Little Dorrit

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

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

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

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

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

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

'It's nothing,' said Pancks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER 24

Fortune-Telling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'No, ma'am.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Oh yes, indeed!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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