Little Dorrit - Part 2

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Little Dorrit - Part 2

    Part 1    Part 2

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 gracious 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 forbore 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; and, 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 this 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 small 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-handkerchief 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 hear 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, 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, 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.