Little Dorrit

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'Amy,' he returned, turning short upon her. 'You--ha--habitually
hurt me.'

'Hurt you, father! I!'

'There is a--hum--a topic,' said Mr Dorrit, looking all about the
ceiling of the room, and never at the attentive, uncomplainingly
shocked face, 'a painful topic, a series of events which I wish --
ha--altogether to obliterate. This is understood by your sister,
who has already remonstrated with you in my presence; it is
understood by your brother; it is understood by--ha hum--by every
one of delicacy and sensitiveness except yourself--ha--I am sorry
to say, except yourself. You, Amy--hum--you alone and only you --
constantly revive the topic, though not in words.'

She laid her hand on his arm. She did nothing more. She gently
touched him. The trembling hand may have said, with some
expression, 'Think of me, think how I have worked, think of my many
cares!' But she said not a syllable herself.

There was a reproach in the touch so addressed to him that she had
not foreseen, or she would have withheld her hand. He began to
justify himself in a heated, stumbling, angry manner, which made
nothing of it.

'I was there all those years. I was--ha--universally acknowledged
as the head of the place. I--hum--I caused you to be respected
there, Amy. I--ha hum--I gave my family a position there. I
deserve a return. I claim a return. I say, sweep it off the face
of the earth and begin afresh. Is that much? I ask, is that
much?' He did not once look at her, as he rambled on in this way;
but gesticulated at, and appealed to, the empty air.

'I have suffered. Probably I know how much I have suffered better
than any one--ha--I say than any one! If I can put that aside, if
I can eradicate the marks of what I have endured, and can emerge
before the world--a--ha--gentleman unspoiled, unspotted --is it a
great deal to expect--I say again, is it a great deal to expect--
that my children should--hum--do the same and sweep that accursed
experience off the face of the earth?'

In spite of his flustered state, he made all these exclamations in
a carefully suppressed voice, lest the valet should overhear
anything.

'Accordingly, they do it. Your sister does it. Your brother does
it. You alone, my favourite child, whom I made the friend and
companion of my life when you were a mere--hum--Baby, do not do it.

You alone say you can't do it. I provide you with valuable
assistance to do it. I attach an accomplished and highly bred lady
--ha--Mrs General, to you, for the purpose of doing it. Is it
surprising that I should be displeased? Is it necessary that I
should defend myself for expressing my displeasure? No!'

Notwithstanding which, he continued to defend himself, without any
abatement of his flushed mood.

'I am careful to appeal to that lady for confirmation, before I
express any displeasure at all. I--hum--I necessarily make that
appeal within limited bounds, or I--ha--should render legible, by
that lady, what I desire to be blotted out. Am I selfish? Do I
complain for my own sake? No. No. Principally for--ha hum--your
sake, Amy.'

This last consideration plainly appeared, from his manner of
pursuing it, to have just that instant come into his head.

'I said I was hurt. So I am. So I--ha--am determined to be,
whatever is advanced to the contrary. I am hurt that my daughter,
seated in the--hum--lap of fortune, should mope and retire and
proclaim herself unequal to her destiny. I am hurt that she should
--ha--systematically reproduce what the rest of us blot out; and
seem--hum--I had almost said positively anxious--to announce to
wealthy and distinguished society that she was born and bred in--ha
hum--a place that I myself decline to name. But there is no
inconsistency--ha--not the least, in my feeling hurt, and yet
complaining principally for your sake, Amy. I do; I say again, I
do. It is for your sake that I wish you, under the auspices of Mrs
General, to form a--hum--a surface. It is for your sake that I
wish you to have a--ha--truly refined mind, and (in the striking
words of Mrs General) to be ignorant of everything that is not
perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.'

He had been running down by jerks, during his last speech, like a
sort of ill-adjusted alarum. The touch was still upon his arm. He
fell silent; and after looking about the ceiling again for a little
while, looked down at her. Her head drooped, and he could not see
her face; but her touch was tender and quiet, and in the expression
of her dejected figure there was no blame--nothing but love. He
began to whimper, just as he had done that night in the prison when
she afterwards sat at his bedside till morning; exclaimed that he
was a poor ruin and a poor wretch in the midst of his wealth; and
clasped her in his arms. 'Hush, hush, my own dear! Kiss me!' was
all she said to him. His tears were soon dried, much sooner than
on the former occasion; and he was presently afterwards very high
with his valet, as a way of righting himself for having shed any.

With one remarkable exception, to be recorded in its place, this
was the only time, in his life of freedom and fortune, when he
spoke to his daughter Amy of the old days.

But, now, the breakfast hour arrived; and with it Miss Fanny from
her apartment, and Mr Edward from his apartment. Both these young
persons of distinction were something the worse for late hours. As
to Miss Fanny, she had become the victim of an insatiate mania for
what she called 'going into society;'and would have gone into it
head-foremost fifty times between sunset and sunrise, if so many
opportunities had been at her disposal. As to Mr Edward, he, too,
had a large acquaintance, and was generally engaged (for the most
part, in diceing circles, or others of a kindred nature), during
the greater part of every night. For this gentleman, when his
fortunes changed, had stood at the great advantage of being already
prepared for the highest associates, and having little to learn: so
much was he indebted to the happy accidents which had made him
acquainted with horse-dealing and billiard-marking.

At breakfast, Mr Frederick Dorrit likewise appeared. As the old
gentleman inhabited the highest story of the palace, where he might
have practised pistol-shooting without much chance of discovery by
the other inmates, his younger niece had taken courage to propose
the restoration to him of his clarionet, which Mr Dorrit had
ordered to be confiscated, but which she had ventured to preserve.
Notwithstanding some objections from Miss Fanny, that it was a low
instrument, and that she detested the sound of it, the concession
had been made. But it was then discovered that he had had enough
of it, and never played it, now that it was no longer his means of
getting bread. He had insensibly acquired a new habit of shuffling
into the picture-galleries, always with his twisted paper of snuff
in his hand (much to the indignation of Miss Fanny, who had
proposed the purchase of a gold box for him that the family might
not be discredited, which he had absolutely refused to carry when
it was bought); and of passing hours and hours before the portraits
of renowned Venetians. It was never made out what his dazed eyes
saw in them; whether he had an interest in them merely as pictures,
or whether he confusedly identified them with a glory that was
departed, like the strength of his own mind. But he paid his court
to them with great exactness, and clearly derived pleasure from the
pursuit. After the first few days, Little Dorrit happened one
morning to assist at these attentions. It so evidently heightened
his gratification that she often accompanied him afterwards, and
the greatest delight of which the old man had shown himself
susceptible since his ruin, arose out of these excursions, when he
would carry a chair about for her from picture to picture, and
stand behind it, in spite of all her remonstrances, silently
presenting her to the noble Venetians.

It fell out that, at this family breakfast, he referred to their
having seen in a gallery, on the previous day, the lady and
gentleman whom they had encountered on the Great Saint Bernard, 'I
forget the name,' said he. 'I dare say you remember them, William?

I dare say you do, Edward?'

'_I_ remember 'em well enough,' said the latter.

'I should think so,' observed Miss Fanny, with a toss of her head
and a glance at her sister. 'But they would not have been recalled
to our remembrance, I suspect, if Uncle hadn't tumbled over the
subject.'

'My dear, what a curious phrase,' said Mrs General. 'Would not
inadvertently lighted upon, or accidentally referred to, be
better?'

'Thank you very much, Mrs General,' returned the young lady, no )
I think not. On the whole I prefer my own expression.' This was
always Miss Fanny's way of receiving a suggestion from Mrs General.
But she always stored it up in her mind, and adopted it at another
time.

'I should have mentioned our having met Mr and Mrs Gowan, Fanny,'
said Little Dorrit, 'even if Uncle had not. I have scarcely seen
you since, you know. I meant to have spoken of it at breakfast;
because I should like to pay a visit to Mrs Gowan, and to become
better acquainted with her, if Papa and Mrs General do not object.'

'Well, Amy,' said Fanny, 'I am sure I am glad to find you at last
expressing a wish to become better acquainted with anybody in
Venice. Though whether Mr and Mrs Gowan are desirable
acquaintances, remains to be determined.'

'Mrs Gowan I spoke of, dear.'

'No doubt,' said Fanny. 'But you can't separate her from her
husband, I believe, without an Act of Parliament.'

'Do you think, Papa,' inquired Little Dorrit, with diffidence and
hesitation, 'there is any objection to my making this visit?'

'Really,' he replied, 'I--ha--what is Mrs General's view?'

Mrs General's view was, that not having the honour of any
acquaintance with the lady and gentleman referred to, she was not
in a position to varnish the present article. She could only
remark, as a general principle observed in the varnishing trade,
that much depended on the quarter from which the lady under
consideration was accredited to a family so conspicuously niched in
the social temple as the family of Dorrit.

At this remark the face of Mr Dorrit gloomed considerably. He was
about (connecting the accrediting with an obtrusive person of the
name of Clennam, whom he imperfectly remembered in some former
state of existence) to black-ball the name of Gowan finally, when
Edward Dorrit, Esquire, came into the conversation, with his glass
in his eye, and the preliminary remark of 'I say--you there! Go
out, will you!'--which was addressed to a couple of men who were
handing the dishes round, as a courteous intimation that their
services could be temporarily dispensed with.

Those menials having obeyed the mandate, Edward Dorrit, Esquire,
proceeded.

'Perhaps it's a matter of policy to let you all know that these
Gowans--in whose favour, or at least the gentleman's, I can't be
supposed to be much prepossessed myself--are known to people
of importance, if that makes any difference.'

'That, I would say,' observed the fair varnisher, 'Makes the
greatest difference. The connection in question, being really
people of importance and consideration--'

'As to that,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'I'll give you the means
of judging for yourself. You are acquainted, perhaps, with the
famous name of Merdle?'

'The great Merdle!' exclaimed Mrs General.

'THE Merdle,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire. 'They are known to him.

Mrs Gowan--I mean the dowager, my polite friend's mother --is
intimate with Mrs Merdle, and I know these two to be on their
visiting list.'

'If so, a more undeniable guarantee could not be given,' said Mrs
General to Mr Dorrit, raising her gloves and bowing her head, as if
she were doing homage to some visible graven image.

'I beg to ask my son, from motives of--ah--curiosity,' Mr Dorrit
observed, with a decided change in his manner, 'how he becomes
possessed of this--hum--timely information?'

'It's not a long story, sir,' returned Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'and
you shall have it out of hand. To begin with, Mrs Merdle is the
lady you had the parley with at what's-his-name place.'

'Martigny,' interposed Miss Fanny with an air of infinite languor.

'Martigny,' assented her brother, with a slight nod and a slight
wink; in acknowledgment of which, Miss Fanny looked surprised, and
laughed and reddened.

'How can that be, Edward?' said Mr Dorrit. 'You informed me that
the name of the gentleman with whom you conferred was--ha--
Sparkler. Indeed, you showed me his card. Hum. Sparkler.'

'No doubt of it, father; but it doesn't follow that his mother's
name must be the same. Mrs Merdle was married before, and he is
her son. She is in Rome now; where probably we shall know more of
her, as you decide to winter there. Sparkler is just come here.
I passed last evening in company with Sparkler. Sparkler is a very
good fellow on the whole, though rather a bore on one subject, in
consequence of being tremendously smitten with a certain young
lady.' Here Edward Dorrit, Esquire, eyed Miss Fanny through his
glass across the table. 'We happened last night to compare notes
about our travels, and I had the information I have given you from
Sparkler himself.' Here he ceased; continuing to eye Miss Fanny
through his glass, with a face much twisted, and not ornamentally
so, in part by the action of keeping his glass in his eye, and in
part by the great subtlety of his smile.
'Under these circumstances,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I believe I express
the sentiments of--ha--Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say
that there is no objection, but--ha hum--quite the contrary--to
your gratifying your desire, Amy. I trust I may--ha--hail--this
desire,' said Mr Dorrit, in an encouraging and forgiving manner,
'as an auspicious omen. It is quite right to know these people.
It is a very proper thing. Mr Merdle's is a name of--ha--world-
wide repute. Mr Merdle's undertakings are immense. They bring him
in such vast sums of money that they are regarded as--hum--national
benefits. Mr Merdle is the man of this time. The name of Merdle
is the name of the age. Pray do everything on my behalf that is
civil to Mr and Mrs Gowan, for we will--ha--we will certainly
notice them.'

This magnificent accordance of Mr Dorrit's recognition settled the
matter. It was not observed that Uncle had pushed away his plate,
and forgotten his breakfast; but he was not much observed at any
time, except by Little Dorrit. The servants were recalled, and the
meal proceeded to its conclusion. Mrs General rose and left the
table. Little Dorrit rose and left the table. When Edward and
Fanny remained whispering together across it, and when Mr Dorrit
remained eating figs and reading a French newspaper, Uncle suddenly
fixed the attention of all three by rising out of his chair,
striking his hand upon the table, and saying, 'Brother! I protest
against it!'

If he had made a proclamation in an unknown tongue, and given up
the ghost immediately afterwards, he could not have astounded his
audience more. The paper fell from Mr Dorrit's hand, and he sat
petrified, with a fig half way to his mouth.

'Brother!' said the old man, conveying a surprising energy into his
trembling voice, 'I protest against it! I love you; you know I
love you dearly. In these many years I have never been untrue to
you in a single thought. Weak as I am, I would at any time have
struck any man who spoke ill of you. But, brother, brother,
brother, I protest against it!'

It was extraordinary to see of what a burst of earnestness such a
decrepit man was capable. His eyes became bright, his grey hair
rose on his head, markings of purpose on his brow and face which
had faded from them for five-and-twenty years, started out again,
and there was an energy in his hand that made its action nervous
once more.

'My dear Frederick!' exclaimed Mr Dorrit faintly. 'What is wrong?
What is the matter?'

'How dare you,' said the old man, turning round on Fanny, 'how dare
you do it? Have you no memory? Have you no heart?'

'Uncle?' cried Fanny, affrighted and bursting into tears, 'why do
you attack me in this cruel manner? What have I done?'

'Done?' returned the old man, pointing to her sister's place,
'where's your affectionate invaluable friend? Where's your devoted
guardian? Where's your more than mother? How dare you set up
superiorities against all these characters combined in your sister?

For shame, you false girl, for shame!'
'I love Amy,' cried Miss Fanny, sobbing and weeping, 'as well as I
love my life--better than I love my life. I don't deserve to be so
treated. I am as grateful to Amy, and as fond of Amy, as it's
possible for any human being to be. I wish I was dead. I never
was so wickedly wronged. And only because I am anxious for the
family credit.'

'To the winds with the family credit!' cried the old man, with
great scorn and indignation. 'Brother, I protest against pride.
I protest against ingratitude. I protest against any one of us
here who have known what we have known, and have seen what we have
seen, setting up any pretension that puts Amy at a moment's
disadvantage, or to the cost of a moment's pain. We may know that
it's a base pretension by its having that effect. It ought to
bring a judgment on us. Brother, I protest against it in the sight
of God!'

As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it
might have been a blacksmith's. After a few moments' silence, it
had relaxed into its usual weak condition. He went round to his
brother with his ordinary shuffling step, put the hand on his
shoulder, and said, in a softened voice, 'William, my dear, I felt
obliged to say it; forgive me, for I felt obliged to say it!' and
then went, in his bowed way, out of the palace hall, just as he
might have gone out of the Marshalsea room.

All this time Fanny had been sobbing and crying, and still
continued to do so. Edward, beyond opening his mouth in amazement,
had not opened his lips, and had done nothing but stare. Mr Dorrit
also had been utterly discomfited, and quite unable to assert
himself in any way. Fanny was now the first to speak.

'I never, never, never was so used!' she sobbed. 'There never was
anything so harsh and unjustifiable, so disgracefully violent and
cruel! Dear, kind, quiet little Amy, too, what would she feel if
she could know that she had been innocently the means of exposing
me to such treatment! But I'll never tell her! No, good darling,
I'll never tell her!'

This helped Mr Dorrit to break his silence.

'My dear,' said he, 'I--ha--approve of your resolution. It will
be--ha hum--much better not to speak of this to Amy. It might--
hum--it might distress her. Ha. No doubt it would distress her
greatly. It is considerate and right to avoid doing so. We will--
ha--keep this to ourselves.'

'But the cruelty of Uncle!' cried Miss Fanny. 'O, I never can
forgive the wanton cruelty of Uncle!'

'My dear,' said Mr Dorrit, recovering his tone, though he remained
unusually pale, 'I must request you not to say so. You must
remember that your uncle is--ha--not what he formerly was. You
must remember that your uncle's state requires--hum--great
forbearance from us, great forbearance.'

'I am sure,' cried Fanny, piteously, 'it is only charitable to
suppose that there Must be something wrong in him somewhere, or he
never could have so attacked Me, of all the people in the world.'

'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit in a deeply fraternal tone, 'you know,
with his innumerable good points, what a--hum--wreck your uncle is;
an(] I entreat you by the fondness that I have for him, and by the
fidelity that you know I have always shown him, to--ha--to draw
your own conclusions, and to spare my brotherly feelings.'

This ended the scene; Edward Dorrit, Esquire, saying nothing
throughout, but looking, to the last, perplexed and doubtful. Miss
Fanny awakened much affectionate uneasiness in her sister's mind
that day by passing the greater part of it in violent fits of
embracing her, and in alternately giving her brooches, and wishing
herself dead.

CHAPTER 6

Something Right Somewhere

To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of
two powers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for
finding promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about
on neutral ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation
unwholesome for the mind, which time is not likely to improve. The
worst class of sum worked in the every-day world is cyphered by the
diseased arithmeticians who are always in the rule of Subtraction
as to the merits and successes of others, and never in Addition as
to their own.

The habit, too, of seeking some sort of recompense in the
discontented boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with
degeneracy. A certain idle carelessness and recklessness of
consistency soon comes of it. To bring deserving things down by
setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and
there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game,
without growing the worse for it.

In his expressed opinions of all performances in the Art of
painting that were completely destitute of merit, Gowan was the
most liberal fellow on earth. He would declare such a man to have
more power in his little finger (provided he had none), than such
another had (provided he had much) in his whole mind and body. If
the objection were taken that the thing commended was trash, he
would reply, on behalf of his art, 'My good fellow, what do we all
turn out but trash? I turn out nothing else, and I make you a
present of the confession.'

To make a vaunt of being poor was another of the incidents of his
splenetic state, though this may have had the design in it of
showing that he ought to be rich; just as he would publicly laud
and decry the Barnacles, lest it should be forgotten that he
belonged to the family. Howbeit, these two subjects were very
often on his lips; and he managed them so well that he might have
praised himself by the month together, and not have made himself
out half so important a man as he did by his light disparagement of
his claims on anybody's consideration.

Out of this same airy talk of his, it always soon came to be
understood, wherever he and his wife went, that he had married
against the wishes of his exalted relations, and had had much ado
to prevail on them to countenance her. He never made the
representation, on the contrary seemed to laugh the idea to scorn;
but it did happen that, with all his pains to depreciate himself,
he was always in the superior position. From the days of their
honeymoon, Minnie Gowan felt sensible of being usually regarded as
the wife of a man who had made a descent in marrying her, but whose
chivalrous love for her had cancelled that inequality.

To Venice they had been accompanied by Monsieur Blandois of Paris,
and at Venice Monsieur Blandois of Paris was very much in the
society of Gowan. When they had first met this gallant gentleman
at Geneva, Gowan had been undecided whether to kick him or
encourage him; and had remained for about four-and-twenty hours, so
troubled to settle the point to his satisfaction, that he had
thought of tossing up a five-franc piece on the terms, 'Tails,
kick; heads, encourage,' and abiding by the voice of the oracle.
It chanced, however, that his wife expressed a dislike to the
engaging Blandois, and that the balance of feeling in the hotel was
against him. Upon it, Gowan resolved to encourage him.

Why this perversity, if it were not in a generous fit?--which it
was not. Why should Gowan, very much the superior of Blandois of
Paris, and very well able to pull that prepossessing gentleman to
pieces and find out the stuff he was made of, take up with such a
man? In the first place, he opposed the first separate wish he
observed in his wife, because her father had paid his debts and it
was desirable to take an early opportunity of asserting his
independence. In the second place, he opposed the prevalent
feeling, because with many capacities of being otherwise, he was an
ill-conditioned man. He found a pleasure in declaring that a
courtier with the refined manners of Blandois ought to rise to the
greatest distinction in any polished country. He found a pleasure
in setting up Blandois as the type of elegance, and making him a
satire upon others who piqued themselves on personal graces. He
seriously protested that the bow of Blandois was perfect, that the
address of Blandois was irresistible, and that the picturesque ease
of Blandois would be cheaply purchased (if it were not a gift, and
unpurchasable) for a hundred thousand francs. That exaggeration in
the manner of the man which has been noticed as appertaining to him
and to every such man, whatever his original breeding, as certainly
as the sun belongs to this system, was acceptable to Gowan as a
caricature, which he found it a humorous resource to have at hand
for the ridiculing of numbers of people who necessarily did more or
less of what Blandois overdid. Thus he had taken up with him; and
thus, negligently strengthening these inclinations with habit, and
idly deriving some amusement from his talk, he had glided into a
way of having him for a companion. This, though he supposed him to
live by his wits at play-tables and the like; though he suspected
him to be a coward, while he himself was daring and courageous;
though he thoroughly knew him to be disliked by Minnie; and though
he cared so little for him, after all, that if he had given her any
tangible personal cause to regard him with aversion, he would have
had no compunction whatever in flinging him out of the highest
window in Venice into the deepest water of the city.