Part 1 Little Dorrit-2 in English Fiction Stories by Charles Dickens books and stories PDF | Part 1 Little Dorrit-2

Little Dorrit

Dickens, Charles

By Listen Books

Part - 1 (2)

Published: 1857 • Categorie(s): Fiction • Source: http://en.wikisource.org

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter-14

Chapter-15

Chapter-16

Chapter-17

Chapter-18

Chapter-19

Chapter-20

Chapter-21

Chapter-22

Chapter-23

Chapter-24

Chapter-25

Chapter-26

Chapter 14

Chapter 14
Little Dorrit’s Party

Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door. This history must sometimes see with Little Dorrit’s eyes, and shall begin that course by seeing him. Little Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one to her, and grandly furnished. Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place with famous coffee-houses, where gentlemen wearing gold-laced coats and swords had quarrelled and fought duels; costly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place where there were flowers in winter at guineas a-piece, pine-apples at guineas a pound, and peas at guineas a pint; picturesque ideas of Covent Garden, as a place where there was a mighty theatre, showing wonderful and beautiful sights to richly-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and which was for ever far beyond the reach of poor Fanny or poor uncle; desolate ideas of Covent Garden, as having all those arches in it, where the miserable children in rags among whom she had just now passed, like young rats, slunk and hid, fed on offal, huddled together for warmth, and were hunted about (look to the rats young and old, all ye Barnacles, for before God they are eating away our foundations, and will bring the roofs on our heads!); teeming ideas of Covent Garden, as a place of past and present mystery, romance, abundance, want, beauty, ugliness, fair country gardens, and foul street gutters; all confused together,—made the room dimmer than it was in Little Dorrit’s eyes, as they timidly saw it from the door. At first in the chair before the gone-out fire, and then turned round wondering to see her, was the gentleman whom she sought. The brown, grave gentleman, who smiled so pleasantly, who was so frank and considerate in his manner, and yet in whose earnestness there was something that reminded her of his mother, with the great difference that she was earnest in asperity and he in gentleness. Now he regarded her with that attentive and inquiring look before which Little Dorrit’s eyes had always fallen, and before which they fell still. ‘My poor child! Here at midnight?’ ‘I said Little Dorrit, sir, on purpose to prepare you. I knew you must be very much surprised.’ ‘Are you alone?’ ‘No sir, I have got Maggy with me.’ Considering her entrance sufficiently prepared for by this mention of her name, Maggy appeared from the landing out-side, on the broad grin. She instantly suppressed that manifestation, however, and became fixedly solemn. ‘And I have no fire,’ said Clennam. ‘And you are—’ He was going to say so lightly clad, but stopped himself in what would have been a reference to her poverty, saying instead, ‘And it is so cold.’ Putting the chair from which he had risen nearer to the grate, he made her sit down in it; and hurriedly bringing wood and coal, heaped them together and got a blaze. ‘Your foot is like marble, my child;’ he had happened to touch it, while stooping on one knee at his work of kindling the fire; ‘put it nearer the warmth.’ Little Dorrit thanked him hastily. It was quite warm, it was very warm! It smote upon his heart to feel that she hid her thin, worn shoe. Little Dorrit was not ashamed of her poor shoes. He knew her story, and it was not that. Little Dorrit had a misgiving that he might blame her father, if he saw them; that he might think, ‘why did he dine to-day, and leave this little creature to the mercy of the cold stones!’ She had no belief that it would have been a just reflection; she simply knew, by experience, that such delusions did sometimes present themselves to people. It was a part of her father’s misfortunes that they did. ‘Before I say anything else,’ Little Dorrit began, sitting be-fore the pale fire, and raising her eyes again to the face which in its harmonious look of interest, and pity, and protection, she felt to be a mystery far above her in degree, and almost re-moved beyond her guessing at; ‘may I tell you something, sir?’ ‘Yes, my child.’ A slight shade of distress fell upon her, at his so often calling her a child. She was surprised that he should see it, or think of such a slight thing; but he said directly: ‘I wanted a tender word, and could think of no other. As you just now gave yourself the name they give you at my mother’s, and as that is the name by which I always think of you, let me call you Little Dorrit.’ ‘Thank you, sir, I should like it better than any name.’ ‘Little Dorrit.’ ‘Little mother,’ Maggy (who had been falling asleep) put in, as a correction. ‘It’s all the same, Maggy,’ returned Little Dorrit, ‘all the same.’ ‘Is it all the same, mother?’ ‘Just the same.’ Maggy laughed, and immediately snored. In Little Dorrit’s eyes and ears, the uncouth figure and the uncouth sound were as pleasant as could be. There was a glow of pride in her big child, overspreading her face, when it again met the eyes of the grave brown gentleman. She wondered what he was thinking of, as he looked at Maggy and her. She thought what a good father he would be. How, with some such look, he would counsel and cherish his daughter. ‘What I was going to tell you, sir,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘is, that my brother is at large.’ Arthur was rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he would do well. ‘And what I was going to tell you, sir,’ said Little Dorrit, trembling in all her little figure and in her voice, ‘is, that I am not to know whose generosity released him—am never to ask, and am never to be told, and am never to thank that gentleman with all my grateful heart!’ He would probably need no thanks, Clennam said. Very likely he would be thankful himself (and with reason), that he had had the means and chance of doing a little service to her, who well deserved a great one. ‘And what I was going to say, sir, is,’ said Little Dorrit, trembling more and more, ‘that if I knew him, and I might, I would tell him that he can never, never know how I feel his goodness, and how my good father would feel it. And what I was going to say, sir, is, that if I knew him, and I might—but I don’t know him and I must not—I know that!—I would tell him that I shall never any more lie down to sleep without having prayed to Heaven to bless him and reward him. And if I knew him, and I might, I would go down on my knees to him, and take his hand and kiss it and ask him not to draw it away, but to leave it—O to leave it for a moment—and let my thankful tears fall on it; for I have no other thanks to give him!’ Little Dorrit had put his hand to her lips, and would have kneeled to him, but he gently prevented her, and replaced her in her chair. Her eyes, and the tones of her voice, had thanked him far better than she thought. He was not able to say, quite as composedly as usual, ‘There, Little Dorrit, there, there, there! We will suppose that you did know this person, and that you might do all this, and that it was all done. And now tell me, Who am quite another person—who am nothing more than the friend who begged you to trust him—why you are out at midnight, and what it is that brings you so far through the streets at this late hour, my slight, delicate,’ child was on his lips again, ‘Little Dorrit!’ ‘Maggy and I have been to-night,’ she answered, subduing herself with the quiet effort that had long been natural to her, ‘to the theatre where my sister is engaged.’ ‘And oh ain’t it a Ev’nly place,’ suddenly interrupted Maggy, who seemed to have the power of going to sleep and waking up whenever she chose. ‘Almost as good as a hospital. Only there ain’t no Chicking in it.’ Here she shook herself, and fell asleep again. ‘We went there,’ said Little Dorrit, glancing at her charge, ‘because I like sometimes to know, of my own knowledge, that my sister is doing well; and like to see her there, with my own eyes, when neither she nor Uncle is aware. It is very seldom in-deed that I can do that, because when I am not out at work, I am with my father, and even when I am out at work, I hurry home to him. But I pretend to-night that I am at a party.’ As she made the confession, timidly hesitating, she raised her eyes to the face, and read its expression so plainly that she answered it. ‘Oh no, certainly! I never was at a party in my life.’ She paused a little under his attentive look, and then said, ‘I hope there is no harm in it. I could never have been of any use, if I had not pretended a little.’

She feared that he was blaming her in his mind for so devising to contrive for them, think for them, and watch over them, without their knowledge or gratitude; perhaps even with their reproaches for supposed neglect. But what was really in his mind, was the weak figure with its strong purpose, the thin worn shoes, the insufficient dress, and the pretence of recreation and enjoyment. He asked where the suppositious party was? At a place where she worked, answered Little Dorrit, blushing. She had said very little about it; only a few words to make her father easy. Her father did not believe it to be a grand party—indeed he might suppose that. And she glanced for an instant at the shawl she wore. ‘It is the first night,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘that I have ever been away from home. And London looks so large, so barren, and so wild.’ In Little Dorrit’s eyes, its vastness under the black sky was awful; a tremor passed over her as she said the words. ‘But this is not,’ she added, with the quiet effort again, ‘what I have come to trouble you with, sir. My sister’s having found a friend, a lady she has told me of and made me rather anxious about, was the first cause of my coming away from home. And being away, and coming (on purpose) round by where you lived and seeing a light in the window—’ Not for the first time. No, not for the first time. In Little Dorrit’s eyes, the outside of that window had been a distant star on other nights than this. She had toiled out of her way, tired and troubled, to look up at it, and wonder about the grave, brown gentleman from so far off, who had spoken to her as a friend and protector. ‘There were three things,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘that I thought I would like to say, if you were alone and I might come up-stairs. First, what I have tried to say, but never can—never shall—’ ‘Hush, hush! That is done with, and disposed of. Let us pass to the second,’ said Clennam, smiling her agitation away, making the blaze shine upon her, and putting wine and cake and fruit towards her on the table. ‘I think,’ said Little Dorrit—‘this is the second thing, sir—I think Mrs Clennam must have found out my secret, and must know where I come from and where I go to. Where I live, I mean.’

‘Indeed!’ returned Clennam quickly. He asked her, after short consideration, why she supposed so. ‘I think,’ replied Little Dorrit, ‘that Mr Flintwinch must have watched me.’ And why, Clennam asked, as he turned his eyes upon the fire, bent his brows, and considered again; why did she suppose that? ‘I have met him twice. Both times near home. Both times at night, when I was going back. Both times I thought (though that may easily be my mistake), that he hardly looked as if he had met me by accident.’ ‘Did he say anything?’ ‘No; he only nodded and put his head on one side.’ ‘The devil take his head!’ mused Clennam, still looking at the fire; ‘it’s always on one side.’ He roused himself to persuade her to put some wine to her lips, and to touch something to eat—it was very difficult, she was so timid and shy—and then said, musing again: ‘Is my mother at all changed to you?’ ‘Oh, not at all. She is just the same. I wondered whether I had better tell her my history. I wondered whether I might—I mean, whether you would like me to tell her. I wondered,’ said Little Dorrit, looking at him in a suppliant way, and gradually withdrawing her eyes as he looked at her, ‘whether you would advise me what I ought to do.’ ‘Little Dorrit,’ said Clennam; and the phrase had already be-gun, between these two, to stand for a hundred gentle phrases, according to the varying tone and connection in which it was used; ‘do nothing. I will have some talk with my old friend, Mrs Affery. Do nothing, Little Dorrit—except refresh yourself with such means as there are here. I entreat you to do that.’ ‘Thank you, I am not hungry. Nor,’ said Little Dorrit, as he softly put her glass towards her, ‘nor thirsty.—I think Maggy might like something, perhaps.’ ‘We will make her find pockets presently for all there is here,’ said Clennam: ‘but before we awake her, there was a third thing to say.’ ‘Yes. You will not be offended, sir?’ ‘I promise that, unreservedly.’

‘It will sound strange. I hardly know how to say it. Don’t think it unreasonable or ungrateful in me,’ said Little Dorrit, with returning and increasing agitation. ‘No, no, no. I am sure it will be natural and right. I am not afraid that I shall put a wrong construction on it, whatever it is. ‘Thank you. You are coming back to see my father again?’ ‘Yes. ‘You have been so good and thoughtful as to write him a note, saying that you are coming to-morrow?’ ‘Oh, that was nothing! Yes.’ ‘Can you guess,’ said Little Dorrit, folding her small hands tight in one another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her soul looking steadily out of her eyes, ‘what I am going to ask you not to do?’ ‘I think I can. But I may be wrong.’ ‘No, you are not wrong,’ said Little Dorrit, shaking her head. ‘If we should want it so very, very badly that we cannot do without it, let me ask you for it.’ ‘I Will,—I Will.’ ‘Don’t encourage him to ask. Don’t understand him if he does ask. Don’t give it to him. Save him and spare him that, and you will be able to think better of him!’ Clennam said—not very plainly, seeing those tears glistening in her anxious eyes—that her wish should be sacred with him. ‘You don’t know what he is,’ she said; ‘you don’t know what he really is. How can you, seeing him there all at once, dear love, and not gradually, as I have done! You have been so good to us, so delicately and truly good, that I want him to be better in your eyes than in anybody’s. And I cannot bear to think,’ cried Little Dorrit, covering her tears with her hands, ‘I cannot bear to think that you of all the world should see him in his only moments of degradation.’ ‘Pray,’ said Clennam, ‘do not be so distressed. Pray, pray, Little Dorrit! This is quite understood now.’ ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you! I have tried very much to keep myself from saying this; I have thought about it, days and nights; but when I knew for certain you were coming again, I made up my mind to speak to you. Not because I am ashamed ’ ’

of him,’ she dried her tears quickly, ‘but because I know him better than any one does, and love him, and am proud of him.’ Relieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone. Maggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best diversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she drank in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe after every one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent state, ‘Oh, ain’t it d’licious! Ain’t it hospitally!’ When she had finished the wine and these encomiums, he charged her to load her basket (she was never without her basket) with every eatable thing upon the table, and to take especial care to leave no scrap behind. Maggy’s pleasure in doing this and her little mother’s pleasure in seeing Maggy pleased, was as good a turn as circumstances could have given to the late conversation. ‘But the gates will have been locked long ago,’ said Clennam, suddenly remembering it. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘I am going to Maggy’s lodging,’ answered Little Dorrit. ‘I shall be quite safe, quite well taken care of.’ ‘I must accompany you there,’ said Clennam, ‘I cannot let you go alone.’ ‘Yes, pray leave us to go there by ourselves. Pray do!’ begged Little Dorrit. She was so earnest in the petition, that Clennam felt a delicacy in obtruding himself upon her: the rather, because he could well understand that Maggy’s lodging was of the obscurest sort. ‘Come, Maggy,’ said Little Dorrit cheerily, ‘we shall do very well; we know the way by this time, Maggy?’ ‘Yes, yes, little mother; we know the way,’ chuckled Maggy. And away they went. Little Dorrit turned at the door to say, ‘God bless you!’ She said it very softly, but perhaps she may have been as audible above—who knows!—as a whole cathedral choir. Arthur Clennam suffered them to pass the corner of the street before he followed at a distance; not with any idea of encroaching a second time on Little Dorrit’s privacy, but to satisfy his mind by seeing her secure in the neighbourhood to which she was accustomed. So diminutive she looked, so fragile and defenceless against the bleak damp weather, flitting along in the shuffling shadow of her charge, that he felt, in his compassion, and in his habit of considering her a child apart from the rest of the rough world, as if he would have been glad to take her up in his arms and carry her to her journey’s end. In course of time she came into the leading thoroughfare where the Marshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon turn down a by-street. He stopped, felt that he had no right to go further, and slowly left them. He had no suspicion that they ran any risk of being houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth until long, long afterwards. But, said Little Dorrit, when they stopped at a poor dwelling all in darkness, and heard no sound on listening at the door, ‘Now, this is a good lodging for you, Maggy, and we must not give offence. Consequently, we will only knock twice, and not very loud; and if we cannot wake them so, we must walk about till day.’ Once, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. Twice, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. All was close and still. ‘Maggy, we must do the best we can, my dear. We must be patient, and wait for day.’ It was a chill dark night, with a damp wind blowing, when they came out into the leading street again, and heard the clocks strike half-past one. ‘In only five hours and a half,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘we shall be able to go home.’ To speak of home, and to go and look at it, it being so near, was a natural sequence. They went to the closed gate, and peeped through into the court-yard. ‘I hope he is sound asleep,’ said Little Dorrit, kissing one of the bars, ‘and does not miss me.’ The gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down Maggy’s basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close together, rested there for some time. While the street was empty and silent, Little Dorrit was not afraid; but when she heard a footstep at a distance, or saw a moving shad-ow among the street lamps, she was startled, and whispered, ‘Maggy, I see some one. Come away!’ Maggy would then wake up more or less fretfully, and they would wander about a little, and come back again. As long as eating was a novelty and an amusement, Maggy kept up pretty well. But that period going by, she became querulous about the cold, and shivered and whimpered. ‘It will soon be over, dear,’ said Little Dorrit patiently. ‘Oh it’s all very fine for you, little mother,’ returned Maggy, ‘but I’m a poor thing, only ten years old.’ At last, in the dead of the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid the heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she sat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing the clouds pass over them in their wild flight—which was the dance at Little Dorrit’s party. ‘If it really was a party!’ she thought once, as she sat there. ‘If it was light and warm and beautiful, and it was our house, and my poor dear was its master, and had never been inside these walls. And if Mr Clennam was one of our visitors, and we were dancing to delightful music, and were all as gay and light-hearted as ever we could be! I wonder—’ Such a vista of wonder opened out before her, that she sat looking up at the stars, quite lost, until Maggy was querulous again, and wanted to get up and walk. Three o’clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London Bridge. They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; and looked down, awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen little spots of lighted water where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining like demon eyes, with a terrible fascination in them for guilt and misery. They had shrunk past homeless people, lying coiled up in nooks. They had run from drunkards. They had started from slinking men, whistling and signing to one another at bye corners, or running away at full speed. Though everywhere the leader and the guide, Little Dorrit, happy for once in her youthful appearance, feigned to cling to and rely upon Maggy. And more than once some voice, from among a knot of brawling or prowling figures in their path, had called out to the rest to ‘let the woman and the child go by!’ So, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had sounded from the steeples. They were walking slowly towards the east, already looking for the first pale streak of day, when a woman came after them. ‘What are you doing with the child?’ she said to Maggy. She was young—far too young to be there, Heaven knows!—and neither ugly nor wicked-looking. She spoke coarsely, but with no naturally coarse voice; there was even something musical in its sound. ‘What are you doing with your-self?’ retorted Maggy, for want Of a better answer. ‘Can’t you see, without my telling you?’ ‘I don’t know as I can,’ said Maggy. ‘Killing myself! Now I have answered you, answer me. What are you doing with the child?’ The supposed child kept her head drooped down, and kept her form close at Maggy’s side. ‘Poor thing!’ said the woman. ‘Have you no feeling, that you keep her out in the cruel streets at such a time as this? Have you no eyes, that you don’t see how delicate and slender she is? Have you no sense (you don’t look as if you had much) that you don’t take more pity on this cold and trembling little hand?’ She had stepped across to that side, and held the hand between her own two, chafing it. ‘Kiss a poor lost creature, dear,’ she said, bending her face, ‘and tell me where’s she taking you.’ Little Dorrit turned towards her. ‘Why, my God!’ she said, recoiling, ‘you’re a woman!’ ‘Don’t mind that!’ said Little Dorrit, clasping one of her hands that had suddenly released hers. ‘I am not afraid of you.’ ‘Then you had better be,’ she answered. ‘Have you no mother?’ ‘No.’ ‘No father?’ ‘Yes, a very dear one.’ ‘Go home to him, and be afraid of me. Let me go. Good night!’ ‘I must thank you first; let me speak to you as if I really were a child.’ ‘You can’t do it,’ said the woman. ‘You are kind and innocent; but you can’t look at me out of a child’s eyes. I never should have touched you, but I thought that you were a child.’ And with a strange, wild cry, she went away. No day yet in the sky, but there was day in the resounding stones of the streets; in the wagons, carts, and coaches; in the workers going to various occupations; in the opening of early shops; in the traffic at markets; in the stir of the riverside.

There was coming day in the flaring lights, with a feebler col-our in them than they would have had at another time; coming day in the increased sharpness of the air, and the ghastly dying of the night. They went back again to the gate, intending to wait there now until it should be opened; but the air was so raw and cold that Little Dorrit, leading Maggy about in her sleep, kept in motion. Going round by the Church, she saw lights there, and the door open; and went up the steps and looked in. ‘Who’s that?’ cried a stout old man, who was putting on a nightcap as if he were going to bed in a vault. ‘It’s no one particular, sir,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘Stop!’ cried the man. ‘Let’s have a look at you!’ This caused her to turn back again in the act of going out, and to present herself and her charge before him. ‘I thought so!’ said he. ‘I know you.’ ‘We have often seen each other,’ said Little Dorrit, recognising the sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, ‘when I have been at church here.’ ‘More than that, we’ve got your birth in our Register, you know; you’re one of our curiosities.’ ‘Indeed!’ said Little Dorrit. ‘To be sure. As the child of the—by-the-bye, how did you get out so early?’ ‘We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.’ ‘You don’t mean it? And there’s another hour good yet! Come into the vestry. You’ll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters. I’m waiting for the painters, or I shouldn’t be here, you may depend upon it. One of our curiosities mustn’t be cold when we have it in our power to warm her up comfortable. Come along.’ He was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having stirred the vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers for a particular volume. ‘Here you are, you see,’ he said, taking it down and turning the leaves. ‘Here you’ll find yourself, as large as life. Amy, daughter of William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, Marshalsea Prison, Parish of St George. And we tell people that you have lived there, without so much as a day’s or a night’s absence, ever since. Is it true?’ ‘Quite true, till last night.’

‘Lord!’ But his surveying her with an admiring gaze suggested Something else to him, to wit: ‘I am sorry to see, though, that you are faint and tired. Stay a bit. I’ll get some cushions out of the church, and you and your friend shall lie down be-fore the fire. Don’t be afraid of not going in to join your father when the gate opens. I’ll call you.’ He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground. ‘There you are, you see. Again as large as life. Oh, never mind thanking. I’ve daughters of my own. And though they weren’t born in the Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of carrying on, of your father’s breed. Stop a bit. I must put something under the cushion for your head. Here’s a burial volume. just the thing! We have got Mrs Bangham in this book. But what makes these books interesting to most people is—not who’s in ’em, but who isn’t—who’s coming, you know, and when. That’s the interesting question.’ Commendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left them to their hour’s repose. Maggy was snoring already, and Little Dorrit was soon fast asleep with her head resting on that sealed book of Fate, untroubled by its mysterious blank leaves. This was Little Dorrit’s party. The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and exposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and the swift clouds of the dismal night. This was the party from which Little Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey mist of a rainy morning.

Chapter 15

Chapter 15
Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream

The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot, and leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and worn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful interval, let what would betide. If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and that was gone in half an hour; if the moonlight ever fell upon it, it was only to put a few patches on its doleful cloak, and make it look more wretched. The stars, to be sure, coldly watched it when the nights and the smoke were clear enough; and all bad weather stood by it with a rare fidelity. You should alike find rain, hail, frost, and thaw lingering in that dismal enclosure when they had vanished from other places; and as to snow, you should see it there for weeks, long after it had changed from yellow to black, slowly weeping away its grimy life. The place had no other adherents. As to street noises, the rumbling of wheels in the lane merely rushed in at the gateway in going past, and rushed out again: making the listening Mistress Affery feel as if she were deaf, and recovered the sense of hearing by instantaneous flashes. So with whistling, singing, talking, laughing, and all pleasant human sounds. They leaped the gap in a moment, and went upon their way. The varying light of fire and candle in Mrs Clennam’s room made the greatest change that ever broke the dead monotony of the spot. In her two long narrow windows, the fire shone sullenly all day, and sullenly all night. On rare occasions it flashed up passionately, as she did; but for the most part it was suppressed, like her, and preyed upon itself evenly and slowly. During many hours of the short winter days, however, when it was dusk there early in the afternoon, changing distortions of herself in her wheeled chair, of Mr Flintwinch with his wry neck, of Mistress Affery coming and going, would be thrown upon the house wall that was over the gateway, and would hover there like shadows from a great magic lantern. As the room-ridden invalid settled for the night, these would gradually disappear: Mistress Affery’s magnified shadow always flitting about, last, until it finally glided away into the air, as though she were off upon a witch excursion. Then the solitary light would burn unchangingly, until it burned pale before the dawn, and at last died under the breath of Mrs Affery, as her shadow descended on it from the witch-region of sleep. Strange, if the little sick-room fire were in effect a beacon fire, summoning some one, and that the most unlikely some one in the world, to the spot that must be come to. Strange, if the little sick-room light were in effect a watch-light, burning in that place every night until an appointed event should be watched out! Which of the vast multitude of travellers, under the sun and the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another; which of the host may, with no suspicion of the journey’s end, be travelling surely hither? Time shall show us. The post of honour and the post of shame, the general’s station and the drummer’s, a peer’s statue in Westminster Abbey and a seaman’s hammock in the bosom of the deep, the mitre and the workhouse, the woolsack and the gallows, the throne and the guillotine—the travellers to all are on the great high road, but it has wonderful divergencies, and only Time shall show us whither each traveller is bound. On a wintry afternoon at twilight, Mrs Flintwinch, having been heavy all day, dreamed this dream: She thought she was in the kitchen getting the kettle ready for tea, and was warming herself with her feet upon the fender and the skirt of her gown tucked up, before the collapsed fire in the middle of the grate, bordered on either hand by a deep cold black ravine. She thought that as she sat thus, musing upon the question whether life was not for some people a rather dull invention, she was frightened by a sudden noise be-hind her. She thought that she had been similarly frightened once last week, and that the noise was of a mysterious kind—a sound of rustling and of three or four quick beats like a rapid step; while a shock or tremble was communicated to her heart, as if the step had shaken the floor, or even as if she had been touched by some awful hand. She thought that this revived within her certain old fears of hers that the house was haunted; and that she flew up the kitchen stairs without knowing how she got up, to be nearer company. Mistress Affery thought that on reaching the hall, she saw the door of her liege lord’s office standing open, and the room empty. That she went to the ripped-up window in the little room by the street door to connect her palpitating heart, through the glass, with living things beyond and outside the haunted house. That she then saw, on the wall over the gate-way, the shadows of the two clever ones in conversation above. That she then went upstairs with her shoes in her hand, partly to be near the clever ones as a match for most ghosts, and partly to hear what they were talking about. ‘None of your nonsense with me,’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘I won’t take it from you.’ Mrs Flintwinch dreamed that she stood behind the door, which was just ajar, and most distinctly heard her husband say these bold words. ‘Flintwinch,’ returned Mrs Clennam, in her usual strong low voice, ‘there is a demon of anger in you. Guard against it.’ ‘I don’t care whether there’s one or a dozen,’ said Mr Flintwinch, forcibly suggesting in his tone that the higher number was nearer the mark. ‘If there was fifty, they should all say, None of your nonsense with me, I won’t take it from you—I’d make ’em say it, whether they liked it or not.’ ‘What have I done, you wrathful man?’ her strong voice asked. ‘Done?’ said Mr Flintwinch. ‘Dropped down upon me.’ ‘If you mean, remonstrated with you—’ ‘Don’t put words into my mouth that I don’t mean,’ said Jeremiah, sticking to his figurative expression with tenacious and impenetrable obstinacy: ‘I mean dropped down upon me.’ ‘I remonstrated with you,’ she began again, ‘because—’ ‘I won’t have it!’ cried Jeremiah. ‘You dropped down upon me.’

‘I dropped down upon you, then, you ill-conditioned man,’ (Jeremiah chuckled at having forced her to adopt his phrase,) ‘for having been needlessly significant to Arthur that morning. I have a right to complain of it as almost a breach of confidence. You did not mean it—’ ‘I won’t have it!’ interposed the contradictory Jeremiah, flinging back the concession. ‘I did mean it.’ ‘I suppose I must leave you to speak in soliloquy if you choose,’ she replied, after a pause that seemed an angry one. ‘It is useless my addressing myself to a rash and headstrong old man who has a set purpose not to hear me.’ ‘Now, I won’t take that from you either,’ said Jeremiah. ‘I have no such purpose. I have told you I did mean it. Do you wish to know why I meant it, you rash and headstrong old woman?’ ‘After all, you only restore me my own words,’ she said, struggling with her indignation. ‘Yes.’ ‘This is why, then. Because you hadn’t cleared his father to him, and you ought to have done it. Because, before you went into any tantrum about yourself, who are—’ ‘Hold there, Flintwinch!’ she cried out in a changed voice: ‘you may go a word too far.’ The old man seemed to think so. There was another pause, and he had altered his position in the room, when he spoke again more mildly: ‘I was going to tell you why it was. Because, before you took your own part, I thought you ought to have taken the part of Arthur’s father. Arthur’s father! I had no particular love for Arthur’s father. I served Arthur’s father’s uncle, in this house, when Arthur’s father was not much above me—was poorer as far as his pocket went—and when his uncle might as soon have left me his heir as have left him. He starved in the parlour, and I starved in the kitchen; that was the principal difference in our positions; there was not much more than a flight of breakneck stairs between us. I never took to him in those times; I don’t know that I ever took to him greatly at any time. He was an undecided, irresolute chap, who had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he was young. And when he brought you home here, the wife his uncle had named for him, I didn’t need to look at you twice (you were a good-looking woman at that time) to know who’d be master. You have stood of your own strength ever since. Stand of your own strength now. Don’t lean against the dead.’ ‘I do not—as you call it—lean against the dead.’ ‘But you had a mind to do it, if I had submitted,’ growled Jeremiah, ‘and that’s why you drop down upon me. You can’t forget that I didn’t submit. I suppose you are astonished that I should consider it worth my while to have justice done to Arthur’s father? Hey? It doesn’t matter whether you answer or not, because I know you are, and you know you are. Come, then, I’ll tell you how it is. I may be a bit of an oddity in point of temper, but this is my temper—I can’t let anybody have entirely their own way. You are a determined woman, and a clever woman; and when you see your purpose before you, nothing will turn you from it. Who knows that better than I do?’ ‘Nothing will turn me from it, Flintwinch, when I have justified it to myself. Add that.’ ‘Justified it to yourself? I said you were the most determined woman on the face of the earth (or I meant to say so), and if you are determined to justify any object you entertain, of course you’ll do it.’ ‘Man! I justify myself by the authority of these Books,’ she cried, with stern emphasis, and appearing from the sound that followed to strike the dead-weight of her arm upon the table. ‘Never mind that,’ returned Jeremiah calmly, ‘we won’t enter into that question at present. However that may be, you carry out your purposes, and you make everything go down before them. Now, I won’t go down before them. I have been faithful to you, and useful to you, and I am attached to you. But I can’t consent, and I won’t consent, and I never did consent, and I never will consent to be lost in you. Swallow up everybody else, and welcome. The peculiarity of my temper is, ma’am, that I won’t be swallowed up alive.’ Perhaps this had Originally been the mainspring of the understanding between them. Descrying thus much of force of character in Mr Flintwinch, perhaps Mrs Clennam had deemed alliance with him worth her while. ‘Enough and more than enough of the subject,’ said she gloomily.

‘Unless you drop down upon me again,’ returned the persistent Flintwinch, ‘and then you must expect to hear of it again.’ Mistress Affery dreamed that the figure of her lord here began walking up and down the room, as if to cool his spleen, and that she ran away; but that, as he did not issue forth when she had stood listening and trembling in the shadowy hall a little time, she crept up-stairs again, impelled as before by ghosts and curiosity, and once more cowered outside the door. ‘Please to light the candle, Flintwinch,’ Mrs Clennam was saying, apparently wishing to draw him back into their usual tone. ‘It is nearly time for tea. Little Dorrit is coming, and will find me in the dark.’ Mr Flintwinch lighted the candle briskly, and said as he put it down upon the table: ‘What are you going to do with Little Dorrit? Is she to come to work here for ever? To come to tea here for ever? To come backwards and forwards here, in the same way, for ever?’ ‘How can you talk about “for ever” to a maimed creature like me? Are we not all cut down like the grass of the field, and was not I shorn by the scythe many years ago: since when I have been lying here, waiting to be gathered into the barn?’ ‘Ay, ay! But since you have been lying here—not near dead—nothing like it—numbers of children and young people, blooming women, strong men, and what not, have been cut down and carried; and still here are you, you see, not much changed after all. Your time and mine may be a long one yet. When I say for ever, I mean (though I am not poetical) through all our time.’ Mr Flintwinch gave this explanation with great calmness, and calmly waited for an answer. ‘So long as Little Dorrit is quiet and industrious, and stands in need of the slight help I can give her, and deserves it; so long, I suppose, unless she withdraws of her own act, she will continue to come here, I being spared.’ ‘Nothing more than that?’ said Flintwinch, stroking his mouth and chin. ‘What should there be more than that! What could there be more than that!’ she ejaculated in her sternly wondering way. Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, that, for the space of a minute or two, they remained looking at each other with the candle between them, and that she somehow derived an impression that they looked at each other fixedly. ‘Do you happen to know, Mrs Clennam,’ Affery’s liege lord then demanded in a much lower voice, and with an amount of expression that seemed quite out of proportion to the simple purpose of his words, ‘where she lives?’ ‘No.’ ‘Would you—now, would you like to know?’ said Jeremiah with a pounce as if he had sprung upon her. ‘If I cared to know, I should know already. Could I not have asked her any day?’ ‘Then you don’t care to know?’ ‘I do not.’ Mr Flintwinch, having expelled a long significant breath said, with his former emphasis, ‘For I have accidentally—mind! —found out.’ ‘Wherever she lives,’ said Mrs Clennam, speaking in one unmodulated hard voice, and separating her words as distinctly as if she were reading them off from separate bits of metal that she took up one by one, ‘she has made a secret of it, and she shall always keep her secret from me.’ ‘After all, perhaps you would rather not have known the fact, any how?’ said Jeremiah; and he said it with a twist, as if his words had come out of him in his own wry shape. ‘Flintwinch,’ said his mistress and partner, flashing into a sudden energy that made Affery start, ‘why do you goad me? Look round this room. If it is any compensation for my long confinement within these narrow limits—not that I complain of being afflicted; you know I never complain of that—if it is any compensation to me for long confinement to this room, that while I am shut up from all pleasant change I am also shut up from the knowledge of some things that I may prefer to avoid knowing, why should you, of all men, grudge me that belief?’ ‘I don’t grudge it to you,’ returned Jeremiah. ‘Then say no more. Say no more. Let Little Dorrit keep her secret from me, and do you keep it from me also. Let her come and go, unobserved and unquestioned. Let me suffer, and let me have what alleviation belongs to my condition. Is it so much, that you torment me like an evil spirit?’ ‘I asked you a question. That’s all.’

‘I have answered it. So, say no more. Say no more.’ Here the sound of the wheeled chair was heard upon the floor, and Affery’s bell rang with a hasty jerk. More afraid of her husband at the moment than of the mysterious sound in the kitchen, Affery crept away as lightly and as quickly as she could, descended the kitchen stairs almost as rapidly as she had ascended them, resumed her seat before the fire, tucked up her skirt again, and finally threw her apron over her head. Then the bell rang once more, and then once more, and then kept on ringing; in despite of which importunate summons, Affery still sat behind her apron, recovering her breath. At last Mr Flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the hall, muttering and calling ‘Affery woman!’ all the way. Affery still remaining behind her apron, he came stumbling down the kitchen stairs, candle in hand, sidled up to her, twitched her apron off, and roused her. ‘Oh Jeremiah!’ cried Affery, waking. ‘What a start you gave me!’ ‘What have you been doing, woman?’ inquired Jeremiah. ‘You’ve been rung for fifty times.’ ‘Oh Jeremiah,’ said Mistress Affery, ‘I have been a-dreaming!’ Reminded of her former achievement in that way, Mr Flintwinch held the candle to her head, as if he had some idea of lighting her up for the illumination of the kitchen. ‘Don’t you know it’s her tea-time?’ he demanded with a vicious grin, and giving one of the legs of Mistress Affery’s chair a kick. ‘Jeremiah? Tea-time? I don’t know what’s come to me. But I got such a dreadful turn, Jeremiah, before I went—off a-dreaming, that I think it must be that.’ ‘Yoogh! Sleepy-Head!’ said Mr Flintwinch, ‘what are you talking about?’ ‘Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a curious movement. In the kitchen here—just here.’ Jeremiah held up his light and looked at the blackened ceiling, held down his light and looked at the damp stone floor, turned round with his light and looked about at the spotted and blotched walls. ‘Rats, cats, water, drains,’ said Jeremiah.

Mistress Affery negatived each with a shake of her head. ‘No, Jeremiah; I have felt it before. I have felt it up-stairs, and once on the staircase as I was going from her room to ours in the night—a rustle and a sort of trembling touch behind me.’ ‘Affery, my woman,’ said Mr Flintwinch grimly, after advancing his nose to that lady’s lips as a test for the detection of spirituous liquors, ‘if you don’t get tea pretty quick, old woman, you’ll become sensible of a rustle and a touch that’ll send you flying to the other end of the kitchen.’ This prediction stimulated Mrs Flintwinch to bestir herself, and to hasten up-stairs to Mrs Clennam’s chamber. But, for all that, she now began to entertain a settled conviction that there was something wrong in the gloomy house. Henceforth, she was never at peace in it after daylight departed; and never went up or down stairs in the dark without having her apron over her head, lest she should see something. What with these ghostly apprehensions and her singular dreams, Mrs Flintwinch fell that evening into a haunted state of mind, from which it may be long before this present narrative descries any trace of her recovery. In the vagueness and in-distinctness of all her new experiences and perceptions, as everything about her was mysterious to herself she began to be mysterious to others: and became as difficult to be made out to anybody’s satisfaction as she found the house and everything in it difficult to make out to her own. She had not yet finished preparing Mrs Clennam’s tea, when the soft knock came to the door which always announced Little Dorrit. Mistress Affery looked on at Little Dorrit taking off her homely bonnet in the hall, and at Mr Flintwinch scraping his jaws and contemplating her in silence, as expecting some wonderful consequence to ensue which would frighten her out of her five wits or blow them all three to pieces. After tea there came another knock at the door, announcing Arthur. Mistress Affery went down to let him in, and he said on entering, ‘Affery, I am glad it’s you. I want to ask you a question.’ Affery immediately replied, ‘For goodness sake don’t ask me nothing, Arthur! I am frightened out of one half of my life, and dreamed out of the other. Don’t ask me nothing! I don’t know which is which, or what is what!’—and immediately started away from him, and came near him no more.

Mistress Affery having no taste for reading, and no sufficient light for needlework in the subdued room, supposing her to have the inclination, now sat every night in the dimness from which she had momentarily emerged on the evening of Arthur Clennam’s return, occupied with crowds of wild speculations and suspicions respecting her mistress and her husband and the noises in the house. When the ferocious devotional exercises were engaged in, these speculations would distract Mistress Affery’s eyes towards the door, as if she expected some dark form to appear at those propitious moments, and make the party one too many. Otherwise, Affery never said or did anything to attract the attention of the two clever ones towards her in any marked degree, except on certain occasions, generally at about the quiet hour towards bed-time, when she would suddenly dart out of her dim corner, and whisper with a face of terror to Mr Flintwinch, reading the paper near Mrs Clennam’s little table: ‘There, jeremiah! Now! What’s that noise?’ Then the noise, if there were any, would have ceased, and Mr Flintwinch would snarl, turning upon her as if she had cut him down that moment against his will, ‘Affery, old woman, you shall have a dose, old woman, such a dose! You have been dreaming again!’

Chapter 16

Chapter 16
Nobody’s Weakness

The time being come for the renewal of his acquaintance with the Meagles family, Clennam, pursuant to contract made between himself and Mr Meagles within the precincts of Bleeding Heart Yard, turned his face on a certain Saturday towards Twickenham, where Mr Meagles had a cottage-residence of his own. The weather being fine and dry, and any English road abounding in interest for him who had been so long away, he sent his valise on by the coach, and set out to walk. A walk was in itself a new enjoyment to him, and one that had rarely diversified his life afar off. He went by Fulham and Putney, for the pleasure of strolling over the heath. It was bright and shining there; and when he found himself so far on his road to Twickenham, he found him-self a long way on his road to a number of airier and less substantial destinations. They had risen before him fast, in the healthful exercise and the pleasant road. It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something. And he had plenty of unsettled subjects to meditate upon, though he had been walking to the Land’s End. First, there was the subject seldom absent from his mind, the question, what he was to do henceforth in life; to what occupation he should devote himself, and in what direction he had best seek it. He was far from rich, and every day of indecision and inaction made his inheritance a source of greater anxiety to him. As often as he began to consider how to increase this inheritance, or to lay it by, so often his misgiving that there was some one with an unsatisfied claim upon his justice, re-turned; and that alone was a subject to outlast the longest walk. Again, there was the subject of his relations with his mother, which were now upon an equable and peaceful but never confidential footing, and whom he saw several times a week. Little Dorrit was a leading and a constant subject: for the circumstances of his life, united to those of her own story, presented the little creature to him as the only person between whom and himself there were ties of innocent reliance on one hand, and affectionate protection on the other; ties of compassion, respect, unselfish interest, gratitude, and pity. Thinking of her, and of the possibility of her father’s release from prison by the unbarring hand of death—the only change of circumstance he could foresee that might enable him to be such a friend to her as he wished to be, by altering her whole manner of life, smoothing her rough road, and giving her a home—he regarded her, in that perspective, as his adopted daughter, his poor child of the Marshalsea hushed to rest. If there were a last subject in his thoughts, and it lay towards Twickenham, its form was so indefinite that it was little more than the pervading atmosphere in which these other subjects floated before him. He had crossed the heath and was leaving it behind when he gained upon a figure which had been in advance of him for some time, and which, as he gained upon it, he thought he knew. He derived this impression from something in the turn of the head, and in the figure’s action of consideration, as it went on at a sufficiently sturdy walk. But when the man—for it was a man’s figure—pushed his hat up at the back of his head, and stopped to consider some object before him, he knew it to be Daniel Doyce. ‘How do you do, Mr Doyce?’ said Clennam, overtaking him. ‘I am glad to see you again, and in a healthier place than the Circumlocution Office.’ ‘Ha! Mr Meagles’s friend!’ exclaimed that public criminal, coming out of some mental combinations he had been making, and offering his hand. ‘I am glad to see you, sir. Will you excuse me if I forget your name?’ ‘Readily. It’s not a celebrated name. It’s not Barnacle.’ ‘No, no,’ said Daniel, laughing. ‘And now I know what it is. It’s Clennam. How do you do, Mr Clennam?’ ‘I have some hope,’ said Arthur, as they walked on together, ‘that we may be going to the same place, Mr Doyce.’

‘Meaning Twickenham?’ returned Daniel. ‘I am glad to hear it. ’ They were soon quite intimate, and lightened the way with a variety of conversation. The ingenious culprit was a man of great modesty and good sense; and, though a plain man, had been too much accustomed to combine what was original and daring in conception with what was patient and minute in execution, to be by any means an ordinary man. It was at first difficult to lead him to speak about himself, and he put off Arthur’s advances in that direction by admitting slightly, oh yes, he had done this, and he had done that, and such a thing was of his making, and such another thing was his discovery, but it was his trade, you see, his trade; until, as he gradually became assured that his companion had a real interest in his account of himself, he frankly yielded to it. Then it appeared that he was the son of a north-country blacksmith, and had originally been apprenticed by his widowed mother to a lock-maker; that he had ‘struck out a few little things’ at the lock-maker’s, which had led to his being released from his indentures with a present, which present had enabled him to gratify his ardent wish to bind himself to a working engineer, under whom he had laboured hard, learned hard, and lived hard, seven years. His time being out, he had ‘worked in the shop’ at weekly wages seven or eight years more; and had then betaken him-self to the banks of the Clyde, where he had studied, and filed, and hammered, and improved his knowledge, theoretical and practical, for six or seven years more. There he had had an offer to go to Lyons, which he had accepted; and from Lyons had been engaged to go to Germany, and in Germany had had an offer to go to St Petersburg, and there had done very well indeed—never better. However, he had naturally felt a preference for his own country, and a wish to gain distinction there, and to do whatever service he could do, there rather than else-where. And so he had come home. And so at home he had established himself in business, and had invented and executed, and worked his way on, until, after a dozen years of constant suit and service, he had been enrolled in the Great British Legion of Honour, the Legion of the Rebuffed of the Circumlocution Office, and had been decorated with the Great British Order of Merit, the Order of the Disorder of the Barnacles and S tilts talking s. ‘it is much to be regretted,’ said Clennam, ‘that you ever turned your thoughts that way, Mr Doyce.’ ‘True, sir, true to a certain extent. But what is a man to do? if he has the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation, he must follow where it leads him.’ ‘Hadn’t he better let it go?’ said Clennam. ‘He can’t do it,’ said Doyce, shaking his head with a thoughtful smile. ‘It’s not put into his head to be buried. It’s put into his head to be made useful. You hold your life on the condition that to the last you shall struggle hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on the same terms.’ ‘That is to say,’ said Arthur, with a growing admiration of his quiet companion, ‘you are not finally discouraged even now?’ ‘I have no right to be, if I am,’ returned the other. ‘The thing is as true as it ever was.’ When they had walked a little way in silence, Clennam, at once to change the direct point of their conversation and not to change it too abruptly, asked Mr Doyce if he had any partner in his business to relieve him of a portion of its anxieties? ‘No,’ he returned, ‘not at present. I had when I first entered on it, and a good man he was. But he has been dead some years; and as I could not easily take to the notion of another when I lost him, I bought his share for myself and have gone on by myself ever since. And here’s another thing,’ he said, stop-ping for a moment with a good-humoured laugh in his eyes, and laying his closed right hand, with its peculiar suppleness of thumb, on Clennam’s arm, ‘no inventor can be a man of business, you know.’ ‘No?’ said Clennam. ‘Why, so the men of business say,’ he answered, resuming the walk and laughing outright. ‘I don’t know why we unfortunate creatures should be supposed to want common sense, but it is generally taken for granted that we do. Even the best friend I have in the world, our excellent friend over yonder,’ said Doyce, nodding towards Twickenham, ‘extends a sort of protection to me, don’t you know, as a man not quite able to take care of himself?’

Arthur Clennam could not help joining in the good-humoured laugh, for he recognised the truth of the description. ‘So I find that I must have a partner who is a man of business and not guilty of any inventions,’ said Daniel Doyce, taking off his hat to pass his hand over his forehead, ‘if it’s only in deference to the current opinion, and to uphold the credit of the Works. I don’t think he’ll find that I have been very remiss or confused in my way of conducting them; but that’s for him to say—whoever he is—not for me.’ ‘You have not chosen him yet, then?’ ‘No, sir, no. I have only just come to a decision to take one. The fact is, there’s more to do than there used to be, and the Works are enough for me as I grow older. What with the books and correspondence, and foreign journeys for which a Principal is necessary, I can’t do all. I am going to talk over the best way of negotiating the matter, if I find a spare half-hour between this and Monday morning, with my—my Nurse and protector,’ said Doyce, with laughing eyes again. ‘He is a sagacious man in business, and has had a good apprenticeship to it.’ After this, they conversed on different subjects until they arrived at their journey’s end. A composed and unobtrusive selfsustainment was noticeable in Daniel Doyce—a calm know-ledge that what was true must remain true, in spite of all the Barnacles in the family ocean, and would be just the truth, and neither more nor less when even that sea had run dry—which had a kind of greatness in it, though not of the official quality. As he knew the house well, he conducted Arthur to it by the way that showed it to the best advantage. It was a charming place (none the worse for being a little eccentric), on the road by the river, and just what the residence of the Meagles family ought to be. It stood in a garden, no doubt as fresh and beautiful in the May of the Year as Pet now was in the May of her life; and it was defended by a goodly show of handsome trees and spreading evergreens, as Pet was by Mr and Mrs Meagles. It was made out of an old brick house, of which a part had been altogether pulled down, and another part had been changed in-to the present cottage; so there was a hale elderly portion, to represent Mr and Mrs Meagles, and a young picturesque, very pretty portion to represent Pet. There was even the later addition of a conservatory sheltering itself against it, uncertain of hue in its deep-stained glass, and in its more transparent portions flashing to the sun’s rays, now like fire and now like harmless water drops; which might have stood for Tattycoram. Within view was the peaceful river and the ferry-boat, to moralise to all the inmates saying: Young or old, passionate or tranquil, chafing or content, you, thus runs the current always. Let the heart swell into what discord it will, thus plays the rippling water on the prow of the ferry-boat ever the same tune. Year after year, so much allowance for the drifting of the boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet, upon this road that steadily runs away; while you, upon your flowing road of time, are so capricious and distracted. The bell at the gate had scarcely sounded when Mr Meagles came out to receive them. Mr Meagles had scarcely come out, when Mrs Meagles came out. Mrs Meagles had scarcely come out, when Pet came out. Pet scarcely had come out, when Tattycoram came out. Never had visitors a more hospitable reception. ‘Here we are, you see,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘boxed up, Mr Clennam, within our own home-limits, as if we were never going to expand—that is, travel—again. Not like Marseilles, eh? No al-longing and marshonging here!’ ‘A different kind of beauty, indeed!’ said Clennam, looking about him. ‘But, Lord bless me!’ cried Mr Meagles, rubbing his hands with a relish, ‘it was an uncommonly pleasant thing being in quarantine, wasn’t it? Do you know, I have often wished myself back again? We were a capital party.’ This was Mr Meagles’s invariable habit. Always to object to everything while he was travelling, and always to want to get back to it when he was not travelling. ‘If it was summer-time,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘which I wish it was on your account, and in order that you might see the place at its best, you would hardly be able to hear yourself speak for birds. Being practical people, we never allow anybody to scare the birds; and the birds, being practical people too, come about us in myriads. We are delighted to see you, Clennam (if you’ll allow me, I shall drop the Mister); I heartily assure you, we are delighted.’

‘I have not had so pleasant a greeting,’ said Clennam—then he recalled what Little Dorrit had said to him in his own room, and faithfully added ‘except once—since we last walked to and fro, looking down at the Mediterranean.’ ‘Ah!’ returned Mr Meagles. ‘Something like a look out, that was, wasn’t it? I don’t want a military government, but I shouldn’t mind a little allonging and marshonging—just a dash of it—in this neighbourhood sometimes. It’s Devilish still.’ Bestowing this eulogium on the retired character of his re-treat with a dubious shake of the head, Mr Meagles led the way into the house. It was just large enough, and no more; was as pretty within as it was without, and was perfectly well-arranged and comfortable. Some traces of the migratory habits of the family were to be observed in the covered frames and furniture, and wrapped-up hangings; but it was easy to see that it was one of Mr Meagles’s whims to have the cottage always kept, in their absence, as if they were always coming back the day after to-morrow. Of articles collected on his various expeditions, there was such a vast miscellany that it was like the dwelling of an amiable Corsair. There were antiquities from Central Italy, made by the best modern houses in that department of industry; bits of mummy from Egypt (and perhaps Birmingham); model gondolas from Venice; model villages from Switzerland; morsels of tesselated pavement from Herculaneum and Pompeii, like petrified minced veal; ashes out of tombs, and lava out of Vesuvius; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, Moorish slippers, Tuscan hairpins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini scarves, Genoese velvets and filigree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva jewellery, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest all round by the Pope himself, and an infinite variety of lumber. There were views, like and unlike, of a multitude of places; and there was one little picture-room devoted to a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair like Neptune’s, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is now called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he said, except of what pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap, and people had considered them rather fine. One man, who at any rate ought to know something of the subject, had declared that ‘Sage, Reading’ (a specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a swan’s-down tippet for a beard, and a web of cracks all over him like rich pie-crust), to be a fine Guercino. As for Sebastian del Piombo there, you would judge for yourself; if it were not his later manner, the question was, Who was it? Titian, that might or might not be—perhaps he had only touched it. Daniel Doyce said perhaps he hadn’t touched it, but Mr Meagles rather declined to overhear the remark. When he had shown all his spoils, Mr Meagles took them into his own snug room overlooking the lawn, which was fitted up in part like a dressing-room and in part like an office, and in which, upon a kind of counter-desk, were a pair of brass scales for weighing gold, and a scoop for shovelling out money. ‘Here they are, you see,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘I stood behind these two articles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought of gadding about than I now think of—staying at home. When I left the Bank for good, I asked for them, and brought them away with me. I mention it at once, or you might suppose that I sit in my counting-house (as Pet says I do), like the king in the poem of the four-and-twenty blackbirds, counting out my money.’ Clennam’s eyes had strayed to a natural picture on the wall, of two pretty little girls with their arms entwined. ‘Yes, Clennam,’ said Mr Meagles, in a lower voice. ‘There they both are. It was taken some seventeen years ago. As I often say to Mother, they were babies then.’ ‘Their names?’ said Arthur. ‘Ah, to be sure! You have never heard any name but Pet. Pet’s name is Minnie; her sister’s Lillie.’ ‘Should you have known, Mr Clennam, that one of them was meant for me?’ asked Pet herself, now standing in the doorway. ‘I might have thought that both of them were meant for you, both are still so like you. Indeed,’ said Clennam, glancing from the fair original to the picture and back, ‘I cannot even now say which is not your portrait.’

‘D’ye hear that, Mother?’ cried Mr Meagles to his wife, who had followed her daughter. ‘It’s always the same, Clennam; nobody can decide. The child to your left is Pet.’ The picture happened to be near a looking-glass. As Arthur looked at it again, he saw, by the reflection of the mirror, Tattycoram stop in passing outside the door, listen to what was going on, and pass away with an angry and contemptuous frown upon her face, that changed its beauty into ugliness. ‘But come!’ said Mr Meagles. ‘You have had a long walk, and will be glad to get your boots off. As to Daniel here, I suppose he’d never think of taking his boots off, unless we showed him a bootjack.’ ‘Why not?’ asked Daniel, with a significant smile at Clennam. ‘Oh! You have so many things to think about,’ returned Mr Meagles, clapping him on the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left to itself on any account. ‘Figures, and wheels, and cogs, and levers, and screws, and cylinders, and a thousand things.’ ‘In my calling,’ said Daniel, amused, ‘the greater usually includes the less. But never mind, never mind! Whatever pleases you, pleases me.’ Clennam could not help speculating, as he seated himself in his room by the fire, whether there might be in the breast of this honest, affectionate, and cordial Mr Meagles, any microscopic portion of the mustard-seed that had sprung up into the great tree of the Circumlocution Office. His curious sense of a general superiority to Daniel Doyce, which seemed to be founded, not so much on anything in Doyce’s personal character as on the mere fact of his being an originator and a man out of the beaten track of other men, suggested the idea. It might have occupied him until he went down to dinner an hour after-wards, if he had not had another question to consider, which had been in his mind so long ago as before he was in quarantine at Marseilles, and which had now returned to it, and was very urgent with it. No less a question than this: Whether he should allow himself to fall in love with Pet? He was twice her age. (He changed the leg he had crossed over the other, and tried the calculation again, but could not bring out the total at less.) He was twice her age. Well! He was young in appearance, young in health and strength, young in heart. A man was certainly not old at forty; and many men were not in circumstances to marry, or did not marry, until they had attained that time of life. On the other hand, the question was, not what he thought of the point, but what she thought of it. He believed that Mr Meagles was disposed to entertain a ripe regard for him, and he knew that he had a sincere regard for Mr Meagles and his good wife. He could foresee that to relinquish this beautiful only child, of whom they were so fond, to any husband, would be a trial of their love which perhaps they never yet had had the fortitude to contemplate. But the more beautiful and winning and charming she, the nearer they must always be to the necessity of approaching it. And why not in his favour, as well as in another’s? When he had got so far, it came again into his head that the question was, not what they thought of it, but what she thought of it. Arthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a sense of many deficiencies; and he so exalted the merits of the beautiful Minnie in his mind, and depressed his own, that when he pinned him-self to this point, his hopes began to fail him. He came to the final resolution, as he made himself ready for dinner, that he would not allow himself to fall in love with Pet. There were only five, at a round table, and it was very pleas-ant indeed. They had so many places and people to recall, and they were all so easy and cheerful together (Daniel Doyce either sitting out like an amused spectator at cards, or coming in with some shrewd little experiences of his own, when it happened to be to the purpose), that they might have been together twenty times, and not have known so much of one another. ‘And Miss Wade,’ said Mr Meagles, after they had recalled a number of fellow-travellers. ‘Has anybody seen Miss Wade?’ ‘I have,’ said Tattycoram. She had brought a little mantle which her young mistress had sent for, and was bending over her, putting it on, when she lifted up her dark eyes and made this unexpected answer. ‘Tatty!’ her young mistress exclaimed. ‘You seen Miss Wade?—where?’ ‘Here, miss,’ said Tattycoram.

‘How?’ An impatient glance from Tattycoram seemed, as Clennam saw it, to answer ‘With my eyes!’ But her only answer in words was: ‘I met her near the church.’ ‘What was she doing there I wonder!’ said Mr Meagles. ‘Not going to it, I should think.’ ‘She had written to me first,’ said Tattycoram. ‘Oh, Tatty!’ murmured her mistress, ‘take your hands away. I feel as if some one else was touching me!’ She said it in a quick involuntary way, but half playfully, and not more petulantly or disagreeably than a favourite child might have done, who laughed next moment. Tattycoram set her full red lips together, and crossed her arms upon her bosom. ‘Did you wish to know, sir,’ she said, looking at Mr Meagles, ‘what Miss Wade wrote to me about?’ ‘Well, Tattycoram,’ returned Mr Meagles, ‘since you ask the question, and we are all friends here, perhaps you may as well mention it, if you are so inclined.’ ‘She knew, when we were travelling, where you lived,’ said Tattycoram, ‘and she had seen me not quite—not quite—’ ‘Not quite in a good temper, Tattycoram?’ suggested Mr Meagles, shaking his head at the dark eyes with a quiet caution. ‘Take a little time—count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.’ She pressed her lips together again, and took a long deep breath. ‘So she wrote to me to say that if I ever felt myself hurt,’ she looked down at her young mistress, ‘or found myself worried,’ she looked down at her again, ‘I might go to her, and be considerately treated. I was to think of it, and could speak to her by the church. So I went there to thank her.’ ‘Tatty,’ said her young mistress, putting her hand up over her shoulder that the other might take it, ‘Miss Wade almost frightened me when we parted, and I scarcely like to think of her just now as having been so near me without my knowing it. Tatty dear!’ Tatty stood for a moment, immovable. ‘Hey?’ cried Mr Meagles. ‘Count another five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.’

She might have counted a dozen, when she bent and put her lips to the caressing hand. It patted her cheek, as it touched the owner’s beautiful curls, and Tattycoram went away. ‘Now there,’ said Mr Meagles softly, as he gave a turn to the dumb-waiter on his right hand to twirl the sugar towards him-self. ‘There’s a girl who might be lost and ruined, if she wasn’t among practical people. Mother and I know, solely from being practical, that there are times when that girl’s whole nature seems to roughen itself against seeing us so bound up in Pet. No father and mother were bound up in her, poor soul. I don’t like to think of the way in which that unfortunate child, with all that passion and protest in her, feels when she hears the Fifth Commandment on a Sunday. I am always inclined to call out, Church, Count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.’ Besides his dumb-waiter, Mr Meagles had two other not dumb waiters in the persons of two parlour-maids with rosy faces and bright eyes, who were a highly ornamental part of the table decoration. ‘And why not, you see?’ said Mr Meagles on this head. ‘As I always say to Mother, why not have something pretty to look at, if you have anything at all?’ A certain Mrs Tickit, who was Cook and Housekeeper when the family were at home, and Housekeeper only when the family were away, completed the establishment. Mr Meagles regretted that the nature of the duties in which she was engaged, rendered Mrs Tickit unpresentable at present, but hoped to introduce her to the new visitor to-morrow. She was an important part of the Cottage, he said, and all his friends knew her. That was her picture up in the corner. When they went away, she always put on the silk-gown and the jet-black row of curls represented in that portrait (her hair was reddish-grey in the kitchen), established herself in the breakfast-room, put her spectacles between two particular leaves of Doctor Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, and sat looking over the blind all day until they came back again. It was supposed that no persuasion could be invented which would induce Mrs Tickit to abandon her post at the blind, however long their absence, or to dispense with the attendance of Dr Buchan; the lucubrations of which learned practitioner, Mr Meagles implicitly believed she had never yet consulted to the extent of one word in her life.

In the evening they played an old-fashioned rubber; and Pet sat looking over her father’s hand, or singing to herself by fits and starts at the piano. She was a spoilt child; but how could she be otherwise? Who could be much with so pliable and beautiful a creature, and not yield to her endearing influence? Who could pass an evening in the house, and not love her for the grace and charm of her very presence in the room? This was Clennam’s reflection, notwithstanding the final conclusion at which he had arrived up-stairs. In making it, he revoked. ‘Why, what are you thinking of, my good sir?’ asked the astonished Mr Meagles, who was his partner. ‘I beg your pardon. Nothing,’ returned Clennam. ‘Think of something, next time; that’s a dear fellow,’ said Mr Meagles. Pet laughingly believed he had been thinking of Miss Wade. ‘Why of Miss Wade, Pet?’ asked her father. ‘Why, indeed!’ said Arthur Clennam. Pet coloured a little, and went to the piano again. As they broke up for the night, Arthur overheard Doyce ask his host if he could give him half an hour’s conversation before breakfast in the morning? The host replying willingly, Arthur lingered behind a moment, having his own word to add to that topic. ‘Mr Meagles,’ he said, on their being left alone, ‘do you re-member when you advised me to go straight to London?’ ‘Perfectly well.’ ‘And when you gave me some other good advice which I needed at that time?’ ‘I won’t say what it was worth,’ answered Mr Meagles: ‘but of course I remember our being very pleasant and confidential together.’ ‘I have acted on your advice; and having disembarrassed my-self of an occupation that was painful to me for many reasons, wish to devote myself and what means I have, to another pursuit.’ ‘Right! You can’t do it too soon,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘Now, as I came down to-day, I found that your friend, Mr Doyce, is looking for a partner in his business—not a partner in his mechanical knowledge, but in the ways and means of turning the business arising from it to the best account.’ ‘Just so,’ said Mr Meagles, with his hands in his pockets, and with the old business expression of face that had belonged to the scales and scoop. ‘Mr Doyce mentioned incidentally, in the course of our conversation, that he was going to take your valuable advice on the subject of finding such a partner. If you should think our views and opportunities at all likely to coincide, perhaps you will let him know my available position. I speak, of course, in ignorance of the details, and they may be unsuitable on both sides.’ ‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said Mr Meagles, with the caution be-longing to the scales and scoop. ‘But they will be a question of figures and accounts—’ ‘Just so, just so,’ said Mr Meagles, with arithmetical solidity belonging to the scales and scoop. ‘—And I shall be glad to enter into the subject, provided Mr Doyce responds, and you think well of it. If you will at present, therefore, allow me to place it in your hands, you will much oblige me.’ ‘Clennam, I accept the trust with readiness,’ said Mr Meagles. ‘And without anticipating any of the points which you, as a man of business, have of course reserved, I am free to say to you that I think something may come of this. Of one thing you may be perfectly certain. Daniel is an honest man.’ ‘I am so sure of it that I have promptly made up my mind to speak to you.’ ‘You must guide him, you know; you must steer him; you must direct him; he is one of a crotchety sort,’ said Mr Meagles, evidently meaning nothing more than that he did new things and went new ways; ‘but he is as honest as the sun, and so good night!’ Clennam went back to his room, sat down again before his fire, and made up his mind that he was glad he had resolved not to fall in love with Pet. She was so beautiful, so amiable, so apt to receive any true impression given to her gentle nature and her innocent heart, and make the man who should be so happy as to communicate it, the most fortunate and enviable of all men, that he was very glad indeed he had come to that conclusion.

But, as this might have been a reason for coming to the opposite conclusion, he followed out the theme again a little way in his mind; to justify himself, perhaps. ‘Suppose that a man,’ so his thoughts ran, ‘who had been of age some twenty years or so; who was a diffident man, from the circumstances of his youth; who was rather a grave man, from the tenor of his life; who knew himself to be deficient in many little engaging qualities which he admired in others, from having been long in a distant region, with nothing softening near him; who had no kind sisters to present to her; who had no congenial home to make her known in; who was a stranger in the land; who had not a fortune to compensate, in any measure, for these defects; who had nothing in his favour but his honest love and his general wish to do right—suppose such a man were to come to this house, and were to yield to the captivation of this charming girl, and were to persuade himself that he could hope to win her; what a weakness it would be!’ He softly opened his window, and looked out upon the serene river. Year after year so much allowance for the drifting of the ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet. Why should he be vexed or sore at heart? It was not his weakness that he had imagined. It was nobody’s, nobody’s within his knowledge; why should it trouble him? And yet it did trouble him. And he thought—who has not thought for a moment, sometimes?—that it might be better to flow away monotonously, like the river, and to compound for its insensibility to happiness with its insensibility to pain.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17
Nobody’s Rival

Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about him. As the morning was fine and he had an hour on his hands, he crossed the river by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath through some meadows. When he came back to the towing-path, he found the ferry-boat on the opposite side, and a gentleman hailing it and waiting to be taken over. This gentleman looked barely thirty. He was well dressed, of a sprightly and gay appearance, a well-knit figure, and a rich dark complexion. As Arthur came over the stile and down to the water’s edge, the lounger glanced at him for a moment, and then resumed his occupation of idly tossing stones into the water with his foot. There was something in his way of spurning them out of their places with his heel, and getting them in-to the required position, that Clennam thought had an air of cruelty in it. Most of us have more or less frequently derived a similar impression from a man’s manner of doing some very little thing: plucking a flower, clearing away an obstacle, or even destroying an insentient object. The gentleman’s thoughts were preoccupied, as his face showed, and he took no notice of a fine Newfoundland dog, who watched him attentively, and watched every stone too, in its turn, eager to spring into the river on receiving his master’s sign. The ferry-boat came over, however, without his receiving any sign, and when it grounded his master took him by the collar and walked him into it. ‘Not this morning,’ he said to the dog. ‘You won’t do for ladies’ company, dripping wet. Lie down.’ Clennam followed the man and the dog into the boat, and took his seat. The dog did as he was ordered. The man remained standing, with his hands in his pockets, and towered between Clennam and the prospect. Man and dog both jumped lightly out as soon as they touched the other side, and went away. Clennam was glad to be rid of them. The church clock struck the breakfast hour as he walked up the little lane by which the garden-gate was approached. The moment he pulled the bell a deep loud barking assailed him from within the wall. ‘I heard no dog last night,’ thought Clennam. The gate was opened by one of the rosy maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland dog and the man. ‘Miss Minnie is not down yet, gentlemen,’ said the blushing portress, as they all came together in the garden. Then she said to the master of the dog, ‘Mr Clennam, sir,’ and tripped away. ‘Odd enough, Mr Clennam, that we should have met just now,’ said the man. Upon which the dog became mute. ‘Allow me to introduce myself—Henry Gowan. A pretty place this, and looks wonderfully well this morning!’ The manner was easy, and the voice agreeable; but still Clennam thought, that if he had not made that decided resolution to avoid falling in love with Pet, he would have taken a dislike to this Henry Gowan. ‘It’s new to you, I believe?’ said this Gowan, when Arthur had extolled the place. ‘Quite new. I made acquaintance with it only yesterday afternoon.’ ‘Ah! Of course this is not its best aspect. It used to look charming in the spring, before they went away last time. I should like you to have seen it then.’ But for that resolution so often recalled, Clennam might have wished him in the crater of Mount Etna, in return for this civility. ‘I have had the pleasure of seeing it under many circumstances during the last three years, and it’s—a Paradise.’ It was (at least it might have been, always excepting for that wise resolution) like his dexterous impudence to call it a Paradise. He only called it a Paradise because he first saw her coming, and so made her out within her hearing to be an angel, Confusion to him! And ah! how beaming she looked, and how glad! How she caressed the dog, and how the dog knew her! How expressive that heightened colour in her face, that fluttered manner, her downcast eyes, her irresolute happiness! When had Clennam seen her look like this? Not that there was any reason why he might, could, would, or should have ever seen her look like this, or that he had ever hoped for himself to see her look like this; but still—when had he ever known her do it! He stood at a little distance from them. This Gowan when he had talked about a Paradise, had gone up to her and taken her hand. The dog had put his great paws on her arm and laid his head against her dear bosom. She had laughed and welcomed them, and made far too much of the dog, far, far, too much—that is to say, supposing there had been any third per-son looking on who loved her. She disengaged herself now, and came to Clennam, and put her hand in his and wished him good morning, and gracefully made as if she would take his arm and be escorted into the house. To this Gowan had no objection. No, he knew he was too safe. There was a passing cloud on Mr Meagles’s good-humoured face when they all three (four, counting the dog, and he was the most objectionable but one of the party) came in to break-fast. Neither it, nor the touch of uneasiness on Mrs Meagles as she directed her eyes towards it, was unobserved by Clennam. ‘Well, Gowan,’ said Mr Meagles, even suppressing a sigh; ‘how goes the world with you this morning?’ ‘Much as usual, sir. Lion and I being determined not to waste anything of our weekly visit, turned out early, and came over from Kingston, my present headquarters, where I am making a sketch or two.’ Then he told how he had met Mr Clennam at the ferry, and they had come over together. ‘Mrs Gowan is well, Henry?’ said Mrs Meagles. (Clennam be-came attentive.) ‘My mother is quite well, thank you.’ (Clennam became inattentive.) ‘I have taken the liberty of making an addition to your family dinner-party to-day, which I hope will not be inconvenient to you or to Mr Meagles. I couldn’t very well get out of it,’ he explained, turning to the latter. ‘The young fellow wrote to propose himself to me; and as he is well connected, I thought you would not object to my transferring him here.’

‘Who is the young fellow?’ asked Mr Meagles with peculiar complacency. ‘He is one of the Barnacles. Tite Barnacle’s son, Clarence Barnacle, who is in his father’s Department. I can at least guarantee that the river shall not suffer from his visit. He won’t set it on fire.’ ‘Aye, aye?’ said Meagles. ‘A Barnacle is he? We know something of that family, eh, Dan? By George, they are at the top of the tree, though! Let me see. What relation will this young fellow be to Lord Decimus now? His Lordship married, in seventeen ninety-seven, Lady Jemima Bilberry, who was the second daughter by the third marriage—no! There I am wrong! That was Lady Seraphina—Lady Jemima was the first daughter by the second marriage of the fifteenth Earl of Stiltstalking with the Honourable Clementina Toozellem. Very well. Now this young fellow’s father married a Stiltstalking and his father married his cousin who was a Barnacle. The father of that father who married a Barnacle, married a Joddleby.—I am getting a little too far back, Gowan; I want to make out what relation this young fellow is to Lord Decimus.’ ‘That’s easily stated. His father is nephew to Lord Decimus.’ ‘Nephew—to—Lord—Decimus,’ Mr Meagles luxuriously repeated with his eyes shut, that he might have nothing to distract him from the full flavour of the genealogical tree. ‘By George, you are right, Gowan. So he is.’ ‘Consequently, Lord Decimus is his great uncle.’ ‘But stop a bit!’ said Mr Meagles, opening his eyes with a fresh discovery. ‘Then on the mother’s side, Lady Stiltstalking is his great aunt.’ ‘Of course she is.’ ‘Aye, aye, aye?’ said Mr Meagles with much interest. ‘Indeed, indeed? We shall be glad to see him. We’ll entertain him as well as we can, in our humble way; and we shall not starve him, I hope, at all events.’ In the beginning of this dialogue, Clennam had expected some great harmless outburst from Mr Meagles, like that which had made him burst out of the Circumlocution Office, holding Doyce by the collar. But his good friend had a weakness which none of us need go into the next street to find, and which no amount of Circumlocution experience could long subdue in him. Clennam looked at Doyce; but Doyce knew all about it beforehand, and looked at his plate, and made no sign, and said no word. ‘I am much obliged to you,’ said Gowan, to conclude the subject. ‘Clarence is a great ass, but he is one of the dearest and best fellows that ever lived!’ It appeared, before the breakfast was over, that everybody whom this Gowan knew was either more or less of an ass, or more or less of a knave; but was, notwithstanding, the most lovable, the most engaging, the simplest, truest, kindest, dearest, best fellow that ever lived. The process by which this unvarying result was attained, whatever the premises, might have been stated by Mr Henry Gowan thus: ‘I claim to be always book-keeping, with a peculiar nicety, in every man’s case, and posting up a careful little account of Good and Evil with him. I do this so conscientiously, that I am happy to tell you I find the most worthless of men to be the dearest old fellow too: and am in a condition to make the gratifying report, that there is much less difference than you are inclined to sup-pose between an honest man and a scoundrel.’ The effect of this cheering discovery happened to be, that while he seemed to be scrupulously finding good in most men, he did in reality lower it where it was, and set it up where it was not; but that was its only disagreeable or dangerous feature. It scarcely seemed, however, to afford Mr Meagles as much satisfaction as the Barnacle genealogy had done. The cloud that Clennam had never seen upon his face before that morning, frequently overcast it again; and there was the same shad-ow of uneasy observation of him on the comely face of his wife. More than once or twice when Pet caressed the dog, it appeared to Clennam that her father was unhappy in seeing her do it; and, in one particular instance when Gowan stood on the other side of the dog, and bent his head at the same time, Arthur fancied that he saw tears rise to Mr Meagles’s eyes as he hurried out of the room. It was either the fact too, or he fancied further, that Pet herself was not insensible to these little incidents; that she tried, with a more delicate affection than usual, to express to her good father how much she loved him; that it was on this account that she fell behind the rest, both as they went to church and as they returned from it, and took his arm. He could not have sworn but that as he walked alone in the garden afterwards, he had an instantaneous glimpse of her in her father’s room, clinging to both her parents with the greatest tenderness, and weeping on her father’s shoulder. The latter part of the day turning out wet, they were fain to keep the house, look over Mr Meagles’s collection, and beguile the time with conversation. This Gowan had plenty to say for himself, and said it in an off-hand and amusing manner. He appeared to be an artist by profession, and to have been at Rome some time; yet he had a slight, careless, amateur way with him—a perceptible limp, both in his devotion to art and his attainments—which Clennam could scarcely understand. He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together, looking out of window. ‘You know Mr Gowan?’ he said in a low voice. ‘I have seen him here. Comes here every Sunday when they are at home.’ ‘An artist, I infer from what he says?’ ‘A sort of a one,’ said Daniel Doyce, in a surly tone. ‘What sort of a one?’ asked Clennam, with a smile. ‘Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a leisurely Pall-Mall pace,’ said Doyce, ‘and I doubt if they care to be taken quite so coolly.’ Pursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that the Gowan family were a very distant ramification of the Barnacles; and that the paternal Gowan, originally attached to a legation abroad, had been pensioned off as a Commissioner of nothing particular somewhere or other, and had died at his post with his drawn salary in his hand, nobly defending it to the last extremity. In consideration of this eminent public service, the Barnacle then in power had recommended the Crown to bestow a pension of two or three hundred a-year on his widow; to which the next Barnacle in power had added certain shady and sedate apartments in the Palaces at Hampton Court, where the old lady still lived, deploring the degeneracy of the times in company with several other old ladies of both sexes. Her son, Mr Henry Gowan, inheriting from his father, the Commissioner, that very questionable help in life, a very small independence, had been difficult to settle; the rather, as public appointments chanced to be scarce, and his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that exclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the cultivation of wild oats. At last he had declared that he would become a Painter; partly because he had always had an idle knack that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief who had not provided for him. So it had come to pass successively, first, that several distinguished ladies had been frightfully shocked; then, that portfolios of his performances had been handed about o’ nights, and declared with ecstasy to be perfect Claudes, perfect Cuyps, perfect phenomena; then, that Lord Decimus had bought his picture, and had asked the President and Council to dinner at a blow, and had said, with his own magnificent gravity, ‘Do you know, there appears to me to be really immense merit in that work?’ and, in short, that people of condition had absolutely taken pains to bring him into fashion. But, somehow, it had all failed. The prejudiced public had stood out against it obstinately. They had determined not to admire Lord Decimus’s picture. They had determined to believe that in every service, except their own, a man must qualify himself, by striving early and late, and by working heart and soul, might and main. So now Mr Gowan, like that worn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet’s nor anybody else’s, hung midway between two points: jaundiced and jealous as to the one he had left: jaundiced and jealous as to the other that he couldn’t reach. Such was the substance of Clennam’s discoveries concerning him, made that rainy Sunday afternoon and afterwards. About an hour or so after dinner time, Young Barnacle appeared, attended by his eyeglass; in honour of whose family connections, Mr Meagles had cashiered the pretty parlour-maids for the day, and had placed on duty in their stead two dingy men. Young Barnacle was in the last degree amazed and disconcerted at sight of Arthur, and had murmured involuntarily, ‘Look here! upon my soul, you know!’ before his presence of mind returned. Even then, he was obliged to embrace the earliest opportunity of taking his friend into a window, and saying, in a nasal way that was a part of his general debility: ‘I want to speak to you, Gowan. I say. Look here. Who is that fellow?’ ‘A friend of our host’s. None of mine.’

‘He’s a most ferocious Radical, you know,’ said Young Barnacle. ‘Is he? How do you know?’ ‘Egod, sir, he was Pitching into our people the other day in the most tremendous manner. Went up to our place and Pitched into my father to that extent that it was necessary to order him out. Came back to our Department, and Pitched into me. Look here. You never saw such a fellow.’ ‘What did he want?’ ‘Egod, sir,’ returned Young Barnacle, ‘he said he wanted to know, you know! Pervaded our Department—without an appointment—and said he wanted to know!’ The stare of indignant wonder with which Young Barnacle accompanied this disclosure, would have strained his eyes injuriously but for the opportune relief of dinner. Mr Meagles (who had been extremely solicitous to know how his uncle and aunt were) begged him to conduct Mrs Meagles to the dining-room. And when he sat on Mrs Meagles’s right hand, Mr Meagles looked as gratified as if his whole family were there. All the natural charm of the previous day was gone. The eaters of the dinner, like the dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid, overdone—and all owing to this poor little dull Young Barnacle. Conversationless at any time, he was now the victim of a weakness special to the occasion, and solely referable to Clennam. He was under a pressing and continual necessity of looking at that gentleman, which occasioned his eye-glass to get into his soup, into his wine-glass, into Mrs Meagles’s plate, to hang down his back like a bell-rope, and be several times disgrace-fully restored to his bosom by one of the dingy men. Weakened in mind by his frequent losses of this instrument, and its de-termination not to stick in his eye, and more and more enfeebled in intellect every time he looked at the mysterious Clennam, he applied spoons to his eyes, forks, and other foreign matters connected with the furniture of the dinner-table. His discovery of these mistakes greatly increased his difficulties, but never released him from the necessity of looking at Clennam. And whenever Clennam spoke, this ill-starred young man was clearly seized with a dread that he was coming, by some artful device, round to that point of wanting to know, you know.

It may be questioned, therefore, whether any one but Mr Meagles had much enjoyment of the time. Mr Meagles, however, thoroughly enjoyed Young Barnacle. As a mere flask of the golden water in the tale became a full fountain when it was poured out, so Mr Meagles seemed to feel that this small spice of Barnacle imparted to his table the flavour of the whole family-tree. In its presence, his frank, fine, genuine qualities paled; he was not so easy, he was not so natural, he was striving after something that did not belong to him, he was not him-self. What a strange peculiarity on the part of Mr Meagles, and where should we find another such case! At last the wet Sunday wore itself out in a wet night; and Young Barnacle went home in a cab, feebly smoking; and the objectionable Gowan went away on foot, accompanied by the objectionable dog. Pet had taken the most amiable pains all day to be friendly with Clennam, but Clennam had been a little reserved since breakfast—that is to say, would have been, if he had loved her. When he had gone to his own room, and had again thrown himself into the chair by the fire, Mr Doyce knocked at the door, candle in hand, to ask him how and at what hour he pro-posed returning on the morrow? After settling this question, he said a word to Mr Doyce about this Gowan—who would have run in his head a good deal, if he had been his rival. ‘Those are not good prospects for a painter,’ said Clennam. ‘No,’ returned Doyce. Mr Doyce stood, chamber-candlestick in hand, the other hand in his pocket, looking hard at the flame of his candle, with a certain quiet perception in his face that they were going to say something more. ‘I thought our good friend a little changed, and out of spirits, after he came this morning?’ said Clennam. ‘Yes,’ returned Doyce. ‘But not his daughter?’ said Clennam. ‘No,’ said Doyce. There was a pause on both sides. Mr Doyce, still looking at the flame of his candle, slowly resumed: ‘The truth is, he has twice taken his daughter abroad in the hope of separating her from Mr Gowan. He rather thinks she is disposed to like him, and he has painful doubts (I quite agree with him, as I dare say you do) of the hopefulness of such a marriage.’ ‘There—’ Clennam choked, and coughed, and stopped. ‘Yes, you have taken cold,’ said Daniel Doyce. But without looking at him. ‘There is an engagement between them, of course?’ said Clennam airily. ‘No. As I am told, certainly not. It has been solicited on the gentleman’s part, but none has been made. Since their recent return, our friend has yielded to a weekly visit, but that is the utmost. Minnie would not deceive her father and mother. You have travelled with them, and I believe you know what a bond there is among them, extending even beyond this present life. All that there is between Miss Minnie and Mr Gowan, I have no doubt we see.’ ‘Ah! We see enough!’ cried Arthur. Mr Doyce wished him Good Night in the tone of a man who had heard a mournful, not to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought to infuse some encouragement and hope into the mind of the person by whom it had been uttered. Such tone was probably a part of his oddity, as one of a crotchety band; for how could he have heard anything of that kind, without Clennam’s hearing it too? The rain fell heavily on the roof, and pattered on the ground, and dripped among the evergreens and the leafless branches of the trees. The rain fell heavily, drearily. It was a night of tears. If Clennam had not decided against falling in love with Pet; if he had had the weakness to do it; if he had, little by little, persuaded himself to set all the earnestness of his nature, all the might of his hope, and all the wealth of his matured character, on that cast; if he had done this and found that all was lost; he would have been, that night, unutterably miserable. As it was—As it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18
Little Dorrit’s Lover

Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without finding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer shot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and winged a Collegian or two. Little Dorrit’s lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the sentimental son of a turnkey. His father hoped, in the fulness of time, to leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had from his early youth familiarised him with the duties of his office, and with an ambition to retain the prison-lock in the family. While the succession was yet in abeyance, he assisted his mother in the conduct of a snug tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane (his father being a non-resident turnkey), which could usually command a neat connection within the College walls. Years agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in her little arm-chair by the high Lodge-fender, Young John (family name, Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with admiring wonder. When he had played with her in the yard, his favourite game had been to counterfeit locking her up in corners, and to counterfeit letting her out for real kisses. When he grew tall enough to peep through the keyhole of the great lock of the main door, he had divers times set down his father’s dinner, or supper, to get on as it might on the outer side thereof, while he stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her through that airy perspective. If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less penetrable days of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and is happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had soon strung it up again and screwed it tight. At nine-teen, his hand had inscribed in chalk on that part of the wall which fronted her lodgings, on the occasion of her birthday, ‘Welcome sweet nursling of the Fairies!’ At twenty-three, the same hand falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of the Marshalsea, and Father of the queen of his soul. Young John was small of stature, with rather weak legs and very weak light hair. One of his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to peep through the keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger than the other, as if it couldn’t collect itself. Young John was gentle likewise. But he was great of soul. Poetical, expansive, faithful. Though too humble before the ruler of his heart to be sanguine, Young John had considered the object of his attachment in all its lights and shades. Following it out to blissful results, he had descried, without self-commendation, a fitness in it. Say things prospered, and they were united. She, the child of the Marshalsea; he, the lock-keeper. There was a fitness in that. Say he became a resident turnkey. She would officially succeed to the chamber she had rented so long. There was a beautiful propriety in that. It looked over the wall, if you stood on tip-toe; and, with a trellis-work of scarlet beans and a canary or so, would become a very Arbour. There was a charming idea in that. Then, being all in all to one another, there was even an appropriate grace in the lock. With the world shut out (except that part of it which would be shut in); with its troubles and disturbances only known to them by hearsay, as they would be described by the pilgrims tarrying with them on their way to the Insolvent Shrine; with the Arbour above, and the Lodge be-low; they would glide down the stream of time, in pastoral domestic happiness. Young John drew tears from his eyes by finishing the picture with a tombstone in the adjoining church-yard, close against the prison wall, bearing the following touching inscription: ‘Sacred to the Memory Of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty years Turnkey, and fifty years Head Turnkey, Of the neighbouring Marshalsea, Who departed this life, universally respected, on the thirty-first of December, One thou-sand eight hundred and eighty-six, Aged eighty-three years. Also of his truly beloved and truly loving wife, AMY, whose maiden name was DORRIT, Who survived his loss not quite forty-eight hours, And who breathed her last in the Marshalsea aforesaid. There she was born, There she lived, There she died.’ The Chivery parents were not ignorant of their son’s attachment—indeed it had, on some exceptional occasions, thrown him into a state of mind that had impelled him to conduct him-self with irascibility towards the customers, and damage the business—but they, in their turns, had worked it out to desirable conclusions. Mrs Chivery, a prudent woman, had desired her husband to take notice that their john’s prospects of the Lock would certainly be strengthened by an alliance with Miss Dorrit, who had herself a kind of claim upon the College and was much respected there. Mrs Chivery had desired her husband to take notice that if, on the one hand, their John had means and a post of trust, on the other hand, Miss Dorrit had family; and that her (Mrs Chivery’s) sentiment was, that two halves made a whole. Mrs Chivery, speaking as a mother and not as a diplomatist, had then, from a different point of view, desired her husband to recollect that their John had never been strong, and that his love had fretted and worrited him enough as it was, without his being driven to do himself a mischief, as nobody couldn’t say he wouldn’t be if he was crossed. These arguments had so powerfully influenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of few words, that he had on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy what he termed ‘a lucky touch,’ signifying that he considered such commendation of him to Good Fortune, preparatory to his that day declaring his passion and becoming triumphant. But Young John had never taken courage to make the declaration; and it was principally on these occasions that he had returned excited to the tobacco shop, and flown at the customers. In this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit herself was the last person considered. Her brother and sister were aware of it, and attained a sort of station by making a peg of it on which to air the miserably ragged old fiction of the family gentility. Her sister asserted the family gentility by flouting the poor swain as he loitered about the prison for glimpses of his dear. Tip asserted the family gentility, and his own, by coming out in the character of the aristocratic brother, and loftily swaggering in the little skittle-ground respecting seizures by the scruff of the neck, which there were looming probabilities of some gentleman unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned. These were not the only members of the Dorrit family who turned it to account. No, no. The Father of the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing about the matter, of course: his poor dignity could not see so low. But he took the cigars, on Sundays, and was glad to get them; and sometimes even condescended to walk up and down the yard with the donor (who was proud and hopeful then), and benignantly to smoke one in his society. With no less readiness and condescension did he receive attentions from Chivery Senior, who always relinquished his arm-chair and newspaper to him, when he came into the Lodge during one of his spells of duty; and who had even mentioned to him, that, if he would like at any time after dusk quietly to step out into the fore-court and take a look at the street, there was not much to pre-vent him. If he did not avail himself of this latter civility, it was only because he had lost the relish for it; inasmuch as he took everything else he could get, and would say at times, ‘Extremely civil person, Chivery; very attentive man and very respectful. Young Chivery, too; really almost with a delicate perception of one’s position here. A very well conducted family in-deed, the Chiverys. Their behaviour gratifies me.’ The devoted Young John all this time regarded the family with reverence. He never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but did homage to the miserable Mumbo jumbo they paraded. As to resenting any affront from her brother, he would have felt, even if he had not naturally been of a most pacific disposition, that to wag his tongue or lift his hand against that sacred gentleman would be an unhallowed act. He was sorry that his noble mind should take offence; still, he felt the fact to be not incompatible with its nobility, and sought to propitiate and conciliate that gallant soul. Her father, a gentleman in misfortune—a gentleman of a fine spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with him—he deeply honoured. Her sister he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a young lady of infinite accomplishments, who could not forget the past. It was an instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit’s worth and difference from all the rest, that the poor young fellow honoured and loved her for being simply what she was.

The tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was carried out in a rural establishment one story high, which had the benefit of the air from the yards of Horsemonger-Lane Gaol, and the advantage of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment. The business was of too modest a character to support a life-size Highlander, but it maintained a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who looked like a fallen Cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt. From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of baked viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand; not empty-handed, but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly attired in a plum-coloured coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his figure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden sprigs; a chaste neckerchief much in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of lilac pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons so highly decorated with side-stripes that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state very high and hard. When the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that in addition to these adornments her John carried a pair of white kid gloves, and a cane like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory hand marshalling him the way that he should go; and when she saw him, in this heavy marching order, turn the corner to the right; she remarked to Mr Chivery, who was at home at the time, that she thought she knew which way the wind blew. The Collegians were entertaining a considerable number of visitors that Sunday afternoon, and their Father kept his room for the purpose of receiving presentations. After making the tour of the yard, Little Dorrit’s lover with a hurried heart went up-stairs, and knocked with his knuckles at the Father’s door. ‘Come in, come in!’ said a gracious voice. The Father’s voice, her father’s, the Marshalsea’s father’s. He was seated in his black velvet cap, with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the table, and two chairs arranged. Everything prepared for holding his Court. ‘Ah, Young John! How do you do, how do you do!’ ‘Pretty well, I thank you, sir. I hope you are the same.’ ‘Yes, John Chivery; yes. Nothing to complain of.’ ‘I have taken the liberty, sir, of—’

‘Eh?’ The Father of the Marshalsea always lifted up his eye-brows at this point, and became amiably distraught and smilingly absent in mind. ‘—A few cigars, sir.’ ‘Oh!’ (For the moment, excessively surprised.) ‘Thank you, Young John, thank you. But really, I am afraid I am too—No? Well then, I will say no more about it. Put them on the mantel-shelf, if you please, Young John. And sit down, sit down. You are not a stranger, John.’ ‘Thank you, sir, I am sure—Miss;’ here Young John turned the great hat round and round upon his left-hand, like a slowly-twirling mouse-cage; ‘Miss Amy quite well, sir?’ ‘Yes, John, yes; very well. She is out.’ ‘Indeed, sir?’ ‘Yes, John. Miss Amy is gone for an airing. My young people all go out a good deal. But at their time of life, it’s natural, John.’ ‘Very much so, I am sure, sir.’ ‘An airing. An airing. Yes.’ He was blandly tapping his fingers on the table, and casting his eyes up at the window. ‘Amy has gone for an airing on the Iron Bridge. She has become quite partial to the Iron Bridge of late, and seems to like to walk there better than anywhere.’ He returned to conversation. ‘Your father is not on duty at present, I think, John?’ ‘No, sir, he comes on later in the afternoon.’ Another twirl of the great hat, and then Young John said, rising, ‘I am afraid I must wish you good day, sir.’ ‘So soon? Good day, Young John. Nay, nay,’ with the utmost condescension, ‘never mind your glove, John. Shake hands with it on. You are no stranger here, you know.’ Highly gratified by the kindness of his reception, Young John descended the staircase. On his way down he met some Collegians bringing up visitors to be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit happened to call over the banisters with particular distinctness, ‘Much obliged to you for your little testimonial, John!’ Little Dorrit’s lover very soon laid down his penny on the toll-plate of the Iron Bridge, and came upon it looking about him for the well-known and well-beloved figure. At first he feared she was not there; but as he walked on towards the Middlesex side, he saw her standing still, looking at the water. She was absorbed in thought, and he wondered what she might be thinking about. There were the piles of city roofs and chimneys, more free from smoke than on week-days; and there were the distant masts and steeples. Perhaps she was thinking about them. Little Dorrit mused so long, and was so entirely preoccupied, that although her lover stood quiet for what he thought was a long time, and twice or thrice retired and came back again to the former spot, still she did not move. So, in the end, he made up his mind to go on, and seem to come upon her casually in passing, and speak to her. The place was quiet, and now or never was the time to speak to her. He walked on, and she did not appear to hear his steps until he was close upon her. When he said ‘Miss Dorrit!’ she started and fell back from him, with an expression in her face of fright and something like dislike that caused him unutterable dismay. She had often avoided him before—always, indeed, for a long, long while. She had turned away and glided off so often when she had seen him coming toward her, that the unfortunate Young John could not think it accidental. But he had hoped that it might be shyness, her retiring character, her foreknowledge of the state of his heart, anything short of aversion. Now, that momentary look had said, ‘You, of all people! I would rather have seen any one on earth than you!’ It was but a momentary look, inasmuch as she checked it, and said in her soft little voice, ‘Oh, Mr John! Is it you?’ But she felt what it had been, as he felt what it had been; and they stood looking at one another equally confused. ‘Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you.’ ‘Yes, rather. I—I came here to be alone, and I thought I was.’ ‘Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this way, because Mr Dorrit chanced to mention, when I called upon him just now, that you—’ She caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, ‘O father, father!’ in a heart-rending tone, and turning her face away. ‘Miss Amy, I hope I don’t give you any uneasiness by naming Mr Dorrit. I assure you I found him very well and in the best of Spirits, and he showed me even more than his usual kindness; being so very kind as to say that I was not a stranger there, and in all ways gratifying me very much.’ To the inexpressible consternation of her lover, Little Dorrit, with her hands to her averted face, and rocking herself where she stood as if she were in pain, murmured, ‘O father, how can you! O dear, dear father, how can you, can you, do it!’ The poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflowing with sympathy, but not knowing what to make of this, until, having taken out her handkerchief and put it to her still averted face, she hurried away. At first he remained stock still; then hurried after her. ‘Miss Amy, pray! Will you have the goodness to stop a moment? Miss Amy, if it comes to that, let me go. I shall go out of my senses, if I have to think that I have driven you away like this.’ His trembling voice and unfeigned earnestness brought Little Dorrit to a stop. ‘Oh, I don’t know what to do,’ she cried, ‘I don’t know what to do!’ To Young John, who had never seen her bereft of her quiet self-command, who had seen her from her infancy ever so reliable and self-suppressed, there was a shock in her distress, and in having to associate himself with it as its cause, that shook him from his great hat to the pavement. He felt it necessary to explain himself. He might be misunderstood—supposed to mean something, or to have done something, that had never entered into his imagination. He begged her to hear him ex-plain himself, as the greatest favour she could show him. ‘Miss Amy, I know very well that your family is far above mine. It were vain to conceal it. There never was a Chivery a gentleman that ever I heard of, and I will not commit the meanness of making a false representation on a subject so momentous. Miss Amy, I know very well that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn me from a height. What I have to do is to respect them, to wish to be admitted to their friendship, to look up at the eminence on which they are placed from my lowlier station—for, whether viewed as tobacco or viewed as the lock, I well know it is lowly—and ever wish them well and happy.’ There really was a genuineness in the poor fellow, and a contrast between the hardness of his hat and the softness of his heart (albeit, perhaps, of his head, too), that was moving. Little Dorrit entreated him to disparage neither himself nor his station, and, above all things, to divest himself of any idea that she supposed hers to be superior. This gave him a little comfort. ‘Miss Amy,’ he then stammered, ‘I have had for a long time—ages they seem to me—Revolving ages—a heart-cherished wish to say something to you. May I say it?’ Little Dorrit involuntarily started from his side again, with the faintest shadow of her former look; conquering that, she went on at great speed half across the Bridge without replying! ‘May I—Miss Amy, I but ask the question humbly—may I say it? I have been so unlucky already in giving you pain without having any such intentions, before the holy Heavens! that there is no fear of my saying it unless I have your leave. I can be miserable alone, I can be cut up by myself, why should I also make miserable and cut up one that I would fling myself off that parapet to give half a moment’s joy to! Not that that’s much to do, for I’d do it for twopence.’ The mournfulness of his spirits, and the gorgeousness of his appearance, might have made him ridiculous, but that his delicacy made him respectable. Little Dorrit learnt from it what to do. ‘If you please, John Chivery,’ she returned, trembling, but in a quiet way, ‘since you are so considerate as to ask me whether you shall say any more—if you please, no.’ ‘Never, Miss Amy?’ ‘No, if you please. Never.’ ‘O Lord!’ gasped Young John. ‘But perhaps you will let me, instead, say something to you. I want to say it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is possible to express. When you think of us, John—I mean my brother, and sister, and me—don’t think of us as being any different from the rest; for, whatever we once were (which I hardly know) we ceased to be long ago, and never can be any more. It will be much better for you, and much better for others, if you will do that instead of what you are doing now.’ Young John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in mind, and would be heartily glad to do anything she wished.

‘As to me,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘think as little of me as you can; the less, the better. When you think of me at all, John, let it only be as the child you have seen grow up in the prison with one set of duties always occupying her; as a weak, retired, con-tented, unprotected girl. I particularly want you to remember, that when I come outside the gate, I am unprotected and solitary.’ He would try to do anything she wished. But why did Miss Amy so much want him to remember that? ‘Because,’ returned Little Dorrit, ‘I know I can then quite trust you not to forget to-day, and not to say any more to me. You are so generous that I know I can trust to you for that; and I do and I always will. I am going to show you, at once, that I fully trust you. I like this place where we are speaking better than any place I know;’ her slight colour had faded, but her lover thought he saw it coming back just then; ‘and I may be often here. I know it is only necessary for me to tell you so, to be quite sure that you will never come here again in search of me. And I am—quite sure!’ She might rely upon it, said Young John. He was a miserable wretch, but her word was more than a law for him. ‘And good-bye, John,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘And I hope you will have a good wife one day, and be a happy man. I am sure you will deserve to be happy, and you will be, John.’ As she held out her hand to him with these words, the heart that was under the waistcoat of sprigs—mere slop-work, if the truth must be known—swelled to the size of the heart of a gentleman; and the poor common little fellow, having no room to hold it, burst into tears. ‘Oh, don’t cry,’ said Little Dorrit piteously. ‘Don’t, don’t! Good-bye, John. God bless you!’ ‘Good-bye, Miss Amy. Good-bye!’ And so he left her: first observing that she sat down on the corner of a seat, and not only rested her little hand upon the rough wall, but laid her face against it too, as if her head were heavy, and her mind were sad. It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects, to behold her lover, with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the velvet collar turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat buttoned to conceal the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the little direction-post pointing inexorably home, creeping along by the worst back-streets, and composing, as he went, the following new inscription for a tombstone in St George’s Churchyard: ‘Here lie the mortal remains Of JOHN CHIVERY, Never any-thing worth mentioning, Who died about the end of the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Requesting with his last breath that the word AMY might be in-scribed over his ashes, which was accordingly directed to be done, By his afflicted Parents.’

Chapter 19

Chapter 19
The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations

The brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the College-yard—of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the Father made it a point of his state to be chary of going among his children on the Poor side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas Days, and other occasions of ceremony, in the observance whereof he was very punctual, and at which times he laid his hand upon the heads of their infants, and blessed those young Insolvents with a benignity that was highly edifying—the brothers, walking up and down the College-yard together, were a memorable sight. Frederick the free, was so humbled, bowed, withered, and faded; William the bond, was so courtly, condescending, and benevolently conscious of a position; that in this regard only, if in no other, the brothers were a spectacle to wonder at. They walked up and down the yard on the evening of Little Dorrit’s Sunday interview with her lover on the Iron Bridge. The cares of state were over for that day, the Drawing Room had been well attended, several new presentations had taken place, the three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the table had accidentally increased to twelve shillings, and the Father of the Marshalsea refreshed himself with a whiff of cigar. As he walked up and down, affably accommodating his step to the shuffle of his brother, not proud in his superiority, but considerate of that poor creature, bearing with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities in every little puff of smoke that is-sued from his lips and aspired to get over the spiked wall, he was a sight to wonder at. His brother Frederick of the dim eye, palsied hand, bent form, and groping mind, submissively shuffled at his side, accepting his patronage as he accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world in which he had got lost. He held the usual screwed bit of whity-brown paper in his hand, from which he ever and again unscrewed a spare pinch of snuff. That falteringly taken, he would glance at his brother not unadmiringly, put his hands behind him, and shuffle on so at his side until he took another pinch, or stood still to look about him—perchance suddenly missing his clarionet. The College visitors were melting away as the shades of night drew on, but the yard was still pretty full, the Collegians being mostly out, seeing their friends to the Lodge. As the brothers paced the yard, William the bond looked about him to receive salutes, returned them by graciously lifting off his hat, and, with an engaging air, prevented Frederick the free from running against the company, or being jostled against the wall. The Collegians as a body were not easily impressible, but even they, according to their various ways of wondering, appeared to find in the two brothers a sight to wonder at. ‘You are a little low this evening, Frederick,’ said the Father of the Marshalsea. ‘Anything the matter?’ ‘The matter?’ He stared for a moment, and then dropped his head and eyes again. ‘No, William, no. Nothing is the matter.’ ‘If you could be persuaded to smarten yourself up a little, Frederick—’ ‘Aye, aye!’ said the old man hurriedly. ‘But I can’t be. I can’t be. Don’t talk so. That’s all over.’ The Father of the Marshalsea glanced at a passing Collegian with whom he was on friendly terms, as who should say, ‘An enfeebled old man, this; but he is my brother, sir, my brother, and the voice of Nature is potent!’ and steered his brother clear of the handle of the pump by the threadbare sleeve. Nothing would have been wanting to the perfection of his character as a fraternal guide, philosopher and friend, if he had only steered his brother clear of ruin, instead of bringing it upon him. ‘I think, William,’ said the object of his affectionate consideration, ‘that I am tired, and will go home to bed.’ ‘My dear Frederick,’ returned the other, ‘don’t let me detain you; don’t sacrifice your inclination to me.’

‘Late hours, and a heated atmosphere, and years, I suppose,’ said Frederick, ‘weaken me.’ ‘My dear Frederick,’ returned the Father of the Marshalsea, ‘do you think you are sufficiently careful of yourself? Do you think your habits are as precise and methodical as—shall I say as mine are? Not to revert again to that little eccentricity which I mentioned just now, I doubt if you take air and exercise enough, Frederick. Here is the parade, always at your service. Why not use it more regularly than you do?’ ‘Hah!’ sighed the other. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’ ‘But it is of no use saying yes, yes, my dear Frederick,’ the Father of the Marshalsea in his mild wisdom persisted, ‘unless you act on that assent. Consider my case, Frederick. I am a kind of example. Necessity and time have taught me what to do. At certain stated hours of the day, you will find me on the parade, in my room, in the Lodge, reading the paper, receiving company, eating and drinking. I have impressed upon Amy during many years, that I must have my meals (for instance) punctually. Amy has grown up in a sense of the importance of these arrangements, and you know what a good girl she is.’ The brother only sighed again, as he plodded dreamily along, ‘Hah! Yes, yes, yes, yes.’ ‘My dear fellow,’ said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his hand upon his shoulder, and mildly rallying him—mildly, because of his weakness, poor dear soul; ‘you said that before, and it does not express much, Frederick, even if it means much. I wish I could rouse you, my good Frederick; you want to be roused.’ ‘Yes, William, yes. No doubt,’ returned the other, lifting his dim eyes to his face. ‘But I am not like you.’ The Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self-depreciation, ‘Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you might be, if you chose!’ and forbore, in the magnanimity of his strength, to press his fallen brother further. There was a great deal of leave-taking going on in corners, as was usual on Sunday nights; and here and there in the dark, some poor woman, wife or mother, was weeping with a new Collegian. The time had been when the Father himself had wept, in the shades of that yard, as his own poor wife had wept. But it was many years ago; and now he was like a passenger aboard ship in a long voyage, who has recovered from sea-sickness, and is impatient of that weakness in the fresher passengers taken aboard at the last port. He was inclined to remonstrate, and to express his opinion that people who couldn’t get on without crying, had no business there. In manner, if not in words, he always testified his displeasure at these interruptions of the general harmony; and it was so well understood, that delinquents usually withdrew if they were aware of him. On this Sunday evening, he accompanied his brother to the gate with an air of endurance and clemency; being in a bland temper and graciously disposed to overlook the tears. In the flaring gaslight of the Lodge, several Collegians were basking; some taking leave of visitors, and some who had no visitors, watching the frequent turning of the key, and conversing with one another and with Mr Chivery. The paternal entrance made a sensation of course; and Mr Chivery, touching his hat (in a short manner though) with his key, hoped he found himself tolerable. ‘Thank you, Chivery, quite well. And you?’ Mr Chivery said in a low growl, ‘Oh! he was all right.’ Which was his general way of acknowledging inquiries after his health when a little sullen. ‘I had a visit from Young John to-day, Chivery. And very smart he looked, I assure you.’ So Mr Chivery had heard. Mr Chivery must confess, however, that his wish was that the boy didn’t lay out so much money upon it. For what did it bring him in? It only brought him in Wexation. And he could get that anywhere for nothing. ‘How vexation, Chivery?’ asked the benignant father. ‘No odds,’ returned Mr Chivery. ‘Never mind. Mr Frederick going out?’ ‘Yes, Chivery, my brother is going home to bed. He is tired, and not quite well. Take care, Frederick, take care. Good night, my dear Frederick!’ Shaking hands with his brother, and touching his greasy hat to the company in the Lodge, Frederick slowly shuffled out of the door which Mr Chivery unlocked for him. The Father of the Marshalsea showed the amiable solicitude of a superior being that he should come to no harm.

‘Be so kind as to keep the door open a moment, Chivery, that I may see him go along the passage and down the steps. Take care, Frederick! (He is very infirm.) Mind the steps! (He is so very absent.) Be careful how you cross, Frederick. (I really don’t like the notion of his going wandering at large, he is so extremely liable to be run over.)’ With these words, and with a face expressive of many uneasy doubts and much anxious guardianship, he turned his regards upon the assembled company in the Lodge: so plainly indicating that his brother was to be pitied for not being under lock and key, that an opinion to that effect went round among the Collegians assembled. But he did not receive it with unqualified assent; on the contrary, he said, No, gentlemen, no; let them not misunderstand him. His brother Frederick was much broken, no doubt, and it might be more comfortable to himself (the Father of the Marshalsea) to know that he was safe within the walls. Still, it must be remembered that to support an existence there during many years, required a certain combination of qualities—he did not say high qualities, but qualities—moral qualities. Now, had his brother Frederick that peculiar union of qualities? Gentle-men, he was a most excellent man, a most gentle, tender, and estimable man, with the simplicity of a child; but would he, though unsuited for most other places, do for that place? No; he said confidently, no! And, he said, Heaven forbid that Frederick should be there in any other character than in his present voluntary character! Gentlemen, whoever came to that College, to remain there a length of time, must have strength of character to go through a good deal and to come out of a good deal. Was his beloved brother Frederick that man? No. They saw him, even as it was, crushed. Misfortune crushed him. He had not power of recoil enough, not elasticity enough, to be a long time in such a place, and yet preserve his self-respect and feel conscious that he was a gentleman. Frederick had not (if he might use the expression) Power enough to see in any delicate little attentions and—and—Testimonials that he might under such circumstances receive, the goodness of human nature, the fine spirit animating the Collegians as a community, and at the same time no degradation to himself, and no depreciation of his claims as a gentleman. Gentlemen, God bless you! Such was the homily with which he improved and pointed the occasion to the company in the Lodge before turning into the sallow yard again, and going with his own poor shabby dignity past the Collegian in the dressing-gown who had no coat, and past the Collegian in the sea-side slippers who had no shoes, and past the stout greengrocer Collegian in the corduroy knee-breeches who had no cares, and past the lean clerk Collegian in buttonless black who had no hopes, up his own poor shabby staircase to his own poor shabby room. There, the table was laid for his supper, and his old grey gown was ready for him on his chair-back at the fire. His daughter put her little prayer-book in her pocket—had she been praying for pity on all prisoners and captives!—and rose to welcome him. Uncle had gone home, then? she asked him as she changed his coat and gave him his black velvet cap. Yes, uncle had gone home. Had her father enjoyed his walk? Why, not much, Amy; not much. No! Did he not feel quite well? As she stood behind him, leaning over his chair so lovingly, he looked with downcast eyes at the fire. An uneasiness stole over him that was like a touch of shame; and when he spoke, as he presently did, it was in an unconnected and embarrassed manner. ‘Something, I—hem!—I don’t know what, has gone wrong with Chivery. He is not—ha!—not nearly so obliging and attentive as usual to-night. It—hem!—it’s a little thing, but it puts me out, my love. It’s impossible to forget,’ turning his hands over and over and looking closely at them, ‘that—hem!—that in such a life as mine, I am unfortunately dependent on these men for something every hour in the day.’ Her arm was on his shoulder, but she did not look in his face while he spoke. Bending her head she looked another way. ‘I—hem!—I can’t think, Amy, what has given Chivery offence. He is generally so—so very attentive and respectful. And to-night he was quite—quite short with me. Other people there too! Why, good Heaven! if I was to lose the support and recognition of Chivery and his brother officers, I might starve to death here.’ While he spoke, he was opening and shutting his hands like valves; so conscious all the time of that touch of shame, that he shrunk before his own knowledge of his meaning. ‘I—ha!—I can’t think what it’s owing to. I am sure I cannot imagine what the cause of it is. There was a certain Jackson here once, a turnkey of the name of Jackson (I don’t think you can remember him, my dear, you were very young), and—hem!—and he had a—brother, and this—young brother paid his addresses to—at least, did not go so far as to pay his addresses to—but admired—respectfully admired—the—not daughter, the sister—of one of us; a rather distinguished Collegian; I may say, very much so. His name was Captain Martin; and he consulted me on the question whether It was necessary that his daughter—sister—should hazard offending the turnkey brother by being too—ha!—too plain with the other brother. Captain Martin was a gentleman and a man of honour, and I put it to him first to give me his—his own opinion. Captain Martin (highly respected in the army) then unhesitatingly said that it appeared to him that his—hem!—sister was not called upon to understand the young man too distinctly, and that she might lead him on—I am doubtful whether “lead him on” was Captain Martin’s exact expression: indeed I think he said tolerate him—on her father’s—I should say, brother’s—account. I hardly know how I have strayed into this story. I suppose it has been through being unable to account for Chivery; but as to the connection between the two, I don’t see—’ His voice died away, as if she could not bear the pain of hearing him, and her hand had gradually crept to his lips. For a little while there was a dead silence and stillness; and he remained shrunk in his chair, and she remained with her arm round his neck and her head bowed down upon his shoulder. His supper was cooking in a saucepan on the fire, and, when she moved, it was to make it ready for him on the table. He took his usual seat, she took hers, and he began his meal. They did not, as yet, look at one another. By little and little he began; laying down his knife and fork with a noise, taking things up sharply, biting at his bread as if he were offended with it, and in other similar ways showing that he was out of sorts. At length he pushed his plate from him, and spoke aloud; with the strangest inconsistency.

‘What does it matter whether I eat or starve? What does it matter whether such a blighted life as mine comes to an end, now, next week, or next year? What am I worth to anyone? A poor prisoner, fed on alms and broken victuals; a squalid, disgraced wretch!’ ‘Father, father!’ As he rose she went on her knees to him, and held up her hands to him. ‘Amy,’ he went on in a suppressed voice, trembling violently, and looking at her as wildly as if he had gone mad. ‘I tell you, if you could see me as your mother saw me, you wouldn’t believe it to be the creature you have only looked at through the bars of this cage. I was young, I was accomplished, I was good-looking, I was independent—by God I was, child!—and people sought me out, and envied me. Envied me!’ ‘Dear father!’ She tried to take down the shaking arm that he flourished in the air, but he resisted, and put her hand away. ‘If I had but a picture of myself in those days, though it was ever so ill done, you would be proud of it, you would be proud of it. But I have no such thing. Now, let me be a warning! Let no man,’ he cried, looking haggardly about, ‘fail to preserve at least that little of the times of his prosperity and respect. Let his children have that clue to what he was. Unless my face, when I am dead, subsides into the long departed look—they say such things happen, I don’t know—my children will have never seen me.’ ‘Father, father!’ ‘O despise me, despise me! Look away from me, don’t listen to me, stop me, blush for me, cry for me—even you, Amy! Do it, do it! I do it to myself! I am hardened now, I have sunk too low to care long even for that.’ ‘Dear father, loved father, darling of my heart!’ She was clinging to him with her arms, and she got him to drop into his chair again, and caught at the raised arm, and tried to put it round her neck. ‘Let it lie there, father. Look at me, father, kiss me, father! Only think of me, father, for one little moment!’ Still he went on in the same wild way, though it was gradually breaking down into a miserable whining. ‘And yet I have some respect here. I have made some stand against it. I am not quite trodden down. Go out and ask who is the chief person in the place. They’ll tell you it’s your father. Go out and ask who is never trifled with, and who is always treated with some delicacy. They’ll say, your father. Go out and ask what funeral here (it must be here, I know it can be nowhere else) will make more talk, and perhaps more grief, than any that has ever gone out at the gate. They’ll say your father’s. Well then. Amy! Amy! Is your father so universally despised? Is there nothing to redeem him? Will you have nothing to remember him by but his ruin and decay? Will you be able to have no affection for him when he is gone, poor cast-away, gone?’ He burst into tears of maudlin pity for himself, and at length suffering her to embrace him and take charge of him, let his grey head rest against her cheek, and bewailed his wretchedness. Presently he changed the subject of his lamentations, and clasping his hands about her as she embraced him, cried, O Amy, his motherless, forlorn child! O the days that he had seen her careful and laborious for him! Then he reverted to himself, and weakly told her how much better she would have loved him if she had known him in his vanished character, and how he would have married her to a gentleman who should have been proud of her as his daughter, and how (at which he cried again) she should first have ridden at his fatherly side on her own horse, and how the crowd (by which he meant in effect the people who had given him the twelve shillings he then had in his pocket) should have trudged the dusty roads respectfully. Thus, now boasting, now despairing, in either fit a captive with the jail-rot upon him, and the impurity of his prison worn into the grain of his soul, he revealed his degenerate state to his affectionate child. No one else ever beheld him in the de-tails of his humiliation. Little recked the Collegians who were laughing in their rooms over his late address in the Lodge, what a serious picture they had in their obscure gallery of the Marshalsea that Sunday night. There was a classical daughter once—perhaps—who ministered to her father in his prison as her mother had ministered to her. Little Dorrit, though of the unheroic modern stock and mere English, did much more, in comforting her father’s wasted heart upon her innocent breast, and turning to it a fountain of love and fidelity that never ran dry or waned through all his years of famine. She soothed him; asked him for his forgiveness if she had been, or seemed to have been, undutiful; told him, Heaven knows truly, that she could not honour him more if he were the favourite of Fortune and the whole world acknowledged him. When his tears were dried, and he sobbed in his weakness no longer, and was free from that touch of shame, and had re-covered his usual bearing, she prepared the remains of his sup-per afresh, and, sitting by his side, rejoiced to see him eat and drink. For now he sat in his black velvet cap and old grey gown, magnanimous again; and would have comported himself towards any Collegian who might have looked in to ask his ad-vice, like a great moral Lord Chesterfield, or Master of the ethical ceremonies of the Marshalsea. To keep his attention engaged, she talked with him about his wardrobe; when he was pleased to say, that Yes, indeed, those shirts she proposed would be exceedingly acceptable, for those he had were worn out, and, being ready-made, had never fitted him. Being conversational, and in a reasonable flow of spirits, he then invited her attention to his coat as it hung behind the door: remarking that the Father of the place would set an indifferent example to his children, already disposed to be slovenly, if he went among them out at elbows. He was jocular, too, as to the heeling of his shoes; but became grave on the subject of his cravat, and promised her that, when she could afford it, she should buy him a new one. While he smoked out his cigar in peace, she made his bed, and put the small room in order for his repose. Being weary then, owing to the advanced hour and his emotions, he came out of his chair to bless her and wish her Good night. All this time he had never once thought of her dress, her shoes, her need of anything. No other person upon earth, save herself, could have been so unmindful of her wants. He kissed her many times with ‘Bless you, my love. Good night, MY dear!’ But her gentle breast had been so deeply wounded by what she had seen of him that she was unwilling to leave him alone, lest he should lament and despair again. ‘Father, dear, I am not tired; let me come back presently, when you are in bed, and sit by you.’ He asked her, with an air of protection, if she felt solitary? ‘Yes, father.’ ‘Then come back by all means, my love.’ ‘I shall be very quiet, father.’ ‘Don’t think of me, my dear,’ he said, giving her his kind per-mission fully. ‘Come back by all means.’ He seemed to be dozing when she returned, and she put the low fire together very softly lest she should awake him. But he overheard her, and called out who was that? ‘Only Amy, father.’ ‘Amy, my child, come here. I want to say a word to you.’ He raised himself a little in his low bed, as she kneeled beside it to bring her face near him; and put his hand between hers. O! Both the private father and the Father of the Marshalsea were strong within him then. ‘My love, you have had a life of hardship here. No companions, no recreations, many cares I am afraid?’ ‘Don’t think of that, dear. I never do.’ ‘You know my position, Amy. I have not been able to do much for you; but all I have been able to do, I have done.’ ‘Yes, my dear father,’ she rejoined, kissing him. ‘I know, I know.’ ‘I am in the twenty-third year of my life here,’ he said, with a catch in his breath that was not so much a sob as an irrepressible sound of self-approval, the momentary outburst of a noble consciousness. ‘It is all I could do for my children—I have done it. Amy, my love, you are by far the best loved of the three; I have had you principally in my mind—whatever I have done for your sake, my dear child, I have done freely and without murmuring.’ Only the wisdom that holds the clue to all hearts and all mysteries, can surely know to what extent a man, especially a man brought down as this man had been, can impose upon himself. Enough, for the present place, that he lay down with wet eye-lashes, serene, in a manner majestic, after bestowing his life of degradation as a sort of portion on the devoted child upon whom its miseries had fallen so heavily, and whose love alone had saved him to be even what he was.

That child had no doubts, asked herself no question, for she was but too content to see him with a lustre round his head. Poor dear, good dear, truest, kindest, dearest, were the only words she had for him, as she hushed him to rest. She never left him all that night. As if she had done him a wrong which her tenderness could hardly repair, she sat by him in his sleep, at times softly kissing him with suspended breath, and calling him in a whisper by some endearing name. At times she stood aside so as not to intercept the low fire-light, and, watching him when it fell upon his sleeping face, wondered did he look now at all as he had looked when he was prosperous and happy; as he had so touched her by imagining that he might look once more in that awful time. At the thought of that time, she kneeled beside his bed again, and prayed, ‘O spare his life! O save him to me! O look down upon my dear, long-suffering, unfortunate, much-changed, dear dear father!’ Not until the morning came to protect him and encourage him, did she give him a last kiss and leave the small room. When she had stolen down-stairs, and along the empty yard, and had crept up to her own high garret, the smokeless house-tops and the distant country hills were discernible over the wall in the clear morning. As she gently opened the window, and looked eastward down the prison yard, the spikes upon the wall were tipped with red, then made a sullen purple pattern on the sun as it came flaming up into the heavens. The spikes had never looked so sharp and cruel, nor the bars so heavy, nor the prison space so gloomy and contracted. She thought of the sunrise on rolling rivers, of the sunrise on wide seas, of the sunrise on rich landscapes, of the sunrise on great forests where the birds were waking and the trees were rustling; and she looked down into the living grave on which the sun had risen, with her father in it three-and-twenty years, and said, in a burst of sorrow and compassion, ‘No, no, I have never seen him in my life!’

Chapter 20

Chapter 20
Moving in Society

If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to write a satire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for an avenging illustration out of the family of his beloved. He would have found it amply in that gallant brother and that dainty sister, so steeped in mean experiences, and so loftily conscious of the family name; so ready to beg or borrow from the poorest, to eat of anybody’s bread, spend anybody’s money, drink from anybody’s cup and break it afterwards. To have painted the sordid facts of their lives, and they throughout invoking the death’s head apparition of the family gentility to come and scare their benefactors, would have made Young John a satirist of the first water. Tip had turned his liberty to hopeful account by becoming a billiard-marker. He had troubled himself so little as to the means of his release, that Clennam scarcely needed to have been at the pains of impressing the mind of Mr Plornish on that subject. Whoever had paid him the compliment, he very readily accepted the compliment with his compliments, and there was an end of it. Issuing forth from the gate on these easy terms, he became a billiard-marker; and now occasionally looked in at the little skittle-ground in a green Newmarket coat (second-hand), with a shining collar and bright buttons (new), and drank the beer of the Collegians. One solid stationary point in the looseness of this gentleman’s character was, that he respected and admired his sister Amy. The feeling had never induced him to spare her a moment’s uneasiness, or to put himself to any restraint or inconvenience on her account; but with that Marshalsea taint upon his love, he loved her. The same rank Marshalsea flavour was to be recognised in his distinctly perceiving that she sacrificed her life to her father, and in his having no idea that she had done anything for himself. When this spirited young man and his sister had begun systematically to produce the family skeleton for the overawing of the College, this narrative cannot precisely state. Probably at about the period when they began to dine on the College charity. It is certain that the more reduced and necessitous they were, the more pompously the skeleton emerged from its tomb; and that when there was anything particularly shabby in the wind, the skeleton always came out with the ghastliest flourish. Little Dorrit was late on the Monday morning, for her father slept late, and afterwards there was his breakfast to prepare and his room to arrange. She had no engagement to go out to work, however, and therefore stayed with him until, with Maggy’s help, she had put everything right about him, and had seen him off upon his morning walk (of twenty yards or so) to the coffee-house to read the paper. She then got on her bonnet and went out, having been anxious to get out much sooner. There was, as usual, a cessation of the small-talk in the Lodge as she passed through it; and a Collegian who had come in on Saturday night, received the intimation from the elbow of a more seasoned Collegian, ‘Look out. Here she is!’ She wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr Cripples’s, she found that both her sister and her uncle had gone to the theatre where they were en-gaged. Having taken thought of this probability by the way, and having settled that in such case she would follow them, she set off afresh for the theatre, which was on that side of the river, and not very far away. Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of the ways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort of door, with a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to be ashamed of itself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to approach it; being further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen close-shaved gentlemen with their hats very strangely on, who were lounging about the door, looking not at all unlike Collegians. On her applying to them, reassured by this resemblance, for a direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for her to enter a dark hall—it was more like a great grim lamp gone out than anything else—where she could hear the distant playing of music and the sound of dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he had a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in a corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a message up to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went through. The first lady who went through had a roll of music, half in her muff and half out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition altogether, that it seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to iron her. But as she was very good-natured, and said, ‘Come with me; I’ll soon find Miss Dorrit for you,’ Miss Dorrit’s sister went with her, drawing nearer and nearer at every step she took in the darkness to the sound of music and the sound of dancing feet. At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people were tumbling over one another, and where there was such a confusion of unaccountable shapes of beams, bulk-heads, brick walls, ropes, and rollers, and such a mixing of gas-light and daylight, that they seemed to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of the universe. Little Dorrit, left to herself, and knocked against by somebody every moment, was quite bewildered, when she heard her sister’s voice. ‘Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?’ ‘I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day to-morrow, and knew you might be engaged all day to-day, I thought—’ ‘But the idea, Amy, of you coming behind! I never did!’ As her sister said this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she con-ducted her to a more open part of the maze, where various golden chairs and tables were heaped together, and where a number of young ladies were sitting on anything they could find, chattering. All these young ladies wanted ironing, and all had a curious way of looking everywhere while they chattered. just as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap put his head round a beam on the left, and said, ‘Less noise there, ladies!’ and disappeared. Immediately after which, a sprightly gentleman with a quantity of long black hair looked round a beam on the right, and said, ‘Less noise there, darlings!’ and also disappeared.

‘The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last thing I could have conceived!’ said her sister. ‘Why, how did you ever get here?’ ‘I don’t know. The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to bring me in.’ ‘Like you quiet little things! You can make your way any-where, I believe. I couldn’t have managed it, Amy, though I know so much more of the world.’ It was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was a plain domestic little creature, without the great and sage experience of the rest. This family fiction was the family assertion of itself against her services. Not to make too much of them. ‘Well! And what have you got on your mind, Amy? Of course you have got something on your mind about me?’ said Fanny. She spoke as if her sister, between two and three years her junior, were her prejudiced grandmother. ‘It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the bracelet, Fanny—’ The monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the left, and said, ‘Look out there, ladies!’ and disappeared. The sprightly gentleman with the black hair as suddenly put his head round the beam on the right, and said, ‘Look out there, darlings!’ and also disappeared. Thereupon all the young ladies rose and began shaking their skirts out behind. ‘Well, Amy?’ said Fanny, doing as the rest did; ‘what were you going to say?’ ‘Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me, Fanny, I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want to know a little more if you will confide more to me.’ ‘Now, ladies!’ said the boy in the Scotch cap. ‘Now, darlings!’ said the gentleman with the black hair. They were every one gone in a moment, and the music and the dancing feet were heard again. Little Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these rapid interruptions. Her sister and the rest were a long time gone; and during their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of the gentleman with the black hair) was continually calling out through the music, ‘One, two, three, four, five, six—go!

One, two, three, four, five, six—go! Steady, darlings! One, two, three, four, five, six—go!’ Ultimately the voice stopped, and they all came back again, more or less out of breath, folding themselves in their shawls, and making ready for the streets. ‘Stop a moment, Amy, and let them get away before us,’ whispered Fanny. They were soon left alone; nothing more important happening, in the meantime, than the boy looking round his old beam, and saying, ‘Everybody at eleven to-morrow, ladies!’ and the gentleman with the black hair looking round his old beam, and saying, ‘Everybody at eleven to-morrow, darlings!’ each in his own accustomed manner. When they were alone, something was rolled up or by other means got out of the way, and there was a great empty well be-fore them, looking down into the depths of which Fanny said, ‘Now, uncle!’ Little Dorrit, as her eyes became used to the darkness, faintly made him out at the bottom of the well, in an obscure corner by himself, with his instrument in its ragged case under his arm. The old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows, with their little strip of sky, might have been the point of his better fortunes, from which he had descended, until he had gradually sunk down below there to the bottom. He had been in that place six nights a week for many years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his music-book, and was confidently believed to have never seen a play. There were legends in the place that he did not so much as know the popular heroes and heroines by sight, and that the low comedian had ‘mugged’ at him in his richest manner fifty nights for a wager, and he had shown no trace of consciousness. The carpenters had a joke to the effect that he was dead without being aware of it; and the frequenters of the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, night and day, and Sunday and all, in the orchestra. They had tried him a few times with pinches of snuff offered over the rails, and he had always responded to this attention with a momentary waking up of manner that had the pale phantom of a gentleman in it: beyond this he never, on any occasion, had any other part in what was going on than the part written out for the clarionet; in private life, where there was no part for the clarionet, he had no part at all. Some said he was poor, some said he was a wealthy miser; but he said nothing, never lifted up his bowed head, never varied his shuffling gait by getting his springless foot from the ground. Though expecting now to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her until she had spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all surprised by the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said in his tremulous voice, ‘I am coming, I am coming!’ and crept forth by some underground way which emitted a cellarous smell. ‘And so, Amy,’ said her sister, when the three together passed out at the door that had such a shame-faced consciousness of being different from other doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy’s arm as the arm to be relied on: ‘so, Amy, you are curious about me?’ She was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting; and the condescension with which she put aside the superiority of her charms, and of her worldly experience, and addressed her sister on almost equal terms, had a vast deal of the family in it. ‘I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns you.’ ‘So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys. If I am ever a little provoking, I am sure you’ll consider what a thing it is to occupy my position and feel a consciousness of being superior to it. I shouldn’t care,’ said the Daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea, ‘if the others were not so common. None of them have come down in the world as we have. They are all on their own level. Common.’ Little Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt her. Fanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her eyes. ‘I was not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps that makes a difference. My dear child, when we get rid of Uncle, you shall know all about it. We’ll drop him at the cook’s shop where he is going to dine.’ They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop window in a dirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot meats, vegetables, and puddings. But glimpses were to be caught of a roast leg of pork bursting into tears of sage and onion in a metal reservoir full of gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef and blisterous Yorkshire pudding, bubbling hot in a similar receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of veal in rapid cut, of a ham in a perspiration with the pace it was going at, of a shallow tank of baked potatoes glued together by their own richness, of a truss or two of boiled greens, and other substantial delicacies. Within, were a few wooden partitions, be-hind which such customers as found it more convenient to take away their dinners in stomachs than in their hands, Packed their purchases in solitude. Fanny opening her reticule, as they surveyed these things, produced from that repository a shilling and handed it to Uncle. Uncle, after not looking at it a little while, divined its object, and muttering ‘Dinner? Ha! Yes, yes, yes!’ slowly vanished from them into the mist. ‘Now, Amy,’ said her sister, ‘come with me, if you are not too tired to walk to Harley Street, Cavendish Square.’ The air with which she threw off this distinguished address and the toss she gave to her new bonnet (which was more gauzy than serviceable), made her sister wonder; however, she expressed her readiness to go to Harley Street, and thither they directed their steps. Arrived at that grand destination, Fanny singled out the handsomest house, and knocking at the door, inquired for Mrs Merdle. The footman who opened the door, although he had powder on his head and was backed up by two other footmen likewise powdered, not only admitted Mrs Merdle to be at home, but asked Fanny to walk in. Fanny walked in, taking her sister with her; and they went up-stairs with powder going before and powder stopping behind, and were left in a spacious semicircular drawing-room, one of several drawing-rooms, where there was a parrot on the out-side of a golden cage holding on by its beak, with its scaly legs in the air, and putting itself into many strange upside-down postures. This peculiarity has been observed in birds of quite another feather, climbing upon golden wires. The room was far more splendid than anything Little Dorrit had ever imagined, and would have been splendid and costly in any eyes. She looked in amazement at her sister and would have asked a question, but that Fanny with a warning frown pointed to a curtained doorway of communication with another room. The curtain shook next moment, and a lady, raising it with a heavily-ringed hand, dropped it behind her again as she entered. The lady was not young and fresh from the hand of Nature, but was young and fresh from the hand of her maid. She had large unfeeling handsome eyes, and dark unfeeling handsome hair, and a broad unfeeling handsome bosom, and was made the most of in every particular. Either because she had a cold, or because it suited her face, she wore a rich white fillet tied over her head and under her chin. And if ever there were an unfeeling handsome chin that looked as if, for certain, it had never been, in familiar parlance, ‘chucked’ by the hand of man, it was the chin curbed up so tight and close by that laced bridle. ‘Mrs Merdle,’ said Fanny. ‘My sister, ma’am.’ ‘I am glad to see your sister, Miss Dorrit. I did not remember that you had a sister.’ ‘I did not mention that I had,’ said Fanny. ‘Ah!’ Mrs Merdle curled the little finger of her left hand as who should say, ‘I have caught you. I know you didn’t!’ All her action was usually with her left hand because her hands were not a pair; and left being much the whiter and plumper of the two. Then she added: ‘Sit down,’ and composed herself voluptuously, in a nest of crimson and gold cushions, on an ottoman near the parrot. ‘Also professional?’ said Mrs Merdle, looking at Little Dorrit through an eye-glass. Fanny answered No. ‘No,’ said Mrs Merdle, dropping her glass. ‘Has not a professional air. Very pleasant; but not professional.’ ‘My sister, ma’am,’ said Fanny, in whom there was a singular mixture of deference and hardihood, ‘has been asking me to tell her, as between sisters, how I came to have the honour of knowing you. And as I had engaged to call upon you once more, I thought I might take the liberty of bringing her with me, when perhaps you would tell her. I wish her to know, and perhaps you will tell her?’ ‘Do you think, at your sister’s age—’ hinted Mrs Merdle. ‘She is much older than she looks,’ said Fanny; ‘almost as old as I am.’ ‘Society,’ said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little finger, ‘is so difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so difficult to explain to most persons), that I am glad to hear that.

I wish Society was not so arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting—Bird, be quiet!’ The parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were Society and it asserted its right to its exactions. ‘But,’ resumed Mrs Merdle, ‘we must take it as we find it. We know it is hollow and conventional and worldly and very shocking, but unless we are Savages in the Tropical seas (I should have been charmed to be one myself—most delightful life and perfect climate, I am told), we must consult it. It is the common lot. Mr Merdle is a most extensive merchant, his transactions are on the vastest scale, his wealth and influence are very great, but even he—Bird, be quiet!’ The parrot had shrieked another shriek; and it filled up the sentence so expressively that Mrs Merdle was under no necessity to end it. ‘Since your sister begs that I would terminate our personal acquaintance,’ she began again, addressing Little Dorrit, ‘by relating the circumstances that are much to her credit, I can-not object to comply with her request, I am sure. I have a son (I was first married extremely young) of two or three-andtwenty.’ Fanny set her lips, and her eyes looked half triumphantly at her sister. ‘A son of two or three-and-twenty. He is a little gay, a thing Society is accustomed to in young men, and he is very impressible. Perhaps he inherits that misfortune. I am very impressible myself, by nature. The weakest of creatures—my feelings are touched in a moment.’ She said all this, and everything else, as coldly as a woman of snow; quite forgetting the sisters except at odd times, and apparently addressing some abstraction of Society; for whose be-half, too, she occasionally arranged her dress, or the composition of her figure upon the ottoman. ‘So he is very impressible. Not a misfortune in our natural state I dare say, but we are not in a natural state. Much to be lamented, no doubt, particularly by myself, who am a child of nature if I could but show it; but so it is. Society suppresses us and dominates us—Bird, be quiet!’ The parrot had broken into a violent fit of laughter, after twisting divers bars of his cage with his crooked bill, and licking them with his black tongue.

‘It is quite unnecessary to say to a person of your good sense, wide range of experience, and cultivated feeling,’ said Mrs Merdle from her nest of crimson and gold—and there put up her glass to refresh her memory as to whom she was addressing,—‘that the stage sometimes has a fascination for young men of that class of character. In saying the stage, I mean the people on it of the female sex. Therefore, when I heard that my son was supposed to be fascinated by a dancer, I knew what that usually meant in Society, and confided in her being a dancer at the Opera, where young men moving in Society are usually fascinated.’ She passed her white hands over one another, observant of the sisters now; and the rings upon her fingers grated against each other with a hard sound. ‘As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was I was much surprised and much distressed. But when I found that your sister, by rejecting my son’s advances (I must add, in an unexpected manner), had brought him to the point of proposing marriage, my feelings were of the profoundest anguish—acute.’ She traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right. ‘In a distracted condition, which only a mother—moving in Society—can be susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the theatre, and represent my state of mind to the dancer. I made myself known to your sister. I found her, to my surprise, in many respects different from my expectations; and certainly in none more so, than in meeting me with—what shall I say—a sort of family assertion on her own part?’ Mrs Merdle smiled. ‘I told you, ma’am,’ said Fanny, with a heightening colour, ‘that although you found me in that situation, I was so far above the rest, that I considered my family as good as your son’s; and that I had a brother who, knowing the circumstances, would be of the same opinion, and would not consider such a connection any honour.’ ‘Miss Dorrit,’ said Mrs Merdle, after frostily looking at her through her glass, ‘precisely what I was on the point of telling your sister, in pursuance of your request. Much obliged to you for recalling it so accurately and anticipating me. I immediately,’ addressing Little Dorrit, ‘(for I am the creature of impulse), took a bracelet from my arm, and begged your sister to let me clasp it on hers, in token of the delight I had in our being able to approach the subject so far on a common footing.’ (This was perfectly true, the lady having bought a cheap and showy article on her way to the interview, with a general eye to bribery.) ‘And I told you, Mrs Merdle,’ said Fanny, ‘that we might be unfortunate, but we are not common.’ ‘I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit,’ assented Mrs Merdle. ‘And I told you, Mrs Merdle,’ said Fanny, ‘that if you spoke to me of the superiority of your son’s standing in Society, it was barely possible that you rather deceived yourself in your sup-positions about my origin; and that my father’s standing, even in the Society in which he now moved (what that was, was best known to myself), was eminently superior, and was acknowledged by every one.’ ‘Quite accurate,’ rejoined Mrs Merdle. ‘A most admirable memory.’ ‘Thank you, ma’am. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my sister the rest.’ ‘There is very little to tell,’ said Mrs Merdle, reviewing the breadth of bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough to be unfeeling in, ‘but it is to your sister’s credit. I pointed out to your sister the plain state of the case; the impossibility of the Society in which we moved recognising the Society in which she moved—though charming, I have no doubt; the immense disadvantage at which she would consequently place the family she had so high an opinion of, upon which we should find ourselves compelled to look down with contempt, and from which (socially speaking) we should feel obliged to recoil with abhorrence. In short, I made an appeal to that laudable pride in your sister.’ ‘Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs Merdle,’ Fanny pouted, with a toss of her gauzy bonnet, ‘that I had already had the honour of telling your son that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to him.’ ‘Well, Miss Dorrit,’ assented Mrs Merdle, ‘perhaps I might have mentioned that before. If I did not think of it, perhaps it was because my mind reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time that he might persevere and you might have something to say to him.

I also mentioned to your sister—I again address the non-professional Miss Dorrit—that my son would have nothing in the event of such a marriage, and would be an absolute beggar. (I mention that merely as a fact which is part of the narrative, and not as supposing it to have influenced your sister, except in the prudent and legitimate way in which, constituted as our artificial system is, we must all be influenced by such considerations.) Finally, after some high words and high spirit on the part of your sister, we came to the complete understanding that there was no danger; and your sister was so obliging as to allow me to present her with a mark or two of my appreciation at my dressmaker’s.’ Little Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled face. ‘Also,’ said Mrs Merdle, ‘as to promise to give me the present pleasure of a closing interview, and of parting with her on the best of terms. On which occasion,’ added Mrs Merdle, quitting her nest, and putting something in Fanny’s hand, ‘Miss Dorrit will permit me to say Farewell with best wishes in my own dull manner.’ The sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage of the parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it out, seemed to mock them with a pompous dance of his body without moving his feet, and suddenly turned himself upside down and trailed himself all over the outside of his golden cage, with the aid of his cruel beak and black tongue. ‘Adieu, Miss Dorrit, with best wishes,’ said Mrs Merdle. ‘If we could only come to a Millennium, or something of that sort, I for one might have the pleasure of knowing a number of charming and talented persons from whom I am at present excluded. A more primitive state of society would be delicious to me. There used to be a poem when I learnt lessons, something about Lo the poor Indians whose something mind! If a few thousand persons moving in Society, could only go and be Indians, I would put my name down directly; but as, moving in Society, we can’t be Indians, unfortunately—Good morning!’ They came down-stairs with powder before them and powder behind, the elder sister haughty and the younger sister humbled, and were shut out into unpowdered Harley Street, Cavendish Square.

‘Well?’ said Fanny, when they had gone a little way without speaking. ‘Have you nothing to say, Amy?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know what to say!’ she answered, distressed. ‘You didn’t like this young man, Fanny?’ ‘Like him? He is almost an idiot.’ ‘I am so sorry—don’t be hurt—but, since you ask me what I have to say, I am so very sorry, Fanny, that you suffered this lady to give you anything.’ ‘You little Fool!’ returned her sister, shaking her with the sharp pull she gave her arm. ‘Have you no spirit at all? But that’s just the way! You have no self-respect, you have no be-coming pride. just as you allow yourself to be followed about by a contemptible little Chivery of a thing,’ with the scornfullest emphasis, ‘you would let your family be trodden on, and never turn.’ ‘Don’t say that, dear Fanny. I do what I can for them.’ ‘You do what you can for them!’ repeated Fanny, walking her on very fast. ‘Would you let a woman like this, whom you could see, if you had any experience of anything, to be as false and insolent as a woman can be—would you let her put her foot upon your family, and thank her for it?’ ‘No, Fanny, I am sure.’ ‘Then make her pay for it, you mean little thing. What else can you make her do? Make her pay for it, you stupid child; and do your family some credit with the money!’ They spoke no more all the way back to the lodging where Fanny and her uncle lived. When they arrived there, they found the old man practising his clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of the room. Fanny had a composite meal to make, of chops, and porter, and tea; and indignantly pretended to prepare it for herself, though her sister did all that in quiet reality. When at last Fanny sat down to eat and drink, she threw the table implements about and was angry with her bread, much as her father had been last night. ‘If you despise me,’ she said, bursting into vehement tears, ‘because I am a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one? It was your doing. You would have me stoop as low as the ground before this Mrs Merdle, and let her say what she liked and do what she liked, and hold us all in contempt, and tell me so to my face. Because I am a dancer!’ ‘O Fanny!’ ‘And Tip, too, poor fellow. She is to disparage him just as much as she likes, without any check—I suppose because he has been in the law, and the docks, and different things. Why, it was your doing, Amy. You might at least approve of his being defended.’ All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment while he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression that somebody had said something. ‘And your father, your poor father, Amy. Because he is not free to show himself and to speak for himself, you would let such people insult him with impunity. If you don’t feel for your-self because you go out to work, you might at least feel for him, I should think, knowing what he has undergone so long.’ Poor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply. The remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it. She said nothing in reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the fire. Uncle, after making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and went on again. Fanny was passionate with the tea-cups and the bread as long as her passion lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest girl in the world, and she wished she was dead. After that, her crying became remorseful, and she got up and put her arms round her sister. Little Dorrit tried to stop her from saying anything, but she answered that she would, she must! Thereupon she said again, and again, ‘I beg your pardon, Amy,’ and ‘Forgive me, Amy,’ almost as passionately as she had said what she regretted. ‘But indeed, indeed, Amy,’ she resumed when they were seated in sisterly accord side by side, ‘I hope and I think you would have seen this differently, if you had known a little more of Society.’ ‘Perhaps I might, Fanny,’ said the mild Little Dorrit. ‘You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up there, Amy,’ pursued her sister, gradually beginning to patronise, ‘I have been out, moving more in Society, and may have been getting proud and spirited—more than I ought to be, perhaps?’ Little Dorrit answered ‘Yes. O yes!’ ‘And while you have been thinking of the dinner or the clothes, I may have been thinking, you know, of the family. Now, may it not be so, Amy?’ Little Dorrit again nodded ‘Yes,’ with a more cheerful face than heart. ‘Especially as we know,’ said Fanny, ‘that there certainly is a tone in the place to which you have been so true, which does belong to it, and which does make it different from other aspects of Society. So kiss me once again, Amy dear, and we will agree that we may both be right, and that you are a tranquil, domestic, home-loving, good girl.’ The clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this dialogue, but was cut short now by Fanny’s announcement that it was time to go; which she conveyed to her uncle by shutting up his scrap of music, and taking the clarionet out of his mouth. Little Dorrit parted from them at the door, and hastened back to the Marshalsea. It fell dark there sooner than else-where, and going into it that evening was like going into a deep trench. The shadow of the wall was on every object. Not least upon the figure in the old grey gown and the black velvet cap, as it turned towards her when she opened the door of the dim room. ‘Why not upon me too!’ thought Little Dorrit, with the door Yet in her hand. ‘It was not unreasonable in Fanny.’

Chapter 21

Chapter 21
Mr Merdle’s Complaint

Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall than the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of the street. Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in Harley Street were very grim with one another. Indeed, the mansions and their in-habitants were so much alike in that respect, that the people were often to be found drawn up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in the shade of their own loftiness, staring at the other side of the way with the dullness of the houses. Everybody knows how like the street the two dinner-rows of people who take their stand by the street will be. The expressionless uniform twenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same form, all approachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by the same pattern of railing, all with the same impracticable fire-escapes, the same inconvenient fixtures in their heads, and everything without exception to be taken at a high valuation—who has not dined with these? The house so drearily out of repair, the occasional bow-window, the stuccoed house, the newly-fronted house, the corner house with nothing but angular rooms, the house with the blinds always down, the house with the hatchment always up, the house where the col-lector has called for one quarter of an Idea, and found nobody at home—who has not dined with these? The house that nobody will take, and is to be had a bargain—who does not know her? The showy house that was taken for life by the disappointed gentleman, and which does not suit him at all—who is unacquainted with that haunted habitation? Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not aware; but Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. Society had said ‘Let us license them; let us know them.’ Mr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enter-prise; a Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was in everything good, from banking to building. He was in Parliament, of course. He was in the City, necessarily. He was Chairman of this, Trustee of that, President of the other. The weightiest of men had said to projectors, ‘Now, what name have you got? Have you got Merdle?’ And, the reply being in the negative, had said, ‘Then I won’t look at you.’ This great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom which required so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest of crimson and gold some fifteen years before. It was not a bosom to repose upon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr Merdle wanted something to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for the purpose. Storr and Mortimer might have married on the same speculation. Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The jewels showed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in Society with the jewels displayed upon it, attracted general admiration. Society approving, Mr Merdle was satisfied. He was the most disinterested of men,—did everything for Society, and got as little for himself out of all his gain and care, as a man might. That is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted, otherwise with unlimited wealth he would have got it. But his desire was to the utmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was), and take up all its drafts upon him for tribute. He did not shine in company; he had not very much to say for himself; he was a reserved man, with a broad, overhanging, watchful head, that particular kind of dull red colour in his cheeks which is rather stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy expression about his coat-cuffs, as if they were in his confidence, and had reasons for being anxious to hide his hands. In the little he said, he was a pleasant man enough; plain, emphatic about public and private confidence, and tenacious of the utmost deference being shown by every one, in all things, to Society. In this same Society (if that were it which came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle’s receptions and concerts), he hardly seemed to enjoy himself much, and was mostly to be found against walls and behind doors. Also when he went out to it, instead of its coming home to him, he seemed a little fatigued, and upon the whole rather more disposed for bed; but he was always cultivating it nevertheless, and always moving in it—and always laying out money on it with the greatest liberality. Mrs Merdle’s first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices the bosom had entered into competition with the snows of North America, and had come off at little disadvantage in point of whiteness, and at none in point of coldness. The colonel’s son was Mrs Merdle’s only child. He was of a chuckle-headed, high-shouldered make, with a general appearance of being, not so much a young man as a swelled boy. He had given so few signs of reason, that a by-word went among his companions that his brain had been frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St john’s, New Brunswick, at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed from that hour. Another by-word represented him as having in his infancy, through the negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high window on his head, which had been heard by responsible witnesses to crack. It is probable that both these representations were of ex post facto origin; the young gentleman (whose expressive name was Sparkler) being monomaniacal in offering marriage to all manner of undesirable young ladies, and in remarking of every successive young lady to whom he tendered a matrimonial proposal that she was ‘a doosed fine gal—well educated too—with no biggodd nonsense about her.’ A son-in-law with these limited talents, might have been a clog upon another man; but Mr Merdle did not want a son-in-law for himself; he wanted a son-in-law for Society. Mr Sparkler having been in the Guards, and being in the habit of frequenting all the races, and all the lounges, and all the parties, and being well known, Society was satisfied with its son-in-law. This happy result Mr Merdle would have considered well attained, though Mr Sparkler had been a more expensive article. And he did not get Mr Sparkler by any means cheap for Society, even as it was. There was a dinner giving in the Harley Street establishment, while Little Dorrit was stitching at her father’s new shirts by his side that night; and there were magnates from the Court and magnates from the City, magnates from the Commons and magnates from the Lords, magnates from the bench and magnates from the bar, Bishop magnates, Treasury magnates, Horse Guard magnates, Admiralty magnates,—all the magnates that keep us going, and sometimes trip us up. ‘I am told,’ said Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, ‘that Mr Merdle has made another enormous hit. They say a hundred thousand pounds.’ Horse Guards had heard two. Treasury had heard three. Bar, handling his persuasive double eye-glass, was by no means clear but that it might be four. It was one of those happy strokes of calculation and combination, the result of which it was difficult to estimate. It was one of those instances of a comprehensive grasp, associated with habitual luck and characteristic boldness, of which an age presented us but few. But here was Brother Bellows, who had been in the great Bank case, and who could probably tell us more. What did Brother Bellows put this new success at? Brother Bellows was on his way to make his bow to the bosom, and could only tell them in passing that he had heard it stated, with great appearance of truth, as being worth, from first to last, half-a-million of money. Admiralty said Mr Merdle was a wonderful man, Treasury said he was a new power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole House of Commons. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman who was always disposed to maintain the best interests of Society. Mr Merdle himself was usually late on these occasions, as a man still detained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men had shaken off their dwarfs for the day. On this occasion, he was the last arrival. Treasury said Merdle’s work punished him a little. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman who accepted it with meekness. Powder! There was so much Powder in waiting, that it flavoured the dinner. Pulverous particles got into the dishes, and Society’s meats had a seasoning of first-rate footmen. Mr Merdle took down a countess who was secluded somewhere in the core of an immense dress, to which she was in the proportion of the heart to the overgrown cabbage. If so low a simile may be admitted, the dress went down the staircase like a richly brocaded Jack in the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person carried it. Society had everything it could want, and could not want, for dinner. It had everything to look at, and everything to eat, and everything to drink. It is to be hoped it enjoyed itself; for Mr Merdle’s own share of the repast might have been paid for with eighteen-pence. Mrs Merdle was magnificent. The chief butler was the next magnificent institution of the day. He was the stateliest man in the company. He did nothing, but he looked on as few other men could have done. He was Mr Merdle’s last gift to Society. Mr Merdle didn’t want him, and was put out of countenance when the great creature looked at him; but inappeasable Society would have him—and had got him. The invisible countess carried out the Green at the usual stage of the entertainment, and the file of beauty was closed up by the bosom. Treasury said, Juno. Bishop said, Judith. Bar fell into discussion with Horse Guards concerning courts-martial. Brothers Bellows and Bench struck in. Other magnates paired off. Mr Merdle sat silent, and looked at the table-cloth. Sometimes a magnate addressed him, to turn the stream of his own particular discussion towards him; but Mr Merdle seldom gave much attention to it, or did more than rouse himself from his calculations and pass the wine. When they rose, so many of the magnates had something to say to Mr Merdle individually that he held little levees by the sideboard, and checked them off as they went out at the door. Treasury hoped he might venture to congratulate one of England’s world-famed capitalists and merchant-princes (he had turned that original sentiment in the house a few times, and it came easy to him) on a new achievement. To extend the triumphs of such men was to extend the triumphs and resources of the nation; and Treasury felt—he gave Mr Merdle to understand—patriotic on the subject. ‘Thank you, my lord,’ said Mr Merdle; ‘thank you. I accept your congratulations with pride, and I am glad you approve.’

‘Why, I don’t unreservedly approve, my dear Mr Merdle. Be-cause,’ smiling Treasury turned him by the arm towards the sideboard and spoke banteringly, ‘it never can be worth your while to come among us and help us.’ Mr Merdle felt honoured by the— ‘No, no,’ said Treasury, ‘that is not the light in which one so distinguished for practical knowledge and great foresight, can be expected to regard it. If we should ever be happily enabled, by accidentally possessing the control over circumstances, to propose to one so eminent to—to come among us, and give us the weight of his influence, knowledge, and character, we could only propose it to him as a duty. In fact, as a duty that he owed to Society.’ Mr Merdle intimated that Society was the apple of his eye, and that its claims were paramount to every other consideration. Treasury moved on, and Bar came up. Bar, with his little insinuating jury droop, and fingering his persuasive double eye-glass, hoped he might be excused if he mentioned to one of the greatest converters of the root of all evil into the root of all good, who had for a long time reflected a shining lustre on the annals even of our commercial country—if he mentioned, disinterestedly, and as, what we lawyers called in our pedantic way, amicus curiae, a fact that had come by accident within his knowledge. He had been required to look over the title of a very considerable estate in one of the eastern counties—lying, in fact, for Mr Merdle knew we lawyers loved to be particular, on the borders of two of the eastern counties. Now, the title was perfectly sound, and the estate was to be purchased by one who had the command of—Money (jury droop and persuasive eye-glass), on remarkably advantageous terms. This had come to Bar’s knowledge only that day, and it had occurred to him, ‘I shall have the honour of dining with my es-teemed friend Mr Merdle this evening, and, strictly between ourselves, I will mention the opportunity.’ Such a purchase would involve not only a great legitimate political influence, but some half-dozen church presentations of considerable annual value. Now, that Mr Merdle was already at no loss to discover means of occupying even his capital, and of fully employing even his active and vigorous intellect, Bar well knew: but he would venture to suggest that the question arose in his mind, whether one who had deservedly gained so high a position and so European a reputation did not owe it—we would not say to himself, but we would say to Society, to possess him-self of such influences as these; and to exercise them—we would not say for his own, or for his party’s, but we would say for Society’s—benefit. Mr Merdle again expressed himself as wholly devoted to that object of his constant consideration, and Bar took his persuasive eye-glass up the grand staircase. Bishop then came undesignedly sidling in the direction of the sideboard. Surely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to Bishop to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels than when they accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and sagacious, who, while they knew the just value of riches (Bishop tried here to look as if he were rather poor himself), were aware of their importance, judiciously governed and rightly distributed, to the welfare of our brethren at large. Mr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop couldn’t mean him, and with inconsistency expressed his high gratification in Bishop’s good opinion. Bishop then—jauntily stepping out a little with his well-shaped right leg, as though he said to Mr Merdle ‘don’t mind the apron; a mere form!’ put this case to his good friend: Whether it had occurred to his good friend, that Society might not unreasonably hope that one so blest in his undertakings, and whose example on his pedestal was so influential with it, would shed a little money in the direction of a mission or so to Africa? Mr Merdle signifying that the idea should have his best attention, Bishop put another case: Whether his good friend had at all interested himself in the proceedings of our Combined Additional Endowed Dignitaries Committee, and whether it had occurred to him that to shed a little money in that direction might be a great conception finely executed? Mr Merdle made a similar reply, and Bishop explained his reason for inquiring.

Society looked to such men as his good friend to do such things. It was not that he looked to them, but that Society looked to them. just as it was not Our Committee who wanted the Additional Endowed Dignitaries, but it was Society that was in a state of the most agonising uneasiness of mind until it got them. He begged to assure his good friend that he was extremely sensible of his good friend’s regard on all occasions for the best interests of Society; and he considered that he was at once consulting those interests and expressing the feeling of Society, when he wished him continued prosperity, continued increase of riches, and continued things in general. Bishop then betook himself upstairs, and the other magnates gradually floated up after him until there was no one left below but Mr Merdle. That gentleman, after looking at the tablecloth until the soul of the chief butler glowed with a noble resentment, went slowly up after the rest, and became of no account in the stream of people on the grand staircase. Mrs Merdle was at home, the best of the jewels were hung out to be seen, Society got what it came for, Mr Merdle drank two-pennyworth of tea in a corner and got more than he wanted. Among the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew everybody, and whom everybody knew. On entering at the door, he came upon Mr Merdle drinking his tea in a corner, and touched him on the arm. Mr Merdle started. ‘Oh! It’s you!’ ‘Any better to-day?’ ‘No,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I am no better.’ ‘A pity I didn’t see you this morning. Pray come to me to-morrow, or let me come to you. ’ ‘Well!’ he replied. ‘I will come to-morrow as I drive by.’ Bar and Bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue, and as Mr Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their remarks upon it to the Physician. Bar said, there was a certain point of mental strain beyond which no man could go; that the point varied with various textures of brain and peculiarities of constitution, as he had had occasion to notice in several of his learned brothers; but the point of endurance passed by a line’s breadth, depression and dyspepsia en-sued. Not to intrude on the sacred mysteries of medicine, he took it, now (with the jury droop and persuasive eye-glass), that this was Merdle’s case? Bishop said that when he was a young man, and had fallen for a brief space into the habit of writing sermons on Saturdays, a habit which all young sons of the church should sedulously avoid, he had frequently been sensible of a depression, arising as he supposed from an over-taxed intellect, upon which the yolk of a new-laid egg, beaten up by the good woman in whose house he at that time lodged, with a glass of sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered sugar acted like a charm. Without presuming to offer so simple a remedy to the consideration of so profound a professor of the great healing art, he would venture to inquire whether the strain, being by way of intricate calculations, the spirits might not (humanly speaking) be restored to their tone by a gentle and yet generous stimulant? ‘Yes,’ said the physician, ‘yes, you are both right. But I may as well tell you that I can find nothing the matter with Mr Merdle. He has the constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an ostrich, and the concentration of an oyster. As to nerves, Mr Merdle is of a cool temperament, and not a sensitive man: is about as invulnerable, I should say, as Achilles. How such a man should suppose himself unwell without reason, you may think strange. But I have found nothing the matter with him. He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint. I can’t say. I only say, that at present I have not found it out.’ There was no shadow of Mr Merdle’s complaint on the bosom now displaying precious stones in rivalry with many similar superb jewel-stands; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle’s complaint on young Sparkler hovering about the rooms, monomaniacally seeking any sufficiently ineligible young lady with no nonsense about her; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle’s complaint on the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, of whom whole colonies were present; or on any of the company. Even on him-self, its shadow was faint enough as he moved about among the throng, receiving homage. Mr Merdle’s complaint. Society and he had so much to do with one another in all things else, that it is hard to imagine his complaint, if he had one, being solely his own affair. Had he that deep-seated recondite complaint, and did any doctor find it out? Patience. in the meantime, the shadow of the Marshalsea wall was a real darkening influence, and could be seen on the Dorrit Family at any stage of the sun’s course.

Chapter 22

Chapter 22
A Puzzle

Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a positive shortcoming in point of gentlemanly feeling. An impression of disappointment, occasioned by the discovery that Mr Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for which, in the confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give him credit, began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts. He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called to pay his respects; but he didn’t find that he got on with him personally. There appeared to be something (he didn’t know what it was) wanting in him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of politeness, but, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps cherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial unsolicited, it might still be within the compass of his nature to bear the part of a responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way tending. In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had been accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of the gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark. He was not surprised by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery when that officer was on the lock, for he made little distinction between Mr Chivery’s politeness and that of the other turnkeys. It was on one particular afternoon that Mr Chivery surprised him all at once, and stood forth from his companions in bold relief. Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge, had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam, coming out of the prison, should find him on duty alone. ‘(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,’ said Mr Chivery in a secret manner; ‘but which way might you be going?’ ‘I am going over the Bridge.’ He saw in Mr Chivery, with some astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his key on his lips. ‘(Private) I ask your pardon again,’ said Mr Chivery, ‘but could you go round by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time to look in at that address?’ handing him a little card, printed for circulation among the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, Importers of pure Havannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-flavoured Cubas, Dealers in Fancy Snuffs, &C. &C. ‘(Private) It an’t tobacco business,’ said Mr Chivery. ‘The truth is, it’s my wife. She’s wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a point respecting—yes,’ said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam’s look of apprehension with a nod, ‘respecting her.’ ‘I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.’ ‘Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an’t above ten minutes out of your way. Please to ask for Mrs Chivery!’ These instructions, Mr Chivery, who had already let him out, cautiously called through a little slide in the outer door, which he could draw back from within for the inspection of visitors when it pleased him. Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a very small establishment, wherein a decent woman sat be-hind the counter working at her needle. Little jars of tobacco, little boxes of cigars, a little assortment of pipes, a little jar or two of snuff, and a little instrument like a shoeing horn for serving it out, composed the retail stock in trade. Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the solicitation of Mr Chivery. About something relating to Miss Dorrit, he believed. Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose up from her seat behind the counter, and deploringly shook her head. ‘You may see him now,’ said she, ‘if you’ll condescend to take a peep.’ With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little parlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a very little dull back-yard. In this yard a wash of sheets and table-cloths tried (in vain, for want of air) to get it-self dried on a line or two; and among those flapping articles was sitting in a chair, like the last mariner left alive on the deck of a damp ship without the power of furling the sails, a little woe-begone young man. ‘Our John,’ said Mrs Chivery. Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be doing there? ‘It’s the only change he takes,’ said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head afresh. ‘He won’t go out, even in the back-yard, when there’s no linen; but when there’s linen to keep the neighbours’ eyes off, he’ll sit there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!’ Mrs Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her eyes, and re-conducted her visitor into the regions of the business. ‘Please to take a seat, sir,’ said Mrs Chivery. ‘Miss Dorrit is the matter with Our John, sir; he’s a breaking his heart for her, and I would wish to take the liberty to ask how it’s to be made good to his parents when bust?’ Mrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected about Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, uttered this speech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards began again to shake her head and dry her eyes. ‘Sir,’ said she in continuation, ‘you are acquainted with the family, and have interested yourself with the family, and are influential with the family. If you can promote views calculated to make two young people happy, let me, for Our john’s sake, and for both their sakes, implore you so to do!’ ‘I have been so habituated,’ returned Arthur, at a loss, ‘during the short time I have known her, to consider Little—I have been so habituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed from that in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by surprise. Does she know your son?’ ‘Brought up together, sir,’ said Mrs Chivery. ‘Played together.’ ‘Does she know your son as her admirer?’ ‘Oh! bless you, sir,’ said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant shiver, ‘she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing he was that. His cane alone would have told it long ago, if nothing else had. Young men like John don’t take to ivory hands a pinting, for nothing. How did I first know it my-self? Similarly.’ ‘Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.’ ‘Then she knows it, sir,’ said Mrs Chivery, ‘by word of mouth.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Sir,’ said Mrs Chivery, ‘sure and certain as in this house I am. I see my son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I see my son come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I know he done it!’ Mrs Chivery derived a surprising force of emphasis from the foregoing circumstantiality and repetition. ‘May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which causes you so much uneasiness?’ ‘That,’ said Mrs Chivery, ‘took place on that same day when to this house I see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself in this house since. Never was like what he has been since, not from the hour when to this house seven year ago me and his father, as tenants by the quarter, came!’ An effect in the nature of an affidavit was gained from this speech by Mrs Chivery’s peculiar power of construction. ‘May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?’ ‘You may,’ said Mrs Chivery, ‘and I will give it to you in honour and in word as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has every one’s good word and every one’s good wish. He played with her as a child when in that yard a child she played. He has known her ever since. He went out upon the Sunday afternoon when in this very parlour he had dined, and met her, with appointment or without appointment; which, I do not pretend to say. He made his offer to her. Her brother and sister is high in their views, and against Our John. Her father is all for himself in his views and against sharing her with any one. Under which circumstances she has answered Our John, “No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have any husband, it is not my intentions ever to become a wife, it is my intentions to be always a sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy of you, and forget me!” This is the way in which she is doomed to be a constant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant slave she unto them should be. This is the way in which Our John has come to find no pleasure but in taking cold among the linen, and in showing in that yard, as in that yard I have myself shown you, a broken-down ruin that goes home to his mother’s heart!’ Here the good woman pointed to the little window, whence her son might be seen sitting disconsolate in the tuneless groves; and again shook her head and wiped her eyes, and besought him, for the united sakes of both the young people, to exercise his influence towards the bright reversal of these dismal events. She was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so undeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative positions of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that Clennam could not feel positive on the other side. He had come to attach to Little Dorrit an interest so peculiar—an interest that removed her from, while it grew out of, the common and coarse things surrounding her—that he found it disappointing, disagreeable, almost painful, to suppose her in love with young Mr Chivery in the back-yard, or any such person. On the other hand, he reasoned with himself that she was just as good and just as true in love with him, as not in love with him; and that to make a kind of domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty of isolation at heart from the only people she knew, would be but a weakness of his own fancy, and not a kind one. Still, her youthful and ethereal appearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice and eyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out of her own individuality, and the strong difference between herself and those about her, were not in unison, and were determined not to be in unison, with this newly presented idea. He told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in his mind—he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking—that he might be relied upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the happiness of Miss Dorrit, and to further the wishes of her heart if it were in his power to do so, and if he could discover what they were. At the same time he cautioned her against assumptions and appearances; enjoined strict silence and secrecy, lest Miss Dorrit should be made unhappy; and particularly advised her to endeavour to win her son’s confidence and so to make quite sure of the state of the case. Mrs Chivery considered the latter precaution superfluous, but said she would try. She shook her head as if she had not derived all the comfort she had fondly expected from this interview, but thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had kindly taken. They then parted good friends, and Arthur walked away. The crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two crowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off in the quieter direction of the Iron Bridge. He had scarcely set foot upon it, when he saw Little Dorrit walking on before him. It was a pleasant day, with a light breeze blowing, and she seemed to have that minute come there for air. He had left her in her father’s room within an hour. It was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her face and manner when no one else was by. He quickened his pace; but before he reached her, she turned her head. ‘Have I startled you?’ he asked. ‘I thought I knew the step,’ she answered, hesitating. ‘And did you know it, Little Dorrit? You could hardly have expected mine.’ ‘I did not expect any. But when I heard a step, I thought it—sounded like yours.’ ‘Are you going further?’ ‘No, sir, I am only walking her for a little change.’ They walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with him, and looked up in his face as she said, after glancing around:

‘It is so strange. Perhaps you can hardly understand it. I sometimes have a sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk here.’ ‘Unfeeling?’ ‘To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such change and motion. Then to go back, you know, and find him in the same cramped place.’ ‘Ah yes! But going back, you must remember that you take with you the spirit and influence of such things to cheer him.’ ‘Do I? I hope I may! I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and make me out too powerful. If you were in prison, could I bring such comfort to you?’ ‘Yes, Little Dorrit, I am sure of it.’ He gathered from a tremor on her lip, and a passing shadow of great agitation on her face, that her mind was with her father. He remained silent for a few moments, that she might re-gain her composure. The Little Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in unison than ever with Mrs Chivery’s theory, and yet was not irreconcilable with a new fancy which sprung up with-in him, that there might be some one else in the hopeless—newer fancy still—in the hopeless unattainable distance. They turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggy coming! Little Dorrit looked up, surprised, and they confronted Maggy, who brought herself at sight of them to a dead stop. She had been trotting along, so preoccupied and busy that she had not recognised them until they turned upon her. She was now in a moment so conscience-stricken that her very basket partook of the change. ‘Maggy, you promised me to stop near father.’ ‘So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn’t let me. If he takes and sends me out I must go. If he takes and says, “Maggy, you hurry away and back with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence if the answer’s a good ’un,” I must take it. Lor, Little Mother, what’s a poor thing of ten year old to do? And if Mr Tip—if he happens to be a coming in as I come out, and if he says “Where are you going, Maggy?” and if I says, “I’m a going So and So,” and if he says, “I’ll have a Try too,” and if he goes into the George and writes a letter and if he gives it me and says, “Take that one to the same place, and if the answer’s a good ’un I’ll give you a shilling,” it ain’t my fault, mother!’ Arthur read, in Little Dorrit’s downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw that the letters were addressed. ‘I’m a going So and So. There! That’s where I am a going to,’ said Maggy. ‘I’m a going So and So. It ain’t you, Little Mother, that’s got anything to do with it—it’s you, you know,’ said Maggy, addressing Arthur. ‘You’d better come, So and So, and let me take and give ’em to you.’ ‘We will not be so particular as that, Maggy. Give them me here,’ said Clennam in a low voice. ‘Well, then, come across the road,’ answered Maggy in a very loud whisper. ‘Little Mother wasn’t to know nothing of it, and she would never have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and So, instead of bothering and loitering about. It ain’t my fault. I must do what I am told. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for telling me.’ Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the letters. That from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly finding himself in the novel position of having been disappointed of a remittance from the City on which he had confidently counted, he took up his pen, being restrained by the unhappy circumstance of his incarceration during three-and-twenty years (doubly underlined), from coming himself, as he would otherwise certainly have done—took up his pen to entreat Mr Clennam to advance him the sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his I.O.U., which he begged to enclose. That from the son set forth that Mr Clennam would, he knew, be gratified to hear that he had at length obtained permanent employment of a highly satisfactory nature, accompanied with every prospect of complete success in life; but that the temporary inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary to that date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of a false friend and the present high price of provisions, had reduced him to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter before six that evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, Mr Clennam would be happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends who had a lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the exception of a trifling balance of one pound seventeen and four-pence; the loan of which balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught with the usual beneficent consequences. These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and pocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and excusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son. He then commissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her the shilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise would have disappointed her otherwise. When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as before, she said all at once: ‘I think I had better go. I had better go home.’ ‘Don’t be distressed,’ said Clennam, ‘I have answered the letters. They were nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing.’ ‘But I am afraid,’ she returned, ‘to leave him, I am afraid to leave any of them. When I am gone, they pervert—but they don’t mean it—even Maggy.’ ‘It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. And in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only saving you uneasiness.’ ‘Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but the other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that I had its tone and character. It must be so. I am sure it must be when I see these things. My place is there. I am better there. it is unfeeling in me to be here, when I can do the least thing there. Good-bye. I had far better stay at home!’ The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her. ‘Don’t call it home, my child!’ he entreated. ‘It is always painful to me to hear you call it home.’ ‘But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever forget it for a single moment?’ ‘You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.’ ‘I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; much better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don’t go with me, let me go by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you, thank you.’ He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move while her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had fluttered out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and stood thinking. She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way? No. When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on, when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had been distressed, but not like this. Something had made her keenly and additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some one in the hopeless unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind, by his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge with the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet? He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; he thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he thought of her when the day came round again. And the poor child Little Dorrit thought of him—too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!—in the shadow of the Marshalsea wall.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23
Machinery in Motion

Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the matter of the negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had entrusted to him, that he soon brought it into business train, and called on Clennam at nine o’clock one morning to make his report. ‘Doyce is highly gratified by your good opinion,’ he opened the business by saying, ‘and desires nothing so much as that you should examine the affairs of the Works for yourself, and entirely understand them. He has handed me the keys of all his books and papers—here they are jingling in this pocket—and the only charge he has given me is “Let Mr Clennam have the means of putting himself on a perfect equality with me as to knowing whatever I know. If it should come to nothing after all, he will respect my confidence. Unless I was sure of that to begin with, I should have nothing to do with him.” And there, you see,’ said Mr Meagles, ‘you have Daniel Doyce all over.’ ‘A very honourable character.’ ‘Oh, yes, to be sure. Not a doubt of it. Odd, but very honour-able. Very odd though. Now, would you believe, Clennam,’ said Mr Meagles, with a hearty enjoyment of his friend’s eccentricity, ‘that I had a whole morning in What’s-his-name Yard—’ ‘Bleeding Heart?’ ‘A whole morning in Bleeding Heart Yard, before I could in-duce him to pursue the subject at all?’ ‘How was that?’ ‘How was that, my friend? I no sooner mentioned your name in connection with it than he declared off.’ ‘Declared off on my account?’ ‘I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, “That will never do!” What did he mean by that? I asked him.

No matter, Meagles; that would never do. Why would it never do? You’ll hardly believe it, Clennam,’ said Mr Meagles, laughing within himself, ‘but it came out that it would never do, be-cause you and he, walking down to Twickenham together, had glided into a friendly conversation in the course of which he had referred to his intention of taking a partner, supposing at the time that you were as firmly and finally settled as St Paul’s Cathedral. “Whereas,” says he, “Mr Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his proposition, that I had a sinister and designing motive in what was open free speech. Which I can’t bear,” says he, “which I really am too proud to bear.”’ ‘I should as soon suspect—’ ‘Of course you would,’ interrupted Mr Meagles, ‘and so I told him. But it took a morning to scale that wall; and I doubt if any other man than myself (he likes me of old) could have got his leg over it. Well, Clennam. This business-like obstacle surmounted, he then stipulated that before resuming with you I should look over the books and form my own opinion. I looked over the books, and formed my own opinion. “Is it, on the whole, for, or against?” says he. “For,” says I. “Then,” says he, “you may now, my good friend, give Mr Clennam the means of forming his opinion. To enable him to do which, without bias and with perfect freedom, I shall go out of town for a week.” And he’s gone,’ said Mr Meagles; that’s the rich conclusion of the thing.’ ‘Leaving me,’ said Clennam, ‘with a high sense, I must say, of his candour and his—’ ‘Oddity,’ Mr Meagles struck in. ‘I should think so!’ It was not exactly the word on Clennam’s lips, but he forbore to interrupt his good-humoured friend. ‘And now,’ added Mr Meagles, ‘you can begin to look into matters as soon as you think proper. I have undertaken to ex-plain where you may want explanation, but to be strictly impartial, and to do nothing more.’ They began their perquisitions in Bleeding Heart Yard that same forenoon. Little peculiarities were easily to be detected by experienced eyes in Mr Doyce’s way of managing his affairs, but they almost always involved some ingenious simplification of a difficulty, and some plain road to the desired end. That his papers were in arrear, and that he stood in need of assistance to develop the capacity of his business, was clear enough; but all the results of his undertakings during many years were distinctly set forth, and were ascertainable with ease. Nothing had been done for the purposes of the pending investigation; everything was in its genuine working dress, and in a certain honest rugged order. The calculations and entries, in his own hand, of which there were many, were bluntly written, and with no very neat precision; but were always plain and directed straight to the purpose. It occurred to Arthur that a far more elaborate and taking show of business—such as the records of the Circumlocution Office made perhaps—might be far less serviceable, as being meant to be far less intelligible. Three or four days of steady application tendered him master of all the facts it was essential to become acquainted with. Mr Meagles was at hand the whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim place with the bright little safety-lamp belonging to the scales and scoop. Between them they agreed upon the sum it would be fair to offer for the purchase of a half-share in the business, and then Mr Meagles unsealed a paper in which Daniel Doyce had noted the amount at which he valued it; which was even something less. Thus, when Daniel came back, he found the affair as good as concluded. ‘And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,’ said he, with a cordial shake of the hand, ‘that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I could not have found one more to my mind.’ ‘I say the same,’ said Clennam. ‘And I say of both of you,’ added Mr Meagles, ‘that you are well matched. You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense, and you stick to the Works, Dan, with your—’ ‘Uncommon sense?’ suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile. ‘You may call it so, if you like—and each of you will be a right hand to the other. Here’s my own right hand upon it, as a practical man, to both of you.’ The purchase was completed within a month. It left Arthur in possession of private personal means not exceeding a few hundred pounds; but it opened to him an active and promising career. The three friends dined together on the auspicious occasion; the factory and the factory wives and children made holiday and dined too; even Bleeding Heart Yard dined and was full of meat. Two months had barely gone by in all, when Bleeding Heart Yard had become so familiar with short-commons again, that the treat was forgotten there; when nothing seemed new in the partnership but the paint of the inscription on the door-posts, DOYCE AND CLENNAM; when it appeared even to Clennam himself, that he had had the affairs of the firm in his mind for years. The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a room of wood and glass at the end of a long low work-shop, filled with benches, and vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, when they were in gear with the steam-engine, went tearing round as though they had a suicidal mission to grind the business to dust and tear the factory to pieces. A communication of great trap-doors in the floor and roof with the workshop above and the workshop below, made a shaft of light in this perspective, which brought to Clennam’s mind the child’s old picture-book, where similar rays were the witnesses of Abel’s murder. The noises were sufficiently removed and shut out from the counting-house to blend into a busy hum, interspersed with periodical clinks and thumps. The patient figures at work were swarthy with the filings of iron and steel that danced on every bench and bubbled up through every chink in the planking. The workshop was arrived at by a step-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for the large grindstone where tools were sharpened. The whole had at once a fanciful and practical air in Clennam’s eyes, which was a welcome change; and, as often as he raised them from his first work of getting the array of business documents into perfect order, he glanced at these things with a feeling of pleasure in his pursuit that was new to him. Raising his eyes thus one day, he was surprised to see a bon-net labouring up the step-ladder. The unusual apparition was followed by another bonnet. He then perceived that the first bonnet was on the head of Mr F.’s Aunt, and that the second bonnet was on the head of Flora, who seemed to have propelled her legacy up the steep ascent with considerable difficulty. Though not altogether enraptured at the sight of these visitors, Clennam lost no time in opening the counting-house door, and extricating them from the workshop; a rescue which was rendered the more necessary by Mr F.’s Aunt already stumbling over some impediment, and menacing steam power as an Institution with a stony reticule she carried. ‘Good gracious, Arthur,—I should say Mr Clennam, far more proper—the climb we have had to get up here and how ever to get down again without a fire-escape and Mr F.’s Aunt slipping through the steps and bruised all over and you in the machinery and foundry way too only think, and never told us!’ Thus, Flora, out of breath. Meanwhile, Mr F.’s Aunt rubbed her esteemed insteps with her umbrella, and vindictively glared. ‘Most unkind never to have come back to see us since that day, though naturally it was not to be expected that there should be any attraction at our house and you were much more pleasantly engaged, that’s pretty certain, and is she fair or dark blue eyes or black I wonder, not that I expect that she should be anything but a perfect contrast to me in all particulars for I am a disappointment as I very well know and you are quite right to be devoted no doubt though what I am saying Arthur never mind I hardly know myself Good gracious!’ By this time he had placed chairs for them in the counting-house. As Flora dropped into hers, she bestowed the old look upon him. ‘And to think of Doyce and Clennam, and who Doyce can be,’ said Flora; ‘delightful man no doubt and married perhaps or perhaps a daughter, now has he really? then one understands the partnership and sees it all, don’t tell me anything about it for I know I have no claim to ask the question the golden chain that once was forged being snapped and very proper.’ Flora put her hand tenderly on his, and gave him another of the youthful glances. ‘Dear Arthur—force of habit, Mr Clennam every way more delicate and adapted to existing circumstances—I must beg to be excused for taking the liberty of this intrusion but I thought I might so far presume upon old times for ever faded never more to bloom as to call with Mr F.’s Aunt to congratulate and offer best wishes, A great deal superior to China not to be denied and much nearer though higher up!’ ‘I am very happy to see you,’ said Clennam, ‘and I thank you, Flora, very much for your kind remembrance.’

‘More than I can say myself at any rate,’ returned Flora, ‘for I might have been dead and buried twenty distinct times over and no doubt whatever should have been before you had genuinely remembered Me or anything like it in spite of which one last remark I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer—’ ‘My dear Mrs Finching,’ Arthur remonstrated in alarm. ‘Oh not that disagreeable name, say Flora!’ ‘Flora, is it worth troubling yourself afresh to enter into explanations? I assure you none are needed. I am satisfied—I am perfectly satisfied.’ A diversion was occasioned here, by Mr F.’s Aunt making the following inexorable and awful statement: ‘There’s mile-stones on the Dover road!’ With such mortal hostility towards the human race did she discharge this missile, that Clennam was quite at a loss how to defend himself; the rather as he had been already perplexed in his mind by the honour of a visit from this venerable lady, when it was plain she held him in the utmost abhorrence. He could not but look at her with disconcertment, as she sat breathing bitterness and scorn, and staring leagues away. Flora, however, received the remark as if it had been of a most apposite and agreeable nature; approvingly observing aloud that Mr F.’s Aunt had a great deal of spirit. Stimulated either by this compliment, or by her burning indignation, that illustrious woman then added, ‘Let him meet it if he can!’ And, with a rigid movement of her stony reticule (an appendage of great size and of a fossil appearance), indicated that Clennam was the unfortunate person at whom the challenge was hurled. ‘One last remark,’ resumed Flora, ‘I was going to say I wish to make one last explanation I wish to offer, Mr F.’s Aunt and myself would not have intruded on business hours Mr F. having been in business and though the wine trade still business is equally business call it what you will and business habits are just the same as witness Mr F. himself who had his slippers al-ways on the mat at ten minutes before six in the afternoon and his boots inside the fender at ten minutes before eight in the morning to the moment in all weathers light or dark—would not therefore have intruded without a motive which being kindly meant it may be hoped will be kindly taken Arthur, Mr Clennam far more proper, even Doyce and Clennam probably more business-like.’ ‘Pray say nothing in the way of apology,’ Arthur entreated. ‘You are always welcome.’ ‘Very polite of you to say so Arthur—cannot remember Mr Clennam until the word is out, such is the habit of times for ever fled, and so true it is that oft in the stilly night ere slumber’s chain has bound people, fond memory brings the light of other days around people—very polite but more polite than true I am afraid, for to go into the machinery business without so much as sending a line or a card to papa—I don’t say me though there was a time but that is past and stern reality has now my gracious never mind—does not look like it you must confess.’ Even Flora’s commas seemed to have fled on this occasion; she was so much more disjointed and voluble than in the pre-ceding interview. ‘Though indeed,’ she hurried on, ‘nothing else is to be expected and why should it be expected and if it’s not to be expected why should it be, and I am far from blaming you or any one, When your mama and my papa worried us to death and severed the golden bowl—I mean bond but I dare say you know what I mean and if you don’t you don’t lose much and care just as little I will venture to add—when they severed the golden bond that bound us and threw us into fits of crying on the sofa nearly choked at least myself everything was changed and in giving my hand to Mr F. I know I did so with my eyes open but he was so very unsettled and in such low spirits that he had distractedly alluded to the river if not oil of something from the chemist’s and I did it for the best.’ ‘My good Flora, we settled that before. It was all quite right.’ ‘It’s perfectly clear you think so,’ returned Flora, ‘for you take it very coolly, if I hadn’t known it to be China I should have guessed myself the Polar regions, dear Mr Clennam you are right however and I cannot blame you but as to Doyce and Clennam papa’s property being about here we heard it from Pancks and but for him we never should have heard one word about it I am satisfied.’ ‘No, no, don’t say that.’

‘What nonsense not to say it Arthur—Doyce and Clennam—easier and less trying to me than Mr Clennam—when I know it and you know it too and can’t deny it.’ ‘But I do deny it, Flora. I should soon have made you a friendly visit.’ ‘Ah!’ said Flora, tossing her head. ‘I dare say!’ and she gave him another of the old looks. ‘However when Pancks told us I made up my mind that Mr F.’s Aunt and I would come and call because when papa—which was before that—happened to mention her name to me and to say that you were interested in her I said at the moment Good gracious why not have her here then when there’s anything to do instead of putting it out.’ ‘When you say Her,’ observed Clennam, by this time pretty well bewildered, ‘do you mean Mr F.’s—’ ‘My goodness, Arthur—Doyce and Clennam really easier to me with old remembrances—who ever heard of Mr F.’s Aunt doing needlework and going out by the day?’ ‘Going out by the day! Do you speak of Little Dorrit?’ ‘Why yes of course,’ returned Flora; ‘and of all the strangest names I ever heard the strangest, like a place down in the country with a turnpike, or a favourite pony or a puppy or a bird or something from a seed-shop to be put in a garden or a flower-pot and come up speckled.’ ‘Then, Flora,’ said Arthur, with a sudden interest in the conversation, ‘Mr Casby was so kind as to mention Little Dorrit to you, was he? What did he say?’ ‘Oh you know what papa is,’ rejoined Flora, ‘and how aggravatingly he sits looking beautiful and turning his thumbs over and over one another till he makes one giddy if one keeps one’s eyes upon him, he said when we were talking of you—I don’t know who began the subject Arthur (Doyce and Clennam) but I am sure it wasn’t me, at least I hope not but you really must excuse my confessing more on that point.’ ‘Certainly,’ said Arthur. ‘By all means.’ ‘You are very ready,’ pouted Flora, coming to a sudden stop in a captivating bashfulness, ‘that I must admit, Papa said you had spoken of her in an earnest way and I said what I have told you and that’s all.’ ‘That’s all?’ said Arthur, a little disappointed.

‘Except that when Pancks told us of your having embarked in this business and with difficulty persuaded us that it was really you I said to Mr F.’s Aunt then we would come and ask you if it would be agreeable to all parties that she should be engaged at our house when required for I know she often goes to your mama’s and I know that your mama has a very touchy temper Arthur—Doyce and Clennam—or I never might have married Mr F. and might have been at this hour but I am running into nonsense.’ ‘It was very kind of you, Flora, to think of this.’ Poor Flora rejoined with a plain sincerity which became her better than her youngest glances, that she was glad he thought so. She said it with so much heart that Clennam would have given a great deal to buy his old character of her on the spot, and throw it and the mermaid away for ever. ‘I think, Flora,’ he said, ‘that the employment you can give Little Dorrit, and the kindness you can show her—’ ‘Yes and I will,’ said Flora, quickly. ‘I am sure of it—will be a great assistance and support to her. I do not feel that I have the right to tell you what I know of her, for I acquired the knowledge confidentially, and under circumstances that bind me to silence. But I have an interest in the little creature, and a respect for her that I cannot express to you. Her life has been one of such trial and devotion, and such quiet goodness, as you can scarcely imagine. I can hardly think of her, far less speak of her, without feeling moved. Let that feeling represent what I could tell you, and commit her to your friendliness with my thanks.’ Once more he put out his hand frankly to poor Flora; once more poor Flora couldn’t accept it frankly, found it worth nothing openly, must make the old intrigue and mystery of it. As much to her own enjoyment as to his dismay, she covered it with a corner of her shawl as she took it. Then, looking to-wards the glass front of the counting-house, and seeing two figures approaching, she cried with infinite relish, ‘Papa! Hush, Arthur, for Mercy’s sake!’ and tottered back to her chair with an amazing imitation of being in danger of swooning, in the dread surprise and maidenly flutter of her spirits. The Patriarch, meanwhile, came inanely beaming towards the counting-house in the wake of Pancks. Pancks opened the door for him, towed him in, and retired to his own moorings in a corner. ‘I heard from Flora,’ said the Patriarch with his benevolent smile, ‘that she was coming to call, coming to call. And being out, I thought I’d come also, thought I’d come also.’ The benign wisdom he infused into this declaration (not of it-self profound), by means of his blue eyes, his shining head, and his long white hair, was most impressive. It seemed worth putting down among the noblest sentiments enunciated by the best of men. Also, when he said to Clennam, seating himself in the proffered chair, ‘And you are in a new business, Mr Clennam? I wish you well, sir, I wish you well!’ he seemed to have done benevolent wonders. ‘Mrs Finching has been telling me, sir,’ said Arthur, after making his acknowledgments; the relict of the late Mr F. mean-while protesting, with a gesture, against his use of that respectable name; ‘that she hopes occasionally to employ the young needle-woman you recommended to my mother. For which I have been thanking her.’ The Patriarch turning his head in a lumbering way towards Pancks, that assistant put up the note-book in which he had been absorbed, and took him in tow. ‘You didn’t recommend her, you know,’ said Pancks; ‘how could you? You knew nothing about her, you didn’t. The name was mentioned to you, and you passed it on. That’s what YOU did.’ ‘Well!’ said Clennam. ‘As she justifies any recommendation, it is much the same thing.’ ‘You are glad she turns out well,’ said Pancks, ‘but it wouldn’t have been your fault if she had turned out ill. The credit’s not yours as it is, and the blame wouldn’t have been yours as it might have been. You gave no guarantee. You knew nothing about her.’ ‘You are not acquainted, then,’ said Arthur, hazarding a random question, ‘with any of her family?’ ‘Acquainted with any of her family?’ returned Pancks. ‘How should you be acquainted with any of her family? You never heard of ’em. You can’t be acquainted with people you never heard of, can you? You should think not!’

All this time the Patriarch sat serenely smiling; nodding or shaking his head benevolently, as the case required. ‘As to being a reference,’ said Pancks, ‘you know, in a general way, what being a reference means. It’s all your eye, that is! Look at your tenants down the Yard here. They’d all be references for one another, if you’d let ’em. What would be the good of letting ’em? It’s no satisfaction to be done by two men in-stead of one. One’s enough. A person who can’t pay, gets an-other person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking match. And four wooden legs are more troublesome to you than two, when you don’t want any.’ Mr Pancks concluded by blowing off that steam of his. A momentary silence that ensued was broken by Mr F.’s Aunt, who had been sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark. She now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with the deadliest animosity observed: ‘You can’t make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in it. You couldn’t do it when your Uncle George was living; much less when he’s dead.’ Mr Pancks was not slow to reply, with his usual calmness, ‘Indeed, ma’am! Bless my soul! I’m surprised to hear it.’ Despite his presence of mind, however, the speech of Mr F.’s Aunt produced a depressing effect on the little assembly; firstly, be-cause it was impossible to disguise that Clennam’s unoffending head was the particular temple of reason depreciated; and secondly, because nobody ever knew on these occasions whose Uncle George was referred to, or what spectral presence might be invoked under that appellation. Therefore Flora said, though still not without a certain boast-fulness and triumph in her legacy, that Mr F.’s Aunt was ‘very lively to-day, and she thought they had better go.’ But Mr F.’s Aunt proved so lively as to take the suggestion in unexpected dudgeon and declare that she would not go; adding, with several injurious expressions, that if ‘He’—too evidently meaning Clennam—wanted to get rid of her, ‘let him chuck her out of winder;’ and urgently expressing her desire to see ‘Him’ per-form that ceremony. In this dilemma, Mr Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any emergency in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped out at the counting-house door, and slipped in again a moment afterwards with an artificial freshness upon him, as if he had been in the country for some weeks. ‘Why, bless my heart, ma’am!’ said Mr Pancks, rubbing up his hair in great astonishment, ‘is that you? How do you do, ma’am? You are looking charming to-day! I am delighted to see you. Favour me with your arm, ma’am; we’ll have a little walk together, you and me, if you’ll honour me with your company.’ And so escorted Mr F.’s Aunt down the private staircase of the counting-house with great gallantry and success. The patriarchal Mr Casby then rose with the air of having done it himself, and blandly followed: leaving his daughter, as she followed in her turn, to remark to her former lover in a distracted whisper (which she very much enjoyed), that they had drained the cup of life to the dregs; and further to hint mysteriously that the late Mr F. was at the bottom of it. Alone again, Clennam became a prey to his old doubts in reference to his mother and Little Dorrit, and revolved the old thoughts and suspicions. They were all in his mind, blending themselves with the duties he was mechanically discharging, when a shadow on his papers caused him to look up for the cause. The cause was Mr Pancks. With his hat thrown back upon his ears as if his wiry prongs of hair had darted up like springs and cast it off, with his jet-black beads of eyes inquisitively sharp, with the fingers of his right hand in his mouth that he might bite the nails, and with the fingers of his left hand in reserve in his pocket for another course, Mr Pancks cast his shadow through the glass upon the books and papers. Mr Pancks asked, with a little inquiring twist of his head, if he might come in again? Clennam replied with a nod of his head in the affirmative. Mr Pancks worked his way in, came alongside the desk, made himself fast by leaning his arms upon it, and started conversation with a puff and a snort. ‘Mr F.’s Aunt is appeased, I hope?’ said Clennam. ‘All right, sir,’ said Pancks.

‘I am so unfortunate as to have awakened a strong animosity in the breast of that lady,’ said Clennam. ‘Do you know why?’ ‘Does SHE know why?’ said Pancks. ‘I suppose not.’ ‘I suppose not,’ said Pancks. He took out his note-book, opened it, shut it, dropped it into his hat, which was beside him on the desk, and looked in at it as it lay at the bottom of the hat: all with a great appearance of consideration. ‘Mr Clennam,’ he then began, ‘I am in want of information, sir.’ ‘Connected with this firm?’ asked Clennam. ‘No,’ said Pancks. ‘With what then, Mr Pancks? That is to say, assuming that you want it of me.’ ‘Yes, sir; yes, I want it of you,’ said Pancks, ‘if I can persuade you to furnish it. A, B, C, D. DA, DE, DI, DO. Dictionary order. Dorrit. That’s the name, sir?’ Mr Pancks blew off his peculiar noise again, and fell to at his right-hand nails. Arthur looked searchingly at him; he returned the look. ‘I don’t understand you, Mr Pancks.’ ‘That’s the name that I want to know about.’ ‘And what do you want to know?’ ‘Whatever you can and will tell me.’ This comprehensive summary of his desires was not discharged without some heavy labouring on the part of Mr Pancks’s machinery. ‘This is a singular visit, Mr Pancks. It strikes me as rather extraordinary that you should come, with such an object, to me.’ ‘It may be all extraordinary together,’ returned Pancks. ‘It may be out of the ordinary course, and yet be business. In short, it is business. I am a man of business. What business have I in this present world, except to stick to business? No business.’ With his former doubt whether this dry hard personage were quite in earnest, Clennam again turned his eyes attentively upon his face. It was as scrubby and dingy as ever, and as eager and quick as ever, and he could see nothing lurking in it that was at all expressive of a latent mockery that had seemed to strike upon his ear in the voice.

‘Now,’ said Pancks, ‘to put this business on its own footing, it’s not my proprietor’s.’ ‘Do you refer to Mr Casby as your proprietor?’ Pancks nodded. ‘My proprietor. Put a case. Say, at my proprietor’s I hear name—name of young person Mr Clennam wants to serve. Say, name first mentioned to my proprietor by Plornish in the Yard. Say, I go to Plornish. Say, I ask Plornish as a matter of business for information. Say, Plornish, though six weeks in arrear to my proprietor, declines. Say, Mrs Plornish declines. Say, both refer to Mr Clennam. Put the case.’ ‘Well?’ ‘Well, sir,’ returned Pancks, ‘say, I come to him. Say, here I am. With those prongs of hair sticking up all over his head, and his breath coming and going very hard and short, the busy Pancks fell back a step (in Tug metaphor, took half a turn astern) as if to show his dingy hull complete, then forged a-head again, and directed his quick glance by turns into his hat where his note-book was, and into Clennam’s face. ‘Mr Pancks, not to trespass on your grounds of mystery, I will be as plain with you as I can. Let me ask two questions. First—’ ‘All right!’ said Pancks, holding up his dirty forefinger with his broken nail. ‘I see! “What’s your motive?”’ ‘Exactly.’ ‘Motive,’ said Pancks, ‘good. Nothing to do with my proprietor; not statable at present, ridiculous to state at present; but good. Desiring to serve young person, name of Dorrit,’ said Pancks, with his forefinger still up as a caution. ‘Better admit motive to be good.’ ‘Secondly, and lastly, what do you want to know?’ Mr Pancks fished up his note-book before the question was put, and buttoning it with care in an inner breast-pocket, and looking straight at Clennam all the time, replied with a pause and a puff, ‘I want supplementary information of any sort.’ Clennam could not withhold a smile, as the panting little steam-tug, so useful to that unwieldy ship, the Casby, waited on and watched him as if it were seeking an opportunity of running in and rifling him of all he wanted before he could resist its manoeuvres; though there was that in Mr Pancks’s ’ eagerness, too, which awakened many wondering speculations in his mind. After a little consideration, he resolved to supply Mr Pancks with such leading information as it was in his power to impart him; well knowing that Mr Pancks, if he failed in his present research, was pretty sure to find other means of getting it. He, therefore, first requesting Mr Pancks to remember his voluntary declaration that his proprietor had no part in the disclosure, and that his own intentions were good (two declarations which that coaly little gentleman with the greatest ardour repeated), openly told him that as to the Dorrit lineage or former place of habitation, he had no information to communicate, and that his knowledge of the family did not extend beyond the fact that it appeared to be now reduced to five members; namely, to two brothers, of whom one was single, and one a widower with three children. The ages of the whole family he made known to Mr Pancks, as nearly as he could guess at them; and finally he described to him the position of the Father of the Marshalsea, and the course of time and events through which he had become invested with that character. To all this, Mr Pancks, snorting and blowing in a more and more portentous manner as he became more interested, listened with great attention; appearing to derive the most agreeable sensations from the painfullest parts of the narrative, and particularly to be quite charmed by the account of William Dorrit’s long imprisonment. ‘In conclusion, Mr Pancks,’ said Arthur, ‘I have but to say this. I have reasons beyond a personal regard for speaking as little as I can of the Dorrit family, particularly at my mother’s house’ (Mr Pancks nodded), ‘and for knowing as much as I can. So devoted a man of business as you are—eh?’ For Mr Pancks had suddenly made that blowing effort with unusual force. ‘It’s nothing,’ said Pancks. ‘So devoted a man of business as yourself has a perfect understanding of a fair bargain. I wish to make a fair bargain with you, that you shall enlighten me concerning the Dorrit family when you have it in your power, as I have enlightened you. It may not give you a very flattering idea of my business habits, that I failed to make my terms beforehand,’ continued Clennam; ‘but I prefer to make them a point of honour. I have seen so much business done on sharp principles that, to tell you the truth, Mr Pancks, I am tired of them.’ Mr Pancks laughed. ‘It’s a bargain, sir,’ said he. ‘You shall find me stick to it.’ After that, he stood a little while looking at Clennam, and biting his ten nails all round; evidently while he fixed in his mind what he had been told, and went over it carefully, before the means of supplying a gap in his memory should be no longer at hand. ‘It’s all right,’ he said at last, ‘and now I’ll wish you good day, as it’s collecting day in the Yard. By-the-bye, though. A lame foreigner with a stick.’ ‘Ay, ay. You do take a reference sometimes, I see?’ said Clennam. ‘When he can pay, sir,’ replied Pancks. ‘Take all you can get, and keep back all you can’t be forced to give up. That’s business. The lame foreigner with the stick wants a top room down the Yard. Is he good for it?’ ‘I am,’ said Clennam, ‘and I will answer for him.’ ‘That’s enough. What I must have of Bleeding Heart Yard,’ said Pancks, making a note of the case in his book, ‘is my bond. I want my bond, you see. Pay up, or produce your property! That’s the watchword down the Yard. The lame foreigner with the stick represented that you sent him; but he could represent (as far as that goes) that the Great Mogul sent him. He has been in the hospital, I believe?’ ‘Yes. Through having met with an accident. He is only just now discharged.’ ‘It’s pauperising a man, sir, I have been shown, to let him in-to a hospital?’ said Pancks. And again blew off that remarkable sound. ‘I have been shown so too,’ said Clennam, coldly. Mr Pancks, being by that time quite ready for a start, got under steam in a moment, and, without any other signal or ceremony, was snorting down the step-ladder and working into Bleeding Heart Yard, before he seemed to be well out of the counting-house. Throughout the remainder of the day, Bleeding Heart Yard was in consternation, as the grim Pancks cruised in it; haranguing the inhabitants on their backslidings in respect of payment, demanding his bond, breathing notices to quit and executions, running down defaulters, sending a swell of terror on before him, and leaving it in his wake. Knots of people, impelled by a fatal attraction, lurked outside any house in which he was known to be, listening for fragments of his discourses to the inmates; and, when he was rumoured to be coming down the stairs, often could not disperse so quickly but that he would be prematurely in among them, demanding their own arrears, and rooting them to the spot. Throughout the remainder of the day, Mr Pancks’s What were they up to? and What did they mean by it? sounded all over the Yard. Mr Pancks wouldn’t hear of excuses, wouldn’t hear of complaints, wouldn’t hear of repairs, wouldn’t hear of anything but unconditional money down. Perspiring and puffing and darting about in eccentric directions, and becoming hotter and dingier every moment, he lashed the tide of the yard into a most agitated and turbid state. It had not settled down into calm water again full two hours after he had been seen fuming away on the horizon at the top of the steps. There were several small assemblages of the Bleeding Hearts at the popular points of meeting in the Yard that night, among whom it was universally agreed that Mr Pancks was a hard man to have to do with; and that it was much to be regretted, so it was, that a gentleman like Mr Casby should put his rents in his hands, and never know him in his true light. For (said the Bleeding Hearts), if a gentleman with that head of hair and them eyes took his rents into his own hands, ma’am, there would be none of this worriting and wearing, and things would be very different. At which identical evening hour and minute, the Patriarch—who had floated serenely through the Yard in the forenoon before the harrying began, with the express design of getting up this trustfulness in his shining bumps and silken locks—at which identical hour and minute, that first-rate hum-bug of a thousand guns was heavily floundering in the little Dock of his exhausted Tug at home, and was saying, as he turned his thumbs: ‘A very bad day’s work, Pancks, very bad day’s work. It seems to me, sir, and I must insist on making this observation forcibly in justice to myself, that you ought to have got much more money, much more money.’

Chapter 24

Chapter 24
Fortune -Telling

Little Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish, who, having intimated that he wished to speak to her privately, in a series of coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that her father, as regarded her seamstress occupation, was an illustration of the axiom that there are no such stone-blind men as those who will not see, obtained an audience with her on the common staircase outside the door. ‘There’s been a lady at our place to-day, Miss Dorrit,’ Plornish growled, ‘and another one along with her as is a old vixen if ever I met with such. The way she snapped a person’s head off, dear me!’ The mild Plornish was at first quite unable to get his mind away from Mr F.’s Aunt. ‘For,’ said he, to excuse himself, ‘she is, I do assure you, the winegariest party.’ At length, by a great effort, he detached himself from the subject sufficiently to observe: ‘But she’s neither here nor there just at present. The other lady, she’s Mr Casby’s daughter; and if Mr Casby an’t well off, none better, it an’t through any fault of Pancks. For, as to Pancks, he does, he really does, he does indeed!’ Mr Plornish, after his usual manner, was a little obscure, but conscientiously emphatic. ‘And what she come to our place for,’ he pursued, ‘was to leave word that if Miss Dorrit would step up to that card—which it’s Mr Casby’s house that is, and Pancks he has a office at the back, where he really does, beyond belief—she would be glad for to engage her. She was a old and a dear friend, she said particular, of Mr Clennam, and hoped for to prove herself a useful friend to his friend. Them was her words. Wishing to know whether Miss Dorrit could come to-morrow morning, I said I would see you, Miss, and inquire, and look round there to-night, to say yes, or, if you was engaged to-morrow, when.’ ‘I can go to-morrow, thank you,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘This is very kind of you, but you are always kind.’ Mr Plornish, with a modest disavowal of his merits, opened the room door for her readmission, and followed her in with such an exceedingly bald pretence of not having been out at all, that her father might have observed it without being very suspicious. In his affable unconsciousness, however, he took no heed. Plornish, after a little conversation, in which he blended his former duty as a Collegian with his present privilege as a humble outside friend, qualified again by his low estate as a plasterer, took his leave; making the tour of the prison before he left, and looking on at a game of skittles with the mixed feelings of an old inhabitant who had his private reasons for believing that it might be his destiny to come back again. Early in the morning, Little Dorrit, leaving Maggy in high domestic trust, set off for the Patriarchal tent. She went by the Iron Bridge, though it cost her a penny, and walked more slowly in that part of her journey than in any other. At five minutes before eight her hand was on the Patriarchal knocker, which was quite as high as she could reach. She gave Mrs Finching’s card to the young woman who opened the door, and the young woman told her that ‘Miss Flora’—Flora having, on her return to the parental roof, rein-vested herself with the title under which she had lived there—was not yet out of her bedroom, but she was to please to walk up into Miss Flora’s sitting-room. She walked up into Miss Flora’s sitting-room, as in duty bound, and there found a breakfast-table comfortably laid for two, with a supplementary tray upon it laid for one. The young woman, disappearing for a few moments, returned to say that she was to please to take a chair by the fire, and to take off her bonnet and make herself at home. But Little Dorrit, being bashful, and not used to make herself at home on such occasions, felt at a loss how to do it; so she was still sitting near the door with her bonnet on, when Flora came in in a hurry half an hour afterwards. Flora was so sorry to have kept her waiting, and good gracious why did she sit out there in the cold when she had expected to find her by the fire reading the paper, and hadn’t that heedless girl given her the message then, and had she really been in her bonnet all this time, and pray for goodness sake let Flora take it off! Flora taking it off in the best-natured manner in the world, was so struck with the face disclosed, that she said, ‘Why, what a good little thing you are, my dear!’ and pressed her face between her hands like the gentlest of women. It was the word and the action of a moment. Little Dorrit had hardly time to think how kind it was, when Flora dashed at the breakfast-table full of business, and plunged over head and ears into loquacity. ‘Really so sorry that I should happen to be late on this morning of all mornings because my intention and my wish was to be ready to meet you when you came in and to say that any one that interested Arthur Clennam half so much must interest me and that I gave you the heartiest welcome and was so glad, in-stead of which they never called me and there I still am snoring I dare say if the truth was known and if you don’t like either cold fowl or hot boiled ham which many people don’t I dare say besides Jews and theirs are scruples of conscience which we must all respect though I must say I wish they had them equally strong when they sell us false articles for real that certainly ain’t worth the money I shall be quite vexed,’ said Flora. Little Dorrit thanked her, and said, shyly, bread-and-butter and tea was all she usually— ‘Oh nonsense my dear child I can never hear of that,’ said Flora, turning on the urn in the most reckless manner, and making herself wink by splashing hot water into her eyes as she bent down to look into the teapot. ‘You are coming here on the footing of a friend and companion you know if you will let me take that liberty and I should be ashamed of myself indeed if you could come here upon any other, besides which Arthur Clennam spoke in such terms—you are tired my dear.’ ‘No, ma’am.’ ‘You turn so pale you have walked too far before breakfast and I dare say live a great way off and ought to have had a ride,’ said Flora, ‘dear dear is there anything that would do you good?’

‘Indeed I am quite well, ma’am. I thank you again and again, but I am quite well.’ ‘Then take your tea at once I beg,’ said Flora, ‘and this wing of fowl and bit of ham, don’t mind me or wait for me, because I always carry in this tray myself to Mr F.’s Aunt who breakfasts in bed and a charming old lady too and very clever, Portrait of Mr F. behind the door and very like though too much forehead and as to a pillar with a marble pavement and balustrades and a mountain, I never saw him near it nor not likely in the wine trade, excellent man but not at all in that way.’ Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait, very imperfectly following the references to that work of art. ‘Mr F. was so devoted to me that he never could bear me out of his sight,’ said Flora, ‘though of course I am unable to say how long that might have lasted if he hadn’t been cut short while I was a new broom, worthy man but not poetical manly prose but not romance.’ Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait again. The artist had given it a head that would have been, in an intellectual point of view, top-heavy for Shakespeare. ‘Romance, however,’ Flora went on, busily arranging Mr F.’s Aunt’s toast, ‘as I openly said to Mr F. when he proposed to me and you will be surprised to hear that he proposed seven times once in a hackney-coach once in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells and the rest on his knees, Romance was fled with the early days of Arthur Clennam, our parents tore us asunder we became marble and stern reality usurped the throne, Mr F. said very much to his credit that he was perfectly aware of it and even preferred that state of things accordingly the word was spoken the fiat went forth and such is life you see my dear and yet we do not break but bend, pray make a good breakfast while I go in with the tray.’ She disappeared, leaving Little Dorrit to ponder over the meaning of her scattered words. She soon came back again; and at last began to take her own breakfast, talking all the while. ‘You see, my dear,’ said Flora, measuring out a spoonful or two of some brown liquid that smelt like brandy, and putting it into her tea, ‘I am obliged to be careful to follow the directions of my medical man though the flavour is anything but agreeable being a poor creature and it may be have never re-covered the shock received in youth from too much giving way to crying in the next room when separated from Arthur, have you known him long?’ As soon as Little Dorrit comprehended that she had been asked this question—for which time was necessary, the galloping pace of her new patroness having left her far behind—she answered that she had known Mr Clennam ever since his return. ‘To be sure you couldn’t have known him before unless you had been in China or had corresponded neither of which is likely,’ returned Flora, ‘for travelling-people usually get more or less mahogany and you are not at all so and as to corresponding what about? that’s very true unless tea, so it was at his mother’s was it really that you knew him first, highly sensible and firm but dreadfully severe—ought to be the mother of the man in the iron mask.’ ‘Mrs Clennam has been kind to me,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘Really? I am sure I am glad to hear it because as Arthur’s mother it’s naturally pleasant to my feelings to have a better opinion of her than I had before, though what she thinks of me when I run on as I am certain to do and she sits glowering at me like Fate in a go-cart—shocking comparison really—invalid and not her fault—I never know or can imagine.’ ‘Shall I find my work anywhere, ma’am?’ asked Little Dorrit, looking timidly about; ‘can I get it?’ ‘You industrious little fairy,’ returned Flora, taking, in another cup of tea, another of the doses prescribed by her medical man, ‘there’s not the slightest hurry and it’s better that we should begin by being confidential about our mutual friend—too cold a word for me at least I don’t mean that, very proper expression mutual friend—than become through mere formalities not you but me like the Spartan boy with the fox biting him, which I hope you’ll excuse my bringing up for of all the tiresome boys that will go tumbling into every sort of company that boy’s the tiresomest.’ Little Dorrit, her face very pale, sat down again to listen. ‘Hadn’t I better work the while?’ she asked. ‘I can work and at-tend too. I would rather, if I may.’

Her earnestness was so expressive of her being uneasy without her work, that Flora answered, ‘Well my dear whatever you like best,’ and produced a basket of white handkerchiefs. Little Dorrit gladly put it by her side, took out her little pocket-housewife, threaded the needle, and began to hem. ‘What nimble fingers you have,’ said Flora, ‘but are you sure you are well?’ ‘Oh yes, indeed!’ Flora put her feet upon the fender, and settled herself for a thorough good romantic disclosure. She started off at score, tossing her head, sighing in the most demonstrative manner, making a great deal of use of her eyebrows, and occasionally, but not often, glancing at the quiet face that bent over the work. ‘You must know my dear,’ said Flora, ‘but that I have no doubt you know already not only because I have already thrown it out in a general way but because I feel I carry it stamped in burning what’s his names upon my brow that be-fore I was introduced to the late Mr F. I had been engaged to Arthur Clennam—Mr Clennam in public where reserve is necessary Arthur here—we were all in all to one another it was the morning of life it was bliss it was frenzy it was everything else of that sort in the highest degree, when rent asunder we turned to stone in which capacity Arthur went to China and I became the statue bride of the late Mr F.’ Flora, uttering these words in a deep voice, enjoyed herself immensely. ‘To paint,’ said she, ‘the emotions of that morning when all was marble within and Mr F.’s Aunt followed in a glass-coach which it stands to reason must have been in shameful repair or it never could have broken down two streets from the house and Mr F.’s Aunt brought home like the fifth of November in a rush-bottomed chair I will not attempt, suffice it to say that the hollow form of breakfast took place in the dining-room down-stairs that papa partaking too freely of pickled salmon was ill for weeks and that Mr F. and myself went upon a continental tour to Calais where the people fought for us on the pier until they separated us though not for ever that was not yet to be.’

The statue bride, hardly pausing for breath, went on, with the greatest complacency, in a rambling manner sometimes incidental to flesh and blood. ‘I will draw a veil over that dreamy life, Mr F. was in good spirits his appetite was good he liked the cookery he considered the wine weak but palatable and all was well, we re-turned to the immediate neighbourhood of Number Thirty Little Gosling Street London Docks and settled down, ere we had yet fully detected the housemaid in selling the feathers out of the spare bed Gout flying upwards soared with Mr F. to an-other sphere.’ His relict, with a glance at his portrait, shook her head and wiped her eyes. ‘I revere the memory of Mr F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle it was not ecstasy but it was comfort, I returned to papa’s roof and lived secluded if not happy during some years until one day papa came smoothly blundering in and said that Arthur Clennam awaited me below, I went below and found him ask me not what I found him except that he was still unmarried still unchanged!’ The dark mystery with which Flora now enshrouded herself might have stopped other fingers than the nimble fingers that worked near her. They worked on without pause, and the busy head bent over them watching the stitches. ‘Ask me not,’ said Flora, ‘if I love him still or if he still loves me or what the end is to be or when, we are surrounded by watchful eyes and it may be that we are destined to pine asunder it may be never more to be reunited not a word not a breath not a look to betray us all must be secret as the tomb wonder not therefore that even if I should seem comparatively cold to Arthur or Arthur should seem comparatively cold to me we have fatal reasons it is enough if we understand them hush!’ All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she really believed it. There is not much doubt that when she worked herself into full mermaid condition, she did actually believe whatever she said in it.

‘Hush!’ repeated Flora, ‘I have now told you all, confidence is established between us hush, for Arthur’s sake I will always be a friend to you my dear girl and in Arthur’s name you may al-ways rely upon me.’ The nimble fingers laid aside the work, and the little figure rose and kissed her hand. ‘You are very cold,’ said Flora, changing to her own natural kind-hearted manner, and gaining greatly by the change. ‘Don’t work to-day. I am sure you are not well I am sure you are not strong.’ ‘It is only that I feel a little overcome by your kindness, and by Mr Clennam’s kindness in confiding me to one he has known and loved so long.’ ‘Well really my dear,’ said Flora, who had a decided tendency to be always honest when she gave herself time to think about it, ‘it’s as well to leave that alone now, for I couldn’t undertake to say after all, but it doesn’t signify lie down a little!’ ‘I have always been strong enough to do what I want to do, and I shall be quite well directly,’ returned Little Dorrit, with a faint smile. ‘You have overpowered me with gratitude, that’s all. If I keep near the window for a moment I shall be quite myself.’ Flora opened a window, sat her in a chair by it, and considerately retired to her former place. It was a windy day, and the air stirring on Little Dorrit’s face soon brightened it. In a very few minutes she returned to her basket of work, and her nimble fingers were as nimble as ever. Quietly pursuing her task, she asked Flora if Mr Clennam had told her where she lived? When Flora replied in the negative, Little Dorrit said that she understood why he had been so delicate, but that she felt sure he would approve of her confiding her secret to Flora, and that she would therefore do so now with Flora’s permission. Receiving an encouraging answer, she condensed the narrative of her life into a few scanty words about herself and a glowing eulogy upon her father; and Flora took it all in with a natural tenderness that quite understood it, and in which there was no incoherence. When dinner-time came, Flora drew the arm of her new charge through hers, and led her down-stairs, and presented her to the Patriarch and Mr Pancks, who were already in the dining-room waiting to begin. (Mr F.’s Aunt was, for the time, laid up in ordinary in her chamber.) By those gentlemen she was received according to their characters; the Patriarch appearing to do her some inestimable service in saying that he was glad to see her, glad to see her; and Mr Pancks blowing off his favourite sound as a salute. In that new presence she would have been bashful enough under any circumstances, and particularly under Flora’s insisting on her drinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but her constraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour of that gentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be a taker of likenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so frequently did he glance at the little note-book by his side. Observing that he made no sketch, however, and that he talked about business only, she began to have suspicions that he represented some creditor of her father’s, the balance due to whom was noted in that pocket volume. Regarded from this point of view Mr Pancks’s puffings expressed injury and impatience, and each of his louder snorts became a demand for payment. But here again she was undeceived by anomalous and incongruous conduct on the part of Mr Pancks himself. She had left the table half an hour, and was at work alone. Flora had ‘gone to lie down’ in the next room, concurrently with which retirement a smell of something to drink had broken out in the house. The Patriarch was fast asleep, with his philanthropic mouth open under a yellow pocket-handkerchief in the dining-room. At this quiet time, Mr Pancks softly appeared before her, urbanely nodding. ‘Find it a little dull, Miss Dorrit?’ inquired Pancks in a low voice. ‘No, thank you, sir,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘Busy, I see,’ observed Mr Pancks, stealing into the room by inches. ‘What are those now, Miss Dorrit?’ ‘Handkerchiefs.’ ‘Are they, though!’ said Pancks. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it.’ Not in the least looking at them, but looking at Little Dorrit. ‘Perhaps you wonder who I am. Shall I tell you? I am a fortune-teller.’ Little Dorrit now began to think he was mad. ‘I belong body and soul to my proprietor,’ said Pancks; ‘you saw my proprietor having his dinner below. But I do a little in the other way, sometimes; privately, very privately, Miss Dorrit.’ Little Dorrit looked at him doubtfully, and not without alarm. ‘I wish you’d show me the palm of your hand,’ said Pancks. ‘I should like to have a look at it. Don’t let me be troublesome.’ He was so far troublesome that he was not at all wanted there, but she laid her work in her lap for a moment, and held out her left hand with her thimble on it. ‘Years of toil, eh?’ said Pancks, softly, touching it with his blunt forefinger. ‘But what else are we made for? Nothing. Hallo!’ looking into the lines. ‘What’s this with bars? It’s a College! And what’s this with a grey gown and a black velvet cap? it’s a father! And what’s this with a clarionet? It’s an uncle! And what’s this in dancing-shoes? It’s a sister! And what’s this straggling about in an idle sort of a way? It’s a brother! And what’s this thinking for ’em all? Why, this is you, Miss Dorrit!’ Her eyes met his as she looked up wonderingly into his face, and she thought that although his were sharp eyes, he was a brighter and gentler-looking man than she had supposed at dinner. His eyes were on her hand again directly, and her opportunity of confirming or correcting the impression was gone. ‘Now, the deuce is in it,’ muttered Pancks, tracing out a line in her hand with his clumsy finger, ‘if this isn’t me in the corner here! What do I want here? What’s behind me?’ He carried his finger slowly down to the wrist, and round the wrist, and affected to look at the back of the hand for what was behind him. ‘Is it any harm?’ asked Little Dorrit, smiling. ‘Deuce a bit!’ said Pancks. ‘What do you think it’s worth?’ ‘I ought to ask you that. I am not the fortune-teller.’ ‘True,’ said Pancks. ‘What’s it worth? You shall live to see, Miss Dorrit.’ Releasing the hand by slow degrees, he drew all his fingers through his prongs of hair, so that they stood up in their most portentous manner; and repeated slowly, ‘Remember what I say, Miss Dorrit. You shall live to see.’ She could not help showing that she was much surprised, if it were only by his knowing so much about her.

‘Ah! That’s it!’ said Pancks, pointing at her. ‘Miss Dorrit, not that, ever!’ More surprised than before, and a little more frightened, she looked to him for an explanation of his last words. ‘Not that,’ said Pancks, making, with great seriousness, an imitation of a surprised look and manner that appeared to be unintentionally grotesque. ‘Don’t do that. Never on seeing me, no matter when, no matter where. I am nobody. Don’t take on to mind me. Don’t mention me. Take no notice. Will you agree, Miss Dorrit?’ ‘I hardly know what to say,’ returned Little Dorrit, quite astounded. ‘Why?’ ‘Because I am a fortune-teller. Pancks the gipsy. I haven’t told you so much of your fortune yet, Miss Dorrit, as to tell you what’s behind me on that little hand. I have told you you shall live to see. Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?’ ‘Agreed that I—am—to—’ ‘To take no notice of me away from here, unless I take on first. Not to mind me when I come and go. It’s very easy. I am no loss, I am not handsome, I am not good company, I am only my proprietors grubber. You need do no more than think, “Ah! Pancks the gipsy at his fortune-telling—he’ll tell the rest of my fortune one day—I shall live to know it.” Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?’ ‘Ye-es,’ faltered Little Dorrit, whom he greatly confused, ‘I suppose so, while you do no harm.’ ‘Good!’ Mr Pancks glanced at the wall of the adjoining room, and stooped forward. ‘Honest creature, woman of capital points, but heedless and a loose talker, Miss Dorrit.’ With that he rubbed his hands as if the interview had been very satisfactory to him, panted away to the door, and urbanely nodded him-self out again. If Little Dorrit were beyond measure perplexed by this curious conduct on the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself involved in this singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished by ensuing circumstances. Besides that Mr Pancks took every opportunity afforded him in Mr Casby’s house of significantly glancing at her and snorting at her—which was not much, after what he had done already—he began to pervade her daily life. She saw him in the street, constantly. When she went to Mr Casby’s, he was always there. When she went to Mrs Clennam’s, he came there on any pretence, as if to keep her in his sight. A week had not gone by, when she found him to her astonishment in the Lodge one night, conversing with the turnkey on duty, and to all appearance one of his familiar companions. Her next surprise was to find him equally at his ease within the prison; to hear of his presenting himself among the visitors at her father’s Sunday levee; to see him arm in arm with a Collegiate friend about the yard; to learn, from Fame, that he had greatly distinguished himself one evening at the social club that held its meetings in the Snuggery, by addressing a speech to the members of the institution, singing a song, and treating the company to five gallons of ale—report madly added a bushel of shrimps. The effect on Mr Plornish of such of these phenomena as he became an eye-witness of in his faithful visits, made an impression on Little Dorrit only second to that produced by the phenomena themselves. They seemed to gag and bind him. He could only stare, and sometimes weakly mutter that it wouldn’t be believed down Bleeding Heart Yard that this was Pancks; but he never said a word more, or made a sign more, even to Little Dorrit. Mr Pancks crowned his mysteries by making himself acquainted with Tip in some unknown manner, and taking a Sunday saunter into the College on that gentleman’s arm. Throughout he never took any notice of Little Dorrit, save once or twice when he happened to come close to her and there was no one very near; on which occasions, he said in passing, with a friendly look and a puff of encouragement, ‘Pancks the gipsy—fortune-telling.’ Little Dorrit worked and strove as usual, wondering at all this, but keeping her wonder, as she had from her earliest years kept many heavier loads, in her own breast. A change had stolen, and was stealing yet, over the patient heart. Every day found her something more retiring than the day before. To pass in and out of the prison unnoticed, and elsewhere to be overlooked and forgotten, were, for herself, her chief desires. To her own room too, strangely assorted room for her delicate youth and character, she was glad to retreat as often as she could without desertion of any duty. There were afternoon times when she was unemployed, when visitors dropped in to play a hand at cards with her father, when she could be spared and was better away. Then she would flit along the yard, climb the scores of stairs that led to her room, and take her seat at the window. Many combinations did those spikes upon the wall assume, many light shapes did the strong iron weave itself in-to, many golden touches fell upon the rust, while Little Dorrit sat there musing. New zig-zags sprung into the cruel pattern sometimes, when she saw it through a burst of tears; but beautiful or hardened still, always over it and under it and through it, she was fain to look in her solitude, seeing everything with that ineffaceable brand. A garret, and a Marshalsea garret without compromise, was Little Dorrit’s room. Beautifully kept, it was ugly in itself, and had little but cleanliness and air to set it off; for what embellishment she had ever been able to buy, had gone to her father’s room. Howbeit, for this poor place she showed an increasing love; and to sit in it alone became her favourite rest. Insomuch, that on a certain afternoon during the Pancks mysteries, when she was seated at her window, and heard Maggy’s well-known step coming up the stairs, she was very much disturbed by the apprehension of being summoned away. As Maggy’s step came higher up and nearer, she trembled and faltered; and it was as much as she could do to speak, when Maggy at length appeared. ‘Please, Little Mother,’ said Maggy, panting for breath, ‘you must come down and see him. He’s here.’ ‘Who, Maggy?’ ‘Who, o’ course Mr Clennam. He’s in your father’s room, and he says to me, Maggy, will you be so kind and go and say it’s only me.’ ‘I am not very well, Maggy. I had better not go. I am going to lie down. See! I lie down now, to ease my head. Say, with my grateful regard, that you left me so, or I would have come.’ ‘Well, it an’t very polite though, Little Mother,’ said the staring Maggy, ‘to turn your face away, neither!’ Maggy was very susceptible to personal slights, and very ingenious in inventing them. ‘Putting both your hands afore your face too!’ she went on. ‘If you can’t bear the looks of a poor thing, it would be better to tell her so at once, and not go and shut her out like that, hurting her feelings and breaking her heart at ten year old, poor thing!’ ‘It’s to ease my head, Maggy.’ ‘Well, and if you cry to ease your head, Little Mother, let me cry too. Don’t go and have all the crying to yourself,’ expostulated Maggy, ‘that an’t not being greedy.’ And immediately began to blubber. It was with some difficulty that she could be induced to go back with the excuse; but the promise of being told a story—of old her great delight—on condition that she concentrated her faculties upon the errand and left her little mistress to herself for an hour longer, combined with a misgiving on Maggy’s part that she had left her good temper at the bottom of the stair-case, prevailed. So away she went, muttering her message all the way to keep it in her mind, and, at the appointed time, came back. ‘He was very sorry, I can tell you,’ she announced, ‘and wanted to send a doctor. And he’s coming again to-morrow he is and I don’t think he’ll have a good sleep to-night along o’ hearing about your head, Little Mother. Oh my! Ain’t you been a-crying!’ ‘I think I have, a little, Maggy.’ ‘A little! Oh!’ ‘But it’s all over now—all over for good, Maggy. And my head is much better and cooler, and I am quite comfortable. I am very glad I did not go down.’ Her great staring child tenderly embraced her; and having smoothed her hair, and bathed her forehead and eyes with cold water (offices in which her awkward hands became skilful), hugged her again, exulted in her brighter looks, and stationed her in her chair by the window. Over against this chair, Maggy, with apoplectic exertions that were not at all required, dragged the box which was her seat on story-telling occasions, sat down upon it, hugged her own knees, and said, with a voracious appetite for stories, and with widely-opened eyes: ‘Now, Little Mother, let’s have a good ‘un!’ ‘What shall it be about, Maggy?’ ‘Oh, let’s have a princess,’ said Maggy, ‘and let her be a reg’lar one. Beyond all belief, you know!’

Little Dorrit considered for a moment; and with a rather sad smile upon her face, which was flushed by the sunset, began: ‘Maggy, there was once upon a time a fine King, and he had everything he could wish for, and a great deal more. He had gold and silver, diamonds and rubies, riches of every kind. He had palaces, and he had—’ ‘Hospitals,’ interposed Maggy, still nursing her knees. ‘Let him have hospitals, because they’re so comfortable. Hospitals with lots of Chicking.’ ‘Yes, he had plenty of them, and he had plenty of everything.’ ‘Plenty of baked potatoes, for instance?’ said Maggy. ‘Plenty of everything.’ ‘Lor!’ chuckled Maggy, giving her knees a hug. ‘Wasn’t it prime!’ ‘This King had a daughter, who was the wisest and most beautiful Princess that ever was seen. When she was a child she understood all her lessons before her masters taught them to her; and when she was grown up, she was the wonder of the world. Now, near the Palace where this Princess lived, there was a cottage in which there was a poor little tiny woman, who lived all alone by herself.’ ‘An old woman,’ said Maggy, with an unctuous smack of her lips. ‘No, not an old woman. Quite a young one.’ ‘I wonder she warn’t afraid,’ said Maggy. ‘Go on, please.’ ‘The Princess passed the cottage nearly every day, and whenever she went by in her beautiful carriage, she saw the poor tiny woman spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked at her. So, one day she stopped the coachman a little way from the cottage, and got out and walked on and peeped in at the door, and there, as usual, was the tiny woman spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the Princess, and the Princess looked at her.’ ‘Like trying to stare one another out,’ said Maggy. ‘Please go on, Little Mother.’ ‘The Princess was such a wonderful Princess that she had the power of knowing secrets, and she said to the tiny woman, Why do you keep it there? This showed her directly that the Princess knew why she lived all alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she kneeled down at the Princess’s feet, and asked her never to betray her. So the Princess said, I never will be-tray you. Let me see it. So the tiny woman closed the shutter of the cottage window and fastened the door, and trembling from head to foot for fear that any one should suspect her, opened a very secret place and showed the Princess a shadow.’ ‘Lor!’ said Maggy. ‘It was the shadow of Some one who had gone by long before: of Some one who had gone on far away quite out of reach, never, never to come back. It was bright to look at; and when the tiny woman showed it to the Princess, she was proud of it with all her heart, as a great, great treasure. When the Princess had considered it a little while, she said to the tiny woman, And you keep watch over this every day? And she cast down her eyes, and whispered, Yes. Then the Princess said, Remind me why. To which the other replied, that no one so good and kind had ever passed that way, and that was why in the beginning. She said, too, that nobody missed it, that nobody was the worse for it, that Some one had gone on, to those who were expecting him—’ ‘Some one was a man then?’ interposed Maggy. Little Dorrit timidly said Yes, she believed so; and resumed: ‘—Had gone on to those who were expecting him, and that this remembrance was stolen or kept back from nobody. The Princess made answer, Ah! But when the cottager died it would be discovered there. The tiny woman told her No; when that time came, it would sink quietly into her own grave, and would never be found.’ ‘Well, to be sure!’ said Maggy. ‘Go on, please.’ ‘The Princess was very much astonished to hear this, as you may suppose, Maggy.’ (‘And well she might be,’ said Maggy.) ‘So she resolved to watch the tiny woman, and see what came of it. Every day she drove in her beautiful carriage by the cottage-door, and there she saw the tiny woman always alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked at her. At last one day the wheel was still, and the tiny woman was not to be seen. When the Princess made inquiries why the wheel had stopped, and where the tiny woman was, she was informed that the wheel had stopped because there was nobody to turn it, the tiny woman being dead.’

(‘They ought to have took her to the Hospital,’ said Maggy, and then she’d have got over it.’) ‘The Princess, after crying a very little for the loss of the tiny woman, dried her eyes and got out of her carriage at the place where she had stopped it before, and went to the cottage and peeped in at the door. There was nobody to look at her now, and nobody for her to look at, so she went in at once to search for the treasured shadow. But there was no sign of it to be found anywhere; and then she knew that the tiny woman had told her the truth, and that it would never give anybody any trouble, and that it had sunk quietly into her own grave, and that she and it were at rest together. ‘That’s all, Maggy.’ The sunset flush was so bright on Little Dorrit’s face when she came thus to the end of her story, that she interposed her hand to shade it. ‘Had she got to be old?’ Maggy asked. ‘The tiny woman?’ ‘Ah!’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘But it would have been just the same if she had been ever so old.’ ‘Would it raly!’ said Maggy. ‘Well, I suppose it would though.’ And sat staring and ruminating. She sat so long with her eyes wide open, that at length Little Dorrit, to entice her from her box, rose and looked out of window. As she glanced down into the yard, she saw Pancks come in and leer up with the corner of his eye as he went by. ‘Who’s he, Little Mother?’ said Maggy. She had joined her at the window and was leaning on her shoulder. ‘I see him come in and out often.’ ‘I have heard him called a fortune-teller,’ said Little Dorrit. ‘But I doubt if he could tell many people even their past or present fortunes.’ ‘Couldn’t have told the Princess hers?’ said Maggy. Little Dorrit, looking musingly down into the dark valley of the prison, shook her head. ‘Nor the tiny woman hers?’ said Maggy. ‘No,’ said Little Dorrit, with the sunset very bright upon her. ‘But let us come away from the window.’

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Conspirators and Others The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he lodged on the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an extremely small way, who had an inner-door within the street door, poised on a spring and starting open with a click like a trap; and who wrote up in the fan-light, RUGG, GENERAL AGENT, ACCOUNTANT, DEBTS RECOVERED. This scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a little slip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high-road, where a few of the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and led a life of choking. A professor of writing occupied the first floor, and enlivened the garden railings with glass-cases containing choice examples of what his pupils had been before six lessons and while the whole of his young family shook the table, and what they had become after six lessons when the young family was under restraint. The tenancy of Mr Pancks was limited to one airy bedroom; he covenanting and agreeing with Mr Rugg his landlord, that in consideration of a certain scale of payments accurately defined, and on certain verbal notice duly given, he should be at liberty to elect to share the Sunday breakfast, dinner, tea, or supper, or each or any or all of those repasts or meals of Mr and Miss Rugg (his daughter) in the back-parlour. Miss Rugg was a lady of a little property which she had acquired, together with much distinction in the neighbourhood, by having her heart severely lacerated and her feelings mangled by a middle-aged baker resident in the vicinity, against whom she had, by the agency of Mr Rugg, found it necessary to proceed at law to recover damages for a breach of promise of marriage. The baker having been, by the counsel for Miss Rugg, witheringly denounced on that occasion up to the full amount of twenty guineas, at the rate of about eighteen-pence an epithet, and having been cast in corresponding dam-ages, still suffered occasional persecution from the youth of Pentonville. But Miss Rugg, environed by the majesty of the law, and having her damages invested in the public securities, was regarded with consideration. In the society of Mr Rugg, who had a round white visage, as if all his blushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a ragged yellow head like a worn-out hearth broom; and in the society of Miss Rugg, who had little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all over her face, and whose own yellow tresses were rather scrubby than luxuriant; Mr Pancks had usually dined on Sundays for some few years, and had twice a week, or so, enjoyed an evening collation of bread, Dutch cheese, and porter. Mr Pancks was one of the very few marriageable men for whom Miss Rugg had no terrors, the argument with which he reassured himself being twofold; that is to say, firstly, ‘that it wouldn’t do twice,’ and secondly, ‘that he wasn’t worth it.’ Fortified within this double armour, Mr Pancks snorted at Miss Rugg on easy terms. Up to this time, Mr Pancks had transacted little or no business at his quarters in Pentonville, except in the sleeping line; but now that he had become a fortune-teller, he was often closeted after midnight with Mr Rugg in his little front-parlour office, and even after those untimely hours, burnt tallow in his bed-room. Though his duties as his proprietor’s grubber were in no wise lessened; and though that service bore no greater resemblance to a bed of roses than was to be discovered in its many thorns; some new branch of industry made a constant demand upon him. When he cast off the Patriarch at night, it was only to take an anonymous craft in tow, and labour away afresh in other waters. The advance from a personal acquaintance with the elder Mr Chivery to an introduction to his amiable wife and disconsolate son, may have been easy; but easy or not, Mr Pancks soon made it. He nestled in the bosom of the tobacco business with-in a week or two after his first appearance in the College, and particularly addressed himself to the cultivation of a good understanding with Young John. In this endeavour he so prospered as to lure that pining shepherd forth from the groves, and tempt him to undertake mysterious missions; on which he began to disappear at uncertain intervals for as long a space as two or three days together. The prudent Mrs Chivery, who wondered greatly at this change, would have pro-tested against it as detrimental to the Highland typification on the doorpost but for two forcible reasons; one, that her John was roused to take strong interest in the business which these starts were supposed to advance—and this she held to be good for his drooping spirits; the other, that Mr Pancks confidentially agreed to pay her, for the occupation of her son’s time, at the handsome rate of seven and sixpence per day. The proposal originated with himself, and was couched in the pithy terms, ‘If your John is weak enough, ma’am, not to take it, that is no reason why you should be, don’t you see? So, quite between ourselves, ma’am, business being business, here it is!’ What Mr Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little he knew about them, was never gathered from him-self. It has been already remarked that he was a man of few words; and it may be here observed that he had imbibed a professional habit of locking everything up. He locked himself up as carefully as he locked up the Marshalsea debtors. Even his custom of bolting his meals may have been a part of an uniform whole; but there is no question, that, as to all other purposes, he kept his mouth as he kept the Marshalsea door. He never opened it without occasion. When it was necessary to let any-thing out, he opened it a little way, held it open just as long as sufficed for the purpose, and locked it again. Even as he would be sparing of his trouble at the Marshalsea door, and would keep a visitor who wanted to go out, waiting for a few moments if he saw another visitor coming down the yard, so that one turn of the key should suffice for both, similarly he would often reserve a remark if he perceived another on its way to his lips, and would deliver himself of the two together. As to any key to his inner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea key was as legible as an index to the individual characters and histories upon which it was turned. That Mr Pancks should be moved to invite any one to dinner at Pentonville, was an unprecedented fact in his calendar. But he invited Young John to dinner, and even brought him within range of the dangerous (because expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg. The banquet was appointed for a Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own hands stuffed a leg of mutton with oysters on the occasion, and sent it to the baker’s—not the baker’s but an opposition establishment. Provision of oranges, apples, and nuts was also made. And rum was brought home by Mr Pancks on Saturday night, to gladden the visitor’s heart. The store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the visitor’s reception. Its special feature was a foregone family confidence and sympathy. When Young John appeared at half-past one without the ivory hand and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun shorn of his beams by disastrous clouds, Mr Pancks presented him to the yellow-haired Ruggs as the young man he had so often mentioned who loved Miss Dorrit. ‘I am glad,’ said Mr Rugg, challenging him specially in that character, ‘to have the distinguished gratification of making your acquaintance, sir. Your feelings do you honour. You are young; may you never outlive your feelings! If I was to outlive my own feelings, sir,’ said Mr Rugg, who was a man of many words, and was considered to possess a remarkably good address; ‘if I was to outlive my own feelings, I’d leave fifty pound in my will to the man who would put me out of existence.’ Miss Rugg heaved a sigh. ‘My daughter, sir,’ said Mr Rugg. ‘Anastatia, you are no stranger to the state of this young man’s affections. My daughter has had her trials, sir’—Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly in the singular number—‘and she can feel for you.’ Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting, professed himself to that effect. ‘What I envy you, sir, is,’ said Mr Rugg, ‘allow me to take your hat—we are rather short of pegs—I’ll put it in the corner, nobody will tread on it there—What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your own feelings. I belong to a profession in which that luxury is sometimes denied us.’ Young John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did what was right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss Dorrit. He wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished to do anything as laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, altogether putting himself out of sight; and he hoped he did. It was but little that he could do, but he hoped he did it. ‘Sir,’ said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, ‘you are a young man that it does one good to come across. You are a young man that I should like to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the legal profession. I hope you have brought your appetite with you, and intend to play a good knife and fork?’ ‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Young John, ‘I don’t eat much at present.’ Mr Rugg drew him a little apart. ‘My daughter’s case, sir,’ said he, ‘at the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and her sex, she became the plaintiff in Rugg and Hawkins. I suppose I could have put it in evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it worth my while, that the amount of solid sustenance my daughter consumed at that period did not exceed ten ounces per week.’ ‘I think I go a little beyond that, sir,’ returned the other, hesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame. ‘But in your case there’s no fiend in human form,’ said Mr Rugg, with argumentative smile and action of hand. ‘Observe, Mr Chivery! No fiend in human form!’ ‘No, sir, certainly,’ Young John added with simplicity, ‘I should be very sorry if there was.’ ‘The sentiment,’ said Mr Rugg, ‘is what I should have expected from your known principles. It would affect my daughter greatly, sir, if she heard it. As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn’t hear it. Mr Pancks, on this occasion, pray face me. My dear, face Mr Chivery. For what we are going to receive, may we (and Miss Dorrit) be truly thankful!’ But for a grave waggishness in Mr Rugg’s manner of delivering this introduction to the feast, it might have appeared that Miss Dorrit was expected to be one of the company. Pancks re-cognised the sally in his usual way, and took in his provender in his usual way. Miss Rugg, perhaps making up some of her arrears, likewise took very kindly to the mutton, and it rapidly diminished to the bone. A bread-and-butter pudding entirely disappeared, and a considerable amount of cheese and radishes vanished by the same means. Then came the dessert.

Then also, and before the broaching of the rum and water, came Mr Pancks’s note-book. The ensuing business proceedings were brief but curious, and rather in the nature of a conspiracy. Mr Pancks looked over his note-book, which was now getting full, studiously; and picked out little extracts, which he wrote on separate slips of paper on the table; Mr Rugg, in the meanwhile, looking at him with close attention, and Young John losing his uncollected eye in mists of meditation. When Mr Pancks, who supported the character of chief conspirator, had completed his extracts, he looked them over, corrected them, put up his note-book, and held them like a hand at cards. ‘Now, there’s a churchyard in Bedfordshire,’ said Pancks. ‘Who takes it?’ ‘I’ll take it, sir,’ returned Mr Rugg, ‘if no one bids.’ Mr Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his hand again. ‘Now, there’s an Inquiry in York,’ said Pancks. ‘Who takes it?’ ‘I’m not good for York,’ said Mr Rugg. ‘Then perhaps,’ pursued Pancks, ‘you’ll be so obliging, John Chivery?’ Young John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and consulted his hand again. ‘There’s a Church in London; I may as well take that. And a Family Bible; I may as well take that, too. That’s two to me. Two to me,’ repeated Pancks, breathing hard over his cards. ‘Here’s a Clerk at Durham for you, John, and an old seafaring gentleman at Dunstable for you, Mr Rugg. Two to me, was it? Yes, two to me. Here’s a Stone; three to me. And a Still-born Baby; four to me. And all, for the present, told.’ When he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done very quietly and in a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed his way into his own breast-pocket and tugged out a canvas bag; from which, with a sparing hand, he told forth money for travelling expenses in two little portions. ‘Cash goes out fast,’ he said anxiously, as he pushed a portion to each of his male companions, ‘very fast.’ ‘I can only assure you, Mr Pancks,’ said Young John, ‘that I deeply regret my circumstances being such that I can’t afford to pay my own charges, or that it’s not advisable to allow me the time necessary for my doing the distances on foot; because nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to walk myself off my legs without fee or reward.’

This young man’s disinterestedness appeared so very ludicrous in the eyes of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged to effect a precipitate retirement from the company, and to sit upon the stairs until she had had her laugh out. Meanwhile Mr Pancks, looking, not without some pity, at Young John, slowly and thoughtfully twisted up his canvas bag as if he were wringing its neck. The lady, returning as he restored it to his pocket, mixed rum and water for the party, not forgetting her fair self, and handed to every one his glass. When all were sup-plied, Mr Rugg rose, and silently holding out his glass at arm’s length above the centre of the table, by that gesture invited the other three to add theirs, and to unite in a general conspiratorial clink. The ceremony was effective up to a certain point, and would have been wholly so throughout, if Miss Rugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in completion of it, had not happened to look at Young John; when she was again so over-come by the contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness as to splutter some ambrosial drops of rum and water around, and withdraw in confusion. Such was the dinner without precedent, given by Pancks at Pentonville; and such was the busy and strange life Pancks led. The only waking moments at which he appeared to relax from his cares, and to recreate himself by going anywhere or saying anything without a pervading object, were when he showed a dawning interest in the lame foreigner with the stick, down Bleeding Heart Yard. The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto—they called him Mr Baptist in the Yard—was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little fellow, that his attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of contrast. Solitary, weak, and scantily acquainted with the most necessary words of the only language in which he could communicate with the people about him, he went with the stream of his fortunes, in a brisk way that was new in those parts. With little to eat, and less to drink, and nothing to wear but what he wore upon him, or had brought tied up in one of the smallest bundles that ever were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as if he were in the most flourishing circumstances when he first hobbled up and down the Yard, humbly propitiating the general good-will with his white teeth.

It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way with the Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it to be a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to his own country. They never thought of inquiring how many of their own countrymen would be returned upon their hands from divers parts of the world, if the principle were generally recognised; they considered it particularly and peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a notion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to his country because it did things that England did not, and did not do things that England did. In this belief, to be sure, they had long been carefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who were always proclaiming to them, officially, that no country which failed to submit itself to those two large families could possibly hope to be under the protection of Providence; and who, when they believed it, disparaged them in private as the most prejudiced people under the sun. This, therefore, might be called a political position of the Bleeding Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having foreigners in the Yard. They believed that foreigners were always badly off; and though they were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be, that did not diminish the force of the objection. They believed that foreigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and though they certainly got their own skulls promptly fractured if they showed any ill-humour, still it was with a blunt instrument, and that didn’t count. They believed that foreigners were always immoral; and though they had an occasional assize at home, and now and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing to do with it. They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit, as never being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing. Not to be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar kind. Against these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to make head as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed, because Mr Arthur Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he lived at the top of the same house), but still at heavy odds. However, the Bleeding Hearts were kind hearts; and when they saw the little fellow cheerily limping about with a good-humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no knives, committing no outrageous immoralities, living chiefly on farinaceous and milk diet, and playing with Mrs Plornish’s children of an evening, they began to think that although he could never hope to be an Englishman, still it would be hard to visit that affliction on his head. They began to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him ‘Mr Baptist,’ but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his lively gestures and his childish English—more, because he didn’t mind it, and laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the language in its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to Captain Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Plornish was particularly ingenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying ‘Me ope you leg well soon,’ that it was considered in the Yard but a very short remove indeed from speaking Italian. Even Mrs Plornish herself began to think that she had a natural call towards that language. As he became more popular, household objects were brought into requisition for his instruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the Yard ladies would fly out at their doors crying ‘Mr Baptist—tea-pot!’ ‘Mr Baptist—dust-pan!’ ‘Mr Baptist—flour-dredger!’ ‘Mr Baptist—coffee-biggin!’ At the same time exhibiting those articles, and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the Anglo-Saxon tongue. It was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week of his occupation, that Mr Pancks’s fancy became attracted by the little man. Mounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as interpreter, he found Mr Baptist with no furniture but his bed on the ground, a table, and a chair, carving with the aid of a few simple tools, in the blithest way possible. ‘Now, old chap,’ said Mr Pancks, ‘pay up!’ He had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly handed it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of his right hand as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in the air for an odd sixpence.

‘Oh!’ said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly. ‘That’s it, is it? You’re a quick customer. It’s all right. I didn’t expect to receive it, though.’ Mrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and explained to Mr Baptist. ‘E please. E glad get money.’ The little man smiled and nodded. His bright face seemed uncommonly attractive to Mr Pancks. ‘How’s he getting on in his limb?’ he asked Mrs Plornish. ‘Oh, he’s a deal better, sir,’ said Mrs Plornish. ‘We expect next week he’ll be able to leave off his stick entirely.’ (The opportunity being too favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed her great accomplishment by explaining with pardon-able pride to Mr Baptist, ‘E ope you leg well soon.’) ‘He’s a merry fellow, too,’ said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he were a mechanical toy. ‘How does he live?’ ‘Why, sir,’ rejoined Mrs Plornish, ‘he turns out to have quite a power of carving them flowers that you see him at now.’ (Mr Baptist, watching their faces as they spoke, held up his work. Mrs Plornish interpreted in her Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks, ‘E please. Double good!’) ‘Can he live by that?’ asked Mr Pancks. ‘He can live on very little, sir, and it is expected as he will be able, in time, to make a very good living. Mr Clennam got it him to do, and gives him odd jobs besides in at the Works next door—makes ’em for him, in short, when he knows he wants ’em.’ ‘And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain’t hard at it?’ said Mr Pancks. ‘Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able to walk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without particular understanding or being understood, and he plays with the children, and he sits in the sun—he’ll sit down anywhere, as if it was an arm-chair—and he’ll sing, and he’ll laugh!’ ‘Laugh!’ echoed Mr Pancks. ‘He looks to me as if every tooth in his head was always laughing.’ ‘But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t’other end of the Yard,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘he’ll peep out in the curiousest way! So that some of us thinks he’s peeping out towards where his own country is, and some of us thinks he’s looking for somebody he don’t want to see, and some of us don’t know what to think.’ Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; or perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of peeping. In any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with the air of a man who had sufficient reasons for what he did, and said in his own tongue, it didn’t mat-ter. Altro! ‘What’s Altro?’ said Pancks. ‘Hem! It’s a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,’ said Mrs Plornish. ‘Is it?’ said Pancks. ‘Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good afternoon. Altro!’ Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, Mr Pancks in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time it became a frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home jaded at night, to pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up the stairs, look in at Mr Baptist’s door, and, finding him in his room, to say, ‘Hallo, old chap! Altro!’ To which Mr Baptist would reply with innumerable bright nods and smiles, ‘Altro, signore, altro, altro, altro!’ After this highly condensed conversation, Mr Pancks would go his way with an appearance of being lightened and refreshed.

Chapter 26

Chapter 26
Nobody’s State of Mind

If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to restrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state of much perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own heart. Not the least of these would have been a contention, always waging within it, between a tendency to dislike Mr Henry Gowan, if not to regard him with positive repugnance, and a whisper that the inclination was unworthy. A generous nature is not prone to strong aversions, and is slow to admit them even dispassionately; but when it finds ill-will gaining upon it, and can discern between-whiles that its origin is not dispassionate, such a nature becomes distressed. Therefore Mr Henry Gowan would have clouded Clennam’s mind, and would have been far oftener present to it than more agreeable persons and subjects but for the great prudence of his decision aforesaid. As it was, Mr Gowan seemed transferred to Daniel Doyce’s mind; at all events, it so happened that it usually fell to Mr Doyce’s turn, rather than to Clennam’s, to speak of him in the friendly conversations they held together. These were of frequent occurrence now; as the two partners shared a portion of a roomy house in one of the grave old-fashioned City streets, lying not far from the Bank of England, by London Wall. Mr Doyce had been to Twickenham to pass the day. Clennam had excused himself. Mr Doyce was just come home. He put in his head at the door of Clennam’s sitting-room to say Good night. ‘Come in, come in!’ said Clennam. ‘I saw you were reading,’ returned Doyce, as he entered, ‘and thought you might not care to be disturbed.’

But for the notable resolution he had made, Clennam really might not have known what he had been reading; really might not have had his eyes upon the book for an hour past, though it lay open before him. He shut it up, rather quickly. ‘Are they well?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ said Doyce; ‘they are well. They are all well.’ Daniel had an old workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket-handkerchief in his hat. He took it out and wiped his forehead with it, slowly repeating, ‘They are all well. Miss Minnie looking particularly well, I thought.’ ‘Any company at the cottage?’ ‘No, no company.’ ‘And how did you get on, you four?’ asked Clennam gaily. ‘There were five of us,’ returned his partner. ‘There was What’s-his-name. He was there.’ ‘Who is he?’ said Clennam. ‘Mr Henry Gowan.’ ‘Ah, to be sure!’ cried Clennam with unusual vivacity, ‘Yes!—I forgot him.’ ‘As I mentioned, you may remember,’ said Daniel Doyce, ‘he is always there on Sunday.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ returned Clennam; ‘I remember now.’ Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated. ‘Yes. He was there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his dog. He was there too.’ ‘Miss Meagles is quite attached to—the—dog,’ observed Clennam. ‘Quite so,’ assented his partner. ‘More attached to the dog than I am to the man.’ ‘You mean Mr—?’ ‘I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly,’ said Daniel Doyce. There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to winding up his watch. ‘Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment,’ he said. ‘Our judgments—I am supposing a general case—’ ‘Of course,’ said Doyce. ‘Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which, almost without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to keep a guard upon them. For instance, Mr—’

‘Gowan,’ quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost always devolved. ‘Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.’ ‘Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,’ returned his partner. ‘I see him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old friend’s house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend’s face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face of his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the pretty and affectionate creature whom he will never make happy.’ ‘We don’t know,’ said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, ‘that he will not make her happy.’ ‘We don’t know,’ returned his partner, ‘that the earth will last another hundred years, but we think it highly probable.’ ‘Well, well!’ said Clennam, ‘we must be hopeful, and we must at least try to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no opportunity of being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman, because he is successful in his addresses to the beautiful object of his ambition; and we will not question her natural right to bestow her love on one whom she finds worthy of it.’ ‘Maybe, my friend,’ said Doyce. ‘Maybe also, that she is too young and petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well.’ ‘That,’ said Clennam, ‘would be far beyond our power of correction.’ Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, ‘I fear so. ‘Therefore, in a word,’ said Clennam, ‘we should make up our minds that it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would be a poor thing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve, for my part, not to depreciate him.’ ‘I am not quite so sure of myself, and therefore I reserve my privilege of objecting to him,’ returned the other. ‘But, if I am not sure of myself, I am sure of you, Clennam, and I know what an upright man you are, and how much to be respected. Good night, MY friend and partner!’ He shook his hand in saying this, as if there had been something serious at the bottom of their conversation; and they separated. ’

By this time they had visited the family on several occasions, and had always observed that even a passing allusion to Mr Henry Gowan when he was not among them, brought back the cloud which had obscured Mr Meagles’s sunshine on the morning of the chance encounter at the Ferry. If Clennam had ever admitted the forbidden passion into his breast, this period might have been a period of real trial; under the actual circumstances, doubtless it was nothing—nothing. Equally, if his heart had given entertainment to that prohibited guest, his silent fighting of his way through the mental condition of this period might have been a little meritorious. In the constant effort not to be betrayed into a new phase of the besetting sin of his experience, the pursuit of selfish objects by low and small means, and to hold instead to some high principle of honour and generosity, there might have been a little merit. In the resolution not even to avoid Mr Meagles’s house, lest, in the selfish sparing of himself, he should bring any slight distress upon the daughter through making her the cause of an estrangement which he believed the father would regret, there might have been a little merit. In the modest truthfulness of al-ways keeping in view the greater equality of Mr Gowan’s years and the greater attractions of his person and manner, there might have been a little merit. In doing all this and much more, in a perfectly unaffected way and with a manful and composed constancy, while the pain within him (peculiar as his life and history) was very sharp, there might have been some quiet strength of character. But, after the resolution he had made, of course he could have no such merits as these; and such a state of mind was nobody’s—nobody’s. Mr Gowan made it no concern of his whether it was nobody’s or somebody’s. He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all occasions, as if the possibility of Clennam’s presuming to have debated the great question were too distant and ridiculous to be imagined. He had always an affability to bestow on Clennam and an ease to treat him with, which might of itself (in the supposititious case of his not having taken that sagacious course) have been a very uncomfortable element in his state of mind.

‘I quite regret you were not with us yesterday,’ said Mr Henry Gowan, calling on Clennam the next morning. ‘We had an agreeable day up the river there.’ So he had heard, Arthur said. ‘From your partner?’ returned Henry Gowan. ‘What a dear old fellow he is!’ ‘I have a great regard for him.’ ‘By Jove, he is the finest creature!’ said Gowan. ‘So fresh, so green, trusts in such wonderful things!’ Here was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to grate on Clennam’s hearing. He put it aside by merely repeating that he had a high regard for Mr Doyce. ‘He is charming! To see him mooning along to that time of life, laying down nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way, is delightful. It warms a man. So unspoilt, so simple, such a good soul! Upon my life Mr Clennam, one feels desperately worldly and wicked in comparison with such an innocent creature. I speak for myself, let me add, without including you. You are genuine also.’ ‘Thank you for the compliment,’ said Clennam, ill at ease; ‘you are too, I hope?’ ‘So-so,’ rejoined the other. ‘To be candid with you, tolerably. I am not a great impostor. Buy one of my pictures, and I assure you, in confidence, it will not be worth the money. Buy one of another man’s—any great professor who beats me hollow—and the chances are that the more you give him, the more he’ll impose upon you. They all do it.’ ‘All painters?’ ‘Painters, writers, patriots, all the rest who have stands in the market. Give almost any man I know ten pounds, and he will impose upon you to a corresponding extent; a thousand pounds—to a corresponding extent; ten thousand pounds—to a corresponding extent. So great the success, so great the imposition. But what a capital world it is!’ cried Gowan with warm enthusiasm. ‘What a jolly, excellent, lovable world it is!’ ‘I had rather thought,’ said Clennam, ‘that the principle you mention was chiefly acted on by—’ ‘By the Barnacles?’ interrupted Gowan, laughing. ‘By the political gentlemen who condescend to keep the Circumlocution Office.’

‘Ah! Don’t be hard upon the Barnacles,’ said Gowan, laughing afresh, ‘they are darling fellows! Even poor little Clarence, the born idiot of the family, is the most agreeable and most endearing blockhead! And by Jupiter, with a kind of cleverness in him too that would astonish you!’ ‘It would. Very much,’ said Clennam, drily. ‘And after all,’ cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of his which reduced everything in the wide world to the same light weight, ‘though I can’t deny that the Circumlocution Office may ultimately shipwreck everybody and everything, still, that will probably not be in our time—and it’s a school for gentlemen.’ ‘It’s a very dangerous, unsatisfactory, and expensive school to the people who pay to keep the pupils there, I am afraid,’ said Clennam, shaking his head. ‘Ah! You are a terrible fellow,’ returned Gowan, airily. ‘I can understand how you have frightened that little donkey, Clarence, the most estimable of moon-calves (I really love him) nearly out of his wits. But enough of him, and of all the rest of them. I want to present you to my mother, Mr Clennam. Pray do me the favour to give me the opportunity.’ In nobody’s state of mind, there was nothing Clennam would have desired less, or would have been more at a loss how to avoid. ‘My mother lives in a most primitive manner down in that dreary red-brick dungeon at Hampton Court,’ said Gowan. ‘If you would make your own appointment, suggest your own day for permitting me to take you there to dinner, you would be bored and she would be charmed. Really that’s the state of the case. What could Clennam say after this? His retiring character included a great deal that was simple in the best sense, because unpractised and unused; and in his simplicity and modesty, he could only say that he was happy to place himself at Mr Gowan’s disposal. Accordingly he said it, and the day was fixed. And a dreaded day it was on his part, and a very unwelcome day when it came and they went down to Hampton Court together. The venerable inhabitants of that venerable pile seemed, in those times, to be encamped there like a sort of civilised ’ gipsies. There was a temporary air about their establishments, as if they were going away the moment they could get anything better; there was also a dissatisfied air about themselves, as if they took it very ill that they had not already got something much better. Genteel blinds and makeshifts were more or less observable as soon as their doors were opened; screens not half high enough, which made dining-rooms out of arched pas-sages, and warded off obscure corners where footboys slept at nights with their heads among the knives and forks; curtains which called upon you to believe that they didn’t hide anything; panes of glass which requested you not to see them; many objects of various forms, feigning to have no connection with their guilty secret, a bed; disguised traps in walls, which were clearly coal-cellars; affectations of no thoroughfares, which were evidently doors to little kitchens. Mental reservations and artful mysteries grew out of these things. Callers looking steadily into the eyes of their receivers, pretended not to smell cooking three feet off; people, confronting closets accidentally left open, pretended not to see bottles; visitors with their heads against a partition of thin canvas, and a page and a young female at high words on the other side, made believe to be sitting in a primeval silence. There was no end to the small social accommodation-bills of this nature which the gipsies of gentility were constantly drawing upon, and accepting for, one another. Some of these Bohemians were of an irritable temperament, as constantly soured and vexed by two mental trials: the first, the consciousness that they had never got enough out of the public; the second, the consciousness that the public were admitted into the building. Under the latter great wrong, a few suffered dreadfully—particularly on Sundays, when they had for some time expected the earth to open and swallow the public up; but which desirable event had not yet occurred, in con-sequence of some reprehensible laxity in the arrangements of the Universe. Mrs Gowan’s door was attended by a family servant of sever-al years’ standing, who had his own crow to pluck with the public concerning a situation in the Post-Office which he had been for some time expecting, and to which he was not yet appointed. He perfectly knew that the public could never have got him in, but he grimly gratified himself with the idea that the public kept him out. Under the influence of this injury (and perhaps of some little straitness and irregularity in the matter of wages), he had grown neglectful of his person and morose in mind; and now beholding in Clennam one of the degraded body of his oppressors, received him with ignominy. Mrs Gowan, however, received him with condescension. He found her a courtly old lady, formerly a Beauty, and still sufficiently well favoured to have dispensed with the powder on her nose and a certain impossible bloom under each eye. She was a little lofty with him; so was another old lady, dark-browed and high-nosed, and who must have had something real about her or she could not have existed, but it was certainly not her hair or her teeth or her figure or her complexion; so was a grey old gentle-man of dignified and sullen appearance; both of whom had come to dinner. But, as they had all been in the British Embassy way in sundry parts of the earth, and as a British Embassy cannot better establish a character with the Circumlocution Office than by treating its compatriots with illimitable con-tempt (else it would become like the Embassies of other countries), Clennam felt that on the whole they let him off lightly. The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office for many years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad. This noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his time, and had done it with such complete success that the very name of Englishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had the distinguished honour of remembering him at a distance of a quarter of a century. He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like a stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. There was a whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the nomadic nature of the service and its curious races of plates and dishes; but the noble Refrigerator, infinitely bet-ter than plate or porcelain, made it superb. He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted the vegetables. There was only one other person in the room: a microscopic-ally small footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn’t got into the Post-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a situation under Government. Mrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her son’s being reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of the low Arts, instead of asserting his birthright and putting a ring through its nose as an acknowledged Barnacle, headed the conversation at dinner on the evil days. It was then that Clennam learned for the first time what little pivots this great world goes round upon. ‘If John Barnacle,’ said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the times had been fully ascertained, ‘if John Barnacle had but abandoned his most unfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all would have been well, and I think the country would have been preserved.’ The old lady with the high nose assented; but added that if Augustus Stiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out with instructions to charge, she thought the country would have been preserved. The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and formed their ever-memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the newspapers, and rendered it penal for any Editor-person to presume to discuss the conduct of any appointed authority abroad or at home, he thought the country would have been preserved. It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want preserving was not so clear. It was only clear that the question was all about John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, because there was nobody else but mob. And this was the feature of the conversation which impressed Clennam, as a man not used to it, very disagreeably: making him doubt if it were quite right to sit there, silently hearing a great nation narrowed to such little bounds. Remembering, however, that in the Parliamentary debates, whether on the life of that nation’s body or the life of its soul, the question was usually all about and between John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, and nobody else; he said nothing on the part of mob, bethinking himself that mob was used to it. Mr Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off the three talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam startled by what they said. Having as supreme a con-tempt for the class that had thrown him off as for the class that had not taken him on, he had no personal disquiet in anything that passed. His healthy state of mind appeared even to derive a gratification from Clennam’s position of embarrassment and isolation among the good company; and if Clennam had been in that condition with which Nobody was incessantly contending, he would have suspected it, and would have struggled with the suspicion as a meanness, even while he sat at the table. In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries in arrears, and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that epoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea for his own drinking, and retiring at his lowest temperature. Then Mrs Gowan, who had been accustomed in her days of a vacant arm-chair beside her to which to summon state to retain her devoted slaves, one by one, for short audiences as marks of her especial favour, invited Clennam with a turn of her fan to approach the presence. He obeyed, and took the tripod recently vacated by Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking. ‘Mr Clennam,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘apart from the happiness I have in becoming known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place—a mere barrack—there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to you. It is the subject in connection with which my son first had, I believe, the pleasure of cultivating your acquaintance.’ Clennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he did not yet quite understand. ‘First,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘now, is she really pretty?’ In nobody’s difficulties, he would have found it very difficult to answer; very difficult indeed to smile, and say ‘Who?’ ‘Oh! You know!’ she returned. ‘This flame of Henry’s. This unfortunate fancy. There! If it is a point of honour that I should originate the name—Miss Mickles—Miggles.’ ‘Miss Meagles,’ said Clennam, ‘is very beautiful.’

‘Men are so often mistaken on those points,’ returned Mrs Gowan, shaking her head, ‘that I candidly confess to you I feel anything but sure of it, even now; though it is something to have Henry corroborated with so much gravity and emphasis. He picked the people up at Rome, I think?’ The phrase would have given nobody mortal offence. Clennam replied, ‘Excuse me, I doubt if I understand your expression.’ ‘Picked the people up,’ said Mrs Gowan, tapping the sticks of her closed fan (a large green one, which she used as a hand-screen) on her little table. ‘Came upon them. Found them out. Stumbled UP against them.’ ‘The people?’ ‘Yes. The Miggles people.’ ‘I really cannot say,’ said Clennam, ‘where my friend Mr Meagles first presented Mr Henry Gowan to his daughter.’ ‘I am pretty sure he picked her up at Rome; but never mind where—somewhere. Now (this is entirely between ourselves), is she very plebeian?’ ‘Really, ma’am,’ returned Clennam, ‘I am so undoubtedly plebeian myself, that I do not feel qualified to judge.’ ‘Very neat!’ said Mrs Gowan, coolly unfurling her screen. ‘Very happy! From which I infer that you secretly think her manner equal to her looks?’ Clennam, after a moment’s stiffness, bowed. ‘That’s comforting, and I hope you may be right. Did Henry tell me you had travelled with them?’ ‘I travelled with my friend Mr Meagles, and his wife and daughter, during some months.’ (Nobody’s heart might have been wrung by the remembrance.) ‘Really comforting, because you must have had a large experience of them. You see, Mr Clennam, this thing has been going on for a long time, and I find no improvement in it. Therefore to have the opportunity of speaking to one so well informed about it as yourself, is an immense relief to me. Quite a boon. Quite a blessing, I am sure.’ ‘Pardon me,’ returned Clennam, ‘but I am not in Mr Henry Gowan’s confidence. I am far from being so well informed as you suppose me to be. Your mistake makes my position a very delicate one. No word on this topic has ever passed between Mr Henry Gowan and myself.’ Mrs Gowan glanced at the other end of the room, where her son was playing écarté on a sofa, with the old lady who was for a charge of cavalry. ‘Not in his confidence? No,’ said Mrs Gowan. ‘No word has passed between you? No. That I can imagine. But there are unexpressed confidences, Mr Clennam; and as you have been together intimately among these people, I cannot doubt that a confidence of that sort exists in the present case. Perhaps you have heard that I have suffered the keenest distress of mind from Henry’s having taken to a pursuit which—well!’ shrugging her shoulders, ‘a very respectable pursuit, I dare say, and some artists are, as artists, quite superior persons; still, we never yet in our family have gone beyond an Amateur, and it is a pardonable weakness to feel a little—’ As Mrs Gowan broke off to heave a sigh, Clennam, however resolute to be magnanimous, could not keep down the thought that there was mighty little danger of the family’s ever going beyond an Amateur, even as it was. ‘Henry,’ the mother resumed, ‘is self-willed and resolute; and as these people naturally strain every nerve to catch him, I can entertain very little hope, Mr Clennam, that the thing will be broken off. I apprehend the girl’s fortune will be very small; Henry might have done much better; there is scarcely anything to compensate for the connection: still, he acts for himself; and if I find no improvement within a short time, I see no other course than to resign myself and make the best of these people. I am infinitely obliged to you for what you have told me.’ As she shrugged her shoulders, Clennam stiffly bowed again. With an uneasy flush upon his face, and hesitation in his manner, he then said in a still lower tone than he had adopted yet: ‘Mrs Gowan, I scarcely know how to acquit myself of what I feel to be a duty, and yet I must ask you for your kind consideration in attempting to discharge it. A misconception on your part, a very great misconception if I may venture to call it so, seems to require setting right. You have supposed Mr Meagles and his family to strain every nerve, I think you said—’

‘Every nerve,’ repeated Mrs Gowan, looking at him in calm obstinacy, with her green fan between her face and the fire. ‘To secure Mr Henry Gowan?’ The lady placidly assented. ‘Now that is so far,’ said Arthur, ‘from being the case, that I know Mr Meagles to be unhappy in this matter; and to have interposed all reasonable obstacles with the hope of putting an end to it.’ Mrs Gowan shut up her great green fan, tapped him on the arm with it, and tapped her smiling lips. ‘Why, of course,’ said she. ‘Just what I mean.’ Arthur watched her face for some explanation of what she did mean. ‘Are you really serious, Mr Clennam? Don’t you see?’ Arthur did not see; and said so. ‘Why, don’t I know my son, and don’t I know that this is exactly the way to hold him?’ said Mrs Gowan, contemptuously; ‘and do not these Miggles people know it, at least as well as I? Oh, shrewd people, Mr Clennam: evidently people of business! I believe Miggles belonged to a Bank. It ought to have been a very profitable Bank, if he had much to do with its management. This is very well done, indeed.’ ‘I beg and entreat you, ma’am—’ Arthur interposed. ‘Oh, Mr Clennam, can you really be so credulous?’ It made such a painful impression upon him to hear her talking in this haughty tone, and to see her patting her contemptuous lips with her fan, that he said very earnestly, ‘Believe me, ma’am, this is unjust, a perfectly groundless suspicion.’ ‘Suspicion?’ repeated Mrs Gowan. ‘Not suspicion, Mr Clennam, Certainty. It is very knowingly done indeed, and seems to have taken you in completely.’ She laughed; and again sat tap-ping her lips with her fan, and tossing her head, as if she added, ‘Don’t tell me. I know such people will do anything for the honour of such an alliance.’ At this opportune moment, the cards were thrown up, and Mr Henry Gowan came across the room saying, ‘Mother, if you can spare Mr Clennam for this time, we have a long way to go, and it’s getting late.’ Mr Clennam thereupon rose, as he had no choice but to do; and Mrs Gowan showed him, to the last, the same look and the same tapped contemptuous lips.

‘You have had a portentously long audience of my mother,’ said Gowan, as the door closed upon them. ‘I fervently hope she has not bored you?’ ‘Not at all,’ said Clennam. They had a little open phaeton for the journey, and were soon in it on the road home. Gowan, driving, lighted a cigar; Clennam declined one. Do what he would, he fell into such a mood of abstraction that Gowan said again, ‘I am very much afraid my mother has bored you?’ To which he roused himself to answer, ‘Not at all!’ and soon relapsed again. In that state of mind which rendered nobody uneasy, his thoughtfulness would have turned principally on the man at his side. He would have thought of the morning when he first saw him rooting out the stones with his heel, and would have asked himself, ‘Does he jerk me out of the path in the same careless, cruel way?’ He would have thought, had this introduction to his mother been brought about by him because he knew what she would say, and that he could thus place his position before a rival and loftily warn him off, without himself reposing a word of confidence in him? He would have thought, even if there were no such design as that, had he brought him there to play with his repressed emotions, and torment him? The current of these meditations would have been stayed sometimes by a rush of shame, bearing a remonstrance to himself from his own open nature, representing that to shelter such suspicions, even for the passing moment, was not to hold the high, unenvious course he had resolved to keep. At those times, the striving within him would have been hardest; and looking up and catching Gowan’s eyes, he would have started as if he had done him an injury. Then, looking at the dark road and its uncertain objects, he would have gradually trailed off again into thinking, ‘Where are we driving, he and I, I wonder, on the darker road of life? How will it be with us, and with her, in the obscure distance?’ Thinking of her, he would have been troubled anew with a reproachful misgiving that it was not even loyal to her to dislike him, and that in being so easily prejudiced against him he was less deserving of her than at first. ‘You are evidently out of spirits,’ said Gowan; ‘I am very much afraid my mother must have bored you dreadfully.’

‘Believe me, not at all,’ said Clennam. ‘It’s nothing—nothing!’