The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual liveliness to

the rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him further: the rather as

the tea had been drawing for some time on the hob. But she was not the

less surprised and curious for asking no more questions; neither was

Mr Pancks, whose expressive breathing had been labouring hard since the

entrance of the little man, like a locomotive engine with a great load

getting up a steep incline. Maggy, now better dressed than of yore,

though still faithful to the monstrous character of her cap, had been

in the background from the first with open mouth and eyes, which staring

and gaping features were not diminished in breadth by the untimely

suppression of the subject. However, no more was said about it, though

much appeared to be thought on all sides: by no means excepting the two

young Plornishes, who partook of the evening meal as if their eating

the bread and butter were rendered almost superfluous by the painful

probability of the worst of men shortly presenting himself for the

purpose of eating them. Mr Baptist, by degrees began to chirp a little;

but never stirred from the seat he had taken behind the door and close

to the window, though it was not his usual place. As often as the little

bell rang, he started and peeped out secretly, with the end of the

little curtain in his hand and the rest before his face; evidently not

at all satisfied but that the man he dreaded had tracked him through all

his doublings and turnings, with the certainty of a terrible bloodhound.

The entrance, at various times, of two or three customers and of Mr

Plornish, gave Mr Baptist just enough of this employment to keep the

attention of the company fixed upon him. Tea was over, and the children

were abed, and Mrs Plornish was feeling her way to the dutiful proposal

that her father should favour them with Chloe, when the bell rang again,

and Mr Clennam came in.

Clennam had been poring late over his books and letters; for the

waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office ravaged his time sorely.

Over and above that, he was depressed and made uneasy by the late

occurrence at his mother’s. He looked worn and solitary. He felt so,

too; but, nevertheless, was returning home from his counting-house by

that end of the Yard to give them the intelligence that he had received

another letter from Miss Dorrit.

The news made a sensation in the cottage which drew off the general

attention from Mr Baptist. Maggy, who pushed her way into the foreground

immediately, would have seemed to draw in the tidings of her Little

Mother equally at her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but that the last

were obstructed by tears. She was particularly delighted when Clennam

assured her that there were hospitals, and very kindly conducted

hospitals, in Rome. Mr Pancks rose into new distinction in virtue of

being specially remembered in the letter. Everybody was pleased and

interested, and Clennam was well repaid for his trouble.

‘But you are tired, sir. Let me make you a cup of tea,’ said Mrs

Plornish, ‘if you’d condescend to take such a thing in the cottage; and

many thanks to you, too, I am sure, for bearing us in mind so kindly.’

Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his personal

acknowledgments, tendered them in the form which always expressed his

highest ideal of a combination of ceremony with sincerity.

‘John Edward Nandy,’ said Mr Plornish, addressing the old gentleman.

‘Sir. It’s not too often that you see unpretending actions without a

spark of pride, and therefore when you see them give grateful honour

unto the same, being that if you don’t, and live to want ‘em, it follows

serve you right.’

To which Mr Nandy replied:

‘I am heartily of your opinion, Thomas, and which your opinion is the

same as mine, and therefore no more words and not being backwards

with that opinion, which opinion giving it as yes, Thomas, yes, is the

opinion in which yourself and me must ever be unanimously jined by all,

and where there is not difference of opinion there can be none but one

opinion, which fully no, Thomas, Thomas, no!’

Arthur, with less formality, expressed himself gratified by their high

appreciation of so very slight an attention on his part; and explained

as to the tea that he had not yet dined, and was going straight home to

refresh after a long day’s labour, or he would have readily accepted the

hospitable offer. As Mr Pancks was somewhat noisily getting his steam

up for departure, he concluded by asking that gentleman if he would walk

with him? Mr Pancks said he desired no better engagement, and the two

took leave of Happy Cottage.

‘If you will come home with me, Pancks,’ said Arthur, when they got into

the street, ‘and will share what dinner or supper there is, it will

be next door to an act of charity; for I am weary and out of sorts

to-night.’

‘Ask me to do a greater thing than that,’ said Pancks, ‘when you want it

done, and I’ll do it.’

Between this eccentric personage and Clennam, a tacit understanding and

accord had been always improving since Mr Pancks flew over Mr Rugg’s

back in the Marshalsea Yard. When the carriage drove away on the

memorable day of the family’s departure, these two had looked after it

together, and had walked slowly away together. When the first letter

came from little Dorrit, nobody was more interested in hearing of

her than Mr Pancks. The second letter, at that moment in Clennam’s

breast-pocket, particularly remembered him by name. Though he had never

before made any profession or protestation to Clennam, and though what

he had just said was little enough as to the words in which it was

expressed, Clennam had long had a growing belief that Mr Pancks, in

his own odd way, was becoming attached to him. All these strings

intertwining made Pancks a very cable of anchorage that night.

‘I am quite alone,’ Arthur explained as they walked on. ‘My partner is

away, busily engaged at a distance on his branch of our business, and

you shall do just as you like.’

‘Thank you. You didn’t take particular notice of little Altro just now;

did you?’ said Pancks.

‘No. Why?’

‘He’s a bright fellow, and I like him,’ said Pancks. ‘Something has

gone amiss with him to-day. Have you any idea of any cause that can have

overset him?’

‘You surprise me! None whatever.’

Mr Pancks gave his reasons for the inquiry. Arthur was quite unprepared

for them, and quite unable to suggest an explanation of them.

‘Perhaps you’ll ask him,’ said Pancks, ‘as he’s a stranger?’

‘Ask him what?’ returned Clennam.

‘What he has on his mind.’

‘I ought first to see for myself that he has something on his mind, I

think,’ said Clennam. ‘I have found him in every way so diligent, so

grateful (for little enough), and so trustworthy, that it might look

like suspecting him. And that would be very unjust.’

‘True,’ said Pancks. ‘But, I say! You oughtn’t to be anybody’s

proprietor, Mr Clennam. You’re much too delicate.’

‘For the matter of that,’ returned Clennam laughing, ‘I have not a large

proprietary share in Cavalletto. His carving is his livelihood. He keeps

the keys of the Factory, watches it every alternate night, and acts as a

sort of housekeeper to it generally; but we have little work in the way

of his ingenuity, though we give him what we have. No! I am rather his

adviser than his proprietor. To call me his standing counsel and his

banker would be nearer the fact. Speaking of being his banker, is it not

curious, Pancks, that the ventures which run just now in so many

people’s heads, should run even in little Cavalletto’s?’

‘Ventures?’ retorted Pancks, with a snort. ‘What ventures?’

‘These Merdle enterprises.’

‘Oh! Investments,’ said Pancks. ‘Ay, ay! I didn’t know you were speaking

of investments.’

His quick way of replying caused Clennam to look at him, with a doubt

whether he meant more than he said. As it was accompanied, however, with

a quickening of his pace and a corresponding increase in the labouring

of his machinery, Arthur did not pursue the matter, and they soon

arrived at his house.

A dinner of soup and a pigeon-pie, served on a little round table before

the fire, and flavoured with a bottle of good wine, oiled Mr Pancks’s

works in a highly effective manner; so that when Clennam produced his

Eastern pipe, and handed Mr Pancks another Eastern pipe, the latter

gentleman was perfectly comfortable.

They puffed for a while in silence, Mr Pancks like a steam-vessel

with wind, tide, calm water, and all other sea-going conditions in her

favour. He was the first to speak, and he spoke thus:

‘Yes. Investments is the word.’

Clennam, with his former look, said ‘Ah!’

‘I am going back to it, you see,’ said Pancks.

‘Yes. I see you are going back to it,’ returned Clennam, wondering why.

‘Wasn’t it a curious thing that they should run in little Altro’s head?

Eh?’ said Pancks as he smoked. ‘Wasn’t that how you put it?’

‘That was what I said.’

‘Ay! But think of the whole Yard having got it. Think of their

all meeting me with it, on my collecting days, here and there and

everywhere. Whether they pay, or whether they don’t pay. Merdle, Merdle,

Merdle. Always Merdle.’

‘Very strange how these runs on an infatuation prevail,’ said Arthur.

‘An’t it?’ returned Pancks. After smoking for a minute or so, more drily

than comported with his recent oiling, he added: ‘Because you see these

people don’t understand the subject.’

‘Not a bit,’ assented Clennam.

‘Not a bit,’ cried Pancks. ‘Know nothing of figures. Know nothing of

money questions. Never made a calculation. Never worked it, sir!’

‘If they had--’ Clennam was going on to say; when Mr Pancks, without

change of countenance, produced a sound so far surpassing all his usual

efforts, nasal or bronchial, that he stopped.

‘If they had?’ repeated Pancks in an inquiring tone.

‘I thought you--spoke,’ said Arthur, hesitating what name to give the

interruption.

‘Not at all,’ said Pancks. ‘Not yet. I may in a minute. If they had?’

‘If they had,’ observed Clennam, who was a little at a loss how to take

his friend, ‘why, I suppose they would have known better.’

‘How so, Mr Clennam?’ Pancks asked quickly, and with an odd effect of

having been from the commencement of the conversation loaded with the

heavy charge he now fired off. ‘They’re right, you know. They don’t mean

to be, but they’re right.’

‘Right in sharing Cavalletto’s inclination to speculate with Mr Merdle?’

‘Per-fectly, sir,’ said Pancks. ‘I’ve gone into it. I’ve made the

calculations. I’ve worked it. They’re safe and genuine.’ Relieved by

having got to this, Mr Pancks took as long a pull as his lungs would

permit at his Eastern pipe, and looked sagaciously and steadily at

Clennam while inhaling and exhaling too.

In those moments, Mr Pancks began to give out the dangerous infection

with which he was laden. It is the manner of communicating these

diseases; it is the subtle way in which they go about.

‘Do you mean, my good Pancks,’ asked Clennam emphatically, ‘that you

would put that thousand pounds of yours, let us say, for instance, out

at this kind of interest?’

‘Certainly,’ said Pancks. ‘Already done it, sir.’

Mr Pancks took another long inhalation, another long exhalation, another

long sagacious look at Clennam.

‘I tell you, Mr Clennam, I’ve gone into it,’ said Pancks. ‘He’s a man of

immense resources--enormous capital--government influence. They’re the

best schemes afloat. They’re safe. They’re certain.’

‘Well!’ returned Clennam, looking first at him gravely and then at the

fire gravely. ‘You surprise me!’

‘Bah!’ Pancks retorted. ‘Don’t say that, sir. It’s what you ought to do

yourself! Why don’t you do as I do?’

Of whom Mr Pancks had taken the prevalent disease, he could no more have

told than if he had unconsciously taken a fever. Bred at first, as many

physical diseases are, in the wickedness of men, and then disseminated

in their ignorance, these epidemics, after a period, get communicated to

many sufferers who are neither ignorant nor wicked. Mr Pancks might, or

might not, have caught the illness himself from a subject of this class;

but in this category he appeared before Clennam, and the infection he

threw off was all the more virulent.

‘And you have really invested,’ Clennam had already passed to that word,

‘your thousand pounds, Pancks?’

‘To be sure, sir!’ replied Pancks boldly, with a puff of smoke. ‘And

only wish it ten!’

Now, Clennam had two subjects lying heavy on his lonely mind that night;

the one, his partner’s long-deferred hope; the other, what he had seen

and heard at his mother’s. In the relief of having this companion,

and of feeling that he could trust him, he passed on to both, and both

brought him round again, with an increase and acceleration of force, to

his point of departure.

It came about in the simplest manner. Quitting the investment subject,

after an interval of silent looking at the fire through the smoke of his

pipe, he told Pancks how and why he was occupied with the great National

Department. ‘A hard case it has been, and a hard case it is on Doyce,’

he finished by saying, with all the honest feeling the topic roused in

him.

‘Hard indeed,’ Pancks acquiesced. ‘But you manage for him, Mr Clennam?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Manage the money part of the business?’

‘Yes. As well as I can.’

‘Manage it better, sir,’ said Pancks. ‘Recompense him for his toils and

disappointments. Give him the chances of the time. He’ll never benefit

himself in that way, patient and preoccupied workman. He looks to you,

sir.’

‘I do my best, Pancks,’ returned Clennam, uneasily. ‘As to duly weighing

and considering these new enterprises of which I have had no experience,

I doubt if I am fit for it, I am growing old.’

‘Growing old?’ cried Pancks. ‘Ha, ha!’

There was something so indubitably genuine in the wonderful laugh, and

series of snorts and puffs, engendered in Mr Pancks’s astonishment at,

and utter rejection of, the idea, that his being quite in earnest could

not be questioned.

‘Growing old?’ cried Pancks. ‘Hear, hear, hear! Old? Hear him, hear

him!’

The positive refusal expressed in Mr Pancks’s continued snorts, no less

than in these exclamations, to entertain the sentiment for a single

instant, drove Arthur away from it. Indeed, he was fearful of something

happening to Mr Pancks in the violent conflict that took place between

the breath he jerked out of himself and the smoke he jerked into

himself. This abandonment of the second topic threw him on the third.

‘Young, old, or middle-aged, Pancks,’ he said, when there was a

favourable pause, ‘I am in a very anxious and uncertain state; a state

that even leads me to doubt whether anything now seeming to belong to

me, may be really mine. Shall I tell you how this is? Shall I put a

great trust in you?’

‘You shall, sir,’ said Pancks, ‘if you believe me worthy of it.’

‘I do.’

‘You may!’ Mr Pancks’s short and sharp rejoinder, confirmed by the

sudden outstretching of his coaly hand, was most expressive and

convincing. Arthur shook the hand warmly.

He then, softening the nature of his old apprehensions as much as was

possible consistently with their being made intelligible and never

alluding to his mother by name, but speaking vaguely of a relation

of his, confided to Mr Pancks a broad outline of the misgivings he

entertained, and of the interview he had witnessed. Mr Pancks listened

with such interest that, regardless of the charms of the Eastern pipe,

he put it in the grate among the fire-irons, and occupied his hands

during the whole recital in so erecting the loops and hooks of hair

all over his head, that he looked, when it came to a conclusion, like a

journeyman Hamlet in conversation with his father’s spirit.

‘Brings me back, sir,’ was his exclamation then, with a startling touch

on Clennam’s knee, ‘brings me back, sir, to the Investments! I don’t

say anything of your making yourself poor to repair a wrong you never

committed. That’s you. A man must be himself. But I say this,

fearing you may want money to save your own blood from exposure and

disgrace--make as much as you can!’

Arthur shook his head, but looked at him thoughtfully too.

‘Be as rich as you can, sir,’ Pancks adjured him with a powerful

concentration of all his energies on the advice. ‘Be as rich as you

honestly can. It’s your duty. Not for your sake, but for the sake of

others. Take time by the forelock. Poor Mr Doyce (who really _is_ growing

old) depends upon you. Your relative depends upon you. You don’t know

what depends upon you.’

‘Well, well, well!’ returned Arthur. ‘Enough for to-night.’

‘One word more, Mr Clennam,’ retorted Pancks, ‘and then enough for

to-night. Why should you leave all the gains to the gluttons, knaves,

and impostors? Why should you leave all the gains that are to be got to

my proprietor and the like of him? Yet you’re always doing it. When I

say you, I mean such men as you. You know you are. Why, I see it

every day of my life. I see nothing else. It’s my business to see it.

Therefore I say,’ urged Pancks, ‘Go in and win!’

‘But what of Go in and lose?’ said Arthur.

‘Can’t be done, sir,’ returned Pancks. ‘I have looked into it. Name up

everywhere--immense resources--enormous capital--great position--high

connection--government influence. Can’t be done!’

Gradually, after this closing exposition, Mr Pancks subsided; allowed

his hair to droop as much as it ever would droop on the utmost

persuasion; reclaimed the pipe from the fire-irons, filled it anew, and

smoked it out. They said little more; but were company to one another in

silently pursuing the same subjects, and did not part until midnight.

On taking his leave, Mr Pancks, when he had shaken hands with Clennam,

worked completely round him before he steamed out at the door. This,

Arthur received as an assurance that he might implicitly rely on Pancks,

if he ever should come to need assistance; either in any of the matters

of which they had spoken that night, or any other subject that could in

any way affect himself.

At intervals all next day, and even while his attention was fixed on

other things, he thought of Mr Pancks’s investment of his thousand

pounds, and of his having ‘looked into it.’ He thought of Mr Pancks’s

being so sanguine in this matter, and of his not being usually of a

sanguine character. He thought of the great National Department, and of

the delight it would be to him to see Doyce better off. He thought

of the darkly threatening place that went by the name of Home in his

remembrance, and of the gathering shadows which made it yet more darkly

threatening than of old. He observed anew that wherever he went, he

saw, or heard, or touched, the celebrated name of Merdle; he found it

difficult even to remain at his desk a couple of hours, without having

it presented to one of his bodily senses through some agency or other.

He began to think it was curious too that it should be everywhere, and

that nobody but he should seem to have any mistrust of it. Though indeed

he began to remember, when he got to this, even _he_ did not mistrust it;

he had only happened to keep aloof from it.

Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the signs

of sickening.

CHAPTER 14. Taking Advice

When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow Tiber

that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one of the

Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of news

with which they had no nearer concern than with any other piece of

news--any other Accident or Offence--in the English papers. Some

laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that the post was

virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his name was good

enough for it; some, and these the more solemn political oracles,

said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen himself, and that the sole

constitutional purpose of all places within the gift of Decimus, was,

that Decimus _should_ strengthen himself. A few bilious Britons there were

who would not subscribe to this article of faith; but their objection

was purely theoretical. In a practical point of view, they listlessly

abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other Britons

unknown, somewhere, or nowhere. In like manner, at home, great numbers

of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty consecutive hours,

that those invisible and anonymous Britons ‘ought to take it up;’ and

that if they quietly acquiesced in it, they deserved it. But of what

class the remiss Britons were composed, and where the unlucky creatures

hid themselves, and why they hid themselves, and how it constantly

happened that they neglected their interests, when so many other Britons

were quite at a loss to account for their not looking after those

interests, was not, either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the

shore of the black Thames, made apparent to men.

Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on it,

with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the setting

displays the jewel. Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the place. Mr Merdle

wished him to take it, and he had taken it. She hoped Edmund might like

it, but really she didn’t know. It would keep him in town a good

deal, and he preferred the country. Still, it was not a disagreeable

position--and it was a position. There was no denying that the thing

was a compliment to Mr Merdle, and was not a bad thing for Edmund if he

liked it. It was just as well that he should have something to do, and

it was just as well that he should have something for doing it. Whether

it would be more agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen.

Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things of

small account, and really enhancing them in the process. While Henry

Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of

his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano,

vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was

the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted, altogether most lovable jackass

that ever grazed on the public common; and that only one circumstance

could have delighted him (Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass’s)

getting this post, and that would have been his (Gowan’s) getting it

himself. He said it was the very thing for Sparkler. There was nothing

to do, and he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to

draw, and he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate,

capital appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of

himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great an

affection was so admirably stabled. Nor did his benevolence stop here.

He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr Sparkler out, and

make him conspicuous before the company; and, although the considerate

action always resulted in that young gentleman’s making a dreary and

forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly intention was not to

be doubted.

Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr Sparkler’s

affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation of being

universally known in that light, and of not having dismissed Mr

Sparkler, however capriciously she used him. Hence, she was sufficiently

identified with the gentleman to feel compromised by his being more than

usually ridiculous; and hence, being by no means deficient in quickness,

she sometimes came to his rescue against Gowan, and did him very good

service. But, while doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined

whether to get rid of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted

with apprehensions that she was every day becoming more and more

immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs

Merdle triumphed in her distress. With this tumult in her mind, it is no

subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came home one night in a state

of agitation from a concert and ball at Mrs Merdle’s house, and on her

sister affectionately trying to soothe her, pushed that sister away from

the toilette-table at which she sat angrily trying to cry, and declared

with a heaving bosom that she detested everybody, and she wished she was

dead.

‘Dear Fanny, what is the matter? Tell me.’

‘Matter, you little Mole,’ said Fanny. ‘If you were not the blindest of

the blind, you would have no occasion to ask me. The idea of daring to

pretend to assert that you have eyes in your head, and yet ask me what’s

the matter!’

‘Is it Mr Sparkler, dear?’

‘Mis-ter Spark-ler!’ repeated Fanny, with unbounded scorn, as if he were

the last subject in the Solar system that could possibly be near her

mind. ‘No, Miss Bat, it is not.’

Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful for having called her

sister names; declaring with sobs that she knew she made herself

hateful, but that everybody drove her to it.

‘I don’t think you are well to-night, dear Fanny.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ replied the young lady, turning angry again; ‘I am

as well as you are. Perhaps I might say better, and yet make no boast of

it.’

Poor Little Dorrit, not seeing her way to the offering of any soothing

words that would escape repudiation, deemed it best to remain quiet. At

first, Fanny took this ill, too; protesting to her looking-glass, that

of all the trying sisters a girl could have, she did think the most

trying sister was a flat sister. That she knew she was at times a

wretched temper; that she knew she made herself hateful; that when she

made herself hateful, nothing would do her half the good as being told

so; but that, being afflicted with a flat sister, she never _was_ told so,

and the consequence resulted that she was absolutely tempted and

goaded into making herself disagreeable. Besides (she angrily told

her looking-glass), she didn’t want to be forgiven. It was not a right

example, that she should be constantly stooping to be forgiven by a

younger sister. And this was the Art of it--that she was always being

placed in the position of being forgiven, whether she liked it or not.

Finally she burst into violent weeping, and, when her sister came and

sat close at her side to comfort her, said, ‘Amy, you’re an Angel!’

‘But, I tell you what, my Pet,’ said Fanny, when her sister’s gentleness

had calmed her, ‘it now comes to this; that things cannot and shall not

go on as they are at present going on, and that there must be an end of

this, one way or another.’

As the announcement was vague, though very peremptory, Little Dorrit

returned, ‘Let us talk about it.’

‘Quite so, my dear,’ assented Fanny, as she dried her eyes. ‘Let us talk

about it. I am rational again now, and you shall advise me. _Will_ you

advise me, my sweet child?’

Even Amy smiled at this notion, but she said, ‘I will, Fanny, as well as

I can.’

‘Thank you, dearest Amy,’ returned Fanny, kissing her. ‘You are my

anchor.’

Having embraced her Anchor with great affection, Fanny took a bottle of

sweet toilette water from the table, and called to her maid for a fine

handkerchief. She then dismissed that attendant for the night, and went

on to be advised; dabbing her eyes and forehead from time to time to

cool them.

‘My love,’ Fanny began, ‘our characters and points of view are

sufficiently different (kiss me again, my darling), to make it very

probable that I shall surprise you by what I am going to say. What I am

going to say, my dear, is, that notwithstanding our property, we labour,

socially speaking, under disadvantages. You don’t quite understand what

I mean, Amy?’

‘I have no doubt I shall,’ said Amy, mildly, ‘after a few words more.’

‘Well, my dear, what I mean is, that we are, after all, newcomers into

fashionable life.’

‘I am sure, Fanny,’ Little Dorrit interposed in her zealous admiration,

‘no one need find that out in you.’

‘Well, my dear child, perhaps not,’ said Fanny, ‘though it’s most kind

and most affectionate in you, you precious girl, to say so.’ Here she

dabbed her sister’s forehead, and blew upon it a little. ‘But you are,’

resumed Fanny, ‘as is well known, the dearest little thing that ever

was! To resume, my child. Pa is extremely gentlemanly and extremely well

informed, but he is, in some trifling respects, a little different from

other gentlemen of his fortune: partly on account of what he has gone

through, poor dear: partly, I fancy, on account of its often running in

his mind that other people are thinking about that, while he is talking

to them. Uncle, my love, is altogether unpresentable. Though a dear

creature to whom I am tenderly attached, he is, socially speaking,

shocking. Edward is frightfully expensive and dissipated. I don’t mean

that there is anything ungenteel in that itself--far from it--but I

do mean that he doesn’t do it well, and that he doesn’t, if I may

so express myself, get the money’s-worth in the sort of dissipated

reputation that attaches to him.’

‘Poor Edward!’ sighed Little Dorrit, with the whole family history in

the sigh.

‘Yes. And poor you and me, too,’ returned Fanny, rather sharply.

‘Very true! Then, my dear, we have no mother, and we have a Mrs General.

And I tell you again, darling, that Mrs General, if I may reverse a

common proverb and adapt it to her, is a cat in gloves who _will_

catch mice. That woman, I am quite sure and confident, will be our

mother-in-law.’

‘I can hardly think, Fanny--’ Fanny stopped her.

‘Now, don’t argue with me about it, Amy,’ said she, ‘because I know

better.’ Feeling that she had been sharp again, she dabbed her sister’s

forehead again, and blew upon it again. ‘To resume once more, my dear.

It then becomes a question with me (I am proud and spirited, Amy, as you

very well know: too much so, I dare say) whether I shall make up my mind

to take it upon myself to carry the family through.’

‘How?’ asked her sister, anxiously.

‘I will not,’ said Fanny, without answering the question, ‘submit to

be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General; and I will not submit to be, in any

respect whatever, either patronised or tormented by Mrs Merdle.’

Little Dorrit laid her hand upon the hand that held the bottle of sweet

water, with a still more anxious look. Fanny, quite punishing her own

forehead with the vehement dabs she now began to give it, fitfully went

on.

‘That he has somehow or other, and how is of no consequence, attained a

very good position, no one can deny. That it is a very good connection,

no one can deny. And as to the question of clever or not clever, I doubt

very much whether a clever husband would be suitable to me. I cannot

submit. I should not be able to defer to him enough.’

‘O, my dear Fanny!’ expostulated Little Dorrit, upon whom a kind of

terror had been stealing as she perceived what her sister meant. ‘If you

loved any one, all this feeling would change. If you loved any one, you

would no more be yourself, but you would quite lose and forget yourself

in your devotion to him. If you loved him, Fanny--’ Fanny had stopped

the dabbing hand, and was looking at her fixedly.

‘O, indeed!’ cried Fanny. ‘Really? Bless me, how much some people know

of some subjects! They say every one has a subject, and I certainly

seem to have hit upon yours, Amy. There, you little thing, I was only in

fun,’ dabbing her sister’s forehead; ‘but don’t you be a silly puss,

and don’t you think flightily and eloquently about degenerate

impossibilities. There! Now, I’ll go back to myself.’

‘Dear Fanny, let me say first, that I would far rather we worked for

a scanty living again than I would see you rich and married to Mr

Sparkler.’

‘_Let_ you say, my dear?’ retorted Fanny. ‘Why, of course, I will _let_

you say anything. There is no constraint upon you, I hope. We are

together to talk it over. And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I have not the

slightest intention of doing so to-night, my dear, or to-morrow morning

either.’

‘But at some time?’

‘At no time, for anything I know at present,’ answered Fanny, with

indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a burning

restlessness, she added, ‘You talk about the clever men, you little

thing! It’s all very fine and easy to talk about the clever men; but

where are they? _I_ don’t see them anywhere near _me_!’

‘My dear Fanny, so short a time--’

‘Short time or long time,’ interrupted Fanny. ‘I am impatient of our

situation. I don’t like our situation, and very little would induce

me to change it. Other girls, differently reared and differently

circumstanced altogether, might wonder at what I say or may do. Let

them. They are driven by their lives and characters; I am driven by

mine.’

‘Fanny, my dear Fanny, you know that you have qualities to make you the

wife of one very superior to Mr Sparkler.’

‘Amy, my dear Amy,’ retorted Fanny, parodying her words, ‘I know that I

wish to have a more defined and distinct position, in which I can assert

myself with greater effect against that insolent woman.’

‘Would you therefore--forgive my asking, Fanny--therefore marry her

son?’

‘Why, perhaps,’ said Fanny, with a triumphant smile. ‘There may be many

less promising ways of arriving at an end than that, my dear. That piece

of insolence may think, now, that it would be a great success to get her

son off upon me, and shelve me. But, perhaps, she little thinks how I

would retort upon her if I married her son. I would oppose her in

everything, and compete with her. I would make it the business of my

life.’

Fanny set down the bottle when she came to this, and walked about the

room; always stopping and standing still while she spoke.

‘One thing I could certainly do, my child: I could make her older. And I

would!’

This was followed by another walk.

‘I would talk of her as an old woman. I would pretend to know--if I

didn’t, but I should from her son--all about her age. And she should

hear me say, Amy: affectionately, quite dutifully and affectionately:

how well she looked, considering her time of life. I could make her seem

older at once, by being myself so much younger. I may not be as handsome

as she is; I am not a fair judge of that question, I suppose; but I know

I am handsome enough to be a thorn in her side. And I would be!’

‘My dear sister, would you condemn yourself to an unhappy life for

this?’

‘It wouldn’t be an unhappy life, Amy. It would be the life I am fitted

for. Whether by disposition, or whether by circumstances, is no matter;

I am better fitted for such a life than for almost any other.’

There was something of a desolate tone in those words; but, with a

short proud laugh she took another walk, and after passing a great

looking-glass came to another stop.

‘Figure! Figure, Amy! Well. The woman has a good figure. I will give her

her due, and not deny it. But is it so far beyond all others that it is

altogether unapproachable? Upon my word, I am not so sure of it. Give

some much younger woman the latitude as to dress that she has, being

married; and we would see about that, my dear!’

Something in the thought that was agreeable and flattering, brought her

back to her seat in a gayer temper. She took her sister’s hands in hers,

and clapped all four hands above her head as she looked in her sister’s

face laughing:

‘And the dancer, Amy, that she has quite forgotten--the dancer who bore

no sort of resemblance to me, and of whom I never remind her, oh dear

no!--should dance through her life, and dance in her way, to such a tune

as would disturb her insolent placidity a little. Just a little, my dear

Amy, just a little!’

Meeting an earnest and imploring look in Amy’s face, she brought the

four hands down, and laid only one on Amy’s lips.

‘Now, don’t argue with me, child,’ she said in a sterner way, ‘because

it is of no use. I understand these subjects much better than you do. I

have not nearly made up my mind, but it may be. Now we have talked this

over comfortably, and may go to bed. You best and dearest little mouse,

Good night!’ With those words Fanny weighed her Anchor, and--having

taken so much advice--left off being advised for that occasion.

Thenceforward, Amy observed Mr Sparkler’s treatment by his enslaver,

with new reasons for attaching importance to all that passed between

them. There were times when Fanny appeared quite unable to endure his

mental feebleness, and when she became so sharply impatient of it that

she would all but dismiss him for good. There were other times when she

got on much better with him; when he amused her, and when her sense of

superiority seemed to counterbalance that opposite side of the scale. If

Mr Sparkler had been other than the faithfullest and most submissive of

swains, he was sufficiently hard pressed to have fled from the scene of

his trials, and have set at least the whole distance from Rome to London

between himself and his enchantress. But he had no greater will of his

own than a boat has when it is towed by a steam-ship; and he followed

his cruel mistress through rough and smooth, on equally strong

compulsion.

Mrs Merdle, during these passages, said little to Fanny, but said

more about her. She was, as it were, forced to look at her through her

eye-glass, and in general conversation to allow commendations of her

beauty to be wrung from her by its irresistible demands. The defiant

character it assumed when Fanny heard these extollings (as it generally

happened that she did), was not expressive of concessions to the

impartial bosom; but the utmost revenge the bosom took was, to say

audibly, ‘A spoilt beauty--but with that face and shape, who could

wonder?’

It might have been about a month or six weeks after the night of the

new advice, when Little Dorrit began to think she detected some new

understanding between Mr Sparkler and Fanny. Mr Sparkler, as if in

attendance to some compact, scarcely ever spoke without first looking

towards Fanny for leave. That young lady was too discreet ever to look

back again; but, if Mr Sparkler had permission to speak, she remained

silent; if he had not, she herself spoke. Moreover, it became plain

whenever Henry Gowan attempted to perform the friendly office of drawing

him out, that he was not to be drawn. And not only that, but Fanny would

presently, without any pointed application in the world, chance to say

something with such a sting in it that Gowan would draw back as if he

had put his hand into a bee-hive.

There was yet another circumstance which went a long way to confirm

Little Dorrit in her fears, though it was not a great circumstance

in itself. Mr Sparkler’s demeanour towards herself changed. It became

fraternal. Sometimes, when she was in the outer circle of assemblies--at

their own residence, at Mrs Merdle’s, or elsewhere--she would find

herself stealthily supported round the waist by Mr Sparkler’s arm. Mr

Sparkler never offered the slightest explanation of this attention;

but merely smiled with an air of blundering, contented, good-natured

proprietorship, which, in so heavy a gentleman, was ominously

expressive.

Little Dorrit was at home one day, thinking about Fanny with a heavy

heart. They had a room at one end of their drawing-room suite, nearly

all irregular bay-window, projecting over the street, and commanding

all the picturesque life and variety of the Corso, both up and down. At

three or four o’clock in the afternoon, English time, the view from this

window was very bright and peculiar; and Little Dorrit used to sit

and muse here, much as she had been used to while away the time in her

balcony at Venice. Seated thus one day, she was softly touched on the

shoulder, and Fanny said, ‘Well, Amy dear,’ and took her seat at her

side. Their seat was a part of the window; when there was anything in

the way of a procession going on, they used to have bright draperies

hung out of the window, and used to kneel or sit on this seat, and look

out at it, leaning on the brilliant colour. But there was no procession

that day, and Little Dorrit was rather surprised by Fanny’s being at

home at that hour, as she was generally out on horseback then.

‘Well, Amy,’ said Fanny, ‘what are you thinking of, little one?’

‘I was thinking of you, Fanny.’

‘No? What a coincidence! I declare here’s some one else. You were not

thinking of this some one else too; were you, Amy?’

Amy _had_ been thinking of this some one else too; for it was Mr Sparkler.

She did not say so, however, as she gave him her hand. Mr Sparkler

came and sat down on the other side of her, and she felt the fraternal

railing come behind her, and apparently stretch on to include Fanny.

‘Well, my little sister,’ said Fanny with a sigh, ‘I suppose you know

what this means?’

‘She’s as beautiful as she’s doated on,’ stammered Mr Sparkler--‘and

there’s no nonsense about her--it’s arranged--’

‘You needn’t explain, Edmund,’ said Fanny.

‘No, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler.

‘In short, pet,’ proceeded Fanny, ‘on the whole, we are engaged. We

must tell papa about it either to-night or to-morrow, according to the

opportunities. Then it’s done, and very little more need be said.’

‘My dear Fanny,’ said Mr Sparkler, with deference, ‘I should like to say

a word to Amy.’

‘Well, well! Say it for goodness’ sake,’ returned the young lady.

‘I am convinced, my dear Amy,’ said Mr Sparkler, ‘that if ever there

was a girl, next to your highly endowed and beautiful sister, who had no

nonsense about her--’

‘We know all about that, Edmund,’ interposed Miss Fanny. ‘Never mind

that. Pray go on to something else besides our having no nonsense about

us.’

‘Yes, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘And I assure you, Amy, that nothing

can be a greater happiness to myself, myself--next to the happiness of

being so highly honoured with the choice of a glorious girl who hasn’t

an atom of--’

‘Pray, Edmund, pray!’ interrupted Fanny, with a slight pat of her pretty

foot upon the floor.

‘My love, you’re quite right,’ said Mr Sparkler, ‘and I know I have a

habit of it. What I wished to declare was, that nothing can be a greater

happiness to myself, myself-next to the happiness of being united to

pre-eminently the most glorious of girls--than to have the happiness

of cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of Amy. I may not myself,’

said Mr Sparkler manfully, ‘be up to the mark on some other subjects

at a short notice, and I am aware that if you were to poll Society the

general opinion would be that I am not; but on the subject of Amy I AM

up to the mark!’

Mr Sparkler kissed her, in witness thereof.

‘A knife and fork and an apartment,’ proceeded Mr Sparkler, growing, in

comparison with his oratorical antecedents, quite diffuse, ‘will ever

be at Amy’s disposal. My Governor, I am sure, will always be proud to

entertain one whom I so much esteem. And regarding my mother,’ said Mr

Sparkler, ‘who is a remarkably fine woman, with--’

‘Edmund, Edmund!’ cried Miss Fanny, as before.

‘With submission, my soul,’ pleaded Mr Sparkler. ‘I know I have a habit

of it, and I thank you very much, my adorable girl, for taking the

trouble to correct it; but my mother is admitted on all sides to be a

remarkably fine woman, and she really hasn’t any.’

‘That may be, or may not be,’ returned Fanny, ‘but pray don’t mention it

any more.’

‘I will not, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler.

‘Then, in fact, you have nothing more to say, Edmund; have you?’

inquired Fanny.

‘So far from it, my adorable girl,’ answered Mr Sparkler, ‘I apologise

for having said so much.’

Mr Sparkler perceived, by a kind of inspiration, that the question

implied had he not better go? He therefore withdrew the fraternal

railing, and neatly said that he thought he would, with submission, take

his leave. He did not go without being congratulated by Amy, as well

as she could discharge that office in the flutter and distress of her

spirits.

When he was gone, she said, ‘O Fanny, Fanny!’ and turned to her sister

in the bright window, and fell upon her bosom and cried there. Fanny

laughed at first; but soon laid her face against her sister’s and cried

too--a little. It was the last time Fanny ever showed that there was any

hidden, suppressed, or conquered feeling in her on the matter. From that

hour the way she had chosen lay before her, and she trod it with her own

imperious self-willed step.

CHAPTER 15. No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons

should not be joined together

Mr Dorrit, on being informed by his elder daughter that she had accepted

matrimonial overtures from Mr Sparkler, to whom she had plighted her

troth, received the communication at once with great dignity and with a

large display of parental pride; his dignity dilating with the widened

prospect of advantageous ground from which to make acquaintances, and

his parental pride being developed by Miss Fanny’s ready sympathy with

that great object of his existence. He gave her to understand that her

noble ambition found harmonious echoes in his heart; and bestowed

his blessing on her, as a child brimful of duty and good principle,

self-devoted to the aggrandisement of the family name.

To Mr Sparkler, when Miss Fanny permitted him to appear, Mr Dorrit said,

he would not disguise that the alliance Mr Sparkler did him the honour

to propose was highly congenial to his feelings; both as being in unison

with the spontaneous affections of his daughter Fanny, and as opening

a family connection of a gratifying nature with Mr Merdle, the

master spirit of the age. Mrs Merdle also, as a leading lady rich in

distinction, elegance, grace, and beauty, he mentioned in very laudatory

terms. He felt it his duty to remark (he was sure a gentleman of Mr

Sparkler’s fine sense would interpret him with all delicacy), that he

could not consider this proposal definitely determined on, until he

should have had the privilege of holding some correspondence with Mr

Merdle; and of ascertaining it to be so far accordant with the views

of that eminent gentleman as that his (Mr Dorrit’s) daughter would be

received on that footing which her station in life and her dowry and

expectations warranted him in requiring that she should maintain in

what he trusted he might be allowed, without the appearance of being

mercenary, to call the Eye of the Great World. While saying this, which

his character as a gentleman of some little station, and his character

as a father, equally demanded of him, he would not be so diplomatic

as to conceal that the proposal remained in hopeful abeyance and

under conditional acceptance, and that he thanked Mr Sparkler for the

compliment rendered to himself and to his family. He concluded with

some further and more general observations on the--ha--character of an

independent gentleman, and the--hum--character of a possibly too

partial and admiring parent. To sum the whole up shortly, he received

Mr Sparkler’s offer very much as he would have received three or four

half-crowns from him in the days that were gone.

Mr Sparkler, finding himself stunned by the words thus heaped upon his

inoffensive head, made a brief though pertinent rejoinder; the same

being neither more nor less than that he had long perceived Miss Fanny

to have no nonsense about her, and that he had no doubt of its being all

right with his Governor. At that point the object of his affections shut

him up like a box with a spring lid, and sent him away.

Proceeding shortly afterwards to pay his respects to the Bosom, Mr

Dorrit was received by it with great consideration. Mrs Merdle had heard

of this affair from Edmund. She had been surprised at first, because she

had not thought Edmund a marrying man. Society had not thought Edmund

a marrying man. Still, of course she had seen, as a woman (we women

did instinctively see these things, Mr Dorrit!), that Edmund had been

immensely captivated by Miss Dorrit, and she had openly said that Mr

Dorrit had much to answer for in bringing so charming a girl abroad to

turn the heads of his countrymen.

‘Have I the honour to conclude, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘that the

direction which Mr Sparkler’s affections have taken, is--ha-approved of

by you?’

‘I assure you, Mr Dorrit,’ returned the lady, ‘that, personally, I am

charmed.’

That was very gratifying to Mr Dorrit.

‘Personally,’ repeated Mrs Merdle, ‘charmed.’

This casual repetition of the word ‘personally,’ moved Mr Dorrit to

express his hope that Mr Merdle’s approval, too, would not be wanting?

‘I cannot,’ said Mrs Merdle, ‘take upon myself to answer positively for

Mr Merdle; gentlemen, especially gentlemen who are what Society calls

capitalists, having their own ideas of these matters. But I should

think--merely giving an opinion, Mr Dorrit--I should think Mr Merdle

would be upon the whole,’ here she held a review of herself before

adding at her leisure, ‘quite charmed.’

At the mention of gentlemen whom Society called capitalists, Mr Dorrit

had coughed, as if some internal demur were breaking out of him. Mrs

Merdle had observed it, and went on to take up the cue.

‘Though, indeed, Mr Dorrit, it is scarcely necessary for me to make that

remark, except in the mere openness of saying what is uppermost to one

whom I so highly regard, and with whom I hope I may have the pleasure

of being brought into still more agreeable relations. For one cannot

but see the great probability of your considering such things from Mr

Merdle’s own point of view, except indeed that circumstances have made

it Mr Merdle’s accidental fortune, or misfortune, to be engaged in

business transactions, and that they, however vast, may a little cramp

his horizons. I am a very child as to having any notion of business,’

said Mrs Merdle; ‘but I am afraid, Mr Dorrit, it may have that

tendency.’

This skilful see-saw of Mr Dorrit and Mrs Merdle, so that each of them

sent the other up, and each of them sent the other down, and neither

had the advantage, acted as a sedative on Mr Dorrit’s cough. He remarked

with his utmost politeness, that he must beg to protest against its

being supposed, even by Mrs Merdle, the accomplished and graceful

(to which compliment she bent herself), that such enterprises as Mr

Merdle’s, apart as they were from the puny undertakings of the rest of

men, had any lower tendency than to enlarge and expand the genius in

which they were conceived. ‘You are generosity itself,’ said Mrs Merdle

in return, smiling her best smile; ‘let us hope so. But I confess I am

almost superstitious in my ideas about business.’

Mr Dorrit threw in another compliment here, to the effect that business,

like the time which was precious in it, was made for slaves; and that it

was not for Mrs Merdle, who ruled all hearts at her supreme pleasure,

to have anything to do with it. Mrs Merdle laughed, and conveyed to

Mr Dorrit an idea that the Bosom flushed--which was one of her best

effects.

‘I say so much,’ she then explained, ‘merely because Mr Merdle has

always taken the greatest interest in Edmund, and has always expressed

the strongest desire to advance his prospects. Edmund’s public position,

I think you know. His private position rests solely with Mr Merdle. In

my foolish incapacity for business, I assure you I know no more.’

Mr Dorrit again expressed, in his own way, the sentiment that business

was below the ken of enslavers and enchantresses. He then mentioned his

intention, as a gentleman and a parent, of writing to Mr Merdle. Mrs

Merdle concurred with all her heart--or with all her art, which was

exactly the same thing--and herself despatched a preparatory letter by

the next post to the eighth wonder of the world.

In his epistolary communication, as in his dialogues and discourses on

the great question to which it related, Mr Dorrit surrounded the

subject with flourishes, as writing-masters embellish copy-books and

ciphering-books: where the titles of the elementary rules of

arithmetic diverge into swans, eagles, griffins, and other calligraphic

recreations, and where the capital letters go out of their minds and

bodies into ecstasies of pen and ink. Nevertheless, he did render the

purport of his letter sufficiently clear, to enable Mr Merdle to make a

decent pretence of having learnt it from that source. Mr Merdle replied

to it accordingly. Mr Dorrit replied to Mr Merdle; Mr Merdle replied to

Mr Dorrit; and it was soon announced that the corresponding powers had

come to a satisfactory understanding.

Now, and not before, Miss Fanny burst upon the scene, completely arrayed

for her new part. Now and not before, she wholly absorbed Mr Sparkler in

her light, and shone for both, and twenty more. No longer feeling that

want of a defined place and character which had caused her so much

trouble, this fair ship began to steer steadily on a shaped course, and

to swim with a weight and balance that developed her sailing qualities.

‘The preliminaries being so satisfactorily arranged, I think I will now,

my dear,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘announce--ha--formally, to Mrs General--’

‘Papa,’ returned Fanny, taking him up short upon that name, ‘I don’t see

what Mrs General has got to do with it.’

‘My dear,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘it will be an act of courtesy to--hum--a

lady, well bred and refined--’

‘Oh! I am sick of Mrs General’s good breeding and refinement, papa,’

said Fanny. ‘I am tired of Mrs General.’

‘Tired,’ repeated Mr Dorrit in reproachful astonishment, ‘of--ha--Mrs

General.’

‘Quite disgusted with her, papa,’ said Fanny. ‘I really don’t see what

she has to do with my marriage. Let her keep to her own matrimonial

projects--if she has any.’

‘Fanny,’ returned Mr Dorrit, with a grave and weighty slowness upon him,

contrasting strongly with his daughter’s levity: ‘I beg the favour of

your explaining--ha--what it is you mean.’

‘I mean, papa,’ said Fanny, ‘that if Mrs General should happen to have

any matrimonial projects of her own, I dare say they are quite enough to

occupy her spare time. And that if she has not, so much the better; but

still I don’t wish to have the honour of making announcements to her.’

‘Permit me to ask you, Fanny,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘why not?’

‘Because she can find my engagement out for herself, papa,’ retorted

Fanny. ‘She is watchful enough, I dare say. I think I have seen her

so. Let her find it out for herself. If she should not find it out for

herself, she will know it when I am married. And I hope you will not

consider me wanting in affection for you, papa, if I say it strikes me

that will be quite enough for Mrs General.’

‘Fanny,’ returned Mr Dorrit, ‘I am amazed, I am displeased by

this--hum--this capricious and unintelligible display of animosity

towards--ha--Mrs General.’

‘Do not, if you please, papa,’ urged Fanny, ‘call it animosity, because

I assure you I do not consider Mrs General worth my animosity.’

At this, Mr Dorrit rose from his chair with a fixed look of severe

reproof, and remained standing in his dignity before his daughter. His

daughter, turning the bracelet on her arm, and now looking at him, and

now looking from him, said, ‘Very well, papa. I am truly sorry if you

don’t like it; but I can’t help it. I am not a child, and I am not Amy,

and I must speak.’

‘Fanny,’ gasped Mr Dorrit, after a majestic silence, ‘if I request

you to remain here, while I formally announce to Mrs General, as

an exemplary lady, who is--hum--a trusted member of this family,

the--ha--the change that is contemplated among us; if I--ha--not only

request it, but--hum--insist upon it--’

‘Oh, papa,’ Fanny broke in with pointed significance, ‘if you make so

much of it as that, I have in duty nothing to do but comply. I hope I

may have my thoughts upon the subject, however, for I really cannot help

it under the circumstances.’ So, Fanny sat down with a meekness which,

in the junction of extremes, became defiance; and her father, either not

deigning to answer, or not knowing what to answer, summoned Mr Tinkler

into his presence.

‘Mrs General.’

Mr Tinkler, unused to receive such short orders in connection with the

fair varnisher, paused. Mr Dorrit, seeing the whole Marshalsea and all

its testimonials in the pause, instantly flew at him with, ‘How dare

you, sir? What do you mean?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ pleaded Mr Tinkler, ‘I was wishful to know--’

‘You wished to know nothing, sir,’ cried Mr Dorrit, highly flushed.

‘Don’t tell me you did. Ha. You didn’t. You are guilty of mockery, sir.’

‘I assure you, sir--’ Mr Tinkler began.

‘Don’t assure me!’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘I will not be assured by a

domestic. You are guilty of mockery. You shall leave me--hum--the whole

establishment shall leave me. What are you waiting for?’

‘Only for my orders, sir.’

‘It’s false,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘you have your orders. Ha--hum. My

compliments to Mrs General, and I beg the favour of her coming to me, if

quite convenient, for a few minutes. Those are your orders.’

In his execution of this mission, Mr Tinkler perhaps expressed that Mr

Dorrit was in a raging fume. However that was, Mrs General’s skirts were

very speedily heard outside, coming along--one might almost have said

bouncing along--with unusual expedition. Albeit, they settled down at

the door and swept into the room with their customary coolness.

‘Mrs General,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘take a chair.’

Mrs General, with a graceful curve of acknowledgment, descended into the

chair which Mr Dorrit offered.

‘Madam,’ pursued that gentleman, ‘as you have had the kindness to

undertake the--hum--formation of my daughters, and as I am persuaded

that nothing nearly affecting them can--ha--be indifferent to you--’

‘Wholly impossible,’ said Mrs General in the calmest of ways.

‘--I therefore wish to announce to you, madam, that my daughter now

present--’

Mrs General made a slight inclination of her head to Fanny, who made

a very low inclination of her head to Mrs General, and came loftily

upright again.

‘--That my daughter Fanny is--ha--contracted to be married to Mr

Sparkler, with whom you are acquainted. Hence, madam, you will be

relieved of half your difficult charge--ha--difficult charge.’ Mr

Dorrit repeated it with his angry eye on Fanny. ‘But not, I hope, to

the--hum--diminution of any other portion, direct or indirect, of the

footing you have at present the kindness to occupy in my family.’

‘Mr Dorrit,’ returned Mrs General, with her gloved hands resting on

one another in exemplary repose, ‘is ever considerate, and ever but too

appreciative of my friendly services.’

(Miss Fanny coughed, as much as to say, ‘You are right.’)

‘Miss Dorrit has no doubt exercised the soundest discretion of which

the circumstances admitted, and I trust will allow me to offer her my

sincere congratulations. When free from the trammels of passion,’ Mrs

General closed her eyes at the word, as if she could not utter it, and

see anybody; ‘when occurring with the approbation of near relatives;

and when cementing the proud structure of a family edifice; these are

usually auspicious events. I trust Miss Dorrit will allow me to offer

her my best congratulations.’

Here Mrs General stopped, and added internally, for the setting of her

face, ‘Papa, potatoes, poultry, Prunes, and prism.’

‘Mr Dorrit,’ she superadded aloud, ‘is ever most obliging; and for

the attention, and I will add distinction, of having this confidence

imparted to me by himself and Miss Dorrit at this early time, I beg to

offer the tribute of my thanks. My thanks, and my congratulations, are

equally the meed of Mr Dorrit and of Miss Dorrit.’

‘To me,’ observed Miss Fanny, ‘they are excessively

gratifying--inexpressibly so. The relief of finding that you have no

objection to make, Mrs General, quite takes a load off my mind, I am

sure. I hardly know what I should have done,’ said Fanny, ‘if you had

interposed any objection, Mrs General.’

Mrs General changed her gloves, as to the right glove being uppermost

and the left undermost, with a Prunes and Prism smile.

‘To preserve your approbation, Mrs General,’ said Fanny, returning the

smile with one in which there was no trace of those ingredients, ‘will

of course be the highest object of my married life; to lose it, would of

course be perfect wretchedness. I am sure your great kindness will

not object, and I hope papa will not object, to my correcting a

small mistake you have made, however. The best of us are so liable to

mistakes, that even you, Mrs General, have fallen into a little error.

The attention and distinction you have so impressively mentioned, Mrs

General, as attaching to this confidence, are, I have no doubt, of the

most complimentary and gratifying description; but they don’t at all

proceed from me. The merit of having consulted you on the subject would

have been so great in me, that I feel I must not lay claim to it when it

really is not mine. It is wholly papa’s. I am deeply obliged to you for

your encouragement and patronage, but it was papa who asked for it.

I have to thank you, Mrs General, for relieving my breast of a great

weight by so handsomely giving your consent to my engagement, but you

have really nothing to thank me for. I hope you will always approve of

my proceedings after I have left home and that my sister also may long

remain the favoured object of your condescension, Mrs General.’

With this address, which was delivered in her politest manner, Fanny

left the room with an elegant and cheerful air--to tear up-stairs with

a flushed face as soon as she was out of hearing, pounce in upon her

sister, call her a little Dormouse, shake her for the better opening of

her eyes, tell her what had passed below, and ask her what she thought

of Pa now?

Towards Mrs Merdle, the young lady comported herself with great

independence and self-possession; but not as yet with any more decided

opening of hostilities. Occasionally they had a slight skirmish, as when

Fanny considered herself patted on the back by that lady, or as when Mrs

Merdle looked particularly young and well; but Mrs Merdle always soon

terminated those passages of arms by sinking among her cushions with the

gracefullest indifference, and finding her attention otherwise engaged.

Society (for that mysterious creature sat upon the Seven Hills too)

found Miss Fanny vastly improved by her engagement. She was much more

accessible, much more free and engaging, much less exacting; insomuch

that she now entertained a host of followers and admirers, to the bitter

indignation of ladies with daughters to marry, who were to be regarded

as Having revolted from Society on the Miss Dorrit grievance, and

erected a rebellious standard. Enjoying the flutter she caused. Miss

Dorrit not only haughtily moved through it in her own proper person, but

haughtily, even Ostentatiously, led Mr Sparkler through it too: seeming

to say to them all, ‘If I think proper to march among you in triumphal

procession attended by this weak captive in bonds, rather than a

stronger one, that is my business. Enough that I choose to do it!’ Mr

Sparkler for his part, questioned nothing; but went wherever he was

taken, did whatever he was told, felt that for his bride-elect to be

distinguished was for him to be distinguished on the easiest terms, and

was truly grateful for being so openly acknowledged.

The winter passing on towards the spring while this condition of affairs

prevailed, it became necessary for Mr Sparkler to repair to England, and

take his appointed part in the expression and direction of its genius,

learning, commerce, spirit, and sense. The land of Shakespeare, Milton,

Bacon, Newton, Watt, the land of a host of past and present abstract

philosophers, natural philosophers, and subduers of Nature and Art in

their myriad forms, called to Mr Sparkler to come and take care of it,

lest it should perish. Mr Sparkler, unable to resist the agonised cry

from the depths of his country’s soul, declared that he must go.

It followed that the question was rendered pressing when, where, and

how Mr Sparkler should be married to the foremost girl in all this world

with no nonsense about her. Its solution, after some little mystery and

secrecy, Miss Fanny herself announced to her sister.

‘Now, my child,’ said she, seeking her out one day, ‘I am going to tell

you something. It is only this moment broached; and naturally I hurry to

you the moment it _is_ broached.’

‘Your marriage, Fanny?’

‘My precious child,’ said Fanny, ‘don’t anticipate me. Let me impart my

confidence to you, you flurried little thing, in my own way. As to your

guess, if I answered it literally, I should answer no. For really it is

not my marriage that is in question, half as much as it is Edmund’s.’

Little Dorrit looked, and perhaps not altogether without cause, somewhat

at a loss to understand this fine distinction.

‘I am in no difficulty,’ exclaimed Fanny, ‘and in no hurry. I am not

wanted at any public office, or to give any vote anywhere else.

But Edmund is. And Edmund is deeply dejected at the idea of going away

by himself, and, indeed, I don’t like that he should be trusted by

himself. For, if it’s possible--and it generally is--to do a foolish

thing, he is sure to do it.’

As she concluded this impartial summary of the reliance that might be

safely placed upon her future husband, she took off, with an air of

business, the bonnet she wore, and dangled it by its strings upon the

ground.

‘It is far more Edmund’s question, therefore, than mine. However, we

need say no more about that. That is self-evident on the face of it.

Well, my dearest Amy! The point arising, is he to go by himself, or is

he not to go by himself, this other point arises, are we to be married

here and shortly, or are we to be married at home months hence?’

‘I see I am going to lose you, Fanny.’

‘What a little thing you are,’ cried Fanny, half tolerant and half

impatient, ‘for anticipating one! Pray, my darling, hear me out. That

woman,’ she spoke of Mrs Merdle, of course, ‘remains here until after

Easter; so, in the case of my being married here and going to London

with Edmund, I should have the start of her. That is something. Further,

Amy. That woman being out of the way, I don’t know that I greatly object

to Mr Merdle’s proposal to Pa that Edmund and I should take up our abode

in that house--_you_ know--where you once went with a dancer, my dear,

until our own house can be chosen and fitted up. Further still, Amy.

Papa having always intended to go to town himself, in the spring,--you

see, if Edmund and I were married here, we might go off to Florence,

where papa might join us, and we might all three travel home together.

Mr Merdle has entreated Pa to stay with him in that same mansion I have

mentioned, and I suppose he will. But he is master of his own actions;

and upon that point (which is not at all material) I can’t speak

positively.’

The difference between papa’s being master of his own actions and Mr

Sparkler’s being nothing of the sort, was forcibly expressed by Fanny in

her manner of stating the case. Not that her sister noticed it; for she

was divided between regret at the coming separation, and a lingering

wish that she had been included in the plans for visiting England.

‘And these are the arrangements, Fanny dear?’

‘Arrangements!’ repeated Fanny. ‘Now, really, child, you are a little

trying. You know I particularly guarded myself against laying my words

open to any such construction. What I said was, that certain questions

present themselves; and these are the questions.’

Little Dorrit’s thoughtful eyes met hers, tenderly and quietly.

‘Now, my own sweet girl,’ said Fanny, weighing her bonnet by the strings

with considerable impatience, ‘it’s no use staring. A little owl could

stare. I look to you for advice, Amy. What do you advise me to do?’

‘Do you think,’ asked Little Dorrit, persuasively, after a short

hesitation, ‘do you think, Fanny, that if you were to put it off for a

few months, it might be, considering all things, best?’

‘No, little Tortoise,’ retorted Fanny, with exceeding sharpness. ‘I

don’t think anything of the kind.’

Here, she threw her bonnet from her altogether, and flounced into a

chair. But, becoming affectionate almost immediately, she flounced out

of it again, and kneeled down on the floor to take her sister, chair and

all, in her arms.

‘Don’t suppose I am hasty or unkind, darling, because I really am not.

But you are such a little oddity! You make one bite your head off,

when one wants to be soothing beyond everything. Didn’t I tell you, you

dearest baby, that Edmund can’t be trusted by himself? And don’t you

know that he can’t?’

‘Yes, yes, Fanny. You said so, I know.’

‘And you know it, I know,’ retorted Fanny. ‘Well, my precious child! If

he is not to be trusted by himself, it follows, I suppose, that I should

go with him?’

‘It--seems so, love,’ said Little Dorrit.

‘Therefore, having heard the arrangements that are feasible to carry

out that object, am I to understand, dearest Amy, that on the whole you

advise me to make them?’

‘It--seems so, love,’ said Little Dorrit again.

‘Very well,’ cried Fanny with an air of resignation, ‘then I suppose it

must be done! I came to you, my sweet, the moment I saw the doubt, and

the necessity of deciding. I have now decided. So let it be.’

After yielding herself up, in this pattern manner, to sisterly advice

and the force of circumstances, Fanny became quite benignant: as one

who had laid her own inclinations at the feet of her dearest friend, and

felt a glow of conscience in having made the sacrifice. ‘After all, my

Amy,’ she said to her sister, ‘you are the best of small creatures, and

full of good sense; and I don’t know what I shall ever do without you!’

With which words she folded her in a closer embrace, and a really fond

one.

‘Not that I contemplate doing without You, Amy, by any means, for I hope

we shall ever be next to inseparable. And now, my pet, I am going

to give you a word of advice. When you are left alone here with Mrs

General--’

‘I am to be left alone here with Mrs General?’ said Little Dorrit,

quietly.

‘Why, of course, my precious, till papa comes back! Unless you call

Edward company, which he certainly is not, even when he is here, and

still more certainly is not when he is away at Naples or in Sicily. I

was going to say--but you are such a beloved little Marplot for putting

one out--when you are left alone here with Mrs General, Amy, don’t you

let her slide into any sort of artful understanding with you that she is

looking after Pa, or that Pa is looking after her. She will if she can.

I know her sly manner of feeling her way with those gloves of hers. But

don’t you comprehend her on any account. And if Pa should tell you when

he comes back, that he has it in contemplation to make Mrs General your

mama (which is not the less likely because I am going away), my advice

to you is, that you say at once, “Papa, I beg to object most strongly.

Fanny cautioned me about this, and she objected, and I object.” I don’t

mean to say that any objection from you, Amy, is likely to be of the

smallest effect, or that I think you likely to make it with any degree

of firmness. But there is a principle involved--a filial principle--and

I implore you not to submit to be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General,

without asserting it in making every one about you as uncomfortable as

possible. I don’t expect you to stand by it--indeed, I know you won’t,

Pa being concerned--but I wish to rouse you to a sense of duty. As to

any help from me, or as to any opposition that I can offer to such a

match, you shall not be left in the lurch, my love. Whatever weight

I may derive from my position as a married girl not wholly devoid of

attractions--used, as that position always shall be, to oppose that

woman--I will bring to bear, you May depend upon it, on the head and

false hair (for I am confident it’s not all real, ugly as it is and

unlikely as it appears that any One in their Senses would go to the

expense of buying it) of Mrs General!’

Little Dorrit received this counsel without venturing to oppose it but

without giving Fanny any reason to believe that she intended to act upon

it. Having now, as it were, formally wound up her single life and

arranged her worldly affairs, Fanny proceeded with characteristic ardour

to prepare for the serious change in her condition.

The preparation consisted in the despatch of her maid to Paris under the

protection of the Courier, for the purchase of that outfit for a bride

on which it would be extremely low, in the present narrative, to bestow

an English name, but to which (on a vulgar principle it observes

of adhering to the language in which it professes to be written) it

declines to give a French one. The rich and beautiful wardrobe purchased

by these agents, in the course of a few weeks made its way through the

intervening country, bristling with custom-houses, garrisoned by an

immense army of shabby mendicants in uniform who incessantly repeated

the Beggar’s Petition over it, as if every individual warrior among them

were the ancient Belisarius: and of whom there were so many Legions,

that unless the Courier had expended just one bushel and a half of

silver money relieving their distresses, they would have worn the

wardrobe out before it got to Rome, by turning it over and over. Through

all such dangers, however, it was triumphantly brought, inch by inch,

and arrived at its journey’s end in fine condition.

There it was exhibited to select companies of female viewers, in whose

gentle bosoms it awakened implacable feelings. Concurrently, active

preparations were made for the day on which some of its treasures were

to be publicly displayed. Cards of breakfast-invitation were sent out

to half the English in the city of Romulus; the other half made

arrangements to be under arms, as criticising volunteers, at various

outer points of the solemnity. The most high and illustrious English

Signor Edgardo Dorrit, came post through the deep mud and ruts (from

forming a surface under the improving Neapolitan nobility), to grace

the occasion. The best hotel and all its culinary myrmidons, were set to

work to prepare the feast. The drafts of Mr Dorrit almost constituted a

run on the Torlonia Bank. The British Consul hadn’t had such a marriage

in the whole of his Consularity.

The day came, and the She-Wolf in the Capitol might have snarled with

envy to see how the Island Savages contrived these things now-a-days.

The murderous-headed statues of the wicked Emperors of the Soldiery,

whom sculptors had not been able to flatter out of their villainous

hideousness, might have come off their pedestals to run away with the

Bride. The choked old fountain, where erst the gladiators washed, might

have leaped into life again to honour the ceremony. The Temple of

Vesta might have sprung up anew from its ruins, expressly to lend its

countenance to the occasion. Might have done; but did not. Like sentient

things--even like the lords and ladies of creation sometimes--might

have done much, but did nothing. The celebration went off with admirable

pomp; monks in black robes, white robes, and russet robes stopped to

look after the carriages; wandering peasants in fleeces of sheep, begged

and piped under the house-windows; the English volunteers defiled; the

day wore on to the hour of vespers; the festival wore away; the thousand

churches rang their bells without any reference to it; and St Peter

denied that he had anything to do with it.

But by that time the Bride was near the end of the first day’s journey

towards Florence. It was the peculiarity of the nuptials that they

were all Bride. Nobody noticed the Bridegroom. Nobody noticed the first

Bridesmaid. Few could have seen Little Dorrit (who held that post) for

the glare, even supposing many to have sought her. So, the Bride had

mounted into her handsome chariot, incidentally accompanied by the

Bridegroom; and after rolling for a few minutes smoothly over a fair

pavement, had begun to jolt through a Slough of Despond, and through a

long, long avenue of wrack and ruin. Other nuptial carriages are said to

have gone the same road, before and since.

If Little Dorrit found herself left a little lonely and a little low

that night, nothing would have done so much against her feeling of

depression as the being able to sit at work by her father, as in the old

time, and help him to his supper and his rest. But that was not to be

thought of now, when they sat in the state-equipage with Mrs General on

the coach-box. And as to supper! If Mr Dorrit had wanted supper, there

was an Italian cook and there was a Swiss confectioner, who must

have put on caps as high as the Pope’s Mitre, and have performed the

mysteries of Alchemists in a copper-saucepaned laboratory below, before

he could have got it.

He was sententious and didactic that night. If he had been simply

loving, he would have done Little Dorrit more good; but she accepted him

as he was--when had she not accepted him as he was!--and made the most

and best of him. Mrs General at length retired. Her retirement for the

night was always her frostiest ceremony, as if she felt it necessary

that the human imagination should be chilled into stone to prevent

its following her. When she had gone through her rigid preliminaries,

amounting to a sort of genteel platoon-exercise, she withdrew. Little

Dorrit then put her arm round her father’s neck, to bid him good night.

‘Amy, my dear,’ said Mr Dorrit, taking her by the hand, ‘this is the

close of a day, that has--ha--greatly impressed and gratified me.’

‘A little tired you, dear, too?’

‘No,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘no: I am not sensible of fatigue when it arises

from an occasion so--hum--replete with gratification of the purest

kind.’

Little Dorrit was glad to find him in such heart, and smiled from her

own heart.

‘My dear,’ he continued, ‘this is an occasion--ha--teeming with a good

example. With a good example, my favourite and attached child--hum--to

you.’

Little Dorrit, fluttered by his words, did not know what to say, though

he stopped as if he expected her to say something.

‘Amy,’ he resumed; ‘your dear sister, our Fanny, has contracted

ha hum--a marriage, eminently calculated to extend the basis of

our--ha--connection, and to--hum--consolidate our social relations. My

love, I trust that the time is not far distant when some--ha--eligible

partner may be found for you.’

‘Oh no! Let me stay with you. I beg and pray that I may stay with you! I

want nothing but to stay and take care of you!’

She said it like one in sudden alarm.

‘Nay, Amy, Amy,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘This is weak and foolish, weak

and foolish. You have a--ha--responsibility imposed upon you by your

position. It is to develop that position, and be--hum--worthy of that

position. As to taking care of me; I can--ha--take care of myself.

Or,’ he added after a moment, ‘if I should need to be taken care of,

I--hum--can, with the--ha--blessing of Providence, be taken care of,

I--ha hum--I cannot, my dear child, think of engrossing, and--ha--as it

were, sacrificing you.’

O what a time of day at which to begin that profession of self-denial;

at which to make it, with an air of taking credit for it; at which to

believe it, if such a thing could be!

‘Don’t speak, Amy. I positively say I cannot do it. I--ha--must not do

it. My--hum--conscience would not allow it. I therefore, my love, take

the opportunity afforded by this gratifying and impressive occasion

of--ha--solemnly remarking, that it is now a cherished wish and purpose

of mine to see you--ha--eligibly (I repeat eligibly) married.’

‘Oh no, dear! Pray!’

‘Amy,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I am well persuaded that if the topic were

referred to any person of superior social knowledge, of superior

delicacy and sense--let us say, for instance, to--ha--Mrs General--that

there would not be two opinions as to the--hum--affectionate character

and propriety of my sentiments. But, as I know your loving and dutiful

nature from--hum--from experience, I am quite satisfied that it is

necessary to say no more. I have--hum--no husband to propose at

present, my dear: I have not even one in view. I merely wish that we

should--ha--understand each other. Hum. Good night, my dear and sole

remaining daughter. Good night. God bless you!’

If the thought ever entered Little Dorrit’s head that night, that he

could give her up lightly now in his prosperity, and when he had it in

his mind to replace her with a second wife, she drove it away. Faithful

to him still, as in the worst times through which she had borne him

single-handed, she drove the thought away; and entertained no harder

reflection, in her tearful unrest, than that he now saw everything

through their wealth, and through the care he always had upon him that

they should continue rich, and grow richer.

They sat in their equipage of state, with Mrs General on the box, for

three weeks longer, and then he started for Florence to join Fanny.

Little Dorrit would have been glad to bear him company so far, only for

the sake of her own love, and then to have turned back alone, thinking

of dear England. But, though the Courier had gone on with the Bride, the

Valet was next in the line; and the succession would not have come to

her, as long as any one could be got for money.

Mrs General took life easily--as easily, that is, as she could

take anything--when the Roman establishment remained in their sole

occupation; and Little Dorrit would often ride out in a hired carriage

that was left them, and alight alone and wander among the ruins of old

Rome. The ruins of the vast old Amphitheatre, of the old Temples, of the

old commemorative Arches, of the old trodden highways, of the old

tombs, besides being what they were, to her were ruins of the old

Marshalsea--ruins of her own old life--ruins of the faces and forms

that of old peopled it--ruins of its loves, hopes, cares, and joys. Two

ruined spheres of action and suffering were before the solitary girl

often sitting on some broken fragment; and in the lonely places, under

the blue sky, she saw them both together.

Up, then, would come Mrs General; taking all the colour out of

everything, as Nature and Art had taken it out of herself; writing

Prunes and Prism, in Mr Eustace’s text, wherever she could lay a hand;

looking everywhere for Mr Eustace and company, and seeing nothing else;

scratching up the driest little bones of antiquity, and bolting them

whole without any human visitings--like a Ghoule in gloves.

CHAPTER 16. Getting on

The newly married pair, on their arrival in Harley Street, Cavendish

Square, London, were received by the Chief Butler. That great man was

not interested in them, but on the whole endured them. People must

continue to be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not

be wanted. As nations are made to be taxed, so families are made to

be butlered. The Chief Butler, no doubt, reflected that the course of

nature required the wealthy population to be kept up, on his account.

He therefore condescended to look at the carriage from the Hall-door

without frowning at it, and said, in a very handsome way, to one of

his men, ‘Thomas, help with the luggage.’ He even escorted the Bride

up-stairs into Mr Merdle’s presence; but this must be considered as an

act of homage to the sex (of which he was an admirer, being notoriously

captivated by the charms of a certain Duchess), and not as a committal

of himself with the family.

Mr Merdle was slinking about the hearthrug, waiting to welcome Mrs

Sparkler. His hand seemed to retreat up his sleeve as he advanced to

do so, and he gave her such a superfluity of coat-cuff that it was like

being received by the popular conception of Guy Fawkes. When he put his

lips to hers, besides, he took himself into custody by the wrists, and

backed himself among the ottomans and chairs and tables as if he were

his own Police officer, saying to himself, ‘Now, none of that! Come!

I’ve got you, you know, and you go quietly along with me!’

Mrs Sparkler, installed in the rooms of state--the innermost sanctuary

of down, silk, chintz, and fine linen--felt that so far her triumph was

good, and her way made, step by step. On the day before her marriage,

she had bestowed on Mrs Merdle’s maid with an air of gracious

indifference, in Mrs Merdle’s presence, a trifling little keepsake

(bracelet, bonnet, and two dresses, all new) about four times as

valuable as the present formerly made by Mrs Merdle to her. She was now

established in Mrs Merdle’s own rooms, to which some extra touches had

been given to render them more worthy of her occupation. In her mind’s

eye, as she lounged there, surrounded by every luxurious accessory that

wealth could obtain or invention devise, she saw the fair bosom that

beat in unison with the exultation of her thoughts, competing with the

bosom that had been famous so long, outshining it, and deposing it.

Happy? Fanny must have been happy. No more wishing one’s self dead now.

The Courier had not approved of Mr Dorrit’s staying in the house of

a friend, and had preferred to take him to an hotel in Brook Street,

Grosvenor Square. Mr Merdle ordered his carriage to be ready early

in the morning that he might wait upon Mr Dorrit immediately after

breakfast.

Bright the carriage looked, sleek the horses looked, gleaming the

harness looked, luscious and lasting the liveries looked. A rich,

responsible turn-out. An equipage for a Merdle. Early people looked

after it as it rattled along the streets, and said, with awe in their

breath, ‘There he goes!’

There he went, until Brook Street stopped him. Then, forth from its

magnificent case came the jewel; not lustrous in itself, but quite the

contrary.

Commotion in the office of the hotel. Merdle! The landlord, though

a gentleman of a haughty spirit who had just driven a pair of

thorough-bred horses into town, turned out to show him up-stairs.

The clerks and servants cut him off by back-passages, and were found

accidentally hovering in doorways and angles, that they might look upon

him. Merdle! O ye sun, moon, and stars, the great man! The rich man, who

had in a manner revised the New Testament, and already entered into the

kingdom of Heaven. The man who could have any one he chose to dine with

him, and who had made the money! As he went up the stairs, people were

already posted on the lower stairs, that his shadow might fall upon them

when he came down. So were the sick brought out and laid in the track of

the Apostle--who had _not_ got into the good society, and had _not_ made

the money.

Mr Dorrit, dressing-gowned and newspapered, was at his breakfast. The

Courier, with agitation in his voice, announced ‘Miss Mairdale!’ Mr

Dorrit’s overwrought heart bounded as he leaped up.

‘Mr Merdle, this is--ha--indeed an honour. Permit me to express

the--hum--sense, the high sense, I entertain of this--ha hum--highly

gratifying act of attention. I am well aware, sir, of the many demands

upon your time, and its--ha--enormous value,’ Mr Dorrit could not

say enormous roundly enough for his own satisfaction. ‘That you

should--ha--at this early hour, bestow any of your priceless time upon

me, is--ha--a compliment that I acknowledge with the greatest esteem.’

Mr Dorrit positively trembled in addressing the great man.

Mr Merdle uttered, in his subdued, inward, hesitating voice, a few

sounds that were to no purpose whatever; and finally said, ‘I am glad to

see you, sir.’

‘You are very kind,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Truly kind.’ By this time the

visitor was seated, and was passing his great hand over his exhausted

forehead. ‘You are well, I hope, Mr Merdle?’

‘I am as well as I--yes, I am as well as I usually am,’ said Mr Merdle.

‘Your occupations must be immense.’

‘Tolerably so. But--Oh dear no, there’s not much the matter with _me_,’

said Mr Merdle, looking round the room.

‘A little dyspeptic?’ Mr Dorrit hinted.

‘Very likely. But I--Oh, I am well enough,’ said Mr Merdle.

There were black traces on his lips where they met, as if a little train

of gunpowder had been fired there; and he looked like a man who, if his

natural temperament had been quicker, would have been very feverish that

morning. This, and his heavy way of passing his hand over his forehead,

had prompted Mr Dorrit’s solicitous inquiries.

‘Mrs Merdle,’ Mr Dorrit insinuatingly pursued, ‘I left, as you will be

prepared to hear, the--ha--observed of all observers, the--hum--admired

of all admirers, the leading fascination and charm of Society in Rome.

She was looking wonderfully well when I quitted it.’

‘Mrs Merdle,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘is generally considered a very attractive

woman. And she is, no doubt. I am sensible of her being so.’

‘Who can be otherwise?’ responded Mr Dorrit.

Mr Merdle turned his tongue in his closed mouth--it seemed rather a

stiff and unmanageable tongue--moistened his lips, passed his hand over

his forehead again, and looked all round the room again, principally

under the chairs.

‘But,’ he said, looking Mr Dorrit in the face for the first time, and

immediately afterwards dropping his eyes to the buttons of Mr Dorrit’s

waistcoat; ‘if we speak of attractions, your daughter ought to be the

subject of our conversation. She is extremely beautiful. Both in face

and figure, she is quite uncommon. When the young people arrived last

night, I was really surprised to see such charms.’

Mr Dorrit’s gratification was such that he said--ha--he could not

refrain from telling Mr Merdle verbally, as he had already done by

letter, what honour and happiness he felt in this union of their

families. And he offered his hand. Mr Merdle looked at the hand for a

little while, took it on his for a moment as if his were a yellow salver

or fish-slice, and then returned it to Mr Dorrit.

‘I thought I would drive round the first thing,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘to

offer my services, in case I can do anything for you; and to say that

I hope you will at least do me the honour of dining with me to-day, and

every day when you are not better engaged during your stay in town.’

Mr Dorrit was enraptured by these attentions.

‘Do you stay long, sir?’

‘I have not at present the intention,’ said Mr Dorrit,

‘of--ha--exceeding a fortnight.’

‘That’s a very short stay, after so long a journey,’ returned Mr Merdle.

‘Hum. Yes,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘But the truth is--ha--my dear Mr Merdle,

that I find a foreign life so well suited to my health and taste, that

I--hum--have but two objects in my present visit to London. First,

the--ha--the distinguished happiness and--ha--privilege which I now

enjoy and appreciate; secondly, the arrangement--hum--the laying out,

that is to say, in the best way, of--ha, hum--my money.’

‘Well, sir,’ said Mr Merdle, after turning his tongue again, ‘if I can

be of any use to you in that respect, you may command me.’

Mr Dorrit’s speech had had more hesitation in it than usual, as he

approached the ticklish topic, for he was not perfectly clear how so

exalted a potentate might take it. He had doubts whether reference to

any individual capital, or fortune, might not seem a wretchedly retail

affair to so wholesale a dealer. Greatly relieved by Mr Merdle’s

affable offer of assistance, he caught at it directly, and heaped

acknowledgments upon him.

‘I scarcely--ha--dared,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I assure you, to hope for

so--hum--vast an advantage as your direct advice and assistance. Though

of course I should, under any circumstances, like the--ha, hum--rest of

the civilised world, have followed in Mr Merdle’s train.’

‘You know we may almost say we are related, sir,’ said Mr Merdle,

curiously interested in the pattern of the carpet, ‘and, therefore, you

may consider me at your service.’

‘Ha. Very handsome, indeed!’ cried Mr Dorrit. ‘Ha. Most handsome!’

‘It would not,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘be at the present moment easy for

what I may call a mere outsider to come into any of the good things--of

course I speak of my own good things--’

‘Of course, of course!’ cried Mr Dorrit, in a tone implying that there

were no other good things.

‘--Unless at a high price. At what we are accustomed to term a very long

figure.’

Mr Dorrit laughed in the buoyancy of his spirit. Ha, ha, ha! Long

figure. Good. Ha. Very expressive to be sure!

‘However,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I do generally retain in my own hands the

power of exercising some preference--people in general would be pleased

to call it favour--as a sort of compliment for my care and trouble.’

‘And public spirit and genius,’ Mr Dorrit suggested.

Mr Merdle, with a dry, swallowing action, seemed to dispose of those

qualities like a bolus; then added, ‘As a sort of return for it. I will

see, if you please, how I can exert this limited power (for people are

jealous, and it is limited), to your advantage.’

‘You are very good,’ replied Mr Dorrit. ‘You are _very_ good.’

‘Of course,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘there must be the strictest integrity

and uprightness in these transactions; there must be the purest faith

between man and man; there must be unimpeached and unimpeachable

confidence; or business could not be carried on.’

Mr Dorrit hailed these generous sentiments with fervour.

‘Therefore,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I can only give you a preference to a

certain extent.’

‘I perceive. To a defined extent,’ observed Mr Dorrit.

‘Defined extent. And perfectly above-board. As to my advice, however,’

said Mr Merdle, ‘that is another matter. That, such as it is--’

Oh! Such as it was! (Mr Dorrit could not bear the faintest appearance of

its being depreciated, even by Mr Merdle himself.)

‘--That, there is nothing in the bonds of spotless honour between myself

and my fellow-man to prevent my parting with, if I choose. And that,’

said Mr Merdle, now deeply intent upon a dust-cart that was passing the

windows, ‘shall be at your command whenever you think proper.’

New acknowledgments from Mr Dorrit. New passages of Mr Merdle’s hand

over his forehead. Calm and silence. Contemplation of Mr Dorrit’s

waistcoat buttons by Mr Merdle.

‘My time being rather precious,’ said Mr Merdle, suddenly getting up,

as if he had been waiting in the interval for his legs and they had just

come, ‘I must be moving towards the City. Can I take you anywhere, sir?

I shall be happy to set you down, or send you on. My carriage is at your

disposal.’

Mr Dorrit bethought himself that he had business at his banker’s. His

banker’s was in the City. That was fortunate; Mr Merdle would take

him into the City. But, surely, he might not detain Mr Merdle while he

assumed his coat? Yes, he might and must; Mr Merdle insisted on it. So

Mr Dorrit, retiring into the next room, put himself under the hands of

his valet, and in five minutes came back glorious.

Then said Mr Merdle, ‘Allow me, sir. Take my arm!’ Then leaning on

Mr Merdle’s arm, did Mr Dorrit descend the staircase, seeing the

worshippers on the steps, and feeling that the light of Mr Merdle shone

by reflection in himself. Then the carriage, and the ride into the

City; and the people who looked at them; and the hats that flew off grey

heads; and the general bowing and crouching before this wonderful mortal

the like of which prostration of spirit was not to be seen--no, by

high Heaven, no! It may be worth thinking of by Fawners of all

denominations--in Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul’s Cathedral put

together, on any Sunday in the year. It was a rapturous dream to Mr

Dorrit to find himself set aloft in this public car of triumph, making a

magnificent progress to that befitting destination, the golden Street of

the Lombards.

There Mr Merdle insisted on alighting and going his way a-foot, and

leaving his poor equipage at Mr Dorrit’s disposition. So the dream

increased in rapture when Mr Dorrit came out of the bank alone, and

people looked at _him_ in default of Mr Merdle, and when, with the ears of

his mind, he heard the frequent exclamation as he rolled glibly along,

‘A wonderful man to be Mr Merdle’s friend!’

At dinner that day, although the occasion was not foreseen and provided

for, a brilliant company of such as are not made of the dust of the

earth, but of some superior article for the present unknown, shed

their lustrous benediction upon Mr Dorrit’s daughter’s marriage. And Mr

Dorrit’s daughter that day began, in earnest, her competition with that

woman not present; and began it so well that Mr Dorrit could all but

have taken his affidavit, if required, that Mrs Sparkler had all her

life been lying at full length in the lap of luxury, and had never heard

of such a rough word in the English tongue as Marshalsea.

Next day, and the day after, and every day, all graced by more dinner

company, cards descended on Mr Dorrit like theatrical snow. As the

friend and relative by marriage of the illustrious Merdle, Bar, Bishop,

Treasury, Chorus, Everybody, wanted to make or improve Mr Dorrit’s

acquaintance. In Mr Merdle’s heap of offices in the City, when Mr Dorrit

appeared at any of them on his business taking him Eastward (which it

frequently did, for it throve amazingly), the name of Dorrit was always

a passport to the great presence of Merdle. So the dream increased in

rapture every hour, as Mr Dorrit felt increasingly sensible that this

connection had brought him forward indeed.

Only one thing sat otherwise than auriferously, and at the same time

lightly, on Mr Dorrit’s mind. It was the Chief Butler. That stupendous

character looked at him, in the course of his official looking at the

dinners, in a manner that Mr Dorrit considered questionable. He looked

at him, as he passed through the hall and up the staircase, going to

dinner, with a glazed fixedness that Mr Dorrit did not like. Seated

at table in the act of drinking, Mr Dorrit still saw him through his

wine-glass, regarding him with a cold and ghostly eye. It misgave him

that the Chief Butler must have known a Collegian, and must have seen

him in the College--perhaps had been presented to him. He looked as

closely at the Chief Butler as such a man could be looked at, and yet

he did not recall that he had ever seen him elsewhere. Ultimately he was

inclined to think that there was no reverence in the man, no sentiment

in the great creature. But he was not relieved by that; for, let him

think what he would, the Chief Butler had him in his supercilious eye,

even when that eye was on the plate and other table-garniture; and he

never let him out of it. To hint to him that this confinement in his eye

was disagreeable, or to ask him what he meant, was an act too daring to

venture upon; his severity with his employers and their visitors being

terrific, and he never permitting himself to be approached with the

slightest liberty.

CHAPTER 17. Missing

The term of Mr Dorrit’s visit was within two days of being out, and he

was about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler (whose

victims were always dressed expressly for him), when one of the servants

of the hotel presented himself bearing a card. Mr Dorrit, taking it,

read:

‘Mrs Finching.’

The servant waited in speechless deference.

‘Man, man,’ said Mr Dorrit, turning upon him with grievous indignation,

‘explain your motive in bringing me this ridiculous name. I am wholly

unacquainted with it. Finching, sir?’ said Mr Dorrit, perhaps avenging

himself on the Chief Butler by Substitute. ‘Ha! What do you mean by

Finching?’

The man, man, seemed to mean Flinching as much as anything else, for

he backed away from Mr Dorrit’s severe regard, as he replied, ‘A lady,

sir.’

‘I know no such lady, sir,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Take this card away. I know

no Finching of either sex.’

‘Ask your pardon, sir. The lady said she was aware she might be unknown

by name. But she begged me to say, sir, that she had formerly the honour

of being acquainted with Miss Dorrit. The lady said, sir, the youngest

Miss Dorrit.’

Mr Dorrit knitted his brows and rejoined, after a moment or two, ‘Inform

Mrs Finching, sir,’ emphasising the name as if the innocent man were

solely responsible for it, ‘that she can come up.’

He had reflected, in his momentary pause, that unless she were admitted

she might leave some message, or might say something below, having

a disgraceful reference to that former state of existence. Hence the

concession, and hence the appearance of Flora, piloted in by the man,

man.

‘I have not the pleasure,’ said Mr Dorrit, standing with the card in his

hand, and with an air which imported that it would scarcely have been a

first-class pleasure if he had had it, ‘of knowing either this name, or

yourself, madam. Place a chair, sir.’

The responsible man, with a start, obeyed, and went out on tiptoe.

Flora, putting aside her veil with a bashful tremor upon her, proceeded

to introduce herself. At the same time a singular combination of

perfumes was diffused through the room, as if some brandy had been put

by mistake in a lavender-water bottle, or as if some lavender-water had

been put by mistake in a brandy-bottle.

‘I beg Mr Dorrit to offer a thousand apologies and indeed they would

be far too few for such an intrusion which I know must appear extremely

bold in a lady and alone too, but I thought it best upon the whole

however difficult and even apparently improper though Mr F.’s Aunt would

have willingly accompanied me and as a character of great force and

spirit would probably have struck one possessed of such a knowledge of

life as no doubt with so many changes must have been acquired, for Mr F.

himself said frequently that although well educated in the neighbourhood

of Blackheath at as high as eighty guineas which is a good deal for

parents and the plate kept back too on going away but that is more a

meanness than its value that he had learnt more in his first years as a

commercial traveller with a large commission on the sale of an article

that nobody would hear of much less buy which preceded the wine trade

a long time than in the whole six years in that academy conducted by a

college Bachelor, though why a Bachelor more clever than a married man I

do not see and never did but pray excuse me that is not the point.’

Mr Dorrit stood rooted to the carpet, a statue of mystification.

‘I must openly admit that I have no pretensions,’ said Flora, ‘but

having known the dear little thing which under altered circumstances

appears a liberty but is not so intended and Goodness knows there was no

favour in half-a-crown a-day to such a needle as herself but quite the

other way and as to anything lowering in it far from it the labourer is

worthy of his hire and I am sure I only wish he got it oftener and more

animal food and less rheumatism in the back and legs poor soul.’

‘Madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, recovering his breath by a great effort, as the

relict of the late Mr Finching stopped to take hers; ‘madam,’ said Mr

Dorrit, very red in the face, ‘if I understand you to refer to--ha--to

anything in the antecedents of--hum--a daughter of mine, involving--ha

hum--daily compensation, madam, I beg to observe that the--ha--fact,

assuming it--ha--to be fact, never was within my knowledge. Hum. I

should not have permitted it. Ha. Never! Never!’

‘Unnecessary to pursue the subject,’ returned Flora, ‘and would not have

mentioned it on any account except as supposing it a favourable and only

letter of introduction but as to being fact no doubt whatever and you

may set your mind at rest for the very dress I have on now can prove it

and sweetly made though there is no denying that it would tell better on

a better figure for my own is much too fat though how to bring it down I

know not, pray excuse me I am roving off again.’

Mr Dorrit backed to his chair in a stony way, and seated himself, as

Flora gave him a softening look and played with her parasol.

‘The dear little thing,’ said Flora, ‘having gone off perfectly limp

and white and cold in my own house or at least papa’s for though not

a freehold still a long lease at a peppercorn on the morning when

Arthur--foolish habit of our youthful days and Mr Clennam far more

adapted to existing circumstances particularly addressing a stranger and

that stranger a gentleman in an elevated station--communicated the glad

tidings imparted by a person of name of Pancks emboldens me.’

At the mention of these two names, Mr Dorrit frowned, stared, frowned

again, hesitated with his fingers at his lips, as he had hesitated long

ago, and said, ‘Do me the favour to--ha--state your pleasure, madam.’

‘Mr Dorrit,’ said Flora, ‘you are very kind in giving me permission and

highly natural it seems to me that you should be kind for though more

stately I perceive a likeness filled out of course but a likeness still,

the object of my intruding is my own without the slightest consultation

with any human being and most decidedly not with Arthur--pray excuse me

Doyce and Clennam I don’t know what I am saying Mr Clennam solus--for to

put that individual linked by a golden chain to a purple time when all

was ethereal out of any anxiety would be worth to me the ransom of a

monarch not that I have the least idea how much that would come to but

using it as the total of all I have in the world and more.’

Mr Dorrit, without greatly regarding the earnestness of these latter

words, repeated, ‘State your pleasure, madam.’

‘It’s not likely I well know,’ said Flora, ‘but it’s possible and being

possible when I had the gratification of reading in the papers that you

had arrived from Italy and were going back I made up my mind to try it

for you might come across him or hear something of him and if so what a

blessing and relief to all!’

‘Allow me to ask, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, with his ideas in wild

confusion, ‘to whom--ha--TO WHOM,’ he repeated it with a raised voice in

mere desperation, ‘you at present allude?’

‘To the foreigner from Italy who disappeared in the City as no doubt you

have read in the papers equally with myself,’ said Flora, ‘not referring

to private sources by the name of Pancks from which one gathers what

dreadfully ill-natured things some people are wicked enough to whisper

most likely judging others by themselves and what the uneasiness

and indignation of Arthur--quite unable to overcome it Doyce and

Clennam--cannot fail to be.’

It happened, fortunately for the elucidation of any intelligible result,

that Mr Dorrit had heard or read nothing about the matter. This

caused Mrs Finching, with many apologies for being in great practical

difficulties as to finding the way to her pocket among the stripes of

her dress at length to produce a police handbill, setting forth that

a foreign gentleman of the name of Blandois, last from Venice, had

unaccountably disappeared on such a night in such a part of the city of

London; that he was known to have entered such a house, at such an hour;

that he was stated by the inmates of that house to have left it, about

so many minutes before midnight; and that he had never been beheld

since. This, with exact particulars of time and locality, and with

a good detailed description of the foreign gentleman who had so

mysteriously vanished, Mr Dorrit read at large.

‘Blandois!’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Venice! And this description! I know this

gentleman. He has been in my house. He is intimately acquainted with a

gentleman of good family (but in indifferent circumstances), of whom I

am a--hum--patron.’

‘Then my humble and pressing entreaty is the more,’ said Flora, ‘that

in travelling back you will have the kindness to look for this foreign

gentleman along all the roads and up and down all the turnings and to

make inquiries for him at all the hotels and orange-trees and vineyards

and volcanoes and places for he must be somewhere and why doesn’t he

come forward and say he’s there and clear all parties up?’

‘Pray, madam,’ said Mr Dorrit, referring to the handbill again, ‘who is

Clennam and Co.? Ha. I see the name mentioned here, in connection with

the occupation of the house which Monsieur Blandois was seen to

enter: who is Clennam and Co.? Is it the individual of whom I had

formerly--hum--some--ha--slight transitory knowledge, and to whom I

believe you have referred? Is it--ha--that person?’

‘It’s a very different person indeed,’ replied Flora, ‘with no limbs and

wheels instead and the grimmest of women though his mother.’

‘Clennam and Co. a--hum--a mother!’ exclaimed Mr Dorrit.

‘And an old man besides,’ said Flora.

Mr Dorrit looked as if he must immediately be driven out of his mind

by this account. Neither was it rendered more favourable to sanity by

Flora’s dashing into a rapid analysis of Mr Flintwinch’s cravat, and

describing him, without the lightest boundary line of separation between

his identity and Mrs Clennam’s, as a rusty screw in gaiters. Which

compound of man and woman, no limbs, wheels, rusty screw, grimness, and

gaiters, so completely stupefied Mr Dorrit, that he was a spectacle to

be pitied.

‘But I would not detain you one moment longer,’ said Flora, upon whom

his condition wrought its effect, though she was quite unconscious of

having produced it, ‘if you would have the goodness to give your promise

as a gentleman that both in going back to Italy and in Italy too you

would look for this Mr Blandois high and low and if you found or heard

of him make him come forward for the clearing of all parties.’

By that time Mr Dorrit had so far recovered from his bewilderment, as to

be able to say, in a tolerably connected manner, that he should consider

that his duty. Flora was delighted with her success, and rose to take

her leave.

‘With a million thanks,’ said she, ‘and my address upon my card in case

of anything to be communicated personally, I will not send my love to

the dear little thing for it might not be acceptable, and indeed there

is no dear little thing left in the transformation so why do it but

both myself and Mr F.’s Aunt ever wish her well and lay no claim to any

favour on our side you may be sure of that but quite the other way for

what she undertook to do she did and that is more than a great many of

us do, not to say anything of her doing it as well as it could be

done and I myself am one of them for I have said ever since I began to

recover the blow of Mr F’s death that I would learn the Organ of which

I am extremely fond but of which I am ashamed to say I do not yet know a

note, good evening!’

When Mr Dorrit, who attended her to the room-door, had had a little time

to collect his senses, he found that the interview had summoned back

discarded reminiscences which jarred with the Merdle dinner-table.

He wrote and sent off a brief note excusing himself for that day, and

ordered dinner presently in his own rooms at the hotel. He had another

reason for this. His time in London was very nearly out, and was

anticipated by engagements; his plans were made for returning; and he

thought it behoved his importance to pursue some direct inquiry into the

Blandois disappearance, and be in a condition to carry back to Mr

Henry Gowan the result of his own personal investigation. He therefore

resolved that he would take advantage of that evening’s freedom to go

down to Clennam and Co.’s, easily to be found by the direction set forth

in the handbill; and see the place, and ask a question or two there

himself.

Having dined as plainly as the establishment and the Courier would let

him, and having taken a short sleep by the fire for his better recovery

from Mrs Finching, he set out in a hackney-cabriolet alone. The deep

bell of St Paul’s was striking nine as he passed under the shadow of

Temple Bar, headless and forlorn in these degenerate days.

As he approached his destination through the by-streets and water-side

ways, that part of London seemed to him an uglier spot at such an hour

than he had ever supposed it to be. Many long years had passed since he

had seen it; he had never known much of it; and it wore a mysterious and

dismal aspect in his eyes. So powerfully was his imagination impressed

by it, that when his driver stopped, after having asked the way more

than once, and said to the best of his belief this was the gateway they

wanted, Mr Dorrit stood hesitating, with the coach-door in his hand,

half afraid of the dark look of the place.

Truly, it looked as gloomy that night as even it had ever looked. Two of

the handbills were posted on the entrance wall, one on either side, and

as the lamp flickered in the night air, shadows passed over them, not

unlike the shadows of fingers following the lines. A watch was evidently

kept upon the place. As Mr Dorrit paused, a man passed in from over the

way, and another man passed out from some dark corner within; and both

looked at him in passing, and both remained standing about.

As there was only one house in the enclosure, there was no room for

uncertainty, so he went up the steps of that house and knocked. There

was a dim light in two windows on the first-floor. The door gave back

a dreary, vacant sound, as though the house were empty; but it was not,

for a light was visible, and a step was audible, almost directly. They

both came to the door, and a chain grated, and a woman with her apron

thrown over her face and head stood in the aperture.

‘Who is it?’ said the woman.

Mr Dorrit, much amazed by this appearance, replied that he was from

Italy, and that he wished to ask a question relative to the missing

person, whom he knew.

‘Hi!’ cried the woman, raising a cracked voice. ‘Jeremiah!’

Upon this, a dry old man appeared, whom Mr Dorrit thought he identified

by his gaiters, as the rusty screw. The woman was under apprehensions

of the dry old man, for she whisked her apron away as he approached, and

disclosed a pale affrighted face. ‘Open the door, you fool,’ said the

old man; ‘and let the gentleman in.’

Mr Dorrit, not without a glance over his shoulder towards his driver and

the cabriolet, walked into the dim hall. ‘Now, sir,’ said Mr Flintwinch,

‘you can ask anything here you think proper; there are no secrets here,

sir.’

Before a reply could be made, a strong stern voice, though a woman’s,

called from above, ‘Who is it?’

‘Who is it?’ returned Jeremiah. ‘More inquiries. A gentleman from

Italy.’

‘Bring him up here!’

Mr Flintwinch muttered, as if he deemed that unnecessary; but, turning

to Mr Dorrit, said, ‘Mrs Clennam. She _will_ do as she likes. I’ll show

you the way.’ He then preceded Mr Dorrit up the blackened staircase;

that gentleman, not unnaturally looking behind him on the road, saw the

woman following, with her apron thrown over her head again in her former

ghastly manner.

Mrs Clennam had her books open on her little table. ‘Oh!’ said she

abruptly, as she eyed her visitor with a steady look. ‘You are from

Italy, sir, are you. Well?’

Mr Dorrit was at a loss for any more distinct rejoinder at the moment

than ‘Ha--well?’

‘Where is this missing man? Have you come to give us information where

he is? I hope you have?’

‘So far from it, I--hum--have come to seek information.’

‘Unfortunately for us, there is none to be got here. Flintwinch, show

the gentleman the handbill. Give him several to take away. Hold the

light for him to read it.’

Mr Flintwinch did as he was directed, and Mr Dorrit read it through,

as if he had not previously seen it; glad enough of the opportunity of

collecting his presence of mind, which the air of the house and of the

people in it had a little disturbed. While his eyes were on the paper,

he felt that the eyes of Mr Flintwinch and of Mrs Clennam were on him.

He found, when he looked up, that this sensation was not a fanciful one.

‘Now you know as much,’ said Mrs Clennam, ‘as we know, sir. Is Mr

Blandois a friend of yours?’

‘No--a--hum--an acquaintance,’ answered Mr Dorrit.

‘You have no commission from him, perhaps?’

‘I? Ha. Certainly not.’

The searching look turned gradually to the floor, after taking Mr

Flintwinch’s face in its way. Mr Dorrit, discomfited by finding that

he was the questioned instead of the questioner, applied himself to the

reversal of that unexpected order of things.