow +Tiber that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one +of the Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a +piece of news with which they had no nearer concern than with any +other piece of news--any other Accident or Offence--in the English +papers. Some laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that +the post was virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his +name was good enough for it; some, and these the more solemn +political oracles, said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen +himself, and that the sole constitutional purpose of all places +within the gift of Decimus, was, that Decimus should strengthen +himself. A few bilious Britons there were who would not subscribe +to this article of faith; but their objection was purely +theoretical. In a practical point of view, they listlessly +abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other Britons +unknown, somewhere, or nowhere. In like manner, at home, great +numbers of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty +consecutive hours, that those invisible and anonymous Britons +'ought to take it up;' and that if they quietly acquiesced in it, +they deserved it. But of what class the remiss Britons were +composed, and where the unlucky creatures hid themselves, and why +they hid themselves, and how it constantly happened that they +neglected their interests, when so many other Britons were quite at +a loss to account for their not looking after those interests, was +not, either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the shore of the +black Thames, made apparent to men. + +Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on +it, with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the +setting displays the jewel. Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the +place. Mr Merdle wished him to take it, and he had taken it. She +hoped Edmund might like it, but really she didn't know. It would +keep him in town a good deal, and he preferred the country. Still, +it was not a disagreeable position--and it was a position. There +was no denying that the thing was a compliment to Mr Merdle, and +was not a bad thing for Edmund if he liked it. It was just as well +that he should have something to do, and it was just as well that +he should have something for doing it. Whether it would be more +agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen. + +Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things +of small account, and really enhancing them in the process. While +Henry Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole +round of his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the +town of Albano, vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his +eyes, that Sparkler was the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted, +altogether most lovable jackass that ever grazed on the public +common; and that only one circumstance could have delighted him +(Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass's) getting this post, +and that would have been his (Gowan's) getting it himself. He said +it was the very thing for Sparkler. There was nothing to do, and +he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to draw, and +he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate, +capital appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of +himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great +an affection was so admirably stabled. Nor did his benevolence +stop here. He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr +Sparkler out, and make him conspicuous before the company; and, +although the considerate action always resulted in that young +gentleman's making a dreary and forlorn mental spectacle of +himself, the friendly intention was not to be doubted. + +Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr +Sparkler's affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult +situation of being universally known in that light, and of not +having dismissed Mr Sparkler, however capriciously she used him. +Hence, she was sufficiently identified with the gentleman to feel +compromised by his being more than usually ridiculous; and hence, +being by no means deficient in quickness, she sometimes came to his +rescue against Gowan, and did him very good service. But, while +doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined whether to get rid +of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted with +apprehensions that she was every day becoming more and more +immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs +Merdle triumphed in her distress. With this tumult in her mind, it +is no subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came home one night in +a state of agitation from a concert and ball at Mrs Merdle's house, +and on her sister affectionately trying to soothe her, pushed that +sister away from the toilette-table at which she sat angrily trying +to cry, and declared with a heaving bosom that she detested +everybody, and she wished she was dead. + +'Dear Fanny, what is the matter? Tell me.' + +'Matter, you little Mole,' said Fanny. 'If you were not the +blindest of the blind, you would have no occasion to ask me. The +idea of daring to pretend to assert that you have eyes in your +head, and yet ask me what's the matter!' + +'Is it Mr Sparkler, dear?' +'Mis-ter Spark-ler!' repeated Fanny, with unbounded scorn, as if he +were the last subject in the Solar system that could possibly be +near her mind. 'No, Miss Bat, it is not.' + +Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful for having called her +sister names; declaring with sobs that she knew she made herself +hateful, but that everybody drove her to it. + + +'I don't think you are well to-night, dear Fanny.' + + +'Stuff and nonsense!' replied the young lady, turning angry again; +'I am as well as you are. Perhaps I might say better, and yet make +no boast of it.' + +Poor Little Dorrit, not seeing her way to the offering of any +soothing words that would escape repudiation, deemed it best to +remain quiet. At first, Fanny took this ill, too; protesting to +her looking-glass, that of all the trying sisters a girl could +have, she did think the most trying sister was a flat sister. That +she knew she was at times a wretched temper; that she knew she made +herself hateful; that when she made herself hateful, nothing would +do her half the good as being told so; but that, being afflicted +with a flat sister, she never WAS told so, and the consequence +resulted that she was absolutely tempted and goaded into making +herself disagreeable. Besides (she angrily told her looking- +glass), she didn't want to be forgiven. It was not a right +example, that she should be constantly stooping to be forgiven by +a younger sister. And this was the Art of it--that she was always +being placed in the position of being forgiven, whether she liked +it or not. Finally she burst into violent weeping, and, when her +sister came and sat close at her side to comfort her, said, 'Amy, +you're an Angel!' + +'But, I tell you what, my Pet,' said Fanny, when her sister's +gentleness had calmed her, 'it now comes to this; that things +cannot and shall not go on as they are at present going on, and +that there must be an end of this, one way or another.' + +As the announcement was vague, though very peremptory, Little +Dorrit returned, 'Let us talk about it.' + +'Quite so, my dear,' assented Fanny, as she dried her eyes. 'Let +us talk about it. I am rational again now, and you shall advise +me. Will you advise me, my sweet child?' + +Even Amy smiled at this notion, but she said, 'I will, Fanny, as +well as I can.' + +'Thank you, dearest Amy,' returned Fanny, kissing her. 'You are my +anchor.' + +Having embraced her Anchor with great affection, Fanny took a +bottle of sweet toilette water from the table, and called to her +maid for a fine handkerchief. She then dismissed that attendant +for the night, and went on to be advised; dabbing her eyes and +forehead from time to time to cool them. + +'My love,' Fanny began, 'our characters and points of view are +sufficiently different (kiss me again, my darling), to make it very +probable that I shall surprise you by what I am going to say. What +I am going to say, my dear, is, that notwithstanding our property, +we labour, socially speaking, under disadvantages. You don't quite +understand what I mean, Amy?' + +'I have no doubt I shall,' said Amy, mildly, 'after a few words +more.' + +'Well, my dear, what I mean is, that we are, after all, newcomers +into fashionable life.' + +'I am sure, Fanny,' Little Dorrit interposed in her zealous +admiration, 'no one need find that out in you.' + +'Well, my dear child, perhaps not,' said Fanny, 'though it's most +kind and most affectionate in you, you precious girl, to say so.' +Here she dabbed her sister's forehead, and blew upon it a little. +'But you are,' resumed Fanny, 'as is well known, the dearest little +thing that ever was! To resume, my child. Pa is extremely +gentlemanly and extremely well informed, but he is, in some +trifling respects, a little different from other gentlemen of his +fortune: partly on account of what he has gone through, poor dear: +partly, I fancy, on account of its often running in his mind that +other people are thinking about that, while he is talking to them. +Uncle, my love, is altogether unpresentable. Though a dear +creature to whom I am tenderly attached, he is, socially speaking, +shocking. Edward is frightfully expensive and dissipated. I don't +mean that there is anything ungenteel in that itself--far from it-- +but I do mean that he doesn't do it well, and that he doesn't, if +I may so express myself, get the money's-worth in the sort of +dissipated reputation that attaches to him.' + +'Poor Edward!' sighed Little Dorrit, with the whole family history +in the sigh. + +'Yes. And poor you and me, too,' returned Fanny, rather sharply. + +'Very true! Then, my dear, we have no mother, and we have a Mrs +General. And I tell you again, darling, that Mrs General, if I may +reverse a common proverb and adapt it to her, is a cat in gloves +who WILL catch mice. That woman, I am quite sure and confident, +will be our mother-in-law.' + +'I can hardly think, Fanny-' Fanny stopped her. + +'Now, don't argue with me about it, Amy,' said she, 'because I know +better.' Feeling that she had been sharp again, she dabbed her +sister's forehead again, and blew upon it again. 'To resume once +more, my dear. It then becomes a question with me (I am proud and +spirited, Amy, as you very well know: too much so, I dare say) +whether I shall make up my mind to take it upon myself to carry the +family through.' +'How?' asked her sister, anxiously. + +'I will not,' said Fanny, without answering the question, 'submit +to be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General; and I will not submit to be, +in any respect whatever, either patronised or tormented by Mrs +Merdle.' + +Little Dorrit laid her hand upon the hand that held the bottle of +sweet water, with a still more anxious look. Fanny, quite +punishing her own forehead with the vehement dabs she now began to +give it, fitfully went on. + +'That he has somehow or other, and how is of no consequence, +attained a very good position, no one can deny. That it is a very +good connection, no one can deny. And as to the question of clever +or not clever, I doubt very much whether a clever husband would be +suitable to me. I cannot submit. I should not be able to defer to +him enough.' + +'O, my dear Fanny!' expostulated Little Dorrit, upon whom a kind of +terror had been stealing as she perceived what her sister meant. +'If you loved any one, all this feeling would change. If you loved +any one, you would no more be yourself, but you would quite lose +and forget yourself in your devotion to him. If you loved him, +Fanny--' Fanny had stopped the dabbing hand, and was looking at her +fixedly. + +'O, indeed!' cried Fanny. 'Really? Bless me, how much some people +know of some subjects! They say every one has a subject, and I +certainly seem to have hit upon yours, Amy. There, you little +thing, I was only in fun,' dabbing her sister's forehead; 'but +don't you be a silly puss, and don't you think flightily and +eloquently about degenerate impossibilities. There! Now, I'll go +back to myself.' + +'Dear Fanny, let me say first, that I would far rather we worked +for a scanty living again than I would see you rich and married to +Mr Sparkler.' + +'Let you say, my dear?' retorted Fanny. 'Why, of course, I will +let you say anything. There is no constraint upon you, I hope. We +are together to talk it over. And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I +have not the slightest intention of doing so to-night, my dear, or +to-morrow morning either.' + +'But at some time?' + +'At no time, for anything I know at present,' answered Fanny, with +indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a +burning restlessness, she added, 'You talk about the clever men, +you little thing! It's all very fine and easy to talk about the +clever men; but where are they? I don't see them anywhere near +me!' + +'My dear Fanny, so short a time--' + +'Short time or long time,' interrupted Fanny. 'I am impatient of +our situation. I don't like our situation, and very little would +induce me to change it. Other girls, differently reared and +differently circumstanced altogether, might wonder at what I say or +may do. Let them. They are driven by their lives and characters; +I am driven by mine.' + +'Fanny, my dear Fanny, you know that you have qualities to make you +the wife of one very superior to Mr Sparkler.' + +'Amy, my dear Amy,' retorted Fanny, parodying her words, 'I know +that I wish to have a more defined and distinct position, in which +I can assert myself with greater effect against that insolent +woman.' + +'Would you therefore--forgive my asking, Fanny--therefore marry her +son?' + +'Why, perhaps,' said Fanny, with a triumphant smile. 'There may be +many less promising ways of arriving at an end than that, MY dear. +That piece of insolence may think, now, that it would be a great +success to get her son off upon me, and shelve me. But, perhaps, +she little thinks how I would retort upon her if I married her son. + +I would oppose her in everything, and compete with her. I would +make it the business of my life.' + +Fanny set down the bottle when she came to this, and walked about +the room; always stopping and standing still while she spoke. + +'One thing I could certainly do, my child: I could make her older. +And I would!' + +This was followed by another walk. + +'I would talk of her as an old woman. I would pretend to know --if +I didn't, but I should from her son--all about her age. And she +should hear me say, Amy: affectionately, quite dutifully and +affectionately: how well she looked, considering her time of life. +I could make her seem older at once, by being myself so much +younger. I may not be as handsome as she is; I am not a fair judge +of that question, I suppose; but I know I am handsome enough to be +a thorn in her side. And I would be!' + +'My dear sister, would you condemn yourself to an unhappy life for +this?' + +'It wouldn't be an unhappy life, Amy. It would be the life I am +fitted for. Whether by disposition, or whether by circumstances, +is no matter; I am better fitted for such a life than for almost +any other.' + +There was something of a desolate tone in those words; but, with a +short proud laugh she took another walk, and after passing a great +looking-glass came to another stop. + +'Figure! Figure, Amy! Well. The woman has a good figure. I will +give her her due, and not deny it. But is it so far beyond all +others that it is altogether unapproachable? Upon my word, I am +not so sure of it. Give some much younger woman the latitude as to +dress that she has, being married; and we would see about that, my +dear!' + +Something in the thought that was agreeable and flattering, brought +her back to her seat in a gayer temper. She took her sister's +hands in hers, and clapped all four hands above her head as she +looked in her sister's face laughing: + +'And the dancer, Amy, that she has quite forgotten--the dancer who +bore no sort of resemblance to me, and of whom I never remind her, +oh dear no!--should dance through her life, and dance in her way, +to such a tune as would disturb her insolent placidity a little. +just a little, my dear Amy, just a little!' + +Meeting an earnest and imploring look in Amy's face, she brought +the four hands down, and laid only one on Amy's lips. + +'Now, don't argue with me, child,' she said in a sterner way, +'because it is of no use. I understand these subjects much better +than you do. I have not nearly made up my mind, but it may be. +Now we have talked this over comfortably, and may go to bed. You +best and dearest little mouse, Good night!' With those words Fanny +weighed her Anchor, and--having taken so much advice--left off +being advised for that occasion. + +Thenceforward, Amy observed Mr Sparkler's treatment by his +enslaver, with new reasons for attaching importance to all that +passed between them. There were times when Fanny appeared quite +unable to endure his mental feebleness, and when she became so +sharply impatient of it that she would all but dismiss him for +good. There were other times when she got on much better with him; +when he amused her, and when her sense of superiority seemed to +counterbalance that opposite side of the scale. If Mr Sparkler had +been other than the faithfullest and most submissive of swains, he +was sufficiently hard pressed to have fled from the scene of his +trials, and have set at least the whole distance from Rome to +London between himself and his enchantress. But he had no greater +will of his own than a boat has when it is towed by a steam-ship; +and he followed his cruel mistress through rough and smooth, on +equally strong compulsion. + +Mrs Merdle, during these passages, said little to Fanny, but said +more about her. She was, as it were, forced to look at her through +her eye-glass, and in general conversation to allow commendations +of her beauty to be wrung from her by its irresistible demands. +The defiant character it assumed when Fanny heard these extollings +(as it generally happened that she did), was not expressive of +concessions to the impartial bosom; but the utmost revenge the +bosom took was, to say audibly, 'A spoilt beauty--but with that +face and shape, who could wonder?' + +It might have been about a month or six weeks after the night of +the new advice, when Little Dorrit began to think she detected some +new understanding between Mr Sparkler and Fanny. Mr Sparkler, as +if in attendance to some compact, scarcely ever spoke without first +looking towards Fanny for leave. That young lady was too discreet +ever to look back again; but, if Mr Sparkler had permission to +speak, she remained silent; if he had not, she herself spoke. +Moreover, it became plain whenever Henry Gowan attempted to perform +the friendly office of drawing him out, that he was not to be +drawn. And not only that, but Fanny would presently, without any +pointed application in the world, chance to say something with such +a sting in it that Gowan would draw back as if he had put his hand +into a bee-hive. + +There was yet another circumstance which went a long way to confirm +Little Dorrit in her fears, though it was not a great circumstance +in itself. Mr Sparkler's demeanour towards herself changed. It +became fraternal. Sometimes, when she was in the outer circle of +assemblies--at their own residence, at Mrs Merdle's, or elsewhere-- +she would find herself stealthily supported round the waist by Mr +Sparkler's arm. Mr Sparkler never offered the slightest +explanation of this attention; but merely smiled with an air of +blundering, contented, good-natured proprietorship, which, in so +heavy a gentleman, was ominously expressive. + +Little Dorrit was at home one day, thinking about Fanny with a +heavy heart. They had a room at one end of their drawing-room +suite, nearly all irregular bay-window, projecting over the street, +and commanding all the picturesque life and variety of the Corso, +both up and down. At three or four o'clock in the afternoon, +English time, the view from this window was very bright and +peculiar; and Little Dorrit used to sit and muse here, much as she +had been used to while away the time in her balcony at Venice. +Seated thus one day, she was softly touched on the shoulder, and +Fanny said, 'Well, Amy dear,' and took her seat at her side. Their +seat was a part of the window; when there was anything in the way +of a procession going on, they used to have bright draperies hung +out of the window, and used to kneel or sit on this seat, and look +out at it, leaning on the brilliant colour. But there was no +procession that day, and Little Dorrit was rather surprised by +Fanny's being at home at that hour, as she was generally out on +horseback then. + +'Well, Amy,' said Fanny, 'what are you thinking of, little one?' +'I was thinking of you, Fanny.' + +'No? What a coincidence! I declare here's some one else. You +were not thinking of this some one else too; were you, Amy?' + +Amy HAD been thinking of this some one else too; for it was Mr +Sparkler. She did not say so, however, as she gave him her hand. +Mr Sparkler came and sat down on the other side of her, and she +felt the fraternal railing come behind her, and apparently stretch +on to include Fanny. + +'Well, my little sister,' said Fanny with a sigh, 'I suppose you +know what this means?' + +'She's as beautiful as she's doated on,' stammered Mr Sparkler-- +'and there's no nonsense about her--it's arranged--' + +'You needn't explain, Edmund,' said Fanny. + +'No, my love,' said Mr Sparkler. + +'In short, pet,' proceeded Fanny, 'on the whole, we are engaged. +We must tell papa about it either to-night or to-morrow, according +to the opportunities. Then it's done, and very little more need be +said.' + +'My dear Fanny,' said Mr Sparkler, with deference, 'I should like +to say a word to Amy.' + +'Well, well! Say it for goodness' sake,' returned the young lady. + +'I am convinced, my dear Amy,' said Mr Sparkler, 'that if ever +there was a girl, next to your highly endowed and beautiful sister, +who had no nonsense about her--' + +'We know all about that, Edmund,' interposed Miss Fanny. 'Never +mind that. Pray go on to something else besides our having no +nonsense about us.' + +'Yes, my love,' said Mr Sparkler. 'And I assure you, Amy, that +nothing can be a greater happiness to myself, myself--next to the +happiness of being so highly honoured with the choice of a glorious +girl who hasn't an atom of--' + +'Pray, Edmund, pray!' interrupted Fanny, with a slight pat of her +pretty foot upon the floor. + +'My love, you're quite right,' said Mr Sparkler, 'and I know I have +a habit of it. What I wished to declare was, that nothing can be +a greater happiness to myself, myself-next to the happiness of +being united to pre-eminently the most glorious of girls--than to +have the happiness of cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of +Amy. I may not myself,' said Mr Sparkler manfully, 'be up to the +mark on some other subjects at a short notice, and I am aware that +if you were to poll Society the general opinion would be that I am +not; but on the subject of Amy I am up to the mark!' + +Mr Sparkler kissed her, in witness thereof. + +'A knife and fork and an apartment,' proceeded Mr Sparkler, +growing, in comparison with his oratorical antecedents, quite +diffuse, 'will ever be at Amy's disposal. My Governor, I am sure, +will always be proud to entertain one whom I so much esteem. And +regarding my mother,' said Mr Sparkler, 'who is a remarkably fine +woman, with--' + +'Edmund, Edmund!' cried Miss Fanny, as before. + +'With submission, my soul,' pleaded Mr Sparkler. 'I know I have a +habit of it, and I thank you very much, my adorable girl, for +taking the trouble to correct it; but my mother is admitted on all +sides to be a remarkably fine woman, and she really hasn't any.' + +'That may be, or may not be,' returned Fanny, 'but pray don't +mention it any more.' + +'I will not, my love,' said Mr Sparkler. + +'Then, in fact, you have nothing more to say, Edmund; have you?' +inquired Fanny. + +'So far from it, my adorable girl,' answered Mr Sparkler, 'I +apologise for having said so much.' + +Mr Sparkler perceived, by a kind of inspiration, that the question +implied had he not better go? He therefore withdrew the fraternal +railing, and neatly said that he thought he would, with submission, +take his leave. He did not go without being congratulated by Amy, +as well as she could discharge that office in the flutter and +distress of her spirits. + +When he was gone, she said, 'O Fanny, Fanny!' and turned to her +sister in the bright window, and fell upon her bosom and cried +there. Fanny laughed at first; but soon laid her face against her +sister's and cried too--a little. It was the last time Fanny ever +showed that there was any hidden, suppressed, or conquered feeling +in her on the matter. From that hour the way she had chosen lay +before her, and she trod it with her own imperious self-willed +step. + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + +No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons + should not be joined together + + +Mr Dorrit, on being informed by his elder daughter that she had +accepted matrimonial overtures from Mr Sparkler, to whom she had +plighted her troth, received the communication at once with great +dignity and with a large display of parental pride; his dignity +dilating with the widened prospect of advantageous ground from +which to make acquaintances, and his parental pride being developed +by Miss Fanny's ready sympathy with that great object of his +existence. He gave her to understand that her noble ambition found +harmonious echoes in his heart; and bestowed his blessing on her, +as a child brimful of duty and good principle, self-devoted to the +aggrandisement of the family name. + +To Mr Sparkler, when Miss Fanny permitted him to appear, Mr Dorrit +said, he would not disguise that the alliance Mr Sparkler did him +the honour to propose was highly congenial to his feelings; both as +being in unison with the spontaneous affections of his daughter +Fanny, and as opening a family connection of a gratifying nature +with Mr Merdle, the master spirit of the age. Mrs Merdle also, as +a leading lady rich in distinction, elegance, grace, and beauty, he +mentioned in very laudatory terms. He felt it his duty to remark +(he was sure a gentleman of Mr Sparkler's fine sense would +interpret him with all delicacy), that he could not consider this +proposal definitely determined on, until he should have had the +privilege of holding some correspondence with Mr Merdle; and of +ascertaining it to be so far accordant with the views of that +eminent gentleman as that his (Mr Dorrit's) daughter would be +received on that footing which her station in life and her dowry +and expectations warranted him in requiring that she should +maintain in what he trusted he might be allowed, without the +appearance of being mercenary, to call the Eye of the Great World. +While saying this, which his character as a gentleman of some +little station, and his character as a father, equally demanded of +him, he would not be so diplomatic as to conceal that the proposal +remained in hopeful abeyance and under conditional acceptance, and +that he thanked Mr Sparkler for the compliment rendered to himself +and to his family. He concluded with some further and more general +observations on the--ha--character of an independent gentleman, and +the--hum--character of a possibly too partial and admiring parent. +To sum the whole up shortly, he received Mr Sparkler's offer very +much as he would have received three or four half-crowns from him +in the days that were gone. + +Mr Sparkler, finding himself stunned by the words thus heaped upon +his inoffensive head, made a brief though pertinent rejoinder; the +same being neither more nor less than that he had long perceived +Miss Fanny to have no nonsense about her, and that he had no doubt +of its being all right with his Governor. At that point the object +of his affections shut him up like a box with a spring lid, and +sent him away. + +Proceeding shortly afterwards to pay his respects to the Bosom, Mr +Dorrit was received by it with great consideration. Mrs Merdle had +heard of this affair from Edmund. She had been surprised at first, +because she had not thought Edmund a marrying man. Society had not +thought Edmund a marrying man. Still, of course she had seen, as +a woman (we women did instinctively see these things, Mr Dorrit!), +that Edmund had been immensely captivated by Miss Dorrit, and she +had openly said that Mr Dorrit had much to answer for in bringing +so charming a girl abroad to turn the heads of his countrymen. + +'Have I the honour to conclude, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'that the +direction which Mr Sparkler's affections have taken, is--ha- +approved of by you?' + +'I assure you, Mr Dorrit,' returned the lady, 'that, personally, I +am charmed.' + +That was very gratifying to Mr Dorrit. + +'Personally,' repeated Mrs Merdle, 'charmed.' + +This casual repetition of the word 'personally,' moved Mr Dorrit to +express his hope that Mr Merdle's approval, too, would not be +wanting? + +'I cannot,' said Mrs Merdle, 'take upon myself to answer positively +for Mr Merdle; gentlemen, especially gentlemen who are what Society +calls capitalists, having their own ideas of these matters. But I +should think--merely giving an opinion, Mr Dorrit--I should think +Mr Merdle would be upon the whole,' here she held a review of +herself before adding at her leisure, 'quite charmed.' + +At the mention of gentlemen whom Society called capitalists, Mr +Dorrit had coughed, as if some internal demur were breaking out of +him. Mrs Merdle had observed it, and went on to take up the cue. + +'Though, indeed, Mr Dorrit, it is scarcely necessary for me to make +that remark, except in the mere openness of saying what is +uppermost to one whom I so highly regard, and with whom I hope I +may have the pleasure of being brought into still more agreeable +relations. For one cannot but see the great probability of your +considering such things from Mr Merdle's own point of view, except +indeed that circumstances have made it Mr Merdle's accidental +fortune, or misfortune, to be engaged in business transactions, and +that they, however vast, may a little cramp his horizons. I am a +very child as to having any notion of business,' said Mrs Merdle; +'but I am afraid, Mr Dorrit, it may have that tendency.' + +This skilful see-saw of Mr Dorrit and Mrs Merdle, so that each of +them sent the other up, and each of them sent the other down, and +neither had the advantage, acted as a sedative on Mr Dorrit's +cough. He remarked with his utmost politeness, that he must beg to +protest against its being supposed, even by Mrs Merdle, the +accomplished and graceful (to which compliment she bent herself), +that such enterprises as Mr Merdle's, apart as they were from the +puny undertakings of the rest of men, had any lower tendency than +to enlarge and expand the genius in which they were conceived. +'You are generosity itself,' said Mrs Merdle in return, smiling her +best smile; 'let us hope so. But I confess I am almost +superstitious in my ideas about business.' + +Mr Dorrit threw in another compliment here, to the effect that +business, like the time which was precious in it, was made for +slaves; and that it was not for Mrs Merdle, who ruled all hearts at +her supreme pleasure, to have anything to do with it. Mrs Merdle +laughed, and conveyed to Mr Dorrit an idea that the Bosom flushed-- +which was one of her best effects. + +'I say so much,' she then explained, 'merely because Mr Merdle has +always taken the greatest interest in Edmund, and has always +expressed the strongest desire to advance his prospects. Edmund's +public position, I think you know. His private position rests +solely +with Mr Merdle. In my foolish incapacity for business, I assure +you I know no more.' + +Mr Dorrit again expressed, in his own way, the sentiment that +business was below the ken of enslavers and enchantresses. He then +mentioned his intention, as a gentleman and a parent, of writing to +Mr Merdle. Mrs Merdle concurred with all her heart--or with all +her art, which was exactly the same thing--and herself despatched +a preparatory letter by the next post to the eighth wonder of the +world. + +In his epistolary communication, as in his dialogues and discourses +on the great question to which it related, Mr Dorrit surrounded the +subject with flourishes, as writing-masters embellish copy-books +and ciphering-books: where the titles of the elementary rules of +arithmetic diverge into swans, eagles, griffins, and other +calligraphic recreations, and where the capital letters go out of +their minds and bodies into ecstasies of pen and ink. +Nevertheless, he did render the purport of his letter sufficiently +clear, to enable Mr Merdle to make a decent pretence of having +learnt it from that source. Mr Merdle replied to it accordingly. +Mr Dorrit replied to Mr Merdle; Mr Merdle replied to Mr Dorrit; and +it was soon announced that the corresponding powers had come to a +satisfactory understanding. + + +Now, and not before, Miss Fanny burst upon the scene, completely +arrayed for her new part. Now and not before, she wholly absorbed +Mr Sparkler in her light, and shone for both, and twenty more. No +longer feeling that want of a defined place and character which had +caused her so much trouble, this fair ship began to steer steadily +on a shaped course, and to swim with a weight and balance that +developed her sailing qualities. + +'The preliminaries being so satisfactorily arranged, I think I will +now, my dear,' said Mr Dorrit, 'announce--ha--formally, to Mrs +General--' + +'Papa,' returned Fanny, taking him up short upon that name, 'I +don't see what Mrs General has got to do with it.' + +'My dear,' said Mr Dorrit, 'it will be an act of courtesy to--hum-- +a lady, well bred and refined--' + +'Oh! I am sick of Mrs General's good breeding and refinement, +papa,' said Fanny. 'I am tired of Mrs General.' + +'Tired,' repeated Mr Dorrit in reproachful astonishment, 'of--ha-- +Mrs General.' + +'Quite disgusted with her, papa,' said Fanny. 'I really don't see +what she has to do with my marriage. Let her keep to her own +matrimonial projects--if she has any.' + +'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit, with a grave and weighty slowness upon +him, contrasting strongly with his daughter's levity: 'I beg the +favour of your explaining--ha--what it is you mean.' +'I mean, papa,' said Fanny, 'that if Mrs General should happen to +have any matrimonial projects of her own, I dare say they are quite +enough to occupy her spare time. And that if she has not, so much +the better; but still I don't wish to have the honour of making +announcements to her.' + +'Permit me to ask you, Fanny,' said Mr Dorrit, 'why not?' + +'Because she can find my engagement out for herself, papa,' +retorted Fanny. 'She is watchful enough, I dare say. I think I +have seen her so. Let her find it out for herself. If she should +not find it out for herself, she will know it when I am married. +And I hope you will not consider me wanting in affection for you, +papa, if I say it strikes me that will be quite enough for Mrs +General.' + +'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit, 'I am amazed, I am displeased by +this--hum--this capricious and unintelligible display of animosity +towards--ha--Mrs General.' + +'Do not, if you please, papa,' urged Fanny, 'call it animosity, +because I assure you I do not consider Mrs General worth my +animosity.' + +At this, Mr Dorrit rose from his chair with a fixed look of severe +reproof, and remained standing in his dignity before his daughter. +His daughter, turning the bracelet on her arm, and now looking at +him, and now looking from him, said, 'Very well, papa. I am truly +sorry if you don't like it; but I can't help it. I am not a child, +and I am not Amy, and I must speak.' + +'Fanny,' gasped Mr Dorrit, after a majestic silence, 'if I request +you to remain here, while I formally announce to Mrs General, as an +exemplary lady, who is--hum--a trusted member of this family, the-- +ha--the change that is contemplated among us; if I--ha--not only +request it, but--hum--insist upon it--' + +'Oh, papa,' Fanny broke in with pointed significance, 'if you make +so much of it as that, I have in duty nothing to do but comply. I +hope I may have my thoughts upon the subject, however, for I really +cannot help it under the circumstances.'So, Fanny sat down +with a meekness which, in the junction of extremes, became +defiance; and her father, either not deigning to answer, or not +knowing what to answer, summoned Mr Tinkler into his presence. + +'Mrs General.' + +Mr Tinkler, unused to receive such short orders in connection with +the fair varnisher, paused. Mr Dorrit, seeing the whole Marshalsea +and all its testimonials in the pause, instantly flew at him with, +'How dare you, sir? What do you mean?' + +'I beg your pardon, sir,' pleaded Mr Tinkler, 'I was wishful to +know--' +'You wished to know nothing, sir,' cried Mr Dorrit, highly flushed. + +'Don't tell me you did. Ha. You didn't. You are guilty of +mockery, sir.' + +'I assure you, sir--' Mr Tinkler began. + +'Don't assure me!' said Mr Dorrit. 'I will not be assured by a +domestic. You are guilty of mockery. You shall leave me--hum--the +whole establishment shall leave me. What are you waiting for?' + +'Only for my orders, sir.' + +'It's false,' said Mr Dorrit, 'you have your orders. Ha--hum. MY +compliments to Mrs General, and I beg the favour of her coming to +me, if quite convenient, for a few minutes. Those are your +orders.' + +In his execution of this mission, Mr Tinkler perhaps expressed that +Mr Dorrit was in a raging fume. However that was, Mrs General's +skirts were very speedily heard outside, coming along--one might +almost have said bouncing along--with unusual expedition. Albeit, +they settled down at the door and swept into the room with their +customary coolness. + +'Mrs General,' said Mr Dorrit, 'take a chair.' + +Mrs General, with a graceful curve of acknowledgment, descended +into the chair which Mr Dorrit offered. + +'Madam,' pursued that gentleman, 'as you have had the kindness to +undertake the--hum--formation of my daughters, and as I am +persuaded that nothing nearly affecting them can--ha--be +indifferent to you--' + +'Wholly impossible,' said Mrs General in the calmest of ways. + +'--I therefore wish to announce to you, madam, that my daughter now +present--' + +Mrs General made a slight inclination of her head to Fanny, who +made a very low inclination of her head to Mrs General, and came +loftily upright again. + +'--That my daughter Fanny is--ha--contracted to be married to Mr +Sparkler, with whom you are acquainted. Hence, madam, you will be +relieved of half your difficult charge--ha--difficult charge.' Mr +Dorrit repeated it with his angry eye on Fanny. 'But not, I hope, +to the--hum--diminution of any other portion, direct or indirect, +of the footing you have at present the kindness to occupy in my +family.' + +'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, with her gloved hands resting on +one another in exemplary repose, 'is ever considerate, and ever but +too appreciative of my friendly services.' + +(Miss Fanny coughed, as much as to say, 'You are right.') + +'Miss Dorrit has no doubt exercised the soundest discretion of +which the circumstances admitted, and I trust will allow me to +offer her my sincere congratulations. When free from the trammels +of passion,' Mrs General closed her eyes at the word, as if she +could not utter it, and see anybody; 'when occurring with the +approbation of near relatives; and when cementing the proud +structure of a family edifice; these are usually auspicious events. + +I trust Miss Dorrit will allow me to offer her my best +congratulations.' + +Here Mrs General stopped, and added internally, for the setting of +her face, 'Papa, potatoes, poultry, Prunes, and prism.' + +'Mr Dorrit,' she superadded aloud, 'is ever most obliging; and for +the attention, and I will add distinction, of having this +confidence imparted to me by himself and Miss Dorrit at this early +time, I beg to offer the tribute of my thanks. My thanks, and my +congratulations, are equally the meed of Mr Dorrit and of Miss +Dorrit.' + +'To me,' observed Miss Fanny, 'they are excessively gratifying-- +inexpressibly so. The relief of finding that you have no objection +to make, Mrs General, quite takes a load off my mind, I am sure. +I hardly know what I should have done,' said Fanny, 'if you had +interposed any objection, Mrs General.' + +Mrs General changed her gloves, as to the right glove being +uppermost and the left undermost, with a Prunes and Prism smile. + +'To preserve your approbation, Mrs General,' said Fanny, returning +the smile with one in which there was no trace of those +ingredients, 'will of course be the highest object of my married +life; to lose it, would of course be perfect wretchedness. I am +sure your great kindness will not object, and I hope papa will not +object, to my correcting a small mistake you have made, however. +The best of us are so liable to mistakes, that even you, Mrs +General, have fallen into a little error. The attention and +distinction you have so impressively mentioned, Mrs General, as +attaching to this confidence, are, I have no doubt, of the most +complimentary and gratifying description; but they don't at all +proceed from me. The merit of having consulted you on the subject +would have been so great in me, that I feel I must not lay claim to +it when it really is not mine. It is wholly papa's. I am deeply +obliged to you for your encouragement and patronage, but it was +papa who asked for it. I have to thank you, Mrs General, for +relieving my breast of a great weight by so handsomely giving your +consent to my engagement, but you have really nothing to thank me +for. I hope you will always approve of my proceedings after I have +left home and that my sister also may long remain the favoured +object of your condescension, Mrs General.' + + +With this address, which was delivered in her politest manner, +Fanny left the room with an elegant and cheerful air--to tear up- +stairs with a flushed face as soon as she was out of hearing, +pounce in upon her sister, call her a little Dormouse, shake her +for the better opening of her eyes, tell her what had passed below, +and ask her what she thought of Pa now? + +Towards Mrs Merdle, the young lady comported herself with great +independence and self-possession; but not as yet with any more +decided opening of hostilities. Occasionally they had a slight +skirmish, as when Fanny considered herself patted on the back by +that lady, or as when Mrs Merdle looked particularly young and +well; but Mrs Merdle always soon terminated those passages of arms +by sinking among her cushions with the gracefullest indifference, +and finding her attention otherwise engaged. Society (for that +mysterious creature sat upon the Seven Hills too) found Miss Fanny +vastly improved by her engagement. She was much more accessible, +much more free and engaging, much less exacting; insomuch that she +now entertained a host of followers and admirers, to the bitter +indignation of ladies with daughters to marry, who were to be +regarded as Having revolted from Society on the Miss Dorrit +grievance, and erected a rebellious standard. Enjoying the flutter +she caused. Miss Dorrit not only haughtily moved through it in her +own proper person, but haughtily, even Ostentatiously, led Mr +Sparkler through it too: seeming to say to them all, 'If I think +proper to march among you in triumphal procession attended by this +weak captive in bonds, rather than a stronger one, that is my +business. Enough that I choose to do it!' Mr Sparkler for his +part, questioned nothing; but went wherever he was taken, did +whatever he was told, felt that for his bride-elect to be +distinguished was for him to be distinguished on the easiest terms, +and was truly grateful for being so openly acknowledged. + +The winter passing on towards the spring while this condition of +affairs prevailed, it became necessary for Mr Sparkler to repair to +England, and take his appointed part in the expression and +direction of its genius, learning, commerce, spirit, and sense. +The land of Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Newton, Watt, the land of +a host of past and present abstract philosophers, natural +philosophers, and subduers of Nature and Art in their myriad forms, +called to Mr Sparkler to come and take care of it, lest it should +perish. Mr Sparkler, unable to resist the agonised cry from the +depths of his country's soul, declared that he must go. + +It followed that the question was rendered pressing when, where, +and how Mr Sparkler should be married to the foremost girl in all +this world with no nonsense about her. Its solution, after some +little mystery and secrecy, Miss Fanny herself announced to her +sister. + +'Now, my child,' said she, seeking her out one day, 'I am going to +tell you something. It is only this moment broached; and naturally +I hurry to you the moment it IS broached.' + + +'Your marriage, Fanny?' + +'My precious child,' said Fanny, 'don't anticipate me. Let me +impart my confidence to you, you flurried little thing, in my own +way. As to your guess, if I answered it literally, I should answer +no. For really it is not my marriage that is in question, half as +much as it is Edmund's.' + +Little Dorrit looked, and perhaps not altogether without cause, +somewhat at a loss to understand this fine distinction. + +'I am in no difficulty,' exclaimed Fanny, 'and in no hurry. I am +not wanted at any public office, or to give any vote anywhere else. + +But Edmund is. And Edmund is deeply dejected at the idea of going +away by himself, and, indeed, I don't like that he should be +trusted by himself. For, if it's possible--and it generally is--to +do a foolish thing, he is sure to do it.' + +As she concluded this impartial summary of the reliance that might +be safely placed upon her future husband, she took off, with an air +of business, the bonnet she wore, and dangled it by its strings +upon the ground. + +'It is far more Edmund's question, therefore, than mine. However, +we need say no more about that. That is self-evident on the face +of it. Well, my dearest Amy! The point arising, is he to go by +himself, or is he not to go by himself, this other point arises, +are we to be married here and shortly, or are we to be married at +home months hence?' + +'I see I am going to lose you, Fanny.' + +'What a little thing you are,' cried Fanny, half tolerant and half +impatient, 'for anticipating one! Pray, my darling, hear me out. +That woman,' she spoke of Mrs Merdle, of course, 'remains here +until after Easter; so, in the case of my being married here and +going to London with Edmund, I should have the start of her. That +is something. Further, Amy. That woman being out of the way, I +don't know that I greatly object to Mr Merdle's proposal to Pa that +Edmund and I should take up our abode in that house -.you know-- +where you once went with a dancer, my dear, until our own house can +be chosen and fitted up. Further still, Amy. Papa having always +intended to go to town himself, in the spring,--you see, if Edmund +and I were married here, we might go off to Florence, where papa +might join us, and we might all three travel home together. Mr +Merdle has entreated Pa to stay with him in that same mansion I +have mentioned, and I suppose he will. But he is master of his own +actions; and upon that point (which is not at all material) I can't +speak positively.' +The difference between papa's being master of his own actions and +Mr Sparkler's being nothing of the sort, was forcibly expressed by +Fanny in her manner of stating the case. Not that her sister +noticed it; for she was divided between regret at the coming +separation, and a lingering wish that she had been included in the +plans for visiting England. + +'And these are the arrangements, Fanny dear?' + +'Arrangements!' repeated Fanny. 'Now, really, child, you are a +little trying. You know I particularly guarded myself against +laying my words open to any such construction. What I said was, +that certain questions present themselves; and these are the +questions.' + +Little Dorrit's thoughtful eyes met hers, tenderly and quietly. + +'Now, my own sweet girl,' said Fanny, weighing her bonnet by the +strings with considerable impatience, 'it's no use staring. A +little owl could stare. I look to you for advice, Amy. What do +you advise me to do?' + +'Do you think,' asked Little Dorrit, persuasively, after a short +hesitation, 'do you think, Fanny, that if you were to put it off +for a few months, it might be, considering all things, best?' + +'No, little Tortoise,' retorted Fanny, with exceeding sharpness. +'I don't think anything of the kind.' + +Here, she threw her bonnet from her altogether, and flounced into +a chair. But, becoming affectionate almost immediately, she +flounced out of it again, and kneeled down on the floor to take her +sister, chair and all, in her arms. + +'Don't suppose I am hasty or unkind, darling, because I really am +not. But you are such a little oddity! You make one bite your +head off, when one wants to be soothing beyond everything. Didn't +I tell you, you dearest baby, that Edmund can't be trusted by +himself? And don't you know that he can't?' + +'Yes, yes, Fanny. You said so, I know.' + +'And you know it, I know,' retorted Fanny. 'Well, my precious +child! If he is not to be trusted by himself, it follows, I +suppose, that I should go with him?' + +'It--seems so, love,' said Little Dorrit. + +'Therefore, having heard the arrangements that are feasible to +carry out that object, am I to understand, dearest Amy, that on the +whole you advise me to make them?' + +'It--seems so, love,' said Little Dorrit again. + +'Very well,' cried Fanny with an air of resignation, 'then I +suppose it must be done! I came to you, my sweet, the moment I saw +the doubt, and the necessity of deciding. I have now decided. So +let it be.' + +After yielding herself up, in this pattern manner, to sisterly +advice and the force of circumstances, Fanny became quite +benignant: as one who had laid her own inclinations at the feet of +her dearest friend, and felt a glow of conscience in having made +the sacrifice. 'After all, my Amy,' she said to her sister, 'you +are the best of small creatures, and full of good sense; and I +don't know what I shall ever do without you!' + +With which words she folded her in a closer embrace, and a really +fond one. + +'Not that I contemplate doing without You, Amy, by any means, for +I hope we shall ever be next to inseparable. And now, my pet, I am +going to give you a word of advice. When you are left alone here +with Mrs General--' + +'I am to be left alone here with Mrs General?' said Little Dorrit, +quietly. + +'Why, of course, my precious, till papa comes back! Unless you +call Edward company, which he certainly is not, even when he is +here, and still more certainly is not when he is away at Naples or +in Sicily. I was going to say--but you are such a beloved little +Marplot for putting one out--when you are left alone here with Mrs +General, Amy, don't you let her slide into any sort of artful +understanding with you that she is looking after Pa, or that Pa is +looking after her. She will if she can. I know her sly manner of +feeling her way with those gloves of hers. But don't you +comprehend her on any account. And if Pa should tell you when he +comes back, that he has it in contemplation to make Mrs General +your mama (which is not the less likely because I am going away), +my advice to you is, that you say at once," Papa, I beg to object +most strongly. Fanny cautioned me about this, and she objected, +and I object." I don't mean to say that any objection from you, +Amy, is likely to be of the smallest effect, or that I think you +likely to make it with any degree of firmness. But there is a +principle involved--a filial principle--and I implore you not to +submit to be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General, without asserting it +in making every one about you as uncomfortable as possible. I +don't expect you to stand by it--indeed, I know you won't, Pa being +concerned--but I wish to rouse you to a sense of duty. As to any +help from me, or as to any opposition that I can offer to such a +match, you shall not be left in the lurch , my love. Whatever +weight I may derive from my position as a married girl not wholly +devoid of attractions--used, as that position always shall be, to +oppose that woman--I will bring to bear, you May depend upon it, on +the head and false hair (for I am confident it's not all real, ugly +as it is and unlikely as it appears that any One in their Senses +would go to the expense of buying it) of Mrs General!' +Little Dorrit received this counsel without venturing to oppose it +but without giving Fanny any reason to believe that she intended to +act upon it. Having now, as it were, formally wound up her single +life and arranged her worldly affairs, Fanny proceeded with +characteristic ardour to prepare for the serious change in her +condition. + +The preparation consisted in the despatch of her maid to Paris +under the protection of the Courier, for the purchase of that +outfit for a bride on which it would be extremely low, in the +present narrative, to bestow an English name, but to which (on a +vulgar principle it observes of adhering to the language in which +it professes to be written) it declines to give a French one. The +rich and beautiful wardrobe purchased by these agents, in the +course of a few weeks made its way through the intervening country, +bristling with custom-houses, garrisoned by an immense army of +shabby mendicants in uniform who incessantly repeated the Beggar's +Petition over it, as if every individual warrior among them were +the ancient Belisarius: and of whom there were so many Legions, +that unless the Courier had expended just one bushel and a half of +silver money relieving their distresses, they would have worn the +wardrobe out before it got to Rome, by turning it over and over. +Through all such dangers, however, it was triumphantly brought, +inch by inch, and arrived at its journey's end in fine condition. + +There it was exhibited to select companies of female viewers, in +whose gentle bosoms it awakened implacable feelings. Concurrently, +active preparations were made for the day on which some of its +treasures were to be publicly displayed. Cards of breakfast- +invitation were sent out to half the English in the city of +Romulus; the other half made arrangements to be under arms, as +criticising volunteers, at various outer points of the solemnity. +The most high and illustrious English Signor Edgardo Dorrit, came +post through the deep mud and ruts (from forming a surface under +the improving Neapolitan nobility), to grace the occasion. The +best hotel and all its culinary myrmidons, were set to work to +prepare the feast. The drafts of Mr Dorrit almost constituted a +run on the Torlonia Bank. The British Consul hadn't had such a +marriage in the whole of his Consularity. + +The day came, and the She-Wolf in the Capitol might have snarled +with envy to see how the Island Savages contrived these things now- +a-days. The murderous-headed statues of the wicked Emperors of the +Soldiery, whom sculptors had not been able to flatter out of their +villainous hideousness, might have come off their pedestals to run +away with the Bride. The choked old fountain, where erst the +gladiators washed, might have leaped into life again to honour the +ceremony. The Temple of Vesta might have sprung up anew from its +ruins, expressly to lend its countenance to the occasion. Might +have done; but did not. Like sentient things--even like the lords +and ladies of creation sometimes--might have done much, but did +nothing. The celebration went off with admirable pomp; monks in +black robes, white robes, and russet robes stopped to look after +the carriages; wandering peasants in fleeces of sheep, begged and +piped under the house-windows; the English volunteers defiled; the +day wore on to the hour of vespers; the festival wore away; the +thousand churches rang their bells without any reference to it; and +St Peter denied that he had anything to do with it. + +But by that time the Bride was near the end of the first day's +journey towards Florence. It was the peculiarity of the nuptials +that they were all Bride. Nobody noticed the Bridegroom. Nobody +noticed the first Bridesmaid. Few could have seen Little Dorrit +(who held that post) for the glare, even supposing many to have +sought her. So, the Bride had mounted into her handsome chariot, +incidentally accompanied by the Bridegroom; and after rolling for +a few minutes smoothly over a fair pavement, had begun to jolt +through a Slough of Despond, and through a long, long avenue of +wrack and ruin. Other nuptial carriages are said to have gone the +same road, before and since. + +If Little Dorrit found herself left a little lonely and a little +low that night, nothing would have done so much against her feeling +of depression as the being able to sit at work by her father, as in +the old time, and help him to his supper and his rest. But that +was not to be thought of now, when they sat in the state-equipage +with Mrs General on the coach-box. And as to supper! If Mr Dorrit +had wanted supper, there was an Italian cook and there was a Swiss +confectioner, who must have put on caps as high as the Pope's +Mitre, and have performed the mysteries of Alchemists in a copper- +saucepaned laboratory below, before he could have got it. + +He was sententious and didactic that night. If he had been simply +loving, he would have done Little Dorrit more good; but she +accepted him as he was--when had she not accepted him as he was !-- +and made the most and best of him. Mrs General at length retired. +Her retirement for the night was always her frostiest ceremony, as +if she felt it necessary that the human imagination should be +chilled into stone to prevent its following her. When she had gone +through her rigid preliminaries, amounting to a sort of genteel +platoon-exercise, she withdrew. Little Dorrit then put her arm +round her father's neck, to bid him good night. + +'Amy, my dear,' said Mr Dorrit, taking her by the hand, 'this is +the close of a day, that has--ha--greatly impressed and gratified +me.' +'A little tired you, dear, too?' + +'No,' said Mr Dorrit, 'no: I am not sensible of fatigue when it +arises from an occasion so--hum--replete with gratification of the +purest kind.' + +Little Dorrit was glad to find him in such heart, and smiled from +her own heart. + +'My dear,' he continued, 'this is an occasion--ha--teeming with a +good example. With a good example, my favourite and attached child +--hum--to you.' + +Little Dorrit, fluttered by his words, did not know what to say, +though he stopped as if he expected her to say something. + +'Amy,' he resumed; 'your dear sister, our Fanny, has contracted ha +hum--a marriage, eminently calculated to extend the basis of our-- +ha--connection, and to--hum--consolidate our social relations. My +love, I trust that the time is not far distant when some--ha-- +eligible partner may be found for you.' + +'Oh no! Let me stay with you. I beg and pray that I may stay with +you! I want nothing but to stay and take care of you!' She said +it like one in sudden alarm. + +'Nay, Amy, Amy,' said Mr Dorrit. 'This is weak and foolish, weak +and foolish. You have a--ha--responsibility imposed upon you by +your position. It is to develop that position, and be--hum -- +worthy of that position. As to taking care of me; I can--ha--take +care of myself. Or,' he added after a moment, 'if I should need to +be taken care of, I--hum--can, with the--ha--blessing of +Providence, be taken care of, I--ha hum--I cannot, my dear child, +think of engrossing, and--ha--as it were, sacrificing you.' + +O what a time of day at which to begin that profession of self- +denial; at which to make it, with an air of taking credit for it; +at which to believe it, if such a thing could be! + +'Don't speak, Amy. I positively say I cannot do it. I--ha--must +not do it. My--hum--conscience would not allow it. I therefore, +my love, take the opportunity afforded by this gratifying and +impressive occasion of--ha--solemnly remarking, that it is now a +cherished wish and purpose of mine to see you--ha--eligibly (I +repeat eligibly) married.' + +'Oh no, dear! Pray!' + +'Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I am well persuaded that if the topic were +referred to any person of superior social knowledge, of superior +delicacy and sense--let us say, for instance, to--ha--Mrs General-- +that there would not be two opinions as to the--hum--affectionate +character and propriety of my sentiments. But, as I know your +loving and dutiful nature from--hum--from experience, I am quite +satisfied that it is necessary to say no more. I have--hum--no +husband to propose at present, my dear: I have not even one in +view. I merely wish that we should--ha--understand each other. +Hum. Good night, my dear and sole remaining daughter. Good night. + +God bless you!' + +If the thought ever entered Little Dorrit's head that night, that +he could give her up lightly now in his prosperity, and when he had +it in his mind to replace her with a second wife, she drove it +away. Faithful to him still, as in the worst times through which +she had borne him single-handed, she drove the thought away; and +entertained no harder reflection, in her tearful unrest, than that +he now saw everything through their wealth, and through the care he +always had upon him that they should continue rich, and grow +richer. + +They sat in their equipage of state, with Mrs General on the box, +for three weeks longer, and then he started for Florence to join +Fanny. Little Dorrit would have been glad to bear him company so +far, only for the sake of her own love, and then to have turned +back alone, thinking of dear England. But, though the Courier had +gone on with the Bride, the Valet was next in the line; and the +succession would not have come to her, as long as any one could be +got for money. + +Mrs General took life easily--as easily, that is, as she could take +anything--when the Roman establishment remained in their sole +occupation; and Little Dorrit would often ride out in a hired +carriage that was left them, and alight alone and wander among the +ruins of old Rome. The ruins of the vast old Amphitheatre, of the +old Temples, of the old commemorative Arches, of the old trodden +highways, of the old tombs, besides being what they were, to her +were ruins of the old Marshalsea--ruins of her own old life--ruins +of the faces and forms that of old peopled it--ruins of its loves, +hopes, cares, and joys. Two ruined spheres of action and suffering +were before the solitary girl often sitting on some broken +fragment; and in the lonely places, under the blue sky, she saw +them both together. + +Up, then, would come Mrs General; taking all the colour out of +everything, as Nature and Art had taken it out of herself; writing +Prunes and Prism, in Mr Eustace's text, wherever she could lay a +hand; looking everywhere for Mr Eustace and company, and seeing +nothing else; scratching up the driest little bones of antiquity, +and bolting them whole without any human visitings--like a Ghoule +in gloves. + + + + +CHAPTER 16 + +Getting on + +The newly married pair, on their arrival in Harley Street, +Cavendish Square, London, were received by the Chief Butler. That +great man was not interested in them, but on the whole endured +them. People must continue to be married and given in marriage, or +Chief Butlers would not be wanted. As nations are made to be +taxed, so families are made to be butlered. The Chief Butler, no +doubt, reflected that the course of nature required the wealthy +population to be kept up, on his account. + +He therefore condescended to look at the carriage from the Hall- +door without frowning at it, and said, in a very handsome way, to +one of his men, 'Thomas, help with the luggage.' He even escorted +the Bride up-stairs into Mr Merdle's presence; but this must be +considered as an act of homage to the sex (of which he was an +admirer, being notoriously captivated by the charms of a certain +Duchess), and not as a committal of himself with the family. + +Mr Merdle was slinking about the hearthrug, waiting to welcome Mrs +Sparkler. His hand seemed to retreat up his sleeve as he advanced +to do so, and he gave her such a superfluity of coat-cuff that it +was like being received by the popular conception of Guy Fawkes. +When he put his lips to hers, besides, he took himself into custody +by the wrists, and backed himself among the ottomans and chairs and +tables as if he were his own Police officer, saying to himself, +'Now, none of that! Come! I've got you, you know, and you go +quietly along with me!' + +Mrs Sparkler, installed in the rooms of state--the innermost +sanctuary of down, silk, chintz, and fine linen--felt that so far +her triumph was good, and her way made, step by step. On the day +before her marriage, she had bestowed on Mrs Merdle's maid with an +air of gracious indifference, in Mrs Merdle's presence, a trifling +little keepsake (bracelet, bonnet, and two dresses, all new) about +four times as valuable as the present formerly made by Mrs Merdle +to her. She was now established in Mrs Merdle's own rooms, to +which some extra touches had been given to render them more worthy +of her occupation. In her mind's eye, as she lounged there, +surrounded by every luxurious accessory that wealth could obtain or +invention devise, she saw the fair bosom that beat in unison with +the exultation of her thoughts, competing with the bosom that had +been famous so long, outshining it, and deposing it. Happy? Fanny +must have been happy. No more wishing one's self dead now. + +The Courier had not approved of Mr Dorrit's staying in the house of +a friend, and had preferred to take him to an hotel in Brook +Street, Grosvenor Square. Mr Merdle ordered his carriage to be +ready early in the morning that he might wait upon Mr Dorrit +immediately after breakfast. +Bright the carriage looked, sleek the horses looked, gleaming the +harness looked, luscious and lasting the liveries looked. A rich, +responsible turn-out. An equipage for a Merdle. Early people +looked after it as it rattled along the streets, and said, with awe +in their breath, 'There he goes!' + +There he went, until Brook Street stopped him. Then, forth from +its magnificent case came the jewel; not lustrous in itself, but +quite the contrary. + +Commotion in the office of the hotel. Merdle! The landlord, +though a gentleman of a haughty spirit who had just driven a pair +of thorough-bred horses into town, turned out to show him up- +stairs. The clerks and servants cut him off by back-passages, and +were found accidentally hovering in doorways and angles, that they +might look upon him. Merdle! O ye sun, moon, and stars, the great +man! The rich man, who had in a manner revised the New Testament, +and already entered into the kingdom of Heaven. The man who could +have any one he chose to dine with him, and who had made the money! + +As he went up the stairs, people were already posted on the lower +stairs, that his shadow might fall upon them when he came down. So +were the sick brought out and laid in the track of the Apostle--who +had NOT got into the good society, and had NOT made the money. + +Mr Dorrit, dressing-gowned and newspapered, was at his breakfast. +The Courier, with agitation in his voice, announced 'Miss +Mairdale!' Mr Dorrit's overwrought heart bounded as he leaped up. + +'Mr Merdle, this is--ha--indeed an honour. Permit me to express +the--hum--sense, the high sense, I entertain of this--ha hum-- +highly gratifying act of attention. I am well aware, sir, of the +many demands upon your time, and its--ha--enormous value,' Mr +Dorrit could not say enormous roundly enough for his own +satisfaction. 'That you should--ha--at this early hour, bestow any +of your priceless time upon me, is--ha--a compliment that I +acknowledge with the greatest esteem.' Mr Dorrit positively +trembled in addressing the great man. + +Mr Merdle uttered, in his subdued, inward, hesitating voice, a few +sounds that were to no purpose whatever; and finally said, 'I am +glad to see you, sir.' + +'You are very kind,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Truly kind.' By this time +the visitor was seated, and was passing his great hand over his +exhausted forehead. 'You are well, I hope, Mr Merdle?' + +'I am as well as I--yes, I am as well as I usually am,' said Mr +Merdle. + +'Your occupations must be immense.' + +'Tolerably so. But--Oh dear no, there's not much the matter with +me,' said Mr Merdle, looking round the room. + +'A little dyspeptic?' Mr Dorrit hinted. + +'Very likely. But I--Oh, I am well enough,' said Mr Merdle. + +There were black traces on his lips where they met, as if a little +train of gunpowder had been fired there; and he looked like a man +who, if his natural temperament had been quicker, would have been +very feverish that morning. This, and his heavy way of passing his +hand over his forehead, had prompted Mr Dorrit's solicitous +inquiries. + +'Mrs Merdle,' Mr Dorrit insinuatingly pursued, 'I left, as you will +be prepared to hear, the--ha--observed of all observers, the--hum-- +admired of all admirers, the leading fascination and charm of +Society in Rome. She was looking wonderfully well when I quitted +it.' + +'Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle, 'is generally considered a very +attractive woman. And she is, no doubt. I am sensible of her +being SO.' + +'Who can be otherwise?' responded Mr Dorrit. + +Mr Merdle turned his tongue in his closed mouth--it seemed rather +a stiff and unmanageable tongue--moistened his lips, passed his +hand over his forehead again, and looked all round the room again, +principally under the chairs. + +'But,' he said, looking Mr Dorrit in the face for the first time, +and immediately afterwards dropping his eyes to the buttons of Mr +Dorrit's waistcoat; 'if we speak of attractions, your daughter +ought to be the subject of our conversation. She is extremely +beautiful. Both in face and figure, she is quite uncommon. When +the young people arrived last night, I was really surprised to see +such charms.' + +Mr Dorrit's gratification was such that he said--ha--he could not +refrain from telling Mr Merdle verbally, as he had already done by +letter, what honour and happiness he felt in this union of their +families. And he offered his hand. Mr Merdle looked at the hand +for a little while, took it on his for a moment as if his were a +yellow salver or fish-slice, and then returned it to Mr Dorrit. + +'I thought I would drive round the first thing,' said Mr Merdle, +'to offer my services, in case I can do anything for you; and to +say that I hope you will at least do me the honour of dining with +me to-day, and every day when you are not better engaged during +your stay in town.' + +Mr Dorrit was enraptured by these attentions. + +'Do you stay long, sir?' + +'I have not at present the intention,' said Mr Dorrit, 'of --ha-- +exceeding a fortnight.' + +'That's a very short stay, after so long a journey,' returned Mr +Merdle. + +'Hum. Yes,' said Mr Dorrit. 'But the truth is--ha--my dear Mr +Merdle, that I find a foreign life so well suited to my health and +taste, that I--hum--have but two objects in my present visit to +London. First, the--ha--the distinguished happiness and--ha -- +privilege which I now enjoy and appreciate; secondly, the +arrangement--hum--the laying out, that is to say, in the best way, +of--ha, hum--my money.' + +'Well, sir,' said Mr Merdle, after turning his tongue again, 'if I +can be of any use to you in that respect, you may command me.' + +Mr Dorrit's speech had had more hesitation in it than usual, as he +approached the ticklish topic, for he was not perfectly clear how +so exalted a potentate might take it. He had doubts whether +reference to any individual capital, or fortune, might not seem a +wretchedly retail affair to so wholesale a dealer. Greatly +relieved by Mr Merdle's affable offer of assistance, he caught at +it directly, and heaped acknowledgments upon him. + +'I scarcely--ha--dared,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I assure you, to hope for +so--hum--vast an advantage as your direct advice and assistance. +Though of course I should, under any circumstances, like the--ha, +hum--rest of the civilised world, have followed in Mr Merdle's +train.' + +'You know we may almost say we are related, sir,' said Mr Merdle, +curiously interested in the pattern of the carpet, 'and, therefore, +you may consider me at your service.' + +'Ha. Very handsome, indeed!' cried Mr Dorrit. 'Ha. Most +handsome!' + +'it would not,' said Mr Merdle, 'be at the present moment easy for +what I may call a mere outsider to come into any of the good +things--of course I speak of my own good things--' + +'Of course, of course!' cried Mr Dorrit, in a tone implying that +there were no other good things. + +'--Unless at a high price. At what we are accustomed to term a +very long figure.' + +Mr Dorrit laughed in the buoyancy of his spirit. Ha, ha, ha! Long +figure. Good. Ha. Very expressive to be sure! + +'However,' said Mr Merdle, 'I do generally retain in my own hands +the power of exercising some preference--people in general would be +pleased to call it favour--as a sort of compliment for my care and +trouble.' +'And public spirit and genius,' Mr Dorrit suggested. + +Mr Merdle, with a dry, swallowing action, seemed to dispose of +those qualities like a bolus; then added, 'As a sort of return for +it. I will see, if you please, how I can exert this limited power +(for people are jealous, and it is limited), to your advantage.' +'You are very good,' replied Mr Dorrit. 'You are very good.' + +'Of course,' said Mr Merdle, 'there must be the strictest integrity +and uprightness in these transactions; there must be the purest +faith between man and man; there must be unimpeached and +unimpeachable confidence; or business could not be carried on.' + +Mr Dorrit hailed these generous sentiments with fervour. + +'Therefore,' said Mr Merdle, 'I can only give you a preference to +a certain extent.' + +'I perceive. To a defined extent,' observed Mr Dorrit. + +'Defined extent. And perfectly above-board. As to my advice, +however,' said Mr Merdle, 'that is another matter. That, such as +it is--' + +Oh! Such as it was! (Mr Dorrit could not bear the faintest +appearance of its being depreciated, even by Mr Merdle himself.) + +'--That, there is nothing in the bonds of spotless honour between +myself and my fellow-man to prevent my parting with, if I choose. +And that,' said Mr Merdle, now deeply intent upon a dust-cart that +was passing the windows, 'shall be at your command whenever you +think proper.' + +New acknowledgments from Mr Dorrit. New passages of Mr Merdle's +hand over his forehead. Calm and silence. Contemplation of Mr +Dorrit's waistcoat buttons by Mr Merdle. + +'My time being rather precious,' said Mr Merdle, suddenly getting +up, as if he had been waiting in the interval for his legs and they +had just come, 'I must be moving towards the City. Can I take you +anywhere, sir? I shall be happy to set you down, or send you on. +My carriage is at your disposal.' + +Mr Dorrit bethought himself that he had business at his banker's. +His banker's was in the City. That was fortunate; Mr Merdle would +take him into the City. But, surely, he might not detain Mr Merdle +while he assumed his coat? Yes, he might and must; Mr Merdle +insisted on it. So Mr Dorrit, retiring into the next room, put +himself under the hands of his valet, and in five minutes came back +glorious. + +Then said Mr Merdle, 'Allow me, sir. Take my arm!' Then leaning +on Mr Merdle's arm, did Mr Dorrit descend the staircase, seeing the +worshippers on the steps, and feeling that the light of Mr Merdle +shone by reflection in himself. Then the carriage, and the ride +into the City; and the people who looked at them; and the hats that +flew off grey heads; and the general bowing and crouching before +this wonderful mortal the like of which prostration of spirit was +not to be seen--no, by high Heaven, no! It may be worth thinking +of by Fawners of all denominations--in Westminster Abbey and Saint +Paul's Cathedral put together, on any Sunday in the year. It was +a rapturous dream to Mr Dorrit to find himself set aloft in this +public car of triumph, making a magnificent progress to that +befitting destination, the golden Street of the Lombards. + +There Mr Merdle insisted on alighting and going his way a-foot, and +leaving his poor equipage at Mr Dorrit's disposition. So the dream +increased in rapture when Mr Dorrit came out of the bank alone, and +people looked at him in default of Mr Merdle, and when, with the +ears of his mind, he heard the frequent exclamation as he rolled +glibly along, 'A wonderful man to be Mr Merdle's friend!' + +At dinner that day, although the occasion was not foreseen and +provided for, a brilliant company of such as are not made of the +dust of the earth, but of some superior article for the present +unknown, shed their lustrous benediction upon Mr Dorrit's +daughter's marriage. And Mr Dorrit's daughter that day began, in +earnest, her competition with that woman not present; and began it +so well that Mr Dorrit could all but have taken his affidavit, if +required, that Mrs Sparkler had all her life been lying at full +length in the lap of luxury, and had never heard of such a rough +word in the English tongue as Marshalsea. + +Next day, and the day after, and every day, all graced by more +dinner company, cards descended on Mr Dorrit like theatrical snow. +As the friend and relative by marriage of the illustrious Merdle, +Bar, Bishop, Treasury, Chorus, Everybody, wanted to make or improve +Mr Dorrit's acquaintance. In Mr Merdle's heap of offices in the +City, when Mr Dorrit appeared at any of them on his business taking +him Eastward (which it frequently did, for it throve amazingly), +the name of Dorrit was always a passport to the great presence of +Merdle. So the dream increased in rapture every hour, as Mr Dorrit +felt increasingly sensible that this connection had brought him +forward indeed. + +Only one thing sat otherwise than auriferously, and at the same +time lightly, on Mr Dorrit's mind. It was the Chief Butler. That +stupendous character looked at him, in the course of his official +looking at the dinners, in a manner that Mr Dorrit considered +questionable. He looked at him, as he passed through the hall and +up the staircase, going to dinner, with a glazed fixedness that Mr +Dorrit did not like. Seated at table in the act of drinking, Mr +Dorrit still saw him through his wine-glass, regarding him with a +cold and ghostly eye. It misgave him that the Chief Butler must +have known a Collegian, and must have seen him in the College-- +perhaps had been presented to him. He looked as closely at the +Chief Butler as such a man could be looked at, and yet he did not +recall that he had ever seen him elsewhere. Ultimately he was +inclined to think that there was no reverence in the man, no +sentiment in the great creature. But he was not relieved by that; +for, let him think what he would, the Chief Butler had him in his +supercilious eye, even when that eye was on the plate and other +table-garniture; and he never let him out of it. To hint to him +that this confinement in his eye was disagreeable, or to ask him +what he meant, was an act too daring to venture upon; his severity +with his employers and their visitors being terrific, and he never +permitting himself to be approached with the slightest liberty. + + + + +CHAPTER 17 + +Missing + + +The term of Mr Dorrit's visit was within two days of being out, and +he was about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler +(whose victims were always dressed expressly for him), when one of +the servants of the hotel presented himself bearing a card. Mr +Dorrit, taking it, read: + + +'Mrs Finching.' + + +The servant waited in speechless deference. + +'Man, man,' said Mr Dorrit, turning upon him with grievous +indignation, 'explain your motive in bringing me this ridiculous +name. I am wholly unacquainted with it. Finching, sir?' said Mr +Dorrit, perhaps avenging himself on the Chief Butler by Substitute. + +'ha! What do you mean by Finching?' + +The man, man, seemed to mean Flinching as much as anything else, +for he backed away from Mr Dorrit's severe regard, as he replied, +'A lady, sir.' + +'I know no such lady, sir,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Take this card away. +I know no Finching of either sex.' + +'Ask your pardon, sir. The lady said she was aware she might be +unknown by name. But she begged me to say, sir, that she had +formerly the honour of being acquainted with Miss Dorrit. The lady +said, sir, the youngest Miss Dorrit.' + +Mr Dorrit knitted his brows and rejoined, after a moment or two, +'Inform Mrs Finching, sir,' emphasising the name as if the innocent +man were solely responsible for it, 'that she can come up.' + +He had reflected, in his momentary pause, that unless she were +admitted she might leave some message, or might say something +below, having a disgraceful reference to that former state of +existence. Hence the concession, and hence the appearance of +Flora, piloted in by the man, man. + +'I have not the pleasure,' said Mr Dorrit, standing with the card +in his hand, and with an air which imported that it would scarcely +have been a first-class pleasure if he had had it, 'of knowing +either this name, or yourself, madam. Place a chair, sir.' The +responsible man, with a start, obeyed, and went out on tiptoe. +Flora, putting aside her veil with a bashful tremor upon her, +proceeded to introduce herself. At the same time a singular +combination of perfumes was diffused through the room, as if some +brandy had been put by mistake in a lavender-water bottle, or as if +some lavender-water had been put by mistake in a brandy-bottle. + +'I beg Mr Dorrit to offer a thousand apologies and indeed they +would be far too few for such an intrusion which I know must appear +extremely bold in a lady and alone too, but I thought it best upon +the whole however difficult and even apparently improper though Mr +F.'s Aunt would have willingly accompanied me and as a character of +great force and spirit would probably have struck one possessed of +such a knowledge of life as no doubt with so many changes must have +been acquired, for Mr F. himself said frequently that although well +educated in the neighbourhood of Blackheath at as high as eighty +guineas which is a good deal for parents and the plate kept back +too on going away but that is more a meanness than its value that +he had learnt more in his first years as a commercial traveller +with a large commission on the sale of an article that nobody would +hear of much less buy which preceded the wine trade a long time +than in the whole six years in that academy conducted by a college +Bachelor, though why a Bachelor more clever than a married man I do +not see and never did but pray excuse me that is not the point.' + +Mr Dorrit stood rooted to the carpet, a statue of mystification. + +'I must openly admit that I have no pretensions,' said Flora, 'but +having known the dear little thing which under altered +circumstances appears a liberty but is not so intended and Goodness +knows there was no favour in half-a-crown a-day to such a needle as +herself but quite the other way and as to anything lowering in it +far from it the labourer is worthy of his hire and I am sure I only +wish he got it oftener and more animal food and less rheumatism in +the back and legs poor soul.' + +'Madam,' said Mr Dorrit, recovering his breath by a great effort, +as the relict of the late Mr Finching stopped to take hers; +'madam,' said Mr Dorrit, very red in the face, 'if I understand you +to refer to--ha--to anything in the antecedents of--hum--a daughter +of mine, involving--ha hum--daily compensation, madam, I beg to +observe that the--ha--fact, assuming it--ha--to be fact, never was +within my knowledge. Hum. I should not have permitted it. Ha. +Never! Never!' + +'Unnecessary to pursue the subject,' returned Flora, 'and would not +have mentioned it on any account except as supposing it a +favourable and only letter of introduction but as to being fact no +doubt whatever and you may set your mind at rest for the very dress +I have on now can prove it and sweetly made though there is no +denying that it would tell better on a better figure for my own is +much too fat though how to bring it down I know not, pray excuse me +I am roving off again.' +Mr Dorrit backed to his chair in a stony way, and seated himself, +as Flora gave him a softening look and played with her parasol. + +'The dear little thing,' said Flora, 'having gone off perfectly +limp and white and cold in my own house or at least papa's for +though not a freehold still a long lease at a peppercorn on the +morning when Arthur--foolish habit of our youthful days and Mr +Clennam far more adapted to existing circumstances particularly +addressing a stranger and that stranger a gentleman in an elevated +station--communicated the glad tidings imparted by a person of name +of Pancks emboldens me.' + +At the mention of these two names, Mr Dorrit frowned, stared, +frowned again, hesitated with his fingers at his lips, as he had +hesitated long ago, and said, 'Do me the favour to--ha--state your +pleasure, madam.' + +'Mr Dorrit,' said Flora, 'you are very kind in giving me permission +and highly natural it seems to me that you should be kind for +though more stately I perceive a likeness filled out of course but +a likeness still, the object of my intruding is my own without the +slightest consultation with any human being and most decidedly not +with Arthur--pray excuse me Doyce and Clennam I don't know what I +am saying Mr Clennam solus--for to put that individual linked by a +golden chain to a purple time when all was ethereal out of any +anxiety would be worth to me the ransom of a monarch not that I +have the least idea how much that would come to but using it as the +total of all I have in the world and more.' + +Mr Dorrit, without greatly regarding the earnestness of these +latter words, repeated, 'State your pleasure, madam.' + +'It's not likely I well know,' said Flora, 'but it's possible and +being possible when I had the gratification of reading in the +papers that you had arrived from Italy and were going back I made +up my mind to try it for you might come across him or hear +something of him and if so what a blessing and relief to all!' + +'Allow me to ask, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, with his ideas in wild +confusion, 'to whom--ha--To whom,' he repeated it with a raised +voice in mere desperation, 'you at present allude?' + +'To the foreigner from Italy who disappeared in the City as no +doubt you have read in the papers equally with myself,' said Flora, +'not referring to private sources by the name of Pancks from which +one gathers what dreadfully ill-natured things some people are +wicked enough to whisper most likely judging others by themselves +and what the uneasiness and indignation of Arthur--quite unable to +overcome it Doyce and Clennam--cannot fail to be.' + +It happened, fortunately for the elucidation of any intelligible +result, that Mr Dorrit had heard or read nothing about the matter. +This caused Mrs Finching, with many apologies for being in great +practical difficulties as to finding the way to her pocket among +the stripes of her dress at length to produce a police handbill, +setting forth that a foreign gentleman of the name of Blandois, +last from Venice, had unaccountably disappeared on such a night in +such a part of the city of London; that he was known to have +entered such a house, at such an hour; that he was stated by the +inmates of that house to have left it, about so many minutes before +midnight; and that he had never been beheld since. This, with +exact particulars of time and locality, and with a good detailed +description of the foreign gentleman who had so mysteriously +vanished, Mr Dorrit read at large. + +'Blandois!' said Mr Dorrit. 'Venice! And this description! I +know this gentleman. He has been in my house. He is intimately +acquainted with a gentleman of good family (but in indifferent +circumstances), of whom I am a--hum--patron.' + +'Then my humble and pressing entreaty is the more,' said Flora, +'that in travelling back you will have the kindness to look for +this foreign gentleman along all the roads and up and down all the +turnings and to make inquiries for him at all the hotels and +orange-trees and vineyards and volcanoes and places for he must be +somewhere and why doesn't he come forward and say he's there and +clear all parties up?' + +'Pray, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, referring to the handbill again, +'who is Clennam and Co.? Ha. I see the name mentioned here, in +connection with the occupation of the house which Monsieur Blandois +was seen to enter: who is Clennam and Co.? Is it the individual of +whom I had formerly--hum--some--ha--slight transitory knowledge, +and to whom I believe you have referred? Is it--ha--that person?' + +'It's a very different person indeed,' replied Flora, 'with no +limbs and wheels instead and the grimmest of women though his +mother.' + +'Clennam and Co. a--hum--a mother!' exclaimed Mr Dorrit. + +'And an old man besides,' said Flora. + +Mr Dorrit looked as if he must immediately be driven out of his +mind by this account. Neither was it rendered more favourable to +sanity by Flora's dashing into a rapid analysis of Mr Flintwinch's +cravat, and describing him, without the lightest boundary line of +separation between his identity and Mrs Clennam's, as a rusty screw +in gaiters. Which compound of man and woman, no limbs, wheels, +rusty screw, grimness, and gaiters, so completely stupefied Mr +Dorrit, that he was a spectacle to be pitied. +'But I would not detain you one moment longer,' said Flora, upon +whom his condition wrought its effect, though she was quite +unconscious of having produced it, 'if you would have the goodness +to give your promise as a gentleman that both in going back to +Italy and in Italy too you would look for this Mr Blandois high and +low and if you found or heard of him make him come forward for the +clearing of all parties.' +By that time Mr Dorrit had so far recovered from his bewilderment, +as to be able to say, in a tolerably connected manner, that he +should consider that his duty. Flora was delighted with her +success, and rose to take her leave. + +'With a million thanks,' said she, 'and my address upon my card in +case of anything to be communicated personally, I will not send my +love to the dear little thing for it might not be acceptable, and +indeed there is no dear little thing left in the transformation so +why do it but both myself and Mr F.'s Aunt ever wish her well and +lay no claim to any favour on our side you may be sure of that but +quite the other way for what she undertook to do she did and that +is more than a great many of us do, not to say anything of her +doing it as Well as it could be done and I myself am one of them +for I have said ever since I began to recover the blow of Mr F's +death that I would learn the Organ of which I am extremely fond but +of which I am ashamed to say I do not yet know a note, good +evening!' + +When Mr Dorrit, who attended her to the room-door, had had a little +time to collect his senses, he found that the interview had +summoned back discarded reminiscences which jarred with the Merdle +dinner-table. He wrote and sent off a brief note excusing himself +for that day, and ordered dinner presently in his own rooms at the +hotel. He had another reason for this. His time in London was +very nearly out, and was anticipated by engagements; his plans were +made for returning; and he thought it behoved his importance to +pursue some direct inquiry into the Blandois disappearance, and be +in a condition to carry back to Mr Henry Gowan the result of his +own personal investigation. He therefore resolved that he would +take advantage of that evening's freedom to go down to Clennam and +Co.'s, easily to be found by the direction set forth in the +handbill; and see the place, and ask a question or two there +himself. + +Having dined as plainly as the establishment and the Courier would +let him, and having taken a short sleep by the fire for his better +recovery from Mrs Finching, he set out in a hackney-cabriolet +alone. The deep bell of St Paul's was striking nine as he passed +under the shadow of Temple Bar, headless and forlorn in these +degenerate days. + +As he approached his destination through the by-streets and water- +side ways, that part of London seemed to him an uglier spot at such +an hour than he had ever supposed it to be. Many long years had +passed since he had seen it; he had never known much of it; and it +wore a mysterious and dismal aspect in his eyes. So powerfully was +his imagination impressed by it, that when his driver stopped, +after having asked the way more than once, and said to the best of +his belief this was the gateway they wanted, Mr Dorrit stood +hesitating, with the coach-door in his hand, half afraid of the +dark look of the place. + +Truly, it looked as gloomy that night as even it had ever looked. +Two of the handbills were posted on the entrance wall, one on +either side, and as the lamp flickered in the night air, shadows +passed over them, not unlike the shadows of fingers following the +lines. A watch was evidently kept upon the place. As Mr Dorrit +paused, a man passed in from over the way, and another man passed +out from some dark corner within; and both looked at him in +passing, and both remained standing about. + +As there was only one house in the enclosure, there was no room for +uncertainty, so he went up the steps of that house and knocked. +There was a dim light in two windows on the first-floor. The door +gave back a dreary, vacant sound, as though the house were empty; +but it was not, for a light was visible, and a step was audible, +almost directly. They both came to the door, and a chain grated, +and a woman with her apron thrown over her face and head stood in +the aperture. + +'Who is it?' said the woman. + +Mr Dorrit, much amazed by this appearance, replied that he was from +Italy, and that he wished to ask a question relative to the missing +person, whom he knew. + +'Hi!' cried the woman, raising a cracked voice. 'Jeremiah!' + +Upon this, a dry old man appeared, whom Mr Dorrit thought he +identified by his gaiters, as the rusty screw. The woman was Under +apprehensions of the dry old man, for she whisked her apron away as +he approached, and disclosed a pale affrighted face. 'Open the +door, you fool,' said the old man; 'and let the gentleman in.' + +Mr Dorrit, not without a glance over his shoulder towards his +driver and the cabriolet, walked into the dim hall. 'Now, sir,' +said Mr Flintwinch, 'you can ask anything here you think proper; +there are no secrets here, sir.' + +Before a reply could be made, a strong stern voice, though a +woman's, called from above, 'Who is it?' + +'Who is it?' returned Jeremiah. 'More inquiries. A gentleman from +Italy.' + +'Bring him up here!' + +Mr Flintwinch muttered, as if he deemed that unnecessary; but, +turning to Mr Dorrit, said, 'Mrs Clennam. She will do as she +likes. I'll show you the way.' He then preceded Mr Dorrit up the +blackened staircase; that gentleman, not unnaturally looking behind +him on the road, saw the woman following, with her apron thrown +over her head again in her former ghastly manner. + +Mrs Clennam had her books open on her little table. 'Oh!' said she +abruptly, as she eyed her visitor with a steady look. 'You are +from Italy, sir, are you. Well?' +Mr Dorrit was at a loss for any more distinct rejoinder at the +moment than 'Ha--well?' + +'Where is this missing man? Have you come to give us information +where he is? I hope you have?' + +'So far from it, I--hum--have come to seek information.' +'Unfortunately for us, there is none to be got here. Flintwinch, +show the gentleman the handbill. Give him several to take away. +Hold the light for him to read it.' + +Mr Flintwinch did as he was directed, and Mr Dorrit read it +through, as if he had not previously seen it; glad enough of the +opportunity of collecting his presence of mind, which the air of +the house and of the people in it had a little disturbed. While +his eyes were on the paper, he felt that the eyes of Mr Flintwinch +and of Mrs Clennam were on him. He found, when he looked up, that +this sensation was not a fanciful one. + +'Now you know as much,' said Mrs Clennam, 'as we know, sir. Is Mr +Blandois a friend of yours?' + +'No--a--hum--an acquaintance,' answered Mr Dorrit. + +'You have no commission from him, perhaps?' + +'I? Ha. Certainly not.' + +The searching look turned gradually to the floor, after taking Mr +Flintwinch's face in its way. Mr Dorrit, discomfited by finding +that he was the questioned instead of the questioner, applied +himself to the reversal of that unexpected order of things. + +'I am--ha--a gentleman of property, at present residing in Italy +with my family, my servants, and--hum--my rather large +establishment. Being in London for a short time on affairs +connected with--ha--my estate, and hearing of this strange +disappearance, I wished to make myself acquainted with the +circumstances at first-hand, because there is--ha hum--an English +gentleman in Italy whom I shall no doubt see on my return, who has +been in habits of close and daily intimacy with Monsieur Blandois. +Mr Henry Gowan. You may know the name.' + +'Never heard of it.' +Mrs Clennam said it, and Mr Flintwinch echoed it. + +'Wishing to--ha--make the narrative coherent and consecutive to +him,' said Mr Dorrit, 'may I ask--say, three questions?' + +'Thirty, if you choose.' + +'Have you known Monsieur Blandois long?' + +'Not a twelvemonth. Mr Flintwinch here, will refer to the books +and tell you when, and by whom at Paris he was introduced to us. +If that,' Mrs Clennam added, 'should be any satisfaction to you. +It is poor satisfaction to us.' + +'Have you seen him often?' + +'No. Twice. Once before, and--' +'That once,' suggested Mr Flintwinch. + +'And that once.' + +'Pray, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, with a growing fancy upon him as he +recovered his importance, that he was in some superior way in the +Commission of the Peace; 'pray, madam, may I inquire, for the +greater satisfaction of the gentleman whom I have the honour to-- +ha--retain, or protect or let me say to--hum--know--to know--Was +Monsieur Blandois here on business on the night indicated in this +present sheet?' + +'On what he called business,' returned Mrs Clennam. + +'Is--ha--excuse me--is its nature to be communicated?' + +'No.' + +It was evidently impracticable to pass the barrier of that reply. + +'The question has been asked before,' said Mrs Clennam, 'and the +answer has been, No. We don't choose to publish our transactions, +however unimportant, to all the town. We say, No.' + +'I mean, he took away no money with him, for example,' said Mr +Dorrit. + +'He took away none of ours, sir, and got none here.' + +'I suppose,' observed Mr Dorrit, glancing from Mrs Clennam to Mr +Flintwinch, and from Mr Flintwinch to Mrs Clennam, 'you have no way +of accounting to yourself for this mystery?' + +'Why do you suppose so?' rejoined Mrs Clennam. + +Disconcerted by the cold and hard inquiry, Mr Dorrit was unable to +assign any reason for his supposing so. + +'I account for it, sir,' she pursued after an awkward silence on Mr +Dorrit's part, 'by having no doubt that he is travelling somewhere, +or hiding somewhere.' + +'Do you know--ha--why he should hide anywhere?' + +'No.' + +It was exactly the same No as before, and put another barrier up. +'You asked me if I accounted for the disappearance to myself,' Mrs +Clennam sternly reminded him, 'not if I accounted for it to you. +I do not pretend to account for it to you, sir. I understand it to +be no more my business to do that, than it is yours to require +that.' + +Mr Dorrit answered with an apologetic bend of his head. As he +stepped back, preparatory to saying he had no more to ask, he could +not but observe how gloomily and fixedly she sat with her eyes +fastened on the ground, and a certain air upon her of resolute +waiting; also, how exactly the self-same expression was reflected +in Mr Flintwinch, standing at a little distance from her chair, +with his eyes also on the ground, and his right hand softly rubbing +his chin. + +At that moment, Mistress Affery (of course, the woman with the +apron) dropped the candlestick she held, and cried out, 'There! O +good Lord! there it is again. Hark, Jeremiah! Now!' + +If there were any sound at all, it was so slight that she must have +fallen into a confirmed habit of listening for sounds; but Mr +Dorrit believed he did hear a something, like the falling of dry +leaves. The woman's terror, for a very short space, seemed to +touch the three; and they all listened. + +Mr Flintwinch was the first to stir. 'Affery, my woman,' said he, +sidling at her with his fists clenched, and his elbows quivering +with impatience to shake her, 'you are at your old tricks. You'll +be walking in your sleep next, my woman, and playing the whole +round of your distempered antics. You must have some physic. When +I have shown this gentleman out, I'll make you up such a +comfortable dose, my woman; such a comfortable dose!' + +It did not appear altogether comfortable in expectation to Mistress +Affery; but Jeremiah, without further reference to his healing +medicine, took another candle from Mrs Clennam's table, and said, +'Now, sir; shall I light you down?' + +Mr Dorrit professed himself obliged, and went down. Mr Flintwinch +shut him out, and chained him out, without a moment's loss of time. + +He was again passed by the two men, one going out and the other +coming in; got into the vehicle he had left waiting, and was driven +away. + +Before he had gone far, the driver stopped to let him know that he +had given his name, number, and address to the two men, on their +joint requisition; and also the address at which he had taken Mr +Dorrit up, the hour at which he had been called from his stand and +the way by which he had come. This did not make the night's +adventure run any less hotly in Mr Dorrit's mind, either when he +sat down by his fire again, or when he went to bed. All night he +haunted the dismal house, saw the two people resolutely waiting, +heard the woman with her apron over her face cry out about the +noise, and found the body of the missing Blandois, now buried in +the cellar, and now bricked up in a wall. + + + + +CHAPTER 18 + +A Castle in the Air + + +Manifold are the cares of wealth and state. Mr Dorrit's +satisfaction in remembering that it had not been necessary for him +to announce himself to Clennam and Co., or to make an allusion to +his having had any knowledge of the intrusive person of that name, +had been damped over-night, while it was still fresh, by a debate +that arose within him whether or no he should take the Marshalsea +in his way back, and look at the old gate. He had decided not to +do so; and had astonished the coachman by being very fierce with +him for proposing to go over London Bridge and recross the river by +Waterloo Bridge--a course which would have taken him almost within +sight of his old quarters. Still, for all that, the question had +raised a conflict in his breast; and, for some odd reason or no +reason, he was vaguely dissatisfied. Even at the Merdle dinner- +table next day, he was so out of sorts about it that he continued +at intervals to turn it over and over, in a manner frightfully +inconsistent with the good society surrounding him. It made him +hot to think what the Chief Butler's opinion of him would have +been, if that illustrious personage could have plumbed with that +heavy eye of his the stream of his meditations. + +The farewell banquet was of a gorgeous nature, and wound up his +visit in a most brilliant manner. Fanny combined with the +attractions of her youth and beauty, a certain weight of self- +sustainment as if she had been married twenty years. He felt that +he could leave her with a quiet mind to tread the paths of +distinction, and wished--but without abatement of patronage, and +without prejudice to the retiring virtues of his favourite child-- +that he had such another daughter. + +'My dear,' he told her at parting, 'our family looks to you +to--ha--assert its dignity and--hum--maintain its importance. I +know you will never disappoint it.' + +'No, papa,' said Fanny, 'you may rely upon that, I think. My best +love to dearest Amy, and I will write to her very soon.' + +'Shall I convey any message to--ha--anybody else?' asked Mr Dorrit, +in an insinuating manner. + +'Papa,' said Fanny, before whom Mrs General instantly loomed, 'no, +I thank you. You are very kind, Pa, but I must beg to be excused. +There is no other message to send, I thank you, dear papa, that it +would be at all agreeable to you to take.' + +They parted in an outer drawing-room, where only Mr Sparkler waited +on his lady, and dutifully bided his time for shaking hands. When +Mr Sparkler was admitted to this closing audience, Mr Merdle came +creeping in with not much more appearance of arms in his sleeves +than if he had been the twin brother of Miss Biffin, and insisted +on escorting Mr Dorrit down-stairs. All Mr Dorrit's protestations +being in vain, he enjoyed the honour of being accompanied to the +hall-door by this distinguished man, who (as Mr Dorrit told him in +shaking hands on the step) had really overwhelmed him with +attentions and services during this memorable visit. Thus they +parted; Mr Dorrit entering his carriage with a swelling breast, not +at all sorry that his Courier, who had come to take leave in the +lower regions, should have an opportunity of beholding the grandeur +of his departure. + +The aforesaid grandeur was yet full upon Mr Dorrit when he alighted +at his hotel. Helped out by the Courier and some half-dozen of the +hotel servants, he was passing through the hall with a serene +magnificence, when lo! a sight presented itself that struck him +dumb and motionless. John Chivery, in his best clothes, with his +tall hat under his arm, his ivory-handled cane genteelly +embarrassing his deportment, and a bundle of cigars in his hand! + +'Now, young man,' said the porter. 'This is the gentleman. This +young man has persisted in waiting, sir, saying you would be glad +to see him.' + +Mr Dorrit glared on the young man, choked, and said, in the mildest +of tones, 'Ah! Young John! It is Young John, I think; is it not?' + +'Yes, sir,' returned Young John. + +'I--ha--thought it was Young john!' said Mr Dorrit. 'The young man +may come up,' turning to the attendants, as he passed on: 'oh yes, +he may come up. Let Young John follow. I will speak to him +above.' + +Young John followed, smiling and much gratified. Mr Dorrit's rooms +were reached. Candles were lighted. The attendants withdrew. + +'Now, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, turning round upon him and seizing him +by the collar when they were safely alone. 'What do you mean by +this?' + +The amazement and horror depicted in the unfortunate john's face-- +for he had rather expected to be embraced next--were of that +powerfully expressive nature that Mr Dorrit withdrew his hand and +merely glared at him. + +'How dare you do this?' said Mr Dorrit. 'How do you presume to +come here? How dare you insult me?' + +'I insult you, sir?' cried Young John. 'Oh!' + +'Yes, sir,' returned Mr Dorrit. 'Insult me. Your coming here is +an affront, an impertinence, an audacity. You are not wanted here. + +Who sent you here? What--ha--the Devil do you do here?' + +'I thought, sir,' said Young John, with as pale and shocked a face +as ever had been turned to Mr Dorrit's in his life--even in his +College life: 'I thought, sir, you mightn't object to have the +goodness to accept a bundle--' + +'Damn your bundle, sir!' cried Mr Dorrit, in irrepressible rage. +'I--hum--don't smoke.' + +'I humbly beg your pardon, sir. You used to.' + +'Tell me that again,' cried Mr Dorrit, quite beside himself, 'and +I'll take the poker to you!' + +John Chivery backed to the door. + +'Stop, sir!' cried Mr Dorrit. 'Stop! Sit down. Confound you, + +sit down!' + +John Chivery dropped into the chair nearest the door, and Mr Dorrit +walked up and down the room; rapidly at first; then, more slowly. +Once, he went to the window, and stood there with his forehead +against the glass. All of a sudden, he turned and said: + +'What else did you come for, Sir?' + +'Nothing else in the world, sir. Oh dear me! Only to say, Sir, +that I hoped you was well, and only to ask if Miss Amy was Well?' + +'What's that to you, sir?' retorted Mr Dorrit. + +'It's nothing to me, sir, by rights. I never thought of lessening +the distance betwixt us, I am sure. I know it's a liberty, sir, +but I never thought you'd have taken it ill. Upon my word and +honour, sir,' said Young John, with emotion, 'in my poor way, I am +too proud to have come, I assure you, if I had thought so.' + +Mr Dorrit was ashamed. He went back to the window, and leaned his +forehead against the glass for some time. When he turned, he had +his handkerchief in his hand, and he had been wiping his eyes with +it, and he looked tired and ill. + +'Young John, I am very sorry to have been hasty with you, but--ha-- +some remembrances are not happy remembrances, and--hum--you +shouldn't have come.' + +'I feel that now, sir,' returned John Chivery; 'but I didn't +before, and Heaven knows I meant no harm, sir.' + +'No. No,' said Mr Dorrit. 'I am--hum--sure of that. Ha. Give me +your hand, Young John, give me your hand.' + +Young John gave it; but Mr Dorrit had driven his heart out of it, +and nothing could change his face now, from its white, shocked +look. + +'There!' said Mr Dorrit, slowly shaking hands with him. 'Sit down +again, Young John.' + +'Thank you, sir--but I'd rather stand.' + +Mr Dorrit sat down instead. After painfully holding his head a +little while, he turned it to his visitor, and said, with an effort +to be easy: + +'And how is your father, Young John? How--ha--how are they all, +Young John?' + +'Thank you, sir, They're all pretty well, sir. They're not any +ways complaining.' + +'Hum. You are in your--ha--old business I see, John?' said Mr +Dorrit, with a glance at the offending bundle he had anathematised. + +'Partly, sir. I am in my'--John hesitated a little--'father's +business likewise.' + +'Oh indeed!' said Mr Dorrit. 'Do you--ha hum--go upon the ha--' + +'Lock, sir? Yes, sir.' + +'Much to do, John?' + +'Yes, sir; we're pretty heavy at present. I don't know how it is, +but we generally ARE pretty heavy.' + +'At this time of the year, Young John?' + +'Mostly at all times of the year, sir. I don't know the time that +makes much difference to us. I wish you good night, sir.' + +'Stay a moment, John--ha--stay a moment. Hum. Leave me the +cigars, John, I--ha--beg.' + +'Certainly, sir.' John put them, with a trembling hand, on the +table. + +'Stay a moment, Young John; stay another moment. It would be +a--ha--a gratification to me to send a little--hum--Testimonial, by +such a trusty messenger, to be divided among--ha hum--them--them-- +according to their wants. Would you object to take + +it, John?' + +'Not in any ways, sir. There's many of them, I'm sure, that would +be the better for it.' + +'Thank you, John. I--ha--I'll write it, John.' + +His hand shook so that he was a long time writing it, and wrote it +in a tremulous scrawl at last. It was a cheque for one hundred +pounds. He folded it up, put it in Young john's hand, and pressed +the hand in his. + +'I hope you'll--ha--overlook--hum--what has passed, John.' + +'Don't speak of it, sir, on any accounts. I don't in any ways bear +malice, I'm sure.' + +But nothing while John was there could change John's face to its +natural colour and expression, or restore John's natural manner. + +'And, John,' said Mr Dorrit, giving his hand a final pressure, and +releasing it, 'I hope we--ha--agree that we have spoken together in +confidence; and that you will abstain, in going out, from saying +anything to any one that might--hum--suggest that--ha--once I--' + +'Oh! I assure you, sir,' returned John Chivery, 'in my poor humble +way, sir, I'm too proud and honourable to do it, sir.' + +Mr Dorrit was not too proud and honourable to listen at the door +that he might ascertain for himself whether John really went +straight out, or lingered to have any talk with any one. There was +no doubt that he went direct out at the door, and away down the +street with a quick step. After remaining alone for an hour, Mr +Dorrit rang for the Courier, who found him with his chair on the +hearth-rug, sitting with his back towards him and his face to the +fire. 'You can take that bundle of cigars to smoke on the journey, +if you like,' said Mr Dorrit, with a careless wave of his hand. +'Ha--brought by--hum--little offering from--ha--son of old tenant +of mine.' + +Next morning's sun saw Mr Dorrit's equipage upon the Dover road, +where every red-jacketed postilion was the sign of a cruel house, +established for the unmerciful plundering of travellers. The whole +business of the human race, between London and Dover, being +spoliation, Mr Dorrit was waylaid at Dartford, pillaged at +Gravesend, rifled at Rochester, fleeced at Sittingbourne, and +sacked at Canterbury. However, it being the Courier's business to +get him out of the hands of the banditti, the Courier brought him +off at every stage; and so the red-jackets went gleaming merrily +along the spring landscape, rising and falling to a regular +measure, between Mr Dorrit in his snug corner and the next chalky +rise in the dusty highway. + +Another day's sun saw him at Calais. And having now got the +Channel between himself and John Chivery, he began to feel safe, +and to find that the foreign air was lighter to breathe than the +air of England. + +On again by the heavy French roads for Paris. Having now quite +recovered his equanimity, Mr Dorrit, in his snug corner, fell to +castle-building as he rode along. It was evident that he had a +very large castle in hand. All day long he was running towers up, +taking towers down, adding a wing here, putting on a battlement +there, looking to the walls, strengthening the defences, giving +ornamental touches to the interior, making in all respects a superb +castle of it. His preoccupied face so clearly denoted the pursuit +in which he was engaged, that every cripple at the post-houses, not +blind, who shoved his little battered tin-box in at the carriage +window for Charity in the name of Heaven, Charity in the name of +our Lady, Charity in the name of all the Saints, knew as well what +work he was at, as their countryman Le Brun could have known it +himself, though he had made that English traveller the subject of +a special physiognomical treatise. + +Arrived at Paris, and resting there three days, Mr Dorrit strolled +much about the streets alone, looking in at the shop-windows, and +particularly the jewellers' windows. Ultimately, he went into the +most famous jeweller's, and said he wanted to buy a little gift for +a lady. + +It was a charming little woman to whom he said it--a sprightly +little woman, dressed in perfect taste, who came out of a green +velvet bower to attend upon him, from posting up some dainty little +books of account which one could hardly suppose to be ruled for the +entry of any articles more commercial than kisses, at a dainty +little shining desk which looked in itself like a sweetmeat. + +For example, then, said the little woman, what species of gift did +Monsieur desire? A love-gift? + + +Mr Dorrit smiled, and said, Eh, well! Perhaps. What did he know? +It was always possible; the sex being so charming. Would she show +him some? + +Most willingly, said the little woman. Flattered and enchanted to +show him many. But pardon! To begin with, he would have the great +goodness to observe that there were love-gifts, and there were +nuptial gifts. For example, these ravishing ear-rings and this +necklace so superb to correspond, were what one called a love- +gift. These brooches and these rings, of a beauty so gracious and +celestial, were what one called, with the permission of Monsieur, +nuptial gifts. + +Perhaps it would be a good arrangement, Mr Dorrit hinted, smiling, +to purchase both, and to present the love-gift first, and to finish +with the nuptial offering? + +Ah Heaven! said the little woman, laying the tips of the fingers +of her two little hands against each other, that would be generous +indeed, that would be a special gallantry! And without doubt the +lady so crushed with gifts would find them irresistible. + +Mr Dorrit was not sure of that. But, for example, the sprightly +little woman was very sure of it, she said. So Mr Dorrit bought a +gift of each sort, and paid handsomely for it. As he strolled back +to his hotel afterwards, he carried his head high: having plainly +got up his castle now to a much loftier altitude than the two +square towers of Notre Dame. + +Building away with all his might, but reserving the plans of his +castle exclusively for his own eye, Mr Dorrit posted away for +Marseilles. Building on, building on, busily, busily, from morning +to night. Falling asleep, and leaving great blocks of building +materials dangling in the air; waking again, to resume work and get +them into their places. What time the Courier in the rumble, +smoking Young john's best cigars, left a little thread of thin +light smoke behind--perhaps as he built a castle or two with stray +pieces of Mr Dorrit's money. + +Not a fortified town that they passed in all their journey was as +strong, not a Cathedral summit was as high, as Mr Dorrit's castle. +Neither the Saone nor the Rhone sped with the swiftness of that +peerless building; nor was the Mediterranean deeper than its +foundations; nor were the distant landscapes on the Cornice road, +nor the hills and bay of Genoa the Superb, more beautiful. Mr +Dorrit and his matchless castle were disembarked among the dirty +white houses and dirtier felons of Civita Vecchia, and thence +scrambled on to Rome as they could, through the filth that festered +on the way. + + + + +CHAPTER 19 + +The Storming of the Castle in the Air + +The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most +travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the +walls of Rome, when Mr Dorrit's carriage, still on its last +wearisome stage, rattled over the solitary Campagna. The savage +herdsmen and the fierce-looking peasants who had chequered the way +while the light lasted, had all gone down with the sun, and left +the wilderness blank. At some turns of the road, a pale flare on +the horizon, like an exhalation from the ruin-sown land, showed +that the city was yet far off; but this poor relief was rare and +short-lived. The carriage dipped down again into a hollow of the +black dry sea, and for a long time there was nothing visible save +its petrified swell and the gloomy sky. + +Mr Dorrit, though he had his castle-building to engage his mind, +could not be quite easy in that desolate place. He was far more +curious, in every swerve of the carriage, and every cry of the +postilions, than he had been since he quitted London. The valet on +the box evidently quaked. The Courier in the rumble was not +altogether comfortable in his mind. As often as Mr Dorrit let down +the glass and looked back at him (which was very often), he saw him +smoking John Chivery out, it is true, but still generally standing +up the while and looking about him, like a man who had his +suspicions, and kept upon his guard. Then would Mr Dorrit, pulling +up the glass again, reflect that those postilions were cut-throat +looking fellows, and that he would have done better to have slept +at Civita Vecchia, and have started betimes in the morning. But, +for all this, he worked at his castle in the intervals. + +And now, fragments of ruinous enclosure, yawning window-gap and +crazy wall, deserted houses, leaking wells, broken water-tanks, +spectral cypress-trees, patches of tangled vine, and the changing +of the track to a long, irregular, disordered lane where everything +was crumbling away, from the unsightly buildings to the jolting +road--now, these objects showed that they were nearing Rome. And +now, a sudden twist and stoppage of the carriage inspired Mr Dorrit +with the mistrust that the brigand moment was come for twisting him +into a ditch and robbing him; until, letting down the glass again +and looking out, he perceived himself assailed by nothing worse +than a funeral procession, which came mechanically chaunting by, +with an indistinct show of dirty vestments, lurid torches, swinging +censers, and a great cross borne before a priest. He was an ugly +priest by torchlight; of a lowering aspect, with an overhanging +brow; and as his eyes met those of Mr Dorrit, looking bareheaded +out of the carriage, his lips, moving as they chaunted, seemed to +threaten that important traveller; likewise the action of his hand, +which was in fact his manner of returning the traveller's +salutation, seemed to come in aid of that menace. So thought Mr +Dorrit, made fanciful by the weariness of building and travelling, +as the priest drifted past him, and the procession straggled away, +taking its dead along with it. Upon their so-different way went Mr +Dorrit's company too; and soon, with their coach load of luxuries +from the two great capitals of Europe, they were (like the Goths +reversed) beating at the gates of Rome. + +Mr Dorrit was not expected by his own people that night. He had +been; but they had given him up until to-morrow, not doubting that +it was later than he would care, in those parts, to be out. Thus, +when his equipage stopped at his own gate, no one but the porter +appeared to receive him. Was Miss Dorrit from home? he asked. +No. She was within. Good, said Mr Dorrit to the assembling +servants; let them keep where they were; let them help to unload +the carriage; he would find Miss Dorrit for himself. +So he went up his grand staircase, slowly, and tired, and looked +into various chambers which were empty, until he saw a light in a +small ante-room. It was a curtained nook, like a tent, within two +other rooms; and it looked warm and bright in colour, as he +approached it through the dark avenue they made. + +There was a draped doorway, but no door; and as he stopped here, +looking in unseen, he felt a pang. Surely not like jealousy? For +why like jealousy? There was only his daughter and his brother +there: he, with his chair drawn to the hearth, enjoying the warmth +of the evening wood fire; she seated at a little table, busied with +some embroidery work. Allowing for the great difference in the +still-life of the picture, the figures were much the same as of +old; his brother being sufficiently like himself to represent +himself, for a moment, in the composition. So had he sat many a +night, over a coal fire far away; so had she sat, devoted to him. +Yet surely there was nothing to be jealous of in the old miserable +poverty. Whence, then, the pang in his heart? + +'Do you know, uncle, I think you are growing young again?' + +Her uncle shook his head and said, 'Since when, my dear; since +when?' + +'I think,' returned Little Dorrit, plying her needle, 'that you +have been growing younger for weeks past. So cheerful, uncle, and +so ready, and so interested.' + +'My dear child--all you.' + +'All me, uncle!' + +'Yes, yes. You have done me a world of good. You have been so +considerate of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying +to hide your attentions from me, that I--well, well, well! It's +treasured up, my darling, treasured up.' + +'There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle,' said +Little Dorrit, cheerfully. + +'Well, well, well!' murmured the old man. 'Thank God!' + +She paused for an instant in her work to look at him, and her look +revived that former pain in her father's breast; in his poor weak +breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, +the little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which +the morning without a night only can clear away. + +'I have been freer with you, you see, my dove,' said the old man, +'since we have been alone. I say, alone, for I don't count Mrs +General; I don't care for her; she has nothing to do with me. But +I know Fanny was impatient of me. And I don't wonder at it, or +complain of it, for I am sensible that I must be in the way, though +I try to keep out of it as well as I can. I know I am not fit +company for our company. My brother William,' said the old man +admiringly, 'is fit company for monarchs; but not so your uncle, my +dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William Dorrit, and he +knows it quite well. Ah! Why, here's your father, Amy! My dear +William, welcome back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see +you!' + +(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he +stood in the doorway.) + +Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her +father's neck, and kissed him again and again. Her father was a +little impatient, and a little querulous. 'I am glad to find you +at last, Amy,' he said. 'Ha. Really I am glad to find--hum--any +one to receive me at last. I appear to have been--ha--so little +expected, that upon my word I began--ha hum--to think it might be +right to offer an apology for--ha--taking the liberty of coming +back at all.' + +'It was so late, my dear William,' said his brother, 'that we had +given you up for to-night.' + +'I am stronger than you, dear Frederick,' returned his brother with +an elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; 'and I +hope I can travel without detriment at--ha--any hour I choose.' + +'Surely, surely,' returned the other, with a misgiving that he had +given offence. 'Surely, William.' + +'Thank you, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, as she helped him to put off +his wrappers. 'I can do it without assistance. I--ha--need not +trouble you, Amy. Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of +wine, or--hum--would it cause too much inconvenience?' + +'Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes.' + +'Thank you, my love,' said Mr Dorrit, with a reproachful frost upon +him; 'I--ha--am afraid I am causing inconvenience. Hum. Mrs +General pretty well?' + +'Mrs General complained of a headache, and of being fatigued; and +so, when we gave you up, she went to bed, dear.' + +Perhaps Mr Dorrit thought that Mrs General had done well in being +overcome by the disappointment of his not arriving. At any rate, +his face relaxed, and he said with obvious satisfaction, 'Extremely +sorry to hear that Mrs General is not well.' + +During this short dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him, +with something more than her usual interest. It would seem as +though he had a changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he +perceived and resented it; for he said with renewed peevishness, +when he had divested himself of his travelling-cloak, and had come +to the fire: +'Amy, what are you looking at? What do you see in me that causes +you to--ha--concentrate your solicitude on me in that--hum--very +particular manner?' + +'I did not know it, father; I beg your pardon. It gladdens my eyes +to see you again; that's all.' + +'Don't say that's all, because--ha--that's not all. You--hum--you +think,' said Mr Dorrit, with an accusatory emphasis, 'that I am not +looking well.' +'I thought you looked a little tired, love.' + +'Then you are mistaken,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Ha, I am not tired. Ha, +hum. I am very much fresher than I was when I went away.' + +He was so inclined to be angry that she said nothing more in her +justification, but remained quietly beside him embracing his arm. +As he stood thus, with his brother on the other side, he fell into +a heavy doze, of not a minute's duration, and awoke with a start. + +'Frederick,' he said, turning to his brother: 'I recommend you to +go to bed immediately.' + +'No, William. I'll wait and see you sup.' + +'Frederick,' he retorted, 'I beg you to go to bed. I--ha--make it +a personal request that you go to bed. You ought to have been in +bed long ago. You are very feeble.' + +'Hah!' said the old man, who had no wish but to please him. 'Well, +well, well! I dare say I am.' + +'My dear Frederick,' returned Mr Dorrit, with an astonishing +superiority to his brother's failing powers, 'there can be no doubt +of it. It is painful to me to see you so weak. Ha. It distresses +me. Hum. I don't find you looking at all well. You are not fit +for this sort of thing. You should be more careful, you should be +very careful.' + +'Shall I go to bed?' asked Frederick. + +'Dear Frederick,' said Mr Dorrit, 'do, I adjure you! Good night, +brother. I hope you will be stronger to-morrow. I am not at all +pleased with your looks. Good night, dear fellow.' After +dismissing his brother in this gracious way, he fell into a doze +again before the old man was well out of the room: and he would +have stumbled forward upon the logs, but for his daughter's +restraining hold. + +'Your uncle wanders very much, Amy,' he said, when he was thus +roused. 'He is less--ha--coherent, and his conversation is more-- +hum--broken, than I have--ha, hum--ever known. Has he had any +illness since I have been gone?' +'No, father.' + +'You--ha--see a great change in him, Amy?' + +'I have not observed it, dear.' + +'Greatly broken,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Greatly broken. My poor, +affectionate, failing Frederick! Ha. Even taking into account +what he was before, he is--hum--sadly broken!' + +His supper, which was brought to him there, and spread upon the +little table where he had seen her working, diverted his attention. + +She sat at his side as in the days that were gone, for the first +time since those days ended. They were alone, and she helped him +to his meat and poured out his drink for him, as she had been used +to do in the prison. All this happened now, for the first time +since their accession to wealth. She was afraid to look at him +much, after the offence he had taken; but she noticed two occasions +in the course of his meal, when he all of a sudden looked at her, +and looked about him, as if the association were so strong that he +needed assurance from his sense of sight that they were not in the +old prison-room. Both times, he put his hand to his head as if he +missed his old black cap--though it had been ignominiously given +away in the Marshalsea, and had never got free to that hour, but +still hovered about the yards on the head of his successor. + +He took very little supper, but was a long time over it, and often +reverted to his brother's declining state. Though he expressed the +greatest pity for him, he was almost bitter upon him. He said that +poor Frederick--ha hum--drivelled. There was no other word to +express it; drivelled. Poor fellow! It was melancholy to reflect +what Amy must have undergone from the excessive tediousness of his +Society--wandering and babbling on, poor dear estimable creature, +wandering and babbling on--if it had not been for the relief she +had had in Mrs General. Extremely sorry, he then repeated with his +former satisfaction, that that--ha--superior woman was poorly. + +Little Dorrit, in her watchful love, would have remembered the +lightest thing he said or did that night, though she had had no +subsequent reason to recall that night. She always remembered +that, when he looked about him under the strong influence of the +old association, he tried to keep it out of her mind, and perhaps +out of his own too, by immediately expatiating on the great riches +and great company that had encompassed him in his absence, and on +the lofty position he and his family had to sustain. Nor did she +fail to recall that there were two under-currents, side by side, +pervading all his discourse and all his manner; one showing her how +well he had got on without her, and how independent he was of her; +the other, in a fitful and unintelligible way almost complaining of +her, as if it had been possible that she had neglected him while he +was away. + +His telling her of the glorious state that Mr Merdle kept, and of +the court that bowed before him, naturally brought him to Mrs +Merdle. So naturally indeed, that although there was an unusual +want of sequence in the greater part of his remarks, he passed to +her at once, and asked how she was. + +'She is very well. She is going away next week.' + +'Home?' asked Mr Dorrit. + +'After a few weeks' stay upon the road.' + +'She will be a vast loss here,' said Mr Dorrit. 'A vast--ha-- +acquisition at home. To Fanny, and to--hum--the rest of the--ha-- +great world.' + +Little Dorrit thought of the competition that was to be entered +upon, and assented very softly. + +'Mrs Merdle is going to have a great farewell Assembly, dear, and +a dinner before it. She has been expressing her anxiety that you +should return in time. She has invited both you and me to her +dinner.' + +'She is--ha--very kind. When is the day?' + +'The day after to-morrow.' + +'Write round in the morning, and say that I have returned, and +shall--hum--be delighted.' + +'May I walk with you up the stairs to your room, dear?' + +'No!' he answered, looking angrily round; for he was moving away, +as if forgetful of leave-taking. 'You may not, Amy. I want no +help. I am your father, not your infirm uncle!' He checked +himself, as abruptly as he had broken into this reply, and said, +'You have not kissed me, Amy. Good night, my dear! We must +marry--ha--we must marry YOU, now.' With that he went, more slowly +and more tired, up the staircase to his rooms, and, almost as soon +as he got there, dismissed his valet. His next care was to look +about him for his Paris purchases, and, after opening their cases +and carefully surveying them, to put them away under lock and key. +After that, what with dozing and what with castle-building, he lost +himself for a long time, so that there was a touch of morning on +the eastward rim of the desolate Campagna when he crept to bed. + +Mrs General sent up her compliments in good time next day, and +hoped he had rested well after this fatiguing journey. He sent +down his compliments, and begged to inform Mrs General that he had +rested very well indeed, and was in high condition. Nevertheless, +he did not come forth from his own rooms until late in the +afternoon; and, although he then caused himself to be magnificently +arrayed for a drive with Mrs General and his daughter, his +appearance was scarcely up to his description of himself. +As the family had no visitors that day, its four members dined +alone together. He conducted Mrs General to the seat at his right +hand with immense ceremony; and Little Dorrit could not but notice +as she followed with her uncle, both that he was again elaborately +dressed, and that his manner towards Mrs General was very +particular. The perfect formation of that accomplished lady's +surface rendered it difficult to displace an atom of its genteel +glaze, but Little Dorrit thought she descried a slight thaw of +triumph in a corner of her frosty eye. + +Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the Pruney and +Prismatic nature of the family banquet, Mr Dorrit several times +fell asleep while it was in progress. His fits of dozing were as +sudden as they had been overnight, and were as short and profound. +When the first of these slumberings seized him, Mrs General looked +almost amazed: but, on each recurrence of the symptoms, she told +her polite beads, Papa, Potatoes, Poultry, Prunes, and Prism; and, +by dint of going through that infallible performance very slowly, +appeared to finish her rosary at about the same time as Mr Dorrit +started from his sleep. + +He was again painfully aware of a somnolent tendency in Frederick +(which had no existence out of his own imagination), and after +dinner, when Frederick had withdrawn, privately apologised to Mrs +General for the poor man. 'The most estimable and affectionate of +brothers,' he said, 'but--ha, hum--broken up altogether. +Unhappily, declining fast.' + +'Mr Frederick, sir,' quoth Mrs General, 'is habitually absent and +drooping, but let us hope it is not so bad as that.' + +Mr Dorrit, however, was determined not to let him off. 'Fast +declining, madam. A wreck. A ruin. Mouldering away before our +eyes. Hum. Good Frederick!' + +'You left Mrs Sparkler quite well and happy, I trust?' said Mrs +General, after heaving a cool sigh for Frederick. + +'Surrounded,' replied Mr Dorrit, 'by--ha--all that can charm the +taste, and--hum--elevate the mind. Happy, my dear madam, in +a--hum--husband.' + + +Mrs General was a little fluttered; seeming delicately to put the +word away with her gloves, as if there were no knowing what it +might lead to. + +'Fanny,' Mr Dorrit continued. 'Fanny, Mrs General, has high +qualities. Ha. Ambition--hum--purpose, consciousness of--ha-- +position, determination to support that position--ha, hum--grace, +beauty, and native nobility.' + +'No doubt,' said Mrs General (with a little extra stiffness). + +'Combined with these qualities, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'Fanny +has--ha--manifested one blemish which has made me--hum--made me +uneasy, and--ha--I must add, angry; but which I trust may now be +considered at an end, even as to herself, and which is undoubtedly +at an end as to--ha--others.' + +'To what, Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, with her gloves again +somewhat excited, 'can you allude? I am at a loss to--' + +'Do not say that, my dear madam,' interrupted Mr Dorrit. + +Mrs General's voice, as it died away, pronounced the words, 'at a +loss to imagine.' + +After which Mr Dorrit was seized with a doze for about a minute, +out of which he sprang with spasmodic nimbleness. + +'I refer, Mrs General, to that--ha--strong spirit of opposition, +or--hum--I might say--ha--jealousy in Fanny, which has occasionally +risen against the--ha--sense I entertain of--hum--the claims of-- +ha--the lady with whom I have now the honour of communing.' + +'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, 'is ever but too obliging, ever +but too appreciative. If there have been moments when I have +imagined that Miss Dorrit has indeed resented the favourable +opinion Mr Dorrit has formed of my services, I have found, in that +only too high opinion, my consolation and recompense.' + +'Opinion of your services, madam?' said Mr Dorrit. + +'Of,' Mrs General repeated, in an elegantly impressive manner, 'my +services.' + +'Of your services alone, dear madam?' said Mr Dorrit. + +'I presume,' retorted Mrs General, in her former impressive manner, +'of my services alone. For, to what else,' said Mrs General, with +a slightly interrogative action of her gloves, 'could I impute--' + +'To--ha--yourself, Mrs General. Ha, hum. To yourself and your +merits,' was Mr Dorrit's rejoinder. + +'Mr Dorrit will pardon me,' said Mrs General, 'if I remark that +this is not a time or place for the pursuit of the present +conversation. Mr Dorrit will excuse me if I remind him that Miss +Dorrit is in the adjoining room, and is visible to myself while I +utter her name. Mr Dorrit will forgive me if I observe that I am +agitated, and that I find there are moments when weaknesses I +supposed myself to have subdued, return with redoubled power. Mr +Dorrit will allow me to withdraw.' + +'Hum. Perhaps we may resume this--ha--interesting conversation,' +said Mr Dorrit, 'at another time; unless it should be, what I hope +it is not--hum--in any way disagreeable to--ah--Mrs General.' +'Mr Dorrit,' said Mrs General, casting down her eyes as she rose +with a bend, 'must ever claim my homage and obedience.' + +Mrs General then took herself off in a stately way, and not with +that amount of trepidation upon her which might have been expected +in a less remarkable woman. Mr Dorrit, who had conducted his part +of the dialogue with a certain majestic and admiring condescension +--much as some people may be seen to conduct themselves in Church, +and to perform their part in the service--appeared, on the whole, +very well satisfied with himself and with Mrs General too. On the +return of that lady to tea, she had touched herself up with a +little powder and pomatum, and was not without moral enchantment +likewise: the latter showing itself in much sweet patronage of +manner towards Miss Dorrit, and in an air of as tender interest in +Mr Dorrit as was consistent with rigid propriety. At the close of +the evening, when she rose to retire, Mr Dorrit took her by the +hand as if he were going to lead her out into the Piazza of the +people to walk a minuet by moonlight, and with great solemnity +conducted her to the room door, where he raised her knuckles to his +lips. Having parted from her with what may be conjectured to have +been a rather bony kiss of a cosmetic flavour, he gave his daughter +his blessing, graciously. And having thus hinted that there was +something remarkable in the wind, he again went to bed. + +He remained in the seclusion of his own chamber next morning; but, +early in the afternoon, sent down his best compliments to Mrs +General, by Mr Tinkler, and begged she would accompany Miss Dorrit +on an airing without him. His daughter was dressed for Mrs +Merdle's dinner before he appeared. He then presented himself in +a refulgent condition as to his attire, but looking indefinably +shrunken and old. However, as he was plainly determined to be +angry with her if she so much as asked him how he was, she only +ventured to kiss his cheek, before accompanying him to Mrs Merdle's +with an anxious heart. + +The distance that they had to go was very short, but he was at his +building work again before the carriage had half traversed it. Mrs +Merdle received him with great distinction; the bosom was in +admirable preservation, and on the best terms with itself; the +dinner was very choice; and the company was very select. + +It was principally English; saving that it comprised the usual +French Count and the usual Italian Marchese--decorative social +milestones, always to be found in certain places, and varying very +little in appearance. The table was long, and the dinner was long; +and Little Dorrit, overshadowed by a large pair of black whiskers +and a large white cravat, lost sight of her father altogether, +until a servant put a scrap of paper in her hand, with a whispered +request from Mrs Merdle that she would read it directly. Mrs +Merdle had written on it in pencil, 'Pray come and speak to Mr +Dorrit, I doubt if he is well.' + +She was hurrying to him, unobserved, when he got up out of his +chair, and leaning over the table called to her, supposing her to +be still in her place: + +'Amy, Amy, my child!' + +The action was so unusual, to say nothing of his strange eager +appearance and strange eager voice, that it instantaneously caused +a profound silence. + +' Amy, my dear,' he repeated. 'Will you go and see if Bob is on +the lock?' + +She was at his side, and touching him, but he still perversely +supposed her to be in her seat, and called out, still leaning over +the table, 'Amy, Amy. I don't feel quite myself. Ha. I don't +know what's the matter with me. I particularly wish to see Bob. +Ha. Of all the turnkeys, he's as much my friend as yours. See if +Bob is in the lodge, and beg him to come to me.' + +All the guests were now in consternation, and everybody rose. + +'Dear father, I am not there; I am here, by you.' + +'Oh! You are here, Amy! Good. Hum. Good. Ha. Call Bob. If he +has been relieved, and is not on the lock, tell Mrs Bangham to go +and fetch him.' + +She was gently trying to get him away; but he resisted, and would +not go. + +'I tell you, child,' he said petulantly, 'I can't be got up the +narrow stairs without Bob. Ha. Send for Bob. Hum. Send for +Bob--best of all the turnkeys--send for Bob!' + +He looked confusedly about him, and, becoming conscious of the +number of faces by which he was surrounded, addressed them: + +'Ladies and gentlemen, the duty--ha--devolves upon me of--hum-- +welcoming you to the Marshalsea! Welcome to the Marshalsea! The +space is--ha--limited--limited--the parade might be wider; but you +will find it apparently grow larger after a time--a time, ladies +and gentlemen--and the air is, all things considered, very good. +It blows over the--ha--Surrey hills. Blows over the Surrey hills. +This is the Snuggery. Hum. Supported by a small subscription of +the--ha--Collegiate body. In return for which--hot water--general +kitchen--and little domestic advantages. Those who are habituated +to the--ha--Marshalsea, are pleased to call me its father. I am +accustomed to be complimented by strangers as the--ha--Father of +the Marshalsea. Certainly, if years of residence may establish a +claim to so--ha--honourable a title, I may accept the--hum-- +conferred distinction. My child, ladies and gentlemen. My +daughter. Born here!' + +She was not ashamed of it, or ashamed of him. She was pale and +frightened; but she had no other care than to soothe him and get +him away, for his own dear sake. She was between him and the +wondering faces, turned round upon his breast with her own face +raised to his. He held her clasped in his left arm, and between +whiles her low voice was heard tenderly imploring him to go away +with her. + +'Born here,' he repeated, shedding tears. 'Bred here. Ladies and +gentlemen, my daughter. Child of an unfortunate father, but--ha-- +always a gentleman. Poor, no doubt, but--hum--proud. Always +proud. It has become a--hum--not infrequent custom for my--ha-- +personal admirers--personal admirers solely--to be pleased to +express their desire to acknowledge my semi-official position here, +by offering--ha--little tributes, which usually take the form of-- +ha--voluntary recognitions of my humble endeavours to--hum--to +uphold a Tone here--a Tone--I beg it to be understood that I do not +consider myself compromised. Ha. Not compromised. Ha. Not a +beggar. No; I repudiate the title! At the same time far be it +from me to--hum--to put upon the fine feelings by which my partial +friends are actuated, the slight of scrupling to admit that those +offerings are--hum--highly acceptable. On the contrary, they are +most acceptable. In my child's name, if not in my own, I make the +admission in the fullest manner, at the same time reserving--ha-- +shall I say my personal dignity? Ladies and gentlemen, God bless +you all!' + +By this time, the exceeding mortification undergone by the Bosom +had occasioned the withdrawal of the greater part of the company +into other rooms. The few who had lingered thus long followed the +rest, and Little Dorrit and her father were left to the servants +and themselves. Dearest and most precious to her, he would come +with her now, would he not? He replied to her fervid entreaties, +that he would never be able to get up the narrow stairs without +Bob; where was Bob, would nobody fetch Bob? Under pretence of +looking for Bob, she got him out against the stream of gay company +now pouring in for the evening assembly, and got him into a coach +that had just set down its load, and got him home. + +The broad stairs of his Roman palace were contracted in his failing +sight to the narrow stairs of his London prison; and he would +suffer no one but her to touch him, his brother excepted. They got +him up to his room without help, and laid him down on his bed. And +from that hour his poor maimed spirit, only remembering the place +where it had broken its wings, cancelled the dream through which it +had since groped, and knew of nothing beyond the Marshalsea. When +he heard footsteps in the street, he took them for the old weary +tread in the yards. When the hour came for locking up, he supposed +all strangers to be excluded for the night. When the time for +opening came again, he was so anxious to see Bob, that they were +fain to patch up a narrative how that Bob--many a year dead then, +gentle turnkey--had taken cold, but hoped to be out to-morrow, or +the next day, or the next at furthest. + +He fell away into a weakness so extreme that he could not raise his +hand. But he still protected his brother according to his long +usage; and would say with some complacency, fifty times a day, when +he saw him standing by his bed, 'My good Frederick, sit down. You +are very feeble indeed.' + +They tried him with Mrs General, but he had not the faintest +knowledge of her. Some injurious suspicion lodged itself in his +brain, that she wanted to supplant Mrs Bangham, and that she was +given to drinking. He charged her with it in no measured terms; +and was so urgent with his daughter to go round to the Marshal and +entreat him to turn her out, that she was never reproduced after +the first failure. +Saving that he once asked 'if Tip had gone outside?' the +remembrance of his two children not present seemed to have departed +from him. But the child who had done so much for him and had been +so poorly repaid, was never out of his mind. Not that he spared +her, or was fearful of her being spent by watching and fatigue; he +was not more troubled on that score than he had usually been. No; +he loved her in his old way. They were in the jail again, and she +tended him, and he had constant need of her, and could not turn +without her; and he even told her, sometimes, that he was content +to have undergone a great deal for her sake. As to her, she bent +over his bed with her quiet face against his, and would have laid +down her own life to restore him. + +When he had been sinking in this painless way for two or three +days, she observed him to be troubled by the ticking of his watch-- +a pompous gold watch that made as great a to-do about its going as +if nothing else went but itself and Time. She suffered it to run +down; but he was still uneasy, and showed that was not what he +wanted. At length he roused himself to explain that he wanted +money to be raised on this watch. He was quite pleased when she +pretended to take it away for the purpose, and afterwards had a +relish for his little tastes of wine and jelly, that he had not had +before. + +He soon made it plain that this was so; for, in another day or two +he sent off his sleeve-buttons and finger-rings. He had an amazing +satisfaction in entrusting her with these errands, and appeared to +consider it equivalent to making the most methodical and provident +arrangements. After his trinkets, or such of them as he had been +able to see about him, were gone, his clothes engaged his +attention; and it is as likely as not that he was kept alive for +some days by the satisfaction of sending them, piece by piece, to +an imaginary pawnbroker's. + +Thus for ten days Little Dorrit bent over his pillow, laying her +cheek against his. Sometimes she was so worn out that for a few +minutes they would slumber together. Then she would awake; to +recollect with fast-flowing silent tears what it was that touched +her face, and to see, stealing over the cherished face upon the +pillow, a deeper shadow than the shadow of the Marshalsea Wall. + +Quietly, quietly, all the lines of the plan of the great Castle +melted one after another. Quietly, quietly, the ruled and cross- +ruled countenance on which they were traced, became fair and blank. + +Quietly, quietly, the reflected marks of the prison bars and of the +zig-zag iron on the wall-top, faded away. Quietly, quietly, the +face subsided into a far younger likeness of her own than she had +ever seen under the grey hair, and sank to rest. + +At first her uncle was stark distracted. 'O my brother! O +William, William! You to go before me; you to go alone; you to go, +and I to remain! You, so far superior, so distinguished, so noble; +I, a poor useless creature fit for nothing, and whom no one would +have missed!' + +It did her, for the time, the good of having him to think of and to +succour. + +'Uncle, dear uncle, spare yourself, spare me!' + +The old man was not deaf to the last words. When he did begin to +restrain himself, it was that he might spare her. He had no care +for himself; but, with all the remaining power of the honest heart, +stunned so long and now awaking to be broken, he honoured and +blessed her. + +'O God,' he cried, before they left the room, with his wrinkled +hands clasped over her. 'Thou seest this daughter of my dear dead +brother! All that I have looked upon, with my half-blind and +sinful eyes, Thou hast discerned clearly, brightly. Not a hair of +her head shall be harmed before Thee. Thou wilt uphold her here to +her last hour. And I know Thou wilt reward her hereafter!' + +They remained in a dim room near, until it was almost midnight, +quiet and sad together. At times his grief would seek relief in a +burst like that in which it had found its earliest expression; but, +besides that his little strength would soon have been unequal to +such strains, he never failed to recall her words, and to reproach +himself and calm himself. The only utterance with which he +indulged his sorrow, was the frequent exclamation that his brother +was gone, alone; that they had been together in the outset of their +lives, that they had fallen into misfortune together, that they had +kept together through their many years of poverty, that they had +remained together to that day; and that his brother was gone alone, +alone! + +They parted, heavy and sorrowful. She would not consent to leave +him anywhere but in his own room, and she saw him lie down in his +clothes upon his bed, and covered him with her own hands. Then she +sank upon her own bed, and fell into a deep sleep: the sleep of +exhaustion and rest, though not of complete release from a +pervading consciousness of affliction. Sleep, good Little Dorrit. +Sleep through the night! + +It was a moonlight night; but the moon rose late, being long past +the full. When it was high in the peaceful firmament, it shone +through half-closed lattice blinds into the solemn room where the +stumblings and wanderings of a life had so lately ended. Two quiet +figures were within the room; two figures, equally still and +impassive, equally removed by an untraversable distance from the +teeming earth and all that it contains, though soon to lie in it. + +One figure reposed upon the bed. The other, kneeling on the floor, +drooped over it; the arms easily and peacefully resting on the +coverlet; the face bowed down, so that the lips touched the hand +over which with its last breath it had bent. The two brothers were +before their Father; far beyond the twilight judgment of this +world; high above its mists and obscurities. + + + + +CHAPTER 20 + +Introduces the next + + +The passengers were landing from the packet on the pier at Calais. +A low-lying place and a low-spirited place Calais was, with the +tide ebbing out towards low water-mark. There had been no more +water on the bar than had sufficed to float the packet in; and now +the bar itself, with a shallow break of sea over it, looked like a +lazy marine monster just risen to the surface, whose form was +indistinctly shown as it lay asleep. The meagre lighthouse all in +white, haunting the seaboard as if it were the ghost of an edifice +that had once had colour and rotundity, dropped melancholy tears +after its late buffeting by the waves. The long rows of gaunt +black piles, slimy and wet and weather-worn, with funeral garlands +of seaweed twisted about them by the late tide, might have +represented an unsightly marine cemetery. Every wave-dashed, +storm-beaten object, was so low and so little, under the broad grey +sky, in the noise of the wind and sea, and before the curling lines +of surf, making at it ferociously, that the wonder was there was +any Calais left, and that its low gates and low wall and low roofs +and low ditches and low sand-hills and low ramparts and flat +streets, had not yielded long ago to the undermining and besieging +sea, like the fortifications children make on the sea-shore. + +After slipping among oozy piles and planks, stumbling up wet steps +and encountering many salt difficulties, the passengers entered on +their comfortless peregrination along the pier; where all the +French vagabonds and English outlaws in the town (half the +population) attended to prevent their recovery from bewilderment. +After being minutely inspected by all the English, and claimed and +reclaimed and counter-claimed as prizes by all the French in a +hand-to-hand scuffle three quarters of a mile long, they were at +last free to enter the streets, and to make off in their various +directions, hotly pursued. + +Clennam, harassed by more anxieties than one, was among this +devoted band. Having rescued the most defenceless of his +compatriots from situations of great extremity, he now went his way +alone, or as nearly alone as he could be, with a native gentleman +in a suit of grease and a cap of the same material, giving chase at +a distance of some fifty yards, and continually calling after him, +'Hi! Ice-say! You! Seer! Ice-say! Nice Oatel!' + +Even this hospitable person, however, was left behind at last, and +Clennam pursued his way, unmolested. There was a tranquil air in +the town after the turbulence of the Channel and the beach, and its +dulness in that comparison was agreeable. He met new groups of his +countrymen, who had all a straggling air of having at one time +overblown themselves, like certain uncomfortable kinds of flowers, +and of being now mere weeds. They had all an air, too, of lounging +out a limited round, day after day, which strongly reminded him of +the Marshalsea. But, taking no further note of them than was +sufficient to give birth to the reflection, he sought out a certain +street and number which he kept in his mind. + +'So Pancks said,' he murmured to himself, as he stopped before a +dull house answering to the address. 'I suppose his information to +be correct and his discovery, among Mr Casby's loose papers, +indisputable; but, without it, I should hardly have supposed this +to be a likely place.' + +A dead sort of house, with a dead wall over the way and a dead +gateway at the side, where a pendant bell-handle produced two dead +tinkles, and a knocker produced a dead, flat, surface-tapping, that +seemed not to have depth enough in it to penetrate even the cracked +door. However, the door jarred open on a dead sort of spring; and +he closed it behind him as he entered a dull yard, soon brought to +a close by another dead wall, where an attempt had been made to +train some creeping shrubs, which were dead; and to make a little +fountain in a grotto, which was dry; and to decorate that with a +little statue, which was gone. + +The entry to the house was on the left, and it was garnished as the +outer gateway was, with two printed bills in French and English, +announcing Furnished Apartments to let, with immediate possession. +A strong cheerful peasant woman, all stocking, petticoat, white +cap, and ear-ring, stood here in a dark doorway, and said with a +pleasant show of teeth, 'Ice-say! Seer! Who?' + +Clennam, replying in French, said the English lady; he wished to +see the English lady. 'Enter then and ascend, if you please,' +returned the peasant woman, in French likewise. He did both, and +followed her up a dark bare staircase to a back room on the first- +floor. Hence, there was a gloomy view of the yard that was dull, +and of the shrubs that were dead, and of the fountain that was dry, +and of the pedestal of the statue that was gone. + +'Monsieur Blandois,' said Clennam. + +'With pleasure, Monsieur.' + +Thereupon the woman withdrew and left him to look at the room. It +was the pattern of room always to be found in such a house. Cool, +dull, and dark. Waxed floor very slippery. A room not large +enough to skate in; nor adapted to the easy pursuit of any other +occupation. Red and white curtained windows, little straw mat, +little round table with a tumultuous assemblage of legs underneath, +clumsy rush-bottomed chairs, two great red velvet arm-chairs +affording plenty of space to be uncomfortable in, bureau, chimney- +glass in several pieces pretending to be in one piece, pair of +gaudy vases of very artificial flowers; between them a Greek +warrior with his helmet off, sacrificing a clock to the Genius of +France. + +After some pause, a door of communication with another room was +opened, and a lady entered. She manifested great surprise on +seeing Clennam, and her glance went round the room in search of +some one else. + +'Pardon me, Miss Wade. I am alone.' + +'It was not your name that was brought to me.' + +'No; I know that. Excuse me. I have already had experience that +my name does not predispose you to an interview; and I ventured to +mention the name of one I am in search of.' + +'Pray,' she returned, motioning him to a chair so coldly that he +remained standing, 'what name was it that you gave?' + +'I mentioned the name of Blandois.' + +'Blandois?' + +'A name you are acquainted with.' + +'It is strange,' she said, frowning, 'that you should still press +an undesired interest in me and my acquaintances, in me and my +affairs, Mr Clennam. I don't know what you mean.' + +'Pardon me. You know the name?' + +'What can you have to do with the name? What can I have to do with +the name? What can you have to do with my knowing or not knowing +any name? I know many names and I have forgotten many more. This +may be in the one class, or it may be in the other, or I may never +have heard it. I am acquainted with no reason for examining +myself, or for being examined, about it.' + +'If you will allow me,' said Clennam, 'I will tell you my reason +for pressing the subject. I admit that I do press it, and I must +beg you to forgive me if I do so, very earnestly. The reason is +all mine, I do not insinuate that it is in any way yours.' + +'Well, sir,' she returned, repeating a little less haughtily than +before her former invitation to him to be seated: to which he now +deferred, as she seated herself. 'I am at least glad to know that +this is not another bondswoman of some friend of yours, who is +bereft of free choice, and whom I have spirited away. I will hear +your reason, if you please.' + +'First, to identify the person of whom we speak,' said Clennam, +'let me observe that it is the person you met in London some time +back. You will remember meeting him near the river--in the +Adelphi!' + +'You mix yourself most unaccountably with my business,' she +replied, looking full at him with stern displeasure. 'How do you +know that?' + +'I entreat you not to take it ill. By mere accident.' +'What accident?' + +'Solely the accident of coming upon you in the street and seeing +the meeting.' + +'Do you speak of yourself, or of some one else?' + +'Of myself. I saw it.' + +'To be sure it was in the open street,' she observed, after a few +moments of less and less angry reflection. 'Fifty people might +have seen it. It would have signified nothing if they had.' + +'Nor do I make my having seen it of any moment, nor (otherwise than +as an explanation of my coming here) do I connect my visit with it +or the favour that I have to ask.' + +'Oh! You have to ask a favour! It occurred to me,' and the +handsome face looked bitterly at him, 'that your manner was +softened, Mr Clennam.' + +He was content to protest against this by a slight action without +contesting it in words. He then referred to Blandois' +disappearance, of which it was probable she had heard? However +probable it was to him, she had heard of no such thing. Let him +look round him (she said) and judge for himself what general +intelligence was likely to reach the ears of a woman who had been +shut up there while it was rife, devouring her own heart. When she +had uttered this denial, which he believed to be true, she asked +him what he meant by disappearance? That led to his narrating the +circumstances in detail, and expressing something of his anxiety to +discover what had really become of the man, and to repel the dark +suspicions that clouded about his mother's house. She heard him +with evident surprise, and with more marks of suppressed interest +than he had seen in her; still they did not overcome her distant, +proud, and self-secluded manner. When he had finished, she said +nothing but these words: + +'You have not yet told me, sir, what I have to do with it, or what +the favour is? Will you be so good as come to that?' + +'I assume,' said Arthur, persevering, in his endeavour to soften +her scornful demeanour, 'that being in communication--may I say, +confidential communication?--with this person--' + +'You may say, of course, whatever you like,' she remarked; 'but I +do not subscribe to your assumptions, Mr Clennam, or to any one's.' + +'--that being, at least in personal communication with him,' said +Clennam, changing the form of his position in the hope of making it +unobjectionable, 'you can tell me something of his antecedents, +pursuits, habits, usual place of residence. Can give me some +little clue by which to seek him out in the likeliest manner, and +either produce him, or establish what has become of him. This is +the favour I ask, and I ask it in a distress of mind for which I +hope you will feel some consideration. If you should have any +reason for imposing conditions upon me, I will respect it without +asking what it is.' + +'You chanced to see me in the street with the man,' she observed, +after being, to his mortification, evidently more occupied with her +own reflections on the matter than with his appeal. 'Then you knew +the man before?' + +'Not before; afterwards. I never saw him before, but I saw him +again on this very night of his disappearance. In my mother's +room, in fact. I left him there. You will read in this paper all +that is known of him.' + +He handed her one of the printed bills, which she read with a +steady and attentive face. + +'This is more than I knew of him,' she said, giving it back. + +Clennam's looks expressed his heavy disappointment, perhaps his +incredulity; for she added in the same unsympathetic tone: 'You +don't believe it. Still, it is so. As to personal communication: +it seems that there was personal communication between him and your +mother. And yet you say you believe her declaration that she knows +no more of him!' + +A sufficiently expressive hint of suspicion was conveyed in these +words, and in the smile by which they were accompanied, to bring +the blood into Clennam's cheeks. + +'Come, sir,' she said, with a cruel pleasure in repeating the stab, +'I will be as open with you as you can desire. I will confess that +if I cared for my credit (which I do not), or had a good name to +preserve (which I have not, for I am utterly indifferent to its +being considered good or bad), I should regard myself as heavily +compromised by having had anything to do with this fellow. Yet he +never passed in at MY door--never sat in colloquy with ME until +midnight.' + +She took her revenge for her old grudge in thus turning his subject +against him. Hers was not the nature to spare him, and she had no +compunction. + +'That he is a low, mercenary wretch; that I first saw him prowling +about Italy (where I was, not long ago), and that I hired him +there, as the suitable instrument of a purpose I happened to have; +I have no objection to tell you. In short, it was worth my while, +for my own pleasure--the gratification of a strong feeling--to pay +a spy who would fetch and carry for money. I paid this creature. +And I dare say that if I had wanted to make such a bargain, and if +I could have paid him enough, and if he could have done it in the +dark, free from all risk, he would have taken any life with as +little scruple as he took my money. That, at least, is my opinion +of him; and I see it is not very far removed from yours. Your +mother's opinion of him, I am to assume (following your example of +assuming this and that), was vastly different.' + +'My mother, let me remind you,' said Clennam, 'was first brought +into communication with him in the unlucky course of business.' + +'It appears to have been an unlucky course of business that last +brought her into communication with him,' returned Miss Wade; 'and +business hours on that occasion were late.' + +'You imply,' said Arthur, smarting under these cool-handed thrusts, +of which he had deeply felt the force already, 'that there was +something--' + +'Mr Clennam,' she composedly interrupted, 'recollect that I do not +speak by implication about the man. He is, I say again without +disguise, a low mercenary wretch. I suppose such a creature goes +where there is occasion for him. If I had not had occasion for +him, you would not have seen him and me together.' + +Wrung by her persistence in keeping that dark side of the case +before him, of which there was a half-hidden shadow in his own +breast, Clennam was silent. + +'I have spoken of him as still living,' she added, 'but he may have +been put out of the way for anything I know. For anything I care, +also. I have no further occasion for him.' + +With a heavy sigh and a despondent air, Arthur Clennam slowly rose. + +She did not rise also, but said, having looked at him in the +meanwhile with a fixed look of suspicion, and lips angrily +compressed: + +'He was the chosen associate of your dear friend, Mr Gowan, was he +not? Why don't you ask your dear friend to help you?' + +The denial that he was a dear friend rose to Arthur's lips; but he +repressed it, remembering his old struggles and resolutions, and +said: + +'Further than that he has never seen Blandois since Blandois set +out for England, Mr Gowan knows nothing additional about him. He +was a chance acquaintance, made abroad.' + +'A chance acquaintance made abroad!' she repeated. 'Yes. Your +dear friend has need to divert himself with all the acquaintances +he can make, seeing what a wife he has. I hate his wife, sir.' + +The anger with which she said it, the more remarkable for being so +much under her restraint, fixed Clennam's attention, and kept him +on the spot. It flashed out of her dark eyes as they regarded him, +quivered in her nostrils, and fired the very breath she exhaled; +but her face was otherwise composed into a disdainful serenity; and +her attitude was as calmly and haughtily graceful as if she had +been in a mood of complete indifference. + +'All I will say is, Miss Wade,' he remarked, 'that you can have +received no provocation to a feeling in which I believe you have no +sharer.' + +'You may ask your dear friend, if you choose,' she returned, 'for +his opinion upon that subject.' + +'I am scarcely on those intimate terms with my dear friend,' said +Arthur, in spite of his resolutions, 'that would render my +approaching the subject very probable, Miss Wade.' + +'I hate him,' she returned. 'Worse than his wife, because I was +once dupe enough, and false enough to myself, almost to love him. +You have seen me, sir, only on common-place occasions, when I dare +say you have thought me a common-place woman, a little more self- +willed than the generality. You don't know what I mean by hating, +if you know me no better than that; you can't know, without knowing +with what care I have studied myself and people about me. For this +reason I have for some time inclined to tell you what my life has +been--not to propitiate your opinion, for I set no value on it; but +that you may comprehend, when you think of your dear friend and his +dear wife, what I mean by hating. Shall I give you something I +have written and put by for your perusal, or shall I hold my hand?' + +Arthur begged her to give it to him. She went to the bureau, +unlocked it, and took from an inner drawer a few folded sheets of +paper. Without any conciliation of him, scarcely addressing him, +rather speaking as if she were speaking to her own looking-glass +for the justification of her own stubbornness, she said, as she +gave them to him: + +'Now you may know what I mean by hating! No more of that. Sir, +whether you find me temporarily and cheaply lodging in an empty +London house, or in a Calais apartment, you find Harriet with me. +You may like to see her before you leave. Harriet, come in!' She +called Harriet again. The second call produced Harriet, once +Tattycoram. + +'Here is Mr Clennam,' said Miss Wade; 'not come for you; he has +given you up,--I suppose you have, by this time?' + +'Having no authority, or influence--yes,' assented Clennam. + +'Not come in search of you, you see; but still seeking some one. +He wants that Blandois man.' + +'With whom I saw you in the Strand in London,' hinted Arthur. +'If you know anything of him, Harriet, except that he came from +Venice--which we all know--tell it to Mr Clennam freely.' +'I know nothing more about him,' said the girl. + +'Are you satisfied?' Miss Wade inquired of Arthur. + +He had no reason to disbelieve them; the girl's manner being so +natural as to be almost convincing, if he had had any previous +doubts. He replied, 'I must seek for intelligence elsewhere.' + +He was not going in the same breath; but he had risen before the +girl entered, and she evidently thought he was. She looked quickly +at him, and said: + +'Are they well, sir?' + +'Who?' + +She stopped herself in saying what would have been 'all of them;' +glanced at Miss Wade; and said 'Mr and Mrs Meagles.' + +'They were, when I last heard of them. They are not at home. By +the way, let me ask you. Is it true that you were seen there?' + +'Where? Where does any one say I was seen?' returned the girl, +sullenly casting down her eyes. + +'Looking in at the garden gate of the cottage.' + +'No,' said Miss Wade. 'She has never been near it.' + +'You are wrong, then,' said the girl. 'I went down there the last +time we were in London. I went one afternoon when you left me +alone. And I did look in.' + +'You poor-spirited girl,' returned Miss Wade with infinite +contempt; 'does all our companionship, do all our conversations, do +all your old complainings, tell for so little as that?' + +'There was no harm in looking in at the gate for an instant,' said +the girl. 'I saw by the windows that the family were not there.' + +'Why should you go near the place?' + +'Because I wanted to see it. Because I felt that I should like to +look at it again.' + +As each of the two handsome faces looked at the other, Clennam felt +how each of the two natures must be constantly tearing the other to +pieces. + +'Oh!' said Miss Wade, coldly subduing and removing her glance; 'if +you had any desire to see the place where you led the life from +which I rescued you because you had found out what it was, that is +another thing. But is that your truth to me? Is that your +fidelity to me? Is that the common cause I make with you? You are +not worth the confidence I have placed in you. You are not worth +the favour I have shown you. You are no higher than a spaniel, and +had better go back to the people who did worse than whip you.' + +'If you speak so of them with any one else by to hear, you'll +provoke me to take their part,' said the girl. + +'Go back to them,' Miss Wade retorted. 'Go back to them.' + +'You know very well,' retorted Harriet in her turn, 'that I won't +go back to them. You know very well that I have thrown them off, +and never can, never shall, never will, go back to them. Let them +alone, then, Miss Wade.' + +'You prefer their plenty to your less fat living here,' she +rejoined. 'You exalt them, and slight me. What else should I have +expected? I ought to have known it.' + +'It's not so,' said the girl, flushing high, 'and you don't say +what you mean. I know what you mean. You are reproaching me, +underhanded, with having nobody but you to look to. And because I +have nobody but you to look to, you think you are to make me do, or +not do, everything you please, and are to put any affront upon me. +You are as bad as they were, every bit. But I will not be quite +tamed, and made submissive. I will say again that I went to look +at the house, because I had often thought that I should like to see +it once more. I will ask again how they are, because I once liked +them and at times thought they were kind to me.' + +Hereupon Clennam said that he was sure they would still receive her +kindly, if she should ever desire to return. + +'Never!' said the girl passionately. 'I shall never do that. +Nobody knows that better than Miss Wade, though she taunts me +because she has made me her dependent. And I know I am so; and I +know she is overjoyed when she can bring it to my mind.' + +'A good pretence!' said Miss Wade, with no less anger, haughtiness, +and bitterness; 'but too threadbare to cover what I plainly see in +this. My poverty will not bear competition with their money. +Better go back at once, better go back at once, and have done with +it!' + +Arthur Clennam looked at them, standing a little distance asunder +in the dull confined room, each proudly cherishing her own anger; +each, with a fixed determination, torturing her own breast, and +torturing the other's. He said a word or two of leave-taking; but +Miss Wade barely inclined her head, and Harriet, with the assumed +humiliation of an abject dependent and serf (but not without +defiance for all that), made as if she were too low to notice or to +be noticed. + +He came down the dark winding stairs into the yard with an +increased sense upon him of the gloom of the wall that was dead, +and of the shrubs that were dead, and of the fountain that was dry, +and of the statue that was gone. Pondering much on what he had +seen and heard in that house, as well as on the failure of all his +efforts to trace the suspicious character who was lost, he returned +to London and to England by the packet that had taken him over. On +the way he unfolded the sheets of paper, and read in them what is +reproduced in the next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER 21 + +The History of a Self-Tormentor + + +I have the misfortune of not being a fool. From a very early age +I have detected what those about me thought they hid from me. If +I could have been habitually imposed upon, instead of habitually +discerning the truth, I might have lived as smoothly as most fools +do. + +My childhood was passed with a grandmother; that is to say, with a +lady who represented that relative to me, and who took that title +on herself. She had no claim to it, but I--being to that extent a +little fool--had no suspicion of her. She had some children of her +own family in her house, and some children of other people. All +girls; ten in number, including me. We all lived together and were +educated together. + +I must have been about twelve years old when I began to see how +determinedly those girls patronised me. I was told I was an +orphan. There was no other orphan among us; and I perceived (here +was the first disadvantage of not being a fool) that they +conciliated me in an insolent pity, and in a sense of superiority. +I did not set this down as a discovery, rashly. I tried them +often. I could hardly make them quarrel with me. When I succeeded +with any of them, they were sure to come after an hour or two, and +begin a reconciliation. I tried them over and over again, and I +never knew them wait for me to begin. They were always forgiving +me, in their vanity and condescension. Little images of grown +people! + +One of them was my chosen friend. I loved that stupid mite in a +passionate way that she could no more deserve than I can remember +without feeling ashamed of, though I was but a child. She had what +they called an amiable temper, an affectionate temper. She could +distribute, and did distribute pretty looks and smiles to every one +among them. I believe there was not a soul in the place, except +myself, who knew that she did it purposely to wound and gall me! + +Nevertheless, I so loved that unworthy girl that my life was made +stormy by my fondness for her. I was constantly lectured and +disgraced for what was called 'trying her;' in other words charging +her with her little perfidy and throwing her into tears by showing +her that I read her heart. However, I loved her faithfully; and +one time I went home with her for the holidays. + +She was worse at home than she had been at school. She had a crowd +of cousins and acquaintances, and we had dances at her house, and +went out to dances at other houses, and, both at home and out, she +tormented my love beyond endurance. Her plan was, to make them all +fond of her--and so drive me wild with jealousy. To be familiar +and endearing with them all--and so make me mad with envying them. +When we were left alone in our bedroom at night, I would reproach +her with my perfect knowledge of her baseness; and then she would +cry and cry and say I was cruel, and then I would hold her in my +arms till morning: loving her as much as ever, and often feeling as +if, rather than suffer so, I could so hold her in my arms and +plunge to the bottom of a river--where I would still hold her after +we were both dead. + +It came to an end, and I was relieved. In the family there was an +aunt who was not fond of me. I doubt if any of the family liked me +much; but I never wanted them to like me, being altogether bound up +in the one girl. The aunt was a young woman, and she had a serious +way with her eyes of watching me. She was an audacious woman, and +openly looked compassionately at me. After one of the nights that +I have spoken of, I came down into a greenhouse before breakfast. +Charlotte (the name of my false young friend) had gone down before +me, and I heard this aunt speaking to her about me as I entered. +I stopped where I was, among the leaves, and listened. + +The aunt said, 'Charlotte, Miss Wade is wearing you to death, and +this must not continue.' I repeat the very words I heard. + +Now, what did she answer? Did she say, 'It is I who am wearing her +to death, I who am keeping her on a rack and am the executioner, +yet she tells me every night that she loves me devotedly, though +she knows what I make her undergo?' No; my first memorable +experience was true to what I knew her to be, and to all my +experience. She began sobbing and weeping (to secure the aunt's +sympathy to herself), and said, 'Dear aunt, she has an unhappy +temper; other girls at school, besides I, try hard to make it +better; we all try hard.' + +Upon that the aunt fondled her, as if she had said something noble +instead of despicable and false, and kept up the infamous pretence +by replying, 'But there are reasonable limits, my dear love, to +everything, and I see that this poor miserable girl causes you more +constant and useless distress than even so good an effort +justifies.' + +The poor miserable girl came out of her concealment, as you may be +prepared to hear, and said, 'Send me home.' I never said another +word to either of them, or to any of them, but 'Send me home, or I +will walk home alone, night and day!' When I got home, I told my +supposed grandmother that, unless I was sent away to finish my +education somewhere else before that girl came back, or before any +one of them came back, I would burn my sight away by throwing +myself into the fire, rather than I would endure to look at their +plotting faces. + +I went among young women next, and I found them no better. Fair +words and fair pretences; but I penetrated below those assertions +of themselves and depreciations of me, and they were no better. +Before I left them, I learned that I had no grandmother and no +recognised relation. I carried the light of that information both +into my past and into my future. It showed me many new occasions +on which people triumphed over me, when they made a pretence of +treating me with consideration, or doing me a service. + +A man of business had a small property in trust for me. I was to +be a governess; I became a governess; and went into the family of +a poor nobleman, where there were two daughters--little children, +but the parents wished them to grow up, if possible, under one +instructress. The mother was young and pretty. From the first, +she made a show of behaving to me with great delicacy. I kept my +resentment to myself; but I knew very well that it was her way of +petting the knowledge that she was my Mistress, and might have +behaved differently to her servant if it had been her fancy. + + +I say I did not resent it, nor did I; but I showed her, by not +gratifying her, that I understood her. When she pressed me to take +wine, I took water. If there happened to be anything choice at +table, she always sent it to me: but I always declined it, and ate +of the rejected dishes. These disappointments of her patronage +were a sharp retort, and made me feel independent. + +I liked the children. They were timid, but on the whole disposed +to attach themselves to me. There was a nurse, however, in the +house, a rosy-faced woman always making an obtrusive pretence of +being gay and good-humoured, who had nursed them both, and who had +secured their affections before I saw them. I could almost have +settled down to my fate but for this woman. Her artful devices for +keeping herself before the children in constant competition with +me, might have blinded many in my place; but I saw through them +from the first. On the pretext of arranging my rooms and waiting +on me and taking care of my wardrobe (all of which she did busily), +she was never absent. The most crafty of her many subtleties was +her feint of seeking to make the children fonder of me. She would +lead them to me and coax them to me. 'Come to good Miss Wade, come +to dear Miss Wade, come to pretty Miss Wade. She loves you very +much. Miss Wade is a clever lady, who has read heaps of books, and +can tell you far better and more interesting stories than I know. +Come and hear Miss Wade!' How could I engage their attentions, +when my heart was burning against these ignorant designs? How +could I wonder, when I saw their innocent faces shrinking away, and +their arms twining round her neck, instead of mine? Then she would +look up at me, shaking their curls from her face, and say, 'They'll +come round soon, Miss Wade; they're very simple and loving, ma'am; +don't be at all cast down about it, ma'am'--exulting over me! + +There was another thing the woman did. At times, when she saw that +she had safely plunged me into a black despondent brooding by these +means, she would call the attention of the children to it, and +would show them the difference between herself and me. 'Hush! +Poor Miss Wade is not well. Don't make a noise, my dears, her head +aches. Come and comfort her. Come and ask her if she is better; +come and ask her to lie down. I hope you have nothing on your +mind, ma'am. Don't take on, ma'am, and be sorry!' + +It became intolerable. Her ladyship, my Mistress, coming in one +day when I was alone, and at the height of feeling that I could +support it no longer, I told her I must go. I could not bear the +presence of that woman Dawes. + +'Miss Wade! Poor Dawes is devoted to you; would do anything for +you!' + +I knew beforehand she would say so; I was quite prepared for it; I +only answered, it was not for me to contradict my Mistress; I must +go. + +'I hope, Miss Wade,' she returned, instantly assuming the tone of +superiority she had always so thinly concealed, 'that nothing I +have ever said or done since we have been together, has justified +your use of that disagreeable word, "Mistress." It must have been +wholly inadvertent on my part. Pray tell me what it is.' + +I replied that I had no complaint to make, either of my Mistress or +to my Mistress; but I must go. + +She hesitated a moment, and then sat down beside me, and laid her +hand on mine. As if that honour would obliterate any remembrance! + +'Miss Wade, I fear you are unhappy, through causes over which I +have no influence.' + +I smiled, thinking of the experience the word awakened, and said, +'I have an unhappy temper, I suppose.' +'I did not say that.' + +'It is an easy way of accounting for anything,' said I. + +'It may be; but I did not say so. What I wish to approach is +something very different. My husband and I have exchanged some +remarks upon the subject, when we have observed with pain that you +have not been easy with us.' + +'Easy? Oh! You are such great people, my lady,' said I. + +'I am unfortunate in using a word which may convey a meaning--and +evidently does--quite opposite to my intention.' (She had not +expected my reply, and it shamed her.) 'I only mean, not happy with +us. It is a difficult topic to enter on; but, from one young woman +to another, perhaps--in short, we have been apprehensive that you +may allow some family circumstances of which no one can be more +innocent than yourself, to prey upon your spirits. If so, let us +entreat you not to make them a cause of grief. My husband himself, +as is well known, formerly had a very dear sister who was not in +law his sister, but who was universally beloved and respected . + +I saw directly that they had taken me in for the sake of the dead +woman, whoever she was, and to have that boast of me and advantage +of me; I saw, in the nurse's knowledge of it, an encouragement to +goad me as she had done; and I saw, in the children's shrinking +away, a vague impression, that I was not like other people. I left +that house that night. + +After one or two short and very similar experiences, which are not +to the present purpose, I entered another family where I had but +one pupil: a girl of fifteen, who was the only daughter. The +parents here were elderly people: people of station, and rich. A +nephew whom they had brought up was a frequent visitor at the +house, among many other visitors; and he began to pay me attention. + +I was resolute in repulsing him; for I had determined when I went +there, that no one should pity me or condescend to me. But he +wrote me a letter. It led to our being engaged to be married. + +He was a year younger than I, and young-looking even when that +allowance was made. He was on absence from India, where he had a +post that was soon to grow into a very good one. In six months we +were to be married, and were to go to India. I was to stay in the +house, and was to be married from the house. Nobody objected to +any part of the plan. + +I cannot avoid saying he admired me; but, if I could, I would. +Vanity has nothing to do with the declaration, for his admiration +worried me. He took no pains to hide it; and caused me to feel +among the rich people as if he had bought me for my looks, and made +a show of his purchase to justify himself. They appraised me in +their own minds, I saw, and were curious to ascertain what my full +value was. I resolved that they should not know. I was immovable +and silent before them; and would have suffered any one of them to +kill me sooner than I would have laid myself out to bespeak their +approval. + +He told me I did not do myself justice. I told him I did, and it +was because I did and meant to do so to the last, that I would not +stoop to propitiate any of them. He was concerned and even +shocked, when I added that I wished he would not parade his +attachment before them; but he said he would sacrifice even the +honest impulses of his affection to my peace. + +Under that pretence he began to retort upon me. By the hour +together, he would keep at a distance from me, talking to any one +rather than to me. I have sat alone and unnoticed, half an +evening, while he conversed with his young cousin, my pupil. I +have seen all the while, in people's eyes, that they thought the +two looked nearer on an equality than he and I. I have sat, +divining their thoughts, until I have felt that his young +appearance made me ridiculous, and have raged against myself for +ever loving him. + +For I did love him once. Undeserving as he was, and little as he +thought of all these agonies that it cost me--agonies which should +have made him wholly and gratefully mine to his life's end--I loved +him. I bore with his cousin's praising him to my face, and with +her pretending to think that it pleased me, but full well knowing +that it rankled in my breast; for his sake. While I have sat in +his presence recalling all my slights and wrongs, and deliberating +whether I should not fly from the house at once and never see him +again--I have loved him. + +His aunt (my Mistress you will please to remember) deliberately, +wilfully, added to my trials and vexations. It was her delight to +expatiate on the style in which we were to live in India, and on +the establishment we should keep, and the company we should +entertain when he got his advancement. My pride rose against this +barefaced way of pointing out the contrast my married life was to +present to my then dependent and inferior position. I suppressed +my indignation; but I showed her that her intention was not lost +upon me, and I repaid her annoyance by affecting humility. What +she described would surely be a great deal too much honour for me, +I would tell her. I was afraid I might not be able to support so +great a change. Think of a mere governess, her daughter's +governess, coming to that high distinction! It made her uneasy, +and made them all uneasy, when I answered in this way. They knew +that I fully understood her. + +It was at the time when my troubles were at their highest, and when +I was most incensed against my lover for his ingratitude in caring +as little as he did for the innumerable distresses and +mortifications I underwent on his account, that your dear friend, +Mr Gowan, appeared at the house. He had been intimate there for a +long time, but had been abroad. He understood the state of things +at a glance, and he understood me. + +He was the first person I had ever seen in my life who had +understood me. He was not in the house three times before I knew +that he accompanied every movement of my mind. In his coldly easy +way with all of them, and with me, and with the whole subject, I +saw it clearly. In his light protestations of admiration of my +future husband, in his enthusiasm regarding our engagement and our +prospects, in his hopeful congratulations on our future wealth and +his despondent references to his own poverty--all equally hollow, +and jesting, and full of mockery--I saw it clearly. He made me +feel more and more resentful, and more and more contemptible, by +always presenting to me everything that surrounded me with some new +hateful light upon it, while he pretended to exhibit it in its best +aspect for my admiration and his own. He was like the dressed-up +Death in the Dutch series; whatever figure he took upon his arm, +whether it was youth or age, beauty or ugliness, whether he danced +with it, sang with it, played with it, or prayed with it, he made +it ghastly. + +You will understand, then, that when your dear friend complimented +me, he really condoled with me; that when he soothed me under my +vexations, he laid bare every smarting wound I had; that when he +declared my 'faithful swain' to be 'the most loving young fellow in +the world, with the tenderest heart that ever beat,' he touched my +old misgiving that I was made ridiculous. These were not great +services, you may say. They were acceptable to me, because they +echoed my own mind, and confirmed my own knowledge. I soon began +to like the society of your dear friend better than any other. + +When I perceived (which I did, almost as soon) that jealousy was +growing out of this, I liked this society still better. Had I not +been subject to jealousy, and were the endurances to be all mine? +No. Let him know what it was! I was delighted that he should know +it; I was delighted that he should feel keenly, and I hoped he did. + +More than that. He was tame in comparison with Mr Gowan, who knew +how to address me on equal terms, and how to anatomise the wretched +people around us. + +This went on, until the aunt, my Mistress, took it upon herself to +speak to me. It was scarcely worth alluding to; she knew I meant +nothing; but she suggested from herself, knowing it was only +necessary to suggest, that it might be better if I were a little +less companionable with Mr Gowan. + +I asked her how she could answer for what I meant? She could +always answer, she replied, for my meaning nothing wrong. I +thanked her, but said I would prefer to answer for myself and to +myself. Her other servants would probably be grateful for good +characters, but I wanted none. + +Other conversation followed, and induced me to ask her how she knew +that it was only necessary for her to make a suggestion to me, to +have it obeyed? Did she presume on my birth, or on my hire? I was +not bought, body and soul. She seemed to think that her +distinguished nephew had gone into a slave-market and purchased a +wife. + +It would probably have come, sooner or later, to the end to which +it did come, but she brought it to its issue at once. She told me, +with assumed commiseration, that I had an unhappy temper. On this +repetition of the old wicked injury, I withheld no longer, but +exposed to her all I had known of her and seen in her, and all I +had undergone within myself since I had occupied the despicable +position of being engaged to her nephew. I told her that Mr Gowan +was the only relief I had had in my degradation; that I had borne +it too long, and that I shook it off too late; but that I would see +none of them more. And I never did. +Your dear friend followed me to my retreat, and was very droll on +the severance of the connection; though he was sorry, too, for the +excellent people (in their way the best he had ever met), and +deplored the necessity of breaking mere house-flies on the wheel. +He protested before long, and far more truly than I then supposed, +that he was not worth acceptance by a woman of such endowments, and +such power of character; but--well, well!-- + +Your dear friend amused me and amused himself as long as it suited +his inclinations; and then reminded me that we were both people of +the world, that we both understood mankind, that we both knew there +was no such thing as romance, that we were both prepared for going +different ways to seek our fortunes like people of sense, and that +we both foresaw that whenever we encountered one another again we +should meet as the best friends on earth. So he said, and I did +not contradict him. + +It was not very long before I found that he was courting his +present wife, and that she had been taken away to be out of his +reach. I hated her then, quite as much as I hate her now; and +naturally, therefore, could desire nothing better than that she +should marry him. But I was restlessly curious to look at her--so +curious that I felt it to be one of the few sources of +entertainment left to me. I travelled a little: travelled until I +found myself in her society, and in yours. Your dear friend, I +think, was not known to you then, and had not given you any of +those signal marks of his friendship which he has bestowed upon +you. + +In that company I found a girl, in various circumstances of whose +position there was a singular likeness to my own, and in whose +character I was interested and pleased to see much of the rising +against swollen patronage and selfishness, calling themselves +kindness, protection, benevolence, and other fine names, which I +have described as inherent in my nature. I often heard it said, +too, that she had 'an unhappy temper.' Well understanding what was +meant by the convenient phrase, and wanting a companion with a +knowledge of what I knew, I thought I would try to release the girl +from her bondage and sense of injustice. I have no occasion to +relate that I succeeded. + +We have been together ever since, sharing my small means. + + + + +CHAPTER 22 + +Who passes by this Road so late? + + +Arthur Clennam had made his unavailing expedition to Calais in the +midst of a great pressure of business. A certain barbaric Power +with valuable possessions on the map of the world, had occasion for +the services of one or two engineers, quick in invention and +determined in execution: practical men, who could make the men and +means their ingenuity perceived to be wanted out of the best +materials they could find at hand; and who were as bold and fertile +in the adaptation of such materials to their purpose, as in the +conception of their purpose itself. This Power, being a barbaric +one, had no idea of stowing away a great national object in a +Circumlocution Office, as strong wine is hidden from the light in +a cellar until its fire and youth are gone, and the labourers who +worked in the vineyard and pressed the grapes are dust. With +characteristic ignorance, it acted on the most decided and +energetic notions of How to do it; and never showed the least +respect for, or gave any quarter to, the great political science, +How not to do it. Indeed it had a barbarous way of striking the +latter art and mystery dead, in the person of any enlightened +subject who practised it. + +Accordingly, the men who were wanted were sought out and found; +which was in itself a most uncivilised and irregular way of +proceeding. Being found, they were treated with great confidence +and honour (which again showed dense political ignorance), and were +invited to come at once and do what they had to do. In short, they +were regarded as men who meant to do it, engaging with other men +who meant it to be done. + +Daniel Doyce was one of the chosen. There was no foreseeing at +that time whether he would be absent months or years. The +preparations for his departure, and the conscientious arrangement +for him of all the details and results of their joint business, had +necessitated labour within a short compass of time, which had +occupied Clennam day and night. He had slipped across the water in +his first leisure, and had slipped as quickly back again for his +farewell interview with Doyce. + +Him Arthur now showed, with pains and care, the state of their +gains and losses, responsibilities and prospects. Daniel went +through it all in his patient manner, and admired it all +exceedingly. He audited the accounts, as if they were a far more +ingenious piece of mechanism than he had ever constructed, and +afterwards stood looking at them, weighing his hat over his head by +the brims, as if he were absorbed in the contemplation of some +wonderful engine. + +'It's all beautiful, Clennam, in its regularity and order. Nothing +can be plainer. Nothing can be better.' + +'I am glad you approve, Doyce. Now, as to the management of your +capital while you are away, and as to the conversion of so much of +it as the business may need from time to time--' His partner +stopped him. + +'As to that, and as to everything else of that kind, all rests with +you. You will continue in all such matters to act for both of us, +as you have done hitherto, and to lighten my mind of a load it is +much relieved from.' + +'Though, as I often tell you,' returned Clennam, 'you unreasonably +depreciate your business qualities.' + +'Perhaps so,' said Doyce, smiling. 'And perhaps not. Anyhow, I +have a calling that I have studied more than such matters, and that +I am better fitted for. I have perfect confidence in my partner, +and I am satisfied that he will do what is best. If I have a +prejudice connected with money and money figures,' continued Doyce, +laying that plastic workman's thumb of his on the lapel of his +partner's coat, 'it is against speculating. I don't think I have +any other. I dare say I entertain that prejudice, only because I +have never given my mind fully to the subject.' + +'But you shouldn't call it a prejudice,' said Clennam. 'My dear +Doyce, it is the soundest sense.' + +'I am glad you think so,' returned Doyce, with his grey eye looking +kind and bright. + +'It so happens,' said Clennam, 'that just now, not half an hour +before you came down, I was saying the same thing to Pancks, who +looked in here. We both agreed that to travel out of safe +investments is one of the most dangerous, as it is one of the most +common, of those follies which often deserve the name of vices.' + +'Pancks?' said Doyce, tilting up his hat at the back, and nodding +with an air of confidence. 'Aye, aye, aye! That's a cautious +fellow.' + +'He is a very cautious fellow indeed,' returned Arthur. 'Quite a +specimen of caution.' + +They both appeared to derive a larger amount of satisfaction from +the cautious character of Mr Pancks, than was quite intelligible, +judged by the surface of their conversation. + +'And now,' said Daniel, looking at his watch, 'as time and tide +wait for no man, my trusty partner, and as I am ready for starting, +bag and baggage, at the gate below, let me say a last word. I want +you to grant a request of mine.' + +'Any request you can make--Except,' Clennam was quick with his +exception, for his partner's face was quick in suggesting it, +'except that I will abandon your invention.' + +'That's the request, and you know it is,' said Doyce. + +'I say, No, then. I say positively, No. Now that I have begun, I +will have some definite reason, some responsible statement, +something in the nature of a real answer, from those people.' + +'You will not,' returned Doyce, shaking his head. 'Take my word +for it, you never will.' + +'At least, I'll try,' said Clennam. 'It will do me no harm to +try.' + +'I am not certain of that,' rejoined Doyce, laying his hand +persuasively on his shoulder. 'It has done me harm, my friend. It +has aged me, tired me, vexed me, disappointed me. It does no man +any good to have his patience worn out, and to think himself ill- +used. I fancy, even already, that unavailing attendance on delays +and evasions has made you something less elastic than you used to +be.' + +'Private anxieties may have done that for the moment,' said +Clennam, 'but not official harrying. Not yet. I am not hurt yet.' + +'Then you won't grant my request?' + +'Decidedly, No,' said Clennam. 'I should be ashamed if I submitted +to be so soon driven out of the field, where a much older and a +much more sensitively interested man contended with fortitude so +long.' + +As there was no moving him, Daniel Doyce returned the grasp of his +hand, and, casting a farewell look round the counting-house, went +down-stairs with him. Doyce was to go to Southampton to join the +small staff of his fellow-travellers; and a coach was at the gate, +well furnished and packed, and ready to take him there. The +workmen were at the gate to see him off, and were mightily proud of +him. 'Good luck to you, Mr Doyce!' said one of the number. +'Wherever you go, they'll find as they've got a man among 'em) a +man as knows his tools and as his tools knows, a man as is willing +and a man as is able, and if that's not a man, where is a man!' +This oration from a gruff volunteer in the back-ground, not +previously suspected of any powers in that way, was received with +three loud cheers; and the speaker became a distinguished character +for ever afterwards. In the midst of the three loud cheers, Daniel +gave them all a hearty 'Good Bye, Men!' and the coach disappeared +from sight, as if the concussion of the air had blown it out of +Bleeding Heart Yard. + +Mr Baptist, as a grateful little fellow in a position of trust, was +among the workmen, and had done as much towards the cheering as a +mere foreigner could. In truth, no men on earth can cheer like +Englishmen, who do so rally one another's blood and spirit when +they cheer in earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their +whole history, with all its standards waving at once, from Saxon +Alfred's downwards. Mr Baptist had been in a manner whirled away +before the onset, and was taking his breath in quite a scared +condition when Clennam beckoned him to follow up-stairs, and return +the books and papers to their places. + +In the lull consequent on the departure--in that first vacuity +which ensues on every separation, foreshadowing the great +separation that is always overhanging all mankind--Arthur stood at +his desk, looking dreamily out at a gleam of sun. But his +liberated attention soon reverted to the theme that was foremost in +his thoughts, and began, for the hundredth time, to dwell upon +every circumstance that had impressed itself upon his mind on the +mysterious night when he had seen the man at his mother's. Again +the man jostled him in the crooked street, again he followed the +man and lost him, again he came upon the man in the court-yard +looking at the house, again he followed the man and stood beside +him on the door-steps. + + + 'Who passes by this road so late? + Compagnon de la Majolaine; + Who passes by this road so late? + Always gay!' + + +It was not the first time, by many, that he had recalled the song +of the child's game, of which the fellow had hummed @ verse while +they stood side by side; but he was so unconscious of having +repeated it audibly, that he started to hear the next verse. + + + 'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, + Compagnon de la Majolaine; + Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, + Always gay!' + + +Cavalletto had deferentially suggested the words and tune, +supposing him to have stopped short for want of more. + +'Ah! You know the song, Cavalletto?' + +'By Bacchus, yes, sir! They all know it in France. I have heard +it many times, sung by the little children. The last time when it +I have heard,' said Mr Baptist, formerly Cavalletto, who usually +went back to his native construction of sentences when his memory +went near home, 'is from a sweet little voice. A little voice, +very pretty, very innocent. Altro!' + +'The last time I heard it,' returned Arthur, 'was in a voice quite +the reverse of pretty, and quite the reverse of innocent.' He said +it more to himself than to his companion, and added to himself, +repeating the man's next words. 'Death of my life, sir, it's my +character to be impatient!' + +'EH!' cried Cavalletto, astounded, and with all his colour gone in +a moment. + +'What is the matter?' + +'Sir! You know where I have heard that song the last time?' + +With his rapid native action, his hands made the outline of a high +hook nose, pushed his eyes near together, dishevelled his hair, +puffed out his upper lip to represent a thick moustache, and threw +the heavy end of an ideal cloak over his shoulder. While doing +this, with a swiftness incredible to one who has not watched an +Italian peasant, he indicated a very remarkable and sinister smile. + +The whole change passed over him like a flash of light, and he +stood in the same instant, pale and astonished, before his patron. + +'In the name of Fate and wonder,' said Clennam, 'what do you mean? +Do you know a man of the name of Blandois?' + +'No!' said Mr Baptist, shaking his head. + +'You have just now described a man who was by when you heard that +song; have you not?' + +'Yes!' said Mr Baptist, nodding fifty times. + +'And was he not called Blandois?' + +'No!' said Mr Baptist. 'Altro, Altro, Altro, Altro!' He could not +reject the name sufficiently, with his head and his right +forefinger going at once. + +'Stay!' cried Clennam, spreading out the handbill on his desk. +'Was this the man? You can understand what I read aloud?' + +'Altogether. Perfectly.' + +'But look at it, too. Come here and look over me, while I read.' + +Mr Baptist approached, followed every word with his quick eyes, saw +and heard it all out with the greatest impatience, then clapped his +two hands flat upon the bill as if he had fiercely caught some +noxious creature, and cried, looking eagerly at Clennam, 'It is the +man! Behold him!' + +'This is of far greater moment to me' said Clennam, in great +agitation, 'than you can imagine. Tell me where you knew the man.' + +Mr Baptist, releasing the paper very slowly and with much +discomfiture, and drawing himself back two or three paces, and +making as though he dusted his hands, returned, very much against +his will: + +'At Marsiglia--Marseilles.' + +'What was he?' + +'A prisoner, and--Altro! I believe yes!--an,' Mr Baptist crept +closer again to whisper it, 'Assassin!' + +Clennam fell back as if the word had struck him a blow: so terrible +did it make his mother's communication with the man appear. +Cavalletto dropped on one knee, and implored him, with a redundancy +of gesticulation, to hear what had brought himself into such foul +company. + +He told with perfect truth how it had come of a little contraband +trading, and how he had in time been released from prison, and how +he had gone away from those antecedents. How, at the house of +entertainment called the Break of Day at Chalons on the Saone, he +had been awakened in his bed at night by the same assassin, then +assuming the name of Lagnier, though his name had formerly been +Rigaud; how the assassin had proposed that they should join their +fortunes together; how he held the assassin in such dread and +aversion that he had fled from him at daylight, and how he had ever +since been haunted by the fear of seeing the assassin again and +being claimed by him as an acquaintance. When he had related this, +with an emphasis and poise on the word, 'assassin,' peculiarly +belonging to his own language, and which did not serve to render it +less terrible to Clennam, he suddenly sprang to his feet, pounced +upon the bill again, and with a vehemence that would have been +absolute madness in any man of Northern origin, cried 'Behold the +same assassin! Here he is!' + +In his passionate raptures, he at first forgot the fact that he had +lately seen the assassin in London. On his remembering it, it +suggested hope to Clennam that the recognition might be of later +date than the night of the visit at his mother's; but Cavalletto +was too exact and clear about time and place, to leave any opening +for doubt that it had preceded that occasion. + +'Listen,' said Arthur, very seriously. 'This man, as we have read +here, has wholly disappeared.' + +'Of it I am well content!' said Cavalletto, raising his eyes +piously. 'A thousand thanks to Heaven! Accursed assassin!' + +'Not so,' returned Clennam; 'for until something more is heard of +him, I can never know an hour's peace.' + +'Enough, Benefactor; that is quite another thing. A million of +excuses!' + +'Now, Cavalletto,' said Clennam, gently turning him by the arm, so +that they looked into each other's eyes. 'I am certain that for +the little I have been able to do for you, you are the most +sincerely grateful of men.' + +'I swear it!' cried the other. + +'I know it. If you could find this man, or discover what has +become of him, or gain any later intelligence whatever of him, you +would render me a service above any other service I could receive +in the world, and would make me (with far greater reason) as +grateful to you as you are to me.' +'I know not where to look,' cried the little man, kissing Arthur's +hand in a transport. 'I know not where to begin. I know not where +to go. But, courage! Enough! It matters not! I go, in this +instant of time!' + +'Not a word to any one but me, Cavalletto.' + +'Al-tro!' cried Cavalletto. And was gone with great speed. + + + + +CHAPTER 23 + +Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, + respecting her Dreams + + +Left alone, with the expressive looks and gestures of Mr Baptist, +otherwise Giovanni Baptista Cavalletto, vividly before him, Clennam +entered on a weary day. It was in vain that he tried to control +his attention by directing it to any business occupation or train +of thought; it rode at anchor by the haunting topic, and would hold +to no other idea. As though a criminal should be chained in a +stationary boat on a deep clear river, condemned, whatever +countless leagues of water flowed past him, always to see the body +of the fellow-creature he had drowned lying at the bottom, +immovable, and unchangeable, except as the eddies made it broad or +long, now expanding, now contracting its terrible lineaments; so +Arthur, below the shifting current of transparent thoughts and +fancies which were gone and succeeded by others as soon as come, +saw, steady and dark, and not to be stirred from its place, the one +subject that he endeavoured with all his might to rid himself of, +and that he could not fly from. The assurance he now had, that +Blandois, whatever his right name, was one of the worst of +characters, greatly augmented the burden of his anxieties. Though +the disappearance should be accounted for to-morrow, the fact that +his mother had been in communication with such a man, would remain +unalterable. That the communication had been of a secret kind, and +that she had been submissive to him and afraid of him, he hoped +might be known to no one beyond himself; yet, knowing it, how could +he separate it from his old vague fears, and how believe that there +was nothing evil in such relations? +Her resolution not to enter on the question with him, and his +knowledge of her indomitable character, enhanced his sense of +helplessness. It was like the oppression of a dream to believe +that shame and exposure were impending over her and his father's +memory, and to be shut out, as by a brazen wall, from the +possibility of coming to their aid. The purpose he had brought +home to his native country, and had ever since kept in view, was, +with her greatest determination, defeated by his mother herself, at +the time of all others when he feared that it pressed most. His +advice, energy, activity, money, credit, all his resources +whatsoever, were all made useless. If she had been possessed of +the old fabled influence, and had turned those who looked upon her +into stone, she could not have rendered him more completely +powerless (so it seemed to him in his distress of mind) than she +did, when she turned her unyielding face to his in her gloomy room. + +But the light of that day's discovery, shining on these +considerations, roused him to take a more decided course of action. + +Confident in the rectitude of his purpose, and impelled by a sense +of overhanging danger closing in around, he resolved, if his mother +would still admit of no approach, to make a desperate appeal to +Affery. If she could be brought to become communicative, and to do +what lay in her to break the spell of secrecy that enshrouded the +house, he might shake off the paralysis of which every hour that +passed over his head made him more acutely sensible. This was the +result of his day's anxiety, and this was the decision he put in +practice when the day closed in. + +His first disappointment, on arriving at the house, was to find the +door open, and Mr Flintwinch smoking a pipe on the steps. If +circumstances had been commonly favourable, Mistress Affery would +have opened the door to his knock. Circumstances being uncommonly +unfavourable, the door stood open, and Mr Flintwinch was smoking +his pipe on the steps. + +'Good evening,' said Arthur. + +'Good evening,' said Mr Flintwinch. + +The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch's mouth, as if it +circulated through the whole of his wry figure and came back by his +wry throat, before coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the +crooked chimneys and the mists from the crooked river. + +'Have you any news?' said Arthur. + +'We have no news,' said Jeremiah. + +'I mean of the foreign man,' Arthur explained. + +_'I_ mean of the foreign man,' said Jeremiah. + +He looked so grim, as he stood askew, with the knot of his cravat +under his ear, that the thought passed into Clennam's mind, and not +for the first time by many, could Flintwinch for a purpose of his +own have got rid of Blandois? Could it have been his secret, and +his safety, that were at issue? He was small and bent, and perhaps +not actively strong; yet he was as tough as an old yew-tree, and as +crusty as an old jackdaw. Such a man, coming behind a much younger +and more vigorous man, and having the will to put an end to him and +no relenting, might do it pretty surely in that solitary place at +a late hour. + +While, in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts +drifted over the main one that was always in Clennam's mind, Mr +Flintwinch, regarding the opposite house over the gateway with his +neck twisted and one eye shut up, stood smoking with a vicious +expression upon him; more as if he were trying to bite off the stem +of his pipe, than as if he were enjoying it. Yet he was enjoying +it in his own way. + +'You'll be able to take my likeness, the next time you call, +Arthur, I should think,' said Mr Flintwinch, drily, as he stooped +to knock the ashes out. + +Rather conscious and confused, Arthur asked his pardon, if he had +stared at him unpolitely. 'But my mind runs so much upon this +matter,' he said, 'that I lose myself.' + +'Hah! Yet I don't see,' returned Mr Flintwinch, quite at his +leisure, 'why it should trouble YOU, Arthur.' + +'No?' + +'No,' said Mr Flintwinch, very shortly and decidedly: much as if he +were of the canine race, and snapped at Arthur's hand. + +'Is it nothing to see those placards about? Is it nothing to me to +see my mother's name and residence hawked up and down in such an +association?' + +'I don't see,' returned Mr Flintwinch, scraping his horny cheek, +'that it need signify much to you. But I'll tell you what I do +see, Arthur,' glancing up at the windows; 'I see the light of fire +and candle in your mother's room!' + +'And what has that to do with it?' + +'Why, sir, I read by it,' said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself at +him, 'that if it's advisable (as the proverb says it is) to let +sleeping dogs lie, it's just as advisable, perhaps, to let missing +dogs lie. Let 'em be. They generally turn up soon enough.' + +Mr Flintwinch turned short round when he had made this remark, and +went into the dark hall. Clennam stood there, following him with +his eyes, as he dipped for a light in the phosphorus-box in the +little room at the side, got one after three or four dips, and +lighted the dim lamp against the wall. All the while, Clennam was +pursuing the probabilities--rather as if they were being shown to +him by an invisible hand than as if he himself were conjuring them +up--of Mr Flintwinch's ways and means of doing that darker deed, +and removing its traces by any of the black avenues of shadow that +lay around them. + +'Now, sir,' said the testy Jeremiah; 'will it be agreeable to walk +up-stairs?' + +'My mother is alone, I suppose?' + +'Not alone,' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Mr Casby and his daughter are +with her. They came in while I was smoking, and I stayed behind to +have my smoke out.' + +This was the second disappointment. Arthur made no remark upon it, +and repaired to his mother's room, where Mr Casby and Flora had +been taking tea, anchovy paste, and hot buttered toast. The relics +of those delicacies were not yet removed, either from the table or +from the scorched countenance of Affery, who, with the kitchen +toasting-fork still in her hand, looked like a sort of allegorical +personage; except that she had a considerable advantage over the +general run of such personages in point of significant emblematical +purpose. + +Flora had spread her bonnet and shawl upon the bed, with a care +indicative of an intention to stay some time. Mr Casby, too, was +beaming near the hob, with his benevolent knobs shining as if the +warm butter of the toast were exuding through the patriarchal +skull, and with his face as ruddy as if the colouring matter of the +anchovy paste were mantling in the patriarchal visage. Seeing +this, as he exchanged the usual salutations, Clennam decided to +speak to his mother without postponement. + +It had long been customary, as she never changed her room, for +those who had anything to say to her apart, to wheel her to her +desk; where she sat, usually with the back of her chair turned +towards the rest of the room, and the person who talked with her +seated in a corner, on a stool which was always set in that place +for that purpose. Except that it was long since the mother and son +had spoken together without the intervention of a third person, it +was an ordinary matter of course within the experience of visitors +for Mrs Clennam to be asked, with a word of apology for the +interruption, if she could be spoken with on a matter of business, +and, on her replying in the affirmative, to be wheeled into the +position described. + +Therefore, when Arthur now made such an apology, and such a +request, and moved her to her desk and seated himself on the stool, +Mrs Finching merely began to talk louder and faster, as a delicate +hint that she could overhear nothing, and Mr Casby stroked his long +white locks with sleepy calmness. + +'Mother, I have heard something to-day which I feel persuaded you +don't know, and which I think you should know, of the antecedents +of that man I saw here.' + +'I know nothing of the antecedents of the man you saw here, +Arthur.' + +She spoke aloud. He had lowered his own voice; but she rejected +that advance towards confidence as she rejected every other, and +spoke in her usual key and in her usual stern voice. + +'I have received it on no circuitous information; it has come to me +direct.' +She asked him, exactly as before, if he were there to tell her what +it was? + +'I thought it right that you should know it.' + +'And what is it?' + +'He has been a prisoner in a French gaol.' + +She answered with composure, 'I should think that very likely.' + +' But in a gaol for criminals, mother. On an accusation of +murder.' + +She started at the word, and her looks expressed her natural +horror. Yet she still spoke aloud, when she demanded:-- + +'Who told you so?' + +'A man who was his fellow-prisoner.' + +'That man's antecedents, I suppose, were not known to you, before +he told you?' + +'No.' + +'Though the man himself was?' + +'Yes.' + +'My case and Flintwinch's, in respect of this other man! I dare +say the resemblance is not so exact, though, as that your informant +became known to you through a letter from a correspondent with whom +he had deposited money? How does that part of the parallel stand?' + +Arthur had no choice but to say that his informant had not become +known to him through the agency of any such credentials, or indeed +of any credentials at all. Mrs Clennam's attentive frown expanded +by degrees into a severe look of triumph, and she retorted with +emphasis, 'Take care how you judge others, then. I say to you, +Arthur, for your good, take care how you judge!' +Her emphasis had been derived from her eyes quite as much as from +the stress she laid upon her words. She continued to look at him; +and if, when he entered the house, he had had any latent hope of +prevailing in the least with her, she now looked it out of his +heart. + +'Mother, shall I do nothing to assist you?' + +'Nothing.' + +'Will you entrust me with no confidence, no charge, no explanation? + +Will you take no counsel with me? Will you not let me come near +you?' + +'How can you ask me? You separated yourself from my affairs. It +was not my act; it was yours. How can you consistently ask me such +a question? You know that you left me to Flintwinch, and that he +occupies your place.' + +Glancing at Jeremiah, Clennam saw in his very gaiters that his +attention was closely directed to them, though he stood leaning +against the wall scraping his jaw, and pretended to listen to Flora +as she held forth in a most distracting manner on a chaos of +subjects, in which mackerel, and Mr F.'s Aunt in a swing, had +become entangled with cockchafers and the wine trade. + +'A prisoner, in a French gaol, on an accusation of murder,' +repeated Mrs Clennam, steadily going over what her son had said. +'That is all you know of him from the fellow-prisoner?' + +'In substance, all.' + +'And was the fellow-prisoner his accomplice and a murderer, too? +But, of course, he gives a better account of himself than of his +friend; it is needless to ask. This will supply the rest of them +here with something new to talk about. Casby, Arthur tells me--' + +'Stay, mother! Stay, stay!' He interrupted her hastily, for it +had not entered his imagination that she would openly proclaim what +he had told her. + +'What now?' she said with displeasure. 'What more?' + + +'I beg you to excuse me, Mr Casby--and you, too, Mrs Finching--for +one other moment with my mother--' + +He had laid his hand upon her chair, or she would otherwise have +wheeled it round with the touch of her foot upon the ground. They +were still face to face. She looked at him, as he ran over the +possibilities of some result he had not intended, and could not +foresee, being influenced by Cavalletto's disclosure becoming a +matter of notoriety, and hurriedly arrived at the conclusion that +it had best not be talked about; though perhaps he was guided by no +more distinct reason than that he had taken it for granted that his +mother would reserve it to herself and her partner. + +'What now?' she said again, impatiently. 'What is it?' + +'I did not mean, mother, that you should repeat what I have +communicated. I think you had better not repeat it.' + +'Do you make that a condition with me?' + +'Well! Yes.' + +'Observe, then! It is you who make this a secret,' said she, +holding up her hand, 'and not I. It is you, Arthur, who bring here +doubts and suspicions and entreaties for explanations, and it is +you, Arthur, who bring secrets here. What is it to me, do you +think, where the man has been, or what he has been? What can it be +to me? The whole world may know it, if they care to know it; it is +nothing to me. Now, let me go.' + +He yielded to her imperious but elated look, and turned her chair +back to the place from which he had wheeled it. In doing so he saw +elation in the face of Mr Flintwinch, which most assuredly was not +inspired by Flora. this turning of his intelligence and of his +whole attempt and design against himself, did even more than his +mother's fixedness and firmness to convince him that his efforts +with her were idle. Nothing remained but the appeal to his old +friend Affery. + +But even to get the very doubtful and preliminary stage of making +the appeal, seemed one of the least promising of human +undertakings. She was so completely under the thrall of the two +clever ones, was so systematically kept in sight by one or other of +them, and was so afraid to go about the house besides, that every +opportunity of speaking to her alone appeared to be forestalled. +Over and above that, Mistress Affery, by some means (it was not +very difficult to guess, through the sharp arguments of her liege +lord), had acquired such a lively conviction of the hazard of +saying anything under any circumstances, that she had remained all +this time in a corner guarding herself from approach with that +symbolical instrument of hers; so that, when a word or two had been +addressed to her by Flora, or even by the bottle-green patriarch +himself, she had warded off conversation with the toasting-fork +like a dumb woman. + +After several abortive attempts to get Affery to look at him while +she cleared the table and washed the tea-service, Arthur thought of +an expedient which Flora might originate. To whom he therefore +whispered, 'Could you say you would like to go through the house?' + +Now, poor Flora, being always in fluctuating expectation of the +time when Clennam would renew his boyhood and be madly in love with +her again, received the whisper with the utmost delight; not only +as rendered precious by its mysterious character, but as preparing +the way for a tender interview in which he would declare the state +of his affections. She immediately began to work out the hint. + +'Ah dear me the poor old room,' said Flora, glancing round, 'looks +just as ever Mrs Clennam I am touched to see except for being +smokier which was to be expected with time and which we must all +expect and reconcile ourselves to being whether we like it or not +as I am sure I have had to do myself if not exactly smokier +dreadfully stouter which is the same or worse, to think of the days +when papa used to bring me here the least of girls a perfect mass +of chilblains to be stuck upon a chair with my feet on the rails +and stare at Arthur--pray excuse me--Mr Clennam--the least of boys +in the frightfullest of frills and jackets ere yet Mr F. appeared +a misty shadow on the horizon paying attentions like the well-known +spectre of some place in Germany beginning with a B is a moral +lesson inculcating that all the paths in life are similar to the +paths down in the North of England where they get the coals and +make the iron and things gravelled with ashes!' + +Having paid the tribute of a sigh to the instability of human +existence, Flora hurried on with her purpose. + +'Not that at any time,' she proceeded, 'its worst enemy could have +said it was a cheerful house for that it was never made to be but +always highly impressive, fond memory recalls an occasion in youth +ere yet the judgment was mature when Arthur--confirmed habit--Mr +Clennam--took me down into an unused kitchen eminent for mouldiness +and proposed to secrete me there for life and feed me on what he +could hide from his meals when he was not at home for the holidays +and on dry bread in disgrace which at that halcyon period too +frequently occurred, would it be inconvenient or asking too much to +beg to be permitted to revive those scenes and walk through the +house?' + +Mrs Clennam, who responded with a constrained grace to Mrs +Finching's good nature in being there at all, though her visit +(before Arthur's unexpected arrival) was undoubtedly an act of pure +good nature and no self-gratification, intimated that all the house +was open to her. Flora rose and looked to Arthur for his escort. +'Certainly,' said he, aloud; 'and Affery will light us, I dare +say.' + +Affery was excusing herself with 'Don't ask nothing of me, Arthur!' +when Mr Flintwinch stopped her with 'Why not? Affery, what's the +matter with you, woman? Why not, jade!' Thus expostulated with, +she came unwillingly out of her corner, resigned the toasting-fork +into one of her husband's hands, and took the candlestick he +offered from the other. + +'Go before, you fool!' said Jeremiah. 'Are you going up, or down, +Mrs Finching?' + +Flora answered, 'Down.' + +'Then go before, and down, you Affery,' said Jeremiah. 'And do it +properly, or I'll come rolling down the banisters, and tumbling +over you!' + +Affery headed the exploring party; Jeremiah closed it. He had no +intention of leaving them. Clennam looking back, and seeing him +following three stairs behind, in the coolest and most methodical +manner exclaimed in a low voice, 'Is there no getting rid of him!' +Flora reassured his mind by replying promptly, 'Why though not +exactly proper Arthur and a thing I couldn't think of before a +younger man or a stranger still I don't mind him if you so +particularly wish it and provided you'll have the goodness not to +take me too tight.' + +Wanting the heart to explain that this was not at all what he +meant, Arthur extended his supporting arm round Flora's figure. +'Oh my goodness me,' said she. 'You are very obedient indeed +really and it's extremely honourable and gentlemanly in you I am +sure but still at the same time if you would like to be a little +tighter than that I shouldn't consider it intruding.' + +In this preposterous attitude, unspeakably at variance with his +anxious mind, Clennam descended to the basement of the house; +finding that wherever it became darker than elsewhere, Flora became +heavier, and that when the house was lightest she was too. +Returning from the dismal kitchen regions, which were as dreary as +they could be, Mistress Affery passed with the light into his +father's old room, and then into the old dining-room; always +passing on before like a phantom that was not to be overtaken, and +neither turning nor answering when he whispered, 'Affery! I want +to speak to you!' + +In the dining-room, a sentimental desire came over Flora to look +into the dragon closet which had so often swallowed Arthur in the +days of his boyhood--not improbably because, as a very dark closet, +it was a likely place to be heavy in. Arthur, fast subsiding into +despair, had opened it, when a knock was heard at the outer door. + +Mistress Affery, with a suppressed cry, threw her apron over her +head. + +'What? You want another dose!' said Mr Flintwinch. 'You shall +have it, my woman, you shall have a good one! Oh! You shall have +a sneezer, you shall have a teaser!' + +'In the meantime is anybody going to the door?' said Arthur. + +'In the meantime, I am going to the door, sir,' returned the old +man so savagely, as to render it clear that in a choice of +difficulties he felt he must go, though he would have preferred not +to go. 'Stay here the while, all! Affery, my woman, move an inch, +or speak a word in your foolishness, and I'll treble your dose!' + +The moment he was gone, Arthur released Mrs Finching: with some +difficulty, by reason of that lady misunderstanding his intentions, +and making arrangements with a view to tightening instead of +slackening. + +'Affery, speak to me now!' + +'Don't touch me, Arthur!' she cried, shrinking from him. 'Don't +come near me. He'll see you. Jeremiah will. Don't.' + +'He can't see me,' returned Arthur, suiting the action to the word, +'if I blow the candle out.' + +'He'll hear you,' cried Affery. + +'He can't hear me,' returned Arthur, suiting the action to the +words again, 'if I draw you into this black closet, and speak here. + +Why do you hide your face?' + +'Because I am afraid of seeing something.' + +'You can't be afraid of seeing anything in this darkness, Affery.' + +'Yes I am. Much more than if it was light.' + +'Why are you afraid?' + +'Because the house is full of mysteries and secrets; because it's +full of whisperings and counsellings; because it's full of noises. +There never was such a house for noises. I shall die of 'em, if +Jeremiah don't strangle me first. As I expect he will.' + +'I have never heard any noises here, worth speaking of.' + +'Ah! But you would, though, if you lived in the house, and was +obliged to go about it as I am,' said Affery; 'and you'd feel that +they was so well worth speaking of, that you'd feel you was nigh +bursting through not being allowed to speak of 'em. Here's +Jeremiah! You'll get me killed.' + +'My good Affery, I solemnly declare to you that I can see the light +of the open door on the pavement of the hall, and so could you if +you would uncover your face and look.' + +'I durstn't do it,' said Affery, 'I durstn't never, Arthur. I'm +always blind-folded when Jeremiah an't a looking, and sometimes +even when he is.' + +'He cannot shut the door without my seeing him,' said Arthur. 'You +are as safe with me as if he was fifty miles away.' + +('I wish he was!' cried Affery.) + +'Affery, I want to know what is amiss here; I want some light +thrown on the secrets of this house.' +'I tell you, Arthur,' she interrupted, 'noises is the secrets, +rustlings and stealings about, tremblings, treads overhead and +treads underneath.' + +'But those are not all the secrets.' + +'I don't know,' said Affery. 'Don't ask me no more. Your old +sweetheart an't far off, and she's a blabber.' + +His old sweetheart, being in fact so near at hand that she was then +reclining against him in a flutter, a very substantial angle of +forty-five degrees, here interposed to assure Mistress Affery with +greater earnestness than directness of asseveration, that what she +heard should go no further, but should be kept inviolate, 'if on no +other account on Arthur's--sensible of intruding in being too +familiar Doyce and Clennam's.' + +'I make an imploring appeal to you, Affery, to you, one of the few +agreeable early remembrances I have, for my mother's sake, for your +husband's sake, for my own, for all our sakes. I am sure you can +tell me something connected with the coming here of this man, if +you will.' + +'Why, then I'll tell you, Arthur,' returned Affery--'Jeremiah's +coming!' + +'No, indeed he is not. The door is open, and he is standing +outside, talking.' + +'I'll tell you then,' said Affery, after listening, 'that the first +time he ever come he heard the noises his own self. "What's that?" +he said to me. "I don't know what it is," I says to him, catching +hold of him, "but I have heard it over and over again." While I +says it, he stands a looking at me, all of a shake, he do.' + +'Has he been here often?' + +'Only that night, and the last night.' + +'What did you see of him on the last night, after I was gone?' + +'Them two clever ones had him all alone to themselves. Jeremiah +come a dancing at me sideways, after I had let you out (he always +comes a dancing at me sideways when he's going to hurt me), and he +said to me, "Now, Affery," he said, "I am a coming behind you, my +woman, and a going to run you up." So he took and squeezed the +back of my neck in his hand, till it made me open MY mouth, and +then he pushed me before him to bed, squeezing all the way. That's +what he calls running me up, he do. Oh, he's a wicked one!' + +'And did you hear or see no more, Affery?' + +'Don't I tell you I was sent to bed, Arthur! Here he is!' + +'I assure you he is still at the door. Those whisperings and +counsellings, Affery, that you have spoken of. What are they?' + +'How should I know? Don't ask me nothing about 'em, Arthur. Get +away!' + +'But my dear Affery; unless I can gain some insight into these +hidden things, in spite of your husband and in spite of my mother, +ruin will come of it.' + +'Don't ask me nothing,' repeated Affery. 'I have been in a dream +for ever so long. Go away, go away!' + +'You said that before,' returned Arthur. 'You used the same +expression that night, at the door, when I asked you what was going +on here. What do you mean by being in a dream?' + +'I an't a going to tell you. Get away! I shouldn't tell you, if +you was by yourself; much less with your old sweetheart here.' + +It was equally vain for Arthur to entreat, and for Flora to +protest. Affery, who had been trembling and struggling the whole +time, turned a deaf ear to all adjuration, and was bent on forcing +herself out of the closet. + +'I'd sooner scream to Jeremiah than say another word! I'll call +out to him, Arthur, if you don't give over speaking to me. Now +here's the very last word I'll say afore I call to him--If ever you +begin to get the better of them two clever ones your own self (you +ought to it, as I told you when you first come home, for you +haven't been a living here long years, to be made afeared of your +life as I have), then do you get the better of 'em afore my face; +and then do you say to me, Affery tell your dreams! Maybe, then +I'll tell 'em!' + +The shutting of the door stopped Arthur from replying. They glided +into the places where Jeremiah had left them; and Clennam, stepping +forward as that old gentleman returned, informed him that he had +accidentally extinguished the candle. Mr Flintwinch looked on as +he re-lighted it at the lamp in the hall, and preserved a profound +taciturnity respecting the person who had been holding him in +conversation. Perhaps his irascibility demanded compensation for +some tediousness that the visitor had expended on him; however that +was, he took such umbrage at seeing his wife with her apron over +her head, that he charged at her, and taking her veiled nose +between his thumb and finger, appeared to throw the whole screw- +power of his person into the wring he gave it. + +Flora, now permanently heavy, did not release Arthur from the +survey of the house, until it had extended even to his old garret +bedchamber. His thoughts were otherwise occupied than with the +tour of inspection; yet he took particular notice at the time, as +he afterwards had occasion to remember, of the airlessness and +closeness of the house; that they left the track of their footsteps +in the dust on the upper floors; and that there was a resistance to +the opening of one room door, which occasioned Affery to cry out +that somebody was hiding inside, and to continue to believe so, +though somebody was sought and not discovered. When they at last +returned to his mother's room, they found her shading her face with +her muffled hand, and talking in a low voice to the Patriarch as he +stood before the fire, whose blue eyes, polished head, and silken +locks, turning towards them as they came in, imparted an +inestimable value and inexhaustible love of his species to his +remark: + +'So you have been seeing the premises, seeing the premises-- +premises--seeing the premises!' + +it was not in itself a jewel of benevolence or wisdom, yet he made +it an exemplar of both that one would have liked to have a copy of. + + + + +CHAPTER 24 + +The Evening of a Long Day + + +That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle, +continued his shining course. It began to be widely understood +that one who had done society the admirable service of making so +much money out of it, could not be suffered to remain a commoner. +A baronetcy was spoken of with confidence; a peerage was frequently +mentioned. Rumour had it that Mr Merdle had set his golden face +against a baronetcy; that he had plainly intimated to Lord Decimus +that a baronetcy was not enough for him; that he had said, 'No--a +Peerage, or plain Merdle.' This was reported to have plunged Lord +Decimus as nigh to his noble chin in a slough of doubts as so lofty +a person could be sunk. For the Barnacles, as a group of +themselves in creation, had an idea that such distinctions belonged +to them; and that when a soldier, sailor, or lawyer became +ennobled, they let him in, as it were, by an act of condescension, +at the family door, and immediately shut it again. Not only (said +Rumour) had the troubled Decimus his own hereditary part in this +impression, but he also knew of several Barnacle claims already on +the file, which came into collision with that of the master spirit. + +Right or wrong, Rumour was very busy; and Lord Decimus, while he +was, or was supposed to be, in stately excogitation of the +difficulty, lent her some countenance by taking, on several public +occasions, one of those elephantine trots of his through a jungle +of overgrown sentences, waving Mr Merdle about on his trunk as +Gigantic Enterprise, The Wealth of England, Elasticity, Credit, +Capital, Prosperity, and all manner of blessings. + +So quietly did the mowing of the old scythe go on, that fully three +months had passed unnoticed since the two English brothers had been +laid in one tomb in the strangers' cemetery at Rome. Mr and Mrs +Sparkler were established in their own house: a little manSion, +rather of the Tite Barnacle class, quite a triumph of +inconvenience, with a perpetual smell in it of the day before +yesterday's soup and coach-horses, but extremely dear, as being +exactly in the centre of the habitable globe. In this enviable +abode (and envied it really was by many people), Mrs Sparkler had +intended to proceed at once to the demolition of the Bosom, when +active hostilities had been suspended by the arrival of the Courier +with his tidings of death. Mrs Sparkler, who was not unfeeling, +had received them with a violent burst of grief, which had lasted +twelve hours; after which, she had arisen to see about her +mourning, and to take every precaution that could ensure its being +as becoming as Mrs Merdle's. A gloom was then cast over more than +one distinguished family (according to the politest sources of +intelligence), and the Courier went back again. + +Mr and Mrs Sparkler had been dining alone, with their gloom cast +over them, and Mrs Sparkler reclined on a drawing-room sofa. It +was a hot summer Sunday evening. The residence in the centre of +the habitable globe, at all times stuffed and close as if it had an +incurable cold in its head, was that evening particularly stifling. + +The bells of the churches had done their worst in the way of +clanging among the unmelodious echoes of the streets, and the +lighted windows of the churches had ceased to be yellow in the grey +dusk, and had died out opaque black. Mrs Sparkler, lying on her +sofa, looking through an open window at the opposite side of a +narrow street over boxes of mignonette and flowers, was tired of +the view. Mrs Sparkler, looking at another window where her +husband stood in the balcony, was tired of that view. Mrs +Sparkler, looking at herself in her mourning, was even tired of +that view: though, naturally, not so tired of that as of the other +two. + +'It's like lying in a well,' said Mrs Sparkler, changing her +position fretfully. 'Dear me, Edmund, if you have anything to say, +why don't you say it?' + +Mr Sparkler might have replied with ingenuousness, 'My life, I have +nothing to say.' But, as the repartee did not occur to him, he +contented himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at +the side of his wife's couch. + +'Good gracious, Edmund!' said Mrs Sparkler more fretfully still, +you are absolutely putting mignonette up your nose! Pray don't!' + +Mr Sparkler, in absence of mind--perhaps in a more literal absence +of mind than is usually understood by the phrase--had smelt so hard +at a sprig in his hand as to be on the verge of the offence in +question. He smiled, said, 'I ask your pardon, my dear,' and threw +it out of window. + +'You make my head ache by remaining in that position, Edmund,' said +Mrs Sparkler, raising her eyes to him after another minute; 'you +look so aggravatingly large by this light. Do sit down.' + +'Certainly, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler, and took a chair on the +same spot. + +'If I didn't know that the longest day was past,' said Fanny, +yawning in a dreary manner, 'I should have felt certain this was +the longest day. I never did experience such a day.' + +'Is that your fan, my love?' asked Mr Sparkler, picking up one and +presenting it. + +'Edmund,' returned his wife, more wearily yet, 'don't ask weak +questions, I entreat you not. Whose can it be but mine?' + +'Yes, I thought it was yours,' said Mr Sparkler. + +'Then you shouldn't ask,' retorted Fanny. After a little while she +turned on her sofa and exclaimed, 'Dear me, dear me, there never +was such a long day as this!' After another little while, she got +up slowly, walked about, and came back again. + +'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler, flashing with an original conception, +'I think you must have got the fidgets.' + +'Oh, Fidgets!' repeated Mrs Sparkler. 'Don't.' + +'My adorable girl,' urged Mr Sparkler, 'try your aromatic vinegar. +I have often seen my mother try it, and it seemingly refreshed her. + +And she is, as I believe you are aware, a remarkably fine woman, +with no non--' + +'Good Gracious!' exclaimed Fanny, starting up again. 'It's beyond +all patience! This is the most wearisome day that ever did dawn +upon the world, I am certain.' + +Mr Sparkler looked meekly after her as she lounged about the room, +and he appeared to be a little frightened. When she had tossed a +few trifles about, and had looked down into the darkening street +out of all the three windows, she returned to her sofa, and threw +herself among its pillows. + +'Now Edmund, come here! Come a little nearer, because I want to be +able to touch you with my fan, that I may impress you very much +with what I am going to say. That will do. Quite close enough. +Oh, you do look so big!' + +Mr Sparkler apologised for the circumstance, pleaded that he +couldn't help it, and said that 'our fellows,' without more +particularly indicating whose fellows, used to call him by the name +of Quinbus Flestrin, Junior, or the Young Man Mountain. + +'You ought to have told me so before,' Fanny complained. + +'My dear,' returned Mr Sparkler, rather gratified, 'I didn't know +It would interest you, or I would have made a point of telling +you.' +'There! For goodness sake, don't talk,' said Fanny; 'I want to +talk, myself. Edmund, we must not be alone any more. I must take +such precautions as will prevent my being ever again reduced to the +state of dreadful depression in which I am this evening.' + +'My dear,' answered Mr Sparkler; 'being as you are well known to +be, a remarkably fine woman with no--' + +'Oh, good GRACIOUS!' cried Fanny. + +Mr Sparkler was so discomposed by the energy of this exclamation, +accompanied with a flouncing up from the sofa and a flouncing down +again, that a minute or two elapsed before he felt himself equal to +saying in explanation: + +'I mean, my dear, that everybody knows you are calculated to shine +in society.' + +'Calculated to shine in society,' retorted Fanny with great +irritability; 'yes, indeed! And then what happens? I no sooner +recover, in a visiting point of view, the shock of poor dear papa's +death, and my poor uncle's--though I do not disguise from myself +that the last was a happy release, for, if you are not presentable +you had much better die--' + +'You are not referring to me, my love, I hope?' Mr Sparkler humbly +interrupted. + +'Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint. Am I not expressly +speaking of my poor uncle?' + +'You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl,' said +Mr Sparkler, 'that I felt a little uncomfortable. Thank you, my +love.' + +'Now you have put me out,' observed Fanny with a resigned toss of +her fan, 'and I had better go to bed.' + +'Don't do that, my love,' urged Mr Sparkler. 'Take time.' + +Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut, and +her eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had +utterly given up all terrestrial affairs. At length, without the +slightest notice, she opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a +short, sharp manner: + +'What happens then, I ask! What happens? Why, I find myself at +the very period when I might shine most in society, and should most +like for very momentous reasons to shine in society--I find myself +in a situation which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going +into society. it's too bad, really!' + +'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler. 'I don't think it need keep you at +home.' +'Edmund, you ridiculous creature,' returned Fanny, with great +indignation; 'do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth and +not wholly devoid of personal attractions, can put herself, at such +a time, in competition as to figure with a woman in every other way +her inferior? If you do suppose such a thing, your folly is +boundless.' + +Mr Sparkler submitted that he had thought 'it might be got over.' +'Got over!' repeated Fanny, with immeasurable scorn. + +'For a time,' Mr Sparkler submitted. + +Honouring the last feeble suggestion with no notice, Mrs Sparkler +declared with bitterness that it really was too bad, and that +positively it was enough to make one wish one was dead! + +'However,' she said, when she had in some measure recovered from +her sense of personal ill-usage; 'provoking as it is, and cruel as +it seems, I suppose it must be submitted to.' + +'Especially as it was to be expected,' said Mr Sparkler. + +'Edmund,' returned his wife, 'if you have nothing more becoming to +do than to attempt to insult the woman who has honoured you with +her hand, when she finds herself in adversity, I think YOU had +better go to bed!' + +Mr Sparkler was much afflicted by the charge, and offered a most +tender and earnest apology. His apology was accepted; but Mrs +Sparkler requested him to go round to the other side of the sofa +and sit in the window-curtain, to tone himself down. + +'Now, Edmund,' she said, stretching out her fan, and touching him +with it at arm's length, 'what I was going to say to you when you +began as usual to prose and worry, is, that I shall guard against +our being alone any more, and that when circumstances prevent my +going out to my own satisfaction, I must arrange to have some +people or other always here; for I really cannot, and will not, +have another such day as this has been.' + +Mr Sparkler's sentiments as to the plan were, in brief, that it had +no nonsense about it. He added, 'And besides, you know it's likely +that you'll soon have your sister--' + +'Dearest Amy, yes!' cried Mrs Sparkler with a sigh of affection. +'Darling little thing! Not, however, that Amy would do here +alone.' + +Mr Sparkler was going to say 'No?' interrogatively, but he saw his +danger and said it assentingly, 'No, Oh dear no; she wouldn't do +here alone.' + +'No, Edmund. For not only are the virtues of the precious child of +that still character that they require a contrast--require life and +movement around them to bring them out in their right colours and +make one love them of all things; but she will require to be +roused, on more accounts than one.' + +'That's it,' said Mr Sparkler. 'Roused.' + +'Pray don't, Edmund! Your habit of interrupting without having the +least thing in the world to say, distracts one. You must be broken +of it. Speaking of Amy;--my poor little pet was devotedly attached +to poor papa, and no doubt will have lamented his loss exceedingly, +and grieved very much. I have done so myself. I have felt it +dreadfully. But Amy will no doubt have felt it even more, from +having been on the spot the whole time, and having been with poor +dear papa at the last; which I unhappily was not.' + +Here Fanny stopped to weep, and to say, 'Dear, dear, beloved papa! +How truly gentlemanly he was! What a contrast to poor uncle!' + +'From the effects of that trying time,' she pursued, 'my good +little Mouse will have to be roused. Also, from the effects of +this long attendance upon Edward in his illness; an attendance +which is not yet over, which may even go on for some time longer, +and which in the meanwhile unsettles us all by keeping poor dear +papa's affairs from being wound up. Fortunately, however, the +papers with his agents here being all sealed up and locked up, as +he left them when he providentially came to England, the affairs +are in that state of order that they can wait until my brother +Edward recovers his health in Sicily, sufficiently to come over, +and administer, or execute, or whatever it may be that will have to +be done.' + +'He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round,' Mr Sparkler +made bold to opine. + +'For a wonder, I can agree with you,' returned his wife, languidly +turning her eyelids a little in his direction (she held forth, in +general, as if to the drawing-room furniture), 'and can adopt your +words. He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round. There +are times when my dear child is a little wearing to an active mind; +but, as a nurse, she is Perfection. Best of Amys!' + +Mr Sparkler, growing rash on his late success, observed that Edward +had had, biggodd, a long bout of it, my dear girl. + + +'If Bout, Edmund,' returned Mrs Sparkler, 'is the slang term for +indisposition, he has. If it is not, I am unable to give an +opinion on the barbarous language you address to Edward's sister. +That he contracted Malaria Fever somewhere, either by travelling +day and night to Rome, where, after all, he arrived too late to see +poor dear papa before his death--or under some other unwholesome +circumstances--is indubitable, if that is what you mean. Likewise +that his extremely careless life has made him a very bad subject +for it indeed.' + + +Mr Sparkler considered it a parallel case to that of some of our +fellows in the West Indies with Yellow Jack. Mrs Sparkler closed +her eyes again, and refused to have any consciousness of our +fellows of the West Indies, or of Yellow Jack. + +'So, Amy,' she pursued, when she reopened her eyelids, 'will +require to be roused from the effects of many tedious and anxious +weeks. And lastly, she will require to be roused from a low +tendency which I know very well to be at the bottom of her heart. +Don't ask me what it is, Edmund, because I must decline to tell +you.' + +'I am not going to, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler. + +'I shall thus have much improvement to effect in my sweet child,' +Mrs Sparkler continued, 'and cannot have her near me too soon. +Amiable and dear little Twoshoes! As to the settlement of poor +papa's affairs, my interest in that is not very selfish. Papa +behaved very generously to me when I was married, and I have little +or nothing to expect. Provided he had made no will that can come +into force, leaving a legacy to Mrs General, I am contented. Dear +papa, dear papa.' + +She wept again, but Mrs General was the best of restoratives. The +name soon stimulated her to dry her eyes and say: + +'It is a highly encouraging circumstance in Edward's illness, I am +thankful to think, and gives one the greatest confidence in his +sense not being impaired, or his proper spirit weakened--down to +the time of poor dear papa's death at all events--that he paid off +Mrs General instantly, and sent her out of the house. I applaud +him for it. I could forgive him a great deal for doing, with such +promptitude, so exactly what I would have done myself!' + +Mrs Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification, when a +double knock was heard at the door. A very odd knock. Low, as if +to avoid making a noise and attracting attention. Long, as if the +person knocking were preoccupied in mind, and forgot to leave off. + +'Halloa!' said Mr Sparkler. 'Who's this?' + +'Not Amy and Edward without notice and without a carriage!' said +Mrs Sparkler. 'Look out.' + +The room was dark, but the street was lighter, because of its +lamps. Mr Sparkler's head peeping over the balcony looked so very +bulky and heavy that it seemed on the point of overbalancing him +and flattening the unknown below. + +'It's one fellow,' said Mr Sparkler. 'I can't see who--stop +though!' +On this second thought he went out into the balcony again and had +another look. He came back as the door was opened, and announced +that he believed he had identified 'his governor's tile.' He was +not mistaken, for his governor, with his tile in his hand, was +introduced immediately afterwards. + +'Candles!' said Mrs Sparkler, with a word of excuse for the +darkness. + +'It's light enough for me,' said Mr Merdle. + +When the candles were brought in, Mr Merdle was discovered standing +behind the door, picking his lips. 'I thought I'd give you a +call,' he said. 'I am rather particularly occupied just now; and, +as I happened to be out for a stroll, I thought I'd give you a +call.' + +As he was in dinner dress, Fanny asked him where he had been +dining? + +'Well,' said Mr Merdle, 'I haven't been dining anywhere, +particularly.' + +'Of course you have dined?' said Fanny. + +'Why--no, I haven't exactly dined,' said Mr Merdle. + +He had passed his hand over his yellow forehead and considered, as +if he were not sure about it. Something to eat was proposed. 'No, +thank you,' said Mr Merdle, 'I don't feel inclined for it. I was +to have dined out along with Mrs Merdle. But as I didn't feel +inclined for dinner, I let Mrs Merdle go by herself just as we were +getting into the carriage, and thought I'd take a stroll instead.' + +Would he have tea or coffee? 'No, thank you,' said Mr Merdle. 'I +looked in at the Club, and got a bottle of wine.' + +At this period of his visit, Mr Merdle took the chair.which Edmund +Sparkler had offered him, and which he had hitherto been pushing +slowly about before him, like a dull man with a pair of skates on +for the first time, who could not make up his mind to start. He +now put his hat upon another chair beside him, and, looking down +into it as if it were some twenty feet deep, said again: 'You see +I thought I'd give you a call.' + +'Flattering to us,' said Fanny, 'for you are not a calling man.' + +'No--no,' returned Mr Merdle, who was by this time taking himself +into custody under both coat-sleeves. 'No, I am not a calling +man.' + +'You have too much to do for that,' said Fanny. 'Having so much to +do, Mr Merdle, loss of appetite is a serious thing with you, and +you must have it seen to. You must not be ill.' +'Oh! I am very well,' replied Mr Merdle, after deliberating about +it. 'I am as well as I usually am. I am well enough. I am as +well as I want to be.' + +The master-mind of the age, true to its characteristic of being at +all times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself +and great difficulty in saying it, became mute again. Mrs Sparkler +began to wonder how long the master-mind meant to stay. + +'I was speaking of poor papa when you came in, sir.' + +'Aye! Quite a coincidence,' said Mr Merdle. + +Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue +talking. 'I was saying,' she pursued, 'that my brother's illness +has occasioned a delay in examining and arranging papa's property.' + +'Yes,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes. There has been a delay.' + +'Not that it is of consequence,' said Fanny. + +'Not,' assented Mr Merdle, after having examined the cornice of all +that part of the room which was within his range: 'not that it is +of any consequence.' + +'My only anxiety is,' said Fanny, 'that Mrs General should not get +anything.' + +'She won't get anything,' said Mr Merdle. + +Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion. Mr Merdle, +after taking another gaze into the depths of his hat as if he +thought he saw something at the bottom, rubbed his hair and slowly +appended to his last remark the confirmatory words, 'Oh dear no. +No. Not she. Not likely.' + +As the topic seemed exhausted, and Mr Merdle too, Fanny inquired if +he were going to take up Mrs Merdle and the carriage in his way +home? + +'No,' he answered; 'I shall go by the shortest way, and leave Mrs +Merdle to--' here he looked all over the palms of both his hands as +if he were telling his own fortune--'to take care of herself. I +dare say she'll manage to do it.' + +'Probably,' said Fanny. + +There was then a long silence; during which, Mrs Sparkler, lying +back on her sofa again, shut her eyes and raised her eyebrows in +her former retirement from mundane affairs. + +'But, however,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am equally detaining you and +myself. I thought I'd give you a call, you know.' + +'Charmed, I am sure,' said Fanny. + +'So I am off,' added Mr Merdle, getting up. 'Could you lend me a +penknife?' + +It was an odd thing, Fanny smilingly observed, for her who could +seldom prevail upon herself even to write a letter, to lend to a +man of such vast business as Mr Merdle. 'Isn't it?' Mr Merdle +acquiesced; 'but I want one; and I know you have got several little +wedding keepsakes about, with scissors and tweezers and such things +in them. You shall have it back to-morrow.' + +'Edmund,' said Mrs Sparkler, 'open (now, very carefully, I beg +and beseech, for you are so very awkward) the mother of pearl box +on my little table there, and give Mr Merdle the mother of pearl +penknife.' + +'Thank you,' said Mr Merdle; 'but if you have got one with a darker +handle, I think I should prefer one with a darker handle.' + +'Tortoise-shell?' + +'Thank you,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes. I think I should prefer +tortoise-shell.' + +Edmund accordingly received instructions to open the tortoise-shell +box, and give Mr Merdle the tortoise-shell knife. On his doing so, +his wife said to the master-spirit graciously: + +'I will forgive you, if you ink it.' + +'I'll undertake not to ink it,' said Mr Merdle. + +The illustrious visitor then put out his coat-cuff, and for a +moment entombed Mrs Sparkler's hand: wrist, bracelet, and all. +Where his own hand had shrunk to, was not made manifest, but it was +as remote from Mrs Sparkler's sense of touch as if he had been a +highly meritorious Chelsea Veteran or Greenwich Pensioner. + +Thoroughly convinced, as he went out of the room, that it was the +longest day that ever did come to an end at last, and that there +never was a woman, not wholly devoid of personal attractions, so +worn out by idiotic and lumpish people, Fanny passed into the +balcony for a breath of air. Waters of vexation filled her eyes; +and they had the effect of making the famous Mr Merdle, in going +down the street, appear to leap, and waltz, and gyrate, as if he +were possessed of several Devils. + + + + +CHAPTER 25 + +The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office + + +The dinner-party was at the great Physician's. Bar was there, and +in full force. Ferdinand Barnacle was there, and in his most +engaging state. Few ways of life were hidden from Physician, and +he was oftener in its darkest places than even Bishop. There were +brilliant ladies about London who perfectly doted on him, my dear, +as the most charming creature and the most delightful person, who +would have been shocked to find themselves so close to him if they +could have known on what sights those thoughtful eyes of his had +rested within an hour or two, and near to whose beds, and under +what roofs, his composed figure had stood. But Physician was a +composed man, who performed neither on his own trumpet, nor on the +trumpets of other people. Many wonderful things did he see and +hear, and much irreconcilable moral contradiction did he pass his +life among; yet his equality of compassion was no more disturbed +than the Divine Master's of all healing was. He went, like the +rain, among the just and unjust, doing all the good he could, and +neither proclaiming it in the synagogues nor at the corner of +streets. + +As no man of large experience of humanity, however quietly carried +it may be, can fail to be invested with an interest peculiar to the +possession of such knowledge, Physician was an attractive man. +Even the daintier gentlemen and ladies who had no idea of his +secret, and who would have been startled out of more wits than they +had, by the monstrous impropriety of his proposing to them 'Come +and see what I see!' confessed his attraction. Where he was, +something real was. And half a grain of reality, like the smallest +portion of some other scarce natural productions, will flavour an +enormous quantity of diluent. + +It came to pass, therefore, that Physician's little dinners always +presented people in their least conventional lights. The guests +said to themselves, whether they were conscious of it or no, 'Here +is a man who really has an acquaintance with us as we are, who is +admitted to some of us every day with our wigs and paint off, who +hears the wanderings of our minds, and sees the undisguised +expression of our faces, when both are past our control; we may as +well make an approach to reality with him, for the man has got the +better of us and is too strong for us.' Therefore, Physician's +guests came out so surprisingly at his round table that they were +almost natural. + +Bar's knowledge of that agglomeration of jurymen which is called +humanity was as sharp as a razor; yet a razor is not a generally +convenient instrument, and Physician's plain bright scalpel, though +far less keen, was adaptable to far wider purposes. Bar knew all +about the gullibility and knavery of people; but Physician could +have given him a better insight into their tendernesses and +affections, in one week of his rounds, than Westminster Hall and +all the circuits put together, in threescore years and ten. Bar +always had a suspicion of this, and perhaps was glad to encourage +it (for, if the world were really a great Law Court, one would +think that the last day of Term could not too soon arrive); and so +he liked and respected Physician quite as much as any other kind of +man did. + +Mr Merdle's default left a Banquo's chair at the table; but, if he +had been there, he would have merely made the difference of Banquo +in it, and consequently he was no loss. Bar, who picked up all +sorts of odds and ends about Westminster Hall, much as a raven +would have done if he had passed as much of his time there, had +been picking up a great many straws lately and tossing them about, +to try which way the Merdle wind blew. He now had a little talk on +the subject with Mrs Merdle herself; sidling up to that lady, of +course, with his double eye-glass and his jury droop. + +'A certain bird,' said Bar; and he looked as if it could have been +no other bird than a magpie; 'has been whispering among us lawyers +lately, that there is to be an addition to the titled personages of +this realm.' + +'Really?' said Mrs Merdle. + +'Yes,' said Bar. 'Has not the bird been whispering in very +different ears from ours--in lovely ears?' He looked expressively +at Mrs Merdle's nearest ear-ring. + +'Do you mean mine?' asked Mrs Merdle. + +'When I say lovely,' said Bar, 'I always mean you.' + +'You never mean anything, I think,' returned Mrs Merdle (not +displeased). + +'Oh, cruelly unjust!' said Bar. 'But, the bird.' + +'I am the last person in the world to hear news,' observed Mrs +Merdle, carelessly arranging her stronghold. 'Who is it?' + + +'What an admirable witness you would make!' said Bar. 'No jury +(unless we could empanel one of blind men) could resist you, if you +were ever so bad a one; but you would be such a good one!' + +'Why, you ridiculous man?' asked Mrs Merdle, laughing. + +Bar waved his double eye-glass three or four times between himself +and the Bosom, as a rallying answer, and inquired in his most +insinuating accents: + +'What am I to call the most elegant, accomplished and charming of +women, a few weeks, or it may be a few days, hence?' + +'Didn't your bird tell you what to call her?' answered Mrs Merdle. +'Do ask it to-morrow, and tell me the next time you see me what it +says.' + +This led to further passages of similar pleasantry between the two; +but Bar, with all his sharpness, got nothing out of them. +Physician, on the other hand, taking Mrs Merdle down to her +carriage and attending on her as she put on her cloak, inquired +into the symptoms with his usual calm directness. + +'May I ask,' he said, 'is this true about Merdle?' + +'My dear doctor,' she returned, 'you ask me the very question that +I was half disposed to ask you.' +'To ask me! Why me?' + +'Upon my honour, I think Mr Merdle reposes greater confidence in +you than in any one.' + +'On the contrary, he tells me absolutely nothing, even +professionally. You have heard the talk, of course?' + +' Of course I have. But you know what Mr Merdle is; you know how +taciturn and reserved he is. I assure you I have no idea what +foundation for it there may be. I should like it to be true; why +should I deny that to you? You would know better, if I did!' + +'Just so,' said Physician. + +'But whether it is all true, or partly true, or entirely false, I +am wholly unable to say. It is a most provoking situation, a most +absurd situation; but you know Mr Merdle, and are not surprised.' + +Physician was not surprised, handed her into her carriage, and bade +her Good Night. He stood for a moment at his own hall door, +looking sedately at the elegant equipage as it rattled away. On +his return up-stairs, the rest of the guests soon dispersed, and he +was left alone. Being a great reader of all kinds of literature +(and never at all apologetic for that weakness), he sat down +comfortably to read. + +The clock upon his study table pointed to a few minutes short of +twelve, when his attention was called to it by a ringing at the +door bell. A man of plain habits, he had sent his servants to bed +and must needs go down to open the door. He went down, and there +found a man without hat or coat, whose shirt sleeves were rolled up +tight to his shoulders. For a moment, he thought the man had been +fighting: the rather, as he was much agitated and out of breath. +A second look, however, showed him that the man was particularly +clean, and not otherwise discomposed as to his dress than as it +answered this description. + +'I come from the warm-baths, sir, round in the neighbouring +street.' + +'And what is the matter at the warm-baths?' + +'Would you please to come directly, sir. We found that, lying on +the table.' + +He put into the physician's hand a scrap of paper. Physician +looked at it, and read his own name and address written in pencil; +nothing more. He looked closer at the writing, looked at the man, +took his hat from its peg, put the key of his door in his pocket, +and they hurried away together. + +When they came to the warm-baths, all the other people belonging to +that establishment were looking out for them at the door, and +running up and down the passages. 'Request everybody else to keep +back, if you please,' said the physician aloud to the master; 'and +do you take me straight to the place, my friend,' to the messenger. + +The messenger hurried before him, along a grove of little rooms, +and turning into one at the end of the grove, looked round the +door. Physician was close upon him, and looked round the door too. + +There was a bath in that corner, from which the water had been +hastily drained off. Lying in it, as in a grave or sarcophagus, +with a hurried drapery of sheet and blanket thrown across it, was +the body of a heavily-made man, with an obtuse head, and coarse, +mean, common features. A sky-light had been opened to release the +steam with which the room had been filled; but it hung, condensed +into water-drops, heavily upon the walls, and heavily upon the face +and figure in the bath. The room was still hot, and the marble of +the bath still warm; but the face and figure were clammy to the +touch. The white marble at the bottom of the bath was veined with +a dreadful red. On the ledge at the side, were an empty laudanum- +bottle and a tortoise-shell handled penknife--soiled, but not with +ink. + +'Separation of jugular vein--death rapid--been dead at least half +an hour.' This echo of the physician's words ran through the +passages and little rooms, and through the house while he was yet +straightening himself from having bent down to reach to the bottom +of the bath, and while he was yet dabbling his hands in water; +redly veining it as the marble was veined, before it mingled into +one tint. + +He turned his eyes to the dress upon the sofa, and to the watch, +money, and pocket-book on the table. A folded note half buckled up +in the pocket-book, and half protruding from it, caught his +observant glance. He looked at it, touched it, pulled it a little +further out from among the leaves, said quietly, 'This is addressed +to me,' and opened and read it. + +There were no directions for him to give. The people of the house +knew what to do; the proper authorities were soon brought; and they +took an equable business-like possession of the deceased, and of +what had been his property, with no greater disturbance of manner +or countenance than usually attends the winding-up of a clock. +Physician was glad to walk out into the night air--was even glad, +in spite of his great experience, to sit down upon a door-step for +a little while: feeling sick and faint. + +Bar was a near neighbour of his, and, when he came to the house, he +saw a light in the room where he knew his friend often sat late +getting up his work. As the light was never there when Bar was +not, it gave him assurance that Bar was not yet in bed. In fact, +this busy bee had a verdict to get to-morrow, against evidence, and +was improving the shining hours in setting snares for the gentlemen +of the jury. + +Physician's knock astonished Bar; but, as he immediately suspected +that somebody had come to tell him that somebody else was robbing +him, or otherwise trying to get the better of him, he came down +promptly and softly. He had been clearing his head with a lotion +of cold water, as a good preparative to providing hot water for the +heads of the jury, and had been reading with the neck of his shirt +thrown wide open that he might the more freely choke the opposite +witnesses. In consequence, he came down, looking rather wild. +Seeing Physician, the least expected of men, he looked wilder and +said, 'What's the matter?' + +'You asked me once what Merdle's complaint was.' + +'Extraordinary answer! I know I did.' + +'I told you I had not found out.' + +'Yes. I know you did.' + +'I have found it out.' + +'My God!' said Bar, starting back, and clapping his hand upon the +other's breast. 'And so have I! I see it in your face.' + +They went into the nearest room, where Physician gave him the +letter to read. He read it through half-a-dozen times. There was +not much in it as to quantity; but it made a great demand on his +close and continuous attention. He could not sufficiently give +utterance to his regret that he had not himself found a clue to +this. The smallest clue, he said, would have made him master of +the case, and what a case it would have been to have got to the +bottom of! + +Physician had engaged to break the intelligence in Harley Street. +Bar could not at once return to his inveiglements of the most +enlightened and remarkable jury he had ever seen in that box, with +whom, he could tell his learned friend, no shallow sophistry would +go down, and no unhappily abused professional tact and skill +prevail (this was the way he meant to begin with them); so he said +he would go too, and would loiter to and fro near the house while +his friend was inside. They walked there, the better to recover +self-possession in the air; and the wings of day were fluttering +the night when Physician knocked at the door. + +A footman of rainbow hues, in the public eye, was sitting up for +his master--that is to say, was fast asleep in the kitchen over a +couple of candles and a newspaper, demonstrating the great +accumulation of mathematical odds against the probabilities of a +house being set on fire by accident When this serving man was +roused, Physician had still to await the rousing of the Chief +Butler. At last that noble creature came into the dining-room in +a flannel gown and list shoes; but with his cravat on, and a Chief +Butler all over. It was morning now. Physician had opened the +shutters of one window while waiting, that he might see the light. +'Mrs Merdle's maid must be called, and told to get Mrs Merdle up, +and prepare her as gently as she can to see me. I have dreadful +news to break to her.' + +Thus Physician to the Chief Butler. The latter, who had a candle +in his hand, called his man to take it away. Then he approached +the window with dignity; looking on at Physician's news exactly as +he had looked on at the dinners in that very room. + +'Mr Merdle is dead.' + +'I should wish,' said the Chief Butler, 'to give a month's notice.' + +'Mr Merdle has destroyed himself.' + +'Sir,' said the Chief Butler, 'that is very unpleasant to the +feelings of one in my position, as calculated to awaken prejudice; +and I should wish to leave immediately.' + +'If you are not shocked, are you not surprised, man?' demanded the +Physician, warmly. + +The Chief Butler, erect and calm, replied in these memorable words. + +'Sir, Mr Merdle never was the gentleman, and no ungentlemanly act +on Mr Merdle's part would surprise me. Is there anybody else I can +send to you, or any other directions I can give before I leave, +respecting what you would wish to be done?' + +When Physician, after discharging himself of his trust up-stairs, +rejoined Bar in the street, he said no more of his interview with +Mrs Merdle than that he had not yet told her all, but that what he +had told her she had borne pretty well. Bar had devoted his +leisure in the street to the construction of a most ingenious man- +trap for catching the whole of his jury at a blow; having got that +matter settled in his mind, it was lucid on the late catastrophe, +and they walked home slowly, discussing it in every bearing. +Before parting at the Physician's door, they both looked up at the +sunny morning sky, into which the smoke of a few early fires and +the breath and voices of a few early stirrers were peacefully +rising, and then looked round upon the immense city, and said, if +all those hundreds and thousands of beggared people who were yet +asleep could only know, as they two spoke, the ruin that impended +over them, what a fearful cry against one miserable soul would go +up to Heaven! + +The report that the great man was dead, got about with astonishing +rapidity. At first, he was dead of all the diseases that ever were +known, and of several bran-new maladies invented with the speed of +Light to meet the demand of the occasion. He had concealed a +dropsy from infancy, he had inherited a large estate of water on +the chest from his grandfather, he had had an operation performed +upon him every morning of his life for eighteen years, he had been +subject to the explosion of important veins in his body after the +manner of fireworks, he had had something the matter with his +lungs, he had had something the matter with his heart, he had had +something the matter with his brain. Five hundred people who sat +down to breakfast entirely uninformed on the whole subject, +believed before they had done breakfast, that they privately and +personally knew Physician to have said to Mr Merdle, 'You must +expect to go out, some day, like the snuff of a candle;' and that +they knew Mr Merdle to have said to Physician, 'A man can die but +once.' By about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, something the +matter with the brain, became the favourite theory against the +field; and by twelve the something had been distinctly ascertained +to be 'Pressure.' + +Pressure was so entirely satisfactory to the public mind, and +seemed to make everybody so comfortable, that it might have lasted +all day but for Bar's having taken the real state of the case into +Court at half-past nine. This led to its beginning to be currently +whispered all over London by about one, that Mr Merdle had killed +himself. Pressure, however, so far from being overthrown by the +discovery, became a greater favourite than ever. There was a +general moralising upon Pressure, in every street. All the people +who had tried to make money and had not been able to do it, said, +There you were! You no sooner began to devote yourself to the +pursuit of wealth than you got Pressure. The idle people improved +the occasion in a similar manner. See, said they, what you brought +yourself to by work, work, work! You persisted in working, you +overdid it. Pressure came on, and you were done for! This +consideration was very potent in many quarters, but nowhere more so +than among the young clerks and partners who had never been in the +slightest danger of overdoing it. These, one and all, declared, +quite piously, that they hoped they would never forget the warning +as long as they lived, and that their conduct might be so regulated +as to keep off Pressure, and preserve them, a comfort to their +friends, for many years. + +But, at about the time of High 'Change, Pressure began to wane, and +appalling whispers to circulate, east, west, north, and south. At +first they were faint, and went no further than a doubt whether Mr +Merdle's wealth would be found to be as vast as had been supposed; +whether there might not be a temporary difficulty in 'realising' +it; whether there might not even be a temporary suspension (say a +month or so), on the part of the wonderful Bank. As the whispers +became louder, which they did from that time every minute, they +became more threatening. He had sprung from nothing, by no natural +growth or process that any one could account for; he had been, +after all, a low, ignorant fellow; he had been a down-looking man, +and no one had ever been able to catch his eye; he had been taken +up by all sorts of people in quite an unaccountable manner; he had +never had any money of his own, his ventures had been utterly +reckless, and his expenditure had been most enormous. In steady +progression, as the day declined, the talk rose in sound and +purpose. He had left a letter at the Baths addressed to his +physician, and his physician had got the letter, and the letter +would be produced at the Inquest on the morrow, and it would fall +like a thunderbolt upon the multitude he had deluded. Numbers of +men in every profession and trade would be blighted by his +insolvency; old people who had been in easy circumstances all their +lives would have no place of repentance for their trust in him but +the workhouse; legions of women and children would have their whole +future desolated by the hand of this mighty scoundrel. Every +partaker of his magnificent feasts would be seen to have been a +sharer in the plunder of innumerable homes; every servile +worshipper of riches who had helped to set him on his pedestal, +would have done better to worship the Devil point-blank. So, the +talk, lashed louder and higher by confirmation on confirmation, and +by edition after edition of the evening papers, swelled into such +a roar when night came, as might have brought one to believe that +a solitary watcher on the gallery above the Dome of St Paul's would +have perceived the night air to be laden with a heavy muttering of +the name of Merdle, coupled with every form of execration. + +For by that time it was known that the late Mr Merdle's complaint +had been simply Forgery and Robbery. He, the uncouth object of +such wide-spread adulation, the sitter at great men's feasts, the +roc's egg of great ladies' assemblies, the subduer of +exclusiveness, the leveller of pride, the patron of patrons, the +bargain-driver with a Minister for Lordships of the Circumlocution +Office, the recipient of more acknowledgment within some ten or +fifteen years, at most, than had been bestowed in England upon all +peaceful public benefactors, and upon all the leaders of all the +Arts and Sciences, with all their works to testify for them, during +two centuries at least--he, the shining wonder, the new +constellation to be followed by the wise men bringing gifts, until +it stopped over a certain carrion at the bottom of a bath and +disappeared--was simply the greatest Forger and the greatest Thief +that ever cheated the gallows. + + + + +CHAPTER 26 + +Reaping the Whirlwind + + +With a precursory sound of hurried breath and hurried feet, Mr +Pancks rushed into Arthur Clennam's Counting-house. The Inquest +was over, the letter was public, the Bank was broken, the other +model structures of straw had taken fire and were turned to smoke. +The admired piratical ship had blown up, in the midst of a vast +fleet of ships of all rates, and boats of all sizes; and on the +deep was nothing but ruin; nothing but burning hulls, bursting +magazines, great guns self-exploded tearing friends and neighbours +to pieces, drowning men clinging to unseaworthy spars and going +down every minute, spent swimmers floating dead, and sharks. + +The usual diligence and order of the Counting-house at the Works +were overthrown. Unopened letters and unsorted papers lay strewn +about the desk. In the midst of these tokens of prostrated energy +and dismissed hope, the master of the Counting-house stood idle in +his usual place, with his arms crossed on the desk, and his head +bowed down upon them. + +Mr Pancks rushed in and saw him, and stood still. In another +minute, Mr Pancks's arms were on the desk, and Mr Pancks's head was +bowed down upon them; and for some time they remained in these +attitudes, idle and silent, with the width of the little room +between them. Mr Pancks was the first to lift up his head and +speak. + +'I persuaded you to it, Mr Clennam. I know it. Say what you will. + +You can't say more to me than I say to myself. You can't say more +than I deserve.' + +'O, Pancks, Pancks!' returned Clennam, 'don't speak of deserving. +What do I myself deserve!' + +'Better luck,' said Pancks. + +'I,' pursued Clennam, without attending to him, 'who have ruined my +partner! Pancks, Pancks, I have ruined Doyce! The honest, self- +helpful, indefatigable old man who has worked his way all through +his life; the man who has contended against so much disappointment, +and who has brought out of it such a good and hopeful nature; the +man I have felt so much for, and meant to be so true and useful to; +I have ruined him--brought him to shame and disgrace--ruined him, +ruined him!' + +The agony into which the reflection wrought his mind was so +distressing to see, that Mr Pancks took hold of himself by the hair +of his head, and tore it in desperation at the spectacle. + +'Reproach me!' cried Pancks. 'Reproach me, sir, or I'll do myself +an injury. Say,--You fool, you villain. Say,--Ass, how could you +do it; Beast, what did you mean by it! Catch hold of me somewhere. + +Say something abusive to me!' All the time, Mr Pancks was tearing +at his tough hair in a most pitiless and cruel manner. + +'If you had never yielded to this fatal mania, Pancks,' said +Clennam, more in commiseration than retaliation, 'it would have +been how much better for you, and how much better for me!' + +'At me again, sir!' cried Pancks, grinding his teeth in remorse. +'At me again!' +'If you had never gone into those accursed calculations, and +brought out your results with such abominable clearness,' groaned +Clennam, 'it would have been how much better for you, Pancks, and +how much better for me!' + +'At me again, sir!' exclaimed Pancks, loosening his hold of his +hair; 'at me again, and again!' + +Clennam, however, finding him already beginning to be pacified, had +said all he wanted to say, and more. He wrung his hand, only +adding, 'Blind leaders of the blind, Pancks! Blind leaders of the +blind! But Doyce, Doyce, Doyce; my injured partner!' That brought +his head down on the desk once more. + +Their former attitudes and their former silence were once more +first encroached upon by Pancks. + +'Not been to bed, sir, since it began to get about. Been high and +low, on the chance of finding some hope of saving any cinders from +the fire. All in vain. All gone. All vanished.' + +'I know it,' returned Clennam, 'too well.' + +Mr Pancks filled up a pause with a groan that came out of the very +depths of his soul. + +'Only yesterday, Pancks,' said Arthur; 'only yesterday, Monday, I +had the fixed intention of selling, realising, and making an end of +it.' + +'I can't say as much for myself, sir,' returned Pancks. 'Though +it's wonderful how many people I've heard of, who were going to +realise yesterday, of all days in the three hundred and sixty-five, +if it hadn't been too late!' + +His steam-like breathings, usually droll in their effect, were more +tragic than so many groans: while from head to foot, he was in that +begrimed, besmeared, neglected state, that he might have been an +authentic portrait of Misfortune which could scarcely be discerned +through its want of cleaning. + +'Mr Clennam, had you laid out--everything?' He got over the break +before the last word, and also brought out the last word itself +with great difficulty. + +'Everything.' + +Mr Pancks took hold of his tough hair again, and gave it such a +wrench that he pulled out several prongs of it. After looking at +these with an eye of wild hatred, he put them in his pocket. + +'My course,' said Clennam, brushing away some tears that had been +silently dropping down his face, 'must be taken at once. What +wretched amends I can make must be made. I must clear my +unfortunate partner's reputation. I must retain nothing for +myself. I must resign to our creditors the power of management I +have so much abused, and I must work out as much of my fault--or +crime--as is susceptible of being worked out in the rest of my +days.' + +'Is it impossible, sir, to tide over the present?' + +'Out of the question. Nothing can be tided over now, Pancks. The +sooner the business can pass out of my hands, the better for it. +There are engagements to be met, this week, which would bring the +catastrophe before many days were over, even if I would postpone it +for a single day by going on for that space, secretly knowing what +I know. All last night I thought of what I would do; what remains +is to do it.' + +'Not entirely of yourself?' said Pancks, whose face was as damp as +if his steam were turning into water as fast as he dismally blew it +off. 'Have some legal help.' + +'Perhaps I had better.' + +'Have Rugg.' + +'There is not much to do. He will do it as well as another.' + +'Shall I fetch Rugg, Mr Clennam?' + +'If you could spare the time, I should be much obliged to you.' + +Mr Pancks put on his hat that moment, and steamed away to +Pentonville. While he was gone Arthur never raised his head from +the desk, but remained in that one position. + +Mr Pancks brought his friend and professional adviser, Mr Rugg, +back with him. Mr Rugg had had such ample experience, on the road, +of Mr Pancks's being at that present in an irrational state of +mind, that he opened his professional mediation by requesting that +gentleman to take himself out of the way. Mr Pancks, crushed and +submissive, obeyed. + +'He is not unlike what my daughter was, sir, when we began the +Breach of Promise action of Rugg and Bawkins, in which she was +Plaintiff,' said Mr Rugg. 'He takes too strong and direct an +interest in the case. His feelings are worked upon. There is no +getting on, in our profession, with feelings worked upon, sir.' + +As he pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat, he saw, in a +side glance or two, that a great change had come over his client. + +'I am sorry to perceive, sir,' said Mr Rugg, 'that you have been +allowing your own feelings to be worked upon. Now, pray don't, +pray don't. These losses are much to be deplored, sir, but we must +look 'em in the face.' +'If the money I have sacrificed had been all my own, Mr Rugg,' +sighed Mr Clennam, 'I should have cared far less.' + +'Indeed, sir?' said Mr Rugg, rubbing his hands with a cheerful air. + +'You surprise me. That's singular, sir. I have generally found, +in my experience, that it's their own money people are most +particular about. I have seen people get rid of a good deal of +other people's money, and bear it very well: very well indeed.' + +With these comforting remarks, Mr Rugg seated himself on an office- +stool at the desk and proceeded to business. + +'Now, Mr Clennam, by your leave, let us go into the matter. Let us +see the state of the case. The question is simple. The question +is the usual plain, straightforward, common-sense question. What +can we do for ourself? What can we do for ourself?' + +'This is not the question with me, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur. 'You +mistake it in the beginning. It is, what can I do for my partner, +how can I best make reparation to him?' + +'I am afraid, sir, do you know,' argued Mr Rugg persuasively, 'that +you are still allowing your feeling to be worked upon. I don't +like the term "reparation," sir, except as a lever in the hands of +counsel. Will you excuse my saying that I feel it my duty to offer +you the caution, that you really must not allow your feelings to be +worked upon?' + +'Mr Rugg,' said Clennam, nerving himself to go through with what he +had resolved upon, and surprising that gentleman by appearing, in +his despondency, to have a settled determination of purpose; 'you +give me the impression that you will not be much disposed to adopt +the course I have made up my mind to take. If your disapproval of +it should render you unwilling to discharge such business as it +necessitates, I am sorry for it, and must seek other aid. But I +will represent to you at once, that to argue against it with me is +useless.' + +'Good, sir,' answered Mr Rugg, shrugging his shoulders.'Good, sir. +Since the business is to be done by some hands, let it be done by +mine. Such was my principle in the case of Rugg and Bawkins. Such +is my principle in most cases. ' + + +Clennam then proceeded to state to Mr Rugg his fixed resolution. +He told Mr Rugg that his partner was a man of great simplicity and +integrity, and that in all he meant to do, he was guided above all +things by a knowledge of his partner's character, and a respect for +his feelings. He explained that his partner was then absent on an +enterprise of importance, and that it particularly behoved himself +publicly to accept the blame of what he had rashly done, and +publicly to exonerate his partner from all participation in the +responsibility of it, lest the successful conduct of that +enterprise should be endangered by the slightest suspicion wrongly +attaching to his partner's honour and credit in another country. +He told Mr Rugg that to clear his partner morally, to the fullest +extent, and publicly and unreservedly to declare that he, Arthur +Clennam, of that Firm, had of his own sole act, and even expressly +against his partner's caution, embarked its resources in the +swindles that had lately perished, was the only real atonement +within his power; was a better atonement to the particular man than +it would be to many men; and was therefore the atonement he had +first to make. With this view, his intention was to print a +declaration to the foregoing effect, which he had already drawn up; +and, besides circulating it among all who had dealings with the +House, to advertise it in the public papers. Concurrently with +this measure (the description of which cost Mr Rugg innumerable wry +faces and great uneasiness in his limbs), he would address a letter +to all the creditors, exonerating his partner in a solemn manner, +informing them of the stoppage of the House until their pleasure +could be known and his partner communicated with, and humbly +submitting himself to their direction. If, through their +consideration for his partner's innocence, the affairs could ever +be got into such train as that the business could be profitably +resumed, and its present downfall overcome, then his own share in +it should revert to his partner, as the only reparation he could +make to him in money value for the distress and loss he had +unhappily brought upon him, and he himself, at as mall a salary as +he could live upon, would ask to be allowed to serve the business +as a faithful clerk. + +Though Mr Rugg saw plainly there was no preventing this from being +done, still the wryness of his face and the uneasiness of his limbs +so sorely required the propitiation of a Protest, that he made one. + +'I offer no objection, sir,' said he, 'I argue no point with you. +I will carry out your views, sir; but, under protest.' Mr Rugg +then stated, not without prolixity, the heads of his protest. +These were, in effect, because the whole town, or he might say the +whole country, was in the first madness of the late discovery, and +the resentment against the victims would be very strong: those who +had not been deluded being certain to wax exceedingly wroth with +them for not having been as wise as they were: and those who had +been deluded being certain to find excuses and reasons for +themselves, of which they were equally certain to see that other +sufferers were wholly devoid: not to mention the great probability +of every individual sufferer persuading himself, to his violent +indignation, that but for the example of all the other sufferers he +never would have put himself in the way of suffering. Because such +a declaration as Clennam's, made at such a time, would certainly +draw down upon him a storm of animosity, rendering it impossible to +calculate on forbearance in the creditors, or on unanimity among +them; and exposing him a solitary target to a straggling cross- +fire, which might bring him down from half-a-dozen quarters at +once. + +To all this Clennam merely replied that, granting the whole +protest, nothing in it lessened the force, or could lessen the +force, of the voluntary and public exoneration of his partner. He +therefore, once and for all, requested Mr Rugg's immediate aid in +getting the business despatched. Upon that, Mr Rugg fell to work; +and Arthur, retaining no property to himself but his clothes and +books, and a little loose money, placed his small private banker's- +account with the papers of the business. + +The disclosure was made, and the storm raged fearfully. Thousands +of people were wildly staring about for somebody alive to heap +reproaches on; and this notable case, courting publicity, set the +living somebody so much wanted, on a scaffold. When people who had +nothing to do with the case were so sensible of its flagrancy, +people who lost money by it could scarcely be expected to deal +mildly with it. Letters of reproach and invective showered in from +the creditors; and Mr Rugg, who sat upon the high stool every day +and read them all, informed his client within a week that he feared +there were writs out. + +'I must take the consequences of what I have done,' said Clennam. +'The writs will find me here.' + +On the very next morning, as he was turning in Bleeding Heart Yard +by Mrs Plornish's corner, Mrs Plornish stood at the door waiting +for him, and mysteriously besought him to step into Happy Cottage. +There he found Mr Rugg. + +'I thought I'd wait for you here. I wouldn't go on to the +Counting-house this morning if I was you, sir.' + +'Why not, Mr Rugg?' + +'There are as many as five out, to my knowledge.' + +'It cannot be too soon over,' said Clennam. 'Let them take me at +once.' + +'Yes, but,' said Mr Rugg, getting between him and the door, 'hear +reason, hear reason. They'll take you soon enough, Mr Clennam, I +don't doubt; but, hear reason. It almost always happens, in these +cases, that some insignificant matter pushes itself in front and +makes much of itself. Now, I find there's a little one out--a mere +Palace Court jurisdiction--and I have reason to believe that a +caption may be made upon that. I wouldn't be taken upon that.' + +'Why not?' asked Clennam. + +'I'd be taken on a full-grown one, sir,' said Mr Rugg. 'It's as +well to keep up appearances. As your professional adviser, I +should prefer your being taken on a writ from one of the Superior +Courts, if you have no objection to do me that favour. It looks +better.' + +'Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, in his dejection, 'my only wish is, that it +should be over. I will go on, and take my chance.' + +'Another word of reason, sir!' cried Mr Rugg. 'Now, this is +reason. The other may be taste; but this is reason. If you should +be taken on a little one, sir, you would go to the Marshalsea. +Now, you know what the Marshalsea is. Very close. Excessively +confined. Whereas in the King's Bench--' Mr Rugg waved his right +hand freely, as expressing abundance of space. +'I would rather,' said Clennam, 'be taken to the Marshalsea than to +any other prison.' + +'Do you say so indeed, sir?' returned Mr Rugg. 'Then this is +taste, too, and we may be walking.' + +He was a little offended at first, but he soon overlooked it. They +walked through the Yard to the other end. The Bleeding Hearts were +more interested in Arthur since his reverses than formerly; now +regarding him as one who was true to the place and had taken up his +freedom. Many of them came out to look after him, and to observe +to one another, with great unctuousness, that he was 'pulled down +by it.' Mrs Plornish and her father stood at the top of the steps +at their own end, much depressed and shaking their heads. + +There was nobody visibly in waiting when Arthur and Mr Rugg arrived +at the Counting-house. But an elderly member of the Jewish +persuasion, preserved in rum, followed them close, and looked in at +the glass before Mr Rugg had opened one of the day's letters. + +'Oh!' said Mr Rugg, looking up. 'How do you do? Step in--Mr +Clennam, I think this is the gentleman I was mentioning.' + +This gentleman explained the object of his visit to be 'a tyfling +madder ob bithznithz,' and executed his legal function. + +'Shall I accompany you, Mr Clennam?' asked Mr Rugg politely, +rubbing his hands. + +'I would rather go alone, thank you. Be so good as send me my +clothes.' Mr Rugg in a light airy way replied in the affirmative, +and shook hands with him. He and his attendant then went down- +stairs, got into the first conveyance they found, and drove to the +old gates. + +'Where I little thought, Heaven forgive me,' said Clennam to +himself, 'that I should ever enter thus!' + +Mr Chivery was on the Lock, and Young John was in the Lodge: either +newly released from it, or waiting to take his own spell of duty. +Both were more astonished on seeing who the prisoner was, than one +might have thought turnkeys would have been. The elder Mr Chivery +shook hands with him in a shame-faced kind of way, and said, 'I +don't call to mind, sir, as I was ever less glad to see you.' The +younger Mr Chivery, more distant, did not shake hands with him at +all; he stood looking at him in a state of indecision so observable +that it even came within the observation of Clennam with his heavy +eyes and heavy heart. Presently afterwards, Young John disappeared +into the jail. + +As Clennam knew enough of the place to know that he was required to +remain in the Lodge a certain time, he took a seat in a corner, and +feigned to be occupied with the perusal of letters from his pocket. + +They did not so engross his attention, but that he saw, with +gratitude, how the elder Mr Chivery kept the Lodge clear of +prisoners; how he signed to some, with his keys, not to come in, +how he nudged others with his elbows to go out, and how he made his +misery as easy to him as he could. + +Arthur was sitting with his eyes fixed on the floor, recalling the +past, brooding over the present, and not attending to either, when +he felt himself touched upon the shoulder. It was by Young John; +and he said, 'You can come now.' + +He got up and followed Young John. When they had gone a step or +two within the inner iron-gate, Young John turned and said to him: + +'You want a room. I have got you one.' + +'I thank you heartily.' + +Young John turned again, and took him in at the old doorway, up the +old staircase, into the old room. Arthur stretched out his hand. +Young John looked at it, looked at him--sternly--swelled, choked, +and said: + +'I don't know as I can. No, I find I can't. But I thought you'd +like the room, and here it is for you.' + +Surprise at this inconsistent behaviour yielded when he was gone +(he went away directly) to the feelings which the empty room +awakened in Clennam's wounded breast, and to the crowding +associations with the one good and gentle creature who had +sanctified it. Her absence in his altered fortunes made it, and +him in it, so very desolate and so much in need of such a face of +love and truth, that he turned against the wall to weep, sobbing +out, as his heart relieved itself, 'O my Little Dorrit!' + + + + +CHAPTER 27 + +The Pupil of the Marshalsea + + +The day was sunny, and the Marshalsea, with the hot noon striking +upon it, was unwontedly quiet. Arthur Clennam dropped into a +solitary arm-chair, itself as faded as any debtor in the jail, and +yielded himself to his thoughts. + +In the unnatural peace of having gone through the dreaded arrest, +and got there,--the first change of feeling which the prison most +commonly induced, and from which dangerous resting-place so many +men had slipped down to the depths of degradation and disgrace by +so many ways,--he could think of some passages in his life, almost +as if he were removed from them into another state of existence. +Taking into account where he was, the interest that had first +brought him there when he had been free to keep away, and the +gentle presence that was equally inseparable from the walls and +bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his later +life which no walls or bars could imprison, it was not remarkable +that everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again +to Little Dorrit. Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the +fact itself, but because of the reminder it brought with it, how +much the dear little creature had influenced his better +resolutions. + +None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this +wise, until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings +the right perception with it. It comes with sickness, it comes +with sorrow, it comes with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one +of the most frequent uses of adversity. It came to Clennam in his +adversity, strongly and tenderly. 'When I first gathered myself +together,' he thought, 'and set something like purpose before my +jaded eyes, whom had I before me, toiling on, for a good object's +sake, without encouragement, without notice, against ignoble +obstacles that would have turned an army of received heroes and +heroines? One weak girl! When I tried to conquer my misplaced +love, and to be generous to the man who was more fortunate than I, +though he should never know it or repay me with a gracious word, in +whom had I watched patience, self-denial, self-subdual, charitable +construction, the noblest generosity of the affections? In the +same poor girl! If I, a man, with a man's advantages and means and +energies, had slighted the whisper in my heart, that if my father +had erred, it was my first duty to conceal the fault and to repair +it, what youthful figure with tender feet going almost bare on the +damp ground, with spare hands ever working, with its slight shape +but half protected from the sharp weather, would have stood before +me to put me to shame? Little Dorrit's.' So always as he sat +alone in the faded chair, thinking. Always, Little Dorrit. Until +it seemed to him as if he met the reward of having wandered away +from her, and suffered anything to pass between him and his +remembrance of her virtues. + +His door was opened, and the head of the elder Chivery was put in +a very little way, without being turned towards him. + +'I am off the Lock, Mr Clennam, and going out. Can I do anything +for you?' + +'Many thanks. Nothing.' + +'You'll excuse me opening the door,' said Mr Chivery; 'but I +couldn't make you hear.' + +'Did you knock?' +'Half-a-dozen times.' + +Rousing himself, Clennam observed that the prison had awakened from +its noontide doze, that the inmates were loitering about the shady +yard, and that it was late in the afternoon. He had been thinking +for hours. +'Your things is come,' said Mr Chivery, 'and my son is going to +carry 'em up. I should have sent 'em up but for his wishing to +carry 'em himself. Indeed he would have 'em himself, and so I +couldn't send 'em up. Mr Clennam, could I say a word to you?' + +'Pray come in,' said Arthur; for Mr Chivery's head was still put in +at the door a very little way, and Mr Chivery had but one ear upon +him, instead of both eyes. This was native delicacy in Mr Chivery +--true politeness; though his exterior had very much of a turnkey +about it, and not the least of a gentleman. + +'Thank you, sir,' said Mr Chivery, without advancing; 'it's no odds +me coming in. Mr Clennam, don't you take no notice of my son (if +you'll be so good) in case you find him cut up anyways difficult. +My son has a 'art, and my son's 'art is in the right place. Me and +his mother knows where to find it, and we find it sitiwated +correct.' + +With this mysterious speech, Mr Chivery took his ear away and shut +the door. He might have been gone ten minutes, when his son +succeeded him. + +'Here's your portmanteau,' he said to Arthur, putting it carefully +down. + +'It's very kind of you. I am ashamed that you should have the +trouble.' + +He was gone before it came to that; but soon returned, saying +exactly as before, 'Here's your black box:' which he also put down +with care. + +'I am very sensible of this attention. I hope we may shake hands +now, Mr John.' + +Young John, however, drew back, turning his right wrist in a socket +made of his left thumb and middle-finger and said as he had said at +first, 'I don't know as I can. No; I find I can't!' He then stood +regarding the prisoner sternly, though with a swelling humour in +his eyes that looked like pity. + +'Why are you angry with me,' said Clennam, 'and yet so ready to do +me these kind services? There must be some mistake between us. If +I have done anything to occasion it I am sorry.' + +'No mistake, sir,' returned John, turning the wrist backwards and +forwards in the socket, for which it was rather tight. 'No +mistake, sir, in the feelings with which my eyes behold you at the +present moment! If I was at all fairly equal to your weight, Mr +Clennam--which I am not; and if you weren't under a cloud--which +you are; and if it wasn't against all rules of the Marshalsea-- +which it is; those feelings are such, that they would stimulate me, +more to having it out with you in a Round on the present spot than +to anything else I could name.' +Arthur looked at him for a moment in some wonder, and some little +anger. 'Well, well!' he said. 'A mistake, a mistake!' Turning +away, he sat down with a heavy sigh in the faded chair again. + +Young John followed him with his eyes, and, after a short pause, +cried out, 'I beg your pardon!' + +'Freely granted,' said Clennam, waving his hand without raising his +sunken head. 'Say no more. I am not worth it.' + +'This furniture, sir,' said Young John in a voice of mild and soft +explanation, 'belongs to me. I am in the habit of letting it out +to parties without furniture, that have the room. It an't much, +but it's at your service. Free, I mean. I could not think of +letting you have it on any other terms. You're welcome to it for +nothing.' + +Arthur raised his head again to thank him, and to say he could not +accept the favour. John was still turning his wrist, and still +contending with himself in his former divided manner. + + +'What is the matter between us?' said Arthur. + +'I decline to name it, sir,' returned Young John, suddenly turning +loud and sharp. 'Nothing's the matter.' + +Arthur looked at him again, in vain, for an explanation of his +behaviour. After a while, Arthur turned away his head again. +Young John said, presently afterwards, with the utmost mildness: + +'The little round table, sir, that's nigh your elbow, was--you know +whose--I needn't mention him--he died a great gentleman. I bought +it of an individual that he gave it to, and that lived here after +him. But the individual wasn't any ways equal to him. Most +individuals would find it hard to come up to his level.' + +Arthur drew the little table nearer, rested his arm upon it, and +kept it there. + +'Perhaps you may not be aware, sir,' said Young John, 'that I +intruded upon him when he was over here in London. On the whole he +was of opinion that it WAS an intrusion, though he was so good as +to ask me to sit down and to inquire after father and all other old +friends. Leastways humblest acquaintances. He looked, to me, a +good deal changed, and I said so when I came back. I asked him if +Miss Amy was well--' + +'And she was?' + +'I should have thought you would have known without putting the +question to such as me,' returned Young John, after appearing to +take a large invisible pill. 'Since you do put me the question, I +am sorry I can't answer it. But the truth is, he looked upon the +inquiry as a liberty, and said, "What was that to me?" It was then +I became quite aware I was intruding: of which I had been fearful +before. However, he spoke very handsome afterwards; very +handsome.' + +They were both silent for several minutes: except that Young John +remarked, at about the middle of the pause, 'He both spoke and +acted very handsome.' + +It was again Young John who broke the silence by inquiring: + +'If it's not a liberty, how long may it be your intentions, sir, to +go without eating and drinking?' + +'I have not felt the want of anything yet,' returned Clennam. 'I +have no appetite just now.' + +'The more reason why you should take some support, sir,' urged +Young John. 'If you find yourself going on sitting here for hours +and hours partaking of no refreshment because you have no appetite, +why then you should and must partake of refreshment without an +appetite. I'm going to have tea in my own apartment. If it's not +a liberty, please to come and take a cup. Or I can bring a tray +here in two minutes.' + +Feeling that Young John would impose that trouble on himself if he +refused, and also feeling anxious to show that he bore in mind both +the elder Mr Chivery's entreaty, and the younger Mr Chivery's +apology, Arthur rose and expressed his willingness to take a cup of +tea in Mr john's apartment. Young John locked his door for him as +they went out, slided the key into his pocket with great dexterity, +and led the way to his own residence. + +It was at the top of the house nearest to the gateway. It was the +room to which Clennam had hurried on the day when the enriched +family had left the prison for ever, and where he had lifted her +insensible from the floor. He foresaw where they were going as +soon as their feet touched the staircase. The room was so far +changed that it was papered now, and had been repainted, and was +far more comfortably furnished; but he could recall it just as he +had seen it in that single glance, when he raised her from the +ground and carried her down to the carriage. + +Young John looked hard at him, biting his fingers. + +'I see you recollect the room, Mr Clennam?' +'I recollect it well, Heaven bless her!' + +Oblivious of the tea, Young John continued to bite his fingers and +to look at his visitor, as long as his visitor continued to glance +about the room. Finally, he made a start at the teapot, gustily +rattled a quantity of tea into it from a canister, and set off for +the common kitchen to fill it with hot water. + +The room was so eloquent to Clennam in the changed circumstances of +his return to the miserable Marshalsea; it spoke to him so +mournfully of her, and of his loss of her; that it would have gone +hard with him to resist it, even though he had not been alone. +Alone, he did not try. He had his hand on the insensible wall as +tenderly as if it had been herself that he touched, and pronounced +her name in a low voice. He stood at the window, looking over the +prison-parapet with its grim spiked border, and breathed a +benediction through the summer haze towards the distant land where +she was rich and prosperous. + +Young John was some time absent, and, when he came back, showed +that he had been outside by bringing with him fresh butter in a +cabbage leaf, some thin slices of boiled ham in another cabbage +leaf, and a little basket of water-cresses and salad herbs. When +these were arranged upon the table to his satisfaction, they sat +down to tea. + +Clennam tried to do honour to the meal, but unavailingly. The ham +sickened him, the bread seemed to turn to sand in his mouth. He +could force nothing upon himself but a cup of tea. + +'Try a little something green,' said Young John, handing him the +basket. + +He took a sprig or so of water-cress, and tried again; but the +bread turned to a heavier sand than before, and the ham (though it +was good enough of itself) seemed to blow a faint simoom of ham +through the whole Marshalsea. + +'Try a little more something green, sir,' said Young John; and +again handed the basket. + +It was so like handing green meat into the cage of a dull +imprisoned bird, and John had so evidently brought the little +basket as a handful of fresh relief from the stale hot paving- +stones and bricks of the jail, that Clennam said, with a smile, 'It +was very kind of you to think of putting this between the wires; +but I cannot even get this down to-day.' + +As if the difficulty were contagious, Young John soon pushed away +his own plate, and fell to folding the cabbage-leaf that had +contained the ham. When he had folded it into a number of layers, +one over another, so that it was small in the palm of his hand, he +began to flatten it between both his hands, and to eye Clennam +attentively. +'I wonder,' he at length said, compressing his green packet with +some force, 'that if it's not worth your while to take care of +yourself for your own sake, it's not worth doing for some one +else's.' + +'Truly,' returned Arthur, with a sigh and a smile, 'I don't know +for whose.' + +'Mr Clennam,' said John, warmly, 'I am surprised that a gentleman +who is capable of the straightforwardness that you are capable of, +should be capable of the mean action of making me such an answer. +Mr Clennam, I am surprised that a gentleman who is capable of +having a heart of his own, should be capable of the heartlessness +of treating mine in that way. I am astonished at it, sir. Really +and truly I am astonished!' + +Having got upon his feet to emphasise his concluding words, Young +John sat down again, and fell to rolling his green packet on his +right leg; never taking his eyes off Clennam, but surveying him +with a fixed look of indignant reproach. + +'I had got over it, sir,' said John. 'I had conquered it, knowing +that it must be conquered, and had come to the resolution to think +no more about it. I shouldn't have given my mind to it again, I +hope, if to this prison you had not been brought, and in an hour +unfortunate for me, this day!' (In his agitation Young John +adopted his mother's powerful construction of sentences.) 'When you +first came upon me, sir, in the Lodge, this day, more as if a Upas +tree had been made a capture of than a private defendant, such +mingled streams of feelings broke loose again within me, that +everything was for the first few minutes swept away before them, +and I was going round and round in a vortex. I got out of it. I +struggled, and got out of it. If it was the last word I had to +speak, against that vortex with my utmost powers I strove, and out +of it I came. I argued that if I had been rude, apologies was due, +and those apologies without a question of demeaning, I did make. +And now, when I've been so wishful to show that one thought is next +to being a holy one with me and goes before all others--now, after +all, you dodge me when I ever so gently hint at it, and throw me +back upon myself. For, do not, sir,' said Young John, 'do not be +so base as to deny that dodge you do, and thrown me back upon +myself you have!' + +All amazement, Arthur gazed at him like one lost, only saying, +'What is it? What do you mean, John?' But, John, being in that +state of mind in which nothing would seem to be more impossible to +a certain class of people than the giving of an answer, went ahead +blindly. + +'I hadn't,' John declared, 'no, I hadn't, and I never had the +audaciousness to think, I am sure, that all was anything but lost. +I hadn't, no, why should I say I hadn't if I ever had, any hope +that it was possible to be so blest, not after the words that +passed, not even if barriers insurmountable had not been raised! +But is that a reason why I am to have no memory, why I am to have +no thoughts, why I am to have no sacred spots, nor anything?' + +'What can you mean?' cried Arthur. + +'It's all very well to trample on it, sir,' John went on, scouring +a very prairie of wild words, 'if a person can make up his mind to +be guilty of the action. It's all very well to trample on it, but +it's there. It may be that it couldn't be trampled upon if it +wasn't there. But that doesn't make it gentlemanly, that doesn't +make it honourable, that doesn't justify throwing a person back +upon himself after he has struggled and strived out of himself like +a butterfly. The world may sneer at a turnkey, but he's a man-- +when he isn't a woman, which among female criminals he's expected +to be.' + +Ridiculous as the incoherence of his talk was, there was yet a +truthfulness in Young john's simple, sentimental character, and a +sense of being wounded in some very tender respect, expressed in +his burning face and in the agitation of his voice and manner, +which Arthur must have been cruel to disregard. He turned his +thoughts back to the starting-point of this unknown injury; and in +the meantime Young John, having rolled his green packet pretty +round, cut it carefully into three pieces, and laid it on a plate +as if it were some particular delicacy. + +'It seems to me just possible,' said Arthur, when he had retraced +the conversation to the water-cresses and back again, 'that you +have made some reference to Miss Dorrit.' + +'It is just possible, sir,' returned John Chivery. + +'I don't understand it. I hope I may not be so unlucky as to make +you think I mean to offend you again, for I never have meant to +offend you yet, when I say I don't understand it.' + +'Sir,' said Young John, 'will you have the perfidy to deny that you +know and long have known that I felt towards Miss Dorrit, call it +not the presumption of love, but adoration and sacrifice ?' + +'Indeed, John, I will not have any perfidy if I know it; why you +should suspect me of it I am at a loss to think. Did you ever hear +from Mrs Chivery, your mother, that I went to see her once?' + +'No, sir,' returned John, shortly. 'Never heard of such a thing.' + +'But I did. Can you imagine why?' + +'No, sir,' returned John, shortly. 'I can't imagine why.' + +'I will tell you. I was solicitous to promote Miss Dorrit's +happiness; and if I could have supposed that Miss Dorrit returned +your affection--' + +Poor John Chivery turned crimson to the tips of his ears. 'Miss +Dorrit never did, sir. I wish to be honourable and true, so far as +in my humble way I can, and I would scorn to pretend for a moment +that she ever did, or that she ever led me to believe she did; no, +nor even that it was ever to be expected in any cool reason that +she would or could. She was far above me in all respects at all +times. As likewise,' added John, 'similarly was her gen-teel +family.' +His chivalrous feeling towards all that belonged to her made him so +very respectable, in spite of his small stature and his rather weak +legs, and his very weak hair, and his poetical temperament, that a +Goliath might have sat in his place demanding less consideration at +Arthur's hands. + +'You speak, john,' he said, with cordial admiration, 'like a Man.' + +'Well, sir,' returned John, brushing his hand across his eyes, + +'then I wish you'd do the same.' + +He was quick with this unexpected retort, and it again made Arthur +regard him with a wondering expression of face. + +'Leastways,' said John, stretching his hand across the tea-tray, +'if too strong a remark, withdrawn! But, why not, why not? When +I say to you, Mr Clennam, take care of yourself for some one else's +sake, why not be open, though a turnkey? Why did I get you the +room which I knew you'd like best? Why did I carry up your things? + +Not that I found 'em heavy; I don't mention 'em on that accounts; +far from it. Why have I cultivated you in the manner I have done +since the morning? On the ground of your own merits? No. They're +very great, I've no doubt at all; but not on the ground of them. +Another's merits have had their weight, and have had far more +weight with Me. Then why not speak free?' + +'Unaffectedly, John,' said Clennam, 'you are so good a fellow and +I have so true a respect for your character, that if I have +appeared to be less sensible than I really am of the fact that the +kind services you have rendered me to-day are attributable to my +having been trusted by Miss Dorrit as her friend--I confess it to +be a fault, and I ask your forgiveness.' + +'Oh! why not,' John repeated with returning scorn, 'why not speak +free!' + +'I declare to you,' returned Arthur, 'that I do not understand you. + +Look at me. Consider the trouble I have been in. Is it likely +that I would wilfully add to my other self-reproaches, that of +being ungrateful or treacherous to you. I do not understand you.' + +john's incredulous face slowly softened into a face of doubt. He +rose, backed into the garret-window of the room, beckoned Arthur to +come there, and stood looking at him thoughtfully. +'Mr Clennam, do you mean to say that you don't know?' + +'What, John?' + +'Lord,' said Young John, appealing with a gasp to the spikes on the +wall. 'He says, What!' + +Clennam looked at the spikes, and looked at John; and looked at the +spikes, and looked at John. + +'He says What! And what is more,' exclaimed Young John, surveying +him in a doleful maze, 'he appears to mean it! Do you see this +window, sir?' + +'Of course I see this window.' + +'See this room?' + +'Why, of course I see this room.' + +'That wall opposite, and that yard down below? They have all been +witnesses of it, from day to day, from night to night, from week to +week, from month to month. For how often have I seen Miss Dorrit +here when she has not seen me!' + +'Witnesses of what?' said Clennam. + +'Of Miss Dorrit's love.' + +'For whom?' + +'You,' said John. And touched him with the back of his hand upon +the breast, and backed to his chair, and sat down on it with a pale +face, holding the arms, and shaking his head at him. + +If he had dealt Clennam a heavy blow, instead of laying that light +touch upon him, its effect could not have been to shake him more. +He stood amazed; his eyes looking at John; his lips parted, and +seeming now and then to form the word 'Me!' without uttering it; +his hands dropped at his sides; his whole appearance that of a man +who has been awakened from sleep, and stupefied by intelligence +beyond his full comprehension. + +'Me!' he at length said aloud. + +'Ah!' groaned Young John. 'You!' + +He did what he could to muster a smile, and returned, 'Your fancy. +You are completely mistaken.' + +'I mistaken, sir!' said Young John. '_I_ completely mistaken on +that subject! No, Mr Clennam, don't tell me so. On any other, if +you like, for I don't set up to be a penetrating character, and am +well aware of my own deficiencies. But, _I_ mistaken on a point +that has caused me more smart in my breast than a flight of +savages' arrows could have done! _I_ mistaken on a point that +almost sent me into my grave, as I sometimes wished it would, if +the grave could only have been made compatible with the tobacco- +business and father and mother's feelings! I mistaken on a point +that, even at the present moment, makes me take out my pocket- +handkercher like a great girl, as people say: though I am sure I +don't know why a great girl should be a term of reproach, for every +rightly constituted male mind loves 'em great and small. Don't +tell me so, don't tell me so!' + +Still highly respectable at bottom, though absurd enough upon the +surface, Young John took out his pocket-handkerchief with a genuine +absence both of display and concealment, which is only to be seen +in a man with a great deal of good in him, when he takes out his +pocket-handkerchief for the purpose of wiping his eyes. Having +dried them, and indulged in the harmless luxury of a sob and a +sniff, he put it up again. + +The touch was still in its influence so like a blow that Arthur +could not get many words together to close the subject with. He +assured John Chivery when he had returned his handkerchief to his +pocket, that he did all honour to his disinterestedness and to the +fidelity of his remembrance of Miss Dorrit. As to the impression +on his mind, of which he had just relieved it--here John +interposed, and said, 'No impression! Certainty!'--as to that, +they might perhaps speak of it at another time, but would say no +more now. Feeling low-spirited and weary, he would go back to his +room, with john's leave, and come out no more that night. John +assented, and he crept back in the shadow of the wall to his own +lodging. + +The feeling of the blow was still so strong upon him that, when the +dirty old woman was gone whom he found sitting on the stairs +outside his door, waiting to make his bed, and who gave him to +understand while doing it, that she had received her instructions +from Mr Chivery, 'not the old 'un but the young 'un,' he sat down +in the faded arm-chair, pressing his head between his hands, as if +he had been stunned. Little Dorrit love him! More bewildering to +him than his misery, far. + +Consider the improbability. He had been accustomed to call her his +child, and his dear child, and to invite her confidence by dwelling +upon the difference in their respective ages, and to speak of +himself as one who was turning old. Yet she might not have thought +him old. Something reminded him that he had not thought himself +so, until the roses had floated away upon the river. + +He had her two letters among other papers in his box, and he took +them out and read them. There seemed to be a sound in them like +the sound of her sweet voice. It fell upon his ear with many tones +of tenderness, that were not insusceptible of the new meaning. Now +it was that the quiet desolation of her answer,'No, No, No,' made +to him that night in that very room--that night when he had been +shown the dawn of her altered fortune, and when other words had +passed between them which he had been destined to remember in +humiliation and a prisoner, rushed into his mind. + +Consider the improbability. + +But it had a preponderating tendency, when considered, to become +fainter. There was another and a curious inquiry of his own +heart's that concurrently became stronger. In the reluctance he +had felt to believe that she loved any one; in his desire to set +that question at rest; in a half-formed consciousness he had had +that there would be a kind of nobleness in his helping her love for +any one, was there no suppressed something on his own side that he +had hushed as it arose? Had he ever whispered to himself that he +must not think of such a thing as her loving him, that he must not +take advantage of her gratitude, that he must keep his experience +in remembrance as a warning and reproof; that he must regard such +youthful hopes as having passed away, as his friend's dead daughter +had passed away; that he must be steady in saying to himself that +the time had gone by him, and he was too saddened and old? + +He had kissed her when he raised her from the ground on the day +when she had been so consistently and expressively forgotten. +Quite as he might have kissed her, if she had been conscious? No +difference? + +The darkness found him occupied with these thoughts. The darkness +also found Mr and Mrs Plornish knocking at his door. They brought +with them a basket, filled with choice selections from that stock +in trade which met with such a quick sale and produced such a slow +return. Mrs Plornish was affected to tears. Mr Plornish amiably +growled, in his philosophical but not lucid manner, that there was +ups you see, and there was downs. It was in vain to ask why ups, +why downs; there they was, you know. He had heerd it given for a +truth that accordin' as the world went round, which round it did +rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his turn of +standing with his ed upside down and all his air a flying the wrong +way into what you might call Space. Wery well then. What Mr +Plornish said was, wery well then. That gentleman's ed would come +up-ards when his turn come, that gentleman's air would be a +pleasure to look upon being all smooth again, and wery well then! + +It has been already stated that Mrs Plornish, not being +philosophical, wept. It further happened that Mrs Plornish, not +being philosophical, was intelligible. It may have arisen out of +her softened state of mind, out of her sex's wit, out of a woman's +quick association of ideas, or out of a woman's no association of +ideas, but it further happened somehow that Mrs Plornish's +intelligibility displayed itself upon the very subject of Arthur's +meditations. + +'The way father has been talking about you, Mr Clennam,' said Mrs +Plornish, 'you hardly would believe. It's made him quite poorly. +As to his voice, this misfortune has took it away. You know what +a sweet singer father is; but he couldn't get a note out for the +children at tea, if you'll credit what I tell you.' + +While speaking, Mrs Plornish shook her head, and wiped her eyes, +and looked retrospectively about the room. + +'As to Mr Baptist,' pursued Mrs Plornish, 'whatever he'll do when +he comes to know of it, I can't conceive nor yet imagine. He'd +have been here before now, you may be sure, but that he's away on +confidential business of your own. The persevering manner in which +he follows up that business, and gives himself no rest from it--it +really do,' said Mrs Plornish, winding up in the Italian manner, +'as I say to him, Mooshattonisha padrona.' + +Though not conceited, Mrs Plornish felt that she had turned this +Tuscan sentence with peculiar elegance. Mr Plornish could not +conceal his exultation in her accomplishments as a linguist. + +'But what I say is, Mr Clennam,' the good woman went on, 'there's +always something to be thankful for, as I am sure you will yourself +admit. Speaking in this room, it's not hard to think what the +present something is. It's a thing to be thankful for, indeed, +that Miss Dorrit is not here to know it.' + +Arthur thought she looked at him with particular expression. + +'It's a thing,' reiterated Mrs Plornish, 'to be thankful for, +indeed, that Miss Dorrit is far away. It's to be hoped she is not +likely to hear of it. If she had been here to see it, sir, it's +not to be doubted that the sight of you,' Mrs Plornish repeated +those words--'not to be doubted, that the sight of you--in +misfortune and trouble, would have been almost too much for her +affectionate heart. There's nothing I can think of, that would +have touched Miss Dorrit so bad as that.' + +Of a certainty Mrs Plornish did look at him now, with a sort of +quivering defiance in her friendly emotion. + +'Yes!' said she. 'And it shows what notice father takes, though at +his time of life, that he says to me this afternoon, which Happy +Cottage knows I neither make it up nor any ways enlarge, "Mary, +it's much to be rejoiced in that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to +behold it." Those were father's words. Father's own words was, +"Much to be rejoiced in, Mary, that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot +to behold it." I says to father then, I says to him, "Father, you +are right!" That,' Mrs Plornish concluded, with the air of a very +precise legal witness, 'is what passed betwixt father and me. And +I tell you nothing but what did pass betwixt me and father.' + +Mr Plornish, as being of a more laconic temperament, embraced this +opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now +leave Mr Clennam to himself. 'For, you see,' said Mr Plornish, +gravely, 'I know what it is, old gal;' repeating that valuable +remark several times, as if it appeared to him to include some +great moral secret. Finally, the worthy couple went away arm in +arm. + +Little Dorrit, Little Dorrit. Again, for hours. Always Little +Dorrit! + +Happily, if it ever had been so, it was over, and better over. +Granted that she had loved him, and he had known it and had +suffered himself to love her, what a road to have led her away +upon--the road that would have brought her back to this miserable +place! He ought to be much comforted by the reflection that she +was quit of it forever; that she was, or would soon be, married +(vague rumours of her father's projects in that direction had +reached Bleeding Heart Yard, with the news of her sister's +marriage); and that the Marshalsea gate had shut for ever on all +those perplexed possibilities of a time that was gone. + +Dear Little Dorrit. + +Looking back upon his own poor story, she was its vanishing-point. +Every thing in its perspective led to her innocent figure. He had +travelled thousands of miles towards it; previous unquiet hopes and +doubts had worked themselves out before it; it was the centre of +the interest of his life; it was the termination of everything that +was good and pleasant in it; beyond, there was nothing but mere +waste and darkened sky. + +As ill at ease as on the first night of his lying down to sleep +within those dreary walls, he wore the night out with such +thoughts. What time Young John lay wrapt in peaceful slumber, +after composing and arranging the following monumental inscription +on his pillow-- + + + STRANGER! + RESPECT THE TOMB OF + JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR, + WHO DIED AT AN ADVANCED AGE + NOT NECESSARY TO MENTION. + HE ENCOUNTERED HIS RIVAL IN A DISTRESSED STATE, + AND FELT INCLINED + TO HAVE A ROUND WITH HIM; + BUT, FOR THE SAKE OF THE LOVED ONE, CONQUERED THOSE FEELINGS + OF BITTERNESS, AND BECAME + MAGNANIMOUS. + + + + +CHAPTER 28 + +An Appearance in the Marshalsea + + +The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on +Clennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the community +within. Too depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who +got together to forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to +join in the poor socialities of the tavern; he kept his own room, +and was held in distrust. Some said he was proud; some objected +that he was sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for +that he was a poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts. The +whole population were shy of him on these various counts of +indictment, but especially the last, which involved a species of +domestic treason; and he soon became so confirmed in his seclusion, +that his only time for walking up and down was when the evening +Club were assembled at their songs and toasts and sentiments, and +when the yard was nearly left to the women and children. + +Imprisonment began to tell upon him. He knew that he idled and +moped. After what he had known of the influences of imprisonment +within the four small walls of the very room he occupied, this +consciousness made him afraid of himself. Shrinking from the +observation of other men, and shrinking from his own, he began to +change very sensibly. Anybody might see that the shadow of the +wall was dark upon him. + +One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in jail, +and when he had been trying to read and had not been able to +release even the imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea, +a footstep stopped at his door, and a hand tapped at it. He arose +and opened it, and an agreeable voice accosted him with 'How do you +do, Mr Clennam? I hope I am not unwelcome in calling to see you.' + +It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand. He looked very +good-natured and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free, +in contrast with the squalid prison. + +'You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam,' he said, taking the seat +which Clennam offered him. + +'I must confess to being much surprised.' + +'Not disagreeably, I hope?' + +'By no means.' + +'Thank you. Frankly,' said the engaging young Barnacle, 'I have +been excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of +a temporary retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two +private gentlemen) that our place has had nothing to do with it?' + +'Your office?' + +'Our Circumlocution place.' + +'I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable +establishment.' + +Upon my life,' said the vivacious young Barnacle, 'I am heartily +glad to know it. It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it. +I should have so exceedingly regretted our place having had +anything to do with your difficulties.' + +Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the +responsibility. + +'That's right,' said Ferdinand. 'I am very happy to hear it. I +was rather afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor +you, because there is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that +kind of thing now and then. We don't want to do it; but if men +will be gravelled, why--we can't help it.' + +'Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say,' returned +Arthur, gloomily, 'I am much obliged to you for your interest in +me.' + +'No, but really! Our place is,' said the easy young Barnacle, 'the +most inoffensive place possible. You'll say we are a humbug. I +won't say we are not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be, +and must be. Don't you see?' + +'I do not,' said Clennam. + +'You don't regard it from the right point of view. It is the point +of view that is the essential thing. Regard our place from the +point of view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as +capital a Department as you'll find anywhere.' + +'Is your place there to be left alone?' asked Clennam. + +'You exactly hit it,' returned Ferdinand. 'It is there with the +express intention that everything shall be left alone. That is +what it means. That is what it's for. No doubt there's a certain +form to be kept up that it's for something else, but it's only a +form. Why, good Heaven, we are nothing but forms! Think what a +lot of our forms you have gone through. And you have never got any +nearer to an end?' + +'Never,' said Clennam. + +'Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have us-- +official and effectual. It's like a limited game of cricket. A +field of outsiders are always going in to bowl at the Public +Service, and we block the balls.' + +Clennam asked what became of the bowlers? The airy young Barnacle +replied that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lamed, got their +backs broken, died off, gave it up, went in for other games. + +'And this occasions me to congratulate myself again,' he pursued, +'on the circumstance that our place has had nothing to do with your +temporary retirement. It very easily might have had a hand in it; +because it is undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky +place, in our effects upon people who will not leave us alone. Mr +Clennam, I am quite unreserved with you. As between yourself and +myself, I know I may be. I was so, when I first saw you making the +mistake of not leaving us alone; because I perceived that you were +inexperienced and sanguine, and had--I hope you'll not object to my +saying--some simplicity.' + +'Not at all.' + +'Some simplicity. Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I went +out of my way to hint to you (which really was not official, but I +never am official when I can help it) something to the effect that +if I were you, I wouldn't bother myself. However, you did bother +yourself, and you have since bothered yourself. Now, don't do it +any more.' + +'I am not likely to have the opportunity,' said Clennam. + +'Oh yes, you are! You'll leave here. Everybody leaves here. +There are no ends of ways of leaving here. Now, don't come back to +us. That entreaty is the second object of my call. Pray, don't +come back to us. Upon my honour,' said Ferdinand in a very +friendly and confiding way, 'I shall be greatly vexed if you don't +take warning by the past and keep away from us.' + +'And the invention?' said Clennam. + +'My good fellow,' returned Ferdinand, 'if you'll excuse the freedom +of that form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and +nobody cares twopence-halfpenny about it.' + +'Nobody in the Office, that is to say?' + +'Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any +invention. You have no idea how many people want to be left alone. + +You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the +Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don't be bored by it) tends +to being left alone. Believe me, Mr Clennam,' said the sprightly +young Barnacle in his pleasantest manner, 'our place is not a +wicked Giant to be charged at full tilt; but only a windmill +showing you, as it grinds immense quantities of chaff, which way +the country wind blows.' + +'If I could believe that,' said Clennam, 'it would be a dismal +prospect for all of us.' + +'Oh! Don't say so!' returned Ferdinand. 'It's all right. We must +have humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug. + +A little humbug, and a groove, and everything goes on admirably, if +you leave it alone.' + +With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the rising +Barnacles who were born of woman, to be followed under a variety of +watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved, Ferdinand +rose. Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and courteous +bearing, or adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the +circumstances of his visit. + +'Is it fair to ask,' he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with a +real feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good-humour, +'whether it is true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of +this passing inconvenience?' + +'I am one of the many he has ruined. Yes.' + +'He must have been an exceedingly clever fellow,' said Ferdinand +Barnacle. + +Arthur, not being in the mood to extol the memory of the deceased, +was silent. + +'A consummate rascal, of course,' said Ferdinand, 'but remarkably +clever! One cannot help admiring the fellow. Must have been such +a master of humbug. Knew people so well--got over them so +completely--did so much with them!' In his easy way, he was really +moved to genuine admiration. + +'I hope,' said Arthur, 'that he and his dupes may be a warning to +people not to have so much done with them again.' + +'My dear Mr Clennam,' returned Ferdinand, laughing, 'have you +really such a verdant hope? The next man who has as large a +capacity and as genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as +well. Pardon me, but I think you really have no idea how the human +bees will swarm to the beating of any old tin kettle; in that fact +lies the complete manual of governing them. When they can be got +to believe that the kettle is made of the precious metals, in that +fact lies the whole power of men like our late lamented. No doubt +there are here and there,' said Ferdinand politely, 'exceptional +cases, where people have been taken in for what appeared to them to +be much better reasons; and I need not go far to find such a case; +but they don't invalidate the rule. Good day! I hope that when I +have the pleasure of seeing you, next, this passing cloud will have +given place to sunshine. Don't come a step beyond the door. I +know the way out perfectly. Good day!' + +With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went +down-stairs, hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in +the front court-yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his +noble kinsman, who wanted a little coaching before he could +triumphantly answer certain infidel Snobs who were going to +question the Nobs about their statesmanship. + +He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two +afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like +an elderly Phoebus. + +'How do you do to-day, sir?' said Mr Rugg. 'Is there any little +thing I can do for you to-day, sir?' + +'No, I thank you.' + +Mr Rugg's enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a housekeeper's +enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a washerwoman's enjoyment +of a heavy wash, or a dustman's enjoyment of an overflowing dust- +bin, or any other professional enjoyment of a mess in the way of +business. + +'I still look round, from time to time, sir,' said Mr Rugg, +cheerfully, 'to see whether any lingering Detainers are +accumulating at the gate. They have fallen in pretty thick, sir; +as thick as we could have expected.' + +He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of +congratulation: rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a +little. + +'As thick,' repeated Mr Rugg, 'as we could reasonably have +expected. Quite a shower-bath of 'em. I don't often intrude upon +you now, when I look round, because I know you are not inclined for +company, and that if you wished to see me, you would leave word in +the Lodge. But I am here pretty well every day, sir. Would this +be an unseasonable time, sir,' asked Mr Rugg, coaxingly, 'for me to +offer an observation?' + +'As seasonable a time as any other.' + +'Hum! Public opinion, sir,' said Mr Rugg, 'has been busy with +you.' + +'I don't doubt it.' + +'Might it not be advisable, sir,' said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly yet, +'now to make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to +public opinion? We all do it in one way or another. The fact is, +we must do it.' + +'I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no business +to expect that I ever shall.' + +'Don't say that, sir, don't say that. The cost of being moved to +the Bench is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is +strong that you ought to be there, why--really--' + +'I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, 'that my +determination to remain here was a matter of taste.' + +'Well, sir, well! But is it good taste, is it good taste? That's +the Question.' Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be quite +pathetic. 'I was almost going to say, is it good feeling? This is +an extensive affair of yours; and your remaining here where a man +can come for a pound or two, is remarked upon as not in keeping. +It is not in keeping. I can't tell you, sir, in how many quarters +I heard it mentioned. I heard comments made upon it last night in +a Parlour frequented by what I should call, if I did not look in +there now and then myself, the best legal company--I heard, there, +comments on it that I was sorry to hear. They hurt me on your +account. Again, only this morning at breakfast. My daughter (but +a woman, you'll say: yet still with a feeling for these things, and +even with some little personal experience, as the plaintiff in Rugg +and Bawkins) was expressing her great surprise; her great surprise. + +Now under these circumstances, and considering that none of us can +quite set ourselves above public opinion, wouldn't a trifling +concession to that opinion be-- Come, sir,' said Rugg, 'I will put +it on the lowest ground of argument, and say, amiable?' + +Arthur's thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit, and +the question remained unanswered. + +'As to myself, sir,' said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had +reduced him to a state of indecision, 'it is a principle of mine +not to consider myself when a client's inclinations are in the +scale. But, knowing your considerate character and general wish to +oblige, I will repeat that I should prefer your being in the Bench. + +Your case has made a noise; it is a creditable case to be +professionally concerned in; I should feel on a better standing +with my connection, if you went to the Bench. Don't let that +influence you, sir. I merely state the fact.' + +So errant had the prisoner's attention already grown in solitude +and dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only +one silent figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had +to shake off a kind of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg, +recall the thread of his talk, and hurriedly say, 'I am unchanged, +and unchangeable, in my decision. Pray, let it be; let it be!' Mr +Rugg, without concealing that he was nettled and mortified, +replied: + +'Oh! Beyond a doubt, sir. I have travelled out of the record, +sir, I am aware, in putting the point to you. But really, when I +herd it remarked in several companies, and in very good company, +that however worthy of a foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit +of an Englishman to remain in the Marshalsea when the glorious +liberties of his island home admit of his removal to the Bench, I +thought I would depart from the narrow professional line marked out +to me, and mention it. Personally,' said Mr Rugg, 'I have no +opinion on the topic.' + +'That's well,' returned Arthur. + +'Oh! None at all, sir!' said Mr Rugg. 'If I had, I should have +been + +unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in +this place by a gentleman of a high family riding a saddle-horse. +But it was not my business. If I had, I might have wished to be +now empowered to mention to another gentleman, a gentleman of +military + +exterior at present waiting in the Lodge, that my client had never +intended to remain here, and was on the eve of removal to a +superior abode. But my course as a professional machine is clear; +I have nothing to do with it. Is it your good pleasure to see the +gentleman, sir?' + +'Who is waiting to see me, did you say?' + +'I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I was +your professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very +limited function was performed. Happily,' said Mr Rugg, with +sarcasm, 'I did not so far travel out of the record as to ask the +gentleman for his name.' + +'I suppose I have no resource but to see him,' sighed Clennam, +wearily. + +'Then it IS your good pleasure, sir?' retorted Rugg. 'Am I +honoured by your instructions to mention as much to the gentleman, +as I pass out? I am? Thank you, sir. I take my leave.' His +leave he took accordingly, in dudgeon. + +The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened +Clennam's curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a +half-forgetfulness of such a visitor's having been referred to, was +already creeping over it as a part of the sombre veil which almost +always dimmed it now, when a heavy footstep on the stairs aroused +him. It appeared to ascend them, not very promptly or +spontaneously, yet with a display of stride and clatter meant to be +insulting. As it paused for a moment on the landing outside his +door, he could not recall his association with the peculiarity of +its sound, though he thought he had one. Only a moment was given +him for consideration. His door was immediately swung open by a +thump, and in the doorway stood the missing Blandois, the cause of +many anxieties. + +'Salve, fellow jail-bird !' said he. 'You want me, it seems. Here +I am!' + +Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder, +Cavalletto followed him into the room. Mr Pancks followed +Cavalletto. Neither of the two had been there since its present +occupant had had possession of it. Mr Pancks, breathing hard, +sidled near the window, put his hat on the ground, stirred his hair +up with both hands, and folded his arms, like a man who had come to +a pause in a hard day's work. Mr Baptist, never taking his eyes +from his dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on the floor with his +back against the door and one of his ankles in each hand: resuming +the attitude (except that it was now expressive of unwinking +watchfulness) in which he had sat before the same man in the deeper +shade of another prison, one hot morning at Marseilles. +'I have it on the witnessing of these two madmen,' said Monsieur +Blandois, otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, 'that you want me, +brother-bird. Here I am!' +Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was turned up +by day, he leaned his back against it as a resting-place, without +removing his hat from his head, and stood defiantly lounging with +his hands in his pockets. + +'You villain of ill-omen!' said Arthur. 'You have purposely cast +a dreadful suspicion upon my mother's house. Why have you done it? + +What prompted you to the devilish invention?' + +Monsieur Rigaud, after frowning at him for a moment, laughed. +'Hear this noble gentleman! Listen, all the world, to this +creature of Virtue! But take care, take care. It is possible, my +friend, that your ardour is a little compromising. Holy Blue! It +is possible.' + +'Signore!' interposed Cavalletto, also addressing Arthur: 'for to +commence, hear me! I received your instructions to find him, +Rigaud; is it not?' + +'It is the truth.' + +'I go, consequentementally,'--it would have given Mrs Plornish +great concern if she could have been persuaded that his occasional +lengthening of an adverb in this way, was the chief fault of his +English,--'first among my countrymen. I ask them what news in +Londra, of foreigners arrived. Then I go among the French. Then +I go among the Germans. They all tell me. The great part of us +know well the other, and they all tell me. But!--no person can +tell me nothing of him, Rigaud. Fifteen times,' said Cavalletto, +thrice throwing out his left hand with all its fingers spread, and +doing it so rapidly that the sense of sight could hardly follow the +action, 'I ask of him in every place where go the foreigners; and +fifteen times,' repeating the same swift performance, 'they know +nothing. But!--' At this significant Italian rest on the word +'But,' his backhanded shake of his right forefinger came into play; +a very little, and very cautiously. + +'But!--After a long time when I have not been able to find that he +is here in Londra, some one tells me of a soldier with white hair-- +hey?--not hair like this that he carries--white--who lives retired +secrettementally, in a certain place. But!--' with another rest +upon the word, 'who sometimes in the after-dinner, walks, and +smokes. It is necessary, as they say in Italy (and as they know, +poor people), to have patience. I have patience. I ask where is +this certain place. One. believes it is here, one believes it is +there. Eh well! It is not here, it is not there. I wait +patientissamentally. At last I find it. Then I watch; then I +hide, until he walks and smokes. He is a soldier with grey hair-- +But!--' a very decided rest indeed, and a very vigorous play from +side to side of the back-handed forefinger--'he is also this man +that you see.' + +It was noticeable, that, in his old habit of submission to one who +had been at the trouble of asserting superiority over him, he even +then bestowed upon Rigaud a confused bend of his head, after thus +pointing him out. + +'Eh well, Signore!' he cried in conclusion, addressing Arthur +again. 'I waited for a good opportunity. I writed some words to +Signor Panco,' an air of novelty came over Mr Pancks with this +designation, 'to come and help. I showed him, Rigaud, at his +window, to Signor Panco, who was often the spy in the day. I slept +at night near the door of the house. At last we entered, only this +to-day, and now you see him! As he would not come up in presence +of the illustrious Advocate,' such was Mr Baptist's honourable +mention of Mr Rugg, 'we waited down below there, together, and +Signor Panco guarded the street.' + +At the close of this recital, Arthur turned his eyes upon the +impudent and wicked face. As it met his, the nose came down over +the moustache and the moustache went up under the nose. When nose +and moustache had settled into their places again, Monsieur Rigaud +loudly snapped his fingers half-a-dozen times; bending forward to +jerk the snaps at Arthur, as if they were palpable missiles which +he jerked into his face. + +'Now, Philosopher!' said Rigaud.'What do you want with me?' + +'I want to know,' returned Arthur, without disguising his +abhorrence, 'how you dare direct a suspicion of murder against my +mother's house?' + +'Dare!' cried Rigaud. 'Ho, ho! Hear him! Dare? Is it dare? By +Heaven, my small boy, but you are a little imprudent!' + +'I want that suspicion to be cleared away,' said Arthur. 'You +shall be taken there, and be publicly seen. I want to know, +moreover, what business you had there when I had a burning desire +to fling you down-stairs. Don't frown at me, man! I have seen +enough of you to know that you are a bully and coward. I need no +revival of my spirits from the effects of this wretched place to +tell you so plain a fact, and one that you know so well.' + +White to the lips, Rigaud stroked his moustache, muttering, 'By +Heaven, my small boy, but you are a little compromising of my lady, +your respectable mother'--and seemed for a minute undecided how to +act. His indecision was soon gone. He sat himself down with a +threatening swagger, and said: + +'Give me a bottle of wine. You can buy wine here. Send one of +your madmen to get me a bottle of wine. I won't talk to you +without wine. Come! Yes or no?' + +'Fetch him what he wants, Cavalletto,' said Arthur, scornfully, +producing the money. + +'Contraband beast,' added Rigaud, 'bring Port wine! I'll drink +nothing but Porto-Porto.' + +The contraband beast, however, assuring all present, with his +significant finger, that he peremptorily declined to leave his post +at the door, Signor Panco offered his services. He soon returned +with the bottle of wine: which, according to the custom of the +place, originating in a scarcity of corkscrews among the Collegians +(in common with a scarcity of much else), was already opened for +use. + +'Madman! A large glass,' said Rigaud. + +Signor Panco put a tumbler before him; not without a visible +conflict of feeling on the question of throwing it at his head. + +'Haha!' boasted Rigaud. 'Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman. + +A gentleman from the beginning, and a gentleman to the end. What +the Devil! A gentleman must be waited on, I hope? It's a part of +my character to be waited on!' + +He half filled the tumbler as he said it, and drank off the +contents when he had done saying it. + +'Hah!' smacking his lips. 'Not a very old prisoner that! I judge +by your looks, brave sir, that imprisonment will subdue your blood +much sooner than it softens this hot wine. You are mellowing-- +losing body and colour already. I salute you!' + +He tossed off another half glass: holding it up both before and +afterwards, so as to display his small, white hand. + +'To business,' he then continued. 'To conversation. You have +shown yourself more free of speech than body, sir.' + +'I have used the freedom of telling you what you know yourself to +be. You know yourself, as we all know you, to be far worse than +that.' + +'Add, always a gentleman, and it's no matter. Except in that +regard, we are all alike. For example: you couldn't for your life +be a gentleman; I couldn't for my life be otherwise. How great the +difference! Let us go on. Words, sir, never influence the course +of the cards, or the course of the dice. Do you know that? You +do? I also play a game, and words are without power over it.' + +Now that he was confronted with Cavalletto, and knew that his story +was known--whatever thin disguise he had worn, he dropped; and +faced it out, with a bare face, as the infamous wretch he was. + +'No, my son,' he resumed, with a snap of his fingers. 'I play my +game to the end in spite of words; and Death of my Body and Death +of my Soul! I'll win it. You want to know why I played this +little trick that you have interrupted? Know then that I had, and +that I have--do you understand me? have--a commodity to sell to my +lady your respectable mother. I described my precious commodity, +and fixed my price. Touching the bargain, your admirable mother +was a little too calm, too stolid, too immovable and statue-like. +In fine, your admirable mother vexed me. To make variety in my +position, and to amuse myself--what! a gentleman must be amused at +somebody's expense!--I conceived the happy idea of disappearing. +An idea, see you, that your characteristic mother and my Flintwinch +would have been well enough pleased to execute. Ah! Bah, bah, +bah, don't look as from high to low at me! I repeat it. Well +enough pleased, excessively enchanted, and with all their hearts +ravished. How strongly will you have it?' + +He threw out the lees of his glass on the ground, so that they +nearly spattered Cavalletto. This seemed to draw his attention to +him anew. He set down his glass and said: + +'I'll not fill it. What! I am born to be served. Come then, you +Cavalletto, and fill!' + +The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with +Rigaud, and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and +poured out from the bottle into the glass. The blending, as he did +so, of his old submission with a sense of something humorous; the +striving of that with a certain smouldering ferocity, which might +have flashed fire in an instant (as the born gentleman seemed to +think, for he had a wary eye upon him); and the easy yielding of +all to a good-natured, careless, predominant propensity to sit down +on the ground again: formed a very remarkable combination of +character. + +'This happy idea, brave sir,' Rigaud resumed after drinking, 'was +a happy idea for several reasons. It amused me, it worried your +dear mama and my Flintwinch, it caused you agonies (my terms for a +lesson in politeness towards a gentleman), and it suggested to all +the amiable persons interested that your entirely devoted is a man +to fear. By Heaven, he is a man to fear! Beyond this; it might +have restored her wit to my lady your mother--might, under the +pressing little suspicion your wisdom has recognised, have +persuaded her at last to announce, covertly, in the journals, that +the difficulties of a certain contract would be removed by the +appearance of a certain important party to it. Perhaps yes, +perhaps no. But that, you have interrupted. Now, what is it you +say? What is it you want?' + +Never had Clennam felt more acutely that he was a prisoner in +bonds, than when he saw this man before him, and could not +accompany him to his mother's house. All the undiscernible +difficulties and dangers he had ever feared were closing in, when +he could not stir hand or foot. + +'Perhaps, my friend, philosopher, man of virtue, Imbecile, what you +will; perhaps,' said Rigaud, pausing in his drink to look out of +his glass with his horrible smile, 'you would have done better to +leave me alone?' + +'No! At least,' said Clennam, 'you are known to be alive and +unharmed. At least you cannot escape from these two witnesses; and +they can produce you before any public authorities, or before +hundreds of people!' + +'But will not produce me before one,' said Rigaud, snapping his +fingers again with an air of triumphant menace. 'To the Devil with +your witnesses! To the Devil with your produced! To the Devil +with yourself! What! Do I know what I know, for that? Have I my +commodity on sale, for that? Bah, poor debtor! You have +interrupted my little project. Let it pass. How then? What +remains? To you, nothing; to me, all. Produce me! Is that what +you want? I will produce myself, only too quickly. Contrabandist! + +Give me pen, ink, and paper.' + +Cavalletto got up again as before, and laid them before him in his +former manner. Rigaud, after some villainous thinking and smiling, +wrote, and read aloud, as follows: + + +'To MRS CLENNAM. + +'Wait answer. + +'Prison of the Marshalsea. +'At the apartment of your son. + +'Dear Madam,--I am in despair to be informed to-day by our prisoner +here (who has had the goodness to employ spies to seek me, living +for politic reasons in retirement), that you have had fears for my +safety. + +'Reassure yourself, dear madam. I am well, I am strong and +constant. + +'With the greatest impatience I should fly to your house, but that +I foresee it to be possible, under the circumstances, that you will +not yet have quite definitively arranged the little proposition I +have had the honour to submit to you. I name one week from this +day, for a last final visit on my part; when you will +unconditionally accept it or reject it, with its train of +consequences. + +'I suppress my ardour to embrace you and achieve this interesting +business, in order that you may have leisure to adjust its details +to our perfect mutual satisfaction. + +'In the meanwhile, it is not too much to propose (our prisoner +having deranged my housekeeping), that my expenses of lodging and +nourishment at an hotel shall be paid by you. +'Receive, dear madam, the assurance of my highest and most +distinguished consideration, + + + 'RIGAUD BLANDOIS. + +'A thousand friendships to that dear Flintwinch. + +'I kiss the hands of Madame F.' + + +When he had finished this epistle, Rigaud folded it and tossed it +with a flourish at Clennam's feet. 'Hola you! Apropos of +producing, let somebody produce that at its address, and produce +the answer here.' + +'Cavalletto,' said Arthur. 'Will you take this fellow's letter?' + +But, Cavalletto's significant finger again expressing that his post +was at the door to keep watch over Rigaud, now he had found him +with so much trouble, and that the duty of his post was to sit on +the floor backed up by the door, looking at Rigaud and holding his +own ankles,--Signor Panco once more volunteered. His services +being accepted, Cavalletto suffered the door to open barely wide +enough to admit of his squeezing himself out, and immediately shut +it on him. + +'Touch me with a finger, touch me with an epithet, question my +superiority as I sit here drinking my wine at my pleasure,' said +Rigaud, 'and I follow the letter and cancel my week's grace. You +wanted me? You have got me! How do you like me?' + +'You know,' returned Clennam, with a bitter sense of his +helplessness, 'that when I sought you, I was not a prisoner.' + +'To the Devil with you and your prison,' retorted Rigaud, +leisurely, as he took from his pocket a case containing the +materials for making cigarettes, and employed his facile hands in +folding a few for present use; 'I care for neither of you. +Contrabandist! A light.' + +Again Cavalletto got up, and gave him what he wanted. There had +been something dreadful in the noiseless skill of his cold, white +hands, with the fingers lithely twisting about and twining one over +another like serpents. Clennam could not prevent himself from +shuddering inwardly, as if he had been looking on at a nest of +those creatures. + +'Hola, Pig!' cried Rigaud, with a noisy stimulating cry, as if +Cavalletto were an Italian horse or mule. 'What! The infernal old +jail was a respectable one to this. There was dignity in the bars +and stones of that place. It was a prison for men. But this? +Bah! A hospital for imbeciles!' + +He smoked his cigarette out, with his ugly smile so fixed upon his +face that he looked as though he were smoking with his drooping +beak of a nose, rather than with his mouth; like a fancy in a weird +picture. When he had lighted a second cigarette at the still +burning end of the first, he said to Clennam: + +'One must pass the time in the madman's absence. One must talk. +One can't drink strong wine all day long, or I would have another +bottle. She's handsome, sir. Though not exactly to my taste, +still, by the Thunder and the Lightning! handsome. I felicitate +you on your admiration.' + +'I neither know nor ask,' said Clennam, 'of whom you speak.' + +'Della bella Gowana, sir, as they say in Italy. Of the Gowan, the +fair Gowan.' + +'Of whose husband you were the--follower, I think?' + +'Sir? Follower? You are insolent. The friend.' + +'Do you sell all your friends?' + +Rigaud took his cigarette from his mouth, and eyed him with a +momentary revelation of surprise. But he put it between his lips +again, as he answered with coolness: + +'I sell anything that commands a price. How do your lawyers live, +your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange? How +do you live? How do you come here? Have you sold no friend? Lady +of mine! I rather think, yes!' + +Clennam turned away from him towards the window, and sat looking +out at the wall. + +'Effectively, sir,' said Rigaud, 'Society sells itself and sells +me: and I sell Society. I perceive you have acquaintance with +another lady. Also handsome. A strong spirit. Let us see. How +do they call her? Wade.' + +He received no answer, but could easily discern that he had hit the +mark. + +'Yes,' he went on, 'that handsome lady and strong spirit addresses +me in the street, and I am not insensible. I respond. That +handsome lady and strong spirit does me the favour to remark, in +full confidence, "I have my curiosity, and I have my chagrins. You +are not more than ordinarily honourable, perhaps?" I announce +myself, "Madame, a gentleman from the birth, and a gentleman to the +death; but NOT more than ordinarily honourable. I despise such a +weak fantasy." Thereupon she is pleased to compliment. "The +difference between you and the rest is," she answers, "that you say +so." For she knows Society. I accept her congratulations with +gallantry and politeness. Politeness and little gallantries are +inseparable from my character. She then makes a proposition, which +is, in effect, that she has seen us much together; that it appears +to her that I am for the passing time the cat of the house, the +friend of the family; that her curiosity and her chagrins awaken +the fancy to be acquainted with their movements, to know the manner +of their life, how the fair Gowana is beloved, how the fair Gowana +is cherished, and so on. She is not rich, but offers such and such +little recompenses for the little cares and derangements of such +services; and I graciously--to do everything graciously is a part +of my character--consent to accept them. O yes! So goes the +world. It is the mode.' + +Though Clennam's back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth to +the end of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his that +were too near together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very +carriage of the head, as he passed with his braggart recklessness +from clause to clause of what he said, that he was saying nothing +which Clennam did not already know. + +'Whoof! The fair Gowana!' he said, lighting a third cigarette with +a sound as if his lightest breath could blow her away. 'Charming, +but imprudent! For it was not well of the fair Gowana to make +mysteries of letters from old lovers, in her bedchamber on the +mountain, that her husband might not see them. No, no. That was +not well. Whoof! The Gowana was mistaken there.' + +'I earnestly hope,' cried Arthur aloud, 'that Pancks may not be +long gone, for this man's presence pollutes the room.' + +'Ah! But he'll flourish here, and everywhere,' said Rigaud, with +an exulting look and snap of his fingers. 'He always has; he +always will!' Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in +the room besides that on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting +himself on the breast as the gallant personage of the song. + + + 'Who passes by this road so late? + Compagnon de la Majolaine! + Who passes by this road so late? + Always gay! + + +'Sing the Refrain, pig! You could sing it once, in another jail. +Sing it! Or, by every Saint who was stoned to death, I'll be +affronted and compromising; and then some people who are not dead +yet, had better have been stoned along with them!' + + + 'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, + Compagnon de la Majolaine! + Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, + Always gay!' + + +Partly in his old habit of submission, partly because his not doing +it might injure his benefactor, and partly because he would as soon +do it as anything else, Cavalletto took up the Refrain this time. +Rigaud laughed, and fell to smoking with his eyes shut. + +Possibly another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr Pancks's step +was heard upon the stairs, but the interval seemed to Clennam +insupportably long. His step was attended by another step; and +when Cavalletto opened the door, he admitted Mr Pancks and Mr +Flintwinch. The latter was no sooner visible, than Rigaud rushed +at him and embraced him boisterously. + +'How do you find yourself, sir?' said Mr Flintwinch, as soon as he +could disengage himself, which he struggled to do with very little +ceremony. 'Thank you, no; I don't want any more.' This was in +reference to another menace of attention from his recovered friend. + +'Well, Arthur. You remember what I said to you about sleeping dogs +and missing ones. It's come true, you see.' + +He was as imperturbable as ever, to all appearance, and nodded his +head in a moralising way as he looked round the room. + +'And this is the Marshalsea prison for debt!' said Mr Flintwinch. +'Hah! you have brought your pigs to a very indifferent market, +Arthur.' + +If Arthur had patience, Rigaud had not. He took his little +Flintwinch, with fierce playfulness, by the two lapels of his coat, +and cried: + +'To the Devil with the Market, to the Devil with the Pigs, and to +the Devil with the Pig-Driver! Now! Give me the answer to my +letter.' + +'If you can make it convenient to let go a moment, sir,' returned +Mr Flintwinch, 'I'll first hand Mr Arthur a little note that I have +for him.' + +He did so. It was in his mother's maimed writing, on a slip of +paper, and contained only these words: + +'I hope it is enough that you have ruined yourself. Rest contented +without more ruin. Jeremiah Flintwinch is my messenger and +representative. Your affectionate M. C.' + +Clennam read this twice, in silence, and then tore it to pieces. +Rigaud in the meanwhile stepped into a chair, and sat himself on +the back with his feet upon the seat. + +'Now, Beau Flintwinch,' he said, when he had closely watched the +note to its destruction, 'the answer to my letter?' + +'Mrs Clennam did not write, Mr Blandois, her hands being cramped, +and she thinking it as well to send it verbally by me.' Mr +Flintwinch screwed this out of himself, unwillingly and rustily. +'She sends her compliments, and says she doesn't on the whole wish +to term you unreasonable, and that she agrees. But without +prejudicing the appointment that stands for this day week.' + +Monsieur Rigaud, after indulging in a fit of laughter, descended +from his throne, saying, 'Good! I go to seek an hotel!' But, +there his eyes encountered Cavalletto, who was still at his post. + +'Come, Pig,' he added, 'I have had you for a follower against my +will; now, I'll have you against yours. I tell you, my little +reptiles, I am born to be served. I demand the service of this +contrabandist as my domestic until this day week.' + +In answer to Cavalletto's look of inquiry, Clennam made him a sign +to go; but he added aloud, 'unless you are afraid of him.' +Cavalletto replied with a very emphatic finger-negative.'No, +master, I am not afraid of him, when I no more keep it +secrettementally that he was once my comrade.' Rigaud took no +notice of either remark until he had lighted his last cigarette and +was quite ready for walking. + +'Afraid of him,' he said then, looking round upon them all. +'Whoof! My children, my babies, my little dolls, you are all +afraid of him. You give him his bottle of wine here; you give him +meat, drink, and lodging there; you dare not touch him with a +finger or an epithet. No. It is his character to triumph! Whoof! + +'Of all the king's knights he's the flower, +And he's always gay!' + +With this adaptation of the Refrain to himself, he stalked out of +the room closely followed by Cavalletto, whom perhaps he had +pressed into his service because he tolerably well knew it would +not be easy to get rid of him. Mr Flintwinch, after scraping his +chin, and looking about with caustic disparagement of the Pig- +Market, nodded to Arthur, and followed. Mr Pancks, still penitent +and depressed, followed too; after receiving with great attention +a secret word or two of instructions from Arthur, and whispering +back that he would see this affair out, and stand by it to the end. + +The prisoner, with the feeling that he was more despised, more +scorned and repudiated, more helpless, altogether more miserable +and fallen than before, was left alone again. + + + + +CHAPTER 29 + +A Plea in the Marshalsea + + +Haggard anxiety and remorse are bad companions to be barred up +with. Brooding all day, and resting very little indeed at night, +t will not arm a man against misery. Next morning, Clennam felt +that his health was sinking, as his spirits had already sunk and +that the weight under which he bent was bearing him down. + +Night after night he had risen from his bed of wretchedness at +twelve or one o'clock, and had sat at his window watching the +sickly lamps in the yard, and looking upward for the first wan +trace of day, hours before it was possible that the sky could show +it to him. Now when the night came, he could not even persuade +himself to undress. + +For a burning restlessness set in, an agonised impatience of the +prison, and a conviction that he was going to break his heart and +die there, which caused him indescribable suffering. His dread and +hatred of the place became so intense that he felt it a labour to +draw his breath in it. The sensation of being stifled sometimes so +overpowered him, that he would stand at the window holding his +throat and gasping. At the same time a longing for other air, and +a yearning to be beyond the blind blank wall, made him feel as if +he must go mad with the ardour of the desire. + +Many other prisoners had had experience of this condition before +him, and its violence and continuity had worn themselves out in +their cases, as they did in his. Two nights and a day exhausted +it. It came back by fits, but those grew fainter and returned at +lengthening intervals. A desolate calm succeeded; and the middle +of the week found him settled down in the despondency of low, slow +fever. + +With Cavalletto and Pancks away, he had no visitors to fear but Mr +and Mrs Plornish. His anxiety, in reference to that worthy pair, +was that they should not come near him; for, in the morbid state of +his nerves, he sought to be left alone, and spared the being seen +so subdued and weak. He wrote a note to Mrs Plornish representing +himself as occupied with his affairs, and bound by the necessity of +devoting himself to them, to remain for a time even without the +pleasant interruption of a sight of her kind face. As to Young +John, who looked in daily at a certain hour, when the turnkeys were +relieved, to ask if he could do anything for him; he always made a +pretence of being engaged in writing, and to answer cheerfully in +the negative. The subject of their only long conversation had +never been revived between them. Through all these changes of +unhappiness, however, it had never lost its hold on Clennam's mind. + +The sixth day of the appointed week was a moist, hot, misty day. +It seemed as though the prison's poverty, and shabbiness, and dirt, +were growing in the sultry atmosphere. With an aching head and a +weary heart, Clennam had watched the miserable night out, listening +to the fall of rain on the yard pavement, thinking of its softer +fall upon the country earth. A blurred circle of yellow haze had +risen up in the sky in lieu of sun, and he had watched the patch it +put upon his wall, like a bit of the prison's raggedness. He had +heard the gates open; and the badly shod feet that waited outside +shuffle in; and the sweeping, and pumping, and moving about, begin, +which commenced the prison morning. So ill and faint that he was +obliged to rest many times in the process of getting himself +washed, he had at length crept to his chair by the open window. In +it he sat dozing, while the old woman who arranged his room went +through her morning's work. + +Light of head with want of sleep and want of food (his appetite, +and even his sense of taste, having forsaken him), he had been two +or three times conscious, in the night, of going astray. He had +heard fragments of tunes and songs in the warm wind, which he knew +had no existence. Now that he began to doze in exhaustion, he +heard them again; and voices seemed to address him, and he +answered, and started. + +Dozing and dreaming, without the power of reckoning time, so that +a minute might have been an hour and an hour a minute, some abiding +impression of a garden stole over him--a garden of flowers, with a +damp warm wind gently stirring their scents. It required such a +painful effort to lift his head for the purpose of inquiring into +this, or inquiring into anything, that the impression appeared to +have become quite an old and importunate one when he looked round. +Beside the tea-cup on his table he saw, then, a blooming nosegay: +a wonderful handful of the choicest and most lovely flowers. + +Nothing had ever appeared so beautiful in his sight. He took them +up and inhaled their fragrance, and he lifted them to his hot head, +and he put them down and opened his parched hands to them, as cold +hands are opened to receive the cheering of a fire. It was not +until he had delighted in them for some time, that he wondered who +had sent them; and opened his door to ask the woman who must have +put them there, how they had come into her hands. But she was +gone, and seemed to have been long gone; for the tea she had left +for him on the table was cold. He tried to drink some, but could +not bear the odour of it: so he crept back to his chair by the open +window, and put the flowers on the little round table of old. + +When the first faintness consequent on having moved about had left +him, he subsided into his former state. One of the night-tunes was +playing in the wind, when the door of his room seemed to open to a +light touch, and, after a moment's pause, a quiet figure seemed to +stand there, with a black mantle on it. It seemed to draw the +mantle off and drop it on the ground, and then it seemed to be his +Little Dorrit in her old, worn dress. It seemed to tremble, and to +clasp its hands, and to smile, and to burst into tears. + +He roused himself, and cried out. And then he saw, in the loving, +pitying, sorrowing, dear face, as in a mirror, how changed he was; +and she came towards him; and with her hands laid on his breast to +keep him in his chair, and with her knees upon the floor at his +feet, and with her lips raised up to kiss him, and with her tears +dropping on him as the rain from Heaven had dropped upon the +flowers, Little Dorrit, a living presence, called him by his name. + +'O, my best friend! Dear Mr Clennam, don't let me see you weep! +Unless you weep with pleasure to see me. I hope you do. Your own +poor child come back!' +So faithful, tender, and unspoiled by Fortune. In the sound of her +voice, in the light of her eyes, in the touch of her hands, so +Angelically comforting and true! + +As he embraced her, she said to him, 'They never told me you were +ill,' and drawing an arm softly round his neck, laid his head upon +her bosom, put a hand upon his head, and resting her cheek upon +that hand, nursed him as lovingly, and GOD knows as innocently, as +she had nursed her father in that room when she had been but a +baby, needing all the care from others that she took of them. + +When he could speak, he said, 'Is it possible that you have come to +me? And in this dress?' + +'I hoped you would like me better in this dress than any other. I +have always kept it by me, to remind me: though I wanted no +reminding. I am not alone, you see. I have brought an old friend +with me.' + +Looking round, he saw Maggy in her big cap which had been long +abandoned, with a basket on her arm as in the bygone days, +chuckling rapturously. + +'It was only yesterday evening that I came to London with my +brother. I sent round to Mrs Plornish almost as soon as we +arrived, that I might hear of you and let you know I had come. +Then I heard that you were here. Did you happen to think of me in +the night? I almost believe you must have thought of me a little. +I thought of you so anxiously, and it appeared so long to morning.' + +'I have thought of you--' he hesitated what to call her. She +perceived it in an instant. + +'You have not spoken to me by my right name yet. You know what my +right name always is with you.' + +'I have thought of you, Little Dorrit, every day, every hour, every +minute, since I have been here.' + +'Have you? Have you?' + +He saw the bright delight of her face, and the flush that kindled +in it, with a feeling of shame. He, a broken, bankrupt, sick, +dishonoured prisoner. + +'I was here before the gates were opened, but I was afraid to come +straight to you. I should have done you more harm than good, at +first; for the prison was so familiar and yet so strange, and it +brought back so many remembrances of my poor father, and of you +too, that at first it overpowered me. But we went to Mr Chivery +before we came to the gate, and he brought us in, and got john's +room for us--my poor old room, you know--and we waited there a +little. I brought the flowers to the door, but you didn't hear +me.' +She looked something more womanly than when she had gone away, and +the ripening touch of the Italian sun was visible upon her face. +But, otherwise, she was quite unchanged. The same deep, timid +earnestness that he had always seen in her, and never without +emotion, he saw still. If it had a new meaning that smote him to +the heart, the change was in his perception, not in her. + +She took off her old bonnet, hung it in the old place, and +noiselessly began, with Maggy's help, to make his room as fresh and +neat as it could be made, and to sprinkle it with a pleasant- +smelling water. When that was done, the basket, which was filled +with grapes and other fruit, was unpacked, and all its contents +were quietly put away. When that was done, a moment's whisper +despatched Maggy to despatch somebody else to fill the basket +again; which soon came back replenished with new stores, from which +a present provision of cooling drink and jelly, and a prospective +supply of roast chicken and wine and water, were the first +extracts. These various arrangements completed, she took out her +old needle-case to make him a curtain for his window; and thus, +with a quiet reigning in the room, that seemed to diffuse itself +through the else noisy prison, he found himself composed in his +chair, with Little Dorrit working at his side. + +To see the modest head again bent down over its task, and the +nimble fingers busy at their old work--though she was not so +absorbed in it, but that her compassionate eyes were often raised +to his face, and, when they drooped again had tears in them--to be +so consoled and comforted, and to believe that all the devotion of +this great nature was turned to him in his adversity to pour out +its inexhaustible wealth of goodness upon him, did not steady +Clennam's trembling voice or hand, or strengthen him in his +weakness. Yet it inspired him with an inward fortitude, that rose +with his love. And how dearly he loved her now, what words can +tell! + +As they sat side by side in the shadow of the wall, the shadow fell +like light upon him. She would not let him speak much, and he lay +back in his chair, looking at her. Now and again she would rise +and give him the glass that he might drink, or would smooth the +resting-place of his head; then she would gently resume her seat by +him, and bend over her work again. + +The shadow moved with the sun, but she never moved from his side, +except to wait upon him. The sun went down and she was still +there. She had done her work now, and her hand, faltering on the +arm of his chair since its last tending of him, was hesitating +there yet. He laid his hand upon it, and it clasped him with a +trembling supplication. + +'Dear Mr Clennam, I must say something to you before I go. I have +put it off from hour to hour, but I must say it.' + +'I too, dear Little Dorrit. I have put off what I must say.' +She nervously moved her hand towards his lips as if to stop him; +then it dropped, trembling, into its former place. + +'I am not going abroad again. My brother is, but I am not. He was +always attached to me, and he is so grateful to me now--so much too +grateful, for it is only because I happened to be with him in his +illness--that he says I shall be free to stay where I like best, +and to do what I like best. He only wishes me to be happy, he +says.' + +There was one bright star shining in the sky. She looked up at it +While she spoke, as if it were the fervent purpose of her own heart +shining above her. + +'You will understand, I dare say, without my telling you, that my +brother has come home to find my dear father's will, and to take +possession of his property. He says, if there is a will, he is +sure i shall be left rich; and if there is none, that he will make +me so.' + +He would have spoken; but she put up her trembling hand again, and +he stopped. + + +'I have no use for money, I have no wish for it. It would be of no +value at all to me but for your sake. I could not be rich, and you +here. I must always be much worse than poor, with you distressed. +Will you let me lend you all I have? Will you let me give it you? +Will you let me show you that I have never forgotten, that I never +can forget, your protection of me when this was my home? Dear Mr +Clennam, make me of all the world the happiest, by saying Yes. +Make me as happy as I can be in leaving you here, by saying nothing +to-night, and letting me go away with the hope that you will think +of it kindly; and that for my sake--not for yours, for mine, for +nobody's but mine!--you will give me the greatest joy I can +experience on earth, the joy of knowing that I have been +serviceable to you, and that I have paid some little of the great +debt of my affection and gratitude. I can't say what I wish to +say. I can't visit you here where I have lived so long, I can't +think of you here where I have seen so much, and be as calm and +comforting as I ought. My tears will make their way. I cannot +keep them back. But pray, pray, pray, do not turn from your Little +Dorrit, now, in your affliction! Pray, pray, pray, I beg you and +implore you with all my grieving heart, my friend--my dear!--take +all I have, and make it a Blessing to me!' + +The star had shone on her face until now, when her face sank upon +his hand and her own. + +It had grown darker when he raised her in his encircling arm, and +softly answered her. + +'No, darling Little Dorrit. No, my child. I must not hear of such +a sacrifice. Liberty and hope would be so dear, bought at such a +price, that I could never support their weight, never bear the +reproach of possessing them. But with what ardent thankfulness and +love I say this, I may call Heaven to witness!' + +'And yet you will not let me be faithful to you in your +affliction?' + +'Say, dearest Little Dorrit, and yet I will try to be faithful to +you. If, in the bygone days when this was your home and when this +was your dress, I had understood myself (I speak only of myself) +better, and had read the secrets of my own breast more distinctly; +if, through my reserve and self-mistrust, I had discerned a light +that I see brightly now when it has passed far away, and my weak +footsteps can never overtake it; if I had then known, and told you +that I loved and honoured you, not as the poor child I used to call +you, but as a woman whose true hand would raise me high above +myself and make me a far happier and better man; if I had so used +the opportunity there is no recalling--as I wish I had, O I wish I +had!--and if something had kept us apart then, when I was +moderately thriving, and when you were poor; I might have met your +noble offer of your fortune, dearest girl, with other words than +these, and still have blushed to touch it. But, as it is, I must +never touch it, never!' + +She besought him, more pathetically and earnestly, with her little +supplicatory hand, than she could have done in any words. + +'I am disgraced enough, my Little Dorrit. I must not descend so +low as that, and carry you--so dear, so generous, so good--down +with me. GOD bless you, GOD reward you! It is past.' He took her +in his arms, as if she had been his daughter. + +'Always so much older, so much rougher, and so much less worthy, +even what I was must be dismissed by both of us, and you must see +me only as I am. I put this parting kiss upon your cheek, my +child--who might have been more near to me, who never could have +been more dear--a ruined man far removed from you, for ever +separated from you, whose course is run while yours is but +beginning. I have not the courage to ask to be forgotten by you in +my humiliation; but I ask to be remembered only as I am.' + +The bell began to ring, warning visitors to depart. He took her +mantle from the wall, and tenderly wrapped it round her. + +'One other word, my Little Dorrit. A hard one to me, but it is a +necessary one. The time when you and this prison had anything in +common has long gone by. Do you understand?' + +'O! you will never say to me,' she cried, weeping bitterly, and +holding up her clasped hands in entreaty, 'that I am not to come +back any more! You will surely not desert me so!' + +'I would say it, if I could; but I have not the courage quite to +shut out this dear face, and abandon all hope of its return. But +do not come soon, do not come often! This is now a tainted place, +and I well know the taint of it clings to me. You belong to much +brighter and better scenes. You are not to look back here, my +Little Dorrit; you are to look away to very different and much +happier paths. Again, GOD bless you in them! GOD reward you!' + +Maggy, who had fallen into very low spirits, here cried, 'Oh get +him into a hospital; do get him into a hospital, Mother! He'll +never look like hisself again, if he an't got into a hospital. And +then the little woman as was always a spinning at her wheel, she +can go to the cupboard with the Princess, and say, what do you keep +the Chicking there for? and then they can take it out and give it +to him, and then all be happy!' + +The interruption was seasonable, for the bell had nearly rung +itself out. Again tenderly wrapping her mantle about her, and +taking her on his arm (though, but for her visit, he was almost too +weak to walk), Arthur led Little Dorrit down-stairs. She was the +last visitor to pass out at the Lodge, and the gate jarred heavily +and hopelessly upon her. + +With the funeral clang that it sounded into Arthur's heart, his +sense of weakness returned. It was a toilsome journey up-stairs to +his room, and he re-entered its dark solitary precincts in +unutterable misery. + +When it was almost midnight, and the prison had long been quiet, a +cautious creak came up the stairs, and a cautious tap of a key was +given at his door. It was Young John. He glided in, in his +stockings, and held the door closed, while he spoke in a whisper. + +'It's against all rules, but I don't mind. I was determined to +come through, and come to you.' + +'What is the matter?' + +'Nothing's the matter, sir. I was waiting in the court-yard for +Miss Dorrit when she came out. I thought you'd like some one to +see that she was safe.' + +'Thank you, thank you! You took her home, John?' + +'I saw her to her hotel. The same that Mr Dorrit was at. Miss +Dorrit walked all the way, and talked to me so kind, it quite +knocked me over. Why do you think she walked instead of riding?' + +'I don't know, John.' + +'To talk about you. She said to me, "John, you was always +honourable, and if you'll promise me that you will take care of +him, and never let him want for help and comfort when I am not +there, my mind will be at rest so far." I promised her. And I'll +stand by you,' said John Chivery, 'for ever!' + +Clennam, much affected, stretched out his hand to this honest +spirit. + +'Before I take it,' said John, looking at it, without coming from +the door, 'guess what message Miss Dorrit gave me.' + +Clennam shook his head. + +'"Tell him,"' repeated John, in a distinct, though quavering voice, +'"that his Little Dorrit sent him her undying love." Now it's +delivered. Have I been honourable, sir?' + +'Very, very!' + +'Will you tell Miss Dorrit I've been honourable, sir?' + +'I will indeed.' + +'There's my hand, sir,' said john, 'and I'll stand by you forever!' + +After a hearty squeeze, he disappeared with the same cautious creak +upon the stair, crept shoeless over the pavement of the yard, and, +locking the gates behind him, passed out into the front where he +had left his shoes. If the same way had been paved with burning +ploughshares, it is not at all improbable that John would have +traversed it with the same devotion, for the same purpose. + + + + +CHAPTER 30 + +Closing in + + +The last day of the appointed week touched the bars of the +Marshalsea gate. Black, all night, since the gate had clashed upon +Little Dorrit, its iron stripes were turned by the early-glowing +sun into stripes of gold. Far aslant across the city, over its +jumbled roofs, and through the open tracery of its church towers, +struck the long bright rays, bars of the prison of this lower +world. + +Throughout the day the old house within the gateway remained +untroubled by any visitors. But, when the sun was low, three men +turned in at the gateway and made for the dilapidated house. + +Rigaud was the first, and walked by himself smoking. Mr Baptist +was the second, and jogged close after him, looking at no other +object. Mr Pancks was the third, and carried his hat under his arm +for the liberation of his restive hair; the weather being extremely +hot. They all came together at the door-steps. + +'You pair of madmen!' said Rigaud, facing about. 'Don't go yet!' + +'We don't mean to,' said Mr Pancks. +Giving him a dark glance in acknowledgment of his answer, Rigaud +knocked loudly. He had charged himself with drink, for the playing +out of his game, and was impatient to begin. He had hardly +finished one long resounding knock, when he turned to the knocker +again and began another. That was not yet finished when Jeremiah +Flintwinch opened the door, and they all clanked into the stone +hall. Rigaud, thrusting Mr Flintwinch aside, proceeded straight +up-stairs. His two attendants followed him, Mr Flintwinch followed +them, and they all came trooping into Mrs Clennam's quiet room. It +was in its usual state; except that one of the windows was wide +open, and Affery sat on its old-fashioned window-seat, mending a +stocking. The usual articles were on the little table; the usual +deadened fire was in the grate; the bed had its usual pall upon it; +and the mistress of all sat on her black bier-like sofa, propped up +by her black angular bolster that was like the headsman's block. + +Yet there was a nameless air of preparation in the room, as if it +were strung up for an occasion. From what the room derived it-- +every one of its small variety of objects being in the fixed spot +it had occupied for years--no one could have said without looking +attentively at its mistress, and that, too, with a previous +knowledge of her face. Although her unchanging black dress was in +every plait precisely as of old, and her unchanging attitude was +rigidly preserved, a very slight additional setting of her features +and contraction of her gloomy forehead was so powerfully marked, +that it marked everything about her. + +'Who are these?' she said, wonderingly, as the two attendants +entered. 'What do these people want here?' + +'Who are these, dear madame, is it?' returned Rigaud. 'Faith, they +are friends of your son the prisoner. And what do they want here, +is it? Death, madame, I don't know. You will do well to ask +them.' + +'You know you told us at the door, not to go yet,' said Pancks. + +'And you know you told me at the door, you didn't mean to go,' +retorted Rigaud. 'In a word, madame, permit me to present two +spies of the prisoner's--madmen, but spies. If you wish them to +remain here during our little conversation, say the word. It is +nothing to me.' + +'Why should I wish them to remain here?' said Mrs Clennam. 'What +have I to do with them?' + +'Then, dearest madame,' said Rigaud, throwing himself into an arm- +chair so heavily that the old room trembled, 'you will do well to +dismiss them. It is your affair. They are not my spies, not my +rascals.' + +'Hark! You Pancks,' said Mrs Clennam, bending her brows upon him +angrily, 'you Casby's clerk! Attend to your employer's business +and your own. Go. And take that other man with you.' +'Thank you, ma'am,' returned Mr Pancks, 'I am glad to say I see no +objection to our both retiring. We have done all we undertook to +do for Mr Clennam. His constant anxiety has been (and it grew +worse upon him when he became a prisoner), that this agreeable +gentleman should be brought back here to the place from which he +slipped away. Here he is--brought back. And I will say,' added Mr +Pancks, 'to his ill-looking face, that in my opinion the world +would be no worse for his slipping out of it altogether.' + +'Your opinion is not asked,' answered Mrs Clennam. 'Go.' + +'I am sorry not to leave you in better company, ma'am,' said +Pancks; 'and sorry, too, that Mr Clennam can't be present. It's my +fault, that is.' + +'You mean his own,' she returned. + +'No, I mean mine, ma'am,' said Pancks,'for it was my misfortune to +lead him into a ruinous investment.' (Mr Pancks still clung to +that word, and never said speculation.) 'Though I can prove by +figures,' added Mr Pancks, with an anxious countenance, 'that it +ought to have been a good investment. I have gone over it since it +failed, every day of my life, and it comes out--regarded as a +question of figures--triumphant. The present is not a time or +place,' Mr Pancks pursued, with a longing glance into his hat, +where he kept his calculations, 'for entering upon the figures; but +the figures are not to be disputed. Mr Clennam ought to have been +at this moment in his carriage and pair, and I ought to have been +worth from three to five thousand pound.' + +Mr Pancks put his hair erect with a general aspect of confidence +that could hardly have been surpassed, if he had had the amount in +his pocket. These incontrovertible figures had been the occupation +of every moment of his leisure since he had lost his money, and +were destined to afford him consolation to the end of his days. + +'However,' said Mr Pancks, 'enough of that. Altro, old boy, you +have seen the figures, and you know how they come out.' Mr +Baptist, who had not the slightest arithmetical power of +compensating himself in this way, nodded, with a fine display of +bright teeth. + +At whom Mr Flintwinch had been looking, and to whom he then said: + +'Oh! it's you, is it? I thought I remembered your face, but I +wasn't certain till I saw your teeth. Ah! yes, to be sure. It +was this officious refugee,' said Jeremiah to Mrs Clennam, 'who +came knocking at the door on the night when Arthur and Chatterbox +were here, and who asked me a whole Catechism of questions about Mr +Blandois.' + +'It is true,' Mr Baptist cheerfully admitted. 'And behold him, +padrone! I have found him consequentementally.' + +'I shouldn't have objected,' returned Mr Flintwinch, 'to your +having broken your neck consequentementally.' + +'And now,' said Mr Pancks, whose eye had often stealthily wandered +to the window-seat and the stocking that was being mended there, +'I've only one other word to say before I go. If Mr Clennam was +here--but unfortunately, though he has so far got the better of +this fine gentleman as to return him to this place against his +will, he is ill and in prison--ill and in prison, poor fellow--if +he was here,' said Mr Pancks, taking one step aside towards the +window-seat, and laying his right hand upon the stocking; 'he would +say, "Affery, tell your dreams!"' + +Mr Pancks held up his right forefinger between his nose and the +stocking with a ghostly air of warning, turned, steamed out and +towed Mr Baptist after him. The house-door was heard to close upon +them, their steps were heard passing over the dull pavement of the +echoing court-yard, and still nobody had added a word. Mrs Clennam +and Jeremiah had exchanged a look; and had then looked, and looked +still, at Affery, who sat mending the stocking with great +assiduity. + +'Come!' said Mr Flintwinch at length, screwing himself a curve or +two in the direction of the window-seat, and rubbing the palms of +his hands on his coat-tail as if he were preparing them to do +something: 'Whatever has to be said among us had better be begun to +be said without more loss of time.--So, Affery, my woman, take +yourself away!' + +In a moment Affery had thrown the stocking down, started up, caught +hold of the windowsill with her right hand, lodged herself upon the +window-seat with her right knee, and was flourishing her left hand, +beating expected assailants off. + +'No, I won't, Jeremiah--no, I won't--no, I won't! I won't go! +I'll stay here. I'll hear all I don't know, and say all I know. +I will, at last, if I die for it. I will, I will, I will, I will!' + +Mr Flintwinch, stiffening with indignation and amazement, moistened +the fingers of one hand at his lips, softly described a circle with +them in the palm of the other hand, and continued with a menacing +grin to screw himself in the direction of his wife; gasping some +remark as he advanced, of which, in his choking anger, only the +words, 'Such a dose!' were audible. + +'Not a bit nearer, Jeremiah!' cried Affery, never ceasing to beat +the air. 'Don't come a bit nearer to me, or I'll rouse the +neighbourhood! I'll throw myself out of window. I'll scream Fire +and Murder! I'll wake the dead! Stop where you are, or I'll make +shrieks enough to wake the dead!' + + +The determined voice of Mrs Clennam echoed 'Stop!' Jeremiah had +stopped already. +'It is closing in, Flintwinch. Let her alone. Affery, do you turn +against me after these many years?' + +'I do, if it's turning against you to hear what I don't know, and +say what I know. I have broke out now, and I can't go back. I am +determined to do it. I will do it, I will, I will, I will! If +that's turning against you, yes, I turn against both of you two +clever ones. I told Arthur when he first come home to stand up +against you. I told him it was no reason, because I was afeard of +my life of you, that he should be. All manner of things have been +a-going on since then, and I won't be run up by Jeremiah, nor yet +I won't be dazed and scared, nor made a party to I don't know what, +no more. I won't, I won't, I won't! I'll up for Arthur when he +has nothing left, and is ill, and in prison, and can't up for +himself. I will, I will, I will, I will!' + +'How do you know, you heap of confusion,' asked Mrs Clennam +sternly, 'that in doing what you are doing now, you are even +serving Arthur?' + +'I don't know nothing rightly about anything,' said Affery; 'and if +ever you said a true word in your life, it's when you call me a +heap of confusion, for you two clever ones have done your most to +make me such. You married me whether I liked it or not, and you've +led me, pretty well ever since, such a life of dreaming and +frightening as never was known, and what do you expect me to be but +a heap of confusion? You wanted to make me such, and I am such; +but I won't submit no longer; no, I won't, I won't, I won't, I +won't!' She was still beating the air against all comers. + +After gazing at her in silence, Mrs Clennam turned to Rigaud. 'You +see and hear this foolish creature. Do you object to such a piece +of distraction remaining where she is?' + +'I, madame,' he replied, 'do I? That's a question for you.' + +'I do not,' she said, gloomily. 'There is little left to choose +now. Flintwinch, it is closing in.' + +Mr Flintwinch replied by directing a look of red vengeance at his +wife, and then, as if to pinion himself from falling upon her, +screwed his crossed arms into the breast of his waistcoat, and with +his chin very near one of his elbows stood in a corner, watching +Rigaud in the oddest attitude. Rigaud, for his part, arose from +his chair, and seated himself on the table with his legs dangling. +In this easy attitude, he met Mrs Clennam's set face, with his +moustache going up and his nose coming down. + +'Madame, I am a gentleman--' + +'Of whom,' she interrupted in her steady tones, 'I have heard +disparagement, in connection with a French jail and an accusation +of murder.' + +He kissed his hand to her with his exaggerated gallantry. + +'Perfectly. Exactly. Of a lady too! What absurdity! How +incredible! I had the honour of making a great success then; I +hope to have the honour of making a great success now. I kiss your +hands. Madame, I am a gentleman (I was going to observe), who when +he says, "I will definitely finish this or that affair at the +present sitting," does definitely finish it. I announce to you +that we are arrived at our last sitting on our little business. +You do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?' + +She kept her eyes fixed upon him with a frown. 'Yes.' + +'Further, I am a gentleman to whom mere mercenary trade-bargains +are unknown, but to whom money is always acceptable as the means of +pursuing his pleasures. You do me the favour to follow, and to +comprehend?' + +'Scarcely necessary to ask, one would say. Yes.' + +'Further, I am a gentleman of the softest and sweetest disposition, +but who, if trifled with, becomes enraged. Noble natures under +such circumstances become enraged. I possess a noble nature. When +the lion is awakened--that is to say, when I enrage--the +satisfaction of my animosity is as acceptable to me as money. You +always do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?' + +'Yes,' she answered, somewhat louder than before. + +'Do not let me derange you; pray be tranquil. I have said we are +now arrived at our last sitting. Allow me to recall the two +sittings we have held.' + +'It is not necessary.' + +'Death, madame,' he burst out, 'it's my fancy! Besides, it clears +the way. The first sitting was limited. I had the honour of +making your acquaintance--of presenting my letter; I am a Knight of +Industry, at your service, madame, but my polished manners had won +me so much of success, as a master of languages, among your +compatriots who are as stiff as their own starch is to one another, +but are ready to relax to a foreign gentleman of polished manners-- +and of observing one or two little things,' he glanced around the +room and smiled, 'about this honourable house, to know which was +necessary to assure me, and to convince me that I had the +distinguished pleasure of making the acquaintance of the lady I +sought. I achieved this. I gave my word of honour to our dear +Flintwinch that I would return. I gracefully departed.' + +Her face neither acquiesced nor demurred. The same when he paused, +and when he spoke, it as yet showed him always the one attentive +frown, and the dark revelation before mentioned of her being nerved +for the occasion. + +'I say, gracefully departed, because it was graceful to retire +without alarming a lady. To be morally graceful, not less than +physically, is a part of the character of Rigaud Blandois. It was +also politic, as leaving you with something overhanging you, to +expect me again with a little anxiety on a day not named. But your +slave is politic. By Heaven, madame, politic! Let us return. On +the day not named, I have again the honour to render myself at your +house. I intimate that I have something to sell, which, if not +bought, will compromise madame whom I highly esteem. I explain +myself generally. I demand--I think it was a thousand pounds. +Will you correct me?' + +Thus forced to speak, she replied with constraint, 'You demanded as +much as a thousand pounds.' + +'I demand at present, Two. Such are the evils of delay. But to +return once more. We are not accordant; we differ on that +occasion. I am playful; playfulness is a part of my amiable +character. Playfully, I become as one slain and hidden. For, it +may alone be worth half the sum to madame, to be freed from the +suspicions that my droll idea awakens. Accident and spies intermix +themselves against my playfulness, and spoil the fruit, perhaps-- +who knows? only you and Flintwinch--when it is just ripe. Thus, +madame, I am here for the last time. Listen! Definitely the +last.' + +As he struck his straggling boot-heels against the flap of the +table, meeting her frown with an insolent gaze, he began to change +his tone for a fierce one. + +'Bah! Stop an instant! Let us advance by steps. Here is my +Hotel-note to be paid, according to contract. Five minutes hence +we may be at daggers' points. I'll not leave it till then, or +you'll cheat me. Pay it! Count me the money!' + +'Take it from his hand and pay it, Flintwinch,' said Mrs Clennam. + +He spirted it into Mr Flintwinch's face when the old man advanced +to take it, and held forth his hand, repeating noisily, 'Pay it! +Count it out! Good money!' Jeremiah picked the bill up, looked at +the total with a bloodshot eye, took a small canvas bag from his +pocket, and told the amount into his hand. + +Rigaud chinked the money, weighed it in his hand, threw it up a +little way and caught it, chinked it again. + +'The sound of it, to the bold Rigaud Blandois, is like the taste of +fresh meat to the tiger. Say, then, madame. How much?' + +He turned upon her suddenly with a menacing gesture of the weighted +hand that clenched the money, as if he were going to strike her +with it. + +'I tell you again, as I told you before, that we are not rich here, +as you suppose us to be, and that your demand is excessive. I have +not the present means of complying with such a demand, if I had +ever so great an inclination.' + +'If!' cried Rigaud. 'Hear this lady with her If! Will you say +that you have not the inclination?' + +'I will say what presents itself to me, and not what presents +itself to you.' + +'Say it then. As to the inclination. Quick! Come to the +inclination, and I know what to do.' + +She was no quicker, and no slower, in her reply. 'It would seem +that you have obtained possession of a paper--or of papers--which +I assuredly have the inclination to recover.' + +Rigaud, with a loud laugh, drummed his heels against the table, and +chinked his money. 'I think so! I believe you there!' + +'The paper might be worth, to me, a sum of money. I cannot say how +much, or how little.' + +'What the Devil!' he asked savagely.'Not after a week's grace to +consider?' + +'No! I will not out of my scanty means--for I tell you again, we +are poor here, and not rich--I will not offer any price for a power +that I do not know the worst and the fullest extent of. This is +the third time of your hinting and threatening. You must speak +explicitly, or you may go where you will, and do what you will. It +is better to be torn to pieces at a spring, than to be a mouse at +the caprice of such a cat.' + +He looked at her so hard with those eyes too near together that the +sinister sight of each, crossing that of the other, seemed to make +the bridge of his hooked nose crooked. After a long survey, he +said, with the further setting off of his internal smile: + +'You are a bold woman!' + +'I am a resolved woman.' + +'You always were. What? She always was; is it not so, my little +Flintwinch?' + +'Flintwinch, say nothing to him. It is for him to say, here and +now, all he can; or to go hence, and do all he can. You know this +to be our determination. Leave him to his action on it.' + +She did not shrink under his evil leer, or avoid it. He turned it +upon her again, but she remained steady at the point to which she +had fixed herself. He got off the table, placed a chair near the +sofa, sat down in it, and leaned an arm upon the sofa close to her +own, which he touched with his hand. Her face was ever frowning, +attentive, and settled. + +'It is your pleasure then, madame, that I shall relate a morsel of +family history in this little family society,' said Rigaud, with a +warning play of his lithe fingers on her arm. 'I am something of +a doctor. Let me touch your pulse.' + +She suffered him to take her wrist in his hand. Holding it, he +proceeded to say: + +'A history of a strange marriage, and a strange mother, and a +revenge, and a suppression.--Aye, aye, aye? this pulse is beating +curiously! It appears to me that it doubles while I touch it. Are +these the usual changes of your malady, madame?' + +There was a struggle in her maimed arm as she twisted it away, but +there was none in her face. On his face there was his own smile. + +'I have lived an adventurous life. I am an adventurous character. +I have known many adventurers; interesting spirits--amiable +society! To one of them I owe my knowledge and my proofs--I repeat +it, estimable lady--proofs--of the ravishing little family history +I go to commence. You will be charmed with it. But, bah! I +forget. One should name a history. Shall I name it the history of +a house? But, bah, again. There are so many houses. Shall I name +it the history of this house?' + +Leaning over the sofa, poised on two legs of his chair and his left +elbow; that hand often tapping her arm to beat his words home; his +legs crossed; his right hand sometimes arranging his hair, +sometimes smoothing his moustache, sometimes striking his nose, +always threatening her whatever it did; coarse, insolent, +rapacious, cruel, and powerful, he pursued his narrative at his +ease. + +'In fine, then, I name it the history of this house. I commence +it. There live here, let us suppose, an uncle and nephew. The +uncle, a rigid old gentleman of strong force of character; the +nephew, habitually timid, repressed, and under constraint.' + +Mistress Affery, fixedly attentive in the window-seat, biting the +rolled up end of her apron, and trembling from head to foot, here +cried out,'Jeremiah, keep off from me! I've heerd, in my dreams, +of Arthur's father and his uncle. He's a talking of them. It was +before my time here; but I've heerd in my dreams that Arthur's +father was a poor, irresolute, frightened chap, who had had +everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he was young, +and that he had no voice in the choice of his wife even, but his +uncle chose her. There she sits! I heerd it in my dreams, and you +said it to her own self.' + +As Mr Flintwinch shook his fist at her, and as Mrs Clennam gazed +upon her, Rigaud kissed his hand to her. +'Perfectly right, dear Madame Flintwinch. You have a genius for +dreaming.' + + +'I don't want none of your praises,' returned Affery. 'I don't +want to have nothing at all to say to you. But Jeremiah said they +was dreams, and I'll tell 'em as such!' Here she put her apron in +her mouth again, as if she were stopping somebody else's mouth-- +perhaps jeremiah's, which was chattering with threats as if he were +grimly cold. + +'Our beloved Madame Flintwinch,' said Rigaud, 'developing all of a +sudden a fine susceptibility and spirituality, is right to a +marvel. Yes. So runs the history. Monsieur, the uncle, commands +the nephew to marry. Monsieur says to him in effect, "My nephew, +I introduce to you a lady of strong force of character, like +myself--a resolved lady, a stern lady, a lady who has a will that +can break the weak to powder: a lady without pity, without love, +implacable, revengeful, cold as the stone, but raging as the fire." + +Ah! what fortitude! Ah, what superiority of intellectual +strength! Truly, a proud and noble character that I describe in +the supposed words of Monsieur, the uncle. Ha, ha, ha! Death of +my soul, I love the sweet lady!' + +Mrs Clennam's face had changed. There was a remarkable darkness of +colour on it, and the brow was more contracted. 'Madame, madame,' +said Rigaud, tapping her on the arm, as if his cruel hand were +sounding a musical instrument, 'I perceive I interest you. I +perceive I awaken your sympathy. Let us go on.' + +The drooping nose and the ascending moustache had, however, to be +hidden for a moment with the white hand, before he could go on; he +enjoyed the effect he made so much. + +'The nephew, being, as the lucid Madame Flintwinch has remarked, a +poor devil who has had everything but his orphan life frightened +and famished out of him--the nephew abases his head, and makes +response: "My uncle, it is to you to command. Do as you will!" +Monsieur, the uncle, does as he will. It is what he always does. +The auspicious nuptials take place; the newly married come home to +this charming mansion; the lady is received, let us suppose, by +Flintwinch. Hey, old intriguer?' + +Jeremiah, with his eyes upon his mistress, made no reply. Rigaud +looked from one to the other, struck his ugly nose, and made a +clucking with his tongue. + +'Soon the lady makes a singular and exciting discovery. Thereupon, +full of anger, full of jealousy, full of vengeance, she forms--see +you, madame!--a scheme of retribution, the weight of which she +ingeniously forces her crushed husband to bear himself, as well as +execute upon her enemy. What superior intelligence!' + +'Keep off, Jeremiah!' cried the palpitating Affery, taking her +apron from her mouth again. 'But it was one of my dreams, that you +told her, when you quarrelled with her one winter evening at dusk-- +there she sits and you looking at her--that she oughtn't to have +let Arthur when he come home, suspect his father only; that she had +always had the strength and the power; and that she ought to have +stood up more to Arthur, for his father. It was in the same dream +where you said to her that she was not--not something, but I don't +know what, for she burst out tremendous and stopped you. You know +the dream as well as I do. When you come down-stairs into the +kitchen with the candle in your hand, and hitched my apron off my +head. When you told me I had been dreaming. When you wouldn't +believe the noises.' After this explosion Affery put her apron +into her mouth again; always keeping her hand on the window-sill +and her knee on the window-seat, ready to cry out or jump out if +her lord and master approached. + +Rigaud had not lost a word of this. + +'Haha!' he cried, lifting his eyebrows, folding his arms, and +leaning back in his chair. 'Assuredly, Madame Flintwinch is an +oracle! How shall we interpret the oracle, you and I and the old +intriguer? He said that you were not--? And you burst out and +stopped him! What was it you were not? What is it you are not? +Say then, madame!' + +Under this ferocious banter, she sat breathing harder, and her +mouth was disturbed. Her lips quivered and opened, in spite of her +utmost efforts to keep them still. + +'Come then, madame! Speak, then! Our old intriguer said that you +were not-- and you stopped him. He was going to say that you were +not--what? I know already, but I want a little confidence from +you. How, then? You are not what?' + +She tried again to repress herself, but broke out vehemently, 'Not +Arthur's mother!' + +'Good,' said Rigaud. 'You are amenable.' + +With the set expression of her face all torn away by the explosion +of her passion, and with a bursting, from every rent feature, of +the smouldering fire so long pent up, she cried out: 'I will tell +it myself! I will not hear it from your lips, and with the taint +of your wickedness upon it. Since it must be seen, I will have it +seen by the light I stood in. Not another word. Hear me!' + +'Unless you are a more obstinate and more persisting woman than +even I know you to be,' Mr Flintwinch interposed, 'you had better +leave Mr Rigaud, Mr Blandois, Mr Beelzebub, to tell it in his own +way. What does it signify when he knows all about it?' + +'He does not know all about it.' + +'He knows all he cares about it,' Mr Flintwinch testily urged. +'He does not know me.' + +'What do you suppose he cares for you, you conceited woman?' said +Mr Flintwinch. + +'I tell you, Flintwinch, I will speak. I tell you when it has come +to this, I will tell it with my own lips, and will express myself +throughout it. What! Have I suffered nothing in this room, no +deprivation, no imprisonment, that I should condescend at last to +contemplate myself in such a glass as that. Can you see him? Can +you hear him? If your wife were a hundred times the ingrate that +she is, and if I were a thousand times more hopeless than I am of +inducing her to be silent if this man is silenced, I would tell it +myself, before I would bear the torment of the hearing it from +him.' + +Rigaud pushed his chair a little back; pushed his legs out straight +before him; and sat with his arms folded over against her. + +'You do not know what it is,' she went on addressing him, 'to be +brought up strictly and straitly. I was so brought up. Mine was +no light youth of sinful gaiety and pleasure. Mine were days of +wholesome repression, punishment, and fear. The corruption of our +hearts, the evil of our ways, the curse that is upon us, the +terrors that surround us--these were the themes of my childhood. +They formed my character, and filled me with an abhorrence of evil- +doers. When old Mr Gilbert Clennam proposed his orphan nephew to +my father for my husband, my father impressed upon me that his +bringing-up had been, like mine, one of severe restraint. He told +me, that besides the discipline his spirit had undergone, he had +lived in a starved house, where rioting and gaiety were unknown, +and where every day was a day of toil and trial like the last. He +told me that he had been a man in years long before his uncle had +acknowledged him as one; and that from his school-days to that +hour, his uncle's roof has been a sanctuary to him from the +contagion of the irreligious and dissolute. When, within a +twelvemonth of our marriage, I found my husband, at that time when +my father spoke of him, to have sinned against the Lord and +outraged me by holding a guilty creature in my place, was I to +doubt that it had been appointed to me to make the discovery, and +that it was appointed to me to lay the hand of punishment upon that +creature of perdition? Was I to dismiss in a moment--not my own +wrongs--what was I! but all the rejection of sin, and all the war +against it, in which I had been bred?' She laid her wrathful hand +upon the watch on the table. + +'No! "Do not forget." The initials of those words are within here +now, and were within here then. I was appointed to find the old +letter that referred to them, and that told me what they meant, and +whose work they were, and why they were worked, lying with this +watch in his secret drawer. But for that appointment there would +have been no discovery. "Do not forget." It spoke to me like a +voice from an angry cloud. Do not forget the deadly sin, do not +forget the appointed discovery, do not forget the appointed +suffering. I did not forget. Was it my own wrong I remembered? +Mine! I was but a servant and a minister. What power could I have +over them, but that they were bound in the bonds of their sin, and +delivered to me!' + +More than forty years had passed over the grey head of this +determined woman, since the time she recalled. More than forty +years of strife and struggle with the whisper that, by whatever +name she called her vindictive pride and rage, nothing through all +eternity could change their nature. Yet, gone those more than +forty years, and come this Nemesis now looking her in the face, she +still abided by her old impiety--still reversed the order of +Creation, and breathed her own breath into a clay image of her +Creator. Verily, verily, travellers have seen many monstrous idols +in many countries; but no human eyes have ever seen more daring, +gross, and shocking images of the Divine nature than we creatures +of the dust make in our own likenesses, of our own bad passions. + +'When I forced him to give her up to me, by her name and place of +abode,' she went on in her torrent of indignation and defence; +'when I accused her, and she fell hiding her face at my feet, was +it my injury that I asserted, were they my reproaches that I poured +upon her? Those who were appointed of old to go to wicked kings +and accuse them--were they not ministers and servants? And had not +I, unworthy and far-removed from them, sin to denounce? When she +pleaded to me her youth, and his wretched and hard life (that was +her phrase for the virtuous training he had belied), and the +desecrated ceremony of marriage there had secretly been between +them, and the terrors of want and shame that had overwhelmed them +both when I was first appointed to be the instrument of their +punishment, and the love (for she said the word to me, down at my +feet) in which she had abandoned him and left him to me, was it my +enemy that became my footstool, were they the words of my wrath +that made her shrink and quiver! Not unto me the strength be +ascribed; not unto me the wringing of the expiation!' + +Many years had come and gone since she had had the free use even of +her fingers; but it was noticeable that she had already more than +once struck her clenched hand vigorously upon the table, and that +when she said these words she raised her whole arm in the air, as +though it had been a common action with her. + +'And what was the repentance that was extorted from the hardness of +her heart and the blackness of her depravity? I, vindictive and +implacable? It may be so, to such as you who know no +righteousness, and no appointment except Satan's. Laugh; but I +will be known as I know myself, and as Flintwinch knows me, though +it is only to you and this half-witted woman.' + +'Add, to yourself, madame,' said Rigaud. 'I have my little +suspicions that madame is rather solicitous to be justified to +herself.' + +'It is false. It is not so. I have no need to be,' she said, with +great energy and anger. + +'Truly?' retorted Rigaud. 'Hah!' + +'I ask, what was the penitence, in works, that was demanded of her? + +"You have a child; I have none. You love that child. Give him to +me. He shall believe himself to be my son, and he shall be +believed by every one to be my son. To save you from exposure, his +father shall swear never to see or communicate with you more; +equally to save him from being stripped by his uncle, and to save +your child from being a beggar, you shall swear never to see or +communicate with either of them more. That done, and your present +means, derived from my husband, renounced, I charge myself with +your support. You may, with your place of retreat unknown, then +leave, if you please, uncontradicted by me, the lie that when you +passed out of all knowledge but mine, you merited a good name." +That was all. She had to sacrifice her sinful and shameful +affections; no more. She was then free to bear her load of guilt +in secret, and to break her heart in secret; and through such +present misery (light enough for her, I think!) to purchase her +redemption from endless misery, if she could. If, in this, I +punished her here, did I not open to her a way hereafter? If she +knew herself to be surrounded by insatiable vengeance and +unquenchable fires, were they mine? If I threatened her, then and +afterwards, with the terrors that encompassed her, did I hold them +in my right hand?' + +She turned the watch upon the table, and opened it, and, with an +unsoftening face, looked at the worked letters within. + +'They did not forget. It is appointed against such offences that +the offenders shall not be able to forget. If the presence of +Arthur was a daily reproach to his father, and if the absence of +Arthur was a daily agony to his mother, that was the just +dispensation of Jehovah. As well might it be charged upon me, that +the stings of an awakened conscience drove her mad, and that it was +the will of the Disposer of all things that she should live so, +many years. I devoted myself to reclaim the otherwise predestined +and lost boy; to give him the reputation of an honest origin; to +bring him up in fear and trembling, and in a life of practical +contrition for the sins that were heavy on his head before his +entrance into this condemned world. Was that a cruelty? Was I, +too, not visited with consequences of the original offence in which +I had no complicity? Arthur's father and I lived no further apart, +with half the globe between us, than when we were together in this +house. He died, and sent this watch back to me, with its Do not +forget. I do NOT forget, though I do not read it as he did. I +read in it, that I was appointed to do these things. I have so +read these three letters since I have had them lying on this table, +and I did so read them, with equal distinctness, when they were +thousands of miles away.' + +As she took the watch-case in her hand, with that new freedom in +the use of her hand of which she showed no consciousness whatever, +bending her eyes upon it as if she were defying it to move her, +Rigaud cried with a loud and contemptuous snapping of his fingers. +'Come, madame! Time runs out. Come, lady of piety, it must be! +You can tell nothing I don't know. Come to the money stolen, or I +will! Death of my soul, I have had enough of your other jargon. +Come straight to the stolen money!' + +'Wretch that you are,' she answered, and now her hands clasped her +head: 'through what fatal error of Flintwinch's, through what +incompleteness on his part, who was the only other person helping +in these things and trusted with them, through whose and what +bringing together of the ashes of a burnt paper, you have become +possessed of that codicil, I know no more than how you acquired the +rest of your power here--' + +'And yet,' interrupted Rigaud, 'it is my odd fortune to have by me, +in a convenient place that I know of, that same short little +addition to the will of Monsieur Gilbert Clennam, written by a lady +and witnessed by the same lady and our old intriguer! Ah, bah, old +intriguer, crooked little puppet! Madame, let us go on. Time +presses. You or I to finish?' + +'I!' she answered, with increased determination, if it were +possible. 'I, because I will not endure to be shown myself, and +have myself shown to any one, with your horrible distortion upon +me. You, with your practices of infamous foreign prisons and +galleys would make it the money that impelled me. It was not the +money.' + +'Bah, bah, bah! I repudiate, for the moment, my politeness, and +say, Lies, lies, lies. You know you suppressed the deed and kept +the money.' + +'Not for the money's sake, wretch!' She made a struggle as if she +were starting up; even as if, in her vehemence, she had almost +risen on her disabled feet. 'If Gilbert Clennam, reduced to +imbecility, at the point of death, and labouring under the delusion +of some imaginary relenting towards a girl of whom he had heard +that his nephew had once had a fancy for her which he had crushed +out of him, and that she afterwards drooped away into melancholy +and withdrawal from all who knew her--if, in that state of +weakness, he dictated to me, whose life she had darkened with her +sin, and who had been appointed to know her wickedness from her own +hand and her own lips, a bequest meant as a recompense to her for +supposed unmerited suffering; was there no difference between my +spurning that injustice, and coveting mere money--a thing which +you, and your comrades in the prisons, may steal from anyone?' + +'Time presses, madame. Take care!' + + +'If this house was blazing from the roof to the ground,' she +returned, 'I would stay in it to justify myself against my +righteous motives being classed with those of stabbers and +thieves.' + +Rigaud snapped his fingers tauntingly in her face. 'One thousand +guineas to the little beauty you slowly hunted to death. One +thousand guineas to the youngest daughter her patron might have at +fifty, or (if he had none) brother's youngest daughter, on her +coming of age, "as the remembrance his disinterestedness may like +best, of his protection of a friendless young orphan girl." Two +thousand guineas. What! You will never come to the money?' + +'That patron,' she was vehemently proceeding, when he checked her. + +'Names! Call him Mr Frederick Dorrit. No more evasions.' + +'That Frederick Dorrit was the beginning of it all. If he had not +been a player of music, and had not kept, in those days of his +youth and prosperity, an idle house where singers, and players, and +such-like children of Evil turned their backs on the Light and +their faces to the Darkness, she might have remained in her lowly +station, and might not have been raised out of it to be cast down. +But, no. Satan entered into that Frederick Dorrit, and counselled +him that he was a man of innocent and laudable tastes who did kind +actions, and that here was a poor girl with a voice for singing +music with. Then he is to have her taught. Then Arthur's father, +who has all along been secretly pining in the ways of virtuous +ruggedness for those accursed snares which are called the Arts, +becomes acquainted with her. And so, a graceless orphan, training +to be a singing girl, carries it, by that Frederick Dorrit's +agency, against me, and I am humbled and deceived!--Not I, that is +to say,' she added quickly, as colour flushed into her face; 'a +greater than I. What am I?' + +Jeremiah Flintwinch, who had been gradually screwing himself +towards her, and who was now very near her elbow without her +knowing it, made a specially wry face of objection when she said +these words, and moreover twitched his gaiters, as if such +pretensions were equivalent to little barbs in his legs. + +'Lastly,' she continued, 'for I am at the end of these things, and +I will say no more of them, and you shall say no more of them, and +all that remains will be to determine whether the knowledge of them +can be kept among us who are here present; lastly, when I +suppressed that paper, with the knowledge of Arthur's father--' + +'But not with his consent, you know,' said Mr Flintwinch. + +'Who said with his consent?' She started to find Jeremiah so near +her, and drew back her head, looking at him with some rising +distrust. 'You were often enough between us when he would have had +me produce it and I would not, to have contradicted me if I had +said, with his consent. I say, when I suppressed that paper, I +made no effort to destroy it, but kept it by me, here in this +house, many years. The rest of the Gilbert property being left to +Arthur's father, I could at any time, without unsettling more than +the two sums, have made a pretence of finding it. But, besides +that I must have supported such pretence by a direct falsehood (a +great responsibility), I have seen no new reason, in all the time +I have been tried here, to bring it to light. It was a rewarding +of sin; the wrong result of a delusion. I did what I was appointed +to do, and I have undergone, within these four walls, what I was +appointed to undergo. When the paper was at last destroyed--as I +thought--in my presence, she had long been dead, and her patron, +Frederick Dorrit, had long been deservedly ruined and imbecile. He +had no daughter. I had found the niece before then; and what I did +for her, was better for her far than the money of which she would +have had no good.' She added, after a moment, as though she +addressed the watch: 'She herself was innocent, and I might not +have forgotten to relinquish it to her at my death:' and sat +looking at it. + +'Shall I recall something to you, worthy madame?' said Rigaud. +'The little paper was in this house on the night when our friend +the prisoner--jail-comrade of my soul--came home from foreign +countries. Shall I recall yet something more to you? The little +singing-bird that never was fledged, was long kept in a cage by a +guardian of your appointing, well enough known to our old intriguer +here. Shall we coax our old intriguer to tell us when he saw him +last?' + +'I'll tell you!' cried Affery, unstopping her mouth. 'I dreamed +it, first of all my dreams. Jeremiah, if you come a-nigh me now, +I'll scream to be heard at St Paul's! The person as this man has +spoken of, was jeremiah's own twin brother; and he was here in the +dead of the night, on the night when Arthur come home, and Jeremiah +with his own hands give him this paper, along with I don't know +what more, and he took it away in an iron box--Help! Murder! Save +me from Jere-mi-ah!' + +Mr Flintwinch had made a run at her, but Rigaud had caught him in +his arms midway. After a moment's wrestle with him, Flintwinch +gave up, and put his hands in his pockets. + +'What!' cried Rigaud, rallying him as he poked and jerked him back +with his elbows, 'assault a lady with such a genius for dreaming! +Ha, ha, ha! Why, she'll be a fortune to you as an exhibition. All +that she dreams comes true. Ha, ha, ha! You're so like him, +Little Flintwinch. So like him, as I knew him (when I first spoke +English for him to the host) in the Cabaret of the Three Billiard +Tables, in the little street of the high roofs, by the wharf at +Antwerp! Ah, but he was a brave boy to drink. Ah, but he was a +brave boy to smoke! Ah, but he lived in a sweet bachelor- +apartment--furnished, on the fifth floor, above the wood and +charcoal merchant's, and the dress-maker's, and the chair-maker's, +and the maker of tubs--where I knew him too, and wherewith his +cognac and tobacco, he had twelve sleeps a day and one fit, until +he had a fit too much, and ascended to the skies. Ha, ha, ha! +What does it matter how I took possession of the papers in his iron +box? Perhaps he confided it to my hands for you, perhaps it was +locked and my curiosity was piqued, perhaps I suppressed it. Ha, +ha, ha! What does it matter, so that I have it safe? We are not +particular here; hey, Flintwinch? We are not particular here; is +it not so, madame?' + +Retiring before him with vicious counter-jerks of his own elbows, +Mr Flintwinch had got back into his corner, where he now stood with +his hands in his pockets, taking breath, and returning Mrs +Clennam's stare. 'Ha, ha, ha! But what's this?' cried Rigaud. +'It appears as if you don't know, one the other. Permit me, Madame +Clennam who suppresses, to present Monsieur Flintwinch who +intrigues.' + +Mr Flintwinch, unpocketing one of his hands to scrape his jaw, +advanced a step or so in that attitude, still returning Mrs +Clennam's look, and thus addressed her: + +'Now, I know what you mean by opening your eyes so wide at me, but +you needn't take the trouble, because I don't care for it. I've +been telling you for how many years that you're one of the most +opinionated and obstinate of women. That's what YOU are. You call +yourself humble and sinful, but you are the most Bumptious of your +sex. That's what YOU are. I have told you, over and over again +when we have had a tiff, that you wanted to make everything go down +before you, but I wouldn't go down before you--that you wanted to +swallow up everybody alive, but I wouldn't be swallowed up alive. +Why didn't you destroy the paper when you first laid hands upon it? + +I advised you to; but no, it's not your way to take advice. You +must keep it forsooth. Perhaps you may carry it out at some other +time, forsooth. As if I didn't know better than that! I think I +see your pride carrying it out, with a chance of being suspected of +having kept it by you. But that's the way you cheat yourself. +just as you cheat yourself into making out that you didn't do all +this business because you were a rigorous woman, all slight, and +spite, and power, and unforgiveness, but because you were a servant +and a minister, and were appointed to do it. Who are you, that you +should be appointed to do it? That may be your religion, but it's +my gammon. And to tell you all the truth while I am about it,' +said Mr Flintwinch, crossing his arms, and becoming the express +image of irascible doggedness, 'I have been rasped--rasped these +forty years--by your taking such high ground even with me, who +knows better; the effect of it being coolly to put me on low +ground. I admire you very much; you are a woman of strong head and +great talent; but the strongest head, and the greatest talent, +can't rasp a man for forty years without making him sore. So I +don't care for your present eyes. Now, I am coming to the paper, +and mark what I say. You put it away somewhere, and you kept your +own counsel where. You're an active woman at that time, and if you +want to get that paper, you can get it. But, mark. There comes a +time when you are struck into what you are now, and then if you +want to get that paper, you can't get it. So it lies, long years, +in its hiding-place. At last, when we are expecting Arthur home +every day, and when any day may bring him home, and it's impossible +to say what rummaging he may make about the house, I recommend you +five thousand times, if you can't get at it, to let me get at it, +that it may be put in the fire. But no--no one but you knows where +it is, and that's power; and, call yourself whatever humble names +you will, I call you a female Lucifer in appetite for power! On a +Sunday night, Arthur comes home. He has not been in this room ten +minutes, when he speaks of his father's watch. You know very well +that the Do Not Forget, at the time when his father sent that watch +to you, could only mean, the rest of the story being then all dead +and over, Do Not Forget the suppression. Make restitution! +Arthur's ways have frightened you a bit, and the paper shall be +burnt after all. So, before that jumping jade and Jezebel,' Mr +Flintwinch grinned at his wife, 'has got you into bed, you at last +tell me where you have put the paper, among the old ledgers in the +cellars, where Arthur himself went prowling the very next morning. +But it's not to be burnt on a Sunday night. No; you are strict, +you are; we must wait over twelve o'clock, and get into Monday. +Now, all this is a swallowing of me up alive that rasps me; so, +feeling a little out of temper, and not being as strict as +yourself, I take a look at the document before twelve o'clock to +refresh my memory as to its appearance--fold up one of the many +yellow old papers in the cellars like it--and afterwards, when we +have got into Monday morning, and I have, by the light of your +lamp, to walk from you, lying on that bed, to this grate, make a +little exchange like the conjuror, and burn accordingly. My +brother Ephraim, the lunatic-keeper (I wish he had had himself to +keep in a strait-waistcoat), had had many jobs since the close of +the long job he got from you, but had not done well. His wife died +(not that that was much; mine might have died instead, and +welcome), he speculated unsuccessfully in lunatics, he got into +difficulty about over-roasting a patient to bring him to reason, +and he got into debt. He was going out of the way, on what he had +been able to scrape up, and a trifle from me. He was here that +early Monday morning, waiting for the tide; in short, he was going +to Antwerp, where (I am afraid you'll be shocked at my saying, And +be damned to him!) he made the acquaintance of this gentleman. He +had come a long way, and, I thought then, was only sleepy; but, I +suppose now, was drunk. When Arthur's mother had been under the +care of him and his wife, she had been always writing, incessantly +writing,--mostly letters of confession to you, and Prayers for +forgiveness. My brother had handed, from time to time, lots of +these sheets to me. I thought I might as well keep them to myself +as have them swallowed up alive too; so I kept them in a box, +looking over them when I felt in the humour. Convinced that it was +advisable to get the paper out of the place, with Arthur coming +about it, I put it into this same box, and I locked the whole up +with two locks, and I trusted it to my brother to take away and +keep, till I should write about it. I did write about it, and +never got an answer. I didn't know what to make of it, till this +gentleman favoured us with his first visit. Of course, I began to +suspect how it was, then; and I don't want his word for it now to +understand how he gets his knowledge from my papers, and your +paper, and my brother's cognac and tobacco talk (I wish he'd had to +gag himself). Now, I have only one thing more to say, you hammer- +headed woman, and that is, that I haven't altogether made up my +mind whether I might, or might not, have ever given you any trouble +about the codicil. I think not; and that I should have been quite +satisfied with knowing I had got the better of you, and that I held +the power over you. In the present state of circumstances, I have +no more explanation to give you till this time to-morrow night. So +you may as well,' said Mr Flintwinch, terminating his oration with +a screw, 'keep your eyes open at somebody else, for it's no use +keeping 'em open at me.' + +She slowly withdrew them when he had ceased, and dropped her +forehead on her hand. Her other hand pressed hard upon the table, +and again the curious stir was observable in her, as if she were +going to rise. + +'This box can never bring, elsewhere, the price it will bring here. + +This knowledge can never be of the same profit to you, sold to any +other person, as sold to me. But I have not the present means of +raising the sum you have demanded. I have not prospered. What +will you take now, and what at another time, and how am I to be +assured of your silence?' + +'My angel,' said Rigaud, 'I have said what I will take, and time +presses. Before coming here, I placed copies of the most important +of these papers in another hand. Put off the time till the +Marshalsea gate shall be shut for the night, and it will be too +late to treat. The prisoner will have read them.' + +She put her two hands to her head again, uttered a loud +exclamation, and started to her feet. She staggered for a moment, +as if she would have fallen; then stood firm. + +'Say what you mean. Say what you mean, man!' + +Before her ghostly figure, so long unused to its erect attitude, +and so stiffened in it, Rigaud fell back and dropped his voice. It +was, to all the three, almost as if a dead woman had risen. + +'Miss Dorrit,' answered Rigaud, 'the little niece of Monsieur +Frederick, whom I have known across the water, is attached to the +prisoner. Miss Dorrit, little niece of Monsieur Frederick, watches +at this moment over the prisoner, who is ill. For her I with my +own hands left a packet at the prison, on my way here, with a +letter of instructions, "FOR HIS SAKE"--she will do anything for +his sake--to keep it without breaking the seal, in case of its +being reclaimed before the hour of shutting up to-night--if it +should not be reclaimed before the ringing of the prison bell, to +give it to him; and it encloses a second copy for herself, which he +must give to her. What! I don't trust myself among you, now we +have got so far, without giving my secret a second life. And as to +its not bringing me, elsewhere, the price it will bring here, say +then, madame, have you limited and settled the price the little +niece will give--for his sake--to hush it up? Once more I say, +time presses. The packet not reclaimed before the ringing of the +bell to-night, you cannot buy. I sell, then, to the little girl!' + +Once more the stir and struggle in her, and she ran to a closet, +tore the door open, took down a hood or shawl, and wrapped it over +her head. Affery, who had watched her in terror, darted to her in +the middle of the room, caught hold of her dress, and went on her +knees to her. + +'Don't, don't, don't! What are you doing? Where are you going? +You're a fearful woman, but I don't bear you no ill-will. I can do +poor Arthur no good now, that I see; and you needn't be afraid of +me. I'll keep your secret. Don't go out, you'll fall dead in the +street. Only promise me, that, if it's the poor thing that's kept +here secretly, you'll let me take charge of her and be her nurse. +Only promise me that, and never be afraid of me.' + +Mrs Clennam stood still for an instant, at the height of her rapid +haste, saying in stern amazement: + +'Kept here? She has been dead a score of years or more. Ask +Flintwinch--ask HIM. They can both tell you that she died when +Arthur went abroad.' + +'So much the worse,' said Affery, with a shiver, 'for she haunts +the house, then. Who else rustles about it, making signals by +dropping dust so softly? Who else comes and goes, and marks the +walls with long crooked touches when we are all a-bed? Who else +holds the door sometimes? But don't go out--don't go out! +Mistress, you'll die in the street!' + +Her mistress only disengaged her dress from the beseeching hands, +said to Rigaud, 'Wait here till I come back!' and ran out of the +room. They saw her, from the window, run wildly through the court- +yard and out at the gateway. + +For a few moments they stood motionless. Affery was the first to +move, and she, wringing her hands, pursued her mistress. Next, +Jeremiah Flintwinch, slowly backing to the door, with one hand in +a pocket, and the other rubbing his chin, twisted himself out in +his reticent way, speechlessly. Rigaud, left alone, composed +himself upon the window-seat of the open window, in the old +Marseilles-jail attitude. He laid his cigarettes and fire-box +ready to his hand, and fell to smoking. + +'Whoof! Almost as dull as the infernal old jail. Warmer, but +almost as dismal. Wait till she comes back? Yes, certainly; but +where is she gone, and how long will she be gone? No matter! +Rigaud Lagnier Blandois, my amiable subject, you will get your +money. You will enrich yourself. You have lived a gentleman; you +will die a gentleman. You triumph, my little boy; but it is your +character to triumph. Whoof!' +In the hour of his triumph, his moustache went up and his nose came +down, as he ogled a great beam over his head with particular +satisfaction. + + + + +CHAPTER 31 + +Closed + + +The sun had set, and the streets were dim in the dusty twilight, +when the figure so long unused to them hurried on its way. In the +immediate neighbourhood of the old house it attracted little +attention, for there were only a few straggling people to notice +it; but, ascending from the river by the crooked ways that led to +London Bridge, and passing into the great main road, it became +surrounded by astonishment. + +Resolute and wild of look, rapid of foot and yet weak and +uncertain, conspicuously dressed in its black garments and with its +hurried head-covering, gaunt and of an unearthly paleness, it +pressed forward, taking no more heed of the throng than a sleep- +walker. More remarkable by being so removed from the crowd it was +among than if it had been lifted on a pedestal to be seen, the +figure attracted all eyes. Saunterers pricked up their attention +to observe it; busy people, crossing it, slackened their pace and +turned their heads; companions pausing and standing aside, +whispered one another to look at this spectral woman who was coming +by; and the sweep of the figure as it passed seemed to create a +vortex, drawing the most idle and most curious after it. + +Made giddy by the turbulent irruption of this multitude of staring +faces into her cell of years, by the confusing sensation of being +in the air, and the yet more confusing sensation of being afoot, by +the unexpected changes in half-remembered objects, and the want of +likeness between the controllable pictures her imagination had +often drawn of the life from which she was secluded and the +overwhelming rush of the reality, she held her way as if she were +environed by distracting thoughts, rather than by external humanity +and observation. But, having crossed the bridge and gone some +distance straight onward, she remembered that she must ask for a +direction; and it was only then, when she stopped and turned to +look about her for a promising place of inquiry, that she found +herself surrounded by an eager glare of faces. + +'Why are you encircling me?' she asked, trembling. + +None of those who were nearest answered; but from the outer ring +there arose a shrill cry of ''Cause you're mad!' + +'I am sure as sane as any one here. I want to find the Marshalsea +prison.' + +The shrill outer circle again retorted, 'Then that 'ud show you was +mad if nothing else did, 'cause it's right opposite!' + +A short, mild, quiet-looking young man made his way through to her, +as a whooping ensued on this reply, and said: 'Was it the +Marshalsea you wanted? I'm going on duty there. Come across with +me.' + +She laid her hand upon his arm, and he took her over the way; the +crowd, rather injured by the near prospect of losing her, pressing +before and behind and on either side, and recommending an +adjournment to Bedlam. After a momentary whirl in the outer court- +yard, the prison-door opened, and shut upon them. In the Lodge, +which seemed by contrast with the outer noise a place of refuge and +peace, a yellow lamp was already striving with the prison shadows. + +'Why, John!' said the turnkey who admitted them. 'What is it?' + +'Nothing, father; only this lady not knowing her way, and being +badgered by the boys. Who did you want, ma'am?' + +'Miss Dorrit. Is she here?' + +The young man became more interested. 'Yes, she is here. What +might your name be?' + +'Mrs Clennam.' + +'Mr Clennam's mother?' asked the young man. + +She pressed her lips together, and hesitated. 'Yes. She had +better be told it is his mother.' + +'You see,' said the young man,'the Marshal's family living in the +country at present, the Marshal has given Miss Dorrit one of the +rooms in his house to use when she likes. Don't you think you had +better come up there, and let me bring Miss Dorrit?' + +She signified her assent, and he unlocked a door and conducted her +up a side staircase into a dwelling-house above. He showed her +into a darkening room, and left her. The room looked down into the +darkening prison-yard, with its inmates strolling here and there, +leaning out of windows communing as much apart as they could with +friends who were going away, and generally wearing out their +imprisonment as they best might that summer evening. The air was +heavy and hot; the closeness of the place, oppressive; and from +without there arose a rush of free sounds, like the jarring memory +of such things in a headache and heartache. She stood at the +window, bewildered, looking down into this prison as it were out of +her own different prison, when a soft word or two of surprise made +her start, and Little Dorrit stood before her. + +'Is it possible, Mrs Clennam, that you are so happily +recovered as--' + +Little Dorrit stopped, for there was neither happiness nor health +in the face that turned to her. +'This is not recovery; it is not strength; I don't know what it +is.' With an agitated wave of her hand, she put all that aside. +'You have a packet left with you which you were to give to Arthur, +if it was not reclaimed before this place closed to-night.' + +'Yes.' + +'I reclaim it.' + +Little Dorrit took it from her bosom, and gave it into her hand, +which remained stretched out after receiving it. + +'Have you any idea of its contents?' + +Frightened by her being there with that new power Of Movement in +her, which, as she said herself, was not strength, and which was +unreal to look upon, as though a picture or statue had been +animated, Little Dorrit answered 'No.' + +'Read them.' + +Little Dorrit took the packet from the still outstretched hand, and +broke the seal. Mrs Clennam then gave her the inner packet that +was addressed to herself, and held the other. The shadow of the +wall and of the prison buildings, which made the room sombre at +noon, made it too dark to read there, with the dusk deepening +apace, save in the window. In the window, where a little of the +bright summer evening sky could shine upon her, Little Dorrit +stood, and read. After a broken exclamation or so of wonder and of +terror, she read in silence. When she had finished, she looked +round, and her old mistress bowed herself before her. + +'You know, now, what I have done.' + +'I think so. I am afraid so; though my mind is so hurried, and so +sorry, and has so much to pity that it has not been able to follow +all I have read,' said Little Dorrit tremulously. + +'I will restore to you what I have withheld from you. Forgive me. +Can you forgive me?' + +'I can, and Heaven knows I do! Do not kiss my dress and kneel to +me; you are too old to kneel to me; I forgive you freely without +that.' + +'I have more yet to ask.' + +'Not in that posture,' said Little Dorrit. 'It is unnatural to see +your grey hair lower than mine. Pray rise; let me help you.' With +that she raised her up, and stood rather shrinking from her, but +looking at her earnestly. + +'The great petition that I make to you (there is another which +grows out of it), the great supplication that I address to your +merciful and gentle heart, is, that you will not disclose this to +Arthur until I am dead. If you think, when you have had time for +consideration, that it can do him any good to know it while I am +yet alive, then tell him. But you will not think that; and in such +case, will you promise me to spare me until I am dead?' + +'I am so sorry, and what I have read has so confused my thoughts,' +returned Little Dorrit, 'that I can scarcely give you a steady +answer. If I should be quite sure that to be acquainted with it +will do Mr Clennam no good--' + +'I know you are attached to him, and will make him the first +consideration. It is right that he should be the first +consideration. I ask that. But, having regarded him, and still +finding that you may spare me for the little time I shall remain on +earth, will you do it?' + +'I will.' + +'GOD bless you!' + +She stood in the shadow so that she was only a veiled form to +Little Dorrit in the light; but the sound of her voice, in saying +those three grateful words, was at once fervent and broken--broken +by emotion as unfamiliar to her frozen eyes as action to her frozen +limbs. + +'You will wonder, perhaps,' she said in a stronger tone, 'that I +can better bear to be known to you whom I have wronged, than to the +son of my enemy who wronged me.--For she did wrong me! She not +only sinned grievously against the Lord, but she wronged me. What +Arthur's father was to me, she made him. From our marriage day I +was his dread, and that she made me. I was the scourge of both, +and that is referable to her. You love Arthur (I can see the blush +upon your face; may it be the dawn of happier days to both of +you!), and you will have thought already that he is as merciful and +kind as you, and why do I not trust myself to him as soon as to +you. Have you not thought so?' + +'No thought,' said Little Dorrit, 'can be quite a stranger to my +heart, that springs out of the knowledge that Mr Clennam is always +to be relied upon for being kind and generous and good.' + +'I do not doubt it. Yet Arthur is, of the whole world, the one +person from whom I would conceal this, while I am in it. I kept +over him as a child, in the days of his first remembrance, my +restraining and correcting hand. I was stern with him, knowing +that the transgressions of the parents are visited on their +offspring, and that there was an angry mark upon him at his birth. +I have sat with him and his father, seeing the weakness of his +father yearning to unbend to him; and forcing it back, that the +child might work out his release in bondage and hardship. I have +seen him, with his mother's face, looking up at me in awe from his +little books, and trying to soften me with his mother's ways that +hardened me.' + +The shrinking of her auditress stopped her for a moment in her flow +of words, delivered in a retrospective gloomy voice. + +'For his good. Not for the satisfaction of my injury. What was I, +and what was the worth of that, before the curse of Heaven! I have +seen that child grow up; not to be pious in a chosen way (his +mother's influence lay too heavy on him for that), but still to be +just and upright, and to be submissive to me. He never loved me, +as I once half-hoped he might--so frail we are, and so do the +corrupt affections of the flesh war with our trusts and tasks; but +he always respected me and ordered himself dutifully to me. He +does to this hour. With an empty place in his heart that he has +never known the meaning of, he has turned away from me and gone his +separate road; but even that he has done considerately and with +deference. These have been his relations towards me. Yours have +been of a much slighter kind, spread over a much shorter time. +When you have sat at your needle in my room, you have been in fear +of me, but you have supposed me to have been doing you a kindness; +you are better informed now, and know me to have done you an +injury. Your misconstruction and misunderstanding of the cause in +which, and the motives with which, I have worked out this work, is +lighter to endure than his would be. I would not, for any worldly +recompense I can imagine, have him in a moment, however blindly, +throw me down from the station I have held before him all his life, +and change me altogether into something he would cast out of his +respect, and think detected and exposed. Let him do it, if it must +be done, when I am not here to see it. Let me never feel, while I +am still alive, that I die before his face, and utterly perish away +from him, like one consumed by lightning and swallowed by an +earthquake.' + +Her pride was very strong in her, the pain of it and of her old +passions was very sharp with her, when she thus expressed herself. +Not less so, when she added: + +'Even now, I see YOU shrink from me, as if I had been cruel.' + +Little Dorrit could not gainsay it. She tried not to show it, but +she recoiled with dread from the state of mind that had burnt so +fiercely and lasted so long. It presented itself to her, with no +sophistry upon it, in its own plain nature. + +'I have done,' said Mrs Clennam,'what it was given to me to do. I +have set myself against evil; not against good. I have been an +instrument of severity against sin. Have not mere sinners like +myself been commissioned to lay it low in all time?' + +'In all time?' repeated Little Dorrit. + +'Even if my own wrong had prevailed with me, and my own vengeance +had moved me, could I have found no justification? None in the old +days when the innocent perished with the guilty 2 a thousand to +one? When the wrath of the hater of the unrighteous was not slaked +even in blood, and yet found favour?' + +'O, Mrs Clennam, Mrs Clennam,' said Little Dorrit, 'angry feelings +and unforgiving deeds are no comfort and no guide to you and me. +My life has been passed in this poor prison, and my teaching has +been very defective; but let me implore you to remember later and +better days. Be guided only by the healer of the sick, the raiser +of the dead, the friend of all who were afflicted and forlorn, the +patient Master who shed tears of compassion for our infirmities. +We cannot but be right if we put all the rest away, and do +everything in remembrance of Him. There is no vengeance and no +infliction of suffering in His life, I am sure. There can be no +confusion in following Him, and seeking for no other footsteps, I +am certain.' + +In the softened light of the window, looking from the scene of her +early trials to the shining sky, she was not in stronger opposition +to the black figure in the shade than the life and doctrine on +which she rested were to that figure's history. It bent its head +low again, and said not a word. It remained thus, until the first +warning bell began to ring. + +'Hark!' cried Mrs Clennam starting, 'I said I had another petition. + +It is one that does not admit of delay. The man who brought you +this packet and possesses these proofs, is now waiting at my house +to be bought off. I can keep this from Arthur, only by buying him +off. He asks a large sum; more than I can get together to pay him +without having time. He refuses to make any abatement, because his +threat is, that if he fails with me, he will come to you. Will you +return with me and show him that you already know it? Will you +return with me and try to prevail with him? Will you come and help +me with him? Do not refuse what I ask in Arthur's name, though I +dare not ask it for Arthur's sake!' + +Little Dorrit yielded willingly. She glided away into the prison +for a few moments, returned, and said she was ready to go. They +went out by another staircase, avoiding the lodge; and coming into +the front court-yard, now all quiet and deserted, gained the +street. + +It was one of those summer evenings when there is no greater +darkness than a long twilight. The vista of street and bridge was +plain to see, and the sky was serene and beautiful. People stood +and sat at their doors, playing with children and enjoying the +evening; numbers were walking for air; the worry of the day had +almost worried itself out, and few but themselves were hurried. As +they crossed the bridge, the clear steeples of the many churches +looked as if they had advanced out of the murk that usually +enshrouded them, and come much nearer. The smoke that rose into +the sky had lost its dingy hue and taken a brightness upon it. The +beauties of the sunset had not faded from the long light films of +cloud that lay at peace in the horizon. From a radiant centre, +over the whole length and breadth of the tranquil firmament, great +shoots of light streamed among the early stars, like signs of the +blessed later covenant of peace and hope that changed the crown of +thorns into a glory. + +Less remarkable, now that she was not alone and it was darker, Mrs +Clennam hurried on at Little Dorrit's side, unmolested. They left +the great thoroughfare at the turning by which she had entered it, +and wound their way down among the silent, empty, cross-streets. +Their feet were at the gateway, when there was a sudden noise like +thunder. + +'What was that! Let us make haste in,' cried Mrs Clennam. + +They were in the gateway. Little Dorrit, with a piercing cry, held +her back. + +In one swift instant the old house was before them, with the man +lying smoking in the window; another thundering sound, and it +heaved, surged outward, opened asunder in fifty places, collapsed, +and fell. Deafened by the noise, stifled, choked, and blinded by +the dust, they hid their faces and stood rooted to the spot. The +dust storm, driving between them and the placid sky, parted for a +moment and showed them the stars. As they looked up, wildly crying +for help, the great pile of chimneys, which was then alone left +standing like a tower in a whirlwind, rocked, broke, and hailed +itself down upon the heap of ruin, as if every tumbling fragment +were intent on burying the crushed wretch deeper. + +So blackened by the flying particles of rubbish as to be +unrecognisable, they ran back from the gateway into the street, +crying and shrieking. There, Mrs Clennam dropped upon the stones; +and she never from that hour moved so much as a finger again, or +had the power to speak one word. For upwards of three years she +reclined in a wheeled chair, looking attentively at those about her +and appearing to understand what they said; but the rigid silence +she had so long held was evermore enforced upon her, and except +that she could move her eyes and faintly express a negative and +affirmative with her head, she lived and died a statue. + +Affery had been looking for them at the prison, and had caught +sight of them at a distance on the bridge. She came up to receive +her old mistress in her arms, to help to carry her into a +neighbouring house, and to be faithful to her. The mystery of the +noises was out now; Affery, like greater people, had always been +right in her facts, and always wrong in the theories she deduced +from them. + +When the storm of dust had cleared away and the summer night was +calm again, numbers of people choked up every avenue of access, and +parties of diggers were formed to relieve one another in digging +among the ruins. There had been a hundred people in the house at +the time of its fall, there had been fifty, there had been fifteen, +there had been two. Rumour finally settled the number at two; the +foreigner and Mr Flintwinch. +The diggers dug all through the short night by flaring pipes of +gas, and on a level with the early sun, and deeper and deeper below +it as it rose into its zenith, and aslant of it as it declined, and +on a level with it again as it departed. Sturdy digging, and +shovelling, and carrying away, in carts, barrows, and baskets, went +on without intermission, by night and by day; but it was night for +the second time when they found the dirty heap of rubbish that had +been the foreigner before his head had been shivered to atoms, like +so much glass, by the great beam that lay upon him, crushing him. + +Still, they had not come upon Flintwinch yet; so the sturdy digging +and shovelling and carrying away went on without intermission by +night and by day. It got about that the old house had had famous +cellarage (which indeed was true), and that Flintwinch had been in +a cellar at the moment, or had had time to escape into one, and +that he was safe under its strong arch, and even that he had been +heard to cry, in hollow, subterranean, suffocated notes, 'Here I +am!' At the opposite extremity of the town it was even known that +the excavators had been able to open a communication with him +through a pipe, and that he had received both soup and brandy by +that channel, and that he had said with admirable fortitude that he +was All right, my lads, with the exception of his collar-bone. But +the digging and shovelling and carrying away went on without +intermission, until the ruins were all dug out, and the cellars +opened to the light; and still no Flintwinch, living or dead, all +right or all wrong, had been turned up by pick or spade. + +It began then to be perceived that Flintwinch had not been there at +the time of the fall; and it began then to be perceived that he had +been rather busy elsewhere, converting securities into as much +money as could be got for them on the shortest notice, and turning +to his own exclusive account his authority to act for the Firm. +Affery, remembering that the clever one had said he would explain +himself further in four-and-twenty hours' time, determined for her +part that his taking himself off within that period with all he +could get, was the final satisfactory sum and substance of his +promised explanation; but she held her peace, devoutly thankful to +be quit of him. As it seemed reasonable to conclude that a man who +had never been buried could not be unburied, the diggers gave him +up when their task was done, and did not dig down for him into the +depths of the earth. + +This was taken in ill part by a great many people, who persisted in +believing that Flintwinch was lying somewhere among the London +geological formation. Nor was their belief much shaken by repeated +intelligence which came over in course of time, that an old man who +wore the tie of his neckcloth under one ear, and who was very well +known to be an Englishman, consorted with the Dutchmen on the +quaint banks of the canals of the Hague and in the drinking-shops +of Amsterdam, under the style and designation of Mynheer von +Flyntevynge. + + +CHAPTER 32 + +Going + + +Arthur continuing to lie very ill in the Marshalsea, and Mr Rugg +descrying no break in the legal sky affording a hope of his +enlargement, Mr Pancks suffered desperately from self-reproaches. +If it had not been for those infallible figures which proved that +Arthur, instead of pining in imprisonment, ought to be promenading +in a carriage and pair, and that Mr Pancks, instead of being +restricted to his clerkly wages, ought to have from three to five +thousand pounds of his own at his immediate disposal, that unhappy +arithmetician would probably have taken to his bed, and there have +made one of the many obscure persons who turned their faces to the +wall and died, as a last sacrifice to the late Mr Merdle's +greatness. Solely supported by his unimpugnable calculations, Mr +Pancks led an unhappy and restless life; constantly carrying his +figures about with him in his hat, and not only going over them +himself on every possible occasion, but entreating every human +being he could lay hold of to go over them with him, and observe +what a clear case it was. Down in Bleeding Heart Yard there was +scarcely an inhabitant of note to whom Mr Pancks had not imparted +his demonstration, and, as figures are catching, a kind of +cyphering measles broke out in that locality, under the influence +of which the whole Yard was light-headed. + +The more restless Mr Pancks grew in his mind, the more impatient he +became of the Patriarch. In their later conferences his snorting +assumed an irritable sound which boded the Patriarch no good; +likewise, Mr Pancks had on several occasions looked harder at the +Patriarchal bumps than was quite reconcilable with the fact of his +not being a painter, or a peruke-maker in search of the living +model. + +However, he steamed in and out of his little back Dock according as +he was wanted or not wanted in the Patriarchal presence, and +business had gone on in its customary course. Bleeding Heart Yard +had been harrowed by Mr Pancks, and cropped by Mr Casby, at the +regular seasons; Mr Pancks had taken all the drudgery and all the +dirt of the business as his share; Mr Casby had taken all the +profits, all the ethereal vapour, and all the moonshine, as his +share; and, in the form of words which that benevolent beamer +generally employed on Saturday evenings, when he twirled his fat +thumbs after striking the week's balance, 'everything had been +satisfactory to all parties--all parties--satisfactory, sir, to all +parties.' + +The Dock of the Steam-Tug, Pancks, had a leaden roof, which, frying +in the very hot sunshine, may have heated the vessel. Be that as +it may, one glowing Saturday evening, on being hailed by the +lumbering bottle-green ship, the Tug instantly came working out of +the Dock in a highly heated condition. +'Mr Pancks,' was the Patriarchal remark, 'you have been remiss, you +have been remiss, sir.' + +'What do you mean by that?' was the short rejoinder. + +The Patriarchal state, always a state of calmness and composure, +was so particularly serene that evening as to be provoking. +Everybody else within the bills of mortality was hot; but the +Patriarch was perfectly cool. Everybody was thirsty, and the +Patriarch was drinking. There was a fragrance of limes or lemons +about him; and he made a drink of golden sherry, which shone in a +large tumbler as if he were drinking the evening sunshine. this +was bad, but not the worst. The worst was, that with his big blue +eyes, and his polished head, and his long white hair, and his +bottle-green legs stretched out before him, terminating in his easy +shoes easily crossed at the instep, he had a radiant appearance of +having in his extensive benevolence made the drink for the human +species, while he himself wanted nothing but his own milk of human +kindness. + +Wherefore, Mr Pancks said, 'What do you mean by that?' and put his +hair up with both hands, in a highly portentous manner. + +'I mean, Mr Pancks, that you must be sharper with the people, +sharper with the people, much sharper with the people, sir. You +don't squeeze them. You don't squeeze them. Your receipts are not +up to the mark. You must squeeze them, sir, or our connection will +not continue to be as satisfactory as I could wish it to be to all +parties. All parties.' + +'Don't I squeeze 'em?' retorted Mr Pancks. 'What else am I made +for?' + +'You are made for nothing else, Mr Pancks. You are made to do your +duty, but you don't do your duty. You are paid to squeeze, and you +must squeeze to pay.' The Patriarch so much surprised himself by +this brilliant turn, after Dr Johnson, which he had not in the +least expected or intended, that he laughed aloud; and repeated +with great satisfaction, as he twirled his thumbs and nodded at his +youthful portrait, 'Paid to squeeze, sir, and must squeeze to pay.' + +'Oh,' said Pancks. 'Anything more?' + +'Yes, sir, yes, sir. Something more. You will please, Mr Pancks, +to squeeze the Yard again, the first thing on Monday morning. ' + +'Oh!' said Pancks. 'Ain't that too soon? I squeezed it dry to- +day.' + +'Nonsense, sir. Not near the mark, not near the mark.' + +'Oh!' said Pancks, watching him as he benevolently gulped down a +good draught of his mixture. 'Anything more?' + +'Yes, sir, yes, sir, something more. I am not at all pleased, Mr +Pancks, with my daughter; not at all pleased. Besides calling much +too often to inquire for Mrs Clennam, Mrs Clennam, who is not just +now in circumstances that are by any means calculated to--to be +satisfactory to all parties, she goes, Mr Pancks, unless I am much +deceived, to inquire for Mr Clennam in jail. In jail.' + +'He's laid up, you know,' said Pancks. 'Perhaps it's kind.' + +'Pooh, pooh, Mr Pancks. She has nothing to do with that, nothing +to do with that. I can't allow it. Let him pay his debts and come +out, come out; pay his debts, and come out.' + +Although Mr Pancks's hair was standing up like strong wire, he gave +it another double-handed impulse in the perpendicular direction, +and smiled at his proprietor in a most hideous manner. + +'You will please to mention to my daughter, Mr Pancks, that I can't +allow it, can't allow it,' said the Patriarch blandly. + +'Oh!' said Pancks. 'You couldn't mention it yourself?' + +'No, sir, no; you are paid to mention it,' the blundering old booby +could not resist the temptation of trying it again, 'and you must +mention it to pay, mention it to pay.' + +'Oh!' said Pancks. 'Anything more?' + +'Yes, sir. It appears to me, Mr Pancks, that you yourself are too +often and too much in that direction, that direction. I recommend +you, Mr Pancks, to dismiss from your attention both your own losses +and other people's losses, and to mind your business, mind your +business.' + +Mr Pancks acknowledged this recommendation with such an +extraordinarily abrupt, short, and loud utterance of the +monosyllable 'Oh!' that even the unwieldy Patriarch moved his blue +eyes in something of a hurry, to look at him. Mr Pancks, with a +sniff of corresponding intensity, then added, 'Anything more?' + +'Not at present, sir, not at present. I am going,' said the +Patriarch, finishing his mixture, and rising with an amiable air, +'to take a little stroll, a little stroll. Perhaps I shall find +you here when I come back. If not, sir, duty, duty; squeeze, +squeeze, squeeze, on Monday; squeeze on Monday!' + +Mr Pancks, after another stiffening of his hair, looked on at the +Patriarchal assumption of the broad-brimmed hat, with a momentary +appearance of indecision contending with a sense of injury. He was +also hotter than at first, and breathed harder. But he suffered Mr +Casby to go out, without offering any further remark, and then took +a peep at him over the little green window-blinds. 'I thought so,' +he observed. 'I knew where you were bound to. Good!' He then +steamed back to his Dock, put it carefully in order, took down his +hat, looked round the Dock, said 'Good-bye!' and puffed away on his +own account. He steered straight for Mrs Plornish's end of +Bleeding Heart Yard, and arrived there, at the top of the steps, +hotter than ever. + +At the top of the steps, resisting Mrs Plornish's invitations to +come and sit along with father in Happy Cottage--which to his +relief were not so numerous as they would have been on any other +night than Saturday, when the connection who so gallantly supported +the business with everything but money gave their orders freely--at +the top of the steps Mr Pancks remained until he beheld the +Patriarch, who always entered the Yard at the other end, slowly +advancing, beaming, and surrounded by suitors. Then Mr Pancks +descended and bore down upon him, with his utmost pressure of steam +on. + +The Patriarch, approaching with his usual benignity, was surprised +to see Mr Pancks, but supposed him to have been stimulated to an +immediate squeeze instead of postponing that operation until +Monday. The population of the Yard were astonished at the meeting, +for the two powers had never been seen there together, within the +memory of the oldest Bleeding Heart. But they were overcome by +unutterable amazement when Mr Pancks, going close up to the most +venerable of men and halting in front of the bottle-green +waistcoat, made a trigger of his right thumb and forefinger, +applied the same to the brim of the broad-brimmed hat, and, with +singular smartness and precision, shot it off the polished head as +if it had been a large marble. + +Having taken this little liberty with the Patriarchal person, Mr +Pancks further astounded and attracted the Bleeding Hearts by +saying in an audible voice, 'Now, you sugary swindler, I mean to +have it out with you!' + +Mr Pancks and the Patriarch were instantly the centre of a press, +all eyes and ears; windows were thrown open, and door-steps were +thronged. + +'What do you pretend to be?' said Mr Pancks. 'What's your moral +game? What do you go in for? Benevolence, an't it? You +benevolent!' Here Mr Pancks, apparently without the intention of +hitting him, but merely to relieve his mind and expend his +superfluous power in wholesome exercise, aimed a blow at the bumpy +head, which the bumpy head ducked to avoid. This singular +performance was repeated, to the ever-increasing admiration of the +spectators, at the end of every succeeding article of Mr Pancks's +oration. + +'I have discharged myself from your service,' said Pancks, 'that I +may tell you what you are. You're one of a lot of impostors that +are the worst lot of all the lots to be met with. Speaking as a +sufferer by both, I don't know that I wouldn't as soon have the +Merdle lot as your lot. You're a driver in disguise, a screwer by +deputy, a wringer, and squeezer, and shaver by substitute. You're +a philanthropic sneak. You're a shabby deceiver!' +(The repetition of the performance at this point was received with +a burst of laughter.) + +'Ask these good people who's the hard man here. They'll tell you +Pancks, I believe.' + +This was confirmed with cries of 'Certainly,' and 'Hear!' + +'But I tell you, good people--Casby! This mound of meekness, this +lump of love, this bottle-green smiler, this is your driver!' said +Pancks. 'If you want to see the man who would flay you alive--here +he is! Don't look for him in me, at thirty shillings a week, but +look for him in Casby, at I don't know how much a year!' + +'Good!' cried several voices. 'Hear Mr Pancks!' + +'Hear Mr Pancks?' cried that gentleman (after repeating the popular +performance). 'Yes, I should think so! It's almost time to hear +Mr Pancks. Mr Pancks has come down into the Yard to-night on +purpose that you should hear him. Pancks is only the Works; but +here's the Winder!' + +The audience would have gone over to Mr Pancks, as one man, woman, +and child, but for the long, grey, silken locks, and the broad- +brimmed hat. + +'Here's the Stop,' said Pancks, 'that sets the tune to be ground. +And there is but one tune, and its name is Grind, Grind, Grind! +Here's the Proprietor, and here's his Grubber. Why, good people, +when he comes smoothly spinning through the Yard to-night, like a +slow-going benevolent Humming-Top, and when you come about him with +your complaints of the Grubber, you don't know what a cheat the +Proprietor is! What do you think of his showing himself to-night, +that I may have all the blame on Monday? What do you think of his +having had me over the coals this very evening, because I don't +squeeze you enough? What do you think of my being, at the present +moment, under special orders to squeeze you dry on Monday?' + +The reply was given in a murmur of 'Shame!' and 'Shabby!' + +'Shabby?' snorted Pancks. 'Yes, I should think so! The lot that +your Casby belongs to, is the shabbiest of all the lots. Setting +their Grubbers on, at a wretched pittance, to do what they're +ashamed and afraid to do and pretend not to do, but what they will +have done, or give a man no rest! Imposing on you to give their +Grubbers nothing but blame, and to give them nothing but credit! +Why, the worst-looking cheat in all this town who gets the value of +eighteenpence under false pretences, an't half such a cheat as this +sign-post of The Casby's Head here!' + +Cries of 'That's true!' and 'No more he an't!' + +'And see what you get of these fellows, besides,' said Pancks' 'See +what more you get of these precious Humming-Tops, revolving among +you with such smoothness that you've no idea of the pattern painted +on 'em, or the little window in 'em. I wish to call your attention +to myself for a moment. I an't an agreeable style of chap, I know +that very well.' + +The auditory were divided on this point; its more uncompromising +members crying, 'No, you are not,' and its politer materials, 'Yes, +you are.' + +'I am, in general,' said Mr Pancks, 'a dry, uncomfortable, dreary +Plodder and Grubber. That's your humble servant. There's his +full-length portrait, painted by himself and presented to you, +warranted a likeness! But what's a man to be, with such a man as +this for his Proprietor? What can be expected of him? Did anybody +ever find boiled mutton and caper-sauce growing in a cocoa-nut?' + +None of the Bleeding Hearts ever had, it was clear from the +alacrity of their response. + +'Well,' said Mr Pancks, 'and neither will you find in Grubbers like +myself, under Proprietors like this, pleasant qualities. I've been +a Grubber from a boy. What has my life been? Fag and grind, fag +and grind, turn the wheel, turn the wheel! I haven't been +agreeable to myself, and I haven't been likely to be agreeable to +anybody else. If I was a shilling a week less useful in ten years' +time, this impostor would give me a shilling a week less; if as +useful a man could be got at sixpence cheaper, he would be taken in +my place at sixpence cheaper. Bargain and sale, bless you! Fixed +principles! It's a mighty fine sign-post, is The Casby's Head,' +said Mr Pancks, surveying it with anything rather than admiration; +'but the real name of the House is the Sham's Arms. Its motto is, +Keep the Grubber always at it. Is any gentleman present,' said Mr +Pancks, breaking off and looking round, 'acquainted with the +English Grammar?' + +Bleeding Heart Yard was shy of claiming that acquaintance. + +'It's no matter,' said Mr Pancks, 'I merely wish to remark that the +task this Proprietor has set me, has been never to leave off +conjugating the Imperative Mood Present Tense of the verb To keep +always at it. Keep thou always at it. Let him keep always at it. +Keep we or do we keep always at it. Keep ye or do ye or you keep +always at it. Let them keep always at it. Here is your benevolent +Patriarch of a Casby, and there is his golden rule. He is +uncommonly improving to look at, and I am not at all so. He is as +sweet as honey, and I am as dull as ditch-water. He provides the +pitch, and I handle it, and it sticks to me. Now,' said Mr Pancks, +closing upon his late Proprietor again, from whom he had withdrawn +a little for the better display of him to the Yard; 'as I am not +accustomed to speak in public, and as I have made a rather lengthy +speech, all circumstances considered, I shall bring my observations +to a close by requesting you to get out of this.' + +The Last of the Patriarchs had been so seized by assault, and +required so much room to catch an idea in, an so much more room to +turn it in, that he had not a word to offer in reply. He appeared +to be meditating some Patriarchal way out of his delicate position, +when Mr Pancks, once more suddenly applying the trigger to his hat, +shot it off again with his former dexterity. On the preceding +occasion, one or two of the Bleeding Heart Yarders had obsequiously +picked it up and handed it to its owner; but Mr Pancks had now so +far impressed his audience, that the Patriarch had to turn and +stoop for it himself. + +Quick as lightning, Mr Pancks, who, for some moments, had had his +right hand in his coat pocket, whipped out a pair of shears, +swooped upon the Patriarch behind, and snipped off short the sacred +locks that flowed upon his shoulders. In a paroxysm of animosity +and rapidity, Mr Pancks then caught the broad-brimmed hat out of +the astounded Patriarch's hand, cut it down into a mere stewpan, +and fixed it on the Patriarch's head. + +Before the frightful results of this desperate action, Mr Pancks +himself recoiled in consternation. A bare-polled, goggle-eyed, +big-headed lumbering personage stood staring at him, not in the +least impressive, not in the least venerable, who seemed to have +started out of the earth to ask what was become of Casby. After +staring at this phantom in return, in silent awe, Mr Pancks threw +down his shears, and fled for a place of hiding, where he might lie +sheltered from the consequences of his crime. Mr Pancks deemed it +prudent to use all possible despatch in making off, though he was +pursued by nothing but the sound of laughter in Bleeding Heart +Yard, rippling through the air and making it ring again. + + + + +CHAPTER 33 + +Going! + + +The changes of a fevered room are slow and fluctuating; but the +changes of the fevered world are rapid and irrevocable. + +It was Little Dorrit's lot to wait upon both kinds of change. The +Marshalsea walls, during a portion of every day, again embraced her +in their shadows as their child, while she thought for Clennam, +worked for him, watched him, and only left him, still to devote her +utmost love and care to him. Her part in the life outside the gate +urged its pressing claims upon her too, and her patience untiringly +responded to them. Here was Fanny, proud, fitful, whimsical, +further advanced in that disqualified state for going into society +which had so much fretted her on the evening of the tortoise-shell +knife, resolved always to want comfort, resolved not to be +comforted, resolved to be deeply wronged, and resolved that nobody +should have the audacity to think her so. Here was her brother, a +weak, proud, tipsy, young old man, shaking from head to foot, +talking as indistinctly as if some of the money he plumed himself +upon had got into his mouth and couldn't be got out, unable to walk +alone in any act of his life, and patronising the sister whom he +selfishly loved (he always had that negative merit, ill-starred and +ill-launched Tip!) because he suffered her to lead him. Here was +Mrs Merdle in gauzy mourning--the original cap whereof had possibly +been rent to pieces in a fit of grief, but had certainly yielded to +a highly becoming article from the Parisian market--warring with +Fanny foot to foot, and breasting her with her desolate bosom every +hour in the day. Here was poor Mr Sparkler, not knowing how to +keep the peace between them, but humbly inclining to the opinion +that they could do no better than agree that they were both +remarkably fine women, and that there was no nonsense about either +of them--for which gentle recommendation they united in falling +upon him frightfully. Then, too, here was Mrs General, got home +from foreign parts, sending a Prune and a Prism by post every other +day, demanding a new Testimonial by way of recommendation to some +vacant appointment or other. Of which remarkable gentlewoman it +may be finally observed, that there surely never was a gentlewoman +of whose transcendent fitness for any vacant appointment on the +face of this earth, so many people were (as the warmth of her +Testimonials evinced) so perfectly satisfied--or who was so very +unfortunate in having a large circle of ardent and distinguished +admirers, who never themselves happened to want her in any +capacity. + +On the first crash of the eminent Mr Merdle's decease, many +important persons had been unable to determine whether they should +cut Mrs Merdle, or comfort her. As it seemed, however, essential +to the strength of their own case that they should admit her to +have been cruelly deceived, they graciously made the admission, and +continued to know her. It followed that Mrs Merdle, as a woman of +fashion and good breeding who had been sacrificed to the wiles of +a vulgar barbarian (for Mr Merdle was found out from the crown of +his head to the sole of his foot, the moment he was found out in +his pocket), must be actively championed by her order for her +order's sake. She returned this fealty by causing it to be +understood that she was even more incensed against the felonious +shade of the deceased than anybody else was; thus, on the whole, +she came out of her furnace like a wise woman, and did exceedingly +well. + +Mr Sparkler's lordship was fortunately one of those shelves on +which a gentleman is considered to be put away for life, unless +there should be reasons for hoisting him up with the Barnacle crane +to a more lucrative height. That patriotic servant accordingly +stuck to his colours (the Standard of four Quarterings), and was a +perfect Nelson in respect of nailing them to the mast. On the +profits of his intrepidity, Mrs Sparkler and Mrs Merdle, inhabiting +different floors of the genteel little temple of inconvenience to +which the smell of the day before yesterday's soup and coach-horses +was as constant as Death to man, arrayed themselves to fight it out +in the lists of Society, sworn rivals. And Little Dorrit, seeing +all these things as they developed themselves, could not but +wonder, anxiously, into what back corner of the genteel +establishment Fanny's children would be poked by-and-by, and who +would take care of those unborn little victims. + +Arthur being far too ill to be spoken with on subjects of emotion +or anxiety, and his recovery greatly depending on the repose into +which his weakness could be hushed, Little Dorrit's sole reliance +during this heavy period was on Mr Meagles. He was still abroad; +but she had written to him through his daughter, immediately after +first seeing Arthur in the Marshalsea and since, confiding her +uneasiness to him on the points on which she was most anxious, but +especially on one. To that one, the continued absence of Mr +Meagles abroad, instead of his comforting presence in the +Marshalsea, was referable. + +Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had +fallen into Rigaud's hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general +outline of that story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted +his fate. The old cautious habits of the scales and scoop at once +showed Mr Meagles the importance of recovering the original papers; +wherefore he wrote back to Little Dorrit, strongly confirming her +in the solicitude she expressed on that head, and adding that he +would not come over to England 'without making some attempt to +trace them out.' + +By this time Mr Henry Gowan had made up his mind that it would be +agreeable to him not to know the Meagleses. He was so considerate +as to lay no injunctions on his wife in that particular; but he +mentioned to Mr Meagles that personally they did not appear to him +to get on together, and that he thought it would be a good thing +if--politely, and without any scene, or anything of that sort--they +agreed that they were the best fellows in the world, but were best +apart. Poor Mr Meagles, who was already sensible that he did not +advance his daughter's happiness by being constantly slighted in +her presence, said 'Good, Henry! You are my Pet's husband; you +have displaced me, in the course of nature; if you wish it, good!' +This arrangement involved the contingent advantage, which perhaps +Henry Gowan had not foreseen, that both Mr and Mrs Meagles were +more liberal than before to their daughter, when their +communication was only with her and her young child: and that his +high spirit found itself better provided with money, without being +under the degrading necessity of knowing whence it came. + +Mr Meagles, at such a period, naturally seized an occupation with +great ardour. He knew from his daughter the various towns which +Rigaud had been haunting, and the various hotels at which he had +been living for some time back. The occupation he set himself was +to visit these with all discretion and speed, and, in the event of +finding anywhere that he had left a bill unpaid, and a box or +parcel behind, to pay such bill, and bring away such box or parcel. + +With no other attendant than Mother, Mr Meagles went upon his +pilgrimage, and encountered a number of adventures. Not the least +of his difficulties was, that he never knew what was said to him, +and that he pursued his inquiries among people who never knew what +he said to them. Still, with an unshaken confidence that the +English tongue was somehow the mother tongue of the whole world, +only the people were too stupid to know it, Mr Meagles harangued +innkeepers in the most voluble manner, entered into loud +explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly renounced +replies in the native language of the respondents, on the ground +that they were 'all bosh.' Sometimes interpreters were called in; +whom Mr Meagles addressed in such idiomatic terms of speech, as +instantly to extinguish and shut up--which made the matter worse. +On a balance of the account, however, it may be doubted whether he +lost much; for, although he found no property, he found so many +debts and various associations of discredit with the proper name, +which was the only word he made intelligible, that he was almost +everywhere overwhelmed with injurious accusations. On no fewer +than four occasions the police were called in to receive +denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of Industry, a good-for- +nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious language he bore +with the best temper (having no idea what it meant), and was in the +most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and public +carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a cheerful +and fluent Briton as he was, with Mother under his arm. + +But, in his own tongue, and in his own head, Mr Meagles was a +clear, shrewd, persevering man. When he had 'worked round,' as he +called it, to Paris in his pilgrimage, and had wholly failed in it +so far, he was not disheartened. 'The nearer to England I follow +him, you see, Mother,' argued Mr Meagles, 'the nearer I am likely +to come to the papers, whether they turn up or no. Because it is +only reasonable to conclude that he would deposit them somewhere +where they would be safe from people over in England, and where +they would yet be accessible to himself, don't you see?' + +At Paris Mr Meagles found a letter from Little Dorrit, lying +waiting for him; in which she mentioned that she had been able to +talk for a minute or two with Mr Clennam about this man who was no +more; and that when she told Mr Clennam that his friend Mr Meagles, +who was on his way to see him, had an interest in ascertaining +something about the man if he could, he had asked her to tell Mr +Meagles that he had been known to Miss Wade, then living in such a +street at Calais. 'Oho!' said Mr Meagles. + +As soon afterwards as might be in those Diligence days, Mr Meagles +rang the cracked bell at the cracked gate, and it jarred open, and +the peasant-woman stood in the dark doorway, saying, 'Ice-say! +Seer! Who?' In acknowledgment of whose address, Mr Meagles +murmured to himself that there was some sense about these Calais +people, who really did know something of what you and themselves +were up to; and returned, 'Miss Wade, my dear.' He was then shown +into the presence of Miss Wade. + +'It's some time since we met,' said Mr Meagles, clearing his +throat; 'I hope you have been pretty well, Miss Wade?' + +Without hoping that he or anybody else had been pretty well, Miss +Wade asked him to what she was indebted for the honour of seeing +him again? Mr Meagles, in the meanwhile, glanced all round the +room without observing anything in the shape of a box. + +'Why, the truth is, Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, in a comfortable, +managing, not to say coaxing voice, 'it is possible that you may be +able to throw a light upon a little something that is at present +dark. Any unpleasant bygones between us are bygones, I hope. +Can't be helped now. You recollect my daughter? Time changes so! +A mother!' + +In his innocence, Mr Meagles could not have struck a worse key- +note. He paused for any expression of interest, but paused in +vain. + +'That is not the subject you wished to enter on?' she said, after +a cold silence. + +'No, no,' returned Mr Meagles. 'No. I thought your good nature +might--' + +'I thought you knew,' she interrupted, with a smile, 'that my good +nature is not to be calculated upon?' + +'Don't say so,' said Mr Meagles; 'you do yourself an injustice. +However, to come to the point.' For he was sensible of having +gained nothing by approaching it in a roundabout way. 'I have +heard from my friend Clennam, who, you will be sorry to hear, has +been and still is very ill--' + +He paused again, and again she was silent. + +'--that you had some knowledge of one Blandois, lately killed in +London by a violent accident. Now, don't mistake me! I know it +was a slight knowledge,' said Mr Meagles, dexterously forestalling +an angry interruption which he saw about to break. 'I am fully +aware of that. It was a slight knowledge, I know. But the +question is,' Mr Meagles's voice here became comfortable again, +'did he, on his way to England last time, leave a box of papers, or +a bundle of papers, or some papers or other in some receptacle or +other--any papers--with you: begging you to allow him to leave them +here for a short time, until he wanted them?' + +'The question is?' she repeated. 'Whose question is?' + +'Mine,' said Mr Meagles. 'And not only mine but Clennam's +question, and other people's question. Now, I am sure,' continued +Mr Meagles, whose heart was overflowing with Pet, 'that you can't +have any unkind feeling towards my daughter; it's impossible. +Well! It's her question, too; being one in which a particular +friend of hers is nearly interested. So here I am, frankly to say +that is the question, and to ask, Now, did he?' + +'Upon my word,' she returned, 'I seem to be a mark for everybody +who knew anything of a man I once in my life hired, and paid, and +dismissed, to aim their questions at!' + +'Now, don't,' remonstrated Mr Meagles, 'don't! Don't take offence, +because it's the plainest question in the world, and might be asked +of any one. The documents I refer to were not his own, were +wrongfully obtained, might at some time or other be troublesome to +an innocent person to have in keeping, and are sought by the people +to whom they really belong. He passed through Calais going to +London, and there were reasons why he should not take them with him +then, why he should wish to be able to put his hand upon them +readily, and why he should distrust leaving them with people of his +own sort. Did he leave them here? I declare if I knew how to +avoid giving you offence, I would take any pains to do it. I put +the question personally, but there's nothing personal in it. I +might put it to any one; I have put it already to many people. Did +he leave them here? Did he leave anything here?' + +'No.' + +'Then unfortunately, Miss Wade, you know nothing about them?' + +'I know nothing about them. I have now answered your unaccountable +question. He did not leave them here, and I know nothing about +them.' + +'There!' said Mr Meagles rising. 'I am sorry for it; that's over; +and I hope there is not much harm done.--Tattycoram well, Miss +Wade?' + +'Harriet well? O yes!' + +'I have put my foot in it again,' said Mr Meagles, thus corrected. +'I can't keep my foot out of it here, it seems. Perhaps, if I had +thought twice about it, I might never have given her the jingling +name. But, when one means to be good-natured and sportive with +young people, one doesn't think twice. Her old friend leaves a +kind word for her, Miss Wade, if you should think proper to deliver +it.' + +She said nothing as to that; and Mr Meagles, taking his honest face +out of the dull room, where it shone like a sun, took it to the +Hotel where he had left Mrs Meagles, and where he made the Report: +'Beaten, Mother; no effects!' He took it next to the London Steam +Packet, which sailed in the night; and next to the Marshalsea. + +The faithful John was on duty when Father and Mother Meagles +presented themselves at the wicket towards nightfall. Miss Dorrit +was not there then, he said; but she had been there in the morning, +and invariably came in the evening. Mr Clennam was slowly mending; +and Maggy and Mrs Plornish and Mr Baptist took care of him by +turns. Miss Dorrit was sure to come back that evening before the +bell rang. There was the room the Marshal had lent her, up-stairs, +in which they could wait for her, if they pleased. Mistrustful +that it might be hazardous to Arthur to see him without +preparation, Mr Meagles accepted the offer; and they were left shut +up in the room, looking down through its barred window into the +jail. + +The cramped area of the prison had such an effect on Mrs Meagles +that she began to weep, and such an effect on Mr Meagles that he +began to gasp for air. He was walking up and down the room, +panting, and making himself worse by laboriously fanning himself +with her handkerchief, when he turned towards the opening door. + +'Eh? Good gracious!' said Mr Meagles, 'this is not Miss Dorrit! +Why, Mother, look! Tattycoram!' + +No other. And in Tattycoram's arms was an iron box some two feet +square. Such a box had Affery Flintwinch seen, in the first of her +dreams, going out of the old house in the dead of the night under +Double's arm. This, Tattycoram put on the ground at her old +master's feet: this, Tattycoram fell on her knees by, and beat her +hands upon, crying half in exultation and half in despair, half in +laughter and half in tears, 'Pardon, dear Master; take me back, +dear Mistress; here it is!' + +'Tatty!' exclaimed Mr Meagles. + +'What you wanted!' said Tattycoram. 'Here it is! I was put in the +next room not to see you. I heard you ask her about it, I heard +her say she hadn't got it, I was there when he left it, and I took +it at bedtime and brought it away. Here it is!' + +'Why, my girl,' cried Mr Meagles, more breathless than before, 'how +did you come over?' + +'I came in the boat with you. I was sitting wrapped up at the +other end. When you took a coach at the wharf, I took another +coach and followed you here. She never would have given it up +after what you had said to her about its being wanted; she would +sooner have sunk it in the sea, or burnt it. But, here it is!' + +The glow and rapture that the girl was in, with her 'Here it is!' + +'She never wanted it to be left, I must say that for her; but he +left it, and I knew well that after what you said, and after her +denying it, she never would have given it up. But here it is! +Dear Master, dear Mistress, take me back again, and give me back +the dear old name! Let this intercede for me. Here it is!' + +Father and Mother Meagles never deserved their names better than +when they took the headstrong foundling-girl into their protection +again. + +'Oh! I have been so wretched,' cried Tattycoram, weeping much +more, 'always so unhappy, and so repentant! I was afraid of her +from the first time I saw her. I knew she had got a power over me +through understanding what was bad in me so well. It was a madness +in me, and she could raise it whenever she liked. I used to think, +when I got into that state, that people were all against me because +of my first beginning; and the kinder they were to me, the worse +fault I found in them. I made it out that they triumphed above me, +and that they wanted to make me envy them, when I know--when I even +knew then--that they never thought of such a thing. And my +beautiful young mistress not so happy as she ought to have been, +and I gone away from her! Such a brute and a wretch as she must +think me! But you'll say a word to her for me, and ask her to be +as forgiving as you two are? For I am not so bad as I was,' +pleaded Tattycoram; 'I am bad enough, but not so bad as I was, +indeed. I have had Miss Wade before me all this time, as if it was +my own self grown ripe--turning everything the wrong way, and +twisting all good into evil. I have had her before me all this +time, finding no pleasure in anything but keeping me as miserable, +suspicious, and tormenting as herself. Not that she had much to +do, to do that,' cried Tattycoram, in a closing great burst of +distress, 'for I was as bad as bad could be. I only mean to say, +that, after what I have gone through, I hope I shall never be quite +so bad again, and that I shall get better by very slow degrees. +I'll try very hard. I won't stop at five-and-twenty, sir, I'll +count five-and-twenty hundred, five-and-twenty thousand!' + +Another opening of the door, and Tattycoram subsided, and Little +Dorrit came in, and Mr Meagles with pride and joy produced the box, +and her gentle face was lighted up with grateful happiness and joy. + +The secret was safe now! She could keep her own part of it from +him; he should never know of her loss; in time to come he should +know all that was of import to himself; but he should never know +what concerned her only. That was all passed, all forgiven, all +forgotten. + +'Now, my dear Miss Dorrit,' said Mr Meagles; 'I am a man of +business--or at least was--and I am going to take my measures +promptly, in that character. Had I better see Arthur to-night?' + +'I think not to-night. I will go to his room and ascertain how he +is. But I think it will be better not to see him to-night.' + +'I am much of your opinion, my dear,' said Mr Meagles, 'and +therefore I have not been any nearer to him than this dismal room. +Then I shall probably not see him for some little time to come. +But I'll explain what I mean when you come back.' + +She left the room. Mr Meagles, looking through the bars of the +window, saw her pass out of the Lodge below him into the prison- +yard. He said gently, 'Tattycoram, come to me a moment, my good +girl.' + +She went up to the window. + +'You see that young lady who was here just now--that little, quiet, +fragile figure passing along there, Tatty? Look. The people stand +out of the way to let her go by. The men--see the poor, shabby +fellows--pull off their hats to her quite politely, and now she +glides in at that doorway. See her, Tattycoram?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'I have heard tell, Tatty, that she was once regularly called the +child of this place. She was born here, and lived here many years. + +I can't breathe here. A doleful place to be born and bred in, +Tattycoram?' + +'Yes indeed, sir!' + +'If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself +that everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, +and cast it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably an +useless existence. Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her +young life has been one of active resignation, goodness, and noble +service. Shall I tell you what I consider those eyes of hers, that +were here just now, to have always looked at, to get that +expression?' + +'Yes, if you please, sir.' + +'Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no +antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against +us with the Almighty, or with ourselves.' + +They remained at the window, Mother joining them and pitying the +prisoners, until she was seen coming back. She was soon in the +room, and recommended that Arthur, whom she had left calm and +composed, should not be visited that night. + +'Good!' said Mr Meagles, cheerily. 'I have not a doubt that's +best. I shall trust my remembrances then, my sweet nurse, in your +hands, and I well know they couldn't be in better. I am off again +to-morrow morning.' + +Little Dorrit, surprised, asked him where? + +'My dear,' said Mr Meagles, 'I can't live without breathing. This +place has taken my breath away, and I shall never get it back again +until Arthur is out of this place.' + +'How is that a reason for going off again to-morrow morning?' + +'You shall understand,' said Mr Meagles. 'To-night we three will +put up at a City Hotel. To-morrow morning, Mother and Tattycoram +will go down to Twickenham, where Mrs Tickit, sitting attended by +Dr Buchan in the parlour-window, will think them a couple of +ghosts; and I shall go abroad again for Doyce. We must have Dan +here. Now, I tell you, my love, it's of no use writing and +planning and conditionally speculating upon this and that and the +other, at uncertain intervals and distances; we must have Doyce +here. I devote myself at daybreak to-morrow morning, to bringing +Doyce here. It's nothing to me to go and find him. I'm an old +traveller, and all foreign languages and customs are alike to me--I +never understand anything about any of 'em. Therefore I can't be +put to any inconvenience. Go at once I must, it stands to reason; +because I can't live without breathing freely; and I can't breathe +freely until Arthur is out of this Marshalsea. I am stifled at the +present moment, and have scarcely breath enough to say this much, +and to carry this precious box down-stairs for you.' + +They got into the street as the bell began to ring, Mr Meagles +carrying the box. Little Dorrit had no conveyance there: which +rather surprised him. He called a coach for her and she got into +it, and he placed the box beside her when she was seated. In her +joy and gratitude she kissed his hand. + +'I don't like that, my dear,' said Mr Meagles. 'It goes against my +feeling of what's right, that YOU should do homage to ME--at the +Marshalsea Gate.' + +She bent forward, and kissed his cheek. + +'You remind me of the days,' said Mr Meagles, suddenly drooping-- +'but she's very fond of him, and hides his faults, and thinks that +no one sees them--and he certainly is well connected and of a very +good family!' + +It was the only comfort he had in the loss of his daughter, and if +he made the most of it, who could blame him? + + + + +CHAPTER 34 + +Gone + + +On a healthy autumn day, the Marshalsea prisoner, weak but +otherwise restored, sat listening to a voice that read to him. On +a healthy autumn day; when the golden fields had been reaped and +ploughed again, when the summer fruits had ripened and waned, when +the green perspectives of hops had been laid low by the busy +pickers, when the apples clustering in the orchards were russet, +and the berries of the mountain ash were crimson among the +yellowing foliage. Already in the woods, glimpses of the hardy +winter that was coming were to be caught through unaccustomed +openings among the boughs where the prospect shone defined and +clear, free from the bloom of the drowsy summer weather, which had +rested on it as the bloom lies on the plum. So, from the seashore +the ocean was no longer to be seen lying asleep in the heat, but +its thousand sparkling eyes were open, and its whole breadth was in +joyful animation, from the cool sand on the beach to the little +sails on the horizon, drifting away like autumn-tinted leaves that +had drifted from the trees. +Changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at all the seasons with +its fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison had not a +touch of any of these beauties on it. Blossom what would, its +bricks and bars bore uniformly the same dead crop. Yet Clennam, +listening to the voice as it read to him, heard in it all that +great Nature was doing, heard in it all the soothing songs she +sings to man. At no Mother's knee but hers had he ever dwelt in +his youth on hopeful promises, on playful fancies, on the harvests +of tenderness and humility that lie hidden in the early-fostered +seeds of the imagination; on the oaks of retreat from blighting +winds, that have the germs of their strong roots in nursery acorns. + +But, in the tones of the voice that read to him, there were +memories of an old feeling of such things, and echoes of every +merciful and loving whisper that had ever stolen to him in his +life. + +When the voice stopped, he put his hand over his eyes, murmuring +that the light was strong upon them. + + +Little Dorrit put the book by, and presently arose quietly to shade +the window. Maggy sat at her needlework in her old place. The +light softened, Little Dorrit brought her chair closer to his side. + +'This will soon be over now, dear Mr Clennam. Not only are Mr +Doyce's letters to you so full of friendship and encouragement, but +Mr Rugg says his letters to him are so full of help, and that +everybody (now a little anger is past) is so considerate, and +speaks so well of you, that it will soon be over now.' + +'Dear girl. Dear heart. Good angel!' + +'You praise me far too much. And yet it is such an exquisite +pleasure to me to hear you speak so feelingly, and to--and to see,' +said Little Dorrit, raising her eyes to his, 'how deeply you mean +it, that I cannot say Don't.' + +He lifted her hand to his lips. + +'You have been here many, many times, when I have not seen you, +Little Dorrit?' + +'Yes, I have been here sometimes when I have not come into the +room.' + +'Very often?' + +'Rather often,' said Little Dorrit, timidly. + +'Every day?' + +'I think,' said Little Dorrit, after hesitating, 'that I have been +here at least twice every day.' +He might have released the little light hand after fervently +kissing it again; but that, with a very gentle lingering where it +was, it seemed to court being retained. He took it in both of his, +and it lay softly on his breast. + +'Dear Little Dorrit, it is not my imprisonment only that will soon +be over. This sacrifice of you must be ended. We must learn to +part again, and to take our different ways so wide asunder. You +have not forgotten what we said together, when you came back?' + +'O no, I have not forgotten it. But something has been--You feel +quite strong to-day, don't you?' + +'Quite strong.' + +The hand he held crept up a little nearer his face. + +'Do you feel quite strong enough to know what a great fortune I +have got?' + + +'I shall be very glad to be told. No fortune can be too great or +good for Little Dorrit.' + +'I have been anxiously waiting to tell you. I have been longing +and longing to tell you. You are sure you will not take it?' + +'Never!' + +'You are quite sure you will not take half of it?' + +'Never, dear Little Dorrit!' + +As she looked at him silently, there was something in her +affectionate face that he did not quite comprehend: something that +could have broken into tears in a moment, and yet that was happy +and proud. + +'You will be sorry to hear what I have to tell you about Fanny. +Poor Fanny has lost everything. She has nothing left but her +husband's income. All that papa gave her when she married was lost +as your money was lost. It was in the same hands, and it is all +gone.' + +Arthur was more shocked than surprised to hear it. 'I had hoped it +might not be so bad,' he said: 'but I had feared a heavy loss +there, knowing the connection between her husband and the +defaulter.' + +'Yes. It is all gone. I am very sorry for Fanny; very, very, very +sorry for poor Fanny. My poor brother too!' +'Had he property in the same hands?' + +'Yes! And it's all gone.--How much do you think my own great +fortune is?' + +As Arthur looked at her inquiringly, with a new apprehension on +him, she withdrew her hand, and laid her face down on the spot +where it had rested. + +'I have nothing in the world. I am as poor as when I lived here. +When papa came over to England, he confided everything he had to +the same hands, and it is all swept away. O my dearest and best, +are you quite sure you will not share my fortune with me now?' + +Locked in his arms, held to his heart, with his manly tears upon +her own cheek, she drew the slight hand round his neck, and clasped +it in its fellow-hand. + +' Never to part, my dearest Arthur; never any more, until the last! + +I never was rich before, I never was proud before, I never was +happy before, I am rich in being taken by you, I am proud in having +been resigned by you, I am happy in being with you in this prison, +as I should be happy in coming back to it with you, if it should be +the will of GOD, and comforting and serving you with all my love +and truth. I am yours anywhere, everywhere! I love you dearly! +I would rather pass my life here with you, and go out daily, +working for our bread, than I would have the greatest fortune that +ever was told, and be the greatest lady that ever was honoured. O, +if poor papa may only know how blest at last my heart is, in this +room where he suffered for so many years!' + +Maggy had of course been staring from the first, and had of course +been crying her eyes out long before this. Maggy was now so +overjoyed that, after hugging her little mother with all her might, +she went down-stairs like a clog-hornpipe to find somebody or other +to whom to impart her gladness. Whom should Maggy meet but Flora +and Mr F.'s Aunt opportunely coming in? And whom else, as a +consequence of that meeting, should Little Dorrit find waiting for +herself, when, a good two or three hours afterwards, she went out? + +Flora's eyes were a little red, and she seemed rather out of +spirits. Mr F.'s Aunt was so stiffened that she had the appearance +of being past bending by any means short of powerful mechanical +pressure. Her bonnet was cocked up behind in a terrific manner; +and her stony reticule was as rigid as if it had been petrified by +the Gorgon's head, and had got it at that moment inside. With +these imposing attributes, Mr F.'s Aunt, publicly seated on the +steps of the Marshal's official residence, had been for the two or +three hours in question a great boon to the younger inhabitants of +the Borough, whose sallies of humour she had considerably flushed +herself by resenting at the point of her umbrella, from time to +time. + +'Painfully aware, Miss Dorrit, I am sure,' said Flora, 'that to +propose an adjournment to any place to one so far removed by +fortune and so courted and caressed by the best society must ever +appear intruding even if not a pie-shop far below your present +sphere and a back-parlour though a civil man but if for the sake of +Arthur--cannot overcome it more improper now than ever late Doyce +and Clennam--one last remark I might wish to make one last +explanation I might wish to offer perhaps your good nature might +excuse under pretence of three kidney ones the humble place of +conversation.' + +Rightly interpreting this rather obscure speech, Little Dorrit +returned that she was quite at Flora's disposition. Flora +accordingly led the way across the road to the pie-shop in +question: Mr F.'s Aunt stalking across in the rear, and putting +herself in the way of being run over, with a perseverance worthy of +a better cause. + +When the 'three kidney ones,' which were to be a blind to the +conversation, were set before them on three little tin platters, +each kidney one ornamented with a hole at the top, into which the +civil man poured hot gravy out of a spouted can as if he were +feeding three lamps, Flora took out her pocket-handkerchief. + +'If Fancy's fair dreams,' she began, 'have ever pictured that when +Arthur--cannot overcome it pray excuse me--was restored to freedom +even a pie as far from flaky as the present and so deficient in +kidney as to be in that respect like a minced nutmeg might not +prove unacceptable if offered by the hand of true regard such +visions have for ever fled and all is cancelled but being aware +that tender relations are in contemplation beg to state that I +heartily wish well to both and find no fault with either not the +least, it may be withering to know that ere the hand of Time had +made me much less slim than formerly and dreadfully red on the +slightest exertion particularly after eating I well know when it +takes the form of a rash, it might have been and was not through +the interruption of parents and mental torpor succeeded until the +mysterious clue was held by Mr F. still I would not be ungenerous +to either and I heartily wish well to both.' + +Little Dorrit took her hand, and thanked her for all her old +kindness. + +'Call it not kindness,' returned Flora, giving her an honest kiss, +'for you always were the best and dearest little thing that ever +was if I may take the liberty and even in a money point of view a +saving being Conscience itself though I must add much more +agreeable than mine ever was to me for though not I hope more +burdened than other people's yet I have always found it far readier +to make one uncomfortable than comfortable and evidently taking a +greater pleasure in doing it but I am wandering, one hope I wish to +express ere yet the closing scene draws in and it is that I do +trust for the sake of old times and old sincerity that Arthur will +know that I didn't desert him in his misfortunes but that I came +backwards and forwards constantly to ask if I could do anything for +him and that I sat in the pie-shop where they very civilly fetched +something warm in a tumbler from the hotel and really very nice +hours after hours to keep him company over the way without his +knowing it.' + +Flora really had tears in her eyes now, and they showed her to +great advantage. + +'Over and above which,' said Flora, 'I earnestly beg you as the +dearest thing that ever was if you'll still excuse the familiarity +from one who moves in very different circles to let Arthur +understand that I don't know after all whether it wasn't all +nonsense between us though pleasant at the time and trying too and +certainly Mr F. did work a change and the spell being broken +nothing could be expected to take place without weaving it afresh +which various circumstances have combined to prevent of which +perhaps not the least powerful was that it was not to be, I am not +prepared to say that if it had been agreeable to Arthur and had +brought itself about naturally in the first instance I should not +have been very glad being of a lively disposition and moped at home +where papa undoubtedly is the most aggravating of his sex and not +improved since having been cut down by the hand of the Incendiary +into something of which I never saw the counterpart in all my life +but jealousy is not my character nor ill-will though many faults.' + +Without having been able closely to follow Mrs Finching through +this labyrinth, Little Dorrit understood its purpose, and cordially +accepted the trust. + +'The withered chaplet my dear,' said Flora, with great enjoyment, +'is then perished the column is crumbled and the pyramid is +standing upside down upon its what's-his-name call it not giddiness +call it not weakness call it not folly I must now retire into +privacy and look upon the ashes of departed joys no more but taking +a further liberty of paying for the pastry which has formed the +humble pretext of our interview will for ever say Adieu!' + +Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who +had been elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind +since her first assumption of that public position on the Marshal's +steps, took the present opportunity of addressing the following +Sibyllic apostrophe to the relict of her late nephew. + +'Bring him for'ard, and I'll chuck him out o' winder!' + +Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman by explaining +that they were going home to dinner. Mr F.'s Aunt persisted in +replying, 'Bring him for'ard and I'll chuck him out o' winder!' +Having reiterated this demand an immense number of times, with a +sustained glare of defiance at Little Dorrit, Mr F.'s Aunt folded +her arms, and sat down in the corner of the pie-shop parlour; +steadfastly refusing to budge until such time as 'he' should have +been 'brought for'ard,' and the chucking portion of his destiny +accomplished. + +In this condition of things, Flora confided to Little Dorrit that +she had not seen Mr F.'s Aunt so full of life and character for +weeks; that she would find it necessary to remain there 'hours +perhaps,' until the inexorable old lady could be softened; and that +she could manage her best alone. They parted, therefore, in the +friendliest manner, and with the kindest feeling on both sides. + +Mr F.'s Aunt holding out like a grim fortress, and Flora becoming +in need of refreshment, a messenger was despatched to the hotel for +the tumbler already glanced at, which was afterwards replenished. +With the aid of its content, a newspaper, and some skimming of the +cream of the pie-stock, Flora got through the remainder of the day +in perfect good humour; though occasionally embarrassed by the +consequences of an idle rumour which circulated among the credulous +infants of the neighbourhood, to the effect that an old lady had +sold herself to the pie-shop to be made up, and was then sitting in +the pie-shop parlour, declining to complete her contract. This +attracted so many young persons of both sexes, and, when the shades +of evening began to fall, occasioned so much interruption to the +business, that the merchant became very pressing in his proposals +that Mr F.'s Aunt should be removed. A conveyance was accordingly +brought to the door, which, by the joint efforts of the merchant +and Flora, this remarkable woman was at last induced to enter; +though not without even then putting her head out of the window, +and demanding to have him 'brought for'ard' for the purpose +originally mentioned. As she was observed at this time to direct +baleful glances towards the Marshalsea, it has been supposed that +this admirably consistent female intended by 'him,' Arthur Clennam. + +This, however, is mere speculation; who the person was, who, for +the satisfaction of Mr F.'s Aunt's mind, ought to have been brought +forward and never was brought forward, will never be positively +known. + + +The autumn days went on, and Little Dorrit never came to the +Marshalsea now and went away without seeing him. No, no, no. + +One morning, as Arthur listened for the light feet that every +morning ascended winged to his heart, bringing the heavenly +brightness of a new love into the room where the old love had +wrought so hard and been so true; one morning, as he listened, he +heard her coming, not alone. + +'Dear Arthur,' said her delighted voice outside the door, 'I have +some one here. May I bring some one in?' + +He had thought from the tread there were two with her. He answered +'Yes,' and she came in with Mr Meagles. Sun-browned and jolly Mr +Meagles looked, and he opened his arms and folded Arthur in them, +like a sun-browned and jolly father. + +'Now I am all right,' said Mr Meagles, after a minute or so. 'Now +it's over. Arthur, my dear fellow, confess at once that you +expected me before.' +'I did,' said Arthur; 'but Amy told me--' +'Little Dorrit. Never any other name.' (It was she who whispered +it.) + +'--But my Little Dorrit told me that, without asking for any +further explanation, I was not to expect you until I saw you.' + +'And now you see me, my boy,' said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the +hand stoutly; 'and now you shall have any explanation and every +explanation. The fact is, I was here--came straight to you from +the Allongers and Marshongers, or I should be ashamed to look you +in the face this day,--but you were not in company trim at the +moment, and I had to start off again to catch Doyce.' + +'Poor Doyce!' sighed Arthur. + +'Don't call him names that he don't deserve,' said Mr Meagles. + +'He's not poor; he's doing well enough. Doyce is a wonderful +fellow over there. I assure you he is making out his case like a +house a-fire. He has fallen on his legs, has Dan. Where they +don't want things done and find a man to do 'em, that man's off his +legs; but where they do want things done and find a man to do 'em, +that man's on his legs. You won't have occasion to trouble the +Circumlocution Office any more. Let me tell you, Dan has done +without 'em!' + +'What a load you take from my mind!' cried Arthur. 'What happiness +you give me!' + +'Happiness?' retorted Mr Meagles. 'Don't talk about happiness till +you see Dan. I assure you Dan is directing works and executing +labours over yonder, that it would make your hair stand on end to +look at. He's no public offender, bless you, now! He's medalled +and ribboned, and starred and crossed, and I don't-know-what all'd, +like a born nobleman. But we mustn't talk about that over here.' + +'Why not?' + +'Oh, egad!' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head very seriously, 'he +must hide all those things under lock and key when he comes over +here. They won't do over here. In that particular, Britannia is +a Britannia in the Manger--won't give her children such +distinctions herself, and won't allow them to be seen when they are +given by other countries. No, no, Dan!' said Mr Meagles, shaking +his head again. 'That won't do here!' + +'If you had brought me (except for Doyce's sake) twice what I have +lost,' cried Arthur, 'you would not have given me the pleasure that +you give me in this news.' +'Why, of course, of course,' assented Mr Meagles. 'Of course I +know that, my good fellow, and therefore I come out with it in the +first burst. Now, to go back, about catching Doyce. I caught +Doyce. Ran against him among a lot of those dirty brown dogs in +women's nightcaps a great deal too big for 'em, calling themselves +Arabs and all sorts of incoherent races. YOU know 'em! Well! He +was coming straight to me, and I was going to him, and so we came +back together.' + +'Doyce in England!' exclaimed Arthur. + +'There!' said Mr Meagles, throwing open his arms. 'I am the worst +man in the world to manage a thing of this sort. I don't know what +I should have done if I had been in the diplomatic line--right, +perhaps! The long and short of it is, Arthur, we have both been in +England this fortnight. And if you go on to ask where Doyce is at +the present moment, why, my plain answer is--here he is! And now +I can breathe again at last!' + +Doyce darted in from behind the door, caught Arthur by both hands, +and said the rest for himself. + +'There are only three branches of my subject, my dear Clennam,' +said Doyce, proceeding to mould them severally, with his plastic +thumb, on the palm of his hand, 'and they're soon disposed of. +First, not a word more from you about the past. There was an error +in your calculations. I know what that is. It affects the whole +machine, and failure is the consequence. You will profit by the +failure, and will avoid it another time. I have done a similar +thing myself, in construction, often. Every failure teaches a man +something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to +learn from this failure. So much for firstly. Secondly. I was +sorry you should have taken it so heavily to heart, and reproached +yourself so severely; I was travelling home night and day to put +matters right, with the assistance of our friend, when I fell in +with our friend as he has informed you. Thirdly. We two agreed, +that, after what you had undergone, after your distress of mind, +and after your illness, it would be a pleasant surprise if we could +so far keep quiet as to get things perfectly arranged without your +knowledge, and then come and say that all the affairs were smooth, +that everything was right, that the business stood in greater want +of you than ever it did, and that a new and prosperous career was +opened before you and me as partners. That's thirdly. But you +know we always make an allowance for friction, and so I have +reserved space to close in. My dear Clennam, I thoroughly confide +in you; you have it in your power to be quite as useful to me as I +have, or have had, it in my power to be useful to you; your old +place awaits you, and wants you very much; there is nothing to +detain you here one half-hour longer.' + +There was silence, which was not broken until Arthur had stood for +some time at the window with his back towards them, and until his +little wife that was to be had gone to him and stayed by him. + +'I made a remark a little while ago,' said Daniel Doyce then, +'which I am inclined to think was an incorrect one. I said there +was nothing to detain you here, Clennam, half an hour longer. Am +I mistaken in supposing that you would rather not leave here till +to-morrow morning? Do I know, without being very wise, where you +would like to go, direct from these walls and from this room?' + +'You do,' returned Arthur. 'It has been our cherished purpose.' + +'Very well!' said Doyce. 'Then, if this young lady will do me the +honour of regarding me for four-and-twenty hours in the light of a +father, and will take a ride with me now towards Saint Paul's +Churchyard, I dare say I know what we want to get there.' + +Little Dorrit and he went out together soon afterwards, and Mr +Meagles lingered behind to say a word to his friend. + +'I think, Arthur, you will not want Mother and me in the morning +and we will keep away. It might set Mother thinking about Pet; +she's a soft-hearted woman. She's best at the Cottage, and I'll +stay there and keep her company.' + +With that they parted for the time. And the day ended, and the +night ended, and the morning came, and Little Dorrit, simply +dressed as usual and having no one with her but Maggy, came into +the prison with the sunshine. The poor room was a happy room that +morning. Where in the world was there a room so full of quiet joy! + +'My dear love,' said Arthur. 'Why does Maggy light the fire? We +shall be gone directly.' + +'I asked her to do it. I have taken such an odd fancy. I want you +to burn something for me.' + +'What?' + +'Only this folded paper. If you will put it in the fire with your +own hand, just as it is, my fancy will be gratified.' + +'Superstitious, darling Little Dorrit? Is it a charm?' + +'It is anything you like best, my own,' she answered, laughing with +glistening eyes and standing on tiptoe to kiss him, 'if you will +only humour me when the fire burns up.' + +So they stood before the fire, waiting: Clennam with his arm about +her waist, and the fire shining, as fire in that same place had +often shone, in Little Dorrit's eyes. 'Is it bright enough now?' +said Arthur. 'Quite bright enough now,' said Little Dorrit. 'Does +the charm want any words to be said?' asked Arthur, as he held the +paper over the flame. 'You can say (if you don't mind) "I love +you!' answered Little Dorrit. So he said it, and the paper burned +away. + +They passed very quietly along the yard; for no one was there, +though many heads were stealthily peeping from the windows. + +Only one face, familiar of old, was in the Lodge. When they had +both accosted it, and spoken many kind words, Little Dorrit turned +back one last time with her hand stretched out, saying, 'Good-bye, +good John! I hope you will live very happy, dear!' + +Then they went up the steps of the neighbouring Saint George's +Church, and went up to the altar, where Daniel Doyce was waiting in +his paternal character. And there was Little Dorrit's old friend +who had given her the Burial Register for a pillow; full of +admiration that she should come back to them to be married, after +all. + +And they were married with the sun shining on them through the +painted figure of Our Saviour on the window. And they went into +the very room where Little Dorrit had slumbered after her party, to +sign the Marriage Register. And there, Mr Pancks, (destined to be +chief clerk to Doyce and Clennam, and afterwards partner in the +house), sinking the Incendiary in the peaceful friend, looked in at +the door to see it done, with Flora gallantly supported on one arm +and Maggy on the other, and a back-ground of John Chivery and +father and other turnkeys who had run round for the moment, +deserting the parent Marshalsea for its happy child. Nor had Flora +the least signs of seclusion upon her, notwithstanding her recent +declaration; but, on the contrary, was wonderfully smart, and +enjoyed the ceremonies mightily, though in a fluttered way. + +Little Dorrit's old friend held the inkstand as she signed her +name, and the clerk paused in taking off the good clergyman's +surplice, and all the witnesses looked on with special interest. +'For, you see,' said Little Dorrit's old friend, 'this young lady +is one of our curiosities, and has come now to the third volume of +our Registers. Her birth is in what I call the first volume; she +lay asleep, on this very floor, with her pretty head on what I call +the second volume; and she's now a-writing her little name as a +bride in what I call the third volume.' + +They all gave place when the signing was done, and Little Dorrit +and her husband walked out of the church alone. They paused for a +moment on the steps of the portico, looking at the fresh +perspective of the street in the autumn morning sun's bright rays, +and then went down. + +Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness. Went +down to give a mother's care, in the fulness of time, to Fanny's +neglected children no less than to their own, and to leave that +lady going into Society for ever and a day. Went down to give a +tender nurse and friend to Tip for some few years, who was never +vexed by the great exactions he made of her in return for the +riches he might have given her if he had ever had them, and who +lovingly closed his eyes upon the Marshalsea and all its blighted +fruits. They went quietly down into the roaring streets, +inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and +shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward +and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens + |