Little Dorrit

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He had her two letters among other papers in his box, and he took
them out and read them. There seemed to be a sound in them like
the sound of her sweet voice. It fell upon his ear with many tones
of tenderness, that were not insusceptible of the new meaning. Now
it was that the quiet desolation of her answer,'No, No, No,' made
to him that night in that very room--that night when he had been
shown the dawn of her altered fortune, and when other words had
passed between them which he had been destined to remember in
humiliation and a prisoner, rushed into his mind.

Consider the improbability.

But it had a preponderating tendency, when considered, to become
fainter. There was another and a curious inquiry of his own
heart's that concurrently became stronger. In the reluctance he
had felt to believe that she loved any one; in his desire to set
that question at rest; in a half-formed consciousness he had had
that there would be a kind of nobleness in his helping her love for
any one, was there no suppressed something on his own side that he
had hushed as it arose? Had he ever whispered to himself that he
must not think of such a thing as her loving him, that he must not
take advantage of her gratitude, that he must keep his experience
in remembrance as a warning and reproof; that he must regard such
youthful hopes as having passed away, as his friend's dead daughter
had passed away; that he must be steady in saying to himself that
the time had gone by him, and he was too saddened and old?

He had kissed her when he raised her from the ground on the day
when she had been so consistently and expressively forgotten.
Quite as he might have kissed her, if she had been conscious? No
difference?

The darkness found him occupied with these thoughts. The darkness
also found Mr and Mrs Plornish knocking at his door. They brought
with them a basket, filled with choice selections from that stock
in trade which met with such a quick sale and produced such a slow
return. Mrs Plornish was affected to tears. Mr Plornish amiably
growled, in his philosophical but not lucid manner, that there was
ups you see, and there was downs. It was in vain to ask why ups,
why downs; there they was, you know. He had heerd it given for a
truth that accordin' as the world went round, which round it did
rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his turn of
standing with his ed upside down and all his air a flying the wrong
way into what you might call Space. Wery well then. What Mr
Plornish said was, wery well then. That gentleman's ed would come
up-ards when his turn come, that gentleman's air would be a
pleasure to look upon being all smooth again, and wery well then!

It has been already stated that Mrs Plornish, not being
philosophical, wept. It further happened that Mrs Plornish, not
being philosophical, was intelligible. It may have arisen out of
her softened state of mind, out of her sex's wit, out of a woman's
quick association of ideas, or out of a woman's no association of
ideas, but it further happened somehow that Mrs Plornish's
intelligibility displayed itself upon the very subject of Arthur's
meditations.

'The way father has been talking about you, Mr Clennam,' said Mrs
Plornish, 'you hardly would believe. It's made him quite poorly.
As to his voice, this misfortune has took it away. You know what
a sweet singer father is; but he couldn't get a note out for the
children at tea, if you'll credit what I tell you.'

While speaking, Mrs Plornish shook her head, and wiped her eyes,
and looked retrospectively about the room.

'As to Mr Baptist,' pursued Mrs Plornish, 'whatever he'll do when
he comes to know of it, I can't conceive nor yet imagine. He'd
have been here before now, you may be sure, but that he's away on
confidential business of your own. The persevering manner in which
he follows up that business, and gives himself no rest from it--it
really do,' said Mrs Plornish, winding up in the Italian manner,
'as I say to him, Mooshattonisha padrona.'

Though not conceited, Mrs Plornish felt that she had turned this
Tuscan sentence with peculiar elegance. Mr Plornish could not
conceal his exultation in her accomplishments as a linguist.

'But what I say is, Mr Clennam,' the good woman went on, 'there's
always something to be thankful for, as I am sure you will yourself
admit. Speaking in this room, it's not hard to think what the
present something is. It's a thing to be thankful for, indeed,
that Miss Dorrit is not here to know it.'

Arthur thought she looked at him with particular expression.

'It's a thing,' reiterated Mrs Plornish, 'to be thankful for,
indeed, that Miss Dorrit is far away. It's to be hoped she is not
likely to hear of it. If she had been here to see it, sir, it's
not to be doubted that the sight of you,' Mrs Plornish repeated
those words--'not to be doubted, that the sight of you--in
misfortune and trouble, would have been almost too much for her
affectionate heart. There's nothing I can think of, that would
have touched Miss Dorrit so bad as that.'

Of a certainty Mrs Plornish did look at him now, with a sort of
quivering defiance in her friendly emotion.

'Yes!' said she. 'And it shows what notice father takes, though at
his time of life, that he says to me this afternoon, which Happy
Cottage knows I neither make it up nor any ways enlarge, "Mary,
it's much to be rejoiced in that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to
behold it." Those were father's words. Father's own words was,
"Much to be rejoiced in, Mary, that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot
to behold it." I says to father then, I says to him, "Father, you
are right!" That,' Mrs Plornish concluded, with the air of a very
precise legal witness, 'is what passed betwixt father and me. And
I tell you nothing but what did pass betwixt me and father.'

Mr Plornish, as being of a more laconic temperament, embraced this
opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now
leave Mr Clennam to himself. 'For, you see,' said Mr Plornish,
gravely, 'I know what it is, old gal;' repeating that valuable
remark several times, as if it appeared to him to include some
great moral secret. Finally, the worthy couple went away arm in
arm.

Little Dorrit, Little Dorrit. Again, for hours. Always Little
Dorrit!

Happily, if it ever had been so, it was over, and better over.
Granted that she had loved him, and he had known it and had
suffered himself to love her, what a road to have led her away
upon--the road that would have brought her back to this miserable
place! He ought to be much comforted by the reflection that she
was quit of it forever; that she was, or would soon be, married
(vague rumours of her father's projects in that direction had
reached Bleeding Heart Yard, with the news of her sister's
marriage); and that the Marshalsea gate had shut for ever on all
those perplexed possibilities of a time that was gone.

Dear Little Dorrit.

Looking back upon his own poor story, she was its vanishing-point.
Every thing in its perspective led to her innocent figure. He had
travelled thousands of miles towards it; previous unquiet hopes and
doubts had worked themselves out before it; it was the centre of
the interest of his life; it was the termination of everything that
was good and pleasant in it; beyond, there was nothing but mere
waste and darkened sky.

As ill at ease as on the first night of his lying down to sleep
within those dreary walls, he wore the night out with such
thoughts. What time Young John lay wrapt in peaceful slumber,
after composing and arranging the following monumental inscription
on his pillow--

STRANGER!
RESPECT THE TOMB OF
JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR,
WHO DIED AT AN ADVANCED AGE
NOT NECESSARY TO MENTION.
HE ENCOUNTERED HIS RIVAL IN A DISTRESSED STATE,
AND FELT INCLINED
TO HAVE A ROUND WITH HIM;
BUT, FOR THE SAKE OF THE LOVED ONE, CONQUERED THOSE FEELINGS
OF BITTERNESS, AND BECAME
MAGNANIMOUS.

CHAPTER 28

An Appearance in the Marshalsea

The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on
Clennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the community
within. Too depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who
got together to forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to
join in the poor socialities of the tavern; he kept his own room,
and was held in distrust. Some said he was proud; some objected
that he was sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for
that he was a poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts. The
whole population were shy of him on these various counts of
indictment, but especially the last, which involved a species of
domestic treason; and he soon became so confirmed in his seclusion,
that his only time for walking up and down was when the evening
Club were assembled at their songs and toasts and sentiments, and
when the yard was nearly left to the women and children.

Imprisonment began to tell upon him. He knew that he idled and
moped. After what he had known of the influences of imprisonment
within the four small walls of the very room he occupied, this
consciousness made him afraid of himself. Shrinking from the
observation of other men, and shrinking from his own, he began to
change very sensibly. Anybody might see that the shadow of the
wall was dark upon him.

One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in jail,
and when he had been trying to read and had not been able to
release even the imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea,
a footstep stopped at his door, and a hand tapped at it. He arose
and opened it, and an agreeable voice accosted him with 'How do you
do, Mr Clennam? I hope I am not unwelcome in calling to see you.'

It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand. He looked very
good-natured and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free,
in contrast with the squalid prison.

'You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam,' he said, taking the seat
which Clennam offered him.

'I must confess to being much surprised.'

'Not disagreeably, I hope?'

'By no means.'

'Thank you. Frankly,' said the engaging young Barnacle, 'I have
been excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of
a temporary retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two
private gentlemen) that our place has had nothing to do with it?'

'Your office?'

'Our Circumlocution place.'

'I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable
establishment.'

Upon my life,' said the vivacious young Barnacle, 'I am heartily
glad to know it. It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it.
I should have so exceedingly regretted our place having had
anything to do with your difficulties.'

Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the
responsibility.

'That's right,' said Ferdinand. 'I am very happy to hear it. I
was rather afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor
you, because there is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that
kind of thing now and then. We don't want to do it; but if men
will be gravelled, why--we can't help it.'

'Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say,' returned
Arthur, gloomily, 'I am much obliged to you for your interest in
me.'

'No, but really! Our place is,' said the easy young Barnacle, 'the
most inoffensive place possible. You'll say we are a humbug. I
won't say we are not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be,
and must be. Don't you see?'

'I do not,' said Clennam.

'You don't regard it from the right point of view. It is the point
of view that is the essential thing. Regard our place from the
point of view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as
capital a Department as you'll find anywhere.'

'Is your place there to be left alone?' asked Clennam.

'You exactly hit it,' returned Ferdinand. 'It is there with the
express intention that everything shall be left alone. That is
what it means. That is what it's for. No doubt there's a certain
form to be kept up that it's for something else, but it's only a
form. Why, good Heaven, we are nothing but forms! Think what a
lot of our forms you have gone through. And you have never got any
nearer to an end?'

'Never,' said Clennam.

'Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have us--
official and effectual. It's like a limited game of cricket. A
field of outsiders are always going in to bowl at the Public
Service, and we block the balls.'

Clennam asked what became of the bowlers? The airy young Barnacle
replied that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lamed, got their
backs broken, died off, gave it up, went in for other games.

'And this occasions me to congratulate myself again,' he pursued,
'on the circumstance that our place has had nothing to do with your
temporary retirement. It very easily might have had a hand in it;
because it is undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky
place, in our effects upon people who will not leave us alone. Mr
Clennam, I am quite unreserved with you. As between yourself and
myself, I know I may be. I was so, when I first saw you making the
mistake of not leaving us alone; because I perceived that you were
inexperienced and sanguine, and had--I hope you'll not object to my
saying--some simplicity.'

'Not at all.'

'Some simplicity. Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I went
out of my way to hint to you (which really was not official, but I
never am official when I can help it) something to the effect that
if I were you, I wouldn't bother myself. However, you did bother
yourself, and you have since bothered yourself. Now, don't do it
any more.'

'I am not likely to have the opportunity,' said Clennam.

'Oh yes, you are! You'll leave here. Everybody leaves here.
There are no ends of ways of leaving here. Now, don't come back to
us. That entreaty is the second object of my call. Pray, don't
come back to us. Upon my honour,' said Ferdinand in a very
friendly and confiding way, 'I shall be greatly vexed if you don't
take warning by the past and keep away from us.'

'And the invention?' said Clennam.

'My good fellow,' returned Ferdinand, 'if you'll excuse the freedom
of that form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and
nobody cares twopence-halfpenny about it.'

'Nobody in the Office, that is to say?'

'Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any
invention. You have no idea how many people want to be left alone.

You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the
Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don't be bored by it) tends
to being left alone. Believe me, Mr Clennam,' said the sprightly
young Barnacle in his pleasantest manner, 'our place is not a
wicked Giant to be charged at full tilt; but only a windmill
showing you, as it grinds immense quantities of chaff, which way
the country wind blows.'

'If I could believe that,' said Clennam, 'it would be a dismal
prospect for all of us.'

'Oh! Don't say so!' returned Ferdinand. 'It's all right. We must
have humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug.

A little humbug, and a groove, and everything goes on admirably, if
you leave it alone.'

With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the rising
Barnacles who were born of woman, to be followed under a variety of
watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved, Ferdinand
rose. Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and courteous
bearing, or adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the
circumstances of his visit.

'Is it fair to ask,' he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with a
real feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good-humour,
'whether it is true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of
this passing inconvenience?'

'I am one of the many he has ruined. Yes.'

'He must have been an exceedingly clever fellow,' said Ferdinand
Barnacle.

Arthur, not being in the mood to extol the memory of the deceased,
was silent.

'A consummate rascal, of course,' said Ferdinand, 'but remarkably
clever! One cannot help admiring the fellow. Must have been such
a master of humbug. Knew people so well--got over them so
completely--did so much with them!' In his easy way, he was really
moved to genuine admiration.

'I hope,' said Arthur, 'that he and his dupes may be a warning to
people not to have so much done with them again.'

'My dear Mr Clennam,' returned Ferdinand, laughing, 'have you
really such a verdant hope? The next man who has as large a
capacity and as genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as
well. Pardon me, but I think you really have no idea how the human
bees will swarm to the beating of any old tin kettle; in that fact
lies the complete manual of governing them. When they can be got
to believe that the kettle is made of the precious metals, in that
fact lies the whole power of men like our late lamented. No doubt
there are here and there,' said Ferdinand politely, 'exceptional
cases, where people have been taken in for what appeared to them to
be much better reasons; and I need not go far to find such a case;
but they don't invalidate the rule. Good day! I hope that when I
have the pleasure of seeing you, next, this passing cloud will have
given place to sunshine. Don't come a step beyond the door. I
know the way out perfectly. Good day!'

With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went
down-stairs, hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in
the front court-yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his
noble kinsman, who wanted a little coaching before he could
triumphantly answer certain infidel Snobs who were going to
question the Nobs about their statesmanship.

He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two
afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like
an elderly Phoebus.

'How do you do to-day, sir?' said Mr Rugg. 'Is there any little
thing I can do for you to-day, sir?'

'No, I thank you.'

Mr Rugg's enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a housekeeper's
enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a washerwoman's enjoyment
of a heavy wash, or a dustman's enjoyment of an overflowing dust-
bin, or any other professional enjoyment of a mess in the way of
business.

'I still look round, from time to time, sir,' said Mr Rugg,
cheerfully, 'to see whether any lingering Detainers are
accumulating at the gate. They have fallen in pretty thick, sir;
as thick as we could have expected.'

He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of
congratulation: rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a
little.

'As thick,' repeated Mr Rugg, 'as we could reasonably have
expected. Quite a shower-bath of 'em. I don't often intrude upon
you now, when I look round, because I know you are not inclined for
company, and that if you wished to see me, you would leave word in
the Lodge. But I am here pretty well every day, sir. Would this
be an unseasonable time, sir,' asked Mr Rugg, coaxingly, 'for me to
offer an observation?'

'As seasonable a time as any other.'

'Hum! Public opinion, sir,' said Mr Rugg, 'has been busy with
you.'

'I don't doubt it.'

'Might it not be advisable, sir,' said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly yet,
'now to make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to
public opinion? We all do it in one way or another. The fact is,
we must do it.'

'I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no business
to expect that I ever shall.'

'Don't say that, sir, don't say that. The cost of being moved to
the Bench is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is
strong that you ought to be there, why--really--'

'I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, 'that my
determination to remain here was a matter of taste.'

'Well, sir, well! But is it good taste, is it good taste? That's
the Question.' Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be quite
pathetic. 'I was almost going to say, is it good feeling? This is
an extensive affair of yours; and your remaining here where a man
can come for a pound or two, is remarked upon as not in keeping.
It is not in keeping. I can't tell you, sir, in how many quarters
I heard it mentioned. I heard comments made upon it last night in
a Parlour frequented by what I should call, if I did not look in
there now and then myself, the best legal company--I heard, there,
comments on it that I was sorry to hear. They hurt me on your
account. Again, only this morning at breakfast. My daughter (but
a woman, you'll say: yet still with a feeling for these things, and
even with some little personal experience, as the plaintiff in Rugg
and Bawkins) was expressing her great surprise; her great surprise.

Now under these circumstances, and considering that none of us can
quite set ourselves above public opinion, wouldn't a trifling
concession to that opinion be-- Come, sir,' said Rugg, 'I will put
it on the lowest ground of argument, and say, amiable?'

Arthur's thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit, and
the question remained unanswered.

'As to myself, sir,' said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had
reduced him to a state of indecision, 'it is a principle of mine
not to consider myself when a client's inclinations are in the
scale. But, knowing your considerate character and general wish to
oblige, I will repeat that I should prefer your being in the Bench.

Your case has made a noise; it is a creditable case to be
professionally concerned in; I should feel on a better standing
with my connection, if you went to the Bench. Don't let that
influence you, sir. I merely state the fact.'

So errant had the prisoner's attention already grown in solitude
and dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only
one silent figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had
to shake off a kind of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg,
recall the thread of his talk, and hurriedly say, 'I am unchanged,
and unchangeable, in my decision. Pray, let it be; let it be!' Mr
Rugg, without concealing that he was nettled and mortified,
replied:

'Oh! Beyond a doubt, sir. I have travelled out of the record,
sir, I am aware, in putting the point to you. But really, when I
herd it remarked in several companies, and in very good company,
that however worthy of a foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit
of an Englishman to remain in the Marshalsea when the glorious
liberties of his island home admit of his removal to the Bench, I
thought I would depart from the narrow professional line marked out
to me, and mention it. Personally,' said Mr Rugg, 'I have no
opinion on the topic.'

'That's well,' returned Arthur.

'Oh! None at all, sir!' said Mr Rugg. 'If I had, I should have
been

unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in
this place by a gentleman of a high family riding a saddle-horse.
But it was not my business. If I had, I might have wished to be
now empowered to mention to another gentleman, a gentleman of
military

exterior at present waiting in the Lodge, that my client had never
intended to remain here, and was on the eve of removal to a
superior abode. But my course as a professional machine is clear;
I have nothing to do with it. Is it your good pleasure to see the
gentleman, sir?'

'Who is waiting to see me, did you say?'

'I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I was
your professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very
limited function was performed. Happily,' said Mr Rugg, with
sarcasm, 'I did not so far travel out of the record as to ask the
gentleman for his name.'

'I suppose I have no resource but to see him,' sighed Clennam,
wearily.

'Then it IS your good pleasure, sir?' retorted Rugg. 'Am I
honoured by your instructions to mention as much to the gentleman,
as I pass out? I am? Thank you, sir. I take my leave.' His
leave he took accordingly, in dudgeon.

The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened
Clennam's curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a
half-forgetfulness of such a visitor's having been referred to, was
already creeping over it as a part of the sombre veil which almost
always dimmed it now, when a heavy footstep on the stairs aroused
him. It appeared to ascend them, not very promptly or
spontaneously, yet with a display of stride and clatter meant to be
insulting. As it paused for a moment on the landing outside his
door, he could not recall his association with the peculiarity of
its sound, though he thought he had one. Only a moment was given
him for consideration. His door was immediately swung open by a
thump, and in the doorway stood the missing Blandois, the cause of
many anxieties.

'Salve, fellow jail-bird !' said he. 'You want me, it seems. Here
I am!'

Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder,
Cavalletto followed him into the room. Mr Pancks followed
Cavalletto. Neither of the two had been there since its present
occupant had had possession of it. Mr Pancks, breathing hard,
sidled near the window, put his hat on the ground, stirred his hair
up with both hands, and folded his arms, like a man who had come to
a pause in a hard day's work. Mr Baptist, never taking his eyes
from his dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on the floor with his
back against the door and one of his ankles in each hand: resuming
the attitude (except that it was now expressive of unwinking
watchfulness) in which he had sat before the same man in the deeper
shade of another prison, one hot morning at Marseilles.
'I have it on the witnessing of these two madmen,' said Monsieur
Blandois, otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, 'that you want me,
brother-bird. Here I am!'
Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was turned up
by day, he leaned his back against it as a resting-place, without
removing his hat from his head, and stood defiantly lounging with
his hands in his pockets.