Little Dorrit
by Charles Dickens
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together,
looking out of window.

'You know Mr Gowan?' he said in a low voice.

'I have seen him here. Comes here every Sunday when they are at
home.'

'An artist, I infer from what he says?'

'A sort of a one,' said Daniel Doyce, in a surly tone.

'What sort of a one?' asked Clennam, with a smile.

'Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a leisurely Pall-Mall
pace,' said Doyce, 'and I doubt if they care to be taken quite so
coolly.'

Pursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that the Gowan family were a
very distant ramification of the Barnacles; and that the paternal
Gowan, originally attached to a legation abroad, had been pensioned
off as a Commissioner of nothing particular somewhere or other, and
had died at his post with his drawn salary in his hand, nobly
defending it to the last extremity. In consideration of this
eminent public service, the Barnacle then in power had recommended
the Crown to bestow a pension of two or three hundred a-year on his
widow; to which the next Barnacle in power had added certain shady
and sedate apartments in the Palaces at Hampton Court, where the
old lady still lived, deploring the degeneracy of the times in
company with several other old ladies of both sexes. Her son, Mr
Henry Gowan, inheriting from his father, the Commissioner, that
very questionable help in life, a very small independence, had been
difficult to settle; the rather, as public appointments chanced to
be scarce, and his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that
exclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the
cultivation of wild oats. At last he had declared that he would
become a Painter; partly because he had always had an idle knack
that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief
who had not provided for him. So it had come to pass successively,
first, that several distinguished ladies had been frightfully
shocked; then, that portfolios of his performances had been handed
about o' nights, and declared with ecstasy to be perfect Claudes,
perfect Cuyps, perfect phaenomena; then, that Lord Decimus had
bought his picture, and had asked the President and Council to
dinner at a blow, and had said, with his own magnificent gravity,
'Do you know, there appears to me to be really immense merit in
that work?' and, in short, that people of condition had absolutely
taken pains to bring him into fashion. But, somehow, it had all
failed. The prejudiced public had stood out against it
obstinately. They had determined not to admire Lord Decimus's
picture. They had determined to believe that in every service,
except their own, a man must qualify himself, by striving early and
late, and by working heart and soul, might and main. So now Mr
Gowan, like that worn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet's nor
anybody else's, hung midway between two points: jaundiced and
jealous as to the one he had left: jaundiced and jealous as to the
other that he couldn't reach.

Such was the substance of Clennam's discoveries concerning him,
made that rainy Sunday afternoon and afterwards.

About an hour or so after dinner time, Young Barnacle appeared,
attended by his eye-glass; in honour of whose family connections,
Mr Meagles had cashiered the pretty parlour-maids for the day, and
had placed on duty in their stead two dingy men. Young Barnacle
was in the last degree amazed and disconcerted at sight of Arthur,
and had murmured involuntarily, 'Look here! upon my soul, you
know!' before his presence of mind returned.

Even then, he was obliged to embrace the earliest opportunity of
taking his friend into a window, and saying, in a nasal way that
was a part of his general debility:

'I want to speak to you, Gowan. I say. Look here. Who is that
fellow?'

'A friend of our host's. None of mine.'

'He's a most ferocious Radical, you know,' said Young Barnacle.

'Is he? How do you know?'

'Ecod, sir, he was Pitching into our people the other day in the
most tremendous manner. Went up to our place and Pitched into my
father to that extent that it was necessary to order him out. Came
back to our Department, and Pitched into me. Look here. You never
saw such a fellow.'

'What did he want?'

'Ecod, sir,' returned Young Barnacle, 'he said he wanted to know,
you know! Pervaded our Department--without an appointment--and
said he wanted to know!'

The stare of indignant wonder with which Young Barnacle accompanied
this disclosure, would have strained his eyes injuriously but for
the opportune relief of dinner. Mr Meagles (who had been extremely
solicitous to know how his uncle and aunt were) begged him to
conduct Mrs Meagles to the dining-room. And when he sat on Mrs
Meagles's right hand, Mr Meagles looked as gratified as if his
whole family were there.

All the natural charm of the previous day was gone. The eaters of
the dinner, like the dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid,
overdone--and all owing to this poor little dull Young Barnacle.
Conversationless at any time, he was now the victim of a weakness
special to the occasion, and solely referable to Clennam. He was
under a pressing and continual necessity of looking at that
gentleman, which occasioned his eye-glass to get into his soup,
into his wine-glass, into Mrs Meagles's plate, to hang down his
back like a bell-rope, and be several times disgracefully restored
to his bosom by one of the dingy men. Weakened in mind by his
frequent losses of this instrument, and its determination not to
stick in his eye, and more and more enfeebled in intellect every
time he looked at the mysterious Clennam, he applied spoons to his
eyes, forks, and other foreign matters connected with the furniture
of the dinner-table. His discovery of these mistakes greatly
increased his difficulties, but never released him from the
necessity of looking at Clennam. And whenever Clennam spoke, this
ill-starred young man was clearly seized with a dread that he was
coming, by some artful device, round to that point of wanting to
know, you know.

It may be questioned, therefore, whether any one but Mr Meagles had
much enjoyment of the time. Mr Meagles, however, thoroughly
enjoyed Young Barnacle. As a mere flask of the golden water in the
tale became a full fountain when it was poured out, so Mr Meagles
seemed to feel that this small spice of Barnacle imparted to his
table the flavour of the whole family-tree. In its presence, his
frank, fine, genuine qualities paled; he was not so easy, he was
not so natural, he was striving after something that did not belong
to him, he was not himself. What a strange peculiarity on the part
of Mr Meagles, and where should we find another such case!

At last the wet Sunday wore itself out in a wet night; and Young
Barnacle went home in a cab, feebly smoking; and the objectionable
Gowan went away on foot, accompanied by the objectionable dog. Pet
had taken the most amiable pains all day to be friendly with
Clennam, but Clennam had been a little reserved since breakfast--
that is to say, would have been, if he had loved her.

When he had gone to his own room, and had again thrown himself into
the chair by the fire, Mr Doyce knocked at the door, candle in
hand, to ask him how and at what hour he proposed returning on the
morrow? After settling this question, he said a word to Mr Doyce
about this Gowan--who would have run in his head a good deal, if he
had been his rival.

'Those are not good prospects for a painter,' said Clennam.

'No,' returned Doyce.

Mr Doyce stood, chamber-candlestick in hand, the other hand in his
pocket, looking hard at the flame of his candle, with a certain
quiet perception in his face that they were going to say something
more.
'I thought our good friend a little changed, and out of spirits,
after he came this morning?' said Clennam.

'Yes,' returned Doyce.

'But not his daughter?' said Clennam.

'No,' said Doyce.

There was a pause on both sides. Mr Doyce, still looking at the
flame of his candle, slowly resumed:

'The truth is, he has twice taken his daughter abroad in the hope
of separating her from Mr Gowan. He rather thinks she is disposed
to like him, and he has painful doubts (I quite agree with him, as
I dare say you do) of the hopefulness of such a marriage.'

'There--' Clennam choked, and coughed, and stopped.

'Yes, you have taken cold,' said Daniel Doyce. But without looking
at him.

'There is an engagement between them, of course?' said Clennam
airily.

'No. As I am told, certainly not. It has been solicited on the
gentleman's part, but none has been made. Since their recent
return, our friend has yielded to a weekly visit, but that is the
utmost. Minnie would not deceive her father and mother. You have
travelled with them, and I believe you know what a bond there is
among them, extending even beyond this present life. All that
there is between Miss Minnie and Mr Gowan, I have no doubt we see.'

'Ah! We see enough!' cried Arthur.

Mr Doyce wished him Good Night in the tone of a man who had heard
a mournful, not to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought to
infuse some encouragement and hope into the mind of the person by
whom it had been uttered. Such tone was probably a part of his
oddity, as one of a crotchety band; for how could he have heard
anything of that kind, without Clennam's hearing it too?

The rain fell heavily on the roof, and pattered on the ground, and
dripped among the evergreens and the leafless branches of the
trees. The rain fell heavily, drearily. It was a night of tears.

If Clennam had not decided against falling in love with Pet; if he
had had the weakness to do it; if he had, little by little,
persuaded himself to set all the earnestness of his nature, all the
might of his hope, and all the wealth of his matured character, on
that cast; if he had done this and found that all was lost; he
would have been, that night, unutterably miserable. As it was-- As
it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily.

CHAPTER 18

Little Dorrit's Lover

Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without
finding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young
Archer shot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy
bow, and winged a Collegian or two.

Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the
sentimental son of a turnkey. His father hoped, in the fulness of
time, to leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had
from his early youth familiarised him with the duties of his
office, and with an ambition to retain the prison-lock in the
family. While the succession was yet in abeyance, he assisted his
mother in the conduct of a snug tobacco business round the corner
of Horsemonger Lane (his father being a non-resident turnkey),
which could usually command a neat connection within the College
walls.

Years agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in
her little arm-chair by the high Lodge-fender, Young John (family
name, Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with
admiring wonder. When he had played with her in the yard, his
favourite game had been to counterfeit locking her up in corners,
and to counterfeit letting her out for real kisses. When he grew
tall enough to peep through the keyhole of the great lock of the
main door, he had divers times set down his father's dinner, or
supper, to get on as it might on the outer side thereof, while he
stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her through that
airy perspective.

If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less
penetrable days of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its
boots unlaced and is happily unconscious of digestive organs, he
had soon strung it up again and screwed it tight. At nineteen, his
hand had inscribed in chalk on that part of the wall which fronted
her lodgings, on the occasion of her birthday, 'Welcome sweet
nursling of the Fairies!'  At twenty-three, the same hand
falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of the
Marshalsea, and Father of the queen of his soul.

Young John was small of stature, with rather weak legs and very
weak light hair. One of his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to
peep through the keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger than the
other, as if it couldn't collect itself. Young John was gentle
likewise. But he was great of soul. Poetical, expansive,
faithful.

Though too humble before the ruler of his heart to be sanguine,
Young John had considered the object of his attachment in all its
lights and shades. Following it out to blissful results, he had
descried, without self-commendation, a fitness in it. Say things
prospered, and they were united. She, the child of the Marshalsea;
he, the lock-keeper. There was a fitness in that. Say he became
a resident turnkey. She would officially succeed to the chamber
she had rented so long. There was a beautiful propriety in that.
It looked over the wall, if you stood on tip-toe; and, with a
trellis-work of scarlet beans and a canary or so, would become a
very Arbour. There was a charming idea in that. Then, being all
in all to one another, there was even an appropriate grace in the
lock. With the world shut out (except that part of it which would
be shut in); with its troubles and disturbances only known to them
by hearsay, as they would be described by the pilgrims tarrying
with them on their way to the Insolvent Shrine; with the Arbour
above, and the Lodge below; they would glide down the stream of
time, in pastoral domestic happiness. Young John drew tears from
his eyes by finishing the picture with a tombstone in the adjoining
churchyard, close against the prison wall, bearing the following
touching inscription: 'Sacred to the Memory Of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty
years Turnkey, and fifty years Head Turnkey, Of the neighbouring
Marshalsea, Who departed this life, universally respected, on the
thirty-first of December, One thousand eight hundred and eighty-
six, Aged eighty-three years. Also of his truly beloved and truly
loving wife, AMY, whose maiden name was DORRIT, Who survived his
loss not quite forty-eight hours, And who breathed her last in the
Marshalsea aforesaid. There she was born, There she lived, There
she died.'

The Chivery parents were not ignorant of their son's attachment --
indeed it had, on some exceptional occasions, thrown him into a
state of mind that had impelled him to conduct himself with
irascibility towards the customers, and damage the business--but
they, in their turns, had worked it out to desirable conclusions.
Mrs Chivery, a prudent woman, had desired her husband to take
notice that their john's prospects of the Lock would certainly be
strengthened by an alliance with Miss Dorrit, who had herself a
kind of claim upon the College and was much respected there. Mrs
Chivery had desired her husband to take notice that if, on the one
hand, their John had means and a post of trust, on the other hand,
Miss Dorrit had family; and that her (Mrs Chivery's) sentiment was,
that two halves made a whole. Mrs Chivery, speaking as a mother
and not as a diplomatist, had then, from a different point of view,
desired her husband to recollect that their John had never been
strong, and that his love had fretted and worrited him enough as it
was, without his being driven to do himself a mischief, as nobody
couldn't say he wouldn't be if he was crossed. These arguments had
so powerfully influenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of
few words, that he had on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy
what he termed 'a lucky touch,' signifying that he considered such
commendation of him to Good Fortune, preparatory to his that day
declaring his passion and becoming triumphant. But Young John had
never taken courage to make the declaration; and it was principally
on these occasions that he had returned excited to the tobacco
shop, and flown at the customers.
In this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit herself was the
last person considered. Her brother and sister were aware of it,
and attained a sort of station by making a peg of it on which to
air the miserably ragged old fiction of the family gentility. Her
sister asserted the family gentility by flouting the poor swain as
he loitered about the prison for glimpses of his dear. Tip
asserted the family gentility, and his own, by coming out in the
character of the aristocratic brother, and loftily swaggering in
the little skittle ground respecting seizures by the scruff of the
neck, which there were looming probabilities of some gentleman
unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned. These were
not the only members of the Dorrit family who turned it to account.

No, no. The Father of the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing
about the matter, of course: his poor dignity could not see so low.

But he took the cigars, on Sundays, and was glad to get them; and
sometimes even condescended to walk up and down the yard with the
donor (who was proud and hopeful then), and benignantly to smoke
one in his society. With no less readiness and condescension did
he receive attentions from Chivery Senior, who always relinquished
his arm-chair and newspaper to him, when he came into the Lodge
during one of his spells of duty; and who had even mentioned to
him, that, if he would like at any time after dusk quietly to step
out into the fore-court and take a look at the street, there was
not much to prevent him. If he did not avail himself of this
latter civility, it was only because he had lost the relish for it;
inasmuch as he took everything else he could get, and would say at
times, 'Extremely civil person, Chivery; very attentive man and
very respectful. Young Chivery, too; really almost with a delicate
perception of one's position here. A very well conducted family
indeed, the Chiveries. Their behaviour gratifies me.'

The devoted Young John all this time regarded the family with
reverence. He never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but
did homage to the miserable Mumbo jumbo they paraded. As to
resenting any affront from her brother, he would have felt, even if
he had not naturally been of a most pacific disposition, that to
wag his tongue or lift his hand against that sacred gentleman would
be an unhallowed act. He was sorry that his noble mind should take
offence; still, he felt the fact to be not incompatible with its
nobility, and sought to propitiate and conciliate that gallant
soul. Her father, a gentleman in misfortune--a gentleman of a fine
spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with him--he deeply
honoured. Her sister he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a
young lady of infinite accomplishments, who could not forget the
past. It was an instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit's worth and
difference from all the rest, that the poor young fellow honoured
and loved her for being simply what she was.

The tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was
carried out in a rural establishment one story high, which had the
benefit of the air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane jail, and the
advantage of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant
establishment. The business was of too modest a character to
support a life-size Highlander, but it maintained a little one on
a bracket on the door-post, who looked like a fallen Cherub that
had found it necessary to take to a kilt.
From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of
baked viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand;
not empty-handed, but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly
attired in a plum-coloured coat, with as large a collar of black
velvet as his figure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with
golden sprigs; a chaste neckerchief much in vogue at that day,
representing a preserve of lilac pheasants on a buff ground;
pantaloons so highly decorated with side-stripes that each leg was
a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state very high and hard. When
the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that in addition to these
adornments her John carried a pair of white kid gloves, and a cane
like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory hand marshalling
him the way that he should go; and when she saw him, in this heavy
marching order, turn the corner to the right; she remarked to Mr
Chivery, who was at home at the time, that she thought she knew
which way the wind blew.

The Collegians were entertaining a considerable number of visitors
that Sunday afternoon, and their Father kept his room for the
purpose of receiving presentations. After making the tour of the
yard, Little Dorrit's lover with a hurried heart went up-stairs,
and knocked with his knuckles at the Father's door.

'Come in, come in!' said a gracious voice. The Father's voice, her
father's, the Marshalsea's father's. He was seated in his black
velvet cap, with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence accidentally
left on the table, and two chairs arranged. Everything prepared
for holding his Court.

'Ah, Young John! How do you do, how do you do!'

'Pretty well, I thank you, sir. I hope you are the same.'

'Yes, John Chivery; yes. Nothing to complain of.'

'I have taken the liberty, sir, of--'

'Eh?'  The Father of the Marshalsea always lifted up his eyebrows
at this point, and became amiably distraught and smilingly absent
in mind.

'--A few cigars, sir.'

'Oh!'  (For the moment, excessively surprised.) 'Thank you, Young
John, thank you. But really, I am afraid I am too-- No? Well
then, I will say no more about it. Put them on the mantelshelf, if
you please, Young John. And sit down, sit down. You are not a
stranger, John.'

'Thank you, sir, I am sure-- Miss;' here Young John turned the
great hat round and round upon his left-hand, like a slowly
twirling mouse-cage; 'Miss Amy quite well, sir?'
'Yes, John, yes; very well. She is out.'
'Indeed, sir?'

'Yes, John. Miss Amy is gone for an airing. My young people all
go out a good deal. But at their time of life, it's natural,
John.'

'Very much so, I am sure, sir.'

'An airing. An airing. Yes.'  He was blandly tapping his fingers
on the table, and casting his eyes up at the window. 'Amy has gone
for an airing on the Iron Bridge. She has become quite partial to
the Iron Bridge of late, and seems to like to walk there better
than anywhere.'  He returned to conversation. 'Your father is not
on duty at present, I think, John?'

'No, sir, he comes on later in the afternoon.'  Another twirl of
the great hat, and then Young John said, rising, 'I am afraid I
must wish you good day, sir.'

'So soon? Good day, Young John. Nay, nay,' with the utmost
condescension, 'never mind your glove, John. Shake hands with it
on. You are no stranger here, you know.'

Highly gratified by the kindness of his reception, Young John
descended the staircase. On his way down he met some Collegians
bringing up visitors to be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit
happened to call over the banisters with particular distinctness,
'Much obliged to you for your little testimonial, John!'

Little Dorrit's lover very soon laid down his penny on the
tollplate of the Iron Bridge, and came upon it looking about him
for the well-known and well-beloved figure. At first he feared she
was not there; but as he walked on towards the Middlesex side, he
saw her standing still, looking at the water. She was absorbed in
thought, and he wondered what she might be thinking about. There
were the piles of city roofs and chimneys, more free from smoke
than on week-days; and there were the distant masts and steeples.
Perhaps she was thinking about them.

Little Dorrit mused so long, and was so entirely preoccupied, that
although her lover stood quiet for what he thought was a long time,
and twice or thrice retired and came back again to the former spot,
still she did not move. So, in the end, he made up his mind to go
on, and seem to come upon her casually in passing, and speak to
her. The place was quiet, and now or never was the time to speak
to her.

He walked on, and she did not appear to hear his steps until he was
close upon her. When he said 'Miss Dorrit!' she started and fell
back from him, with an expression in her face of fright and
something like dislike that caused him unutterable dismay. She had
often avoided him before--always, indeed, for a long, long while.
She had turned away and glided off so often when she had seen him
coming toward her, that the unfortunate Young John could not think
it accidental. But he had hoped that it might be shyness, her
retiring character, her foreknowledge of the state of his heart,
anything short of aversion. Now, that momentary look had said,
'You, of all people! I would rather have seen any one on earth
than you!'

It was but a momentary look, inasmuch as she checked it, and said
in her soft little voice, 'Oh, Mr John! Is it you?'  But she felt
what it had been, as he felt what it had been; and they stood
looking at one another equally confused.

'Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you.'

'Yes, rather. I--I came here to be alone, and I thought I was.'

'Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this way, because Mr
Dorrit chanced to mention, when I called upon him just now, that
you--'

She caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, 'O
father, father!' in a heartrending tone, and turning her face away.

'Miss Amy, I hope I don't give you any uneasiness by naming Mr
Dorrit. I assure you I found him very well and in the best of
Spirits, and he showed me even more than his usual kindness; being
so very kind as to say that I was not a stranger there, and in all
ways gratifying me very much.'

To the inexpressible consternation of her lover, Little Dorrit,
with her hands to her averted face, and rocking herself where she
stood as if she were in pain, murmured, 'O father, how can you! O
dear, dear father, how can you, can you, do it!'

The poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflowing with sympathy, but
not knowing what to make of this, until, having taken out her
handkerchief and put it to her still averted face, she hurried
away. At first he remained stock still; then hurried after her.

'Miss Amy, pray! Will you have the goodness to stop a moment?
Miss Amy, if it comes to that, let ME go. I shall go out of my
senses, if I have to think that I have driven you away like this.'

His trembling voice and unfeigned earnestness brought Little Dorrit
to a stop. 'Oh, I don't know what to do,' she cried, 'I don't know
what to do!'

To Young John, who had never seen her bereft of her quiet self-
command, who had seen her from her infancy ever so reliable and
self-suppressed, there was a shock in her distress, and in having
to associate himself with it as its cause, that shook him from his
great hat to the pavement. He felt it necessary to explain
himself. He might be misunderstood--supposed to mean something, or
to have done something, that had never entered into his
imagination. He begged her to hear him explain himself, as the
greatest favour she could show him.

'Miss Amy, I know very well that your family is far above mine. It
were vain to conceal it. There never was a Chivery a gentleman
that ever I heard of, and I will not commit the meanness of making
a false representation on a subject so momentous. Miss Amy, I know
very well that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited
sister, spurn me from a height. What I have to do is to respect
them, to wish to be admitted to their friendship, to look up at the
eminence on which they are placed from my lowlier station--for,
whether viewed as tobacco or viewed as the lock, I well know it is
lowly--and ever wish them well and happy.'

There really was a genuineness in the poor fellow, and a contrast
between the hardness of his hat and the softness of his heart
(albeit, perhaps, of his head, too), that was moving. Little
Dorrit entreated him to disparage neither himself nor his station,
and, above all things, to divest himself of any idea that she
supposed hers to be superior. This gave him a little comfort.

'Miss Amy,' he then stammered, 'I have had for a long time --ages
they seem to me--Revolving ages--a heart-cherished wish to say
something to you. May I say it?'

Little Dorrit involuntarily started from his side again, with the
faintest shadow of her former look; conquering that, she went on at
great speed half across the Bridge without replying!

'May I--Miss Amy, I but ask the question humbly--may I say it? I
have been so unlucky already in giving you pain without having any
such intentions, before the holy Heavens! that there is no fear of
my saying it unless I have your leave. I can be miserable alone,
I can be cut up by myself, why should I also make miserable and cut
up one that I would fling myself off that parapet to give half a
moment's joy to! Not that that's much to do, for I'd do it for
twopence.'

The mournfulness of his spirits, and the gorgeousness of his
appearance, might have made him ridiculous, but that his delicacy
made him respectable. Little Dorrit learnt from it what to do.

'If you please, John Chivery,' she returned, trembling, but in a
quiet way, 'since you are so considerate as to ask me whether you
shall say any more--if you please, no.'

'Never, Miss Amy?'

'No, if you please. Never.'

'O Lord!' gasped Young John.

'But perhaps you will let me, instead, say something to you. I
want to say it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is
possible to express. When you think of us, John--I mean my
brother, and sister, and me--don't think of us as being any
different from the rest; for, whatever we once were (which I hardly
know) we ceased to be long ago, and never can be any more. It will
be much better for you, and much better for others, if you will do
that instead of what you are doing now.'

Young John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in
mind, and would be heartily glad to do anything she wished.

'As to me,' said Little Dorrit, 'think as little of me as you can;
the less, the better. When you think of me at all, John, let it
only be as the child you have seen grow up in the prison with one
set of duties always occupying her; as a weak, retired, contented,
unprotected girl. I particularly want you to remember, that when
I come outside the gate, I am unprotected and solitary.'

He would try to do anything she wished. But why did Miss Amy so
much want him to remember that?

'Because,' returned Little Dorrit, 'I know I can then quite trust
you not to forget to-day, and not to say any more to me. You are
so generous that I know I can trust to you for that; and I do and
I always will. I am going to show you, at once, that I fully trust
you. I like this place where we are speaking better than any place
I know;' her slight colour had faded, but her lover thought he saw
it coming back just then; 'and I may be often here. I know it is
only necessary for me to tell you so, to be quite sure that you
will never come here again in search of me. And I am--quite sure!'

She might rely upon it, said Young John. He was a miserable
wretch, but her word was more than a law for him.

'And good-bye, John,' said Little Dorrit. 'And I hope you will
have a good wife one day, and be a happy man. I am sure you will
deserve to be happy, and you will be, John.'

As she held out her hand to him with these words, the heart that
was under the waistcoat of sprigs--mere slop-work, if the truth
must be known--swelled to the size of the heart of a gentleman; and
the poor common little fellow, having no room to hold it, burst
into tears.

'Oh, don't cry,' said Little Dorrit piteously. 'Don't, don't!
Good-bye, John. God bless you!'

'Good-bye, Miss Amy. Good-bye!'

And so he left her: first observing that she sat down on the corner
of a seat, and not only rested her little hand upon the rough wall,
but laid her face against it too, as if her head were heavy, and
her mind were sad.
It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects,
to behold her lover, with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the
velvet collar turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat
buttoned to conceal the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the
little direction-post pointing inexorably home, creeping along by
the worst back-streets, and composing, as he went, the following
new inscription for a tombstone in St George's Churchyard:

'Here lie the mortal remains Of JOHN CHIVERY, Never anything worth
mentioning, Who died about the end of the year one thousand eight
hundred and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Requesting with his last
breath that the word AMY might be inscribed over his ashes, which
was accordingly directed to be done, By his afflicted Parents.'

CHAPTER 19

The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations

The brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the
College-yard--of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the
Father made it a point of his state to be chary of going among his
children on the Poor side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas
Days, and other occasions of ceremony, in the observance whereof he
was very punctual, and at which times he laid his hand upon the
heads of their infants, and blessed those young insolvents with a
benignity that was highly edifying--the brothers, walking up and
down the College-yard together, were a memorable sight. Frederick
the free, was so humbled, bowed, withered, and faded; William the
bond, was so courtly, condescending, and benevolently conscious of
a position; that in this regard only, if in no other, the brothers
were a spectacle to wonder at.

They walked up and down the yard on the evening of Little Dorrit's
Sunday interview with her lover on the Iron Bridge. The cares of
state were over for that day, the Drawing Room had been well
attended, several new presentations had taken place, the three-and-
sixpence accidentally left on the table had accidentally increased
to twelve shillings, and the Father of the Marshalsea refreshed
himself with a whiff of cigar. As he walked up and down, affably
accommodating his step to the shuffle of his brother, not proud in
his superiority, but considerate of that poor creature, bearing
with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities in every
little puff of smoke that issued from his lips and aspired to get
over the spiked wall, he was a sight to wonder at.

His brother Frederick of the dim eye, palsied hand, bent form, and
groping mind, submissively shuffled at his side, accepting his
patronage as he accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world
in which he had got lost. He held the usual screwed bit of whitey-
brown paper in his hand, from which he ever and again unscrewed a
spare pinch of snuff. That falteringly taken, he would glance at
his brother not unadmiringly, put his hands behind him, and shuffle
on so at his side until he took another pinch, or stood still to
look about him--perchance suddenly missing his clarionet.
The College visitors were melting away as the shades of night drew
on, but the yard was still pretty full, the Collegians being mostly
out, seeing their friends to the Lodge. As the brothers paced the
yard, William the bond looked about him to receive salutes,
returned them by graciously lifting off his hat, and, with an
engaging air, prevented Frederick the free from running against the
company, or being jostled against the wall. The Collegians as a
body were not easily impressible, but even they, according to their
various ways of wondering, appeared to find in the two brothers a
sight to wonder at.

'You are a little low this evening, Frederick,' said the Father of
the Marshalsea. 'Anything the matter?'

'The matter?'  He stared for a moment, and then dropped his head
and eyes again. 'No, William, no. Nothing is the matter.'

'If you could be persuaded to smarten yourself up a little,
Frederick--'

'Aye, aye!' said the old man hurriedly. 'But I can't be. I can't
be. Don't talk so. That's all over.'

The Father of the Marshalsea glanced at a passing Collegian with
whom he was on friendly terms, as who should say, 'An enfeebled old
man, this; but he is my brother, sir, my brother, and the voice of
Nature is potent!' and steered his brother clear of the handle of
the pump by the threadbare sleeve. Nothing would have been wanting
to the perfection of his character as a fraternal guide,
philosopher and friend, if he had only steered his brother clear of
ruin, instead of bringing it upon him.

'I think, William,' said the object of his affectionate
consideration, 'that I am tired, and will go home to bed.'

'My dear Frederick,' returned the other, 'don't let me detain you;
don't sacrifice your inclination to me.'

'Late hours, and a heated atmosphere, and years, I suppose,' said
Frederick, 'weaken me.'

'My dear Frederick,' returned the Father of the Marshalsea, 'do you
think you are sufficiently careful of yourself? Do you think your
habits are as precise and methodical as--shall I say as mine are?
Not to revert again to that little eccentricity which I mentioned
just now, I doubt if you take air and exercise enough, Frederick.
Here is the parade, always at your service. Why not use it more
regularly than you do?'

'Hah!' sighed the other. 'Yes, yes, yes, yes.'

'But it is of no use saying yes, yes, my dear Frederick,' the
Father of the Marshalsea in his mild wisdom persisted, 'unless you
act on that assent. Consider my case, Frederick. I am a kind of
example. Necessity and time have taught me what to do. At certain
stated hours of the day, you will find me on the parade, in my
room, in the Lodge, reading the paper, receiving company, eating
and drinking. I have impressed upon Amy during many years, that I
must have my meals (for instance) punctually. Amy has grown up in
a sense of the importance of these arrangements, and you know what
a good girl she is.'

The brother only sighed again, as he plodded dreamily along, 'Hah!
Yes, yes, yes, yes.'

'My dear fellow,' said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his
hand upon his shoulder, and mildly rallying him--mildly, because of
his weakness, poor dear soul; 'you said that before, and it does
not express much, Frederick, even if it means much. I wish I could
rouse you, my good Frederick; you want to be roused.'

'Yes, William, yes. No doubt,' returned the other, lifting his dim
eyes to his face. 'But I am not like you.'

The Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self-
depreciation, 'Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you
might be, if you chose!' and forbore, in the magnanimity of his
strength, to press his fallen brother further.

There was a great deal of leave-taking going on in corners, as was
usual on Sunday nights; and here and there in the dark, some poor
woman, wife or mother, was weeping with a new Collegian. The time
had been when the Father himself had wept, in the shades of that
yard, as his own poor wife had wept. But it was many years ago;
and now he was like a passenger aboard ship in a long voyage, who
has recovered from sea-sickness, and is impatient of that weakness
in the fresher passengers taken aboard at the last port. He was
inclined to remonstrate, and to express his opinion that people who
couldn't get on without crying, had no business there. In manner,
if not in words, he always testified his displeasure at these
interruptions of the general harmony; and it was so well
understood, that delinquents usually withdrew if they were aware of
him.

On this Sunday evening, he accompanied his brother to the gate with
an air of endurance and clemency; being in a bland temper and
graciously disposed to overlook the tears. In the flaring gaslight
of the Lodge, several Collegians were basking; some taking leave of
visitors, and some who had no visitors, watching the frequent
turning of the key, and conversing with one another and with Mr
Chivery. The paternal entrance made a sensation of course; and Mr
Chivery, touching his hat (in a short manner though) with his key,
hoped he found himself tolerable.

'Thank you, Chivery, quite well. And you?'

Mr Chivery said in a low growl, 'Oh! he was all right.'  Which was
his general way of acknowledging inquiries after his health when a
little sullen.

'I had a visit from Young John to-day, Chivery. And very smart he
looked, I assure you.'

So Mr Chivery had heard. Mr Chivery must confess, however, that
his wish was that the boy didn't lay out so much money upon it.
For what did it bring him in? It only brought him in wexation.
And he could get that anywhere for nothing.

'How vexation, Chivery?' asked the benignant father.

'No odds,' returned Mr Chivery. 'Never mind. Mr Frederick going
out?'

'Yes, Chivery, my brother is going home to bed. He is tired, and
not quite well. Take care, Frederick, take care. Good night, my
dear Frederick!'

Shaking hands with his brother, and touching his greasy hat to the
company in the Lodge, Frederick slowly shuffled out of the door
which Mr Chivery unlocked for him. The Father of the Marshalsea
showed the amiable solicitude of a superior being that he should
come to no harm.

'Be so kind as to keep the door open a moment, Chivery, that I may
see him go along the passage and down the steps. Take care,
Frederick! (He is very infirm.) Mind the steps! (He is so very
absent.) Be careful how you cross, Frederick. (I really don't like
the notion of his going wandering at large, he is so extremely
liable to be run over.)'

With these words, and with a face expressive of many uneasy doubts
and much anxious guardianship, he turned his regards upon the
assembled company in the Lodge: so plainly indicating that his
brother was to be pitied for not being under lock and key, that an
opinion to that effect went round among the Collegians assembled.

But he did not receive it with unqualified assent; on the contrary,
he said, No, gentlemen, no; let them not misunderstand him. His
brother Frederick was much broken, no doubt, and it might be more
comfortable to himself (the Father of the Marshalsea) to know that
he was safe within the walls. Still, it must be remembered that to
support an existence there during many years, required a certain
combination of qualities--he did not say high qualities, but
qualities--moral qualities. Now, had his brother Frederick that
peculiar union of qualities? Gentlemen, he was a most excellent
man, a most gentle, tender, and estimable man, with the simplicity
of a child; but would he, though unsuited for most other places, do
for that place? No; he said confidently, no! And, he said, Heaven
forbid that Frederick should be there in any other character than
in his present voluntary character! Gentlemen, whoever came to
that College, to remain there a length of time, must have strength
of character to go through a good deal and to come out of a good
deal. Was his beloved brother Frederick that man? No. They saw
him, even as it was, crushed. Misfortune crushed him. He had not
power of recoil enough, not elasticity enough, to be a long time in
such a place, and yet preserve his self-respect and feel conscious
that he was a gentleman. Frederick had not (if he might use the
expression) Power enough to see in any delicate little attentions
and--and --Testimonials that he might under such circumstances
receive, the goodness of human nature, the fine spirit animating
the Collegians as a community, and at the same time no degradation
to himself, and no depreciation of his claims as a gentleman.
Gentlemen, God bless you!

Such was the homily with which he improved and pointed the occasion
to the company in the Lodge before turning into the sallow yard
again, and going with his own poor shabby dignity past the
Collegian in the dressing-gown who had no coat, and past the
Collegian in the sea-side slippers who had no shoes, and past the
stout greengrocer Collegian in the corduroy knee-breeches who had
no cares, and past the lean clerk Collegian in buttonless black who
had no hopes, up his own poor shabby staircase to his own poor
shabby room.

There, the table was laid for his supper, and his old grey gown was
ready for him on his chair-back at the fire. His daughter put her
little prayer-book in her pocket--had she been praying for pity on
all prisoners and captives!--and rose to welcome him.

Uncle had gone home, then? she asked @ as she changed his coat and
gave him his black velvet cap. Yes, uncle had gone home. Had her
father enjoyed his walk? Why, not much, Amy; not much. No! Did
he not feel quite well?

As she stood behind him, leaning over his chair so lovingly, he
looked with downcast eyes at the fire. An uneasiness stole over
him that was like a touch of shame; and when he spoke, as he
presently did, it was in an unconnected and embarrassed manner.

'Something, I--hem!--I don't know what, has gone wrong with
Chivery. He is not--ha!--not nearly so obliging and attentive as
usual to-night. It--hem!--it's a little thing, but it puts me out,
my love. It's impossible to forget,' turning his hands over and
over and looking closely at them, 'that--hem!--that in such a life
as mine, I am unfortunately dependent on these men for something
every hour in the day.'

Her arm was on his shoulder, but she did not look in his face while
he spoke. Bending her head she looked another way.

'I--hem!--I can't think, Amy, what has given Chivery offence. He
is generally so--so very attentive and respectful. And to-night he
was quite--quite short with me. Other people there too! Why, good
Heaven! if I was to lose the support and recognition of Chivery
and his brother officers, I might starve to death here.'  While he
spoke, he was opening and shutting his hands like valves; so
conscious all the time of that touch of shame, that he shrunk
before his own knowledge of his meaning.

'I--ha!--I can't think what it's owing to. I am sure I cannot
imagine what the cause of it is. There was a certain Jackson here
once, a turnkey of the name of Jackson (I don't think you can
remember him, my dear, you were very young), and--hem!--and he had
a--brother, and this--young brother paid his addresses to--at
least, did not go so far as to pay his addresses to--but admired--
respectfully admired--the--not daughter, the sister--of one of us;
a rather distinguished Collegian; I may say, very much so. His
name was Captain Martin; and he consulted me on the question
whether It was necessary that his daughter--sister--should hazard
offending the turnkey brother by being too--ha!--too plain with the
other brother. Captain Martin was a gentleman and a man of honour,
and I put it to him first to give me his--his own opinion. Captain
Martin (highly respected in the army) then unhesitatingly said that
it appeared to him that his--hem!--sister was not called upon to
understand the young man too distinctly, and that she might lead
him on--I am doubtful whether "lead him on" was Captain Martin's
exact expression: indeed I think he said tolerate him--on her
father's--I should say, brother's--account. I hardly know how I
have strayed into this story. I suppose it has been through being
unable to account for Chivery; but as to the connection between the
two, I don't see--'

His voice died away, as if she could not bear the pain of hearing
him, and her hand had gradually crept to his lips. For a little
while there was a dead silence and stillness; and he remained
shrunk in his chair, and she remained with her arm round his neck
and her head bowed down upon his shoulder.

His supper was cooking in a saucepan on the fire, and, when she
moved, it was to make it ready for him on the table. He took his
usual seat, she took hers, and he began his meal. They did not, as
yet, look at one another. By little and little he began; laying
down his knife and fork with a noise, taking things up sharply,
biting at his bread as if he were offended with it, and in other
similar ways showing that he was out of sorts. At length he pushed
his plate from him, and spoke aloud; with the strangest
inconsistency.

'What does it matter whether I eat or starve? What does it matter
whether such a blighted life as mine comes to an end, now, next
week, or next year? What am I worth to anyone? A poor prisoner,
fed on alms and broken victuals; a squalid, disgraced wretch!'

'Father, father!' As he rose she went on her knees to him, and held
up her hands to him.

'Amy,' he went on in a suppressed voice, trembling violently, and
looking at her as wildly as if he had gone mad. 'I tell you, if
you could see me as your mother saw me, you wouldn't believe it to
be the creature you have only looked at through the bars of this
cage. I was young, I was accomplished, I was good-looking, I was
independent--by God I was, child!--and people sought me out, and
envied me. Envied me!'

'Dear father!'  She tried to take down the shaking arm that he
flourished in the air, but he resisted, and put her hand away.

'If I had but a picture of myself in those days, though it was ever
so ill done, you would be proud of it, you would be proud of it.
But I have no such thing. Now, let me be a warning! Let no man,'
he cried, looking haggardly about, 'fail to preserve at least that
little of the times of his prosperity and respect. Let his
children have that clue to what he was. Unless my face, when I am
dead, subsides into the long departed look--they say such things
happen, I don't know--my children will have never seen me.'

'Father, father!'

'O despise me, despise me! Look away from me, don't listen to me,
stop me, blush for me, cry for me--even you, Amy! Do it, do it!
I do it to myself! I am hardened now, I have sunk too low to care
long even for that.'

'Dear father, loved father, darling of my heart!'  She was clinging
to him with her arms, and she got him to drop into his chair again,
and caught at the raised arm, and tried to put it round her neck.

'Let it lie there, father. Look at me, father, kiss me, father!
Only think of me, father, for one little moment!'

Still he went on in the same wild way, though it was gradually
breaking down into a miserable whining.

'And yet I have some respect here. I have made some stand against
it. I am not quite trodden down. Go out and ask who is the chief
person in the place. They'll tell you it's your father. Go out
and ask who is never trifled with, and who is always treated with
some delicacy. They'll say, your father. Go out and ask what
funeral here (it must be here, I know it can be nowhere else) will
make more talk, and perhaps more grief, than any that has ever gone
out at the gate. They'll say your father's. Well then. Amy!
Amy! Is your father so universally despised? Is there nothing to
redeem him? Will you have nothing to remember him by but his ruin
and decay? Will you be able to have no affection for him when he
is gone, poor castaway, gone?'

He burst into tears of maudlin pity for himself, and at length
suffering her to embrace him and take charge of him, let his grey
head rest against her cheek, and bewailed his wretchedness.
Presently he changed the subject of his lamentations, and clasping
his hands about her as she embraced him, cried, O Amy, his
motherless, forlorn child! O the days that he had seen her careful
and laborious for him! Then he reverted to himself, and weakly
told her how much better she would have loved him if she had known
him in his vanished character, and how he would have married her to
a gentleman who should have been proud of her as his daughter, and
how (at which he cried again) she should first have ridden at his
fatherly side on her own horse, and how the crowd (by which he
meant in effect the people who had given him the twelve shillings
he then had in his pocket) should have trudged the dusty roads
respectfully.

Thus, now boasting, now despairing, in either fit a captive with
the jail-rot upon him, and the impurity of his prison worn into the
grain of his soul, he revealed his degenerate state to his
affectionate child. No one else ever beheld him in the details of
his humiliation. Little recked the Collegians who were laughing in
their rooms over his late address in the Lodge, what a serious
picture they had in their obscure gallery of the Marshalsea that
Sunday night.

There was a classical daughter once--perhaps--who ministered to her
father in his prison as her mother had ministered to her. Little
Dorrit, though of the unheroic modern stock and mere English, did
much more, in comforting her father's wasted heart upon her
innocent breast, and turning to it a fountain of love and fidelity
that never ran dry or waned through all his years of famine.

She soothed him; asked him for his forgiveness if she had been, or
seemed to have been, undutiful; told him, Heaven knows truly, that
she could not honour him more if he were the favourite of Fortune
and the whole world acknowledged him. When his tears were dried,
and he sobbed in his weakness no longer, and was free from that
touch of shame, and had recovered his usual bearing, she prepared
the remains of his supper afresh, and, sitting by his side,
rejoiced to see him eat and drink. For now he sat in his black
velvet cap and old grey gown, magnanimous again; and would have
comported himself towards any Collegian who might have looked in to
ask his advice, like a great moral Lord Chesterfield, or Master of
the ethical ceremonies of the Marshalsea.

To keep his attention engaged, she talked with him about his
wardrobe; when he was pleased to say, that Yes, indeed, those
shirts she proposed would be exceedingly acceptable, for those he
had were worn out, and, being ready-made, had never fitted him.
Being conversational, and in a reasonable flow of spirits, he then
invited her attention to his coat as it hung behind the door:
remarking that the Father of the place would set an indifferent
example to his children, already disposed to be slovenly, if he
went among them out at elbows. He was jocular, too, as to the
heeling of his shoes; but became grave on the subject of his
cravat, and promised her that, when she could afford it, she should
buy him a new one.

While he smoked out his cigar in peace, she made his bed, and put
the small room in order for his repose. Being weary then, owing to
the advanced hour and his emotions, he came out of his chair to
bless her and wish her Good night. All this time he had never once
thought of HER dress, her shoes, her need of anything. No other
person upon earth, save herself, could have been so unmindful of
her wants.

He kissed her many times with 'Bless you, my love. Good night, MY
dear!'

But her gentle breast had been so deeply wounded by what she had
seen of him that she was unwilling to leave him alone, lest he
should lament and despair again. 'Father, dear, I am not tired;
let me come back presently, when you are in bed, and sit by you.'

He asked her, with an air of protection, if she felt solitary?

'Yes, father.'

'Then come back by all means, my love.'

'I shall be very quiet, father.'

'Don't think of me, my dear,' he said, giving her his kind
permission fully. 'Come back by all means.'

He seemed to be dozing when she returned, and she put the low fire
together very softly lest she should awake him. But he overheard
her, and called out who was that?

'Only Amy, father.'

'Amy, my child, come here. I want to say a word to you.'  He
raised himself a little in his low bed, as she kneeled beside it to
bring her face near him; and put his hand between hers. O! Both
the private father and the Father of the Marshalsea were strong
within him then.

'My love, you have had a life of hardship here. No companions, no
recreations, many cares I am afraid?'

'Don't think of that, dear. I never do.'

'You know my position, Amy. I have not been able to do much for
you; but all I have been able to do, I have done.'

'Yes, my dear father,' she rejoined, kissing him. 'I know, I
know.'

'I am in the twenty-third year of my life here,' he said, with a
catch in his breath that was not so much a sob as an irrepressible
sound of self-approval, the momentary outburst of a noble
consciousness. 'It is all I could do for my children--I have done
it. Amy, my love, you are by far the best loved of the three; I
have had you principally in my mind--whatever I have done for your
sake, my dear child, I have done freely and without murmuring.'

Only the wisdom that holds the clue to all hearts and all
mysteries, can surely know to what extent a man, especially a man
brought down as this man had been, can impose upon himself.
Enough, for the present place, that he lay down with wet eyelashes,
serene, in a manner majestic, after bestowing his life of
degradation as a sort of portion on the devoted child upon whom its
miseries had fallen so heavily, and whose love alone had saved him
to be even what he was.

That child had no doubts, asked herself no question, for she was
but too content to see him with a lustre round his head. Poor
dear, good dear, truest, kindest, dearest, were the only words she
had for him, as she hushed him to rest.

She never left him all that night. As if she had done him a wrong
which her tenderness could hardly repair, she sat by him in his
sleep, at times softly kissing him with suspended breath, and
calling him in a whisper by some endearing name. At times she
stood aside so as not to intercept the low fire-light, and,
watching him when it fell upon his sleeping face, wondered did he
look now at all as he had looked when he was prosperous and happy;
as he had so touched her by imagining that he might look once more
in that awful time. At the thought of that time, she kneeled
beside his bed again, and prayed, 'O spare his life! O save him to
me! O look down upon my dear, long-suffering, unfortunate, much-
changed, dear dear father!'

Not until the morning came to protect him and encourage him, did
she give him a last kiss and leave the small room. When she had
stolen down-stairs, and along the empty yard, and had crept up to
her own high garret, the smokeless housetops and the distant
country hills were discernible over the wall in the clear morning.
As she gently opened the window, and looked eastward down the
prison yard, the spikes upon the wall were tipped with red, then
made a sullen purple pattern on the sun as it came flaming up into
the heavens. The spikes had never looked so sharp and cruel, nor
the bars so heavy, nor the prison space so gloomy and contracted.
She thought of the sunrise on rolling rivers, of the sunrise on
wide seas, of the sunrise on rich landscapes, of the sunrise on
great forests where the birds were waking and the trees were
rustling; and she looked down into the living grave on which the
sun had risen, with her father in it three-and-twenty years, and
said, in a burst of sorrow and compassion, 'No, no, I have never
seen him in my life!'

CHAPTER 20

Moving in Society

If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to
write a satire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for
an avenging illustration out of the family of his beloved. He
would have found it amply in that gallant brother and that dainty
sister, so steeped in mean experiences, and so loftily conscious of
the family name; so ready to beg or borrow from the poorest, to eat
of anybody's bread, spend anybody's money, drink from anybody's cup
and break it afterwards. To have painted the sordid facts of their
lives, and they throughout invoking the death's head apparition of
the family gentility to come and scare their benefactors, would
have made Young John a satirist of the first water.

Tip had turned his liberty to hopeful account by becoming a
billiard-marker. He had troubled himself so little as to the means
of his release, that Clennam scarcely needed to have been at the
pains of impressing the mind of Mr Plornish on that subject.
Whoever had paid him the compliment, he very readily accepted the
compliment with HIS compliments, and there was an end of it.
Issuing forth from the gate on these easy terms, he became a
billiard-marker; and now occasionally looked in at the little
skittle-ground in a green Newmarket coat (second-hand), with a
shining collar and bright buttons (new), and drank the beer of the
Collegians.

One solid stationary point in the looseness of this gentleman's
character was, that he respected and admired his sister Amy. The
feeling had never induced him to spare her a moment's uneasiness,
or to put himself to any restraint or inconvenience on her account;
but with that Marshalsea taint upon his love, he loved her. The
same rank Marshalsea flavour was to be recognised in his distinctly
perceiving that she sacrificed her life to her father, and in his
having no idea that she had done anything for himself.

When this spirited young man and his sister had begun
systematically to produce the family skeleton for the overawing of
the College, this narrative cannot precisely state. Probably at
about the period when they began to dine on the College charity.
It is certain that the more reduced and necessitous they were, the
more pompously the skeleton emerged from its tomb; and that when
there was anything particularly shabby in the wind, the skeleton
always came out with the ghastliest flourish.

Little Dorrit was late on the Monday morning, for her father slept
late, and afterwards there was his breakfast to prepare and his
room to arrange. She had no engagement to go out to work, however,
and therefore stayed with him until, with Maggy's help, she had put
everything right about him, and had seen him off upon his morning
walk (of twenty yards or so) to the coffee-house to read the paper.

She then got on her bonnet and went out, having been anxious to get
out much sooner. There was, as usual, a cessation of the small-
talk in the Lodge as she passed through it; and a Collegian who had
come in on Saturday night, received the intimation from the elbow
of a more seasoned Collegian, 'Look out. Here she is!'
She wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr
Cripples's, she found that both her sister and her uncle had gone
to the theatre where they were engaged. Having taken thought of
this probability by the way, and having settled that in such case
she would follow them, she set off afresh for the theatre, which
was on that side of the river, and not very far away.

Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of
the ways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort
of door, with a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to
be ashamed of itself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to
approach it; being further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen
close-shaved gentlemen with their hats very strangely on, who were
lounging about the door, looking not at all unlike Collegians. On
her applying to them, reassured by this resemblance, for a
direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for her to enter a dark
hall--it was more like a great grim lamp gone out than anything
else--where she could hear the distant playing of music and the
sound of dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he had
a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in
a corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a
message up to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went
through. The first lady who went through had a roll of music, half
in her muff and half out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition
altogether, that it seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to
iron her. But as she was very good-natured, and said, 'Come with
me; I'll soon find Miss Dorrit for you,' Miss Dorrit's sister went
with her, drawing nearer and nearer at every step she took in the
darkness to the sound of music and the sound of dancing feet.

At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people
were tumbling over one another, and where there was such a
confusion of unaccountable shapes of beams, bulkheads, brick walls,
ropes, and rollers, and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight,
that they seemed to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of
the universe. Little Dorrit, left to herself, and knocked against
by somebody every moment, was quite bewildered, when she heard her
sister's voice.

'Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?'

'I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day to-
morrow, and knew you might be engaged all day to-day, I thought--'

'But the idea, Amy, of YOU coming behind! I never did!'  As her
sister said this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she conducted
her to a more open part of the maze, where various golden chairs
and tables were heaped together, and where a number of young ladies
were sitting on anything they could find, chattering. All these
young ladies wanted ironing, and all had a curious way of looking
everywhere while they chattered.

just as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap
put his head round a beam on the left, and said, 'Less noise there,
ladies!' and disappeared. Immediately after which, a sprightly
gentleman with a quantity of long black hair looked round a beam on
the right, and said, 'Less noise there, darlings!' and also
disappeared.

'The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last
thing I could have conceived!' said her sister. 'Why, how did you
ever get here?'

'I don't know. The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to
bring me in.'

'Like you quiet little things! You can make your way anywhere, I
believe. I couldn't have managed it, Amy, though I know so much
more of the world.'

It was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was
a plain domestic little creature, without the great and sage
experience of the rest. This family fiction was the family
assertion of itself against her services. Not to make too much of
them.

'Well! And what have you got on your mind, Amy? Of course you
have got something on your mind about me?' said Fanny. She spoke
as if her sister, between two and three years her junior, were her
prejudiced grandmother.

'It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the
bracelet, Fanny--'

The monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the left, and
said, 'Look out there, ladies!' and disappeared. The sprightly
gentleman with the black hair as suddenly put his head round the
beam on the right, and said, 'Look out there, darlings!' and also
disappeared. Thereupon all the young ladies rose and began shaking
their skirts out behind.

'Well, Amy?' said Fanny, doing as the rest did; 'what were you
going to say?'

'Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me,
Fanny, I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want
to know a little more if you will confide more to me.'

'Now, ladies!' said the boy in the Scotch cap. 'Now, darlings!'
said the gentleman with the black hair. They were every one gone
in a moment, and the music and the dancing feet were heard again.

Little Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these
rapid interruptions. Her sister and the rest were a long time
gone; and during their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of
the gentleman with the black hair) was continually calling out
through the music, 'One, two, three, four, five, six--go! One,
two, three, four, five, six--go! Steady, darlings! One, two,
three, four, five, six--go!'  Ultimately the voice stopped, and
they all came back again, more or less out of breath, folding
themselves in their shawls, and making ready for the streets.
'Stop a moment, Amy, and let them get away before us,' whispered
Fanny. They were soon left alone; nothing more important
happening, in the meantime, than the boy looking round his old
beam, and saying, 'Everybody at eleven to-morrow, ladies!' and the
gentleman with the black hair looking round his old beam, and
saying, 'Everybody at eleven to-morrow, darlings!' each in his own
accustomed manner.

When they were alone, something was rolled up or by other means got
out of the way, and there was a great empty well before them,
looking down into the depths of which Fanny said, 'Now, uncle!'
Little Dorrit, as her eyes became used to the darkness, faintly
made him out at the bottom of the well, in an obscure corner by
himself, with his instrument in its ragged case under his arm.

The old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows, with
their little strip of sky, might have been the point of his better
fortunes, from which he had descended, until he had gradually sunk
down below there to the bottom. He had been in that place six
nights a week for many years, but had never been observed to raise
his eyes above his music-book, and was confidently believed to have
never seen a play. There were legends in the place that he did not
so much as know the popular heroes and heroines by sight, and that
the low comedian had 'mugged' at him in his richest manner fifty
nights for a wager, and he had shown no trace of consciousness.
The carpenters had a joke to the effect that he was dead without
being aware of it; and the frequenters of the pit supposed him to
pass his whole life, night and day, and Sunday and all, in the
orchestra. They had tried him a few times with pinches of snuff
offered over the rails, and he had always responded to this
attention with a momentary waking up of manner that had the pale
phantom of a gentleman in it: beyond this he never, on any
occasion, had any other part in what was going on than the part
written out for the clarionet; in private life, where there was no
part for the clarionet, he had no part at all. Some said he was
poor, some said he was a wealthy miser; but he said nothing, never
lifted up his bowed head, never varied his shuffling gait by
getting his springless foot from the ground. Though expecting now
to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her until she had
spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all surprised by
the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said in his
tremulous voice, 'I am coming, I am coming!' and crept forth by
some underground way which emitted a cellarous smell.

'And so, Amy,' said her sister, when the three together passed out
at the door that had such a shame-faced consciousness of being
different from other doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy's
arm as the arm to be relied on: 'so, Amy, you are curious about
me?'

She was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting; and the
condescension with which she put aside the superiority of her
charms, and of her worldly experience, and addressed her sister on
almost equal terms, had a vast deal of the family in it.

'I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns
you.'

'So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys. If I am
ever a little provoking, I am sure you'll consider what a thing it
is to occupy my position and feel a consciousness of being superior
to it. I shouldn't care,' said the Daughter of the Father of the
Marshalsea, 'if the others were not so common. None of them have
come down in the world as we have. They are all on their own
level. Common.'

Little Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt
her. Fanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her
eyes. 'I was not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps
that makes a difference. My dear child, when we get rid of Uncle,
you shall know all about it. We'll drop him at the cook's shop
where he is going to dine.'

They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop window in
a dirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot
meats, vegetables, and puddings. But glimpses were to be caught of
a roast leg of pork bursting into tears of sage and onion in a
metal reservoir full of gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef
and blisterous Yorkshire pudding, bubbling hot in a similar
receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of veal in rapid cut, of a ham in
a perspiration with the pace it was going at, of a shallow tank of
baked potatoes glued together by their own richness, of a truss or
two of boiled greens, and other substantial delicacies. Within,
were a few wooden partitions, behind which such customers as found
it more convenient to take away their dinners in stomachs than in
their hands, Packed their purchases in solitude. Fanny opening her
reticule, as they surveyed these things, produced from that
repository a shilling and handed it to Uncle. Uncle, after not
looking at it a little while, divined its object, and muttering
'Dinner? Ha! Yes, yes, yes!' slowly vanished from them into the
mist.

'Now, Amy,' said her sister, 'come with me, if you are not too
tired to walk to Harley Street, Cavendish Square.'

The air with which she threw off this distinguished address and the
toss she gave to her new bonnet (which was more gauzy than
serviceable), made her sister wonder; however, she expressed her
readiness to go to Harley Street, and thither they directed their
steps. Arrived at that grand destination, Fanny singled out the
handsomest house, and knocking at the door, inquired for Mrs
Merdle. The footman who opened the door, although he had powder on
his head and was backed up by two other footmen likewise powdered,
not only admitted Mrs Merdle to be at home, but asked Fanny to walk
in. Fanny walked in, taking her sister with her; and they went up-
stairs with powder going before and powder stopping behind, and
were left in a spacious semicircular drawing-room, one of several
drawing-rooms, where there was a parrot on the outside of a golden
cage holding on by its beak, with its scaly legs in the air, and
putting itself into many strange upside-down postures. This
peculiarity has been observed in birds of quite another feather,
climbing upon golden wires.

The room was far more splendid than anything Little Dorrit had ever
imagined, and would have been splendid and costly in any eyes. She
looked in amazement at her sister and would have asked a question,
but that Fanny with a warning frown pointed to a curtained doorway
of communication with another room. The curtain shook next moment,
and a lady, raising it with a heavily ringed hand, dropped it
behind her again as she entered.

The lady was not young and fresh from the hand of Nature, but was
young and fresh from the hand of her maid. She had large unfeeling
handsome eyes, and dark unfeeling handsome hair, and a broad
unfeeling handsome bosom, and was made the most of in every
particular. Either because she had a cold, or because it suited
her face, she wore a rich white fillet tied over her head and under
her chin. And if ever there were an unfeeling handsome chin that
looked as if, for certain, it had never been, in familiar parlance,
'chucked' by the hand of man, it was the chin curbed up so tight
and close by that laced bridle.

'Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny. 'My sister, ma'am.'

'I am glad to see your sister, Miss Dorrit. I did not remember
that you had a sister.'

'I did not mention that I had,' said Fanny.

'Ah!'  Mrs Merdle curled the little finger of her left hand as who
should say, 'I have caught you. I know you didn't!'  All her
action was usually with her left hand because her hands were not a
pair; and left being much the whiter and plumper of the two. Then
she added: 'Sit down,' and composed herself voluptuously, in a nest
of crimson and gold cushions, on an ottoman near the parrot.

'Also professional?' said Mrs Merdle, looking at Little Dorrit
through an eye-glass.

Fanny answered No. 'No,' said Mrs Merdle, dropping her glass.
'Has not a professional air. Very pleasant; but not professional.'

'My sister, ma'am,' said Fanny, in whom there was a singular
mixture of deference and hardihood, 'has been asking me to tell
her, as between sisters, how I came to have the honour of knowing
you. And as I had engaged to call upon you once more, I thought I
might take the liberty of bringing her with me, when perhaps you
would tell her. I wish her to know, and perhaps you will tell
her?'
'Do you think, at your sister's age--' hinted Mrs Merdle.

'She is much older than she looks,' said Fanny; 'almost as old as
I am.'

'Society,' said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little
finger, 'is so difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so
difficult to explain to most persons), that I am glad to hear that.

I wish Society was not so arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting
-- Bird, be quiet!'

The parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were
Society and it asserted its right to its exactions.

'But,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'we must take it as we find it. We know
it is hollow and conventional and worldly and very shocking, but
unless we are Savages in the Tropical seas (I should have been
charmed to be one myself--most delightful life and perfect climate,
I am told), we must consult it. It is the common lot. Mr Merdle
is a most extensive merchant, his transactions are on the vastest
scale, his wealth and influence are very great, but even he-- Bird,
be quiet!'

The parrot had shrieked another shriek; and it filled up the
sentence so expressively that Mrs Merdle was under no necessity to
end it.

'Since your sister begs that I would terminate our personal
acquaintance,' she began again, addressing Little Dorrit, 'by
relating the circumstances that are much to her credit, I cannot
object to comply with her request, I am sure. I have a son (I was
first married extremely young) of two or three-and-twenty.'

Fanny set her lips, and her eyes looked half triumphantly at her
sister.

'A son of two or three-and-twenty. He is a little gay, a thing
Society is accustomed to in young men, and he is very impressible.
Perhaps he inherits that misfortune. I am very impressible myself,
by nature. The weakest of creatures--my feelings are touched in a
moment.'

She said all this, and everything else, as coldly as a woman of
snow; quite forgetting the sisters except at odd times, and
apparently addressing some abstraction of Society; for whose
behoof, too, she occasionally arranged her dress, or the
composition of her figure upon the ottoman.

'So he is very impressible. Not a misfortune in our natural state
I dare say, but we are not in a natural state. Much to be
lamented, no doubt, particularly by myself, who am a child of
nature if I could but show it; but so it is. Society suppresses us
and dominates us-- Bird, be quiet!'
The parrot had broken into a violent fit of laughter, after
twisting divers bars of his cage with his crooked bill, and licking
them with his black tongue.

'It is quite unnecessary to say to a person of your good sense,
wide range of experience, and cultivated feeling,' said Mrs Merdle
from her nest of crimson and gold--and there put up her glass to
refresh her memory as to whom she was addressing,--'that the stage
sometimes has a fascination for young men of that class of
character. In saying the stage, I mean the people on it of the
female sex. Therefore, when I heard that my son was supposed to be
fascinated by a dancer, I knew what that usually meant in Society,
and confided in her being a dancer at the Opera, where young men
moving in Society are usually fascinated.'

She passed her white hands over one another, observant of the
sisters now; and the rings upon her fingers grated against each
other with a hard sound.

'As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was I
was much surprised and much distressed. But when I found that your
sister, by rejecting my son's advances (I must add, in an
unexpected manner), had brought him to the point of proposing
marriage, my feelings were of the profoundest anguish--acute.'  She
traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right.

'In a distracted condition, which only a mother--moving in
Society--can be susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the
theatre, and represent my state of mind to the dancer. I made
myself known to your sister. I found her, to my surprise, in many
respects different from my expectations; and certainly in none more
so, than in meeting me with--what shall I say--a sort of family
assertion on her own part?'  Mrs Merdle smiled.

'I told you, ma'am,' said Fanny, with a heightening colour, 'that
although you found me in that situation, I was so far above the
rest, that I considered my family as good as your son's; and that
I had a brother who, knowing the circumstances, would be of the
same opinion, and would not consider such a connection any honour.'

'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Merdle, after frostily looking at her
through her glass, 'precisely what I was on the point of telling
your sister, in pursuance of your request. Much obliged to you for
recalling it so accurately and anticipating me. I immediately,'
addressing Little Dorrit, '(for I am the creature of impulse), took
a bracelet from my arm, and begged your sister to let me clasp it
on hers, in token of the delight I had in our being able to
approach the subject so far on a common footing.'  (This was
perfectly true, the lady having bought a cheap and showy article on
her way to the interview, with a general eye to bribery.)

'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that we might be
unfortunate, but we are not common.'

'I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle.

'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that if you spoke to me
of the superiority of your son's standing in Society, it was barely
possible that you rather deceived yourself in your suppositions
about my origin; and that my father's standing, even in the Society
in which he now moved (what that was, was best known to myself),
was eminently superior, and was acknowledged by every one.'

'Quite accurate,' rejoined Mrs Merdle. 'A most admirable memory.'

'Thank you, ma'am. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my
sister the rest.'

'There is very little to tell,' said Mrs Merdle, reviewing the
breadth of bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough
to be unfeeling in, 'but it is to your sister's credit. I pointed
out to your sister the plain state of the case; the impossibility
of the Society in which we moved recognising the Society in which
she moved--though charming, I have no doubt; the immense
disadvantage at which she would consequently place the family she
had so high an opinion of, upon which we should find ourselves
compelled to look down with contempt, and from which (socially
speaking) we should feel obliged to recoil with abhorrence. In
short, I made an appeal to that laudable pride in your sister.'

'Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs Merdle,' Fanny pouted, with
a toss of her gauzy bonnet, 'that I had already had the honour of
telling your son that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to
him.'

'Well, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle, 'perhaps I might have
mentioned that before. If I did not think of it, perhaps it was
because my mind reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time
that he might persevere and you might have something to say to him.

I also mentioned to your sister--I again address the non-
professional Miss Dorrit--that my son would have nothing in the
event of such a marriage, and would be an absolute beggar. (I
mention that merely as a fact which is part of the narrative, and
not as supposing it to have influenced your sister, except in the
prudent and legitimate way in which, constituted as our artificial
system is, we must all be influenced by such considerations.)
Finally, after some high words and high spirit on the part of your
sister, we came to the complete understanding that there was no
danger; and your sister was so obliging as to allow me to present
her with a mark or two of my appreciation at my dressmaker's.'

Little Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled
face.

'Also,' said Mrs Merdle, 'as to promise to give me the present
pleasure of a closing interview, and of parting with her on the
best of terms. On which occasion,' added Mrs Merdle, quitting her
nest, and putting something in Fanny's hand, 'Miss Dorrit will
permit me to say Farewell with best wishes in my own dull manner.'

The sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage
of the parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it
out, seemed to mock them with a pompous dance of his body without
moving his feet, and suddenly turned himself upside down and
trailed himself all over the outside of his golden cage, with the
aid of his cruel beak and black tongue.

'Adieu, Miss Dorrit, with best wishes,' said Mrs Merdle. 'If we
could only come to a Millennium, or something of that sort, I for
one might have the pleasure of knowing a number of charming and
talented persons from whom I am at present excluded. A more
primitive state of society would be delicious to me. There used to
be a poem when I learnt lessons, something about Lo the poor
Indians whose something mind! If a few thousand persons moving in
Society, could only go and be Indians, I would put my name down
directly; but as, moving in Society, we can't be Indians,
unfortunately--Good morning!'

They came down-stairs with powder before them and powder behind,
the elder sister haughty and the younger sister humbled, and were
shut out into unpowdered Harley Street, Cavendish Square.

'Well?' said Fanny, when they had gone a little way without
speaking. 'Have you nothing to say, Amy?'

'Oh, I don't know what to say!' she answered, distressed. 'You
didn't like this young man, Fanny?'

'Like him? He is almost an idiot.'

'I am so sorry--don't be hurt--but, since you ask me what I have to
say, I am so very sorry, Fanny, that you suffered this lady to give
you anything.'

'You little Fool!' returned her sister, shaking her with the sharp
pull she gave her arm. 'Have you no spirit at all? But that's
just the way! You have no self-respect, you have no becoming
pride. just as you allow yourself to be followed about by a
contemptible little Chivery of a thing,' with the scornfullest
emphasis, 'you would let your family be trodden on, and never
turn.'

'Don't say that, dear Fanny. I do what I can for them.'

'You do what you can for them!' repeated Fanny, walking her on very
fast. 'Would you let a woman like this, whom you could see, if you
had any experience of anything, to be as false and insolent as a
woman can be--would you let her put her foot upon your family, and
thank her for it?'

'No, Fanny, I am sure.'
'Then make her pay for it, you mean little thing. What else can
you make her do? Make her pay for it, you stupid child; and do
your family some credit with the money!'

They spoke no more all the way back to the lodging where Fanny and
her uncle lived. When they arrived there, they found the old man
practising his clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of
the room. Fanny had a composite meal to make, of chops, and
porter, and tea; and indignantly pretended to prepare it for
herself, though her sister did all that in quiet reality. When at
last Fanny sat down to eat and drink, she threw the table
implements about and was angry with her bread, much as her father
had been last night.

'If you despise me,' she said, bursting into vehement tears,
'because I am a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one?

It was your doing. You would have me stoop as low as the ground
before this Mrs Merdle, and let her say what she liked and do what
she liked, and hold us all in contempt, and tell me so to my face.
Because I am a dancer!'

'O Fanny!'

'And Tip, too, poor fellow. She is to disparage him just as much
as she likes, without any check--I suppose because he has been in
the law, and the docks, and different things. Why, it was your
doing, Amy. You might at least approve of his being defended.'

All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the
corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a
moment while he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression
that somebody had said something.

'And your father, your poor father, Amy. Because he is not free to
show himself and to speak for himself, you would let such people
insult him with impunity. If you don't feel for yourself because
you go out to work, you might at least feel for him, I should
think, knowing what he has undergone so long.'

Poor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply.

The remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it. She said
nothing in reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the
fire. Uncle, after making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and
went on again.

Fanny was passionate with the tea-cups and the bread as long as her
passion lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest
girl in the world, and she wished she was dead. After that, her
crying became remorseful, and she got up and put her arms round her
sister. Little Dorrit tried to stop her from saying anything, but
she answered that she would, she must! Thereupon she said again,
and again, 'I beg your pardon, Amy,' and 'Forgive me, Amy,' almost
as passionately as she had said what she regretted.

'But indeed, indeed, Amy,' she resumed when they were seated in
sisterly accord side by side, 'I hope and I think you would have
seen this differently, if you had known a little more of Society.'

'Perhaps I might, Fanny,' said the mild Little Dorrit.

'You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up
there, Amy,' pursued her sister, gradually beginning to patronise,
'I have been out, moving more in Society, and may have been getting
proud and spirited--more than I ought to be, perhaps?'

Little Dorrit answered 'Yes. O yes!'

'And while you have been thinking of the dinner or the clothes, I
may have been thinking, you know, of the family. Now, may it not
be so, Amy?'

Little Dorrit again nodded 'Yes,' with a more cheerful face than
heart.

'Especially as we know,' said Fanny, 'that there certainly is a
tone in the place to which you have been so true, which does belong
to it, and which does make it different from other aspects of
Society. So kiss me once again, Amy dear, and we will agree that
we may both be right, and that you are a tranquil, domestic, home-
loving, good girl.'

The clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this
dialogue, but was cut short now by Fanny's announcement that it was
time to go; which she conveyed to her uncle by shutting up his
scrap of music, and taking the clarionet out of his mouth.

Little Dorrit parted from them at the door, and hastened back to
the Marshalsea. It fell dark there sooner than elsewhere, and
going into it that evening was like going into a deep trench. The
shadow of the wall was on every object. Not least upon the figure
in the old grey gown and the black velvet cap, as it turned towards
her when she opened the door of the dim room.

'Why not upon me too!' thought Little Dorrit, with the door Yet in
her hand. 'It was not unreasonable in Fanny.'

CHAPTER 21

Mr Merdle's Complaint

Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in
Harley Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more
common wall than the fronts of other establishments of state on the
opposite side of the street. Like unexceptionable Society, the
opposing rows of houses in Harley Street were very grim with one
another. Indeed, the mansions and their inhabitants were so much
alike in that respect, that the people were often to be found drawn
up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in the shade of their own
loftiness, staring at the other side of the way with the dullness
of the houses.

Everybody knows how like the street the two dinner-rows of people
who take their stand by the street will be. The expressionless
uniform twenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same
form, all approachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by
the same pattern of railing, all with the same impracticable fire-
escapes, the same inconvenient fixtures in their heads, and
everything without exception to be taken at a high valuation--who
has not dined with these? The house so drearily out of repair, the
occasional bow-window, the stuccoed house, the newly-fronted house,
the corner house with nothing but angular rooms, the house with the
blinds always down, the house with the hatchment always up, the
house where the collector has called for one quarter of an Idea,
and found nobody at home--who has not dined with these? The house
that nobody will take, and is to be had a bargain--who does not
know her? The showy house that was taken for life by the
disappointed gentleman, and which does not suit him at all--who is
unacquainted with that haunted habitation?

Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs
Merdle. Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not
aware; but Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was
aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. Society had said 'Let us license them;
let us know them.'

Mr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a
Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was
in everything good, from banking to building. He was in
Parliament, of course. He was in the City, necessarily. He was
Chairman of this, Trustee of that, President of the other. The
weightiest of men had said to projectors, 'Now, what name have you
got? Have you got Merdle?'  And, the reply being in the negative,
had said, 'Then I won't look at you.'

This great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom
which required so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest
of crimson and gold some fifteen years before. It was not a bosom
to repose upon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr
Merdle wanted something to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for
the purpose. Storr and Mortimer might have married on the same
speculation.

Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The
jewels showed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in
Society with the jewels displayed upon it, attracted general
admiration. Society approving, Mr Merdle was satisfied. He was
the most disinterested of men,--did everything for Society, and got
as little for himself out of all his gain and care, as a man might.

That is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted,
otherwise with unlimited wealth he would have got it. But his
desire was to the utmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was),
and take up all its drafts upon him for tribute. He did not shine
in company; he had not very much to say for himself; he was a
reserved man, with a broad, overhanging, watchful head, that
particular kind of dull red colour in his cheeks which is rather
stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy expression about his coat-
cuffs, as if they were in his confidence, and had reasons for being
anxious to hide his hands. In the little he said, he was a
pleasant man enough; plain, emphatic about public and private
confidence, and tenacious of the utmost deference being shown by
every one, in all things, to Society. In this same Society (if
that were it which came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle's
receptions and concerts), he hardly seemed to enjoy himself much,
and was mostly to be found against walls and behind doors. Also
when he went out to it, instead of its coming home to him, he
seemed a little fatigued, and upon the whole rather more disposed
for bed; but he was always cultivating it nevertheless, and always
moving in it--and always laying out money on it with the greatest
liberality.

Mrs Merdle's first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices
the bosom had entered into competition with the snows of North
America, and had come off at little disadvantage in point of
whiteness, and at none in point of coldness. The colonel's son was
Mrs Merdle's only child. He was of a chuckle-headed, high-
shouldered make, with a general appearance of being, not so much a
young man as a swelled boy. He had given so few signs of reason,
that a by-word went among his companions that his brain had been
frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St john's, New
Brunswick, at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed
from that hour. Another by-word represented him as having in his
infancy, through the negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high
window on his head, which had been heard by responsible witnesses
to crack. It is probable that both these representations were of
ex post facto origin; the young gentleman (whose expressive name
was Sparkler) being monomaniacal in offering marriage to all manner
of undesirable young ladies, and in remarking of every successive
young lady to whom he tendered a matrimonial proposal that she was
'a doosed fine gal--well educated too--with no biggodd nonsense
about her.'

A son-in-law with these limited talents, might have been a clog
upon another man; but Mr Merdle did not want a son-in-law for
himself; he wanted a son-in-law for Society. Mr Sparkler having
been in the Guards, and being in the habit of frequenting all the
races, and all the lounges, and all the parties, and being well
known, Society was satisfied with its son-in-law. This happy
result Mr Merdle would have considered well attained, though Mr
Sparkler had been a more expensive article. And he did not get Mr
Sparkler by any means cheap for Society, even as it was.
There was a dinner giving in the Harley Street establishment, while
Little Dorrit was stitching at her father's new shirts by his side
that night; and there were magnates from the Court and magnates
from the City, magnates from the Commons and magnates from the
Lords, magnates from the bench and magnates from the bar, Bishop
magnates, Treasury magnates, Horse Guard magnates, Admiralty
magnates,--all the magnates that keep us going, and sometimes trip
us up.

'I am told,' said Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, 'that Mr Merdle
has made another enormous hit. They say a hundred thousand
pounds.'

Horse Guards had heard two.

Treasury had heard three.

Bar, handling his persuasive double eye-glass, was by no means
clear but that it might be four. It was one of those happy strokes
of calculation and combination, the result of which it was
difficult to estimate. It was one of those instances of a
comprehensive grasp, associated with habitual luck and
characteristic boldness, of which an age presented us but few. But
here was Brother Bellows, who had been in the great Bank case, and
who could probably tell us more. What did Brother Bellows put this
new success at?

Brother Bellows was on his way to make his bow to the bosom, and
could only tell them in passing that he had heard it stated, with
great appearance of truth, as being worth, from first to last,
half-a-million of money.

Admiralty said Mr Merdle was a wonderful man, Treasury said he was
a new power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole
House of Commons. Bishop said he was glad to think that this
wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman who was always
disposed to maintain the best interests of Society.

Mr Merdle himself was usually late on these occasions, as a man
still detained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men
had shaken off their dwarfs for the day. On this occasion, he was
the last arrival. Treasury said Merdle's work punished him a
little. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed
into the coffers of a gentleman who accepted it with meekness.

Powder! There was so much Powder in waiting, that it flavoured the
dinner. Pulverous particles got into the dishes, and Society's
meats had a seasoning of first-rate footmen. Mr Merdle took down
a countess who was secluded somewhere in the core of an immense
dress, to which she was in the proportion of the heart to the
overgrown cabbage. If so low a simile may be admitted, the dress
went down the staircase like a richly brocaded Jack in the Green,
and nobody knew what sort of small person carried it.

Society had everything it could want, and could not want, for
dinner. It had everything to look at, and everything to eat, and
everything to drink. It is to be hoped it enjoyed itself; for Mr
Merdle's own share of the repast might have been paid for with
eighteenpence. Mrs Merdle was magnificent. The chief butler was
the next magnificent institution of the day. He was the stateliest
man in the company. He did nothing, but he looked on as few other
men could have done. He was Mr Merdle's last gift to Society. Mr
Merdle didn't want him, and was put out of countenance when the
great creature looked at him; but inappeasable Society would have
him--and had got him.

The invisible countess carried out the Green at the usual stage of
the entertainment, and the file of beauty was closed up by the
bosom. Treasury said, Juno. Bishop said, Judith.

Bar fell into discussion with Horse Guards concerning courts-
martial. Brothers Bellows and Bench struck in. Other magnates
paired off. Mr Merdle sat silent, and looked at the table-cloth.
Sometimes a magnate addressed him, to turn the stream of his own
particular discussion towards him; but Mr Merdle seldom gave much
attention to it, or did more than rouse himself from his
calculations and pass the wine.

When they rose, so many of the magnates had something to say to Mr
Merdle individually that he held little levees by the sideboard,
and checked them off as they went out at the door.

Treasury hoped he might venture to congratulate one of England's
world-famed capitalists and merchant-princes (he had turned that
original sentiment in the house a few times, and it came easy to
him) on a new achievement. To extend the triumphs of such men was
to extend the triumphs and resources of the nation; and Treasury
felt--he gave Mr Merdle to understand--patriotic on the subject.

'Thank you, my lord,' said Mr Merdle; 'thank you. I accept your
congratulations with pride, and I am glad you approve.'

'Why, I don't unreservedly approve, my dear Mr Merdle. Because,'
smiling Treasury turned him by the arm towards the sideboard and
spoke banteringly, 'it never can be worth your while to come among
us and help us.'

Mr Merdle felt honoured by the--

'No, no,' said Treasury, 'that is not the light in which one so
distinguished for practical knowledge and great foresight, can be
expected to regard it. If we should ever be happily enabled, by
accidentally possessing the control over circumstances, to propose
to one so eminent to--to come among us, and give us the weight of
his influence, knowledge, and character, we could only propose it
to him as a duty. In fact, as a duty that he owed to Society.'

Mr Merdle intimated that Society was the apple of his eye, and that
its claims were paramount to every other consideration. Treasury
moved on, and Bar came up.
Bar, with his little insinuating jury droop, and fingering his
persuasive double eye-glass, hoped he might be excused if he
mentioned to one of the greatest converters of the root of all evil
into the root of all good, who had for a long time reflected a
shining lustre on the annals even of our commercial country--if he
mentioned, disinterestedly, and as, what we lawyers called in our
pedantic way, amicus curiae, a fact that had come by accident
within his knowledge. He had been required to look over the title
of a very considerable estate in one of the eastern counties--
lying, in fact, for Mr Merdle knew we lawyers loved to be
particular, on the borders of two of the eastern counties. Now,
the title was perfectly sound, and the estate was to be purchased
by one who had the command of--Money (jury droop and persuasive
eye-glass), on remarkably advantageous terms. This had come to
Bar's knowledge only that day, and it had occurred to him, 'I shall
have the honour of dining with my esteemed friend Mr Merdle this
evening, and, strictly between ourselves, I will mention the
opportunity.'  Such a purchase would involve not only a great
legitimate political influence, but some half-dozen church
presentations of considerable annual value. Now, that Mr Merdle
was already at no loss to discover means of occupying even his
capital, and of fully employing even his active and vigorous
intellect, Bar well knew: but he would venture to suggest that the
question arose in his mind, whether one who had deservedly gained
so high a position and so European a reputation did not owe it--we
would not say to himself, but we would say to Society, to possess
himself of such influences as these; and to exercise them--we would
not say for his own, or for his party's, but we would say for
Society's--benefit.

Mr Merdle again expressed himself as wholly devoted to that object
of his constant consideration, and Bar took his persuasive eye-
glass up the grand staircase. Bishop then came undesignedly
sidling in the direction of the sideboard.

Surely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to
Bishop to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels
than when they accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and
sagacious, who, while they knew the just value of riches (Bishop
tried here to look as if he were rather poor himself), were aware
of their importance, judiciously governed and rightly distributed,
to the welfare of our brethren at large.

Mr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop
couldn't mean him, and with inconsistency expressed his high
gratification in Bishop's good opinion.

Bishop then--jauntily stepping out a little with his well-shaped
right leg, as though he said to Mr Merdle 'don't mind the apron; a
mere form!' put this case to his good friend:

Whether it had occurred to his good friend, that Society might not
unreasonably hope that one so blest in his undertakings, and whose
example on his pedestal was so influential with it, would shed a
little money in the direction of a mission or so to Africa?

Mr Merdle signifying that the idea should have his best attention,
Bishop put another case:

Whether his good friend had at all interested himself in the
proceedings of our Combined Additional Endowed Dignitaries
Committee, and whether it had occurred to him that to shed a little
money in that direction might be a great conception finely
executed?

Mr Merdle made a similar reply, and Bishop explained his reason for
inquiring.

Society looked to such men as his good friend to do such things.
It was not that HE looked to them, but that Society looked to them.

just as it was not Our Committee who wanted the Additional Endowed
Dignitaries, but it was Society that was in a state of the most
agonising uneasiness of mind until it got them. He begged to
assure his good friend that he was extremely sensible of his good
friend's regard on all occasions for the best interests of Society;
and he considered that he was at once consulting those interests
and expressing the feeling of Society, when he wished him continued
prosperity, continued increase of riches, and continued things in
general.

Bishop then betook himself up-stairs, and the other magnates
gradually floated up after him until there was no one left below
but Mr Merdle. That gentleman, after looking at the table-cloth
until the soul of the chief butler glowed with a noble resentment,
went slowly up after the rest, and became of no account in the
stream of people on the grand staircase. Mrs Merdle was at home,
the best of the jewels were hung out to be seen, Society got what
it came for, Mr Merdle drank twopennyworth of tea in a corner and
got more than he wanted.

Among the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew
everybody, and whom everybody knew. On entering at the door, he
came upon Mr Merdle drinking his tea in a corner, and touched him
on the arm.

Mr Merdle started. 'Oh! It's you!'

'Any better to-day?'

'No,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am no better.'

'A pity I didn't see you this morning. Pray come to me to-morrow,
or let me come to you. '

'Well!' he replied. 'I will come to-morrow as I drive by.'
Bar and Bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue,
and as Mr Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their
remarks upon it to the Physician. Bar said, there was a certain
point of mental strain beyond which no man could go; that the point
varied with various textures of brain and peculiarities of
constitution, as he had had occasion to notice in several of his
learned brothers; but the point of endurance passed by a line's
breadth, depression and dyspepsia ensued. Not to intrude on the
sacred mysteries of medicine, he took it, now (with the jury droop
and persuasive eye-glass), that this was Merdle's case? Bishop
said that when he was a young man, and had fallen for a brief space
into the habit of writing sermons on Saturdays, a habit which all
young sons of the church should sedulously avoid, he had frequently
been sensible of a depression, arising as he supposed from an over-
taxed intellect, upon which the yolk of a new-laid egg, beaten up
by the good woman in whose house he at that time lodged, with a
glass of sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered sugar acted like a
charm. Without presuming to offer so simple a remedy to the
consideration of so profound a professor of the great healing art,
he would venture to inquire whether the strain, being by way of
intricate calculations, the spirits might not (humanly speaking) be
restored to their tone by a gentle and yet generous stimulant?

'Yes,' said the physician, 'yes, you are both right. But I may as
well tell you that I can find nothing the matter with Mr Merdle.
He has the constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an
ostrich, and the concentration of an oyster. As to nerves, Mr
Merdle is of a cool temperament, and not a sensitive man: is about
as invulnerable, I should say, as Achilles. How such a man should
suppose himself unwell without reason, you may think strange. But
I have found nothing the matter with him. He may have some deep-
seated recondite complaint. I can't say. I only say, that at
present I have not found it out.'

There was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the bosom now
displaying precious stones in rivalry with many similar superb
jewel-stands; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on young
Sparkler hovering about the rooms, monomaniacally seeking any
sufficiently ineligible young lady with no nonsense about her;
there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the Barnacles and
Stiltstalkings, of whom whole colonies were present; or on any of
the company. Even on himself, its shadow was faint enough as he
moved about among the throng, receiving homage.

Mr Merdle's complaint. Society and he had so much to do with one
another in all things else, that it is hard to imagine his
complaint, if he had one, being solely his own affair. Had he that
deep-seated recondite complaint, and did any doctor find it out?
Patience. in the meantime, the shadow of the Marshalsea wall was
a real darkening influence, and could be seen on the Dorrit Family
at any stage of the sun's course.

CHAPTER 22

A Puzzle

Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the
Marshalsea in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness
on the great Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken
admiration in the paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to
give offence in that sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a
positive shortcoming in point of gentlemanly feeling. An
impression of disappointment, occasioned by the discovery that Mr
Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for which, in the
confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give him credit,
began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that
gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family
circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts.
He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and
representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called
to pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him
personally. There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it
was) wanting in him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any
outward show of politeness, but, on the contrary, honoured him with
much attention; perhaps cherishing the hope that, although not a
man of a sufficiently brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to
repeat his former testimonial unsolicited, it might still be within
the compass of his nature to bear the part of a responsive
gentleman, in any correspondence that way tending.

In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had
been accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance,
of the gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of
the Father of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting
him out, and of the gentleman from outside who took an interest in
the child of the Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark.

He was not surprised by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery
when that officer was on the lock, for he made little distinction
between Mr Chivery's politeness and that of the other turnkeys. It
was on one particular afternoon that Mr Chivery surprised him all
at once, and stood forth from his companions in bold relief.

Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the
Lodge, had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so
that Clennam, coming out of the prison, should find him on duty
alone.

'(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,' said Mr Chivery in a secret
manner; 'but which way might you be going?'

'I am going over the Bridge.'  He saw in Mr Chivery, with some
astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his
key on his lips.

'(Private) I ask your pardon again,' said Mr Chivery, 'but could
you go round by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time
to look in at that address?' handing him a little card, printed for
circulation among the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists,
Importers of pure Havannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-
flavoured Cubas, Dealers in Fancy Snuffs, &C. &C.

'(Private) It an't tobacco business,' said Mr Chivery. 'The truth
is, it's my wife. She's wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a
point respecting--yes,' said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam's look
of apprehension with a nod, 'respecting her.'

'I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.'

'Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an't above ten minutes out of
your way. Please to ask for Mrs Chivery!'  These instructions, Mr
Chivery, who had already let him out, cautiously called through a
little slide in the outer door, which he could draw back from
within for the inspection of visitors when it pleased him.

Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the
address set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a
very small establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the
counter working at her needle. Little jars of tobacco, little
boxes of cigars, a little assortment of pipes, a little jar or two
of snuff, and a little instrument like a shoeing horn for serving
it out, composed the retail stock in trade.

Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the
solicitation of Mr Chivery. About something relating to Miss
Dorrit, he believed. Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose
up from her seat behind the counter, and deploringly shook her
head.

'You may see him now,' said she, 'if you'll condescend to take a
peep.'

With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little
parlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a
very little dull back-yard. In this yard a wash of sheets and
table-cloths tried (in vain, for want of air) to get itself dried
on a line or two; and among those flapping articles was sitting in
a chair, like the last mariner left alive on the deck of a damp
ship without the power of furling the sails, a little woe-begone
young man.

'Our John,' said Mrs Chivery.

Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be
doing there?

'It's the only change he takes,' said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head
afresh. 'He won't go out, even in the back-yard, when there's no
linen; but when there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off,
he'll sit there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was
groves!'  Mrs Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a
motherly way to her eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the
regions of the business.

'Please to take a seat, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Miss Dorrit is
the matter with Our John, sir; he's a breaking his heart for her,
and I would wish to take the liberty to ask how it's to be made
good to his parents when bust?'

Mrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected
about Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation,
uttered this speech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards
began again to shake her head and dry her eyes.

'Sir,' said she in continuation, 'you are acquainted with the
family, and have interested yourself with the family, and are
influential with the family. If you can promote views calculated
to make two young people happy, let me, for Our john's sake, and
for both their sakes, implore you so to do!'

'I have been so habituated,' returned Arthur, at a loss, 'during
the short time I have known her, to consider Little-- I have been
so habituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed
from that in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by
surprise. Does she know your son?'

'Brought up together, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Played together.'

'Does she know your son as her admirer?'

'Oh! bless you, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant
shiver, 'she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing
he was that. His cane alone would have told it long ago, if
nothing else had. Young men like John don't take to ivory hands a
pinting, for nothing. How did I first know it myself? Similarly.'

'Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.'

'Then she knows it, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'by word of mouth.'

'Are you sure?'

'Sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'sure and certain as in this house I am.
I see my son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and
I see my son come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and
I know he done it!'  Mrs Chivery derived a surprising force of
emphasis from the foregoing circumstantiality and repetition.

'May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which
causes you so much uneasiness?'

'That,' said Mrs Chivery, 'took place on that same day when to this
house I see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself
in this house since. Never was like what he has been since, not
from the hour when to this house seven year ago me and his father,
as tenants by the quarter, came!'  An effect in the nature of an
affidavit was gained from this speech by Mrs Chivery's peculiar
power of construction.
'May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?'

'You may,' said Mrs Chivery, 'and I will give it to you in honour
and in word as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has every
one's good word and every one's good wish. He played with her as
a child when in that yard a child she played. He has known her
ever since. He went out upon the Sunday afternoon when in this
very parlour he had dined, and met her, with appointment or without
appointment; which, I do not pretend to say. He made his offer to
her. Her brother and sister is high in their views, and against
Our John. Her father is all for himself in his views and against
sharing her with any one. Under which circumstances she has
answered Our John, "No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have any
husband, it is not my intentions ever to become a wife, it is my
intentions to be always a sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy
of you, and forget me!" This is the way in which she is doomed to
be a constant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant
slave she unto them should be. This is the way in which Our John
has come to find no pleasure but in taking cold among the linen,
and in showing in that yard, as in that yard I have myself shown
you, a broken-down ruin that goes home to his mother's heart!'
Here the good woman pointed to the little window, whence her son
might be seen sitting disconsolate in the tuneless groves; and
again shook her head and wiped her eyes, and besought him, for the
united sakes of both the young people, to exercise his influence
towards the bright reversal of these dismal events.

She was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so
undeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative
positions of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that
Clennam could not feel positive on the other side. He had come to
attach to Little Dorrit an interest so peculiar--an interest that
removed her from, while it grew out of, the common and coarse
things surrounding her--that he found it disappointing,
disagreeable, almost painful, to suppose her in love with young Mr
Chivery in the back-yard, or any such person. On the other hand,
he reasoned with himself that she was just as good and just as true
in love with him, as not in love with him; and that to make a kind
of domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty of isolation at heart
from the only people she knew, would be but a weakness of his own
fancy, and not a kind one. Still, her youthful and ethereal
appearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice and
eyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out of
her own individuality, and the strong difference between herself
and those about her, were not in unison, and were determined not to
be in unison, with this newly presented idea.

He told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in
his mind--he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking--that he
might be relied upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the
happiness of Miss Dorrit, and to further the wishes of her heart if
it were in his power to do so, and if he could discover what they
were. At the same time he cautioned her against assumptions and
appearances; enjoined strict silence and secrecy, lest Miss Dorrit
should be made unhappy; and particularly advised her to endeavour
to win her son's confidence and so to make quite sure of the state
of the case. Mrs Chivery considered the latter precaution
superfluous, but said she would try. She shook her head as if she
had not derived all the comfort she had fondly expected from this
interview, but thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had
kindly taken. They then parted good friends, and Arthur walked
away.

The crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two
crowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off
in the quieter direction of the Iron Bridge. He had scarcely set
foot upon it, when he saw Little Dorrit walking on before him. It
was a pleasant day, with a light breeze blowing, and she seemed to
have that minute come there for air. He had left her in her
father's room within an hour.

It was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her
face and manner when no one else was by. He quickened his pace;
but before he reached her, she turned her head.

'Have I startled you?' he asked.

'I thought I knew the step,' she answered, hesitating.

'And did you know it, Little Dorrit? You could hardly have
expected mine.'

'I did not expect any. But when I heard a step, I thought it--
sounded like yours.'

'Are you going further?'

'No, sir, I am only walking her for a little change.'

They walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with
him, and looked up in his face as she said, after glancing around:

'It is so strange. Perhaps you can hardly understand it. I
sometimes have a sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk
here.'

'Unfeeling?'

'To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such
change and motion. Then to go back, you know, and find him in the
same cramped place.'

'Ah yes! But going back, you must remember that you take with you
the spirit and influence of such things to cheer him.'

'Do I? I hope I may! I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and
make me out too powerful. If you were in prison, could I bring
such comfort to you?'
'Yes, Little Dorrit, I am sure of it.'

He gathered from a tremor on her lip, and a passing shadow of great
agitation on her face, that her mind was with her father. He
remained silent for a few moments, that she might regain her
composure. The Little Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in
unison than ever with Mrs Chivery's theory, and yet was not
irreconcilable with a new fancy which sprung up within him, that
there might be some one else in the hopeless--newer fancy still--in
the hopeless unattainable distance.

They turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggy coming! Little
Dorrit looked up, surprised, and they confronted Maggy, who brought
herself at sight of them to a dead stop. She had been trotting
along, so preoccupied and busy that she had not recognised them
until they turned upon her. She was now in a moment so conscience-
stricken that her very basket partook of the change.

'Maggy, you promised me to stop near father.'

'So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn't let me. If he takes
and sends me out I must go. If he takes and says, "Maggy, you
hurry away and back with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence
if the answer's a good 'un," I must take it. Lor, Little Mother,
what's a poor thing of ten year old to do? And if Mr Tip--if he
happens to be a coming in as I come out, and if he says "Where are
you going, Maggy?" and if I says, "I'm a going So and So," and if
he says, "I'll have a Try too," and if he goes into the George and
writes a letter and if he gives it me and says, "Take that one to
the same place, and if the answer's a good 'un I'll give you a
shilling," it ain't my fault, mother!'

Arthur read, in Little Dorrit's downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw
that the letters were addressed.

'I'm a going So and So. There! That's where I am a going to,'
said Maggy. 'I'm a going So and So. It ain't you, Little Mother,
that's got anything to do with it--it's you, you know,' said Maggy,
addressing Arthur. 'You'd better come, So and So, and let me take
and give 'em to you.'

'We will not be so particular as that, Maggy. Give them me here,'
said Clennam in a low voice.

'Well, then, come across the road,' answered Maggy in a very loud
whisper. 'Little Mother wasn't to know nothing of it, and she
would never have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and
So, instead of bothering and loitering about. It ain't my fault.
I must do what I am told. They ought to be ashamed of themselves
for telling me.'

Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the
letters. That from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly
finding himself in the novel position of having been disappointed
of a remittance from the City on which he had confidently counted,
he took up his pen, being restrained by the unhappy circumstance of
his incarceration during three-and-twenty years (doubly
underlined), from coming himself, as he would otherwise certainly
have done--took up his pen to entreat Mr Clennam to advance him the
sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his I.O.U., which he begged
to enclose. That from the son set forth that Mr Clennam would, he
knew, be gratified to hear that he had at length obtained permanent
employment of a highly satisfactory nature, accompanied with every
prospect of complete success in life; but that the temporary
inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary to that
date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that
generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting
towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of
a false friend and the present high price of provisions, had
reduced him to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter
before six that evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum,
Mr Clennam would be happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude
of several friends who had a lively confidence in his probity,
already raised, with the exception of a trifling balance of one
pound seventeen and fourpence; the loan of which balance, for the
period of one month, would be fraught with the usual beneficent
consequences.

These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and
pocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and
excusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son. He
then commissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her
the shilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise
would have disappointed her otherwise.

When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as
before, she said all at once:

'I think I had better go. I had better go home.'

'Don't be distressed,' said Clennam, 'I have answered the letters.
They were nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing.'

'But I am afraid,' she returned, 'to leave him, I am afraid to
leave any of them. When I am gone, they pervert--but they don't
mean it--even Maggy.'

'It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing.
And in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she
was only saving you uneasiness.'

'Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but
the other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the
prison that I had its tone and character. It must be so. I am
sure it must be when I see these things. My place is there. I am
better there. it is unfeeling in me to be here, when I can do the
least thing there. Good-bye. I had far better stay at home!'

The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of
itself from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to
keep the tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her.

'Don't call it home, my child!' he entreated. 'It is always
painful to me to hear you call it home.'

'But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever
forget it for a single moment?'

'You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.'

'I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there;
much better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don't go with
me, let me go by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you,
thank you.'

He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not
move while her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had
fluttered out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and
stood thinking.

She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the
letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way?

No.

When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise
on, when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she
had been distressed, but not like this. Something had made her
keenly and additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some
one in the hopeless unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion
been brought into his mind, by his own associations of the troubled
river running beneath the bridge with the same river higher up, its
changeless tune upon the prow of the ferry-boat, so many miles an
hour the peaceful flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the
lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet?

He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there;
he thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he
thought of her when the day came round again. And the poor child
Little Dorrit thought of him--too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!--
in the shadow of the Marshalsea wall.

CHAPTER 23

Machinery in Motion

Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the
matter of the negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had
entrusted to him, that he soon brought it into business train, and
called on Clennam at nine o'clock one morning to make his report.
'Doyce is highly gratified by your good opinion,' he opened the
business by saying, 'and desires nothing so much as that you should
examine the affairs of the Works for yourself, and entirely
understand them. He has handed me the keys of all his books and
papers--here they are jingling in this pocket--and the only charge
he has given me is "Let Mr Clennam have the means of putting
himself on a perfect equality with me as to knowing whatever I
know. If it should come to nothing after all, he will respect my
confidence. Unless I was sure of that to begin with, I should have
nothing to do with him."  And there, you see,' said Mr Meagles,
'you have Daniel Doyce all over.'

'A very honourable character.'

'Oh, yes, to be sure. Not a doubt of it. Odd, but very
honourable. Very odd though. Now, would you believe, Clennam,'
said Mr Meagles, with a hearty enjoyment of his friend's
eccentricity, 'that I had a whole morning in What's-his-name Yard--
'

'Bleeding Heart?'

'A whole morning in Bleeding Heart Yard, before I could induce him
to pursue the subject at all?'

'How was that?'

'How was that, my friend? I no sooner mentioned your name in
connection with it than he declared off.'

'Declared off on my account?'

'I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, "That will
never do!" What did he mean by that? I asked him. No matter,
Meagles; that would never do. Why would it never do? You'll
hardly believe it, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, laughing within
himself, 'but it came out that it would never do, because you and
he, walking down to Twickenham together, had glided into a friendly
conversation in the course of which he had referred to his
intention of taking a partner, supposing at the time that you were
as firmly and finally settled as St Paul's Cathedral. "Whereas,"
says he, "Mr Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his
proposition, that I had a sinister and designing motive in what was
open free speech. Which I can't bear," says he, "which I really

am too proud to bear."'

'I should as soon suspect--'

'Of course you would,' interrupted Mr Meagles, 'and so I told him.
But it took a morning to scale that wall; and I doubt if any other
man than myself (he likes me of old) could have got his leg over
it. Well, Clennam. This business-like obstacle surmounted, he
then stipulated that before resuming with you I should look over
the books and form my own opinion. I looked over the books, and
formed my own opinion. "Is it, on the whole, for, or against?"
says he. "For," says I. "Then," says he, "you may now, my good
friend, give Mr Clennam the means of forming his opinion. To
enable him to do which, without bias and with perfect freedom, I
shall go out of town for a week."  And he's gone,' said Mr Meagles;
that's the rich conclusion of the thing.'

'Leaving me,' said Clennam, 'with a high sense, I must say, of his
candour and his--'

'Oddity,' Mr Meagles struck in. 'I should think so!'

It was not exactly the word on Clennam's lips, but he forbore to
interrupt his good-humoured friend.

'And now,' added Mr Meagles, 'you can begin to look into matters as
soon as you think proper. I have undertaken to explain where you
may want explanation, but to be strictly impartial, and to do
nothing more.'

They began their perquisitions in Bleeding Heart Yard that same
forenoon. Little peculiarities were easily to be detected by
experienced eyes in Mr Doyce's way of managing his affairs, but
they almost always involved some ingenious simplification of a
difficulty, and some plain road to the desired end. That his
papers were in arrear, and that he stood in need of assistance to
develop the capacity of his business, was clear enough; but all the
results of his undertakings during many years were distinctly set
forth, and were ascertainable with ease. Nothing had been done for
the purposes of the pending investigation; everything was in its
genuine working dress, and in a certain honest rugged order. The
calculations and entries, in his own hand, of which there were
many, were bluntly written, and with no very neat precision; but
were always plain and directed straight to the purpose. It
occurred to Arthur that a far more elaborate and taking show of
business--such as the records of the Circumlocution Office made
perhaps--might be far less serviceable, as being meant to be far
less intelligible.

Three or four days of steady application tendered him master of all
the facts it was essential to become acquainted with. Mr Meagles
was at hand the whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim
place with the bright little safety-lamp belonging to the scales
and scoop. Between them they agreed upon the sum it would be fair
to offer for the purchase of a half-share in the business, and then
Mr Meagles unsealed a paper in which Daniel Doyce had noted the
amount at which he valued it; which was even something less. Thus,
when Daniel came back, he found the affair as good as concluded.

'And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,' said he, with a cordial shake of
the hand, 'that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I
believe I could not have found one more to my mind.'

'I say the same,' said Clennam.

'And I say of both of you,' added Mr Meagles, 'that you are well
matched. You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense,
and you stick to the Works, Dan, with your--'

'Uncommon sense?' suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile.

'You may call it so, if you like--and each of you will be a right
hand to the other. Here's my own right hand upon it, as a
practical man, to both of you.'

The purchase was completed within a month. It left Arthur in
possession of private personal means not exceeding a few hundred
pounds; but it opened to him an active and promising career. The
three friends dined together on the auspicious occasion; the
factory and the factory wives and children made holiday and dined
too; even Bleeding Heart Yard dined and was full of meat. Two
months had barely gone by in all, when Bleeding Heart Yard had
become so familiar with short-commons again, that the treat was
forgotten there; when nothing seemed new in the partnership but the
paint of the inscription on the door-posts, DOYCE AND CLENNAM; when
it appeared even to Clennam himself, that he had had the affairs of
the firm in his mind for years.

The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a
room of wood and glass at the end of a long low workshop, filled
with benches, and vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which,
when they were in gear with the steam-engine, went tearing round as
though they had a suicidal mission to grind the business to dust
and tear the factory to pieces. A communication of great trap-
doors in the floor and roof with the workshop above and the
workshop below, made a shaft of light in this perspective, which
brought to Clennam's mind the child's old picture-book, where
similar rays were the witnesses of Abel's murder. The noises were
sufficiently removed and shut out from the counting-house to blend
into a busy hum, interspersed with periodical clinks and thumps.
The patient figures at work were swarthy with the filings of iron
and steel that danced on every bench and bubbled up through every
chink in the planking. The workshop was arrived at by a step-
ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for
the large grindstone where tools were sharpened. The whole had at
once a fanciful and practical air in Clennam's eyes, which was a
welcome change; and, as often as he raised them from his first work
of getting the array of business documents into perfect order, he
glanced at these things with a feeling of pleasure in his pursuit
that was new to him.

Raising his eyes thus one day, he was surprised to see a bonnet
labouring up the step-ladder. The unusual apparition was followed
by another bonnet. He then perceived that the first bonnet was on
the head of Mr F.'s Aunt, and that the second bonnet was on the
head of Flora, who seemed to have propelled her legacy up the steep
ascent with considerable difficulty.
Though not altogether enraptured at the sight of these visitors,
Clennam lost no time in opening the counting-house door, and
extricating them from the workshop; a rescue which was rendered the
more necessary by Mr F.'s Aunt already stumbling over some
impediment, and menacing steam power as an Institution with a stony
reticule she carried.

'Good gracious, Arthur,--I should say Mr Clennam, far more proper--
the climb we have had to get up here and how ever to get down again
without a fire-escape and Mr F.'s Aunt slipping through the steps
and bruised all over and you in the machinery and foundry way too
only think, and never told us!'

Thus, Flora, out of breath. Meanwhile, Mr F.'s Aunt rubbed her
esteemed insteps with her umbrella, and vindictively glared.

'Most unkind never to have come back to see us since that day,
though naturally it was not to be expected that there should be any
attraction at our house and you were much more pleasantly engaged,
that's pretty certain, and is she fair or dark blue eyes or black
I wonder, not that I expect that she should be anything but a
perfect contrast to me in all particulars for I am a disappointment
as I very well know and you are quite right to be devoted no doubt
though what I am saying Arthur never mind I hardly know myself Good
gracious!'

By this time he had placed chairs for them in the counting-house.
As Flora dropped into hers, she bestowed the old look upon him.

'And to think of Doyce and Clennam, and who Doyce can be,' said
Flora; 'delightful man no doubt and married perhaps or perhaps a
daughter, now has he really? then one understands the partnership
and sees it all, don't tell me anything about it for I know I have
no claim to ask the question the golden chain that once was forged
being snapped and very proper.'

Flora put her hand tenderly on his, and gave him another of the
youthful glances.

'Dear Arthur--force of habit, Mr Clennam every way more delicate
and adapted to existing circumstances--I must beg to be excused for
taking the liberty of this intrusion but I thought I might so far
presume upon old times for ever faded never more to bloom as to
call with Mr F.'s Aunt to congratulate and offer best wishes, A
great deal superior to China not to be denied and much nearer
though higher up!'

'I am very happy to see you,' said Clennam, 'and I thank you,
Flora, very much for your kind remembrance.'

'More than I can say myself at any rate,' returned Flora, 'for I
might have been dead and buried twenty distinct times over and no
doubt whatever should have been before you had genuinely remembered
Me or anything like it in spite of which one last remark I wish to
make, one last explanation I wish to offer--'

'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur remonstrated in alarm.

'Oh not that disagreeable name, say Flora!'

'Flora, is it worth troubling yourself afresh to enter into
explanations? I assure you none are needed. I am satisfied--I am
perfectly satisfied.'

A diversion was occasioned here, by Mr F.'s Aunt making the
following inexorable and awful statement:

'There's mile-stones on the Dover road!'

With such mortal hostility towards the human race did she discharge
this missile, that Clennam was quite at a loss how to defend
himself; the rather as he had been already perplexed in his mind by
the honour of a visit from this venerable lady, when it was plain
she held him in the utmost abhorrence. He could not but look at
her with disconcertment, as she sat breathing bitterness and scorn,
and staring leagues away. Flora, however, received the remark as
if it had been of a most apposite and agreeable nature; approvingly
observing aloud that Mr F.'s Aunt had a great deal of spirit.
Stimulated either by this compliment, or by her burning
indignation, that illustrious woman then added, 'Let him meet it if
he can!'  And, with a rigid movement of her stony reticule (an
appendage of great size and of a fossil appearance), indicated that
Clennam was the unfortunate person at whom the challenge was
hurled.

'One last remark,' resumed Flora, 'I was going to say I wish to
make one last explanation I wish to offer, Mr F.'s Aunt and myself
would not have intruded on business hours Mr F. having been in
business and though the wine trade still business is equally
business call it what you will and business habits are just the
same as witness Mr F. himself who had his slippers always on the
mat at ten minutes before six in the afternoon and his boots inside
the fender at ten minutes before eight in the morning to the moment
in all weathers light or dark--would not therefore have intruded
without a motive which being kindly meant it may be hoped will be
kindly taken Arthur, Mr Clennam far more proper, even Doyce and
Clennam probably more business-like.'

'Pray say nothing in the way of apology,' Arthur entreated. 'You
are always welcome.'

'Very polite of you to say so Arthur--cannot remember Mr Clennam
until the word is out, such is the habit of times for ever fled,
and so true it is that oft in the stilly night ere slumber's chain
has bound people, fond memory brings the light of other days around
people--very polite but more polite than true I am afraid, for to
go into the machinery business without so much as sending a line or
a card to papa--I don't say me though there was a time but that is
past and stern reality has now my gracious never mind--does not
look like it you must confess.'

Even Flora's commas seemed to have fled on this occasion; she was
so much more disjointed and voluble than in the preceding
interview.

'Though indeed,' she hurried on, 'nothing else is to be expected
and why should it be expected and if it's not to be expected why
should it be, and I am far from blaming you or any one, When your
mama and my papa worried us to death and severed the golden bowl--I
mean bond but I dare say you know what I mean and if you don't you
don't lose much and care just as little I will venture to add--when
they severed the golden bond that bound us and threw us into fits
of crying on the sofa nearly choked at least myself everything was
changed and in giving my hand to Mr F. I know I did so with my eyes
open but he was so very unsettled and in such low spirits that he
had distractedly alluded to the river if not oil of something from
the chemist's and I did it for the best.'

'My good Flora, we settled that before. It was all quite right.'

'It's perfectly clear you think so,' returned Flora, 'for you take
it very coolly, if I hadn't known it to be China I should have
guessed myself the Polar regions, dear Mr Clennam you are right
however and I cannot blame you but as to Doyce and Clennam papa's
property being about here we heard it from Pancks and but for him
we never should have heard one word about it I am satisfied.'

'No, no, don't say that.'

'What nonsense not to say it Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--easier and
less trying to me than Mr Clennam--when I know it and you know it
too and can't deny it.'

'But I do deny it, Flora. I should soon have made you a friendly
visit.'

'Ah!' said Flora, tossing her head. 'I dare say!' and she gave him
another of the old looks. 'However when Pancks told us I made up
my mind that Mr F.'s Aunt and I would come and call because when
papa--which was before that--happened to mention her name to me and
to say that you were interested in her I said at the moment Good
gracious why not have her here then when there's anything to do
instead of putting it out.'

'When you say Her,' observed Clennam, by this time pretty well
bewildered, 'do you mean Mr F.'s--'

'My goodness, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam really easier to me with
old remembrances--who ever heard of Mr F.'s Aunt doing needlework
and going out by the day?'

'Going out by the day! Do you speak of Little Dorrit?'
'Why yes of course,' returned Flora; 'and of all the strangest
names I ever heard the strangest, like a place down in the country
with a turnpike, or a favourite pony or a puppy or a bird or
something from a seed-shop to be put in a garden or a flower-pot
and come up speckled.'

'Then, Flora,' said Arthur, with a sudden interest in the
conversation, 'Mr Casby was so kind as to mention Little Dorrit to
you, was he? What did he say?'

'Oh you know what papa is,' rejoined Flora, 'and how aggravatingly
he sits looking beautiful and turning his thumbs over and over one
another till he makes one giddy if one keeps one's eyes upon him,
he said when we were talking of you--I don't know who began the
subject Arthur (Doyce and Clennam) but I am sure it wasn't me, at
least I hope not but you really must excuse my confessing more on
that point.'

'Certainly,' said Arthur. 'By all means.'

'You are very ready,' pouted Flora, coming to a sudden stop in a
captivating bashfulness, 'that I must admit, Papa said you had
spoken of her in an earnest way and I said what I have told you and
that's all.'

'That's all?' said Arthur, a little disappointed.

'Except that when Pancks told us of your having embarked in this
business and with difficulty persuaded us that it was really you I
said to Mr F.'s Aunt then we would come and ask you if it would be
agreeable to all parties that she should be engaged at our house
when required for I know she often goes to your mama's and I know
that your mama has a very touchy temper Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--
or I never might have married Mr F. and might have been at this
hour but I am running into nonsense.'

'It was very kind of you, Flora, to think of this.'

Poor Flora rejoined with a plain sincerity which became her better
than her youngest glances, that she was glad he thought so. She
said it with so much heart that Clennam would have given a great
deal to buy his old character of her on the spot, and throw it and
the mermaid away for ever.

'I think, Flora,' he said, 'that the employment you can give Little
Dorrit, and the kindness you can show her--'

'Yes and I will,' said Flora, quickly.

'I am sure of it--will be a great assistance and support to her.
I do not feel that I have the right to tell you what I know of her,
for I acquired the knowledge confidentially, and under
circumstances that bind me to silence. But I have an interest in
the little creature, and a respect for her that I cannot express to
you. Her life has been one of such trial and devotion, and such
quiet goodness, as you can scarcely imagine. I can hardly think of
her, far less speak of her, without feeling moved. Let that
feeling represent what I could tell you, and commit her to your
friendliness with my thanks.'

Once more he put out his hand frankly to poor Flora; once more poor
Flora couldn't accept it frankly, found it worth nothing openly,
must make the old intrigue and mystery of it. As much to her own
enjoyment as to his dismay, she covered it with a corner of her
shawl as she took it. Then, looking towards the glass front of the
counting-house, and seeing two figures approaching, she cried with
infinite relish, 'Papa! Hush, Arthur, for Mercy's sake!' and
tottered back to her chair with an amazing imitation of being in
danger of swooning, in the dread surprise and maidenly flutter of
her spirits.

The Patriarch, meanwhile, came inanely beaming towards the
counting-house in the wake of Pancks. Pancks opened the door for
him, towed him in, and retired to his own moorings in a corner.

'I heard from Flora,' said the Patriarch with his benevolent smile,
'that she was coming to call, coming to call. And being out, I
thought I'd come also, thought I'd come also.'

The benign wisdom he infused into this declaration (not of itself
profound), by means of his blue eyes, his shining head, and his
long white hair, was most impressive. It seemed worth putting down
among the noblest sentiments enunciated by the best of men. Also,
when he said to Clennam, seating himself in the proffered chair,
'And you are in a new business, Mr Clennam? I wish you well, sir,
I wish you well!' he seemed to have done benevolent wonders.

'Mrs Finching has been telling me, sir,' said Arthur, after making
his acknowledgments; the relict of the late Mr F. meanwhile
protesting, with a gesture, against his use of that respectable
name; 'that she hopes occasionally to employ the young needlewoman
you recommended to my mother. For which I have been thanking her.'

The Patriarch turning his head in a lumbering way towards Pancks,
that assistant put up the note-book in which he had been absorbed,
and took him in tow.

'You didn't recommend her, you know,' said Pancks; 'how could you?
You knew nothing about her, you didn't. The name was mentioned to
you, and you passed it on. That's what YOU did.'

'Well!' said Clennam. 'As she justifies any recommendation, it is
much the same thing.'

'You are glad she turns out well,' said Pancks, 'but it wouldn't
have been your fault if she had turned out ill. The credit's not
yours as it is, and the blame wouldn't have been yours as it might
have been. You gave no guarantee. You knew nothing about her.'
'You are not acquainted, then,' said Arthur, hazarding a random
question, 'with any of her family?'

'Acquainted with any of her family?' returned Pancks. 'How should
you be acquainted with any of her family? You never heard of 'em.
You can't be acquainted with people you never heard of, can you?
You should think not!'

All this time the Patriarch sat serenely smiling; nodding or
shaking his head benevolently, as the case required.

'As to being a reference,' said Pancks, 'you know, in a general
way, what being a reference means. It's all your eye, that is!
Look at your tenants down the Yard here. They'd all be references
for one another, if you'd let 'em. What would be the good of
letting 'em? It's no satisfaction to be done by two men instead of
one. One's enough. A person who can't pay, gets another person
who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with
two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to
guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don't make either
of them able to do a walking match. And four wooden legs are more
troublesome to you than two, when you don't want any.'  Mr Pancks
concluded by blowing off that steam of his.

A momentary silence that ensued was broken by Mr F.'s Aunt, who had
been sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public
remark. She now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce
a startling effect on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with the
deadliest animosity observed:

'You can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing
in it. You couldn't do it when your Uncle George was living; much
less when he's dead.'

Mr Pancks was not slow to reply, with his usual calmness, 'Indeed,
ma'am! Bless my soul! I'm surprised to hear it.'  Despite his
presence of mind, however, the speech of Mr F.'s Aunt produced a
depressing effect on the little assembly; firstly, because it was
impossible to disguise that Clennam's unoffending head was the
particular temple of reason depreciated; and secondly, because
nobody ever knew on these occasions whose Uncle George was referred
to, or what spectral presence might be invoked under that
appellation.

Therefore Flora said, though still not without a certain
boastfulness and triumph in her legacy, that Mr F.'s Aunt was 'very
lively to-day, and she thought they had better go.'  But Mr F.'s
Aunt proved so lively as to take the suggestion in unexpected
dudgeon and declare that she would not go; adding, with several
injurious expressions, that if 'He'--too evidently meaning
Clennam--wanted to get rid of her, 'let him chuck her out of
winder;' and urgently expressing her desire to see 'Him' perform
that ceremony.

In this dilemma, Mr Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any
emergency in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped
out at the counting-house door, and slipped in again a moment
afterwards with an artificial freshness upon him, as if he had been
in the country for some weeks. 'Why, bless my heart, ma'am!' said
Mr Pancks, rubbing up his hair in great astonishment, 'is that you?

How do you do, ma'am? You are looking charming to-day! I am
delighted to see you. Favour me with your arm, ma'am; we'll have
a little walk together, you and me, if you'll honour me with your
company.'  And so escorted Mr F.'s Aunt down the private staircase
of the counting-house with great gallantry and success. The
patriarchal Mr Casby then rose with the air of having done it
himself, and blandly followed: leaving his daughter, as she
followed in her turn, to remark to her former lover in a distracted
whisper (which she very much enjoyed), that they had drained the
cup of life to the dregs; and further to hint mysteriously that the
late Mr F. was at the bottom of it.

Alone again, Clennam became a prey to his old doubts in reference
to his mother and Little Dorrit, and revolved the old thoughts and
suspicions. They were all in his mind, blending themselves with
the duties he was mechanically discharging, when a shadow on his
papers caused him to look up for the cause. The cause was Mr
Pancks. With his hat thrown back upon his ears as if his wiry
prongs of hair had darted up like springs and cast it off, with his
jet-black beads of eyes inquisitively sharp, with the fingers of
his right hand in his mouth that he might bite the nails, and with
the fingers of his left hand in reserve in his pocket for another
course, Mr Pancks cast his shadow through the glass upon the books
and papers.

Mr Pancks asked, with a little inquiring twist of his head, if he
might come in again? Clennam replied with a nod of his head in the
affirmative. Mr Pancks worked his way in, came alongside the desk,
made himself fast by leaning his arms upon it, and started
conversation with a puff and a snort.

'Mr F.'s Aunt is appeased, I hope?' said Clennam.

'All right, sir,' said Pancks.

'I am so unfortunate as to have awakened a strong animosity in the
breast of that lady,' said Clennam. 'Do you know why?'

'Does SHE know why?' said Pancks.

'I suppose not.'

'_I_ suppose not,' said Pancks.

He took out his note-book, opened it, shut it, dropped it into his
hat, which was beside him on the desk, and looked in at it as it
lay at the bottom of the hat: all with a great appearance of
consideration.

'Mr Clennam,' he then began, 'I am in want of information, sir.'

'Connected with this firm?' asked Clennam.

'No,' said Pancks.

'With what then, Mr Pancks? That is to say, assuming that you want
it of me.'

'Yes, sir; yes, I want it of you,' said Pancks, 'if I can persuade
you to furnish it. A, B, C, D. DA, DE, DI, DO. Dictionary order.

Dorrit. That's the name, sir?'

Mr Pancks blew off his peculiar noise again, and fell to at his
right-hand nails. Arthur looked searchingly at him; he returned
the look.

'I don't understand you, Mr Pancks.'

'That's the name that I want to know about.'

'And what do you want to know?'

'Whatever you can and will tell me.'  This comprehensive summary of
his desires was not discharged without some heavy labouring on the
part of Mr Pancks's machinery.

'This is a singular visit, Mr Pancks. It strikes me as rather
extraordinary that you should come, with such an object, to me.'

'It may be all extraordinary together,' returned Pancks. 'It may
be out of the ordinary course, and yet be business. In short, it
is business. I am a man of business. What business have I in this
present world, except to stick to business? No business.'

With his former doubt whether this dry hard personage were quite in
earnest, Clennam again turned his eyes attentively upon his face.
It was as scrubby and dingy as ever, and as eager and quick as
ever, and he could see nothing lurking in it that was at all
expressive of a latent mockery that had seemed to strike upon his
ear in the voice.

'Now,' said Pancks, 'to put this business on its own footing, it's
not my proprietor's.'

'Do you refer to Mr Casby as your proprietor?'

Pancks nodded. 'My proprietor. Put a case. Say, at my
proprietor's I hear name--name of young person Mr Clennam wants to
serve. Say, name first mentioned to my proprietor by Plornish in
the Yard. Say, I go to Plornish. Say, I ask Plornish as a matter
of business for information. Say, Plornish, though six weeks in
arrear to my proprietor, declines. Say, Mrs Plornish declines.
Say, both refer to Mr Clennam. Put the case.'
'Well?'

'Well, sir,' returned Pancks, 'say, I come to him. Say, here I
am.'

With those prongs of hair sticking up all over his head, and his
breath coming and going very hard and short, the busy Pancks fell
back a step (in Tug metaphor, took half a turn astern) as if to
show his dingy hull complete, then forged a-head again, and
directed his quick glance by turns into his hat where his note-book
was, and into Clennam's face.

'Mr Pancks, not to trespass on your grounds of mystery, I will be
as plain with you as I can. Let me ask two questions. First--'

'All right!' said Pancks, holding up his dirty forefinger with his
broken nail. 'I see! "What's your motive?"'

'Exactly.'

'Motive,' said Pancks, 'good. Nothing to do with my proprietor;
not stateable at present, ridiculous to state at present; but good.

Desiring to serve young person, name of Dorrit,' said Pancks, with
his forefinger still up as a caution. 'Better admit motive to be
good.'

'Secondly, and lastly, what do you want to know?'

Mr Pancks fished up his note-book before the question was put, and
buttoning it with care in an inner breast-pocket, and looking
straight at Clennam all the time, replied with a pause and a puff,
'I want supplementary information of any sort.'

Clennam could not withhold a smile, as the panting little steam-
tug, so useful to that unwieldy ship, the Casby, waited on and
watched him as if it were seeking an opportunity of running in and
rifling him of all he wanted before he could resist its manoeuvres;
though there was that in Mr Pancks's eagerness, too, which awakened
many wondering speculations in his mind. After a little
consideration, he resolved to supply Mr Pancks with such leading
information as it was in his power to impart him; well knowing that
Mr Pancks, if he failed in his present research, was pretty sure to
find other means of getting it.

He, therefore, first requesting Mr Pancks to remember his voluntary
declaration that his proprietor had no part in the disclosure, and
that his own intentions were good (two declarations which that
coaly little gentleman with the greatest ardour repeated), openly
told him that as to the Dorrit lineage or former place of
habitation, he had no information to communicate, and that his
knowledge of the family did not extend beyond the fact that it
appeared to be now reduced to five members; namely, to two
brothers, of whom one was single, and one a widower with three
children. The ages of the whole family he made known to Mr Pancks,
as nearly as he could guess at them; and finally he described to
him the position of the Father of the Marshalsea, and the course of
time and events through which he had become invested with that
character. To all this, Mr Pancks, snorting and blowing in a more
and more portentous manner as he became more interested, listened
with great attention; appearing to derive the most agreeable
sensations from the painfullest parts of the narrative, and
particularly to be quite charmed by the account of William Dorrit's
long imprisonment.

'In conclusion, Mr Pancks,' said Arthur, 'I have but to say this.
I have reasons beyond a personal regard for speaking as little as
I can of the Dorrit family, particularly at my mother's house' (Mr
Pancks nodded), 'and for knowing as much as I can. So devoted a
man of business as you are--eh?'

For Mr Pancks had suddenly made that blowing effort with unusual
force.

'It's nothing,' said Pancks.

'So devoted a man of business as yourself has a perfect
understanding of a fair bargain. I wish to make a fair bargain
with you, that you shall enlighten me concerning the Dorrit family
when you have it in your power, as I have enlightened you. It may
not give you a very flattering idea of my business habits, that I
failed to make my terms beforehand,' continued Clennam; 'but I
prefer to make them a point of honour. I have seen so much
business done on sharp principles that, to tell you the truth, Mr
Pancks, I am tired of them.'

Mr Pancks laughed. 'It's a bargain, sir,' said he. 'You shall
find me stick to it.'

After that, he stood a little while looking at Clennam, and biting
his ten nails all round; evidently while he fixed in his mind what
he had been told, and went over it carefully, before the means of
supplying a gap in his memory should be no longer at hand. 'It's
all right,' he said at last, 'and now I'll wish you good day, as
it's collecting day in the Yard. By-the-bye, though. A lame
foreigner with a stick.'

'Ay, ay. You do take a reference sometimes, I see?' said Clennam.

'When he can pay, sir,' replied Pancks. 'Take all you can get, and
keep back all you can't be forced to give up. That's business.
The lame foreigner with the stick wants a top room down the Yard.
Is he good for it?'

'I am,' said Clennam, 'and I will answer for him.'

'That's enough. What I must have of Bleeding Heart Yard,' said
Pancks, making a note of the case in his book, 'is my bond. I want
my bond, you see. Pay up, or produce your property! That's the
watchword down the Yard. The lame foreigner with the stick
represented that you sent him; but he could represent (as far as
that goes) that the Great Mogul sent him. He has been in the
hospital, I believe?'

'Yes. Through having met with an accident. He is only just now
discharged.'

'It's pauperising a man, sir, I have been shown, to let him into a
hospital?' said Pancks. And again blew off that remarkable sound.

'I have been shown so too,' said Clennam, coldly.

Mr Pancks, being by that time quite ready for a start, got under
steam in a moment, and, without any other signal or ceremony, was
snorting down the step-ladder and working into Bleeding Heart Yard,
before he seemed to be well out of the counting-house.

Throughout the remainder of the day, Bleeding Heart Yard was in
consternation, as the grim Pancks cruised in it; haranguing the
inhabitants on their backslidings in respect of payment, demanding
his bond, breathing notices to quit and executions, running down
defaulters, sending a swell of terror on before him, and leaving it
in his wake. Knots of people, impelled by a fatal attraction,
lurked outside any house in which he was known to be, listening for
fragments of his discourses to the inmates; and, when he was
rumoured to be coming down the stairs, often could not disperse so
quickly but that he would be prematurely in among them, demanding
their own arrears, and rooting them to the spot. Throughout the
remainder of the day, Mr Pancks's What were they up to? and What
did they mean by it? sounded all over the Yard. Mr Pancks
wouldn't hear of excuses, wouldn't hear of complaints, wouldn't
hear of repairs, wouldn't hear of anything but unconditional money
down. Perspiring and puffing and darting about in eccentric
directions, and becoming hotter and dingier every moment, he lashed
the tide of the yard into a most agitated and turbid state. It had
not settled down into calm water again full two hours after he had
been seen fuming away on the horizon at the top of the steps.

There were several small assemblages of the Bleeding Hearts at the
popular points of meeting in the Yard that night, among whom it was
universally agreed that Mr Pancks was a hard man to have to do
with; and that it was much to be regretted, so it was, that a
gentleman like Mr Casby should put his rents in his hands, and
never know him in his true light. For (said the Bleeding Hearts),
if a gentleman with that head of hair and them eyes took his rents
into his own hands, ma'am, there would be none of this worriting
and wearing, and things would be very different.

At which identical evening hour and minute, the Patriarch--who had
floated serenely through the Yard in the forenoon before the
harrying began, with the express design of getting up this
trustfulness in his shining bumps and silken locks--at which
identical hour and minute, that first-rate humbug of a thousand
guns was heavily floundering in the little Dock of his exhausted
Tug at home, and was saying, as he turned his thumbs:

'A very bad day's work, Pancks, very bad day's work. It seems to
me, sir, and I must insist on making this observation forcibly in
justice to myself, that you ought to have got much more money, much
more money.'

CHAPTER 24

Fortune-Telling

Little Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish,
who, having intimated that he wished to speak to her privately, in
a series of coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that
her father, as regarded her seamstress occupation, was an
illustration of the axiom that there are no such stone-blind men as
those who will not see, obtained an audience with her on the common
staircase outside the door.

'There's been a lady at our place to-day, Miss Dorrit,' Plornish
growled, 'and another one along with her as is a old wixen if ever
I met with such. The way she snapped a person's head off, dear
me!'

The mild Plornish was at first quite unable to get his mind away
from Mr F.'s Aunt. 'For,' said he, to excuse himself, 'she is, I
do assure you, the winegariest party.'

At length, by a great effort, he detached himself from the subject
sufficiently to observe:

'But she's neither here nor there just at present. The other lady,
she's Mr Casby's daughter; and if Mr Casby an't well off, none
better, it an't through any fault of Pancks. For, as to Pancks, he
does, he really does, he does indeed!'

Mr Plornish, after his usual manner, was a little obscure, but
conscientiously emphatic.

'And what she come to our place for,' he pursued, 'was to leave
word that if Miss Dorrit would step up to that card--which it's Mr
Casby's house that is, and Pancks he has a office at the back,
where he really does, beyond belief--she would be glad for to
engage her. She was a old and a dear friend, she said particular,
of Mr Clennam, and hoped for to prove herself a useful friend to
his friend. Them was her words. Wishing to know whether Miss
Dorrit could come to-morrow morning, I said I would see you, Miss,
and inquire, and look round there to-night, to say yes, or, if you
was engaged to-morrow, when.'

'I can go to-morrow, thank you,' said Little Dorrit. 'This is very
kind of you, but you are always kind.'

Mr Plornish, with a modest disavowal of his merits, opened the room
door for her readmission, and followed her in with such an
exceedingly bald pretence of not having been out at all, that her
father might have observed it without being very suspicious. In
his affable unconsciousness, however, he took no heed. Plornish,
after a little conversation, in which he blended his former duty as
a Collegian with his present privilege as a humble outside friend,
qualified again by his low estate as a plasterer, took his leave;
making the tour of the prison before he left, and looking on at a
game of skittles with the mixed feelings of an old inhabitant who
had his private reasons for believing that it might be his destiny
to come back again.

Early in the morning, Little Dorrit, leaving Maggy in high domestic
trust, set off for the Patriarchal tent. She went by the Iron
Bridge, though it cost her a penny, and walked more slowly in that
part of her journey than in any other. At five minutes before
eight her hand was on the Patriarchal knocker, which was quite as
high as she could reach.

She gave Mrs Finching's card to the young woman who opened the
door, and the young woman told her that 'Miss Flora'--Flora having,
on her return to the parental roof, reinvested herself with the
title under which she had lived there--was not yet out of her
bedroom, but she was to please to walk up into Miss Flora's
sitting-room. She walked up into Miss Flora's sitting-room, as in
duty bound, and there found a breakfast-table comfortably laid for
two, with a supplementary tray upon it laid for one. The young
woman, disappearing for a few moments, returned to say that she was
to please to take a chair by the fire, and to take off her bonnet
and make herself at home. But Little Dorrit, being bashful, and
not used to make herself at home on such occasions, felt at a loss
how to do it; so she was still sitting near the door with her
bonnet on, when Flora came in in a hurry half an hour afterwards.

Flora was so sorry to have kept her waiting, and good gracious why
did she sit out there in the cold when she had expected to find her
by the fire reading the paper, and hadn't that heedless girl given
her the message then, and had she really been in her bonnet all
this time, and pray for goodness sake let Flora take it off! Flora
taking it off in the best-natured manner in the world, was so
struck with the face disclosed, that she said, 'Why, what a good
little thing you are, my dear!' and pressed her face between her
hands like the gentlest of women.

It was the word and the action of a moment. Little Dorrit had
hardly time to think how kind it was, when Flora dashed at the
breakfast-table full of business, and plunged over head and ears
into loquacity.

'Really so sorry that I should happen to be late on this morning of
all mornings because my intention and my wish was to be ready to
meet you when you came in and to say that any one that interested
Arthur Clennam half so much must interest me and that I gave you
the heartiest welcome and was so glad, instead of which they never
called me and there I still am snoring I dare say if the truth was
known and if you don't like either cold fowl or hot boiled ham
which many people don't I dare say besides Jews and theirs are
scruples of conscience which we must all respect though I must say
I wish they had them equally strong when they sell us false
articles for real that certainly ain't worth the money I shall be
quite vexed,' said Flora.

Little Dorrit thanked her, and said, shyly, bread-and-butter and
tea was all she usually--

'Oh nonsense my dear child I can never hear of that,' said Flora,
turning on the urn in the most reckless manner, and making herself
wink by splashing hot water into her eyes as she bent down to look
into the teapot. 'You are coming here on the footing of a friend
and companion you know if you will let me take that liberty and I
should be ashamed of myself indeed if you could come here upon any
other, besides which Arthur Clennam spoke in such terms--you are
tired my dear.'

'No, ma'am.'

'You turn so pale you have walked too far before breakfast and I
dare say live a great way off and ought to have had a ride,' said
Flora, 'dear dear is there anything that would do you good?'

'Indeed I am quite well, ma'am. I thank you again and again, but
I am quite well.'

'Then take your tea at once I beg,' said Flora, 'and this wing of
fowl and bit of ham, don't mind me or wait for me, because I always
carry in this tray myself to Mr F.'s Aunt who breakfasts in bed and
a charming old lady too and very clever, Portrait of Mr F. behind
the door and very like though too much forehead and as to a pillar
with a marble pavement and balustrades and a mountain, I never saw
him near it nor not likely in the wine trade, excellent man but not
at all in that way.'

Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait, very imperfectly following
the references to that work of art.

'Mr F. was so devoted to me that he never could bear me out of his
sight,' said Flora, 'though of course I am unable to say how long
that might have lasted if he hadn't been cut short while I was a
new broom, worthy man but not poetical manly prose but not
romance.'

Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait again. The artist had given
it a head that would have been, in an intellectual point of view,
top-heavy for Shakespeare.
'Romance, however,' Flora went on, busily arranging Mr F.'s Aunt's
toast, 'as I openly said to Mr F. when he proposed to me and you
will be surprised to hear that he proposed seven times once in a
hackney-coach once in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at
Tunbridge Wells and the rest on his knees, Romance was fled with
the early days of Arthur Clennam, our parents tore us asunder we
became marble and stern reality usurped the throne, Mr F. said very
much to his credit that he was perfectly aware of it and even
preferred that state of things accordingly the word was spoken the
fiat went forth and such is life you see my dear and yet we do not
break but bend, pray make a good breakfast while I go in with the
tray.'

She disappeared, leaving Little Dorrit to ponder over the meaning
of her scattered words. She soon came back again; and at last
began to take her own breakfast, talking all the while.

'You see, my dear,' said Flora, measuring out a spoonful or two of
some brown liquid that smelt like brandy, and putting it into her
tea, 'I am obliged to be careful to follow the directions of my
medical man though the flavour is anything but agreeable being a
poor creature and it may be have never recovered the shock received
in youth from too much giving way to crying in the next room when
separated from Arthur, have you known him long?'

As soon as Little Dorrit comprehended that she had been asked this
question--for which time was necessary, the galloping pace of her
new patroness having left her far behind--she answered that she had
known Mr Clennam ever since his return.

'To be sure you couldn't have known him before unless you had been
in China or had corresponded neither of which is likely,' returned
Flora, 'for travelling-people usually get more or less mahogany and
you are not at all so and as to corresponding what about? that's
very true unless tea, so it was at his mother's was it really that
you knew him first, highly sensible and firm but dreadfully
severe--ought to be the mother of the man in the iron mask."

'Mrs Clennam has been kind to me,' said Little Dorrit.

'Really? I am sure I am glad to hear it because as Arthur's mother
it's naturally pleasant to my feelings to have a better opinion of
her than I had before, though what she thinks of me when I run on
as I am certain to do and she sits glowering at me like Fate in a
go-cart--shocking comparison really--invalid and not her fault--I
never know or can imagine.'

'Shall I find my work anywhere, ma'am?' asked Little Dorrit,
looking timidly about; 'can I get it?'

'You industrious little fairy,' returned Flora, taking, in another
cup of tea, another of the doses prescribed by her medical man,
'there's not the slightest hurry and it's better that we should
begin by being confidential about our mutual friend--too cold a
word for me at least I don't mean that, very proper expression
mutual friend--than become through mere formalities not you but me
like the Spartan boy with the fox biting him, which I hope you'll
excuse my bringing up for of all the tiresome boys that will go
tumbling into every sort of company that boy's the tiresomest.'

Little Dorrit, her face very pale, sat down again to listen.
'Hadn't I better work the while?' she asked. 'I can work and
attend too. I would rather, if I may.'

Her earnestness was so expressive of her being uneasy without her
work, that Flora answered, 'Well my dear whatever you like best,'
and produced a basket of white handkerchiefs. Little Dorrit gladly
put it by her side, took out her little pocket-housewife, threaded
the needle, and began to hem.

'What nimble fingers you have,' said Flora, 'but are you sure you
are well?'

'Oh yes, indeed!'

Flora put her feet upon the fender, and settled herself for a
thorough good romantic disclosure. She started off at score,
tossing her head, sighing in the most demonstrative manner, making
a great deal of use of her eyebrows, and occasionally, but not
often, glancing at the quiet face that bent over the work.

'You must know my dear,' said Flora, 'but that I have no doubt you
know already not only because I have already thrown it out in a
general way but because I feel I carry it stamped in burning what's
his names upon my brow that before I was introduced to the late Mr
F. I had been engaged to Arthur Clennam--Mr Clennam in public where
reserve is necessary Arthur here--we were all in all to one another
it was the morning of life it was bliss it was frenzy it was
everything else of that sort in the highest degree, when rent
asunder we turned to stone in which capacity Arthur went to China
and I became the statue bride of the late Mr F.'

Flora, uttering these words in a deep voice, enjoyed herself
immensely.

'To paint,' said she, 'the emotions of that morning when all was
marble within and Mr F.'s Aunt followed in a glass-coach which it
stands to reason must have been in shameful repair or it never
could have broken down two streets from the house and Mr F.'s Aunt
brought home like the fifth of November in a rush-bottomed chair I
will not attempt, suffice it to say that the hollow form of
breakfast took place in the dining-room downstairs that papa
partaking too freely of pickled salmon was ill for weeks and that
Mr F. and myself went upon a continental tour to Calais where the
people fought for us on the pier until they separated us though not
for ever that was not yet to be.'

The statue bride, hardly pausing for breath, went on, with the
greatest complacency, in a rambling manner sometimes incidental to
flesh and blood.

'I will draw a veil over that dreamy life, Mr F. was in good
spirits his appetite was good he liked the cookery he considered
the wine weak but palatable and all was well, we returned to the
immediate neighbourhood of Number Thirty Little Gosling Street
London Docks and settled down, ere we had yet fully detected the
housemaid in selling the feathers out of the spare bed Gout flying
upwards soared with Mr F. to another sphere.'

His relict, with a glance at his portrait, shook her head and wiped
her eyes.

'I revere the memory of Mr F. as an estimable man and most
indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it
appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it
came like magic in a pint bottle it was not ecstasy but it was
comfort, I returned to papa's roof and lived secluded if not happy
during some years until one day papa came smoothly blundering in
and said that Arthur Clennam awaited me below, I went below and
found him ask me not what I found him except that he was still
unmarried still unchanged!'

The dark mystery with which Flora now enshrouded herself might have
stopped other fingers than the nimble fingers that worked near her.

They worked on without pause, and the busy head bent over them
watching the stitches.

'Ask me not,' said Flora, 'if I love him still or if he still loves
me or what the end is to be or when, we are surrounded by watchful
eyes and it may be that we are destined to pine asunder it may be
never more to be reunited not a word not a breath not a look to
betray us all must be secret as the tomb wonder not therefore that
even if I should seem comparatively cold to Arthur or Arthur should
seem comparatively cold to me we have fatal reasons it is enough if
we understand them hush!'

All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she
really believed it. There is not much doubt that when she worked
herself into full mermaid condition, she did actually believe
whatever she said in it.

'Hush!' repeated Flora, 'I have now told you all, confidence is
established between us hush, for Arthur's sake I will always be a
friend to you my dear girl and in Arthur's name you may always rely
upon me.'

The nimble fingers laid aside the work, and the little figure rose
and kissed her hand. 'You are very cold,' said Flora, changing to
her own natural kind-hearted manner, and gaining greatly by the
change. 'Don't work to-day. I am sure you are not well I am sure
you are not strong.'

'It is only that I feel a little overcome by your kindness, and by
Mr Clennam's kindness in confiding me to one he has known and loved
so long.'

'Well really my dear,' said Flora, who had a decided tendency to be
always honest when she gave herself time to think about it, 'it's
as well to leave that alone now, for I couldn't undertake to say
after all, but it doesn't signify lie down a little!'

'I have always been strong enough to do what I want to do, and I
shall be quite well directly,' returned Little Dorrit, with a faint
smile. 'You have overpowered me with gratitude, that's all. If I
keep near the window for a moment I shall be quite myself.'

Flora opened a window, sat her in a chair by it, and considerately
retired to her former place. It was a windy day, and the air
stirring on Little Dorrit's face soon brightened it. In a very few
minutes she returned to her basket of work, and her nimble fingers
were as nimble as ever.

Quietly pursuing her task, she asked Flora if Mr Clennam had told
her where she lived? When Flora replied in the negative, Little
Dorrit said that she understood why he had been so delicate, but
that she felt sure he would approve of her confiding her secret to
Flora, and that she would therefore do so now with Flora's
permission. Receiving an encouraging answer, she condensed the
narrative of her life into a few scanty words about herself and a
glowing eulogy upon her father; and Flora took it all in with a
natural tenderness that quite understood it, and in which there was
no incoherence.

When dinner-time came, Flora drew the arm of her new charge through
hers, and led her down-stairs, and presented her to the Patriarch
and Mr Pancks, who were already in the dining-room waiting to
begin. (Mr F.'s Aunt was, for the time, laid up in ordinary in her
chamber.) By those gentlemen she was received according to their
characters; the Patriarch appearing to do her some inestimable
service in saying that he was glad to see her, glad to see her; and
Mr Pancks blowing off his favourite sound as a salute.

In that new presence she would have been bashful enough under any
circumstances, and particularly under Flora's insisting on her
drinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but
her constraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour
of that gentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be
a taker of likenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so
frequently did he glance at the little note-book by his side.
Observing that he made no sketch, however, and that he talked about
business only, she began to have suspicions that he represented
some creditor of her father's, the balance due to whom was noted in
that pocket volume. Regarded from this point of view Mr Pancks's
puffings expressed injury and impatience, and each of his louder
snorts became a demand for payment.

But here again she was undeceived by anomalous and incongruous
conduct on the part of Mr Pancks himself. She had left the table
half an hour, and was at work alone. Flora had 'gone to lie down'
in the next room, concurrently with which retirement a smell of
something to drink had broken out in the house. The Patriarch was
fast asleep, with his philanthropic mouth open under a yellow
pocket-handkerchief in the dining-room. At this quiet time, Mr
Pancks softly appeared before her, urbanely nodding.

'Find it a little dull, Miss Dorrit?' inquired Pancks in a low
voice.

'No, thank you, sir,' said Little Dorrit.

'Busy, I see,' observed Mr Pancks, stealing into the room by
inches. 'What are those now, Miss Dorrit?'

'Handkerchiefs.'

'Are they, though!' said Pancks. 'I shouldn't have thought it.'
Not in the least looking at them, but looking at Little Dorrit.
'Perhaps you wonder who I am. Shall I tell you? I am a fortune-
teller.'

Little Dorrit now began to think he was mad.

'I belong body and soul to my proprietor,' said Pancks; 'you saw my
proprietor having his dinner below. But I do a little in the other
way, sometimes; privately, very privately, Miss Dorrit.'

Little Dorrit looked at him doubtfully, and not without alarm.

'I wish you'd show me the palm of your hand,' said Pancks. 'I
should like to have a look at it. Don't let me be troublesome.'
He was so far troublesome that he was not at all wanted there, but
she laid her work in her lap for a moment, and held out her left
hand with her thimble on it.

'Years of toil, eh?' said Pancks, softly, touching it with his
blunt forefinger. 'But what else are we made for? Nothing.
Hallo!' looking into the lines. 'What's this with bars? It's a
College! And what's this with a grey gown and a black velvet cap?
it's a father! And what's this with a clarionet? It's an uncle!
And what's this in dancing-shoes? It's a sister! And what's this
straggling about in an idle sort of a way? It's a brother! And
what's this thinking for 'em all? Why, this is you, Miss Dorrit!'
Her eyes met his as she looked up wonderingly into his face, and
she thought that although his were sharp eyes, he was a brighter
and gentler-looking man than she had supposed at dinner. His eyes
were on her hand again directly, and her opportunity of confirming
or correcting the impression was gone.

'Now, the deuce is in it,' muttered Pancks, tracing out a line in
her hand with his clumsy finger, 'if this isn't me in the corner
here! What do I want here? What's behind me?'

He carried his finger slowly down to the wrist, and round the
wrist, and affected to look at the back of the hand for what was
behind him.

'Is it any harm?' asked Little Dorrit, smiling.

'Deuce a bit!' said Pancks. 'What do you think it's worth?'

'I ought to ask you that. I am not the fortune-teller.'

'True,' said Pancks. 'What's it worth? You shall live to see,
Miss Dorrit.'

Releasing the hand by slow degrees, he drew all his fingers through
his prongs of hair, so that they stood up in their most portentous
manner; and repeated slowly, 'Remember what I say, Miss Dorrit.
You shall live to see.'

She could not help showing that she was much surprised, if it were
only by his knowing so much about her.

'Ah! That's it!' said Pancks, pointing at her. 'Miss Dorrit, not
that, ever!'

More surprised than before, and a little more frightened, she
looked to him for an explanation of his last words.

'Not that,' said Pancks, making, with great seriousness, an
imitation of a surprised look and manner that appeared to be
unintentionally grotesque. 'Don't do that. Never on seeing me, no
matter when, no matter where. I am nobody. Don't take on to mind
me. Don't mention me. Take no notice. Will you agree, Miss
Dorrit?'

'I hardly know what to say,' returned Little Dorrit, quite
astounded. 'Why?'

'Because I am a fortune-teller. Pancks the gipsy. I haven't told
you so much of your fortune yet, Miss Dorrit, as to tell you what's
behind me on that little hand. I have told you you shall live to
see. Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?'

'Agreed that I--am--to--'

'To take no notice of me away from here, unless I take on first.
Not to mind me when I come and go. It's very easy. I am no loss,
I am not handsome, I am not good company, I am only my proprietors
grubber. You need do no more than think, "Ah! Pancks the gipsy at
his fortune-telling--he'll tell the rest of my fortune one day--I
shall live to know it."  Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?'

'Ye-es,' faltered Little Dorrit, whom he greatly confused, 'I
suppose so, while you do no harm.'

'Good!'  Mr Pancks glanced at the wall of the adjoining room, and
stooped forward. 'Honest creature, woman of capital points, but
heedless and a loose talker, Miss Dorrit.'  With that he rubbed his
hands as if the interview had been very satisfactory to him, panted
away to the door, and urbanely nodded himself out again.

If Little Dorrit were beyond measure perplexed by this curious
conduct on the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself
involved in this singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished
by ensuing circumstances. Besides that Mr Pancks took every
opportunity afforded him in Mr Casby's house of significantly
glancing at her and snorting at her--which was not much, after what
he had done already--he began to pervade her daily life. She saw
him in the street, constantly. When she went to Mr Casby's, he was
always there. When she went to Mrs Clennam's, he came there on any
pretence, as if to keep her in his sight. A week had not gone by,
when she found him to her astonishment in the Lodge one night,
conversing with the turnkey on duty, and to all appearance one of
his familiar companions. Her next surprise was to find him equally
at his ease within the prison; to hear of his presenting himself
among the visitors at her father's Sunday levee; to see him arm in
arm with a Collegiate friend about the yard; to learn, from Fame,
that he had greatly distinguished himself one evening at the social
club that held its meetings in the Snuggery, by addressing a speech
to the members of the institution, singing a song, and treating the
company to five gallons of ale--report madly added a bushel of
shrimps. The effect on Mr Plornish of such of these phenomena as
he became an eye-witness of in his faithful visits, made an
impression on Little Dorrit only second to that produced by the
phenomena themselves. They seemed to gag and bind him. He could
only stare, and sometimes weakly mutter that it wouldn't be
believed down Bleeding Heart Yard that this was Pancks; but he
never said a word more, or made a sign more, even to Little Dorrit.

Mr Pancks crowned his mysteries by making himself acquainted with
Tip in some unknown manner, and taking a Sunday saunter into the
College on that gentleman's arm. Throughout he never took any
notice of Little Dorrit, save once or twice when he happened to
come close to her and there was no one very near; on which
occasions, he said in passing, with a friendly look and a puff of
encouragement, 'Pancks the gipsy--fortune-telling.'

Little Dorrit worked and strove as usual, wondering at all this,
but keeping her wonder, as she had from her earliest years kept
many heavier loads, in her own breast. A change had stolen, and
was stealing yet, over the patient heart. Every day found her
something more retiring than the day before. To pass in and out of
the prison unnoticed, and elsewhere to be overlooked and forgotten,
were, for herself, her chief desires.

To her own room too, strangely assorted room for her delicate youth
and character, she was glad to retreat as often as she could
without desertion of any duty. There were afternoon times when she
was unemployed, when visitors dropped in to play a hand at cards
with her father, when she could be spared and was better away.
Then she would flit along the yard, climb the scores of stairs that
led to her room, and take her seat at the window. Many
combinations did those spikes upon the wall assume, many light
shapes did the strong iron weave itself into, many golden touches
fell upon the rust, while Little Dorrit sat there musing. New zig-
zags sprung into the cruel pattern sometimes, when she saw it
through a burst of tears; but beautified or hardened still, always
over it and under it and through it, she was fain to look in her
solitude, seeing everything with that ineffaceable brand.

A garret, and a Marshalsea garret without compromise, was Little
Dorrit's room. Beautifully kept, it was ugly in itself, and had
little but cleanliness and air to set it off; for what
embellishment she had ever been able to buy, had gone to her
father's room. Howbeit, for this poor place she showed an
increasing love; and to sit in it alone became her favourite rest.

Insomuch, that on a certain afternoon during the Pancks mysteries,
when she was seated at her window, and heard Maggy's well-known
step coming up the stairs, she was very much disturbed by the
apprehension of being summoned away. As Maggy's step came higher
up and nearer, she trembled and faltered; and it was as much as she
could do to speak, when Maggy at length appeared.

'Please, Little Mother,' said Maggy, panting for breath, 'you must
come down and see him. He's here.'

'Who, Maggy?'

'Who, o' course Mr Clennam. He's in your father's room, and he
says to me, Maggy, will you be so kind and go and say it's only
me.'

'I am not very well, Maggy. I had better not go. I am going to
lie down. See! I lie down now, to ease my head. Say, with my
grateful regard, that you left me so, or I would have come.'

'Well, it an't very polite though, Little Mother,' said the staring
Maggy, 'to turn your face away, neither!'

Maggy was very susceptible to personal slights, and very ingenious
in inventing them. 'Putting both your hands afore your face too!'
she went on. 'If you can't bear the looks of a poor thing, it
would be better to tell her so at once, and not go and shut her out
like that, hurting her feelings and breaking her heart at ten year
old, poor thing!'

'It's to ease my head, Maggy.'

'Well, and if you cry to ease your head, Little Mother, let me cry
too. Don't go and have all the crying to yourself,' expostulated
Maggy, 'that an't not being greedy.'  And immediately began to
blubber.

It was with some difficulty that she could be induced to go back
with the excuse; but the promise of being told a story--of old her
great delight--on condition that she concentrated her faculties
upon the errand and left her little mistress to herself for an hour
longer, combined with a misgiving on Maggy's part that she had left
her good temper at the bottom of the staircase, prevailed. So away
she went, muttering her message all the way to keep it in her mind,
and, at the appointed time, came back.

'He was very sorry, I can tell you,' she announced, 'and wanted to
send a doctor. And he's coming again to-morrow he is and I don't
think he'll have a good sleep to-night along o' hearing about your
head, Little Mother. Oh my! Ain't you been a-crying!'

'I think I have, a little, Maggy.'

'A little! Oh!'

'But it's all over now--all over for good, Maggy. And my head is
much better and cooler, and I am quite comfortable. I am very glad
I did not go down.'

Her great staring child tenderly embraced her; and having smoothed
her hair, and bathed her forehead and eyes with cold water (offices
in which her awkward hands became skilful), hugged her again,
exulted in her brighter looks, and stationed her in her chair by
the window. Over against this chair, Maggy, with apoplectic
exertions that were not at all required, dragged the box which was
her seat on story-telling occasions, sat down upon it, hugged her
own knees, and said, with a voracious appetite for stories, and
with widely-opened eyes:

'Now, Little Mother, let's have a good 'un!'

'What shall it be about, Maggy?'

'Oh, let's have a princess,' said Maggy, 'and let her be a reg'lar
one. Beyond all belief, you know!'

Little Dorrit considered for a moment; and with a rather sad smile
upon her face, which was flushed by the sunset, began:

'Maggy, there was once upon a time a fine King, and he had
everything he could wish for, and a great deal more. He had gold
and silver, diamonds and rubies, riches of every kind. He had
palaces, and he had--'

'Hospitals,' interposed Maggy, still nursing her knees. 'Let him
have hospitals, because they're so comfortable. Hospitals with
lots of Chicking.'

'Yes, he had plenty of them, and he had plenty of everything.'

'Plenty of baked potatoes, for instance?' said Maggy.

'Plenty of everything.'

'Lor!' chuckled Maggy, giving her knees a hug. 'Wasn't it prime!'

'This King had a daughter, who was the wisest and most beautiful
Princess that ever was seen. When she was a child she understood
all her lessons before her masters taught them to her; and when she
was grown up, she was the wonder of the world. Now, near the
Palace where this Princess lived, there was a cottage in which
there was a poor little tiny woman, who lived all alone by
herself.'

'An old woman,' said Maggy, with an unctuous smack of her lips.

'No, not an old woman. Quite a young one.'

'I wonder she warn't afraid,' said Maggy. 'Go on, please.'

'The Princess passed the cottage nearly every day, and whenever she
went by in her beautiful carriage, she saw the poor tiny woman
spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the
tiny woman looked at her. So, one day she stopped the coachman a
little way from the cottage, and got out and walked on and peeped
in at the door, and there, as usual, was the tiny woman spinning at
her wheel, and she looked at the Princess, and the Princess looked
at her.'

'Like trying to stare one another out,' said Maggy. 'Please go on,
Little Mother.'

'The Princess was such a wonderful Princess that she had the power
of knowing secrets, and she said to the tiny woman, Why do you keep
it there? This showed her directly that the Princess knew why she
lived all alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she kneeled
down at the Princess's feet, and asked her never to betray her. So
the Princess said, I never will betray you. Let me see it. So the
tiny woman closed the shutter of the cottage window and fastened
the door, and trembling from head to foot for fear that any one
should suspect her, opened a very secret place and showed the
Princess a shadow.'

'Lor!' said Maggy.
'It was the shadow of Some one who had gone by long before: of Some
one who had gone on far away quite out of reach, never, never to
come back. It was bright to look at; and when the tiny woman
showed it to the Princess, she was proud of it with all her heart,
as a great, great treasure. When the Princess had considered it a
little while, she said to the tiny woman, And you keep watch over
this every day? And she cast down her eyes, and whispered, Yes.
Then the Princess said, Remind me why. To which the other replied,
that no one so good and kind had ever passed that way, and that was
why in the beginning. She said, too, that nobody missed it, that
nobody was the worse for it, that Some one had gone on, to those
who were expecting him--'

'Some one was a man then?' interposed Maggy.

Little Dorrit timidly said Yes, she believed so; and resumed:

'--Had gone on to those who were expecting him, and that this
remembrance was stolen or kept back from nobody. The Princess made
answer, Ah! But when the cottager died it would be discovered
there. The tiny woman told her No; when that time came, it would
sink quietly into her own grave, and would never be found.'

'Well, to be sure!' said Maggy. 'Go on, please.'

'The Princess was very much astonished to hear this, as you may
suppose, Maggy.'  ('And well she might be,' said Maggy.)

'So she resolved to watch the tiny woman, and see what came of it.
Every day she drove in her beautiful carriage by the cottage-door,
and there she saw the tiny woman always alone by herself spinning
at her wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman
looked at her. At last one day the wheel was still, and the tiny
woman was not to be seen. When the Princess made inquiries why the
wheel had stopped, and where the tiny woman was, she was informed
that the wheel had stopped because there was nobody to turn it, the
tiny woman being dead.'

('They ought to have took her to the Hospital,' said Maggy, and
then she'd have got over it.')

'The Princess, after crying a very little for the loss of the tiny
woman, dried her eyes and got out of her carriage at the place
where she had stopped it before, and went to the cottage and peeped
in at the door. There was nobody to look at her now, and nobody
for her to look at, so she went in at once to search for the
treasured shadow. But there was no sign of it to be found
anywhere; and then she knew that the tiny woman had told her the
truth, and that it would never give anybody any trouble, and that
it had sunk quietly into her own grave, and that she and it were at
rest together.

'That's all, Maggy.'

The sunset flush was so bright on Little Dorrit's face when she
came thus to the end of her story, that she interposed her hand to
shade it.

'Had she got to be old?' Maggy asked.

'The tiny woman?'
'Ah!'

'I don't know,' said Little Dorrit. 'But it would have been just
the same if she had been ever so old.'

'Would it raly!' said Maggy. 'Well, I suppose it would though.'
And sat staring and ruminating.

She sat so long with her eyes wide open, that at length Little
Dorrit, to entice her from her box, rose and looked out of window.
As she glanced down into the yard, she saw Pancks come in and leer
up with the corner of his eye as he went by.

'Who's he, Little Mother?' said Maggy. She had joined her at the
window and was leaning on her shoulder. 'I see him come in and out
often.'

'I have heard him called a fortune-teller,' said Little Dorrit.
'But I doubt if he could tell many people even their past or
present fortunes.'

'Couldn't have told the Princess hers?' said Maggy.

Little Dorrit, looking musingly down into the dark valley of the
prison, shook her head.

'Nor the tiny woman hers?' said Maggy.

'No,' said Little Dorrit, with the sunset very bright upon her.
'But let us come away from the window.'

CHAPTER 25

Conspirators and Others

The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he
lodged on the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an
extremely small way, who had an inner-door within the street door,
poised on a spring and starting open with a click like a trap; and
who wrote up in the fan-light, RUGG, GENERAL AGENT, ACCOUNTANT,
DEBTS RECOVERED.

This scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a
little slip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high-road,
where a few of the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and
led a life of choking. A professor of writing occupied the first-
floor, and enlivened the garden railings with glass-cases
containing choice examples of what his pupils had been before six
lessons and while the whole of his young family shook the table,
and what they had become after six lessons when the young family
was under restraint. The tenancy of Mr Pancks was limited to one
airy bedroom; he covenanting and agreeing with Mr Rugg his
landlord, that in consideration of a certain scale of payments
accurately defined, and on certain verbal notice duly given, he
should be at liberty to elect to share the Sunday breakfast,
dinner, tea, or supper, or each or any or all of those repasts or
meals of Mr and Miss Rugg (his daughter) in the back-parlour.

Miss Rugg was a lady of a little property which she had acquired,
together with much distinction in the neighbourhood, by having her
heart severely lacerated and her feelings mangled by a middle-aged
baker resident in the vicinity, against whom she had, by the agency
of Mr Rugg, found it necessary to proceed at law to recover damages
for a breach of promise of marriage. The baker having been, by the
counsel for Miss Rugg, witheringly denounced on that occasion up to
the full amount of twenty guineas, at the rate of about eighteen-
pence an epithet, and having been cast in corresponding damages,
still suffered occasional persecution from the youth of
Pentonville. But Miss Rugg, environed by the majesty of the law,
and having her damages invested in the public securities, was
regarded with consideration.

In the society of Mr Rugg, who had a round white visage, as if all
his blushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a
ragged yellow head like a worn-out hearth broom; and in the society
of Miss Rugg, who had little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all
over her face, and whose own yellow tresses were rather scrubby
than luxuriant; Mr Pancks had usually dined on Sundays for some few
years, and had twice a week, or so, enjoyed an evening collation of
bread, Dutch cheese, and porter. Mr Pancks was one of the very few
marriageable men for whom Miss Rugg had no terrors, the argument
with which he reassured himself being twofold; that is to say,
firstly, 'that it wouldn't do twice,' and secondly, 'that he wasn't
worth it.'  Fortified within this double armour, Mr Pancks snorted
at Miss Rugg on easy terms.

Up to this time, Mr Pancks had transacted little or no business at
his quarters in Pentonville, except in the sleeping line; but now
that he had become a fortune-teller, he was often closeted after
midnight with Mr Rugg in his little front-parlour office, and even
after those untimely hours, burnt tallow in his bed-room. Though
his duties as his proprietor's grubber were in no wise lessened;
and though that service bore no greater resemblance to a bed of
roses than was to be discovered in its many thorns; some new branch
of industry made a constant demand upon him. When he cast off the
Patriarch at night, it was only to take an anonymous craft in tow,
and labour away afresh in other waters.

The advance from a personal acquaintance with the elder Mr Chivery
to an introduction to his amiable wife and disconsolate son, may
have been easy; but easy or not, Mr Pancks soon made it. He
nestled in the bosom of the tobacco business within a week or two
after his first appearance in the College, and particularly
addressed himself to the cultivation of a good understanding with
Young John. In this endeavour he so prospered as to lure that
pining shepherd forth from the groves, and tempt him to undertake
mysterious missions; on which he began to disappear at uncertain
intervals for as long a space as two or three days together. The
prudent Mrs Chivery, who wondered greatly at this change, would
have protested against it as detrimental to the Highland
typification on the doorpost but for two forcible reasons; one,
that her John was roused to take strong interest in the business
which these starts were supposed to advance--and this she held to
be good for his drooping spirits; the other, that Mr Pancks
confidentially agreed to pay her, for the occupation of her son's
time, at the handsome rate of seven and sixpence per day. The
proposal originated with himself, and was couched in the pithy
terms, 'If your John is weak enough, ma'am, not to take it, that is
no reason why you should be, don't you see? So, quite between
ourselves, ma'am, business being business, here it is!'

What Mr Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little
he knew about them, was never gathered from himself. It has been
already remarked that he was a man of few words; and it may be here
observed that he had imbibed a professional habit of locking
everything up. He locked himself up as carefully as he locked up
the Marshalsea debtors. Even his custom of bolting his meals may
have been a part of an uniform whole; but there is no question,
that, as to all other purposes, he kept his mouth as he kept the
Marshalsea door. He never opened it without occasion. When it was
necessary to let anything out, he opened it a little way, held it
open just as long as sufficed for the purpose, and locked it again.

Even as he would be sparing of his trouble at the Marshalsea door,
and would keep a visitor who wanted to go out, waiting for a few
moments if he saw another visitor coming down the yard, so that one
turn of the key should suffice for both, similarly he would often
reserve a remark if he perceived another on its way to his lips,
and would deliver himself of the two together. As to any key to
his inner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea
key was as legible as an index to the individual characters and
histories upon which it was turned.

That Mr Pancks should be moved to invite any one to dinner at
Pentonville, was an unprecedented fact in his calendar. But he
invited Young John to dinner, and even brought him within range of
the dangerous (because expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg. The
banquet was appointed for a Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own
hands stuffed a leg of mutton with oysters on the occasion, and
sent it to the baker's--not THE baker's but an opposition
establishment. Provision of oranges, apples, and nuts was also
made. And rum was brought home by Mr Pancks on Saturday night, to
gladden the visitor's heart.
The store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the
visitor's reception. Its special feature was a foregone family
confidence and sympathy. When Young John appeared at half-past one
without the ivory hand and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun
shorn of his beams by disastrous clouds, Mr Pancks presented him to
the yellow-haired Ruggs as the young man he had so often mentioned
who loved Miss Dorrit.
'I am glad,' said Mr Rugg, challenging him specially in that
character, 'to have the distinguished gratification of making your
acquaintance, sir. Your feelings do you honour. You are young;
may you never outlive your feelings! If I was to outlive my own
feelings, sir,' said Mr Rugg, who was a man of many words, and was
considered to possess a remarkably good address; 'if I was to
outlive my own feelings, I'd leave fifty pound in my will to the
man who would put me out of existence.'

Miss Rugg heaved a sigh.

'My daughter, sir,' said Mr Rugg. 'Anastatia, you are no stranger
to the state of this young man's affections. My daughter has had
her trials, sir'--Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly
in the singular number--'and she can feel for you.'

Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this
greeting, professed himself to that effect.

'What I envy you, sir, is,' said Mr Rugg, 'allow me to take your
hat--we are rather short of pegs--I'll put it in the corner, nobody
will tread on it there--What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your
own feelings. I belong to a profession in which that luxury is
sometimes denied us.'

Young John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did
what was right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss
Dorrit. He wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished
to do anything as laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit,
altogether putting himself out of sight; and he hoped he did. It
was but little that he could do, but he hoped he did it.

'Sir,' said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, 'you are a young man
that it does one good to come across. You are a young man that I
should like to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the
legal profession. I hope you have brought your appetite with you,
and intend to play a good knife and fork?'

'Thank you, sir,' returned Young John, 'I don't eat much at
present.'

Mr Rugg drew him a little apart. 'My daughter's case, sir,' said
he, 'at the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and
her sex, she became the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins. I suppose
I could have put it in evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it
worth my while, that the amount of solid sustenance my daughter
consumed at that period did not exceed ten ounces per week.'
'I think I go a little beyond that, sir,' returned the other,
hesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame.

'But in your case there's no fiend in human form,' said Mr Rugg,
with argumentative smile and action of hand. 'Observe, Mr Chivery!

No fiend in human form!'
'No, sir, certainly,' Young John added with simplicity, 'I should
be very sorry if there was.'

'The sentiment,' said Mr Rugg, 'is what I should have expected from
your known principles. It would affect my daughter greatly, sir,
if she heard it. As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn't
hear it. Mr Pancks, on this occasion, pray face me. My dear, face
Mr Chivery. For what we are going to receive, may we (and Miss
Dorrit) be truly thankful!'

But for a grave waggishness in Mr Rugg's manner of delivering this
introduction to the feast, it might have appeared that Miss Dorrit
was expected to be one of the company. Pancks recognised the sally
in his usual way, and took in his provender in his usual way. Miss
Rugg, perhaps making up some of her arrears, likewise took very
kindly to the mutton, and it rapidly diminished to the bone. A
bread-and-butter pudding entirely disappeared, and a considerable
amount of cheese and radishes vanished by the same means. Then
came the dessert.

Then also, and before the broaching of the rum and water, came Mr
Pancks's note-book. The ensuing business proceedings were brief
but curious, and rather in the nature of a conspiracy. Mr Pancks
looked over his note-book, which was now getting full, studiously;
and picked out little extracts, which he wrote on separate slips of
paper on the table; Mr Rugg, in the meanwhile, looking at him with
close attention, and Young John losing his uncollected eye in mists
of meditation. When Mr Pancks, who supported the character of
chief conspirator, had completed his extracts, he looked them over,
corrected them, put up his note-book, and held them like a hand at
cards.

'Now, there's a churchyard in Bedfordshire,' said Pancks. 'Who
takes it?'

'I'll take it, sir,' returned Mr Rugg, 'if no one bids.'

Mr Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his hand again.

'Now, there's an Enquiry in York,' said Pancks. 'Who takes it?'

'I'm not good for York,' said Mr Rugg.

'Then perhaps,' pursued Pancks, 'you'll be so obliging, John
Chivery?'  Young John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and
consulted his hand again.

'There's a Church in London; I may as well take that. And a Family
Bible; I may as well take that, too. That's two to me. Two to
me,' repeated Pancks, breathing hard over his cards. 'Here's a
Clerk at Durham for you, John, and an old seafaring gentleman at
Dunstable for you, Mr Rugg. Two to me, was it? Yes, two to me.
Here's a Stone; three to me. And a Still-born Baby; four to me.
And all, for the present, told.'
When he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done very quietly
and in a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed his way into his own
breast-pocket and tugged out a canvas bag; from which, with a
sparing hand, he told forth money for travelling expenses in two
little portions. 'Cash goes out fast,' he said anxiously, as he
pushed a portion to each of his male companions, 'very fast.'

'I can only assure you, Mr Pancks,' said Young John, 'that I deeply
regret my circumstances being such that I can't afford to pay my
own charges, or that it's not advisable to allow me the time
necessary for my doing the distances on foot; because nothing would
give me greater satisfaction than to walk myself off my legs
without fee or reward.'

This young man's disinterestedness appeared so very ludicrous in
the eyes of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged to effect a precipitate
retirement from the company, and to sit upon the stairs until she
had had her laugh out. Meanwhile Mr Pancks, looking, not without
some pity, at Young John, slowly and thoughtfully twisted up his
canvas bag as if he were wringing its neck. The lady, returning as
he restored it to his pocket, mixed rum and water for the party,
not forgetting her fair self, and handed to every one his glass.
When all were supplied, Mr Rugg rose, and silently holding out his
glass at arm's length above the centre of the table, by that
gesture invited the other three to add theirs, and to unite in a
general conspiratorial clink. The ceremony was effective up to a
certain point, and would have been wholly so throughout, if Miss
Rugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in completion of it, had
not happened to look at Young John; when she was again so overcome
by the contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness as to
splutter some ambrosial drops of rum and water around, and withdraw
in confusion.

Such was the dinner without precedent, given by Pancks at
Pentonville; and such was the busy and strange life Pancks led.
The only waking moments at which he appeared to relax from his
cares, and to recreate himself by going anywhere or saying anything
without a pervading object, were when he showed a dawning interest
in the lame foreigner with the stick, down Bleeding Heart Yard.

The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto--they called him Mr
Baptist in the Yard--was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little
fellow, that his attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of
contrast. Solitary, weak, and scantily acquainted with the most
necessary words of the only language in which he could communicate
with the people about him, he went with the stream of his fortunes,
in a brisk way that was new in those parts. With little to eat,
and less to drink, and nothing to wear but what he wore upon him,
or had brought tied up in one of the smallest bundles that ever
were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as if he were in the
most flourishing circumstances when he first hobbled up and down
the Yard, humbly propitiating the general good-will with his white
teeth.

It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way
with the Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely
persuaded that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the
second, they held it to be a sound constitutional national axiom
that he ought to go home to his own country. They never thought of
inquiring how many of their own countrymen would be returned upon
their hands from divers parts of the world, if the principle were
generally recognised; they considered it particularly and
peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a notion that it
was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an
Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to his
country because it did things that England did not, and did not do
things that England did. In this belief, to be sure, they had long
been carefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who
were always proclaiming to them, officially, that no country which
failed to submit itself to those two large families could possibly
hope to be under the protection of Providence; and who, when they
believed it, disparaged them in private as the most prejudiced
people under the sun.

This, therefore, might be called a political position of the
Bleeding Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having
foreigners in the Yard. They believed that foreigners were always
badly off; and though they were as ill off themselves as they could
desire to be, that did not diminish the force of the objection.
They believed that foreigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and
though they certainly got their own skulls promptly fractured if
they showed any ill-humour, still it was with a blunt instrument,
and that didn't count. They believed that foreigners were always
immoral; and though they had an occasional assize at home, and now
and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing to do with it.
They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit, as never
being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle,
with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing. Not to
be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar kind.

Against these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to
make head as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed,
because Mr Arthur Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he
lived at the top of the same house), but still at heavy odds.
However, the Bleeding Hearts were kind hearts; and when they saw
the little fellow cheerily limping about with a good-humoured face,
doing no harm, drawing no knives, committing no outrageous
immoralities, living chiefly on farinaceous and milk diet, and
playing with Mrs Plornish's children of an evening, they began to
think that although he could never hope to be an Englishman, still
it would be hard to visit that affliction on his head. They began
to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him 'Mr Baptist,'
but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his
lively gestures and his childish English--more, because he didn't
mind it, and laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as
if he were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of
teaching him the language in its purity, such as were addressed by
the savages to Captain Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs
Plornish was particularly ingenious in this art; and attained so
much celebrity for saying 'Me ope you leg well soon,' that it was
considered in the Yard but a very short remove indeed from speaking
Italian. Even Mrs Plornish herself began to think that she had a
natural call towards that language. As he became more popular,
household objects were brought into requisition for his instruction
in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the Yard
ladies would fly out at their doors crying 'Mr Baptist--tea-pot!'
'Mr Baptist--dust-pan!'  'Mr Baptist--flour-dredger!'  'Mr
Baptist--coffee-biggin!'  At the same time exhibiting those
articles, and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling
difficulties of the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

It was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week
of his occupation, that Mr Pancks's fancy became attracted by the
little man. Mounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as
interpreter, he found Mr Baptist with no furniture but his bed on
the ground, a table, and a chair, carving with the aid of a few
simple tools, in the blithest way possible.

'Now, old chap,' said Mr Pancks, 'pay up!'

He had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly
handed it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of
his right hand as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in
the air for an odd sixpence.

'Oh!' said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly. 'That's it, is
it? You're a quick customer. It's all right. I didn't expect to
receive it, though.'

Mrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and
explained to Mr Baptist. 'E please. E glad get money.'

The little man smiled and nodded. His bright face seemed
uncommonly attractive to Mr Pancks. 'How's he getting on in his
limb?' he asked Mrs Plornish.

'Oh, he's a deal better, sir,' said Mrs Plornish. 'We expect next
week he'll be able to leave off his stick entirely.'  (The
opportunity being too favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed
her great accomplishment by explaining with pardonable pride to Mr
Baptist, 'E ope you leg well soon.')

'He's a merry fellow, too,' said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he
were a mechanical toy. 'How does he live?'

'Why, sir,' rejoined Mrs Plornish, 'he turns out to have quite a
power of carving them flowers that you see him at now.'  (Mr
Baptist, watching their faces as they spoke, held up his work. Mrs
Plornish interpreted in her Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks,
'E please. Double good!')

'Can he live by that?' asked Mr Pancks.
'He can live on very little, sir, and it is expected as he will be
able, in time, to make a very good living. Mr Clennam got it him
to do, and gives him odd jobs besides in at the Works next door--
makes 'em for him, in short, when he knows he wants 'em.'

'And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain't hard at it?'
said Mr Pancks.

'Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able
to walk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without
particular understanding or being understood, and he plays with the
children, and he sits in the sun--he'll sit down anywhere, as if it
was an arm-chair--and he'll sing, and he'll laugh!'

'Laugh!' echoed Mr Pancks. 'He looks to me as if every tooth in
his head was always laughing.'

'But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t'other end of the
Yard,' said Mrs Plornish, 'he'll peep out in the curiousest way!
So that some of us thinks he's peeping out towards where his own
country is, and some of us thinks he's looking for somebody he
don't want to see, and some of us don't know what to think.'

Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said;
or perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of
peeping. In any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with
the air of a man who had sufficient reasons for what he did, and
said in his own tongue, it didn't matter. Altro!

'What's Altro?' said Pancks.

'Hem! It's a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,' said Mrs
Plornish.

'Is it?' said Pancks. 'Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good
afternoon. Altro!'

Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times,
Mr Pancks in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time
it became a frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home
jaded at night, to pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up
the stairs, look in at Mr Baptist's door, and, finding him in his
room, to say, 'Hallo, old chap! Altro!'  To which Mr Baptist would
reply with innumerable bright nods and smiles, 'Altro, signore,
altro, altro, altro!'  After this highly condensed conversation, Mr
Pancks would go his way with an appearance of being lightened and
refreshed.

CHAPTER 26

Nobody's State of Mind

If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to
restrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state
of much perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own
heart. Not the least of these would have been a contention, always
waging within it, between a tendency to dislike Mr Henry Gowan, if
not to regard him with positive repugnance, and a whisper that the
inclination was unworthy. A generous nature is not prone to strong
aversions, and is slow to admit them even dispassionately; but when
it finds ill-will gaining upon it, and can discern between-whiles
that its origin is not dispassionate, such a nature becomes
distressed.

Therefore Mr Henry Gowan would have clouded Clennam's mind, and
would have been far oftener present to it than more agreeable
persons and subjects but for the great prudence of his decision
aforesaid. As it was, Mr Gowan seemed transferred to Daniel
Doyce's mind; at all events, it so happened that it usually fell to
Mr Doyce's turn, rather than to Clennam's, to speak of him in the
friendly conversations they held together. These were of frequent
occurrence now; as the two partners shared a portion of a roomy
house in one of the grave old-fashioned City streets, lying not far
from the Bank of England, by London Wall.

Mr Doyce had been to Twickenham to pass the day. Clennam had
excused himself. Mr Doyce was just come home. He put in his head
at the door of Clennam's sitting-room to say Good night.

'Come in, come in!' said Clennam.

'I saw you were reading,' returned Doyce, as he entered, 'and
thought you might not care to be disturbed.'

But for the notable resolution he had made, Clennam really might
not have known what he had been reading; really might not have had
his eyes upon the book for an hour past, though it lay open before
him. He shut it up, rather quickly.

'Are they well?' he asked.

'Yes,' said Doyce; 'they are well. They are all well.'

Daniel had an old workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket-
handkerchief in his hat. He took it out and wiped his forehead
with it, slowly repeating, 'They are all well. Miss Minnie looking
particularly well, I thought.'

'Any company at the cottage?'

'No, no company.'
'And how did you get on, you four?' asked Clennam gaily.

'There were five of us,' returned his partner. 'There was What's-
his-name. He was there.'
'Who is he?' said Clennam.

'Mr Henry Gowan.'

'Ah, to be sure!' cried Clennam with unusual vivacity, 'Yes!--I
forgot him.'

'As I mentioned, you may remember,' said Daniel Doyce, 'he is
always there on Sunday.'

'Yes, yes,' returned Clennam; 'I remember now.'

Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated.
'Yes. He was there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his
dog. He was there too.'

'Miss Meagles is quite attached to--the--dog,' observed Clennam.

'Quite so,' assented his partner. 'More attached to the dog than
I am to the man.'

'You mean Mr--?'

'I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly,' said Daniel Doyce.

There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to
winding up his watch.

'Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment,' he said. 'Our
judgments--I am supposing a general case--'

'Of course,' said Doyce.

'Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which,
almost without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to
keep a guard upon them. For instance, Mr--'

'Gowan,' quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name
almost always devolved.

'Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a
good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give
an unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.'

'Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,' returned his partner. 'I
see him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into
my old friend's house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old
friend's face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at,
the face of his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the
pretty and affectionate creature whom he will never make happy.'
'We don't know,' said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain,
'that he will not make her happy.'

'We don't know,' returned his partner, 'that the earth will last
another hundred years, but we think it highly probable.'

'Well, well!' said Clennam, 'we must be hopeful, and we must at
least try to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no
opportunity of being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman,
because he is successful in his addresses to the beautiful object
of his ambition; and we will not question her natural right to
bestow her love on one whom she finds worthy of it.'

'Maybe, my friend,' said Doyce. 'Maybe also, that she is too young
and petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well.'

'That,' said Clennam, 'would be far beyond our power of
correction.'

Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, 'I fear so.'

'Therefore, in a word,' said Clennam, 'we should make up our minds
that it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would
be a poor thing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve,
for my part, not to depreciate him.'

'I am not quite so sure of myself, and therefore I reserve my
privilege of objecting to him,' returned the other. 'But, if I am
not sure of myself, I am sure of you, Clennam, and I know what an
upright man you are, and how much to be respected. Good night, MY
friend and partner!'  He shook his hand in saying this, as if there
had been something serious at the bottom of their conversation; and
they separated.

By this time they had visited the family on several occasions, and
had always observed that even a passing allusion to Mr Henry Gowan
when he was not among them, brought back the cloud which had
obscured Mr Meagles's sunshine on the morning of the chance
encounter at the Ferry. If Clennam had ever admitted the forbidden
passion into his breast, this period might have been a period of
real trial; under the actual circumstances, doubtless it was
nothing--nothing.

Equally, if his heart had given entertainment to that prohibited
guest, his silent fighting of his way through the mental condition
of this period might have been a little meritorious. In the
constant effort not to be betrayed into a new phase of the
besetting sin of his experience, the pursuit of selfish objects by
low and small means, and to hold instead to some high principle of
honour and generosity, there might have been a little merit. In
the resolution not even to avoid Mr Meagles's house, lest, in the
selfish sparing of himself, he should bring any slight distress
upon the daughter through making her the cause of an estrangement
which he believed the father would regret, there might have been a
little merit. In the modest truthfulness of always keeping in view
the greater equality of Mr Gowan's years and the greater
attractions of his person and manner, there might have been a
little merit. In doing all this and much more, in a perfectly
unaffected way and with a manful and composed constancy, while the
pain within him (peculiar as his life and history) was very sharp,
there might have been some quiet strength of character. But, after
the resolution he had made, of course he could have no such merits
as these; and such a state of mind was nobody's--nobody's.

Mr Gowan made it no concern of his whether it was nobody's or
somebody's. He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all
occasions, as if the possibility of Clennam's presuming to have
debated the great question were too distant and ridiculous to be
imagined. He had always an affability to bestow on Clennam and an
ease to treat him with, which might of itself (in the
supposititious case of his not having taken that sagacious course)
have been a very uncomfortable element in his state of mind.

'I quite regret you were not with us yesterday,' said Mr Henry
Gowan, calling on Clennam the next morning. 'We had an agreeable
day up the river there.'

So he had heard, Arthur said.

'From your partner?' returned Henry Gowan. 'What a dear old fellow
he is!'

'I have a great regard for him.'

'By Jove, he is the finest creature!' said Gowan. 'So fresh, so
green, trusts in such wonderful things!'

Here was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to
grate on Clennam's hearing. He put it aside by merely repeating
that he had a high regard for Mr Doyce.

'He is charming! To see him mooning along to that time of life,
laying down nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way,
is delightful. It warms a man. So unspoilt, so simple, such a
good soul! Upon my life Mr Clennam, one feels desperately worldly
and wicked in comparison with such an innocent creature. I speak
for myself, let me add, without including you. You are genuine
also.'

'Thank you for the compliment,' said Clennam, ill at ease; 'you are
too, I hope?'

'So so,' rejoined the other. 'To be candid with you, tolerably.
I am not a great impostor. Buy one of my pictures, and I assure
you, in confidence, it will not be worth the money. Buy one of
another man's--any great professor who beats me hollow--and the
chances are that the more you give him, the more he'll impose upon
you. They all do it.'
'All painters?'

'Painters, writers, patriots, all the rest who have stands in the
market. Give almost any man I know ten pounds, and he will impose
upon you to a corresponding extent; a thousand pounds--to a
corresponding extent; ten thousand pounds--to a corresponding
extent. So great the success, so great the imposition. But what
a capital world it is!' cried Gowan with warm enthusiasm. 'What a
jolly, excellent, lovable world it is!'

'I had rather thought,' said Clennam, 'that the principle you
mention was chiefly acted on by--'

'By the Barnacles?' interrupted Gowan, laughing.

'By the political gentlemen who condescend to keep the
Circumlocution Office.'

'Ah! Don't be hard upon the Barnacles,' said Gowan, laughing
afresh, 'they are darling fellows! Even poor little Clarence, the
born idiot of the family, is the most agreeable and most endearing
blockhead! And by Jupiter, with a kind of cleverness in him too
that would astonish you!'

'It would. Very much,' said Clennam, drily.

'And after all,' cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of
his which reduced everything in the wide world to the same light
weight, 'though I can't deny that the Circumlocution Office may
ultimately shipwreck everybody and everything, still, that will
probably not be in our time--and it's a school for gentlemen.'

'It's a very dangerous, unsatisfactory, and expensive school to the
people who pay to keep the pupils there, I am afraid,' said
Clennam, shaking his head.

'Ah! You are a terrible fellow,' returned Gowan, airily. 'I can
understand how you have frightened that little donkey, Clarence,
the most estimable of moon-calves (I really love him) nearly out of
his wits. But enough of him, and of all the rest of them. I want
to present you to my mother, Mr Clennam. Pray do me the favour to
give me the opportunity.'

In nobody's state of mind, there was nothing Clennam would have
desired less, or would have been more at a loss how to avoid.

'My mother lives in a most primitive manner down in that dreary
red-brick dungeon at Hampton Court,' said Gowan. 'If you would
make your own appointment, suggest your own day for permitting me
to take you there to dinner, you would be bored and she would be
charmed. Really that's the state of the case.'

What could Clennam say after this? His retiring character included
a great deal that was simple in the best sense, because unpractised
and unused; and in his simplicity and modesty, he could only say
that he was happy to place himself at Mr Gowan's disposal.
Accordingly he said it, and the day was fixed. And a dreaded day
it was on his part, and a very unwelcome day when it came and they
went down to Hampton Court together.

The venerable inhabitants of that venerable pile seemed, in those
times, to be encamped there like a sort of civilised gipsies.
There was a temporary air about their establishments, as if they
were going away the moment they could get anything better; there
was also a dissatisfied air about themselves, as if they took it
very ill that they had not already got something much better.
Genteel blinds and makeshifts were more or less observable as soon
as their doors were opened; screens not half high enough, which
made dining-rooms out of arched passages, and warded off obscure
corners where footboys slept at nights with their heads among the
knives and forks; curtains which called upon you to believe that
they didn't hide anything; panes of glass which requested you not
to see them; many objects of various forms, feigning to have no
connection with their guilty secret, a bed; disguised traps in
walls, which were clearly coal-cellars; affectations of no
thoroughfares, which were evidently doors to little kitchens.
Mental reservations and artful mysteries grew out of these things.
Callers looking steadily into the eyes of their receivers,
pretended not to smell cooking three feet off; people, confronting
closets accidentally left open, pretended not to see bottles;
visitors with their heads against a partition of thin canvas, and
a page and a young female at high words on the other side, made
believe to be sitting in a primeval silence. There was no end to
the small social accommodation-bills of this nature which the
gipsies of gentility were constantly drawing upon, and accepting
for, one another.

Some of these Bohemians were of an irritable temperament, as
constantly soured and vexed by two mental trials: the first, the
consciousness that they had never got enough out of the public; the
second, the consciousness that the public were admitted into the
building. Under the latter great wrong, a few suffered
dreadfully--particularly on Sundays, when they had for some time
expected the earth to open and swallow the public up; but which
desirable event had not yet occurred, in consequence of some
reprehensible laxity in the arrangements of the Universe.

Mrs Gowan's door was attended by a family servant of several years'
standing, who had his own crow to pluck with the public concerning
a situation in the Post-Office which he had been for some time
expecting, and to which he was not yet appointed. He perfectly
knew that the public could never have got him in, but he grimly
gratified himself with the idea that the public kept him out.
Under the influence of this injury (and perhaps of some little
straitness and irregularity in the matter of wages), he had grown
neglectful of his person and morose in mind; and now beholding in
Clennam one of the degraded body of his oppressors, received him
with ignominy.
Mrs Gowan, however, received him with condescension. He found her
a courtly old lady, formerly a Beauty, and still sufficiently well-
favoured to have dispensed with the powder on her nose and a
certain impossible bloom under each eye. She was a little lofty
with him; so was another old lady, dark-browed and high-nosed, and
who must have had something real about her or she could not have
existed, but it was certainly not her hair or her teeth or her
figure or her complexion; so was a grey old gentleman of dignified
and sullen appearance; both of whom had come to dinner. But, as
they had all been in the British Embassy way in sundry parts of the
earth, and as a British Embassy cannot better establish a character
with the Circumlocution Office than by treating its compatriots
with illimitable contempt (else it would become like the Embassies
of other countries), Clennam felt that on the whole they let him
off lightly.

The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster
Stiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office
for many years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad.

This noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his
time, and had done it with such complete success that the very name
of Englishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had
the distinguished honour of remembering him at a distance of a
quarter of a century.

He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat,
like a stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner.
There was a whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the
nomadic nature of the service and its curious races of plates and
dishes; but the noble Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or
porcelain, made it superb. He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines,
chilled the gravy, and blighted the vegetables.

There was only one other person in the room: a microscopically
small footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into
the Post-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been
unbuttoned and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a
distant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a
situation under Government.

Mrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her
son's being reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of
the low Arts, instead of asserting his birthright and putting a
ring through its nose as an acknowledged Barnacle, headed the
conversation at dinner on the evil days. It was then that Clennam
learned for the first time what little pivots this great world goes
round upon.

'If John Barnacle,' said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the
times had been fully ascertained, 'if John Barnacle had but
abandoned his most unfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all
would have been well, and I think the country would have been
preserved.'
The old lady with the high nose assented; but added that if
Augustus Stiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out
with instructions to charge, she thought the country would have
been preserved.

The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle
and Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and
formed their ever-memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the
newspapers, and rendered it penal for any Editor-person to presume
to discuss the conduct of any appointed authority abroad or at
home, he thought the country would have been preserved.

It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and
Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want
preserving was not so clear. It was only clear that the question
was all about John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William
Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or
Stiltstalking, because there was nobody else but mob. And this was
the feature of the conversation which impressed Clennam, as a man
not used to it, very disagreeably: making him doubt if it were
quite right to sit there, silently hearing a great nation narrowed
to such little bounds. Remembering, however, that in the
Parliamentary debates, whether on the life of that nation's body or
the life of its soul, the question was usually all about and
between John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and
Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking,
and nobody else; he said nothing on the part of mob, bethinking
himself that mob was used to it.

Mr Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off
the three talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam
startled by what they said. Having as supreme a contempt for the
class that had thrown him off as for the class that had not taken
him on, he had no personal disquiet in anything that passed. His
healthy state of mind appeared even to derive a gratification from
Clennam's position of embarrassment and isolation among the good
company; and if Clennam had been in that condition with which
Nobody was incessantly contending, he would have suspected it, and
would have struggled with the suspicion as a meanness, even while
he sat at the table.

In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no
time less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five
centuries in arrears, and delivered solemn political oracles
appropriate to that epoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea
for his own drinking, and retiring at his lowest temperature. Then
Mrs Gowan, who had been accustomed in her days of a vacant arm-
chair beside her to which to summon state to retain her devoted
slaves, one by one, for short audiences as marks of her especial
favour, invited Clennam with a turn of her fan to approach the
presence. He obeyed, and took the tripod recently vacated by Lord
Lancaster Stiltstalking.

'Mr Clennam,' said Mrs Gowan, 'apart from the happiness I have in
becoming known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place--
a mere barrack--there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to
you. It is the subject in connection with which my son first had,
I believe, the pleasure of cultivating your acquaintance.'

Clennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he
did not yet quite understand.

'First,' said Mrs Gowan, 'now, is she really pretty?'

In nobody's difficulties, he would have found it very difficult to
answer; very difficult indeed to smile, and say 'Who?'

'Oh! You know!' she returned. 'This flame of Henry's. This
unfortunate fancy. There! If it is a point of honour that I
should originate the name--Miss Mickles--Miggles.'

'Miss Meagles,' said Clennam, 'is very beautiful.'

'Men are so often mistaken on those points,' returned Mrs Gowan,
shaking her head, 'that I candidly confess to you I feel anything
but sure of it, even now; though it is something to have Henry
corroborated with so much gravity and emphasis. He picked the
people up at Rome, I think?'

The phrase would have given nobody mortal offence. Clennam
replied, 'Excuse me, I doubt if I understand your expression.'

'Picked the people up,' said Mrs Gowan, tapping the sticks of her
closed fan (a large green one, which she used as a hand-screen) on
her little table. 'Came upon them. Found them out. Stumbled UP
against them.'

'The people?'

'Yes. The Miggles people.'

'I really cannot say,' said Clennam, 'where my friend Mr Meagles
first presented Mr Henry Gowan to his daughter.'

'I am pretty sure he picked her up at Rome; but never mind where--
somewhere. Now (this is entirely between ourselves), is she very
plebeian?'

'Really, ma'am,' returned Clennam, 'I am so undoubtedly plebeian
myself, that I do not feel qualified to judge.'

'Very neat!' said Mrs Gowan, coolly unfurling her screen. 'Very
happy! From which I infer that you secretly think her manner equal
to her looks?'

Clennam, after a moment's stiffness, bowed.

'That's comforting, and I hope you may be right. Did Henry tell me
you had travelled with them?'
'I travelled with my friend Mr Meagles, and his wife and daughter,
during some months.'  (Nobody's heart might have been wrung by the
remembrance.)

'Really comforting, because you must have had a large experience of
them. You see, Mr Clennam, this thing has been going on for a long
time, and I find no improvement in it. Therefore to have the
opportunity of speaking to one so well informed about it as
yourself, is an immense relief to me. Quite a boon. Quite a
blessing, I am sure.'

'Pardon me,' returned Clennam, 'but I am not in Mr Henry Gowan's
confidence. I am far from being so well informed as you suppose me
to be. Your mistake makes my position a very delicate one. No
word on this topic has ever passed between Mr Henry Gowan and
myself.'

Mrs Gowan glanced at the other end of the room, where her son was
playing ecarte on a sofa, with the old lady who was for a charge of
cavalry.

'Not in his confidence? No,' said Mrs Gowan. 'No word has passed
between you? No. That I can imagine. But there are unexpressed
confidences, Mr Clennam; and as you have been together intimately
among these people, I cannot doubt that a confidence of that sort
exists in the present case. Perhaps you have heard that I have
suffered the keenest distress of mind from Henry's having taken to
a pursuit which--well!' shrugging her shoulders, 'a very
respectable pursuit, I dare say, and some artists are, as artists,
quite superior persons; still, we never yet in our family have gone
beyond an Amateur, and it is a pardonable weakness to feel a
little--'

As Mrs Gowan broke off to heave a sigh, Clennam, however resolute
to be magnanimous, could not keep down the thought that there was
mighty little danger of the family's ever going beyond an Amateur,
even as it was.

'Henry,' the mother resumed, 'is self-willed and resolute; and as
these people naturally strain every nerve to catch him, I can
entertain very little hope, Mr Clennam, that the thing will be
broken off. I apprehend the girl's fortune will be very small;
Henry might have done much better; there is scarcely anything to
compensate for the connection: still, he acts for himself; and if
I find no improvement within a short time, I see no other course
than to resign myself and make the best of these people. I am
infinitely obliged to you for what you have told me.'
As she shrugged her shoulders, Clennam stiffly bowed again. With
an uneasy flush upon his face, and hesitation in his manner, he
then said in a still lower tone than he had adopted yet:

'Mrs Gowan, I scarcely know how to acquit myself of what I feel to
be a duty, and yet I must ask you for your kind consideration in
attempting to discharge it. A misconception on your part, a very
great misconception if I may venture to call it so, seems to
require setting right. You have supposed Mr Meagles and his family
to strain every nerve, I think you said--'

'Every nerve,' repeated Mrs Gowan, looking at him in calm
obstinacy, with her green fan between her face and the fire.

'To secure Mr Henry Gowan?'

The lady placidly assented.

'Now that is so far,' said Arthur, 'from being the case, that I
know Mr Meagles to be unhappy in this matter; and to have
interposed all reasonable obstacles with the hope of putting an end
to it.'

Mrs Gowan shut up her great green fan, tapped him on the arm with
it, and tapped her smiling lips. 'Why, of course,' said she.
'Just what I mean.'

Arthur watched her face for some explanation of what she did mean.

'Are you really serious, Mr Clennam? Don't you see?'

Arthur did not see; and said so.

'Why, don't I know my son, and don't I know that this is exactly
the way to hold him?' said Mrs Gowan, contemptuously; 'and do not
these Miggles people know it, at least as well as I? Oh, shrewd
people, Mr Clennam: evidently people of business! I believe
Miggles belonged to a Bank. It ought to have been a very
profitable Bank, if he had much to do with its management. This is
very well done, indeed.'

'I beg and entreat you, ma'am--' Arthur interposed.

'Oh, Mr Clennam, can you really be so credulous?'

It made such a painful impression upon him to hear her talking in
this haughty tone, and to see her patting her contemptuous lips
with her fan, that he said very earnestly, 'Believe me, ma'am, this
is unjust, a perfectly groundless suspicion.'

'Suspicion?' repeated Mrs Gowan. 'Not suspicion, Mr Clennam,
Certainty. It is very knowingly done indeed, and seems to have
taken YOU in completely.'  She laughed; and again sat tapping her
lips with her fan, and tossing her head, as if she added, 'Don't
tell me. I know such people will do anything for the honour of
such an alliance.'

At this opportune moment, the cards were thrown up, and Mr Henry
Gowan came across the room saying, 'Mother, if you can spare Mr
Clennam for this time, we have a long way to go, and it's getting
late.'  Mr Clennam thereupon rose, as he had no choice but to do;
and Mrs Gowan showed him, to the last, the same look and the same
tapped contemptuous lips.

'You have had a portentously long audience of my mother,' said
Gowan, as the door closed upon them. 'I fervently hope she has not
bored you?'

'Not at all,' said Clennam.

They had a little open phaeton for the journey, and were soon in it
on the road home. Gowan, driving, lighted a cigar; Clennam
declined one. Do what he would, he fell into such a mood of
abstraction that Gowan said again, 'I am very much afraid my mother
has bored you?'  To which he roused himself to answer, 'Not at
all!' and soon relapsed again.

In that state of mind which rendered nobody uneasy, his
thoughtfulness would have turned principally on the man at his
side. He would have thought of the morning when he first saw him
rooting out the stones with his heel, and would have asked himself,
'Does he jerk me out of the path in the same careless, cruel way?'
He would have thought, had this introduction to his mother been
brought about by him because he knew what she would say, and that
he could thus place his position before a rival and loftily warn
him off, without himself reposing a word of confidence in him? He
would have thought, even if there were no such design as that, had
he brought him there to play with his repressed emotions, and
torment him? The current of these meditations would have been
stayed sometimes by a rush of shame, bearing a remonstrance to
himself from his own open nature, representing that to shelter such
suspicions, even for the passing moment, was not to hold the high,
unenvious course he had resolved to keep. At those times, the
striving within him would have been hardest; and looking up and
catching Gowan's eyes, he would have started as if he had done him
an injury.

Then, looking at the dark road and its uncertain objects, he would
have gradually trailed off again into thinking, 'Where are we
driving, he and I, I wonder, on the darker road of life? How will
it be with us, and with her, in the obscure distance?'  Thinking of
her, he would have been troubled anew with a reproachful misgiving
that it was not even loyal to her to dislike him, and that in being
so easily prejudiced against him he was less deserving of her than
at first.

'You are evidently out of spirits,' said Gowan; 'I am very much
afraid my mother must have bored you dreadfully.'
'Believe me, not at all,' said Clennam. 'It's nothing--nothing!'

CHAPTER 27

Five-and-Twenty

A frequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks's desire to collect
information relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible
bearing on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his
return from his long exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness
at this period. What Mr Pancks already knew about the Dorrit
family, what more he really wanted to find out, and why he should
trouble his busy head about them at all, were questions that often
perplexed him. Mr Pancks was not a man to waste his time and
trouble in researches prompted by idle curiosity. That he had a
specific object Clennam could not doubt. And whether the
attainment of that object by Mr Pancks's industry might bring to
light, in some untimely way, secret reasons which had induced his
mother to take Little Dorrit by the hand, was a serious
speculation.

Not that he ever wavered either in his desire or his determination
to repair a wrong that had been done in his father's time, should
a wrong come to light, and be reparable. The shadow of a supposed
act of injustice, which had hung over him since his father's death,
was so vague and formless that it might be the result of a reality
widely remote from his idea of it. But, if his apprehensions
should prove to be well founded, he was ready at any moment to lay
down all he had, and begin the world anew. As the fierce dark
teaching of his childhood had never sunk into his heart, so that
first article in his code of morals was, that he must begin, in
practical humility, with looking well to his feet on Earth, and
that he could never mount on wings of words to Heaven. Duty on
earth, restitution on earth, action on earth; these first, as the
first steep steps upward. Strait was the gate and narrow was the
way; far straiter and narrower than the broad high road paved with
vain professions and vain repetitions, motes from other men's eyes
and liberal delivery of others to the judgment--all cheap materials
costing absolutely nothing.

No. It was not a selfish fear or hesitation that rendered him
uneasy, but a mistrust lest Pancks might not observe his part of
the understanding between them, and, making any discovery, might
take some course upon it without imparting it to him. On the other
hand, when he recalled his conversation with Pancks, and the little
reason he had to suppose that there was any likelihood of that
strange personage being on that track at all, there were times when
he wondered that he made so much of it. Labouring in this sea, as
all barks labour in cross seas, he tossed about and came to no
haven.

The removal of Little Dorrit herself from their customary
association, did not mend the matter. She was so much out, and so
much in her own room, that he began to miss her and to find a blank
in her place. He had written to her to inquire if she were better,
and she had written back, very gratefully and earnestly telling him
not to be uneasy on her behalf, for she was quite well; but he had
not seen her, for what, in their intercourse, was a long time.

He returned home one evening from an interview with her father, who
had mentioned that she was out visiting--which was what he always
said when she was hard at work to buy his supper--and found Mr
Meagles in an excited state walking up and down his room. On his
opening the door, Mr Meagles stopped, faced round, and said:

'Clennam!--Tattycoram!'

'What's the matter?'

'Lost!'

'Why, bless my heart alive!' cried Clennam in amazement. 'What do
you mean?'

'Wouldn't count five-and-twenty, sir; couldn't be got to do it;
stopped at eight, and took herself off.'

'Left your house?'

'Never to come back,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head. 'You
don't know that girl's passionate and proud character. A team of
horses couldn't draw her back now; the bolts and bars of the old
Bastille couldn't keep her.'

'How did it happen? Pray sit down and tell me.'

'As to how it happened, it's not so easy to relate: because you
must have the unfortunate temperament of the poor impetuous girl
herself, before you can fully understand it. But it came about in
this way. Pet and Mother and I have been having a good deal of
talk together of late. I'll not disguise from you, Clennam, that
those conversations have not been of as bright a kind as I could
wish; they have referred to our going away again. In proposing to
do which, I have had, in fact, an object.'

Nobody's heart beat quickly.

'An object,' said Mr Meagles, after a moment's pause, 'that I will
not disguise from you, either, Clennam. There's an inclination on
the part of my dear child which I am sorry for. Perhaps you guess
the person. Henry Gowan.'

'I was not unprepared to hear it.'

'Well!' said Mr Meagles, with a heavy sigh, 'I wish to God you had
never had to hear it. However, so it is. Mother and I have done
all we could to get the better of it, Clennam. We have tried
tender advice, we have tried time, we have tried absence. As yet,
of no use. Our late conversations have been upon the subject of
going away for another year at least, in order that there might be
an entire separation and breaking off for that term. Upon that
question, Pet has been unhappy, and therefore Mother and I have
been unhappy.'
Clennam said that he could easily believe it.

'Well!' continued Mr Meagles in an apologetic way, 'I admit as a
practical man, and I am sure Mother would admit as a practical
woman, that we do, in families, magnify our troubles and make
mountains of our molehills in a way that is calculated to be rather
trying to people who look on--to mere outsiders, you know, Clennam.

Still, Pet's happiness or unhappiness is quite a life or death
question with us; and we may be excused, I hope, for making much of
it. At all events, it might have been borne by Tattycoram. Now,
don't you think so?'

'I do indeed think so,' returned Clennam, in most emphatic
recognition of this very moderate expectation.

'No, sir,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head ruefully. 'She
couldn't stand it. The chafing and firing of that girl, the
wearing and tearing of that girl within her own breast, has been
such that I have softly said to her again and again in passing her,
'Five-and-twenty, Tattycoram, five-and-twenty!" I heartily wish she
could have gone on counting five-and-twenty day and night, and then
it wouldn't have happened.'

Mr Meagles with a despondent countenance in which the goodness of
his heart was even more expressed than in his times of cheerfulness
and gaiety, stroked his face down from his forehead to his chin,
and shook his head again.

'I said to Mother (not that it was necessary, for she would have
thought it all for herself), we are practical people, my dear, and
we know her story; we see in this unhappy girl some reflection of
what was raging in her mother's heart before ever such a creature
as this poor thing was in the world; we'll gloss her temper over,
Mother, we won't notice it at present, my dear, we'll take
advantage of some better disposition in her another time. So we
said nothing. But, do what we would, it seems as if it was to be;
she broke out violently one night.'

'How, and why?'

'If you ask me Why,' said Mr Meagles, a little disturbed by the
question, for he was far more intent on softening her case than the
family's, 'I can only refer you to what I have just repeated as
having been pretty near my words to Mother. As to How, we had said
Good night to Pet in her presence (very affectionately, I must
allow), and she had attended Pet up-stairs--you remember she was
her maid. Perhaps Pet, having been out of sorts, may have been a
little more inconsiderate than usual in requiring services of her:
but I don't know that I have any right to say so; she was always
thoughtful and gentle.'

'The gentlest mistress in the world.'

'Thank you, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand;
'you have often seen them together. Well! We presently heard this
unfortunate Tattycoram loud and angry, and before we could ask what
was the matter, Pet came back in a tremble, saying she was
frightened of her. Close after her came Tattycoram in a flaming
rage. "I hate you all three," says she, stamping her foot at us.
"I am bursting with hate of the whole house."'

'Upon which you--?'

'I?' said Mr Meagles, with a plain good faith that might have
commanded the belief of Mrs Gowan herself. 'I said, count five-
and-twenty, Tattycoram.'

Mr Meagles again stroked his face and shook his head, with an air
of profound regret.

'She was so used to do it, Clennam, that even then, such a picture
of passion as you never saw, she stopped short, looked me full in
the face, and counted (as I made out) to eight. But she couldn't
control herself to go any further. There she broke down, poor
thing, and gave the other seventeen to the four winds. Then it all
burst out. She detested us, she was miserable with us, she
couldn't bear it, she wouldn't bear it, she was determined to go
away. She was younger than her young mistress, and would she
remain to see her always held up as the only creature who was young
and interesting, and to be cherished and loved? No. She wouldn't,
she wouldn't, she wouldn't! What did we think she, Tattycoram,
might have been if she had been caressed and cared for in her
childhood, like her young mistress? As good as her? Ah! Perhaps
fifty times as good. When we pretended to be so fond of one
another, we exulted over her; that was what we did; we exulted over
her and shamed her. And all in the house did the same. They
talked about their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters;
they liked to drag them up before her face. There was Mrs Tickit,
only yesterday, when her little grandchild was with her, had been
amused by the child's trying to call her (Tattycoram) by the
wretched name we gave her; and had laughed at the name. Why, who
didn't; and who were we that we should have a right to name her
like a dog or a cat? But she didn't care. She would take no more
benefits from us; she would fling us her name back again, and she
would go. She would leave us that minute, nobody should stop her,
and we should never hear of her again.'

Mr Meagles had recited all this with such a vivid remembrance of
his original, that he was almost as flushed and hot by this time as
he described her to have been.

'Ah, well!' he said, wiping his face. 'It was of no use trying
reason then, with that vehement panting creature (Heaven knows what
her mother's story must have been); so I quietly told her that she
should not go at that late hour of night, and I gave her MY hand
and took her to her room, and locked the house doors. But she was
gone this morning.'
'And you know no more of her?'

'No more,' returned Mr Meagles. 'I have been hunting about all
day. She must have gone very early and very silently. I have
found no trace of her down about us.'

'Stay! You want,' said Clennam, after a moment's reflection, 'to
see her? I assume that?'

'Yes, assuredly; I want to give her another chance; Mother and Pet
want to give her another chance; come! You yourself,' said Mr
Meagles, persuasively, as if the provocation to be angry were not
his own at all, 'want to give the poor passionate girl another
chance, I know, Clennam.'

'It would be strange and hard indeed if I did not,' said Clennam,
'when you are all so forgiving. What I was going to ask you was,
have you thought of that Miss Wade?'

'I have. I did not think of her until I had pervaded the whole of
our neighbourhood, and I don't know that I should have done so then
but for finding Mother and Pet, when I went home, full of the idea
that Tattycoram must have gone to her. Then, of course, I recalled
what she said that day at dinner when you were first with US.'

'Have you any idea where Miss Wade is to be found?'

'To tell you the truth,' returned Mr Meagles, 'it's because I have
an addled jumble of a notion on that subject that you found me
waiting here. There is one of those odd impressions in my house,
which do mysteriously get into houses sometimes, which nobody seems
to have picked up in a distinct form from anybody, and yet which
everybody seems to have got hold of loosely from somebody and let
go again, that she lives, or was living, thereabouts.'  Mr Meagles
handed him a slip of paper, on which was written the name of one of
the dull by-streets in the Grosvenor region, near Park Lane.

'Here is no number,' said Arthur looking over it.

'No number, my dear Clennam?' returned his friend. 'No anything!
The very name of the street may have been floating in the air; for,
as I tell you, none of my people can say where they got it from.
However, it's worth an inquiry; and as I would rather make it in
company than alone, and as you too were a fellow-traveller of that
immovable woman's, I thought perhaps--' Clennam finished the
sentence for him by taking up his hat again, and saying he was
ready.

It was now summer-time; a grey, hot, dusty evening. They rode to
the top of Oxford Street, and there alighting, dived in among the
great streets of melancholy stateliness, and the little streets
that try to be as stately and succeed in being more melancholy, of
which there is a labyrinth near Park Lane. Wildernesses of corner
houses, with barbarous old porticoes and appurtenances; horrors
that came into existence under some wrong-headed person in some
wrong-headed time, still demanding the blind admiration of all
ensuing generations and determined to do so until they tumbled
down; frowned upon the twilight. Parasite little tenements, with
the cramp in their whole frame, from the dwarf hall-door on the
giant model of His Grace's in the Square to the squeezed window of
the boudoir commanding the dunghills in the Mews, made the evening
doleful. Rickety dwellings of undoubted fashion, but of a capacity
to hold nothing comfortably except a dismal smell, looked like the
last result of the great mansions' breeding in-and-in; and, where
their little supplementary bows and balconies were supported on
thin iron columns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon crutches.

Here and there a Hatchment, with the whole science of Heraldry in
it, loomed down upon the street, like an Archbishop discoursing on
Vanity. The shops, few in number, made no show; for popular
opinion was as nothing to them. The pastrycook knew who was on his
books, and in that knowledge could be calm, with a few glass
cylinders of dowager peppermint-drops in his window, and half-a-
dozen ancient specimens of currant-jelly. A few oranges formed the
greengrocer's whole concession to the vulgar mind. A single basket
made of moss, once containing plovers' eggs, held all that the
poulterer had to say to the rabble. Everybody in those streets
seemed (which is always the case at that hour and season) to be
gone out to dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the dinners they
had gone to. On the doorsteps there were lounging footmen with
bright parti-coloured plumage and white polls, like an extinct race
of monstrous birds; and butlers, solitary men of recluse demeanour,
each of whom appeared distrustful of all other butlers. The roll
of carriages in the Park was done for the day; the street lamps
were lighting; and wicked little grooms in the tightest fitting
garments, with twists in their legs answering to the twists in
their minds, hung about in pairs, chewing straws and exchanging
fraudulent secrets. The spotted dogs who went out with the
carriages, and who were so associated with splendid equipages that
it looked like a condescension in those animals to come out without
them, accompanied helpers to and fro on messages. Here and there
was a retiring public-house which did not require to be supported
on the shoulders of the people, and where gentlemen out of livery
were not much wanted.

This last discovery was made by the two friends in pursuing their
inquiries. Nothing was there, or anywhere, known of such a person
as Miss Wade, in connection with the street they sought. It was
one of the parasite streets; long, regular, narrow, dull and
gloomy; like a brick and mortar funeral. They inquired at several
little area gates, where a dejected youth stood spiking his chin on
the summit of a precipitous little shoot of wooden steps, but could
gain no information. They walked up the street on one side of the
way, and down it on the other, what time two vociferous news-
sellers, announcing an extraordinary event that had never happened
and never would happen, pitched their hoarse voices into the secret
chambers; but nothing came of it. At length they stood at the
corner from which they had begun, and it had fallen quite dark, and
they were no wiser.

It happened that in the street they had several times passed a
dingy house, apparently empty, with bills in the windows,
announcing that it was to let. The bills, as a variety in the
funeral procession, almost amounted to a decoration. Perhaps
because they kept the house separated in his mind, or perhaps
because Mr Meagles and himself had twice agreed in passing, 'It is
clear she don't live there,' Clennam now proposed that they should
go back and try that house before finally going away. Mr Meagles
agreed, and back they went.

They knocked once, and they rang once, without any response.

'Empty,' said Mr Meagles, listening. 'Once more,' said Clennam,
and knocked again. After that knock they heard a movement below,
and somebody shuffling up towards the door.

The confined entrance was so dark that it was impossible to make
out distinctly what kind of person opened the door; but it appeared
to be an old woman. 'Excuse our troubling you,' said Clennam.
'Pray can you tell us where Miss Wade lives?'  The voice in the
darkness unexpectedly replied, 'Lives here.'

'Is she at home?'

No answer coming, Mr Meagles asked again. 'Pray is she at home?'

After another delay, 'I suppose she is,' said the voice abruptly;
'you had better come in, and I'll ask.'

They 'were summarily shut into the close black house; and the
figure rustling away, and speaking from a higher level, said, 'Come
up, if you please; you can't tumble over anything.'  They groped
their way up-stairs towards a faint light, which proved to be the
light of the street shining through a window; and the figure left
them shut in an airless room.

'This is odd, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, softly.

'Odd enough,' assented Clennam in the same tone, 'but we have
succeeded; that's the main point. Here's a light coming!'

The light was a lamp, and the bearer was an old woman: very dirty,
very wrinkled and dry. 'She's at home,' she said (and the voice
was the same that had spoken before); 'she'll come directly.'
Having set the lamp down on the table, the old woman dusted her
hands on her apron, which she might have done for ever without
cleaning them, looked at the visitors with a dim pair of eyes, and
backed out.

The lady whom they had come to see, if she were the present
occupant of the house, appeared to have taken up her quarters there
as she might have established herself in an Eastern caravanserai.
A small square of carpet in the middle of the room, a few articles
of furniture that evidently did not belong to the room, and a
disorder of trunks and travelling articles, formed the whole of her
surroundings. Under some former regular inhabitant, the stifling
little apartment had broken out into a pier-glass and a gilt table;
but the gilding was as faded as last year's flowers, and the glass
was so clouded that it seemed to hold in magic preservation all the
fogs and bad weather it had ever reflected. The visitors had had
a minute or two to look about them, when the door opened and Miss
Wade came in.

She was exactly the same as when they had parted. just as
handsome, just as scornful, just as repressed. She manifested no
surprise in seeing them, nor any other emotion. She requested them
to be seated; and declining to take a seat herself, at once
anticipated any introduction of their business.

'I apprehend,' she said, 'that I know the cause of your favouring
me with this visit. We may come to it at once.'

'The cause then, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'is Tattycoram.'

'So I supposed.'

'Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, 'will you be so kind as to say
whether you know anything of her?'

'Surely. I know she is here with me.'

'Then, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'allow me to make known to you that
I shall be happy to have her back, and that my wife and daughter
will be happy to have her back. She has been with us a long time:
we don't forget her claims upon us, and I hope we know how to make
allowances.'

'You hope to know how to make allowances?' she returned, in a
level, measured voice. 'For what?'

'I think my friend would say, Miss Wade,' Arthur Clennam
interposed, seeing Mr Meagles rather at a loss, 'for the passionate
sense that sometimes comes upon the poor girl, of being at a
disadvantage. Which occasionally gets the better of better
remembrances.'

The lady broke into a smile as she turned her eyes upon him.
'Indeed?' was all she answered.

She stood by the table so perfectly composed and still after this
acknowledgment of his remark that Mr Meagles stared at her under a
sort of fascination, and could not even look to Clennam to make
another move. After waiting, awkwardly enough, for some moments,
Arthur said:
'Perhaps it would be well if Mr Meagles could see her, Miss Wade?'

'That is easily done,' said she. 'Come here, child.'  She had
opened a door while saying this, and now led the girl in by the
hand. It was very curious to see them standing together: the girl
with her disengaged fingers plaiting the bosom of her dress, half
irresolutely, half passionately; Miss Wade with her composed face
attentively regarding her, and suggesting to an observer, with
extraordinary force, in her composure itself (as a veil will
suggest the form it covers), the unquenchable passion of her own
nature.

'See here,' she said, in the same level way as before. 'Here is
your patron, your master. He is willing to take you back, my dear,
if you are sensible of the favour and choose to go. You can be,
again, a foil to his pretty daughter, a slave to her pleasant
wilfulness, and a toy in the house showing the goodness of the
family. You can have your droll name again, playfully pointing you
out and setting you apart, as it is right that you should be
pointed out and set apart. (Your birth, you know; you must not
forget your birth.) You can again be shown to this gentleman's
daughter, Harriet, and kept before her, as a living reminder of her
own superiority and her gracious condescension. You can recover
all these advantages and many more of the same kind which I dare
say start up in your memory while I speak, and which you lose in
taking refuge with me--you can recover them all by telling these
gentlemen how humbled and penitent you are, and by going back to
them to be forgiven. What do you say, Harriet? Will you go?'

The girl who, under the influence of these words, had gradually
risen in anger and heightened in colour, answered, raising her
lustrous black eyes for the moment, and clenching her hand upon the
folds it had been puckering up, 'I'd die sooner!'

Miss Wade, still standing at her side holding her hand, looked
quietly round and said with a smile, 'Gentlemen! What do you do
upon that?'

Poor Mr Meagles's inexpressible consternation in hearing his
motives and actions so perverted, had prevented him from
interposing any word until now; but now he regained the power of
speech.

'Tattycoram,' said he, 'for I'll call you by that name still, my
good girl, conscious that I meant nothing but kindness when I gave
it to you, and conscious that you know it--'

'I don't!' said she, looking up again, and almost rending herself
with the same busy hand.

'No, not now, perhaps,' said Mr Meagles; 'not with that lady's eyes
so intent upon you, Tattycoram,' she glanced at them for a moment,
'and that power over you, which we see she exercises; not now,
perhaps, but at another time. Tattycoram, I'll not ask that lady
whether she believes what she has said, even in the anger and ill
blood in which I and my friend here equally know she has spoken,
though she subdues herself, with a determination that any one who
has once seen her is not likely to forget. I'll not ask you, with
your remembrance of my house and all belonging to it, whether you
believe it. I'll only say that you have no profession to make to
me or mine, and no forgiveness to entreat; and that all in the
world that I ask you to do, is, to count five-and-twenty,
Tattycoram.'

She looked at him for an instant, and then said frowningly, 'I
won't. Miss Wade, take me away, please.'

The contention that raged within her had no softening in it now; it
was wholly between passionate defiance and stubborn defiance. Her
rich colour, her quick blood, her rapid breath, were all setting
themselves against the opportunity of retracing their steps. 'I
won't. I won't. I won't!' she repeated in a low, thick voice.
'I'd be torn to pieces first. I'd tear myself to pieces first!'

Miss Wade, who had released her hold, laid her hand protectingly on
the girl's neck for a moment, and then said, looking round with her
former smile and speaking exactly in her former tone, 'Gentlemen!
What do you do upon that?'

'Oh, Tattycoram, Tattycoram!' cried Mr Meagles, adjuring her
besides with an earnest hand. 'Hear that lady's voice, look at
that lady's face, consider what is in that lady's heart, and think
what a future lies before you. My child, whatever you may think,
that lady's influence over you--astonishing to us, and I should
hardly go too far in saying terrible to us to see--is founded in
passion fiercer than yours, and temper more violent than yours.
What can you two be together? What can come of it?'

'I am alone here, gentlemen,' observed Miss Wade, with no change of
voice or manner. 'Say anything you will.'

'Politeness must yield to this misguided girl, ma'am,' said Mr
Meagles, 'at her present pass; though I hope not altogether to
dismiss it, even with the injury you do her so strongly before me.
Excuse me for reminding you in her hearing--I must say it--that you
were a mystery to all of us, and had nothing in common with any of
us when she unfortunately fell in your way. I don't know what you
are, but you don't hide, can't hide, what a dark spirit you have
within you. If it should happen that you are a woman, who, from
whatever cause, has a perverted delight in making a sister-woman as
wretched as she is (I am old enough to have heard of such), I warn
her against you, and I warn you against yourself.'

'Gentlemen!' said Miss Wade, calmly. 'When you have concluded--Mr
Clennam, perhaps you will induce your friend--'

'Not without another effort,' said Mr Meagles, stoutly.
'Tattycoram, my poor dear girl, count five-and-twenty.'
'Do not reject the hope, the certainty, this kind man offers you,'
said Clennam in a low emphatic voice. 'Turn to the friends you
have not forgotten. Think once more!'

'I won't! Miss Wade,' said the girl, with her bosom swelling high,
and speaking with her hand held to her throat, 'take me away!'

'Tattycoram,' said Mr Meagles. 'Once more yet! The only thing I
ask of you in the world, my child! Count five-and-twenty!'

She put her hands tightly over her ears, confusedly tumbling down
her bright black hair in the vehemence of the action, and turned
her face resolutely to the wall. Miss Wade, who had watched her
under this final appeal with that strange attentive smile, and that
repressing hand upon her own bosom with which she had watched her
in her struggle at Marseilles, then put her arm about her waist as
if she took possession of her for evermore.

And there was a visible triumph in her face when she turned it to
dismiss the visitors.

'As it is the last time I shall have the honour,' she said, 'and as
you have spoken of not knowing what I am, and also of the
foundation of my influence here, you may now know that it is
founded in a common cause. What your broken plaything is as to
birth, I am. She has no name, I have no name. Her wrong is my
wrong. I have nothing more to say to you.'

This was addressed to Mr Meagles, who sorrowfully went out. As
Clennam followed, she said to him, with the same external composure
and in the same level voice, but with a smile that is only seen on
cruel faces: a very faint smile, lifting the nostril, scarcely
touching the lips, and not breaking away gradually, but instantly
dismissed when done with:

'I hope the wife of your dear friend Mr Gowan, may be happy in the
contrast of her extraction to this girl's and mine, and in the high
good fortune that awaits her.'

CHAPTER 28

Nobody's Disappearance

Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover
his lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance,
breathing nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade
too. No answer coming to these epistles, or to another written to
the stubborn girl by the hand of her late young mistress, which
might have melted her if anything could (all three letters were
returned weeks afterwards as having been refused at the house-
door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make the experiment of a personal
interview. That worthy lady being unable to obtain one, and being
steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought Arthur to essay
once more what he could do. All that came of his compliance was,
his discovery that the empty house was left in charge of the old
woman, that Miss Wade was gone, that the waifs and strays of
furniture were gone, and that the old woman would accept any number
of half-crowns and thank the donor kindly, but had no information
whatever to exchange for those coins, beyond constantly offering
for perusal a memorandum relative to fixtures, which the house-
agent's young man had left in the hall.

Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and
leave her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining
the mastery over the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for
six successive days, published a discreetly covert advertisement in
the morning papers, to the effect that if a certain young person
who had lately left home without reflection, would at any time
apply to his address at Twickenham, everything would be as it had
been before, and no reproaches need be apprehended. The unexpected
consequences of this notification suggested to the dismayed Mr
Meagles for the first time that some hundreds of young persons must
be leaving their homes without reflection every day; for shoals of
wrong young people came down to Twickenham, who, not finding
themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded
compensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and
back. Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the
advertisement produced. The swarm of begging-letter writers, who
would seem to be always watching eagerly for any hook, however
small, to hang a letter upon, wrote to say that having seen the
advertisement, they were induced to apply with confidence for
various sums, ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds: not
because they knew anything about the young person, but because they
felt that to part with those donations would greatly relieve the
advertiser's mind. Several projectors, likewise, availed
themselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles;
as, for example, to apprise him that their attention having been
called to the advertisement by a friend, they begged to state that
if they should ever hear anything of the young person, they would
not fail to make it known to him immediately, and that in the
meantime if he would oblige them with the funds necessary for
bringing to perfection a certain entirely novel description of
Pump, the happiest results would ensue to mankind.

Mr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements,
had begun reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when
the new and active firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private
capacities, went down on a Saturday to stay at the cottage until
Monday. The senior partner took the coach, and the junior partner
took his walking-stick.

A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of
his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had
that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care,
which country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns.
Everything within his view was lovely and placid. The rich foliage
of the trees, the luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers,
the little green islands in the river, the beds of rushes, the
water-lilies floating on the surface of the stream, the distant
voices in boats borne musically towards him on the ripple of the
water and the evening air, were all expressive of rest. In the
occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar, or twittering of a
bird not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog, or lowing of a
cow--in all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath of rest,
which seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened the
fragrant air. The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the
glorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm. Upon
the purple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand
up which the shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush.
Between the real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was
no division; both were so untroubled and clear, and, while so
fraught with solemn mystery of life and death, so hopefully
reassuring to the gazer's soothed heart, because so tenderly and
mercifully beautiful.

Clennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times, to look
about him and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the
shadows, looked at, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the
water. He was slowly resuming his way, when he saw a figure in the
path before him which he had, perhaps, already associated with the
evening and its impressions.

Minnie was there, alone. She had some roses in her hand, and
seemed to have stood still on seeing him, waiting for him. Her
face was towards him, and she appeared to have been coming from the
opposite direction. There was a flutter in her manner, which
Clennam had never seen in it before; and as he came near her, it
entered his mind all at once that she was there of a set purpose to
speak to him.

She gave him her hand, and said, 'You wonder to see me here by
myself? But the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than
I meant at first. I thought it likely I might meet you, and that
made me more confident. You always come this way, do you not?'

As Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand
falter on his arm, and saw the roses shake.

'Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam? I gathered them as I
came out of the garden. Indeed, I almost gathered them for you,
thinking it so likely I might meet you. Mr Doyce arrived more than
an hour ago, and told us you were walking down.'

His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and
thanked her. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they
turned into it on his movement or on hers matters little. He never
knew how that was.

'It is very grave here,' said Clennam, 'but very pleasant at this
hour. Passing along this deep shade, and out at that arch of light
at the other end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the
best approach, I think.'
In her simple garden-hat and her light summer dress, with her rich
brown hair naturally clustering about her, and her wonderful eyes
raised to his for a moment with a look in which regard for him and
trustfulness in him were strikingly blended with a kind of timid
sorrow for him, she was so beautiful that it was well for his
peace--or ill for his peace, he did not quite know which--that he
had made that vigorous resolution he had so often thought about.

She broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa had
been thinking of another tour abroad? He said he had heard it
mentioned. She broke another momentary silence by adding, with
some hesitation, that papa had abandoned the idea.

At this, he thought directly, 'they are to be married.'

'Mr Clennam,' she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and speaking
so low that he bent his head to hear her. 'I should very much like
to give you my confidence, if you would not mind having the
goodness to receive it. I should have very much liked to have
given it to you long ago, because--I felt that you were becoming so
much our friend.'

'How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time! Pray give it
to me. Pray trust me.'

'I could never have been afraid of trusting you,' she returned,
raising her eyes frankly to his face. 'I think I would have done
so some time ago, if I had known how. But I scarcely know how,
even now.'

'Mr Gowan,' said Arthur Clennam, 'has reason to be very happy. God
bless his wife and him!'

She wept, as she tried to thank him. He reassured her, took her
hand as it lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the
remaining roses from it, and put it to his lips. At that time, it
seemed to him, he first finally resigned the dying hope that had
flickered in nobody's heart so much to its pain and trouble; and
from that time he became in his own eyes, as to any similar hope or
prospect, a very much older man who had done with that part of
life.

He put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little
while, slowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees. Then he
asked her, in a voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else
that she would say to him as her friend and her father's friend,
many years older than herself; was there any trust she would repose
in him, any service she would ask of him, any little aid to her
happiness that she could give him the lasting gratification of
believing it was in his power to render?

She was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little
hidden sorrow or sympathy--what could it have been?--that she said,
bursting into tears again: 'O Mr Clennam! Good, generous, Mr
Clennam, pray tell me you do not blame me.'

'I blame you?' said Clennam. 'My dearest girl! I blame you? No!'

After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking
confidentially up into his face, with some hurried words to the
effect that she thanked him from her heart (as she did, if it be
the source of earnestness), she gradually composed herself, with
now and then a word of encouragement from him, as they walked on
slowly and almost silently under the darkening trees.

'And, now, Minnie Gowan,' at length said Clennam, smiling; 'will
you ask me nothing?'

'Oh! I have very much to ask of you.'

'That's well! I hope so; I am not disappointed.'

'You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can
hardly think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,' she spoke with great
agitation, 'seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice,
but I do so dearly love it!'

'I am sure of that,' said Clennam. 'Can you suppose I doubt it?'

'No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and
being so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It seems
so neglectful of it, so unthankful.'

'My dear girl,' said Clennam, 'it is in the natural progress and
change of time. All homes are left so.'

'Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them
as there will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any
scarcity of far better and more endearing and more accomplished
girls than I am; not that I am much, but that they have made so
much of me!'

Pet's affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while she
pictured what would happen.

'I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that at
first I cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many
years. And it is then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time,
that I beg and entreat you to remember him, and sometimes to keep
him company when you can spare a little while; and to tell him that
you know I was fonder of him when I left him, than I ever was in
all my life. For there is nobody--he told me so himself when he
talked to me this very day--there is nobody he likes so well as
you, or trusts so much.'

A clue to what had passed between the father and daughter dropped
like a heavy stone into the well of Clennam's heart, and swelled
the water to his eyes. He said, cheerily, but not quite so
cheerily as he tried to say, that it should be done--that he gave
her his faithful promise.

'If I do not speak of mama,' said Pet, more moved by, and more
pretty in, her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself
even to consider--for which reason he counted the trees between
them and the fading light as they slowly diminished in number--'it
is because mama will understand me better in this action, and will
feel my loss in a different way, and will look forward in a
different manner. But you know what a dear, devoted mother she is,
and you will remember her too; will you not?'

Let Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do all
she wished.

'And, dear Mr Clennam,' said Minnie, 'because papa and one whom I
need not name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another
yet, as they will by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and
the pride, and pleasure of my new life, to draw them to a better
knowledge of one another, and to be a happiness to one another, and
to be proud of one another, and to love one another, both loving me
so dearly; oh, as you are a kind, true man! when I am first
separated from home (I am going a long distance away), try to
reconcile papa to him a little more, and use your great influence
to keep him before papa's mind free from prejudice and in his real
form. Will you do this for me, as you are a noble-hearted friend?'

Poor Pet! Self-deceived, mistaken child! When were such changes
ever made in men's natural relations to one another: when was such
reconcilement of ingrain differences ever effected! It has been
tried many times by other daughters, Minnie; it has never
succeeded; nothing has ever come of it but failure.

So Clennam thought. So he did not say; it was too late. He bound
himself to do all she asked, and she knew full well that he would
do it.

They were now at the last tree in the avenue. She stopped, and
withdrew her arm. Speaking to him with her eyes lifted up to his,
and with the hand that had lately rested on his sleeve trembling by
touching one of the roses in his breast as an additional appeal to
him, she said:

'Dear Mr Clennam, in my happiness--for I am happy, though you have
seen me crying--I cannot bear to leave any cloud between us. If
you have anything to forgive me (not anything that I have wilfully
done, but any trouble I may have caused you without meaning it, or
having it in my power to help it), forgive me to-night out of your
noble heart!'

He stooped to meet the guileless face that met his without
shrinking. He kissed it, and answered, Heaven knew that he had
nothing to forgive. As he stooped to meet the innocent face once
again, she whispered, 'Good-bye!' and he repeated it. It was
taking leave of all his old hopes--all nobody's old restless
doubts. They came out of the avenue next moment, arm-in-arm as
they had entered it: and the trees seemed to close up behind them
in the darkness, like their own perspective of the past.

The voices of Mr and Mrs Meagles and Doyce were audible directly,
speaking near the garden gate. Hearing Pet's name among them,
Clennam called out, 'She is here, with me.'  There was some little
wondering and laughing until they came up; but as soon as they had
all come together, it ceased, and Pet glided away.

Mr Meagles, Doyce, and Clennam, without speaking, walked up and
down on the brink of the river, in the light of the rising moon,
for a few minutes; and then Doyce lingered behind, and went into
the house. Mr Meagles and Clennam walked up and down together for
a few minutes more without speaking, until at length the former
broke silence.

'Arthur,' said he, using that familiar address for the first time
in their communication, 'do you remember my telling you, as we
walked up and down one hot morning, looking over the harbour at
Marseilles, that Pet's baby sister who was dead seemed to Mother
and me to have grown as she had grown, and changed as she had
changed?'

'Very well.'

'You remember my saying that our thoughts had never been able to
separate those twin sisters, and that, in our fancy, whatever Pet
was, the other was?'

'Yes, very well.'

'Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, much subdued, 'I carry that fancy
further to-night. I feel to-night, my dear fellow, as if you had
loved my dead child very tenderly, and had lost her when she was
like what Pet is now.'

'Thank you!' murmured Clennam, 'thank you!'  And pressed his hand.

'Will you come in?' said Mr Meagles, presently.

'In a little while.'

Mr Meagles fell away, and he was left alone. When he had walked on
the river's brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour,
he put his hand in his breast and tenderly took out the handful of
roses. Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to
his lips, but certainly he bent down on the shore and gently
launched them on the flowing river. Pale and unreal in the
moonlight, the river floated them away.
The lights were bright within doors when he entered, and the faces
on which they shone, his own face not excepted, were soon quietly
cheerful. They talked of many subjects (his partner never had had
such a ready store to draw upon for the beguiling of the time), and
so to bed, and to sleep. While the flowers, pale and unreal in the
moonlight, floated away upon the river; and thus do greater things
that once were in our breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to
the eternal seas.

CHAPTER 29

Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming

The house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these
transactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying
round of life. Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night,
each recurring with its accompanying monotony, always the same
reluctant return of the same sequences of machinery, like a
dragging piece of clockwork.

The wheeled chair had its associated remembrances and reveries, one
may suppose, as every place that is made the station of a human
being has. Pictures of demolished streets and altered houses, as
they formerly were when the occupant of the chair was familiar with
them, images of people as they too used to be, with little or no
allowance made for the lapse of time since they were seen; of
these, there must have been many in the long routine of gloomy
days. To stop the clock of busy existence at the hour when we were
personally sequestered from it, to suppose mankind stricken
motionless when we were brought to a stand-still, to be unable to
measure the changes beyond our view by any larger standard than the
shrunken one of our own uniform and contracted existence, is the
infirmity of many invalids, and the mental unhealthiness of almost
all recluses.

What scenes and actors the stern woman most reviewed, as she sat
from season to season in her one dark room, none knew but herself.
Mr Flintwinch, with his wry presence brought to bear upon her daily
like some eccentric mechanical force, would perhaps have screwed it
out of her, if there had been less resistance in her; but she was
too strong for him. So far as Mistress Affery was concerned, to
regard her liege-lord and her disabled mistress with a face of
blank wonder, to go about the house after dark with her apron over
her head, always to listen for the strange noises and sometimes to
hear them, and never to emerge from her ghostly, dreamy, sleep-
waking state, was occupation enough for her.

There was a fair stroke of business doing, as Mistress Affery made
out, for her husband had abundant occupation in his little office,
and saw more people than had been used to come there for some
years. This might easily be, the house having been long deserted;
but he did receive letters, and comers, and keep books, and
correspond. Moreover, he went about to other counting-houses, and
to wharves, and docks, and to the Custom House,' and to Garraway's
Coffee House, and the Jerusalem Coffee House, and on 'Change; so
that he was much in and out. He began, too, sometimes of an
evening, when Mrs Clennam expressed no particular wish for his
society, to resort to a tavern in the neighbourhood to look at the
shipping news and closing prices in the evening paper, and even to
exchange Small socialities with mercantile Sea Captains who
frequented that establishment. At some period of every day, he and
Mrs Clennam held a council on matters of business; and it appeared
to Affery, who was always groping about, listening and watching,
that the two clever ones were making money.

The state of mind into which Mr Flintwinch's dazed lady had fallen,
had now begun to be so expressed in all her looks and actions that
she was held in very low account by the two clever ones, as a
person, never of strong intellect, who was becoming foolish.
Perhaps because her appearance was not of a commercial cast, or
perhaps because it occurred to him that his having taken her to
wife might expose his judgment to doubt in the minds of customers,
Mr Flintwinch laid his commands upon her that she should hold her
peace on the subject of her conjugal relations, and should no
longer call him Jeremiah out of the domestic trio. Her frequent
forgetfulness of this admonition intensified her startled manner,
since Mr Flintwinch's habit of avenging himself on her remissness
by making springs after her on the staircase, and shaking her,
occasioned her to be always nervously uncertain when she might be
thus waylaid next.

Little Dorrit had finished a long day's work in Mrs Clennam's room,
and was neatly gathering up her shreds and odds and ends before
going home. Mr Pancks, whom Affery had just shown in, was
addressing an inquiry to Mrs Clennam on the subject of her health,
coupled with the remark that, 'happening to find himself in that
direction,' he had looked in to inquire, on behalf of his
proprietor, how she found herself. Mrs Clennam, with a deep
contraction of her brows, was looking at him.

'Mr Casby knows,' said she, 'that I am not subject to changes. The
change that I await here is the great change.'

'Indeed, ma'am?' returned Mr Pancks, with a wandering eye towards
the figure of the little seamstress on her knee picking threads and
fraying of her work from the carpet. 'You look nicely, ma'am.'

'I bear what I have to bear,' she answered. 'Do you what you have
to do.'
'Thank you, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks, 'such is my endeavour.'

'You are often in this direction, are you not?' asked Mrs Clennam.

'Why, yes, ma'am,' said Pancks, 'rather so lately; I have lately
been round this way a good deal, owing to one thing and another.'
'Beg Mr Casby and his daughter not to trouble themselves, by
deputy, about me. When they wish to see me, they know I am here to
see them. They have no need to trouble themselves to send. You
have no need to trouble yourself to come.'
'Not the least trouble, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks. 'You really are
looking uncommonly nicely, ma'am.'

'Thank you. Good evening.'

The dismissal, and its accompanying finger pointed straight at the
door, was so curt and direct that Mr Pancks did not see his way to
prolong his visit. He stirred up his hair with his sprightliest
expression, glanced at the little figure again, said 'Good evening,
ma 'am; don't come down, Mrs Affery, I know the road to the door,'
and steamed out. Mrs Clennam, her chin resting on her hand,
followed him with attentive and darkly distrustful eyes; and Affery
stood looking at her as if she were spell-bound.

Slowly and thoughtfully, Mrs Clennam's eyes turned from the door by
which Pancks had gone out, to Little Dorrit, rising from the
carpet. With her chin drooping more heavily on her hand, and her
eyes vigilant and lowering, the sick woman sat looking at her until
she attracted her attention. Little Dorrit coloured under such a
gaze, and looked down. Mrs Clennam still sat intent.

'Little Dorrit,' she said, when she at last broke silence, 'what do
you know of that man?'

'I don't know anything of him, ma'am, except that I have seen him
about, and that he has spoken to me.'

'What has he said to you?'

'I don't understand what he has said, he is so strange. But
nothing rough or disagreeable.'

'Why does he come here to see you?'

'I don't know, ma'am,' said Little Dorrit, with perfect frankness.

'You know that he does come here to see you?'

'I have fancied so,' said Little Dorrit. 'But why he should come
here or anywhere for that, ma'am, I can't think.'

Mrs Clennam cast her eyes towards the ground, and with her strong,
set face, as intent upon a subject in her mind as it had lately
been upon the form that seemed to pass out of her view, sat
absorbed. Some minutes elapsed before she came out of this
thoughtfulness, and resumed her hard composure.

Little Dorrit in the meanwhile had been waiting to go, but afraid
to disturb her by moving. She now ventured to leave the spot where
she had been standing since she had risen, and to pass gently round
by the wheeled chair. She stopped at its side to say 'Good night,
ma'am.'

Mrs Clennam put out her hand, and laid it on her arm. Little
Dorrit, confused under the touch, stood faltering. Perhaps some
momentary recollection of the story of the Princess may have been
in her mind.

'Tell me, Little Dorrit,' said Mrs Clennam, 'have you many friends
now?'

'Very few, ma'am. Besides you, only Miss Flora and--one more.'

'Meaning,' said Mrs Clennam, with her unbent finger again pointing
to the door, 'that man?'

'Oh no, ma'am!'

'Some friend of his, perhaps?'

'No ma'am.'  Little Dorrit earnestly shook her head. 'Oh no! No
one at all like him, or belonging to him.'

'Well!' said Mrs Clennam, almost smiling. 'It is no affair of
mine. I ask, because I take an interest in you; and because I
believe I was your friend when you had no other who could serve
you. Is that so?'

'Yes, ma'am; indeed it is. I have been here many a time when, but
for you and the work you gave me, we should have wanted
everything.'

'We,' repeated Mrs Clennam, looking towards the watch, once her
dead husband's, which always lay upon her table. 'Are there many
of you?'

'Only father and I, now. I mean, only father and I to keep
regularly out of what we get.'

'Have you undergone many privations? You and your father and who
else there may be of you?' asked Mrs Clennam, speaking
deliberately, and meditatively turning the watch over and over.

'Sometimes it has been rather hard to live,' said Little Dorrit, in
her soft voice, and timid uncomplaining way; 'but I think not
harder--as to that--than many people find it.'

'That's well said!' Mrs Clennam quickly returned. 'That's the
truth! You are a good, thoughtful girl. You are a grateful girl
too, or I much mistake you.'

'It is only natural to be that. There is no merit in being that,'
said Little Dorrit. 'I am indeed.'
Mrs Clennam, with a gentleness of which the dreaming Affery had
never dreamed her to be capable, drew down the face of her little
seamstress, and kissed her on the forehead. 'Now go, Little
Dorrit,' said she,'or you will be late, poor child!'

In all the dreams Mistress Affery had been piling up since she
first became devoted to the pursuit, she had dreamed nothing more
astonishing than this. Her head ached with the idea that she would
find the other clever one kissing Little Dorrit next, and then the
two clever ones embracing each other and dissolving into tears of
tenderness for all mankind. The idea quite stunned her, as she
attended the light footsteps down the stairs, that the house door
might be safely shut.

On opening it to let Little Dorrit out, she found Mr Pancks,
instead of having gone his way, as in any less wonderful place and
among less wonderful phenomena he might have been reasonably
expected to do, fluttering up and down the court outside the house.

The moment he saw Little Dorrit, he passed her briskly, said with
his finger to his nose (as Mrs Affery distinctly heard), 'Pancks
the gipsy, fortune-telling,' and went away. 'Lord save us, here's
a gipsy and a fortune-teller in it now!' cried Mistress Affery.
'What next! She stood at the open door, staggering herself with
this enigma, on a rainy, thundery evening. The clouds were flying
fast, and the wind was coming up in gusts, banging some
neighbouring shutters that had broken loose, twirling the rusty
chimney-cowls and weather-cocks, and rushing round and round a
confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to blow the dead
citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering in all
quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for this
attempted desecration, and to mutter, 'Let them rest! Let them
rest!'

Mistress Affery, whose fear of thunder and lightning was only to be
equalled by her dread of the haunted house with a premature and
preternatural darkness in it, stood undecided whether to go in or
not, until the question was settled for her by the door blowing
upon her in a violent gust of wind and shutting her out. 'What's
to be done now, what's to be done now!' cried Mistress Affery,
wringing her hands in this last uneasy dream of all; 'when she's
all alone by herself inside, and can no more come down to open it
than the churchyard dead themselves!'

In this dilemma, Mistress Affery, with her apron as a hood to keep
the rain off, ran crying up and down the solitary paved enclosure
several times. Why she should then stoop down and look in at the
keyhole of the door as if an eye would open it, it would be
difficult to say; but it is none the less what most people would
have done in the same situation, and it is what she did.

From this posture she started up suddenly, with a half scream,
feeling something on her shoulder. It was the touch of a hand; of
a man's hand.

The man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur
about it, and a heap of cloak. He looked like a foreigner. He had
a quantity of hair and moustache--jet black, except at the shaggy
ends, where it had a tinge of red--and a high hook nose. He
laughed at Mistress Affery's start and cry; and as he laughed, his
moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his
moustache.

'What's the matter?' he asked in plain English. 'What are you
frightened at?'

'At you,' panted Affery.

'Me, madam?'

'And the dismal evening, and--and everything,' said Affery. 'And
here! The wind has been and blown the door to, and I can't get
in.'

'Hah!' said the gentleman, who took that very coolly. 'Indeed! Do
you know such a name as Clennam about here?'

'Lord bless us, I should think I did, I should think I did!' cried
Affery, exasperated into a new wringing of hands by the inquiry.

'Where about here?'

'Where!' cried Affery, goaded into another inspection of the
keyhole. 'Where but here in this house? And she's all alone in
her room, and lost the use of her limbs and can't stir to help
herself or me, and t'other clever one's out, and Lord forgive me!'
cried Affery, driven into a frantic dance by these accumulated
considerations, 'if I ain't a-going headlong out of my mind!'

Taking a warmer view of the matter now that it concerned himself,
the gentleman stepped back to glance at the house, and his eye soon
rested on the long narrow window of the little room near the hall-
door.

'Where may the lady be who has lost the use of her limbs, madam?'
he inquired, with that peculiar smile which Mistress Affery could
not choose but keep her eyes upon.

'Up there!' said Affery. 'Them two windows.'

'Hah! I am of a fair size, but could not have the honour of
presenting myself in that room without a ladder. Now, madam,
frankly --frankness is a part of my character--shall I open the
door for you?'

'Yes, bless you, sir, for a dear creetur, and do it at once,' cried
Affery, 'for she may be a-calling to me at this very present
minute, or may be setting herself a fire and burning herself to
death, or there's no knowing what may be happening to her, and me
a-going out of my mind at thinking of it!'

'Stay, my good madam!'  He restrained her impatience with a smooth
white hand. 'Business-hours, I apprehend, are over for the day?'
'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Affery. 'Long ago.'

'Let me make, then, a fair proposal. Fairness is a part of my
character. I am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see.'

He showed her that his cloak was very wet, and that his boots were
saturated with water; she had previously observed that he was
dishevelled and sallow, as if from a rough voyage, and so chilled
that he could not keep his teeth from chattering. 'I am just
landed from the packet-boat, madam, and have been delayed by the
weather: the infernal weather! In consequence of this, madam, some
necessary business that I should otherwise have transacted here
within the regular hours (necessary business because money-
business), still remains to be done. Now, if you will fetch any
authorised neighbouring somebody to do it in return for my opening
the door, I'll open the door. If this arrangement should be
objectionable, I'll--' and with the same smile he made a
significant feint of backing away.

Mistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise,
gave in her willing adhesion to it. The gentleman at once
requested her to do him the favour of holding his cloak, took a
short run at the narrow window, made a leap at the sill, clung his
way up the bricks, and in a moment had his hand at the sash,
raising it. His eyes looked so very sinister, as he put his leg
into the room and glanced round at Mistress Affery, that she
thought with a sudden coldness, if he were to go straight up-stairs
to murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent him?

Happily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at
the house door. 'Now, my dear madam,' he said, as he took back his
cloak and threw it on, 'if you have the goodness to--what the
Devil's that!'

The strangest of sounds. Evidently close at hand from the peculiar
shock it communicated to the air, yet subdued as if it were far
off. A tremble, a rumble, and a fall of some light dry matter.

'What the Devil is it?'

'I don't know what it is, but I've heard the like of it over and
over again,' said Affery, who had caught his arm.
He could hardly be a very brave man, even she thought in her dreamy
start and fright, for his trembling lips had turned colourless.
After listening a few moments, he made light of it.

'Bah! Nothing! Now, my dear madam, I think you spoke of some
clever personage. Will you be so good as to confront me with that
genius?'  He held the door in his hand, as though he were quite
ready to shut her out again if she failed.

'Don't you say anything about the door and me, then,' whispered
Affery.

'Not a word.'

'And don't you stir from here, or speak if she calls, while I run
round the corner.'

'Madam, I am a statue.'

Affery had so vivid a fear of his going stealthily up-stairs the
moment her back was turned, that after hurrying out of sight, she
returned to the gateway to peep at him. Seeing him still on the
threshold, more out of the house than in it, as if he had no love
for darkness and no desire to probe its mysteries, she flew into
the next street, and sent a message into the tavern to Mr
Flintwinch, who came out directly. The two returning together--the
lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up briskly behind,
animated with the hope of shaking her before she could get housed--
saw the gentleman standing in the same place in the dark, and heard
the strong voice of Mrs Clennam calling from her room, 'Who is it?
What is it? Why does no one answer? Who is that, down there?'

CHAPTER 30

The Word of a Gentleman

When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house
in the twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger
started back. 'Death of my soul!' he exclaimed. 'Why, how did you
get here?'

Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the
stranger's wonder in full. He gazed at him with blank
astonishment; he looked over his own shoulder, as expecting to see
some one he had not been aware of standing behind him; he gazed at
the stranger again, speechlessly, at a loss to know what he meant;
he looked to his wife for explanation; receiving none, he pounced
upon her, and shook her with such heartiness that he shook her cap
off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim raillery, as he
did it, 'Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my woman! This is
some of your tricks! You have been dreaming again, mistress.
What's it about? Who is it? What does it mean! Speak out or be
choked! It's the only choice I'll give you.'

Supposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the
moment, her choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not
a syllable to this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging
violently backwards and forwards, resigned herself to her
punishment. The stranger, however, picking up her cap with an air
of gallantry, interposed.

'Permit me,' said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah,
who stopped and released his victim. 'Thank you. Excuse me.
Husband and wife I know, from this playfulness. Haha! Always
agreeable to see that relation playfully maintained. Listen! May
I suggest that somebody up-stairs, in the dark, is becoming
energetically curious to know what is going on here?'

This reference to Mrs Clennam's voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to
step into the hall and call up the staircase. 'It's all right, I
am here, Affery is coming with your light.'  Then he said to the
latter flustered woman, who was putting her cap on, 'Get out with
you, and get up-stairs!' and then turned to the stranger and said
to him, 'Now, sir, what might you please to want?'

'I am afraid,' said the stranger, 'I must be so troublesome as to
propose a candle.'

'True,' assented Jeremiah. 'I was going to do so. Please to stand
where you are while I get one.'

The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into
the gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him
with his eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a
phosphorus box. When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of
order; and match after match that he struck into it lighted
sufficiently to throw a dull glare about his groping face, and to
sprinkle his hands with pale little spots of fire, but not
sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger, taking advantage
of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked intently and
wonderingly at him. Jeremiah, when he at last lighted the candle,
knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of a lowering
watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the
doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression.

'Be so good,' said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a
pretty sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, 'as to step
into my counting-house.-- It's all right, I tell you!' petulantly
breaking off to answer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied,
though Affery was there, speaking in persuasive tones. 'Don't I
tell you it's all right? Preserve the woman, has she no reason at
all in her!'

'Timorous,' remarked the stranger.

'Timorous?' said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he
went before with the candle. 'More courageous than ninety men in
a hundred, sir, let me tell you.'

'Though an invalid?'

'Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name
left in the House now. My partner.'
Saying something apologetically as he crossed the hall, to the
effect that at that time of night they were not in the habit of
receiving any one, and were always shut up, Mr Flintwinch led the
way into his own office, which presented a sufficiently business-
like appearance. Here he put the light on his desk, and said to
the stranger, with his wryest twist upon him, 'Your commands.'

'MY name is Blandois.'

'Blandois. I don't know it,' said Jeremiah.

'I thought it possible,' resumed the other, 'that you might have
been advised from Paris--'

'We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of
Blandois,' said Jeremiah.

'No?'

'No.'

Jeremiah stood in his favourite attitude. The smiling Mr Blandois,
opening his cloak to get his hand to a breast-pocket, paused to
say, with a laugh in his glittering eyes, which it occurred to Mr
Flintwinch were too near together:

'You are so like a friend of mine! Not so identically the same as
I supposed when I really did for the moment take you to be the same
in the dusk--for which I ought to apologise; permit me to do so; a
readiness to confess my errors is, I hope, a part of the frankness
of my character--still, however, uncommonly like.'

'Indeed?' said Jeremiah, perversely. 'But I have not received any
letter of advice from anywhere respecting anybody of the name of
Blandois.'

'Just so,' said the stranger.

'JUST so,' said Jeremiah.

Mr Blandois, not at all put out by this omission on the part of the
correspondents of the house of Clennam and Co., took his pocket-
book from his breast-pocket, selected a letter from that
receptacle, and handed it to Mr Flintwinch. 'No doubt you are well
acquainted with the writing. Perhaps the letter speaks for itself,
and requires no advice. You are a far more competent judge of such
affairs than I am. It is my misfortune to be, not so much a man of
business, as what the world calls (arbitrarily) a gentleman.'

Mr Flintwinch took the letter, and read, under date of Paris, 'We
have to present to you, on behalf of a highly esteemed
correspondent of our Firm, M. Blandois, of this city,' &c. &c.
'Such facilities as he may require and such attentions as may lie
in your power,' &c. &c. 'Also have to add that if you will honour
M. Blandois' drafts at sight to the extent of, say Fifty Pounds
sterling (l50),' &c. &c.

'Very good, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Take a chair. To the
extent of anything that our House can do--we are in a retired, old-
fashioned, steady way of business, sir--we shall be happy to render
you our best assistance. I observe, from the date of this, that we
could not yet be advised of it. Probably you came over with the
delayed mail that brings the advice.'

'That I came over with the delayed mail, sir,' returned Mr
Blandois, passing his white hand down his high-hooked nose, 'I know
to the cost of my head and stomach: the detestable and intolerable
weather having racked them both. You see me in the plight in which
I came out of the packet within this half-hour. I ought to have
been here hours ago, and then I should not have to apologise--
permit me to apologise--for presenting myself so unreasonably, and
frightening--no, by-the-bye, you said not frightening; permit me to
apologise again--the esteemed lady, Mrs Clennam, in her invalid
chamber above stairs.'

Swagger and an air of authorised condescension do so much, that Mr
Flintwinch had already begun to think this a highly gentlemanly
personage. Not the less unyielding with him on that account, he
scraped his chin and said, what could he have the honour of doing
for Mr Blandois to-night, out of business hours?

'Faith!' returned that gentleman, shrugging his cloaked shoulders,
'I must change, and eat and drink, and be lodged somewhere. Have
the kindness to advise me, a total stranger, where, and money is a
matter of perfect indifference until to-morrow. The nearer the
place, the better. Next door, if that's all.'

Mr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, 'For a gentleman of your
habits, there is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel--'
when Mr Blandois took him up.

'So much for my habits! my dear sir,' snapping his fingers. 'A
citizen of the world has no habits. That I am, in my poor way, a
gentleman, by Heaven! I will not deny, but I have no
unaccommodating prejudiced habits. A clean room, a hot dish for
dinner, and a bottle of not absolutely poisonous wine, are all I
want tonight. But I want that much without the trouble of going
one unnecessary inch to get it.'

'There is,' said Mr Flintwinch, with more than his usual
deliberation, as he met, for a moment, Mr Blandois' shining eyes,
which were restless; 'there is a coffee-house and tavern close
here, which, so far, I can recommend; but there's no style about
it.'

'I dispense with style!' said Mr Blandois, waving his hand. 'Do me
the honour to show me the house, and introduce me there (if I am
not too troublesome), and I shall be infinitely obliged.'
Mr Flintwinch, upon this, looked up his hat, and lighted Mr
Blandois across the hall again. As he put the candle on a bracket,
where the dark old panelling almost served as an extinguisher for
it, he bethought himself of going up to tell the invalid that he
would not be absent five minutes.
'Oblige me,' said the visitor, on his saying so, 'by presenting my
card of visit. Do me the favour to add that I shall be happy to
wait on Mrs Clennam, to offer my personal compliments, and to
apologise for having occasioned any agitation in this tranquil
corner, if it should suit her convenience to endure the presence of
a stranger for a few minutes, after he shall have changed his wet
clothes and fortified himself with something to eat and drink.'

Jeremiah made all despatch, and said, on his return, 'She'll be
glad to see you, sir; but, being conscious that her sick room has
no attractions, wishes me to say that she won't hold you to your
offer, in case you should think better of it.'

'To think better of it,' returned the gallant Blandois, 'would be
to slight a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in
chivalry towards the sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of
my character!'  Thus expressing himself, he threw the draggled
skirt of his cloak over his shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch
to the tavern; taking up on the road a porter who was waiting with
his portmanteau on the outer side of the gateway.

The house was kept in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr
Blandois was infinite. It seemed to fill to inconvenience the
little bar in which the widow landlady and her two daughters
received him; it was much too big for the narrow wainscoted room
with a bagatelle-board in it, that was first proposed for his
reception; it perfectly swamped the little private holiday sitting-
room of the family, which was finally given up to him. Here, in
dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked hair, a great ring on
each forefinger and a massive show of watch-chain, Mr Blandois
waiting for his dinner, lolling on a window-seat with his knees
drawn up, looked (for all the difference in the setting of the
jewel) fearfully and wonderfully like a certain Monsieur Rigaud who
had once so waited for his breakfast, lying on the stone ledge of
the iron grating of a cell in a villainous dungeon at Marseilles.

His greed at dinner, too, was closely in keeping with the greed of
Monsieur Rigaud at breakfast. His avaricious manner of collecting
all the eatables about him, and devouring some with his eyes while
devouring others with his jaws, was the same manner. His utter
disregard of other people, as shown in his way of tossing the
little womanly toys of furniture about, flinging favourite cushions
under his boots for a softer rest, and crushing delicate coverings
with his big body and his great black head, had the same brute
selfishness at the bottom of it. The softly moving hands that were
so busy among the dishes had the old wicked facility of the hands
that had clung to the bars. And when he could eat no more, and sat
sucking his delicate fingers one by one and wiping them on a cloth,
there wanted nothing but the substitution of vine-leaves to finish
the picture.

On this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down
in that most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as
if they belonged to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power
of reflecting light stopped by some similar process, Nature, always
true, and never working in vain, had set the mark, Beware! It was
not her fault, if the warning were fruitless. She is never to
blame in any such instance.

Mr Blandois, having finished his repast and cleaned his fingers,
took a cigar from his pocket, and, lying on the window-seat again,
smoked it out at his leisure, occasionally apostrophising the smoke
as it parted from his thin lips in a thin stream:

'Blandois, you shall turn the tables on society, my little child.
Haha! Holy blue, you have begun well, Blandois! At a pinch, an
excellent master in English or French; a man for the bosom of
families! You have a quick perception, you have humour, you have
ease, you have insinuating manners, you have a good appearance; in
effect, you are a gentleman! A gentleman you shall live, my small
boy, and a gentleman you shall die. You shall win, however the
game goes. They shall all confess your merit, Blandois. You shall
subdue the society which has grievously wronged you, to your own
high spirit. Death of my soul! You are high spirited by right and
by nature, my Blandois!'

To such soothing murmurs did this gentleman smoke out his cigar and
drink out his bottle of wine. Both being finished, he shook
himself into a sitting attitude; and with the concluding serious
apostrophe, 'Hold, then! Blandois, you ingenious one, have all
your wits about you!' arose and went back to the house of Clennam
and Co.

He was received at the door by Mistress Affery, who, under
instructions from her lord, had lighted up two candles in the hall
and a third on the staircase, and who conducted him to Mrs
Clennam's room. Tea was prepared there, and such little company
arrangements had been made as usually attended the reception of
expected visitors. They were slight on the greatest occasion,
never extending beyond the production of the China tea-service, and
the covering of the bed with a sober and sad drapery. For the
rest, there was the bier-like sofa with the block upon it, and the
figure in the widow's dress, as if attired for execution; the fire
topped by the mound of damped ashes; the grate with its second
little mound of ashes; the kettle and the smell of black dye; all
as they had been for fifteen years.

Mr Flintwinch presented the gentleman commended to the
consideration of Clennam and Co. Mrs Clennam, who had the letter
lying before her, bent her head and requested him to sit. They
looked very closely at one another. That was but natural
curiosity.
'I thank you, sir, for thinking of a disabled woman like me. Few
who come here on business have any remembrance to bestow on one so
removed from observation. It would be idle to expect that they
should have. Out of sight, out of mind. While I am grateful for
the exception, I don't complain of the rule. '

Mr Blandois, in his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had
disturbed her by unhappily presenting himself at such an
unconscionable time. For which he had already offered his best
apologies to Mr--he begged pardon--but by name had not the
distinguished honour--

'Mr Flintwinch has been connected with the House many years.'

Mr Blandois was Mr Flintwinch's most obedient humble servant. He
entreated Mr Flintwinch to receive the assurance of his profoundest
consideration.

'My husband being dead,' said Mrs Clennam, 'and my son preferring
another pursuit, our old House has no other representative in these
days than Mr Flintwinch. '

'What do you call yourself?' was the surly demand of that
gentleman. 'You have the head of two men.'

'My sex disqualifies me,' she proceeded with merely a slight turn
of her eyes in jeremiah's direction, 'from taking a responsible
part in the business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr
Flintwinch combines my interest with his own, and conducts it. It
is not what it used to be; but some of our old friends (principally
the writers of this letter) have the kindness not to forget us, and
we retain the power of doing what they entrust to us as efficiently
as we ever did. This however is not interesting to you. You are
English, sir?'