Little Dorrit

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Thus, instead of two rival and contending flames, a larger and a
lesser, each burning with a lurid and uncertain glare, we had a
blended and a softened light whose genial ray diffused an equable
warmth throughout the land. Bishop seemed to like his own way of
putting the case very much, and rather dwelt upon it; Bar,
meanwhile (not to throw away a jury-man), making a show of sitting
at his feet and feeding on his precepts.

The dinner and dessert being three hours long, the bashful Member
cooled in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with
food and drink, and had but a chilly time of it. Lord Decimus,
like a tall tower in a flat country, seemed to project himself
across the table-cloth, hide the light from the honourable Member,
cool the honourable Member's marrow, and give him a woeful idea of
distance. When he asked this unfortunate traveller to take wine,
he encompassed his faltering steps with the gloomiest of shades;
and when he said, 'Your health sir!' all around him was barrenness
and desolation.

At length Lord Decimus, with a coffee-cup in his hand, began to
hover about among the pictures, and to cause an interesting
speculation to arise in all minds as to the probabilities of his
ceasing to hover, and enabling the smaller birds to flutter up-
stairs; which could not be done until he had urged his noble
pinions in that direction. After some delay, and several stretches
of his wings which came to nothing, he soared to the drawing-rooms.

And here a difficulty arose, which always does arise when two
people are specially brought together at a dinner to confer with
one another. Everybody (except Bishop, who had no suspicion of it)
knew perfectly well that this dinner had been eaten and drunk,
specifically to the end that Lord Decimus and Mr Merdle should have
five minutes' conversation together. The opportunity so
elaborately prepared was now arrived, and it seemed from that
moment that no mere human ingenuity could so much as get the two
chieftains into the same room. Mr Merdle and his noble guest
persisted in prowling about at opposite ends of the perspective.
It was in vain for the engaging Ferdinand to bring Lord Decimus to
look at the bronze horses near Mr Merdle. Then Mr Merdle evaded,
and wandered away. It was in vain for him to bring Mr Merdle to
Lord Decimus to tell him the history of the unique Dresden vases.
Then Lord Decimus evaded and wandered away, while he was getting
his man up to the mark.

'Did you ever see such a thing as this?' said Ferdinand to Bar when
he had been baffled twenty times.

'Often,' returned Bar.

'Unless I butt one of them into an appointed corner, and you butt
the other,' said Ferdinand,'it will not come off after all.'

'Very good,' said Bar. 'I'll butt Merdle, if you like; but not my
lord.'

Ferdinand laughed, in the midst of his vexation. 'Confound them
both!' said he, looking at his watch. 'I want to get away. Why
the deuce can't they come together! They both know what they want
and mean to do. Look at them!'

They were still looming at opposite ends of the perspective, each
with an absurd pretence of not having the other on his mind, which
could not have been more transparently ridiculous though his real
mind had been chalked on his back. Bishop, who had just now made
a third with Bar and Ferdinand, but whose innocence had again cut
him out of the subject and washed him in sweet oil, was seen to
approach Lord Decimus and glide into conversation.

'I must get Merdle's doctor to catch and secure him, I suppose,'
said Ferdinand; 'and then I must lay hold of my illustrious
kinsman, and decoy him if I can--drag him if I can't--to the
conference.'

'Since you do me the honour,' said Bar, with his slyest smile, to
ask for my poor aid, it shall be yours with the greatest pleasure.
I don't think this is to be done by one man. But if you will
undertake to pen my lord into that furthest drawing-room where he
is now so profoundly engaged, I will undertake to bring our dear
Merdle into the presence, without the possibility of getting away.'

'Done!' said Ferdinand.

'Done!' said Bar.

Bar was a sight wondrous to behold, and full of matter, when,
jauntily waving his double eye-glass by its ribbon, and jauntily
drooping to an Universe of jurymen, he, in the most accidental
manner ever seen, found himself at Mr Merdle's shoulder, and
embraced that opportunity of mentioning a little point to him, on
which he particularly wished to be guided by the light of his
practical knowledge. (Here he took Mr Merdle's arm and walked him
gently away.) A banker, whom we would call A. B., advanced a
considerable sum of money, which we would call fifteen thousand
pounds, to a client or customer of his, whom he would call P. q.
(Here, as they were getting towards Lord Decimus, he held Mr Merdle
tight.) As a security for the repayment of this advance to P. Q.
whom we would call a widow lady, there were placed in A. B.'s hands
the title-deeds of a freehold estate, which we would call Blinkiter
Doddles. Now, the point was this. A limited right of felling and
lopping in the woods of Blinkiter Doddles, lay in the son of P. Q.
then past his majority, and whom we would call X. Y.--but really
this was too bad! In the presence of Lord Decimus, to detain the
host with chopping our dry chaff of law, was really too bad!
Another time! Bar was truly repentant, and would not say another
syllable. Would Bishop favour him with half-a-dozen words? (He
had now set Mr Merdle down on a couch, side by side with Lord
Decimus, and to it they must go, now or never.)

And now the rest of the company, highly excited and interested,
always excepting Bishop, who had not the slightest idea that
anything was going on, formed in one group round the fire in the
next drawing-room, and pretended to be chatting easily on the
infinite variety of small topics, while everybody's thoughts and
eyes were secretly straying towards the secluded pair. The Chorus
were excessively nervous, perhaps as labouring under the dreadful
apprehension that some good thing was going to be diverted from
them! Bishop alone talked steadily and evenly. He conversed with
the great Physician on that relaxation of the throat with which
young curates were too frequently afflicted, and on the means of
lessening the great prevalence of that disorder in the church.
Physician, as a general rule, was of opinion that the best way to
avoid it was to know how to read, before you made a profession of
reading. Bishop said dubiously, did he really think so? And
Physician said, decidedly, yes he did.

Ferdinand, meanwhile, was the only one of the party who skirmished
on the outside of the circle; he kept about mid-way between it and
the two, as if some sort of surgical operation were being performed
by Lord Decimus on Mr Merdle, or by Mr Merdle on Lord Decimus, and
his services might at any moment be required as Dresser. In fact,
within a quarter of an hour Lord Decimus called to him 'Ferdinand!'
and he went, and took his place in the conference for some five
minutes more. Then a half-suppressed gasp broke out among the
Chorus; for Lord Decimus rose to take his leave. Again coached up
by Ferdinand to the point of making himself popular, he shook hands
in the most brilliant manner with the whole company, and even said
to Bar, 'I hope you were not bored by my pears?' To which Bar
retorted, 'Eton, my lord, or Parliamentary?' neatly showing that he
had mastered the joke, and delicately insinuating that he could
never forget it while his life remained.

All the grave importance that was buttoned up in Mr Tite Barnacle,
took itself away next; and Ferdinand took himself away next, to the
opera. Some of the rest lingered a little, marrying golden liqueur
glasses to Buhl tables with sticky rings; on the desperate chance
of Mr Merdle's saying something. But Merdle, as usual, oozed
sluggishly and muddily about his drawing-room, saying never a word.

In a day or two it was announced to all the town, that Edmund
Sparkler, Esquire, son-in-law of the eminent Mr Merdle of worldwide
renown, was made one of the Lords of the Circumlocution Office; and
proclamation was issued, to all true believers, that this admirable
appointment was to be hailed as a graceful and gracious mark of
homage, rendered by the graceful and gracious Decimus, to that
commercial interest which must ever in a great commercial country--
and all the rest of it, with blast of trumpet. So, bolstered by
this mark of Government homage, the wonderful Bank and all the
other wonderful undertakings went on and went up; and gapers came
to Harley Street, Cavendish Square, only to look at the house where
the golden wonder lived.

And when they saw the Chief Butler looking out at the hall-door in
his moments of condescension, the gapers said how rich he looked,
and wondered how much money he had in the wonderful Bank. But, if
they had known that respectable Nemesis better, they would not have
wondered about it, and might have stated the amount with the utmost
precision.

CHAPTER 13

The Progress of an Epidemic

That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a
physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity
and rapidity of the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once
made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on
people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most
unlikely constitutions: is a fact as firmly established by
experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere. A
blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind, if
the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent
disorders are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in close
confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is
communicable.

As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar,
so the sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused
the air to resound more and more with the name of Merdle. It was
deposited on every lip, and carried into every ear. There never
was, there never had been, there never again should be, such a man
as Mr Merdle. Nobody, as aforesaid, knew what he had done; but
everybody knew him to be the greatest that had appeared.

Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, where there was not one unappropriated
halfpenny, as lively an interest was taken in this paragon of men
as on the Stock Exchange. Mrs Plornish, now established in the
small grocery and general trade in a snug little shop at the crack
end of the Yard, at the top of the steps, with her little old
father and Maggy acting as assistants, habitually held forth about
him over the counter in conversation with her customers. Mr
Plornish, who had a small share in a small builder's business in
the neighbourhood, said, trowel in hand, on the tops of scaffolds
and on the tiles of houses, that people did tell him as Mr Merdle
was the one, mind you, to put us all to rights in respects of that
which all on us looked to, and to bring us all safe home as much as
we needed, mind you, fur toe be brought. Mr Baptist, sole lodger
of Mr and Mrs Plornish was reputed in whispers to lay by the
savings which were the result of his simple and moderate life, for
investment in one of Mr Merdle's certain enterprises. The female
Bleeding Hearts, when they came for ounces of tea, and
hundredweights of talk, gave Mrs Plornish to understand, That how,
ma'am, they had heard from their cousin Mary Anne, which worked in
the line, that his lady's dresses would fill three waggons. That
how she was as handsome a lady, ma'am, as lived, no matter wheres,
and a busk like marble itself. That how, according to what they
was told, ma'am, it was her son by a former husband as was took
into the Government; and a General he had been, and armies he had
marched again and victory crowned, if all you heard was to be
believed. That how it was reported that Mr Merdle's words had
been, that if they could have made it worth his while to take the
whole Government he would have took it without a profit, but that
take it he could not and stand a loss. That how it was not to be
expected, ma'am, that he should lose by it, his ways being, as you
might say and utter no falsehood, paved with gold; but that how it
was much to be regretted that something handsome hadn't been got up
to make it worth his while; for it was such and only such that
knowed the heighth to which the bread and butchers' meat had rose,
and it was such and only such that both could and would bring that
heighth down.

So rife and potent was the fever in Bleeding Heart Yard, that Mr
Pancks's rent-days caused no interval in the patients. The disease
took the singular form, on those occasions, of causing the infected
to find an unfathomable excuse and consolation in allusions to the
magic name.

'Now, then!' Mr Pancks would say, to a defaulting lodger. 'Pay up!

Come on!'

'I haven't got it, Mr Pancks,' Defaulter would reply. 'I tell you
the truth, sir, when I say I haven't got so much as a single
sixpence of it to bless myself with.'

'This won't do, you know,' Mr Pancks would retort. 'You don't
expect it will do; do you?'
Defaulter would admit, with a low-spirited 'No, sir,' having no
such expectation.

'My proprietor isn't going to stand this, you know,' Mr Pancks
would proceed. 'He don't send me here for this. Pay up! Come!'

The Defaulter would make answer, 'Ah, Mr Pancks. If I was the rich
gentleman whose name is in everybody's mouth--if my name was
Merdle, sir--I'd soon pay up, and be glad to do it.'

Dialogues on the rent-question usually took place at the house-
doors or in the entries, and in the presence of several deeply
interested Bleeding Hearts. They always received a reference of
this kind with a low murmur of response, as if it were convincing;
and the Defaulter, however black and discomfited before, always
cheered up a little in making it.

'If I was Mr Merdle, sir, you wouldn't have cause to complain of me
then. No, believe me!' the Defaulter would proceed with a shake of
the head. 'I'd pay up so quick then, Mr Pancks, that you shouldn't
have to ask me.'

The response would be heard again here, implying that it was
impossible to say anything fairer, and that this was the next thing
to paying the money down.

Mr Pancks would be now reduced to saying as he booked the case,
'Well! You'll have the broker in, and be turned out; that's
what'll happen to you. It's no use talking to me about Mr Merdle.
You are not Mr Merdle, any more than I am.'

'No, sir,' the Defaulter would reply. 'I only wish you were him,
sir.'

The response would take this up quickly; replying with great
feeling, 'Only wish you were him, sir.'

'You'd be easier with us if you were Mr Merdle, sir,' the Defaulter
would go on with rising spirits, 'and it would be better for all
parties. Better for our sakes, and better for yours, too. You
wouldn't have to worry no one, then, sir. You wouldn't have to
worry us, and you wouldn't have to worry yourself. You'd be easier
in your own mind, sir, and you'd leave others easier, too, you
would, if you were Mr Merdle.'

Mr Pancks, in whom these impersonal compliments produced an
irresistible sheepishness, never rallied after such a charge. He
could only bite his nails and puff away to the next Defaulter. The
responsive Bleeding Hearts would then gather round the Defaulter
whom he had just abandoned, and the most extravagant rumours would
circulate among them, to their great comfort, touching the amount
of Mr Merdle's ready money.

From one of the many such defeats of one of many rent-days, Mr
Pancks, having finished his day's collection, repaired with his
note-book under his arm to Mrs Plornish's corner. Mr Pancks's
object was not professional, but social. He had had a trying day,
and wanted a little brightening. By this time he was on friendly
terms with the Plornish family, having often looked in upon them at
similar seasons, and borne his part in recollections of Miss
Dorrit.

Mrs Plornish's shop-parlour had been decorated under her own eye,
and presented, on the side towards the shop, a little fiction in
which Mrs Plornish unspeakably rejoiced. This poetical heightening
of the parlour consisted in the wall being painted to represent the
exterior of a thatched cottage; the artist having introduced (in as
effective a manner as he found compatible with their highly
disproportionate dimensions) the real door and window. The modest
sunflower and hollyhock were depicted as flourishing with great
luxuriance on this rustic dwelling, while a quantity of dense smoke
issuing from the chimney indicated good cheer within, and also,
perhaps, that it had not been lately swept. A faithful dog was
represented as flying at the legs of the friendly visitor, from the
threshold; and a circular pigeon-house, enveloped in a cloud of
pigeons, arose from behind the garden-paling. On the door (when it
was shut), appeared the semblance of a brass-plate, presenting the
inscription, Happy Cottage, T. and M. Plornish; the partnership
expressing man and wife. No Poetry and no Art ever charmed the
imagination more than the union of the two in this counterfeit
cottage charmed Mrs Plornish. It was nothing to her that Plornish
had a habit of leaning against it as he smoked his pipe after work,
when his hat blotted out the pigeon-house and all the pigeons, when
his back swallowed up the dwelling, when his hands in his pockets
uprooted the blooming garden and laid waste the adjacent country.
To Mrs Plornish, it was still a most beautiful cottage, a most
wonderful deception; and it made no difference that Mr Plornish's
eye was some inches above the level of the gable bed-room in the
thatch. To come out into the shop after it was shut, and hear her
father sing a song inside this cottage, was a perfect Pastoral to
Mrs Plornish, the Golden Age revived. And truly if that famous
period had been revived, or had ever been at all, it may be doubted
whether it would have produced many more heartily admiring
daughters than the poor woman.

Warned of a visitor by the tinkling bell at the shop-door, Mrs
Plornish came out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be. 'I
guessed it was you, Mr Pancks,' said she, 'for it's quite your
regular night; ain't it? Here's father, you see, come out to serve
at the sound of the bell, like a brisk young shopman. Ain't he
looking well? Father's more pleased to see you than if you was a
customer, for he dearly loves a gossip; and when it turns upon Miss
Dorrit, he loves it all the more. You never heard father in such
voice as he is at present,' said Mrs Plornish, her own voice
quavering, she was so proud and pleased. 'He gave us Strephon last
night to that degree that Plornish gets up and makes him this
speech across the table. "John Edward Nandy," says Plornish to
father, "I never heard you come the warbles as I have heard you
come the warbles this night." An't it gratifying, Mr Pancks,
though; really?'

Mr Pancks, who had snorted at the old man in his friendliest
manner, replied in the affirmative, and casually asked whether that
lively Altro chap had come in yet? Mrs Plornish answered no, not
yet, though he had gone to the West-End with some work, and had
said he should be back by tea-time. Mr Pancks was then hospitably
pressed into Happy Cottage, where he encountered the elder Master
Plornish just come home from school. Examining that young student,
lightly, on the educational proceedings of the day, he found that
the more advanced pupils who were in the large text and the letter
M, had been set the copy 'Merdle, Millions.'

'And how are you getting on, Mrs Plornish,' said Pancks, 'since
we're mentioning millions?'

'Very steady, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs Plornish. 'Father, dear,
would you go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before
tea, your taste being so beautiful?'

John Edward Nandy trotted away, much gratified, to comply with his
daughter's request. Mrs Plornish, who was always in mortal terror
of mentioning pecuniary affairs before the old gentleman, lest any
disclosure she made might rouse his spirit and induce him to run
away to the workhouse, was thus left free to be confidential with
Mr Pancks.

'It's quite true that the business is very steady indeed,' said Mrs
Plornish, lowering her voice; 'and has a excellent connection. The
only thing that stands in its way, sir, is the Credit.'

This drawback, rather severely felt by most people who engaged in
commercial transactions with the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart
Yard, was a large stumbling-block in Mrs Plornish's trade. When Mr
Dorrit had established her in the business, the Bleeding Hearts had
shown an amount of emotion and a determination to support her in
it, that did honour to human nature. Recognising her claim upon
their generous feelings as one who had long been a member of their
community, they pledged themselves, with great feeling, to deal
with Mrs Plornish, come what would and bestow their patronage on no
other establishment. Influenced by these noble sentiments, they
had even gone out of their way to purchase little luxuries in the
grocery and butter line to which they were unaccustomed; saying to
one another, that if they did stretch a point, was it not for a
neighbour and a friend, and for whom ought a point to be stretched
if not for such? So stimulated, the business was extremely brisk,
and the articles in stock went off with the greatest celerity. In
short, if the Bleeding Hearts had but paid, the undertaking would
have been a complete success; whereas, by reason of their
exclusively confining themselves to owing, the profits actually
realised had not yet begun to appear in the books.

Mr Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his
hair up in the contemplation of this state of accounts, when old Mr
Nandy, re-entering the cottage with an air of mystery, entreated
them to come and look at the strange behaviour of Mr Baptist, who
seemed to have met with something that had scared him. All three
going into the shop, and watching through the window, then saw Mr
Baptist, pale and agitated, go through the following extraordinary
performances. First, he was observed hiding at the top of the
steps leading down into the Yard, and peeping up and down the
street with his head cautiously thrust out close to the side of the
shop-door. After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of his
retreat, and went briskly down the street as if he were going away
altogether; then, suddenly turned about, and went, at the same
pace, and with the same feint, up the street. He had gone no
further up the street than he had gone down, when he crossed the
road and disappeared. The object of this last manoeuvre was only
apparent, when his entering the shop with a sudden twist, from the
steps again, explained that he had made a wide and obscure circuit
round to the other, or Doyce and Clennam, end of the Yard, and had
come through the Yard and bolted in. He was out of breath by that
time, as he might well be, and his heart seemed to jerk faster than
the little shop-bell, as it quivered and jingled behind him with
his hasty shutting of the door.

'Hallo, old chap!' said Mr Pancks. 'Altro, old boy! What's the
matter?'

Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as
well as Mr Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too.
Nevertheless, Mrs Plornish, with a pardonable vanity in that
accomplishment of hers which made her all but Italian, stepped in
as interpreter.

'E ask know,' said Mrs Plornish, 'What go wrong?'

'Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona,' returned Mr Baptist,
imparting great stealthiness to his flurried back-handed shake of
his right forefinger. 'Come there!'

Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as
signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the
Italian tongue. She immediately complied with Mr Baptist's
request, and they all went into the cottage.

'E ope you no fright,' said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr
Pancks in a new way with her usual fertility of resource. 'What
appen? Peaka Padrona!'

'I have seen some one,' returned Baptist. 'I have rincontrato
him.'

'Im? Oo him?' asked Mrs Plornish.

'A bad man. A baddest man. I have hoped that I should never see
him again.'
'Ow you know him bad?' asked Mrs Plornish.

'It does not matter, Padrona. I know it too well.'

''E see you?' asked Mrs Plornish.

'No. I hope not. I believe not.'

'He says,' Mrs Plornish then interpreted, addressing her father and
Pancks with mild condescension, 'that he has met a bad man, but he
hopes the bad man didn't see him--Why,' inquired Mrs Plornish,
reverting to the Italian language, 'why ope bad man no see?'

'Padrona, dearest,' returned the little foreigner whom she so
considerately protected, 'do not ask, I pray. Once again I say it
matters not. I have fear of this man. I do not wish to see him,
I do not wish to be known of him--never again! Enough, most
beautiful. Leave it.'