"I do assure you that I am."
"I know very little of the world, sir," returned the other, who had a
weak and quavering voice. "I am merely passing on, like the shadow over
the sun-dial. It would be worth no man's while to mislead me; it would
really be too easy--too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction. The
young woman whom you saw go in here is my brother's child. My brother
is William Dorrit; I am Frederick. You say you have seen her at your
mother's (I know your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest
in her, and you wish to know what she does here. Come and see."
He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.
"My brother," said the old man, pausing on the step, and slowly facing
round again, "has been here many years; and much that happens even among
ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn't
enter upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece's working at
her needle. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong.
Now! Come and see."
Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was
turned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into
a lodge, or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door
and a grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before,
turned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the
turnkey on duty, as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and
the companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted.
The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in
the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain
and blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered
about, but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old
man taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or
fourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs.
"They are rather dark, sir, but you will not find anything in the way,"
he said.
He paused for a moment before opening the door on the second story. He
had no sooner turned the handle, than the visitor saw Little Dorrit, and
understood the reason of her dining alone, as she always preferred to
do.
She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and
was already warming it on a gridiron over the fire, for her father, who,
clad in an old gray gown and a black cap, was awaiting his supper at the
table. A clean cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon,
salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot. Such zests as his
cayenne pepper and pickles in a saucer were not wanting.
She started, colored deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more with
his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her
to be reassured and to trust him.
"I found this gentleman," said the uncle--"Mr. Clennam, William, son of
Amy's friend--at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying
his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my
brother William, sir."
"I hope," said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, "that my respect for
your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you,
sir."
"Mr. Clennam," returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the
flat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, "you do me
honor. You are welcome, sir." With a low bow. "Frederick, a chair.
Pray sit down, Mr. Clennam."
He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his
own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his
manner.
These were the ceremonies with which he received all visitors.
"You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen
to these walls. Perhaps you are aware--my daughter Amy may have
mentioned--that I am the Father of this place."
"I--so I have understood," said Arthur, dashing at the assertion.
"You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl,
sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear,
put the dish on; Mr. Clennam will excuse the primitive customs to which
we are reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me
the honor, sir, to--"
"Thank you," returned Arthur. "I have dined."
She filled her father's glass, put all the little matters on the table
ready to his hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. She
put some bread before herself, and touched his glass with her lips; but
Arthur saw she was troubled and took nothing. Her look at her father,
half admiring him and proud of him, half-ashamed for him, all devoted
and loving, went to his inmost heart.
The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an
amiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at
distinction.
"Frederick," said he, "you and Fanny sup at your lodgings to-night, I
know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?"
"She is walking with Tip."
"Tip--as you may know--is my son, Mr. Clennam. He has been a little
wild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was
rather"--he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round
the room--"a little adverse. Your first visit here, sir?"
"My first."
"You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my
knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody--of any pretensions--any
pretensions--comes here without being presented to me."
"As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,"
said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.
"Yes!" the Father of the Marshalsea assented. "We have even exceeded
that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a reception!"
Thus the old man prattled on, proud of his queer distinction, and yet
showing traces of the fine gentleman he once was. And while he
listened, Arthur felt his heart throb with sympathy for the brave girl,
sitting silent across the table, who had so long borne the burdens of
this ruined family upon her frail shoulders.
He could not say anything to her, here, but when he rose to take his
leave, he asked her by a look to come with him to the gate. He felt he
must make some explanation for thus intruding and learning her secret.
"Pray forgive me," he said, when they paused alone at the gate. "I
followed you to-night from my mother's. I should not have done so, but,
believe me, it was only in the hope of doing you some service. What I
have seen here, in this short time, has increased ten-fold my heartfelt
wish to be a friend to you."
She seemed to take courage while he spoke to her.
"You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me. But I--but I
wish you had not watched me."
He understood the emotion with which she said it to arise in her
father's behalf; and he respected it, and was silent.
"Mrs. Clennam has been of great service to me. I don't know what we
should have done without the employment she has given me. I am afraid
it may not be a good return to become secret with her. I can say no
more to-night, sir. I am sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank you,
thank you."
She was so agitated, and he was so moved by compassion for her, and by
deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him, that he could scarcely
tear himself away. But the stoppage of the bell, and the quiet in the
prison, were a warning to depart; and with a few hurried words of
kindness he left her gliding back to her father.
The next day, Arthur missed Little Dorrit at his home, and wondered if
she might be ill. The weather was stormy, but she was not usually
hindered by that. So he walked out toward the prison to look for her;
and was presently rewarded by seeing her hurrying along in the face of
the gale.
She had just reached the iron bridge, some distance from the gates, when
his voice caused her to stop short. The wind blew roughly, the wet
squalls came rattling past them, skimming the pools on the road and
pavement, and raining them down into the river. The clouds raced on
furiously in the lead-colored sky, the smoke and mist raced after them,
the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction. Little
Dorrit seemed the least, the quietest, and weakest of Heaven's
creatures.
"Let me put you in a coach," said Arthur Clennam, very nearly adding,
"my poor child."
She hurriedly declined, thanking him, and saying that wet or dry made
little difference to her; she was used to go about in all weathers. He
knew it to be so, and was touched with more pity, thinking of the slight
figure at his side, making its nightly way through the damp, dark,
boisterous streets, to such a place of rest.
"But I am glad to have seen you, sir," she added shyly. "I did not want
you to think that we were ungrateful for your interest and kindness,
last night. And, besides, I had something else to say--"
She paused as if unable to go on.
"To say to me--" he prompted.
"That I hope you will not misunderstand my father. Don't judge him,
sir, as you would judge others outside the gates. He has been there so
long! I never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have
grown different in some things since."
"My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me."
"Not," she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently crept
upon her that she might seem to be abandoning him, "not that he has
anything to be ashamed of for himself, or that I have anything to be
ashamed of for him. He only requires to be understood. I only ask for
him that his life may be fairly remembered. All that he said was quite
true. He is very much respected. Everybody who comes in is glad to know
him. He is more courted than any one else. He is far more thought of
than the Marshal is." If ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in
Little Dorrit when she grew boastful of her father.
"It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman's, and quite a
study. He is not to be blamed for being in need, poor love. Who could
be in prison a quarter of a century, and be prosperous!"
What affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed tears,
what a great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light that shed
false brightness round him!
"If I have found it best to conceal where my home is, it is not because
I am ashamed of him. God forbid! Nor am I so much ashamed of the place
itself as might be supposed. People are not bad because they come
there. I have known many good friends there, and have spent many happy
hours."
She had relieved the faithful fulness of her heart, and modestly said,
raising her eyes appealingly to her new friend's, "I did not mean to say
so much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this before. But it
seems to set it more right than it was last night. I said I wished you
had not followed me, sir. I don't wish it so much now, unless you
should think--indeed I don't wish it at all, unless I should have spoken
so confusedly, that--that you can scarcely understand me, which I am
afraid may be the case."
He told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and putting
himself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well
as he could.
"I feel permitted now," he said, "to ask you a little more concerning
your father. Has he many creditors?"
"Oh! a great number."
"I mean detaining creditors who keep him where he is?"
"Oh, yes! a great number."
"Can you tell me--I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you
cannot--who is the most influential of them?"
Little Dorrit was not sure of any names, but she had heard her father
mention several people with whom he said he once had dealings. She told
him these names, and Clennam made a careful note of them.
"It can do no harm," he thought, "to see some of these people."
The thought did not come so quietly but that she quickly guessed it.
"Ah," said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild despair of a
lifetime. "Many people used to think once of getting my poor father
out, but you don't know how hopeless it is."
She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from
the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with eyes
which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile
figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from
his purpose of helping her.
But presently an incident happened which showed him a new side to her
life--still of helpfulness and service.
They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a
voice cried, "Little mother, little mother!"
Little Dorrit stopped, looking back, when an excited figure of a strange
kind bounced against them, fell down, and scattered the contents of a
large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud.
"Oh, Maggy," said Little Dorrit, "what a clumsy child you are!"
Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and began to pick
up the potatoes, in which both the others helped. Maggy picked up very
few potatoes, and a great quantity of mud. She was a curious, overgrown
creature of about eight-and-twenty, with a vacant smiling face and a
tattered shawl. She seemed twice as large as the child to whom she
evidently looked for protection and called "little mother."
Arthur Clennam looked with the expression of one saying, "May I ask who
this is?" Little Dorrit, whose hand Maggy had begun to fondle, answered
in words. They were under a gateway into which the majority of the
potatoes had rolled.
"This is Maggy, sir."
"Maggy, sir," echoed the personage presented. "Little mother!"
"She is the granddaughter--"
"Granddaughter," echoed Maggy.
"Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long time. Maggy, how old are
you?"
"Ten, mother," said Maggy.
"You can't think how good she is, sir," said Little Dorrit, with
infinite tenderness.
"Good _she_ is," echoed Maggy, transferring the pronoun in a most
expressive way from herself to her little mother.
"Or how clever," said Little Dorrit. "She goes on errands as well as
any one." Maggy laughed. "And is as trustworthy as the Bank of
England." Maggy laughed. "She earns her own living entirely.
Entirely, sir!" in a lower and triumphant tone. "Really does!"
"What is her history!" asked Clennam.
"Think of that, Maggy!" said Little Dorrit, taking Maggy's two large
hands and clapping them together. "A gentleman from thousands of miles
away, wanting to know your history!"
"_My_ history?" cried Maggy. "Little mother."
"She means me," said Little Dorrit, rather confused; "she is very much
attached to me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should
have been; was she, Maggy? When Maggy was ten years old," she
continued, "she had a bad fever, sir, and has never grown any older
since."
"Ten years old," said Maggy, nodding her head. "But what a nice
hospital! So comfortable, wasn't it? Oh, so nice it was. Such a Ev'nly
place!"
"She had never been at peace before, sir," continued the young girl,
turning towards Arthur for an instant and speaking low, "and she always
runs off upon that."
"Such beds there is there!" cried Maggy. "Such lemonades! Such oranges!
Such d'licious broth and wine! Such Chicking! Oh, _ain't_ it a
delightful place to go and stop at!"
"So Maggy stopped there as long as she could," said Little Dorrit, in
her former tone of telling a child's story, the tone designed for
Maggy's ear; "and at last, when she could stop there no longer, she came
out. Then, because she was never to be more than ten years old, however
long she lived--"
"However long she lived," echoed Maggy.
"And because she was very weak--indeed, was so weak that when she began
to laugh she couldn't stop herself--which was a great pity--"
Maggy grew mighty grave of a sudden.
"Her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and for some years
was very unkind to her indeed. At length, in course of time, Maggy
began to take pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and
very industrious; and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often
as she liked, and got enough to do to support herself, and does support
herself. And that," said Little Dorrit, clapping the two great hands
together again, "is Maggy's history, as Maggy knows!"
Ah! that was all the history, as Little Dorrit told it. But Arthur,
reading between the lines, saw in Maggy's absolute love and devotion the
weeks and months of toil and care on the part of a pitying faithful
child whose own burden seemed great enough without carrying others. The
dirty gateway with the wind and rain whistling through it, and the
basket of muddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again or taken up, never
seemed the common hole it really was, when he looked back to it by these
lights. Never, never!
Thereafter, Arthur Clennam, who was a man of some means, devoted a great
part of his time to tracing out the Dorrit records. He went from one
government office to another--a long, weary round of them--before he
could get any light on the matter. He employed an agent whose specialty
was to search out lost estates. And at last, after several months, their
combined efforts were rewarded.
Mr. Dorrit was found to be heir-at-law to a large estate that had long
lain unknown, unclaimed, and growing greater. His right to it was
cleared up by this skilful agent; so that all Mr. Dorrit had to do, now,
would be to discharge his debts, and he would be a free man.
When Arthur was convinced of this surprising fortune, he hastened first
to Little Dorrit, whom he wished to see alone. But before he could say
a word, his face told her that something unusual was afoot.
Hastily dropping her sewing, she cried, "Mr. Clennam! What's the
matter?"
"Nothing, nothing! That is--nothing bad. I have come to tell you good
news."
"Good fortune?"
"Wonderful fortune!"
Her lips seemed to repeat the words, but no sound came.
"Dear Little Dorrit," he said, "your father--"
The ice of the pale face broke at the word, and little lights of
expression passed all over it. They were all expressions of pain. Her
breath was faint and hurried. Her heart beat fast, but he saw that the
eyes appealed to him to go on.
"Your father can be free within this week. He does not know it; we must
go to him from here, to tell him of it. Your father will be free within
a few days. Remember we must go to him, from here, to tell him of it!"
That brought her back. Her eyes were closing, but they opened again.
"This is not all the good fortune. This is not all the wonderful good
fortune, Little Dorrit. Shall I tell you more?"