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

The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual
liveliness to the rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him
further: the rather as the tea had been drawing for some time on
the hob. But she was not the less surprised and curious for asking
no more questions; neither was Mr Pancks, whose expressive
breathing had been labouring hard since the entrance of the little
man, like a locomotive engine with a great load getting up a steep
incline. Maggy, now better dressed than of yore, though still
faithful to the monstrous character of her cap, had been in the
background from the first with open mouth and eyes, which staring
and gaping features were not diminished in breadth by the untimely
suppression of the subject. However, no more was said about it,
though much appeared to be thought on all sides: by no means
excepting the two young Plornishes, who partook of the evening meal
as if their eating the bread and butter were rendered almost
superfluous by the painful probability of the worst of men shortly
presenting himself for the purpose of eating them. Mr Baptist, by
degrees began to chirp a little; but never stirred from the seat he
had taken behind the door and close to the window, though it was
not his usual place. As often as the little bell rang, he started
and peeped out secretly, with the end of the little curtain in his
hand and the rest before his face; evidently not at all satisfied
but that the man he dreaded had tracked him through all his
doublings and turnings, with the certainty of a terrible
bloodhound.

The entrance, at various times, of two or three customers and of Mr
Plornish, gave Mr Baptist just enough of this employment to keep
the attention of the company fixed upon him. Tea was over, and the
children were abed, and Mrs Plornish was feeling her way to the
dutiful proposal that her father should favour them with Chloe,
when the bell rang again, and Mr Clennam came in.

Clennam had been poring late over his books and letters; for the
waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office ravaged his time sorely.

Over and above that, he was depressed and made uneasy by the late
occurrence at his mother's. He looked worn and solitary. He felt
so, too; but, nevertheless, was returning home from his counting-
house by that end of the Yard to give them the intelligence that he
had received another letter from Miss Dorrit.

The news made a sensation in the cottage which drew off the general
attention from Mr Baptist. Maggy, who pushed her way into the
foreground immediately, would have seemed to draw in the tidings of
her Little Mother equally at her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but
that the last were obstructed by tears. She was particularly
delighted when Clennam assured her that there were hospitals, and
very kindly conducted hospitals, in Rome. Mr Pancks rose into new
distinction in virtue of being specially remembered in the letter.
Everybody was pleased and interested, and Clennam was well repaid
for his trouble.
'But you are tired, sir. Let me make you a cup of tea,' said Mrs
Plornish, 'if you'd condescend to take such a thing in the cottage;
and many thanks to you, too, I am sure, for bearing us in mind so
kindly.'

Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his
personal acknowledgments, tendered them in the form which always
expressed his highest ideal of a combination of ceremony with
sincerity.

'John Edward Nandy,' said Mr Plornish, addressing the old
gentleman. 'Sir. It's not too often that you see unpretending
actions without a spark of pride, and therefore when you see them
give grateful honour unto the same, being that if you don't, and
live to want 'em, it follows serve you right.'

To which Mr Nandy replied:

'I am heartily of your opinion, Thomas, and which your opinion is
the same as mine, and therefore no more words and not being
backwards with that opinion, which opinion giving it as yes,
Thomas, yes, is the opinion in which yourself and me must ever be
unanimously jined by all, and where there is not difference of
opinion there can be none but one opinion, which fully no, Thomas,
Thomas, no !'

Arthur, with less formality, expressed himself gratified by their
high appreciation of so very slight an attention on his part; and
explained as to the tea that he had not yet dined, and was going
straight home to refresh after a long day's labour, or he would
have readily accepted the hospitable offer. As Mr Pancks was
somewhat noisily getting his steam up for departure, he concluded
by asking that gentleman if he would walk with him? Mr Pancks said
he desired no better engagement, and the two took leave of Happy
Cottage.

'If you will come home with me, Pancks,' said Arthur, when they got
into the street, 'and will share what dinner or supper there is, it
will be next door to an act of charity; for I am weary and out of
sorts to-night.'

'Ask me to do a greater thing than that,' said Pancks, 'when you
want it done, and I'll do it.'

Between this eccentric personage and Clennam, a tacit understanding
and accord had been always improving since Mr Pancks flew over Mr
Rugg's back in the Marshalsea Yard. When the carriage drove away
on the memorable day of the family's departure, these two had
looked after it together, and had walked slowly away together.
When the first letter came from little Dorrit, nobody was more
interested in hearing of her than Mr Pancks. The second letter, at
that moment in Clennam's breast-pocket, particularly remembered him
by name. Though he had never before made any profession or
protestation to Clennam, and though what he had just said was
little enough as to the words in which it was expressed, Clennam
had long had a growing belief that Mr Pancks, in his own odd way,
was becoming attached to him. All these strings intertwining made
Pancks a very cable of anchorage that night.

'I am quite alone,' Arthur explained as they walked on. 'My
partner is away, busily engaged at a distance on his branch of our
business, and you shall do just as you like.'

'Thank you. You didn't take particular notice of little Altro just
now; did you?' said Pancks.

'No. Why?'

'He's a bright fellow, and I like him,' said Pancks. 'Something
has gone amiss with him to-day. Have you any idea of any cause
that can have overset him?'

'You surprise me! None whatever.'

Mr Pancks gave his reasons for the inquiry. Arthur was quite
unprepared for them, and quite unable to suggest an explanation of
them.

'Perhaps you'll ask him,' said Pancks, 'as he's a stranger?'

'Ask him what?' returned Clennam.

'What he has on his mind.'

'I ought first to see for myself that he has something on his mind,
I think,' said Clennam. 'I have found him in every way so
diligent, so grateful (for little enough), and so trustworthy, that
it might look like suspecting him. And that would be very unjust.'

'True,' said Pancks. 'But, I say! You oughtn't to be anybody's
proprietor, Mr Clennam. You're much too delicate.'
'For the matter of that,' returned Clennam laughing, 'I have not a
large proprietary share in Cavalletto. His carving is his
livelihood. He keeps the keys of the Factory, watches it every
alternate night, and acts as a sort of housekeeper to it generally;
but we have little work in the way of his ingenuity, though we give
him what we have. No! I am rather his adviser than his
proprietor. To call me his standing counsel and his banker would
be nearer the fact. Speaking of being his banker, is it not
curious, Pancks, that the ventures which run just now in so many
people's heads, should run even in little Cavalletto's?'

'Ventures?' retorted Pancks, with a snort. 'What ventures?'

'These Merdle enterprises.'

'Oh! Investments,' said Pancks. 'Ay, ay! I didn't know you were
speaking of investments.'
His quick way of replying caused Clennam to look at him, with a
doubt whether he meant more than he said. As it was accompanied,
however, with a quickening of his pace and a corresponding increase
in the labouring of his machinery, Arthur did not pursue the
matter, and they soon arrived at his house.

A dinner of soup and a pigeon-pie, served on a little round table
before the fire, and flavoured with a bottle of good wine, oiled Mr
Pancks's works in a highly effective manner; so that when Clennam
produced his Eastern pipe, and handed Mr Pancks another Eastern
pipe, the latter gentleman was perfectly comfortable.

They puffed for a while in silence, Mr Pancks like a steam-vessel
with wind, tide, calm water, and all other sea-going conditions in
her favour. He was the first to speak, and he spoke thus:

'Yes. Investments is the word.'

Clennam, with his former look, said 'Ah!'

'I am going back to it, you see,' said Pancks.

'Yes. I see you are going back to it,' returned Clennam, wondering
why.

'Wasn't it a curious thing that they should run in little Altro's
head? Eh?' said Pancks as he smoked. 'Wasn't that how you put
it?'

'That was what I said.'

'Ay! But think of the whole Yard having got it. Think of their
all meeting me with it, on my collecting days, here and there and
everywhere. Whether they pay, or whether they don't pay. Merdle,
Merdle, Merdle. Always Merdle.'

'Very strange how these runs on an infatuation prevail,' said
Arthur.

'An't it?' returned Pancks. After smoking for a minute or so, more
drily than comported with his recent oiling, he added: 'Because you
see these people don't understand the subject.'

'Not a bit,' assented Clennam.

'Not a bit,' cried Pancks. 'Know nothing of figures. Know nothing
of money questions. Never made a calculation. Never worked it,
sir!'

'If they had--' Clennam was going on to say; when Mr Pancks,
without change of countenance, produced a sound so far surpassing
all his usual efforts, nasal or bronchial, that he stopped.

'If they had?' repeated Pancks in an inquiring tone.

'I thought you--spoke,' said Arthur, hesitating what name to give
the interruption.

'Not at all,' said Pancks. 'Not yet. I may in a minute. If they
had?'

'If they had,' observed Clennam, who was a little at a loss how to
take his friend, 'why, I suppose they would have known better.'

'How so, Mr Clennam?' Pancks asked quickly, and with an odd effect
of having been from the commencement of the conversation loaded
with the heavy charge he now fired off. 'They're right, you know.
They don't mean to be, but they're right.'

'Right in sharing Cavalletto's inclination to speculate with Mr
Merdle?'

'Per-fectly, sir,' said Pancks. 'I've gone into it. I've made the
calculations. I've worked it. They're safe and genuine.'
Relieved by having got to this, Mr Pancks took as long a pull as
his lungs would permit at his Eastern pipe, and looked sagaciously
and steadily at Clennam while inhaling and exhaling too.

In those moments, Mr Pancks began to give out the dangerous
infection with which he was laden. It is the manner of
communicating these diseases; it is the subtle way in which they go
about.

'Do you mean, my good Pancks,' asked Clennam emphatically, 'that
you would put that thousand pounds of yours, let us say, for
instance, out at this kind of interest?'

'Certainly,' said Pancks. 'Already done it, sir.'

Mr Pancks took another long inhalation, another long exhalation,
another long sagacious look at Clennam.

'I tell you, Mr Clennam, I've gone into it,' said Pancks. 'He's a
man of immense resources--enormous capital--government influence.
They're the best schemes afloat. They're safe. They're certain.'

'Well!' returned Clennam, looking first at him gravely and then at
the fire gravely. 'You surprise me!'

'Bah!' Pancks retorted. 'Don't say that, sir. It's what you ought
to do yourself! Why don't you do as I do?'

Of whom Mr Pancks had taken the prevalent disease, he could no more
have told than if he had unconsciously taken a fever. Bred at
first, as many physical diseases are, in the wickedness of men, and
then disseminated in their ignorance, these epidemics, after a
period, get communicated to many sufferers who are neither ignorant
nor wicked. Mr Pancks might, or might not, have caught the illness
himself from a subject of this class; but in this category he
appeared before Clennam, and the infection he threw off was all the
more virulent.

'And you have really invested,' Clennam had already passed to that
word, 'your thousand pounds, Pancks?'

'To be sure, sir!' replied Pancks boldly, with a puff of smoke.
'And only wish it ten!'

Now, Clennam had two subjects lying heavy on his lonely mind that
night; the one, his partner's long-deferred hope; the other, what
he had seen and heard at his mother's. In the relief of having
this companion, and of feeling that he could trust him, he passed
on to both, and both brought him round again, with an increase and
acceleration of force, to his point of departure.

It came about in the simplest manner. Quitting the investment
subject, after an interval of silent looking at the fire through
the smoke of his pipe, he told Pancks how and why he was occupied
with the great National Department. 'A hard case it has been, and
a hard case it is on Doyce,' he finished by saying, with all the
honest feeling the topic roused in him.

'Hard indeed,' Pancks acquiesced. 'But you manage for him, Mr
Clennam?'

'How do you mean ?'

'Manage the money part of the business?'

'Yes. As well as I can.'

'Manage it better, sir,' said Pancks. 'Recompense him for his
toils and disappointments. Give him the chances of the time.
He'll never benefit himself in that way, patient and preoccupied
workman. He looks to you, sir.'

'I do my best, Pancks,' returned Clennam, uneasily. 'As to duly
weighing and considering these new enterprises of which I have had
no experience, I doubt if I am fit for it, I am growing old.'

'Growing old?' cried Pancks. 'Ha, ha!'

There was something so indubitably genuine in the wonderful laugh,
and series of snorts and puffs, engendered in Mr Pancks's
astonishment at, and utter rejection of, the idea, that his being
quite in earnest could not be questioned.

'Growing old?' cried Pancks. 'Hear, hear, hear! Old? Hear him,
hear him!'

The positive refusal expressed in Mr Pancks's continued snorts, no
less than in these exclamations, to entertain the sentiment for a
single instant, drove Arthur away from it. Indeed, he was fearful
of something happening to Mr Pancks in the violent conflict that
took place between the breath he jerked out of himself and the
smoke he jerked into himself. This abandonment of the second topic
threw him on the third.

'Young, old, or middle-aged, Pancks,' he said, when there was a
favourable pause, 'I am in a very anxious and uncertain state; a
state that even leads me to doubt whether anything now seeming to
belong to me, may be really mine. Shall I tell you how this is?
Shall I put a great trust in you?'

'You shall, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you believe me worthy of it.'

'I do.'

'You may!' Mr Pancks's short and sharp rejoinder, confirmed by the
sudden outstretching of his coaly hand, was most expressive and
convincing. Arthur shook the hand warmly.

He then, softening the nature of his old apprehensions as much as
was possible consistently with their being made intelligible and
never alluding to his mother by name, but speaking vaguely of a
relation of his, confided to Mr Pancks a broad outline of the
misgivings he entertained, and of the interview he had witnessed.
Mr Pancks listened with such interest that, regardless of the
charms of the Eastern pipe, he put it in the grate among the fire-
irons, and occupied his hands during the whole recital in so
erecting the loops and hooks of hair all over his head, that he
looked, when it came to a conclusion, like a journeyman Hamlet in
conversation with his father's spirit.

'Brings me back, sir,' was his exclamation then, with a startling
touch on Clennam's knee, 'brings me back, sir, to the Investments!
I don't say anything of your making yourself poor to repair a wrong
you never committed. That's you. A man must be himself. But I
say this, fearing you may want money to save your own blood from
exposure and disgrace--make as much as you can!'

Arthur shook his head, but looked at him thoughtfully too.

'Be as rich as you can, sir,' Pancks adjured him with a powerful
concentration of all his energies on the advice. 'Be as rich as
you honestly can. It's your duty. Not for your sake, but for the
sake of others. Take time by the forelock. Poor Mr Doyce (who
really is growing old) depends upon you. Your relative depends
upon you. You don't know what depends upon you.'

'Well, well, well!' returned Arthur. 'Enough for to-night.'

'One word more, Mr Clennam,' retorted Pancks, 'and then enough for
to-night. Why should you leave all the gains to the gluttons,
knaves, and impostors? Why should you leave all the gains that are
to be got to my proprietor and the like of him? Yet you're always
doing it. When I say you, I mean such men as you. You know you
are. Why, I see it every day of my life. I see nothing else.
It's my business to see it. Therefore I say,' urged Pancks, 'Go in
and win!'

'But what of Go in and lose?' said Arthur.

'Can't be done, sir,' returned Pancks. 'I have looked into it.
Name up everywhere--immense resources--enormous capital--great
position--high connection--government influence. Can't be done!'

Gradually, after this closing exposition, Mr Pancks subsided;
allowed his hair to droop as much as it ever would droop on the
utmost persuasion; reclaimed the pipe from the fire-irons, filled
it anew, and smoked it out. They said little more; but were
company to one another in silently pursuing the same subjects, and
did not part until midnight. On taking his leave, Mr Pancks, when
he had shaken hands with Clennam, worked completely round him
before he steamed out at the door. This, Arthur received as an
assurance that he might implicitly rely on Pancks, if he ever
should come to need assistance; either in any of the matters of
which they had spoken that night, or any other subject that could
in any way affect himself.

At intervals all next day, and even while his attention was fixed
on other things, he thought of Mr Pancks's investment of his
thousand pounds, and of his having 'looked into it.' He thought of
Mr Pancks's being so sanguine in this matter, and of his not being
usually of a sanguine character. He thought of the great National
Department, and of the delight it would be to him to see Doyce
better off. He thought of the darkly threatening place that went
by the name of Home in his remembrance, and of the gathering
shadows which made it yet more darkly threatening than of old. He
observed anew that wherever he went, he saw, or heard, or touched,
the celebrated name of Merdle; he found it difficult even to remain
at his desk a couple of hours, without having it presented to one
of his bodily senses through some agency or other. He began to
think it was curious too that it should be everywhere, and that
nobody but he should seem to have any mistrust of it. Though
indeed he began to remember, when he got to this, even he did not
mistrust it; he had only happened to keep aloof from it.

Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the
signs of sickening.

CHAPTER 14

Taking Advice

When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow
Tiber that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one
of the Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a
piece of news with which they had no nearer concern than with any
other piece of news--any other Accident or Offence--in the English
papers. Some laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that
the post was virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his
name was good enough for it; some, and these the more solemn
political oracles, said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen
himself, and that the sole constitutional purpose of all places
within the gift of Decimus, was, that Decimus should strengthen
himself. A few bilious Britons there were who would not subscribe
to this article of faith; but their objection was purely
theoretical. In a practical point of view, they listlessly
abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other Britons
unknown, somewhere, or nowhere. In like manner, at home, great
numbers of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty
consecutive hours, that those invisible and anonymous Britons
'ought to take it up;' and that if they quietly acquiesced in it,
they deserved it. But of what class the remiss Britons were
composed, and where the unlucky creatures hid themselves, and why
they hid themselves, and how it constantly happened that they
neglected their interests, when so many other Britons were quite at
a loss to account for their not looking after those interests, was
not, either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the shore of the
black Thames, made apparent to men.

Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on
it, with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the
setting displays the jewel. Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the
place. Mr Merdle wished him to take it, and he had taken it. She
hoped Edmund might like it, but really she didn't know. It would
keep him in town a good deal, and he preferred the country. Still,
it was not a disagreeable position--and it was a position. There
was no denying that the thing was a compliment to Mr Merdle, and
was not a bad thing for Edmund if he liked it. It was just as well
that he should have something to do, and it was just as well that
he should have something for doing it. Whether it would be more
agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen.

Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things
of small account, and really enhancing them in the process. While
Henry Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole
round of his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the
town of Albano, vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his
eyes, that Sparkler was the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted,
altogether most lovable jackass that ever grazed on the public
common; and that only one circumstance could have delighted him
(Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass's) getting this post,
and that would have been his (Gowan's) getting it himself. He said
it was the very thing for Sparkler. There was nothing to do, and
he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to draw, and
he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate,
capital appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of
himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great
an affection was so admirably stabled. Nor did his benevolence
stop here. He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr
Sparkler out, and make him conspicuous before the company; and,
although the considerate action always resulted in that young
gentleman's making a dreary and forlorn mental spectacle of
himself, the friendly intention was not to be doubted.

Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr
Sparkler's affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult
situation of being universally known in that light, and of not
having dismissed Mr Sparkler, however capriciously she used him.
Hence, she was sufficiently identified with the gentleman to feel
compromised by his being more than usually ridiculous; and hence,
being by no means deficient in quickness, she sometimes came to his
rescue against Gowan, and did him very good service. But, while
doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined whether to get rid
of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted with
apprehensions that she was every day becoming more and more
immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs
Merdle triumphed in her distress. With this tumult in her mind, it
is no subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came home one night in
a state of agitation from a concert and ball at Mrs Merdle's house,
and on her sister affectionately trying to soothe her, pushed that
sister away from the toilette-table at which she sat angrily trying
to cry, and declared with a heaving bosom that she detested
everybody, and she wished she was dead.

'Dear Fanny, what is the matter? Tell me.'

'Matter, you little Mole,' said Fanny. 'If you were not the
blindest of the blind, you would have no occasion to ask me. The
idea of daring to pretend to assert that you have eyes in your
head, and yet ask me what's the matter!'

'Is it Mr Sparkler, dear?'
'Mis-ter Spark-ler!' repeated Fanny, with unbounded scorn, as if he
were the last subject in the Solar system that could possibly be
near her mind. 'No, Miss Bat, it is not.'

Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful for having called her
sister names; declaring with sobs that she knew she made herself
hateful, but that everybody drove her to it.