Maggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opaque
frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her
serviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side
of the room. What with her flapping cap, and what with her unserviceable
eye, she was quite partitioned off from her Little Mother, whose seat
was opposite the window. The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement
of the yard had much diminished since the taking of the Chair, the tide
of Collegians having set strongly in the direction of Harmony. Some few
who had no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled
about; and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife and the depressed
unseasoned prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs and
such unsightly discomforts draggle in corners of other places. It was
the quietest time the College knew, saving the night hours when the
Collegians took the benefit of the act of sleep. The occasional rattle
of applause upon the tables of the Snuggery, denoted the successful
termination of a morsel of Harmony; or the responsive acceptance, by
the united children, of some toast or sentiment offered to them by their
Father. Occasionally, a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality
informed the listener that some boastful bass was in blue water, or in
the hunting field, or with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among
the heather; but the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got
him hard and fast.
As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she
trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam gently
put his hand upon her work, and said, ‘Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it
down.’
She yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then
nervously clasping together, but he took one of them.
‘How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit!’
‘I have been busy, sir.’
‘But I heard only to-day,’ said Clennam, ‘by mere accident, of your
having been with those good people close by me. Why not come to me,
then?’
‘I--I don’t know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You
generally are now, are you not?’
He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes
that drooped the moment they were raised to his--he saw them almost with
as much concern as tenderness.
‘My child, your manner is so changed!’
The trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing her
hand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head
bent and her whole form trembling.
‘My own Little Dorrit,’ said Clennam, compassionately.
She burst into tears. Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared for at
least a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some little while
before he spoke again.
‘I cannot bear,’ he said then, ‘to see you weep; but I hope this is a
relief to an overcharged heart.’
‘Yes it is, sir. Nothing but that.’
‘Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here just
now. It is of no moment; not the least. I am only unfortunate to have
come in the way. Let it go by with these tears. It is not worth one of
them. One of them? Such an idle thing should be repeated, with my glad
consent, fifty times a day, to save you a moment’s heart-ache, Little
Dorrit.’
She had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual manner,
‘You are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it to be sorry
for and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you--’
‘Hush!’ said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand.
‘Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be new
indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, anything
but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You remember it, don’t
you?’
‘I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my
mistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in this
place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!’ In raising
her eyes with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she
had done yet, and said, with a quick change of tone, ‘You have not been
ill, Mr Clennam?’
‘No.’
‘Nor tried? Nor hurt?’ she asked him, anxiously.
It fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He said
in reply:
‘To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over.
Do I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-command
than that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you. Who could teach me
better!’
He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. He
never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that
looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers.
‘But it brings me to something that I wish to say,’ he continued, ‘and
therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling tales
and being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and pleasure to
confide in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess then, that, forgetting how
grave I was, and how old I was, and how the time for such things had
gone by me with the many years of sameness and little happiness that
made up my long life far away, without marking it--that, forgetting all
this, I fancied I loved some one.’
‘Do I know her, sir?’ asked Little Dorrit.
‘No, my child.’
‘Not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?’
‘Flora. No, no. Do you think--’
‘I never quite thought so,’ said Little Dorrit, more to herself than
him. ‘I did wonder at it a little.’
‘Well!’ said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in
the avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an
older man, who had done with that tender part of life, ‘I found out my
mistake, and I thought about it a little--in short, a good deal--and got
wiser. Being wiser, I counted up my years and considered what I am, and
looked back, and looked forward, and found that I should soon be grey. I
found that I had climbed the hill, and passed the level ground upon the
top, and was descending quickly.’
If he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient heart,
in speaking thus! While doing it, too, with the purpose of easing and
serving her.
‘I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful in
me, or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me or any one in connection
with me, was gone, and would never shine again.’
O! If he had known, if he had known! If he could have seen the dagger in
his hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful bleeding breast
of his Little Dorrit!
‘All that is over, and I have turned my face from it. Why do I speak of
this to Little Dorrit? Why do I show you, my child, the space of years
that there is between us, and recall to you that I have passed, by the
amount of your whole life, the time that is present to you?’
‘Because you trust me, I hope. Because you know that nothing can touch
you without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or unhappy, but
it must make me, who am so grateful to you, the same.’
He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her
clear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have joyfully
thrown itself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his
breast, with the dying cry, ‘I love him!’ and the remotest suspicion
of the truth never dawned upon his mind. No. He saw the devoted little
creature with her worn shoes, in her common dress, in her jail-home; a
slender child in body, a strong heroine in soul; and the light of her
domestic story made all else dark to him.
‘For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too. So
far removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better fitted for
your friend and adviser. I mean, I am the more easily to be trusted;
and any little constraint that you might feel with another, may vanish
before me. Why have you kept so retired from me? Tell me.’
‘I am better here. My place and use are here. I am much better here,’
said Little Dorrit, faintly.
‘So you said that day upon the bridge. I thought of it much afterwards.
Have you no secret you could entrust to me, with hope and comfort, if
you would!’
‘Secret? No, I have no secret,’ said Little Dorrit in some trouble.
They had been speaking in low voices; more because it was natural to
what they said to adopt that tone, than with any care to reserve it from
Maggy at her work. All of a sudden Maggy stared again, and this time
spoke:
‘I say! Little Mother!’
‘Yes, Maggy.’
‘If you an’t got no secret of your own to tell him, tell him that about
the Princess. _She_ had a secret, you know.’
‘The Princess had a secret?’ said Clennam, in some surprise. ‘What
Princess was that, Maggy?’
‘Lor! How you do go and bother a gal of ten,’ said Maggy, ‘catching the
poor thing up in that way. Whoever said the Princess had a secret? _I_
never said so.’
‘I beg your pardon. I thought you did.’
‘No, I didn’t. How could I, when it was her as wanted to find it out? It
was the little woman as had the secret, and she was always a spinning at
her wheel. And so she says to her, why do you keep it there? And so the
t’other one says to her, no I don’t; and so the t’other one says to her,
yes you do; and then they both goes to the cupboard, and there it is.
And she wouldn’t go into the Hospital, and so she died. _You_ know, Little
Mother; tell him that. For it was a reg’lar good secret, that was!’ cried
Maggy, hugging herself.
Arthur looked at Little Dorrit for help to comprehend this, and was
struck by seeing her so timid and red. But, when she told him that it
was only a Fairy Tale she had one day made up for Maggy, and that there
was nothing in it which she wouldn’t be ashamed to tell again to anybody
else, even if she could remember it, he left the subject where it was.
However, he returned to his own subject by first entreating her to see
him oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a stronger
interest in her welfare than he had, or to be more set upon promoting it
than he was. When she answered fervently, she well knew that, she never
forgot it, he touched upon his second and more delicate point--the
suspicion he had formed.
‘Little Dorrit,’ he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower than
he had spoken yet, so that even Maggy in the small room could not hear
him, ‘another word. I have wanted very much to say this to you; I have
tried for opportunities. Don’t mind me, who, for the matter of years,
might be your father or your uncle. Always think of me as quite an
old man. I know that all your devotion centres in this room, and
that nothing to the last will ever tempt you away from the duties you
discharge here. If I were not sure of it, I should, before now, have
implored you, and implored your father, to let me make some provision
for you in a more suitable place. But you may have an interest--I will
not say, now, though even that might be--may have, at another time,
an interest in some one else; an interest not incompatible with your
affection here.’
She was very, very pale, and silently shook her head.
‘It may be, dear Little Dorrit.’
‘No. No. No.’ She shook her head, after each slow repetition of
the word, with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long
afterwards. The time came when he remembered it well, long afterwards,
within those prison walls; within that very room.
‘But, if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child. Entrust the truth
to me, point out the object of such an interest to me, and I will try
with all the zeal, and honour, and friendship and respect that I feel
for you, good Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a lasting service.’
‘O thank you, thank you! But, O no, O no, O no!’ She said this, looking
at him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the same
resigned accents as before.
‘I press for no confidence now. I only ask you to repose unhesitating
trust in me.’
‘Can I do less than that, when you are so good!’
‘Then you will trust me fully? Will have no secret unhappiness, or
anxiety, concealed from me?’
‘Almost none.’
‘And you have none now?’
She shook her head. But she was very pale.
‘When I lie down to-night, and my thoughts come back--as they will, for
they do every night, even when I have not seen you--to this sad place, I
may believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, and its usual
occupants, which preys on Little Dorrit’s mind?’
She seemed to catch at these words--that he remembered, too, long
afterwards--and said, more brightly, ‘Yes, Mr Clennam; yes, you may!’
The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was
coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound
was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it
knew what to do with, were working towards the room. As it approached,
which it did very rapidly, it laboured with increased energy; and,
after knocking at the door, it sounded as if it were stooping down and
snorting in at the keyhole.
Before Maggy could open the door, Mr Pancks, opening it from without,
stood without a hat and with his bare head in the wildest condition,
looking at Clennam and Little Dorrit, over her shoulder. He had a
lighted cigar in his hand, and brought with him airs of ale and tobacco
smoke.
‘Pancks the gipsy,’ he observed out of breath, ‘fortune-telling.’
He stood dingily smiling, and breathing hard at them, with a most
curious air; as if, instead of being his proprietor’s grubber, he were
the triumphant proprietor of the Marshalsea, the Marshal, all the
turnkeys, and all the Collegians. In his great self-satisfaction he put
his cigar to his lips (being evidently no smoker), and took such a pull
at it, with his right eye shut up tight for the purpose, that he
underwent a convulsion of shuddering and choking. But even in the midst
of that paroxysm, he still essayed to repeat his favourite introduction
of himself, ‘Pa-ancks the gi-ipsy, fortune-telling.’
‘I am spending the evening with the rest of ‘em,’ said Pancks. ‘I’ve
been singing. I’ve been taking a part in White sand and grey sand.
_I_ don’t know anything about it. Never mind. I’ll take any part in
anything. It’s all the same, if you’re loud enough.’
At first Clennam supposed him to be intoxicated. But he soon perceived
that though he might be a little the worse (or better) for ale, the
staple of his excitement was not brewed from malt, or distilled from any
grain or berry.
‘How d’ye do, Miss Dorrit?’ said Pancks. ‘I thought you wouldn’t mind my
running round, and looking in for a moment. Mr Clennam I heard was here,
from Mr Dorrit. How are you, Sir?’
Clennam thanked him, and said he was glad to see him so gay.
‘Gay!’ said Pancks. ‘I’m in wonderful feather, sir. I can’t stop a
minute, or I shall be missed, and I don’t want ‘em to miss me.--Eh, Miss
Dorrit?’
He seemed to have an insatiate delight in appealing to her and looking
at her; excitedly sticking his hair up at the same moment, like a dark
species of cockatoo.
‘I haven’t been here half an hour. I knew Mr Dorrit was in the chair,
and I said, “I’ll go and support him!” I ought to be down in Bleeding
Heart Yard by rights; but I can worry them to-morrow.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’
His little black eyes sparkled electrically. His very hair seemed to
sparkle as he roughened it. He was in that highly-charged state that one
might have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by presenting a
knuckle to any part of his figure.
‘Capital company here,’ said Pancks.--‘Eh, Miss Dorrit?’
She was half afraid of him, and irresolute what to say. He laughed, with
a nod towards Clennam.
‘Don’t mind him, Miss Dorrit. He’s one of us. We agreed that you
shouldn’t take on to mind me before people, but we didn’t mean Mr
Clennam. He’s one of us. He’s in it. An’t you, Mr Clennam?--Eh, Miss
Dorrit?’
The excitement of this strange creature was fast communicating itself to
Clennam. Little Dorrit with amazement, saw this, and observed that they
exchanged quick looks.
‘I was making a remark,’ said Pancks, ‘but I declare I forget what
it was. Oh, I know! Capital company here. I’ve been treating ‘em all
round.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’
‘Very generous of you,’ she returned, noticing another of the quick
looks between the two.
‘Not at all,’ said Pancks. ‘Don’t mention it. I’m coming into my
property, that’s the fact. I can afford to be liberal. I think I’ll give
‘em a treat here. Tables laid in the yard. Bread in stacks. Pipes in
faggots. Tobacco in hayloads. Roast beef and plum-pudding for every one.
Quart of double stout a head. Pint of wine too, if they like it, and the
authorities give permission.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’
She was thrown into such a confusion by his manner, or rather by
Clennam’s growing understanding of his manner (for she looked to him
after every fresh appeal and cockatoo demonstration on the part of Mr
Pancks), that she only moved her lips in answer, without forming any
word.
‘And oh, by-the-bye!’ said Pancks, ‘you were to live to know what was
behind us on that little hand of yours. And so you shall, you shall, my
darling.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’
He had suddenly checked himself. Where he got all the additional black
prongs from, that now flew up all over his head like the myriads of
points that break out in the large change of a great firework, was a
wonderful mystery.
‘But I shall be missed;’ he came back to that; ‘and I don’t want ‘em to
miss me. Mr Clennam, you and I made a bargain. I said you should find me
stick to it. You shall find me stick to it now, sir, if you’ll step out
of the room a moment. Miss Dorrit, I wish you good night. Miss Dorrit, I
wish you good fortune.’
He rapidly shook her by both hands, and puffed down stairs. Arthur
followed him with such a hurried step, that he had very nearly tumbled
over him on the last landing, and rolled him down into the yard.
‘What is it, for Heaven’s sake!’ Arthur demanded, when they burst out
there both together.
‘Stop a moment, sir. Mr Rugg. Let me introduce him.’
With those words he presented another man without a hat, and also with a
cigar, and also surrounded with a halo of ale and tobacco smoke, which
man, though not so excited as himself, was in a state which would have
been akin to lunacy but for its fading into sober method when compared
with the rampancy of Mr Pancks.
‘Mr Clennam, Mr Rugg,’ said Pancks. ‘Stop a moment. Come to the pump.’
They adjourned to the pump. Mr Pancks, instantly putting his head under
the spout, requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle.
Mr Rugg complying to the letter, Mr Pancks came forth snorting and
blowing to some purpose, and dried himself on his handkerchief.
‘I am the clearer for that,’ he gasped to Clennam standing astonished.
‘But upon my soul, to hear her father making speeches in that chair,
knowing what we know, and to see her up in that room in that dress,
knowing what we know, is enough to--give me a back, Mr Rugg--a little
higher, sir,--that’ll do!’
Then and there, on that Marshalsea pavement, in the shades of evening,
did Mr Pancks, of all mankind, fly over the head and shoulders of Mr
Rugg of Pentonville, General Agent, Accountant, and Recoverer of Debts.
Alighting on his feet, he took Clennam by the button-hole, led him
behind the pump, and pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of
papers.
Mr Rugg, also, pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers.
‘Stay!’ said Clennam in a whisper.’You have made a discovery.’
Mr Pancks answered, with an unction which there is no language to
convey, ‘We rather think so.’
‘Does it implicate any one?’
‘How implicate, sir?’
‘In any suppression or wrong dealing of any kind?’
‘Not a bit of it.’
‘Thank God!’ said Clennam to himself. ‘Now show me.’
‘You are to understand’--snorted Pancks, feverishly unfolding papers,
and speaking in short high-pressure blasts of sentences, ‘Where’s the
Pedigree? Where’s Schedule number four, Mr Rugg? Oh! all right! Here we
are.--You are to understand that we are this very day virtually
complete. We shan’t be legally for a day or two. Call it at the outside
a week. We’ve been at it night and day for I don’t know how long. Mr
Rugg, you know how long? Never mind. Don’t say. You’ll only confuse me.
You shall tell her, Mr Clennam. Not till we give you leave. Where’s that
rough total, Mr Rugg? Oh! Here we are! There sir! That’s what you’ll
have to break to her. That man’s your Father of the Marshalsea!’