Little Dorrit

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The amazement and horror depicted in the unfortunate john's face--
for he had rather expected to be embraced next--were of that
powerfully expressive nature that Mr Dorrit withdrew his hand and
merely glared at him.

'How dare you do this?' said Mr Dorrit. 'How do you presume to
come here? How dare you insult me?'

'I insult you, sir?' cried Young John. 'Oh!'

'Yes, sir,' returned Mr Dorrit. 'Insult me. Your coming here is
an affront, an impertinence, an audacity. You are not wanted here.

Who sent you here? What--ha--the Devil do you do here?'

'I thought, sir,' said Young John, with as pale and shocked a face
as ever had been turned to Mr Dorrit's in his life--even in his
College life: 'I thought, sir, you mightn't object to have the
goodness to accept a bundle--'

'Damn your bundle, sir!' cried Mr Dorrit, in irrepressible rage.
'I--hum--don't smoke.'

'I humbly beg your pardon, sir. You used to.'

'Tell me that again,' cried Mr Dorrit, quite beside himself, 'and
I'll take the poker to you!'

John Chivery backed to the door.

'Stop, sir!' cried Mr Dorrit. 'Stop! Sit down. Confound you,

sit down!'

John Chivery dropped into the chair nearest the door, and Mr Dorrit
walked up and down the room; rapidly at first; then, more slowly.
Once, he went to the window, and stood there with his forehead
against the glass. All of a sudden, he turned and said:

'What else did you come for, Sir?'

'Nothing else in the world, sir. Oh dear me! Only to say, Sir,
that I hoped you was well, and only to ask if Miss Amy was Well?'

'What's that to you, sir?' retorted Mr Dorrit.

'It's nothing to me, sir, by rights. I never thought of lessening
the distance betwixt us, I am sure. I know it's a liberty, sir,
but I never thought you'd have taken it ill. Upon my word and
honour, sir,' said Young John, with emotion, 'in my poor way, I am
too proud to have come, I assure you, if I had thought so.'

Mr Dorrit was ashamed. He went back to the window, and leaned his
forehead against the glass for some time. When he turned, he had
his handkerchief in his hand, and he had been wiping his eyes with
it, and he looked tired and ill.

'Young John, I am very sorry to have been hasty with you, but--ha--
some remembrances are not happy remembrances, and--hum--you
shouldn't have come.'

'I feel that now, sir,' returned John Chivery; 'but I didn't
before, and Heaven knows I meant no harm, sir.'

'No. No,' said Mr Dorrit. 'I am--hum--sure of that. Ha. Give me
your hand, Young John, give me your hand.'

Young John gave it; but Mr Dorrit had driven his heart out of it,
and nothing could change his face now, from its white, shocked
look.

'There!' said Mr Dorrit, slowly shaking hands with him. 'Sit down
again, Young John.'

'Thank you, sir--but I'd rather stand.'

Mr Dorrit sat down instead. After painfully holding his head a
little while, he turned it to his visitor, and said, with an effort
to be easy:

'And how is your father, Young John? How--ha--how are they all,
Young John?'

'Thank you, sir, They're all pretty well, sir. They're not any
ways complaining.'

'Hum. You are in your--ha--old business I see, John?' said Mr
Dorrit, with a glance at the offending bundle he had anathematised.

'Partly, sir. I am in my'--John hesitated a little--'father's
business likewise.'

'Oh indeed!' said Mr Dorrit. 'Do you--ha hum--go upon the ha--'

'Lock, sir? Yes, sir.'

'Much to do, John?'

'Yes, sir; we're pretty heavy at present. I don't know how it is,
but we generally ARE pretty heavy.'

'At this time of the year, Young John?'

'Mostly at all times of the year, sir. I don't know the time that
makes much difference to us. I wish you good night, sir.'

'Stay a moment, John--ha--stay a moment. Hum. Leave me the
cigars, John, I--ha--beg.'

'Certainly, sir.' John put them, with a trembling hand, on the
table.

'Stay a moment, Young John; stay another moment. It would be
a--ha--a gratification to me to send a little--hum--Testimonial, by
such a trusty messenger, to be divided among--ha hum--them--them--
according to their wants. Would you object to take

it, John?'

'Not in any ways, sir. There's many of them, I'm sure, that would
be the better for it.'

'Thank you, John. I--ha--I'll write it, John.'

His hand shook so that he was a long time writing it, and wrote it
in a tremulous scrawl at last. It was a cheque for one hundred
pounds. He folded it up, put it in Young john's hand, and pressed
the hand in his.

'I hope you'll--ha--overlook--hum--what has passed, John.'

'Don't speak of it, sir, on any accounts. I don't in any ways bear
malice, I'm sure.'

But nothing while John was there could change John's face to its
natural colour and expression, or restore John's natural manner.

'And, John,' said Mr Dorrit, giving his hand a final pressure, and
releasing it, 'I hope we--ha--agree that we have spoken together in
confidence; and that you will abstain, in going out, from saying
anything to any one that might--hum--suggest that--ha--once I--'

'Oh! I assure you, sir,' returned John Chivery, 'in my poor humble
way, sir, I'm too proud and honourable to do it, sir.'

Mr Dorrit was not too proud and honourable to listen at the door
that he might ascertain for himself whether John really went
straight out, or lingered to have any talk with any one. There was
no doubt that he went direct out at the door, and away down the
street with a quick step. After remaining alone for an hour, Mr
Dorrit rang for the Courier, who found him with his chair on the
hearth-rug, sitting with his back towards him and his face to the
fire. 'You can take that bundle of cigars to smoke on the journey,
if you like,' said Mr Dorrit, with a careless wave of his hand.
'Ha--brought by--hum--little offering from--ha--son of old tenant
of mine.'

Next morning's sun saw Mr Dorrit's equipage upon the Dover road,
where every red-jacketed postilion was the sign of a cruel house,
established for the unmerciful plundering of travellers. The whole
business of the human race, between London and Dover, being
spoliation, Mr Dorrit was waylaid at Dartford, pillaged at
Gravesend, rifled at Rochester, fleeced at Sittingbourne, and
sacked at Canterbury. However, it being the Courier's business to
get him out of the hands of the banditti, the Courier brought him
off at every stage; and so the red-jackets went gleaming merrily
along the spring landscape, rising and falling to a regular
measure, between Mr Dorrit in his snug corner and the next chalky
rise in the dusty highway.

Another day's sun saw him at Calais. And having now got the
Channel between himself and John Chivery, he began to feel safe,
and to find that the foreign air was lighter to breathe than the
air of England.

On again by the heavy French roads for Paris. Having now quite
recovered his equanimity, Mr Dorrit, in his snug corner, fell to
castle-building as he rode along. It was evident that he had a
very large castle in hand. All day long he was running towers up,
taking towers down, adding a wing here, putting on a battlement
there, looking to the walls, strengthening the defences, giving
ornamental touches to the interior, making in all respects a superb
castle of it. His preoccupied face so clearly denoted the pursuit
in which he was engaged, that every cripple at the post-houses, not
blind, who shoved his little battered tin-box in at the carriage
window for Charity in the name of Heaven, Charity in the name of
our Lady, Charity in the name of all the Saints, knew as well what
work he was at, as their countryman Le Brun could have known it
himself, though he had made that English traveller the subject of
a special physiognomical treatise.

Arrived at Paris, and resting there three days, Mr Dorrit strolled
much about the streets alone, looking in at the shop-windows, and
particularly the jewellers' windows. Ultimately, he went into the
most famous jeweller's, and said he wanted to buy a little gift for
a lady.

It was a charming little woman to whom he said it--a sprightly
little woman, dressed in perfect taste, who came out of a green
velvet bower to attend upon him, from posting up some dainty little
books of account which one could hardly suppose to be ruled for the
entry of any articles more commercial than kisses, at a dainty
little shining desk which looked in itself like a sweetmeat.

For example, then, said the little woman, what species of gift did
Monsieur desire? A love-gift?

Mr Dorrit smiled, and said, Eh, well! Perhaps. What did he know?
It was always possible; the sex being so charming. Would she show
him some?

Most willingly, said the little woman. Flattered and enchanted to
show him many. But pardon! To begin with, he would have the great
goodness to observe that there were love-gifts, and there were
nuptial gifts. For example, these ravishing ear-rings and this
necklace so superb to correspond, were what one called a love-
gift. These brooches and these rings, of a beauty so gracious and
celestial, were what one called, with the permission of Monsieur,
nuptial gifts.

Perhaps it would be a good arrangement, Mr Dorrit hinted, smiling,
to purchase both, and to present the love-gift first, and to finish
with the nuptial offering?

Ah Heaven! said the little woman, laying the tips of the fingers
of her two little hands against each other, that would be generous
indeed, that would be a special gallantry! And without doubt the
lady so crushed with gifts would find them irresistible.

Mr Dorrit was not sure of that. But, for example, the sprightly
little woman was very sure of it, she said. So Mr Dorrit bought a
gift of each sort, and paid handsomely for it. As he strolled back
to his hotel afterwards, he carried his head high: having plainly
got up his castle now to a much loftier altitude than the two
square towers of Notre Dame.

Building away with all his might, but reserving the plans of his
castle exclusively for his own eye, Mr Dorrit posted away for
Marseilles. Building on, building on, busily, busily, from morning
to night. Falling asleep, and leaving great blocks of building
materials dangling in the air; waking again, to resume work and get
them into their places. What time the Courier in the rumble,
smoking Young john's best cigars, left a little thread of thin
light smoke behind--perhaps as he built a castle or two with stray
pieces of Mr Dorrit's money.

Not a fortified town that they passed in all their journey was as
strong, not a Cathedral summit was as high, as Mr Dorrit's castle.
Neither the Saone nor the Rhone sped with the swiftness of that
peerless building; nor was the Mediterranean deeper than its
foundations; nor were the distant landscapes on the Cornice road,
nor the hills and bay of Genoa the Superb, more beautiful. Mr
Dorrit and his matchless castle were disembarked among the dirty
white houses and dirtier felons of Civita Vecchia, and thence
scrambled on to Rome as they could, through the filth that festered
on the way.

CHAPTER 19

The Storming of the Castle in the Air

The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most
travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the
walls of Rome, when Mr Dorrit's carriage, still on its last
wearisome stage, rattled over the solitary Campagna. The savage
herdsmen and the fierce-looking peasants who had chequered the way
while the light lasted, had all gone down with the sun, and left
the wilderness blank. At some turns of the road, a pale flare on
the horizon, like an exhalation from the ruin-sown land, showed
that the city was yet far off; but this poor relief was rare and
short-lived. The carriage dipped down again into a hollow of the
black dry sea, and for a long time there was nothing visible save
its petrified swell and the gloomy sky.

Mr Dorrit, though he had his castle-building to engage his mind,
could not be quite easy in that desolate place. He was far more
curious, in every swerve of the carriage, and every cry of the
postilions, than he had been since he quitted London. The valet on
the box evidently quaked. The Courier in the rumble was not
altogether comfortable in his mind. As often as Mr Dorrit let down
the glass and looked back at him (which was very often), he saw him
smoking John Chivery out, it is true, but still generally standing
up the while and looking about him, like a man who had his
suspicions, and kept upon his guard. Then would Mr Dorrit, pulling
up the glass again, reflect that those postilions were cut-throat
looking fellows, and that he would have done better to have slept
at Civita Vecchia, and have started betimes in the morning. But,
for all this, he worked at his castle in the intervals.

And now, fragments of ruinous enclosure, yawning window-gap and
crazy wall, deserted houses, leaking wells, broken water-tanks,
spectral cypress-trees, patches of tangled vine, and the changing
of the track to a long, irregular, disordered lane where everything
was crumbling away, from the unsightly buildings to the jolting
road--now, these objects showed that they were nearing Rome. And
now, a sudden twist and stoppage of the carriage inspired Mr Dorrit
with the mistrust that the brigand moment was come for twisting him
into a ditch and robbing him; until, letting down the glass again
and looking out, he perceived himself assailed by nothing worse
than a funeral procession, which came mechanically chaunting by,
with an indistinct show of dirty vestments, lurid torches, swinging
censers, and a great cross borne before a priest. He was an ugly
priest by torchlight; of a lowering aspect, with an overhanging
brow; and as his eyes met those of Mr Dorrit, looking bareheaded
out of the carriage, his lips, moving as they chaunted, seemed to
threaten that important traveller; likewise the action of his hand,
which was in fact his manner of returning the traveller's
salutation, seemed to come in aid of that menace. So thought Mr
Dorrit, made fanciful by the weariness of building and travelling,
as the priest drifted past him, and the procession straggled away,
taking its dead along with it. Upon their so-different way went Mr
Dorrit's company too; and soon, with their coach load of luxuries
from the two great capitals of Europe, they were (like the Goths
reversed) beating at the gates of Rome.

Mr Dorrit was not expected by his own people that night. He had
been; but they had given him up until to-morrow, not doubting that
it was later than he would care, in those parts, to be out. Thus,
when his equipage stopped at his own gate, no one but the porter
appeared to receive him. Was Miss Dorrit from home? he asked.
No. She was within. Good, said Mr Dorrit to the assembling
servants; let them keep where they were; let them help to unload
the carriage; he would find Miss Dorrit for himself.
So he went up his grand staircase, slowly, and tired, and looked
into various chambers which were empty, until he saw a light in a
small ante-room. It was a curtained nook, like a tent, within two
other rooms; and it looked warm and bright in colour, as he
approached it through the dark avenue they made.

There was a draped doorway, but no door; and as he stopped here,
looking in unseen, he felt a pang. Surely not like jealousy? For
why like jealousy? There was only his daughter and his brother
there: he, with his chair drawn to the hearth, enjoying the warmth
of the evening wood fire; she seated at a little table, busied with
some embroidery work. Allowing for the great difference in the
still-life of the picture, the figures were much the same as of
old; his brother being sufficiently like himself to represent
himself, for a moment, in the composition. So had he sat many a
night, over a coal fire far away; so had she sat, devoted to him.
Yet surely there was nothing to be jealous of in the old miserable
poverty. Whence, then, the pang in his heart?

'Do you know, uncle, I think you are growing young again?'

Her uncle shook his head and said, 'Since when, my dear; since
when?'

'I think,' returned Little Dorrit, plying her needle, 'that you
have been growing younger for weeks past. So cheerful, uncle, and
so ready, and so interested.'

'My dear child--all you.'

'All me, uncle!'

'Yes, yes. You have done me a world of good. You have been so
considerate of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying
to hide your attentions from me, that I--well, well, well! It's
treasured up, my darling, treasured up.'

'There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle,' said
Little Dorrit, cheerfully.

'Well, well, well!' murmured the old man. 'Thank God!'

She paused for an instant in her work to look at him, and her look
revived that former pain in her father's breast; in his poor weak
breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies,
the little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which
the morning without a night only can clear away.

'I have been freer with you, you see, my dove,' said the old man,
'since we have been alone. I say, alone, for I don't count Mrs
General; I don't care for her; she has nothing to do with me. But
I know Fanny was impatient of me. And I don't wonder at it, or
complain of it, for I am sensible that I must be in the way, though
I try to keep out of it as well as I can. I know I am not fit
company for our company. My brother William,' said the old man
admiringly, 'is fit company for monarchs; but not so your uncle, my
dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William Dorrit, and he
knows it quite well. Ah! Why, here's your father, Amy! My dear
William, welcome back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see
you!'

(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he
stood in the doorway.)

Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her
father's neck, and kissed him again and again. Her father was a
little impatient, and a little querulous. 'I am glad to find you
at last, Amy,' he said. 'Ha. Really I am glad to find--hum--any
one to receive me at last. I appear to have been--ha--so little
expected, that upon my word I began--ha hum--to think it might be
right to offer an apology for--ha--taking the liberty of coming
back at all.'

'It was so late, my dear William,' said his brother, 'that we had
given you up for to-night.'

'I am stronger than you, dear Frederick,' returned his brother with
an elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; 'and I
hope I can travel without detriment at--ha--any hour I choose.'

'Surely, surely,' returned the other, with a misgiving that he had
given offence. 'Surely, William.'

'Thank you, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, as she helped him to put off
his wrappers. 'I can do it without assistance. I--ha--need not
trouble you, Amy. Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of
wine, or--hum--would it cause too much inconvenience?'

'Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes.'

'Thank you, my love,' said Mr Dorrit, with a reproachful frost upon
him; 'I--ha--am afraid I am causing inconvenience. Hum. Mrs
General pretty well?'

'Mrs General complained of a headache, and of being fatigued; and
so, when we gave you up, she went to bed, dear.'

Perhaps Mr Dorrit thought that Mrs General had done well in being
overcome by the disappointment of his not arriving. At any rate,
his face relaxed, and he said with obvious satisfaction, 'Extremely
sorry to hear that Mrs General is not well.'

During this short dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him,
with something more than her usual interest. It would seem as
though he had a changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he
perceived and resented it; for he said with renewed peevishness,
when he had divested himself of his travelling-cloak, and had come
to the fire:
'Amy, what are you looking at? What do you see in me that causes
you to--ha--concentrate your solicitude on me in that--hum--very
particular manner?'

'I did not know it, father; I beg your pardon. It gladdens my eyes
to see you again; that's all.'

'Don't say that's all, because--ha--that's not all. You--hum--you
think,' said Mr Dorrit, with an accusatory emphasis, 'that I am not
looking well.'
'I thought you looked a little tired, love.'

'Then you are mistaken,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Ha, I am not tired. Ha,
hum. I am very much fresher than I was when I went away.'

He was so inclined to be angry that she said nothing more in her
justification, but remained quietly beside him embracing his arm.
As he stood thus, with his brother on the other side, he fell into
a heavy doze, of not a minute's duration, and awoke with a start.

'Frederick,' he said, turning to his brother: 'I recommend you to
go to bed immediately.'

'No, William. I'll wait and see you sup.'

'Frederick,' he retorted, 'I beg you to go to bed. I--ha--make it
a personal request that you go to bed. You ought to have been in
bed long ago. You are very feeble.'

'Hah!' said the old man, who had no wish but to please him. 'Well,
well, well! I dare say I am.'

'My dear Frederick,' returned Mr Dorrit, with an astonishing
superiority to his brother's failing powers, 'there can be no doubt
of it. It is painful to me to see you so weak. Ha. It distresses
me. Hum. I don't find you looking at all well. You are not fit
for this sort of thing. You should be more careful, you should be
very careful.'

'Shall I go to bed?' asked Frederick.

'Dear Frederick,' said Mr Dorrit, 'do, I adjure you! Good night,
brother. I hope you will be stronger to-morrow. I am not at all
pleased with your looks. Good night, dear fellow.' After
dismissing his brother in this gracious way, he fell into a doze
again before the old man was well out of the room: and he would
have stumbled forward upon the logs, but for his daughter's
restraining hold.

'Your uncle wanders very much, Amy,' he said, when he was thus
roused. 'He is less--ha--coherent, and his conversation is more--
hum--broken, than I have--ha, hum--ever known. Has he had any
illness since I have been gone?'
'No, father.'

'You--ha--see a great change in him, Amy?'

'I have not observed it, dear.'

'Greatly broken,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Greatly broken. My poor,
affectionate, failing Frederick! Ha. Even taking into account
what he was before, he is--hum--sadly broken!'

His supper, which was brought to him there, and spread upon the
little table where he had seen her working, diverted his attention.

She sat at his side as in the days that were gone, for the first
time since those days ended. They were alone, and she helped him
to his meat and poured out his drink for him, as she had been used
to do in the prison. All this happened now, for the first time
since their accession to wealth. She was afraid to look at him
much, after the offence he had taken; but she noticed two occasions
in the course of his meal, when he all of a sudden looked at her,
and looked about him, as if the association were so strong that he
needed assurance from his sense of sight that they were not in the
old prison-room. Both times, he put his hand to his head as if he
missed his old black cap--though it had been ignominiously given
away in the Marshalsea, and had never got free to that hour, but
still hovered about the yards on the head of his successor.

He took very little supper, but was a long time over it, and often
reverted to his brother's declining state. Though he expressed the
greatest pity for him, he was almost bitter upon him. He said that
poor Frederick--ha hum--drivelled. There was no other word to
express it; drivelled. Poor fellow! It was melancholy to reflect
what Amy must have undergone from the excessive tediousness of his
Society--wandering and babbling on, poor dear estimable creature,
wandering and babbling on--if it had not been for the relief she
had had in Mrs General. Extremely sorry, he then repeated with his
former satisfaction, that that--ha--superior woman was poorly.

Little Dorrit, in her watchful love, would have remembered the
lightest thing he said or did that night, though she had had no
subsequent reason to recall that night. She always remembered
that, when he looked about him under the strong influence of the
old association, he tried to keep it out of her mind, and perhaps
out of his own too, by immediately expatiating on the great riches
and great company that had encompassed him in his absence, and on
the lofty position he and his family had to sustain. Nor did she
fail to recall that there were two under-currents, side by side,
pervading all his discourse and all his manner; one showing her how
well he had got on without her, and how independent he was of her;
the other, in a fitful and unintelligible way almost complaining of
her, as if it had been possible that she had neglected him while he
was away.

His telling her of the glorious state that Mr Merdle kept, and of
the court that bowed before him, naturally brought him to Mrs
Merdle. So naturally indeed, that although there was an unusual
want of sequence in the greater part of his remarks, he passed to
her at once, and asked how she was.