Little Dorrit

C >> Charles Dickens >> Little Dorrit

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75

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

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

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

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

'Handkerchiefs.'

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

Little Dorrit now began to think he was mad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Who, Maggy?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'A little! Oh!'

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

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

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

'What shall it be about, Maggy?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Plenty of everything.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'That's all, Maggy.'

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

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

'The tiny woman?'
'Ah!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Nor the tiny woman hers?' said Maggy.

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

CHAPTER 25

Conspirators and Others

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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