Little Dorrit
them. It is your affair. They are not my spies, not my rascals.’
‘Hark! You Pancks,’ said Mrs Clennam, bending her brows upon him
angrily, ‘you Casby’s clerk! Attend to your employer’s business and your
own. Go. And take that other man with you.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ returned Mr Pancks, ‘I am glad to say I see no
objection to our both retiring. We have done all we undertook to do for
Mr Clennam. His constant anxiety has been (and it grew worse upon him
when he became a prisoner), that this agreeable gentleman should be
brought back here to the place from which he slipped away. Here he
is--brought back. And I will say,’ added Mr Pancks, ‘to his ill-looking
face, that in my opinion the world would be no worse for his slipping
out of it altogether.’
‘Your opinion is not asked,’ answered Mrs Clennam. ‘Go.’
‘I am sorry not to leave you in better company, ma’am,’ said Pancks;
‘and sorry, too, that Mr Clennam can’t be present. It’s my fault, that
is.’
‘You mean his own,’ she returned.
‘No, I mean mine, ma’am,’ said Pancks, ‘for it was my misfortune to lead
him into a ruinous investment.’ (Mr Pancks still clung to that word,
and never said speculation.) ‘Though I can prove by figures,’ added Mr
Pancks, with an anxious countenance, ‘that it ought to have been a good
investment. I have gone over it since it failed, every day of my life,
and it comes out--regarded as a question of figures--triumphant. The
present is not a time or place,’ Mr Pancks pursued, with a longing
glance into his hat, where he kept his calculations, ‘for entering upon
the figures; but the figures are not to be disputed. Mr Clennam ought to
have been at this moment in his carriage and pair, and I ought to have
been worth from three to five thousand pound.’
Mr Pancks put his hair erect with a general aspect of confidence that
could hardly have been surpassed, if he had had the amount in his
pocket. These incontrovertible figures had been the occupation of every
moment of his leisure since he had lost his money, and were destined to
afford him consolation to the end of his days.
‘However,’ said Mr Pancks, ‘enough of that. Altro, old boy, you have
seen the figures, and you know how they come out.’ Mr Baptist, who had
not the slightest arithmetical power of compensating himself in this
way, nodded, with a fine display of bright teeth.
At whom Mr Flintwinch had been looking, and to whom he then said:
‘Oh! it’s you, is it? I thought I remembered your face, but I wasn’t
certain till I saw your teeth. Ah! yes, to be sure. It was this
officious refugee,’ said Jeremiah to Mrs Clennam, ‘who came knocking
at the door on the night when Arthur and Chatterbox were here, and who
asked me a whole Catechism of questions about Mr Blandois.’
‘It is true,’ Mr Baptist cheerfully admitted. ‘And behold him, padrone!
I have found him consequentementally.’
‘I shouldn’t have objected,’ returned Mr Flintwinch, ‘to your having
broken your neck consequentementally.’
‘And now,’ said Mr Pancks, whose eye had often stealthily wandered to
the window-seat and the stocking that was being mended there, ‘I’ve
only one other word to say before I go. If Mr Clennam was here--but
unfortunately, though he has so far got the better of this fine
gentleman as to return him to this place against his will, he is ill
and in prison--ill and in prison, poor fellow--if he was here,’ said Mr
Pancks, taking one step aside towards the window-seat, and laying
his right hand upon the stocking; ‘he would say, “Affery, tell your
dreams!”’
Mr Pancks held up his right forefinger between his nose and the stocking
with a ghostly air of warning, turned, steamed out and towed Mr Baptist
after him. The house-door was heard to close upon them, their steps
were heard passing over the dull pavement of the echoing court-yard, and
still nobody had added a word. Mrs Clennam and Jeremiah had exchanged a
look; and had then looked, and looked still, at Affery, who sat mending
the stocking with great assiduity.
‘Come!’ said Mr Flintwinch at length, screwing himself a curve or two in
the direction of the window-seat, and rubbing the palms of his hands on
his coat-tail as if he were preparing them to do something: ‘Whatever
has to be said among us had better be begun to be said without more loss
of time.--So, Affery, my woman, take yourself away!’
In a moment Affery had thrown the stocking down, started up, caught
hold of the windowsill with her right hand, lodged herself upon the
window-seat with her right knee, and was flourishing her left hand,
beating expected assailants off.
‘No, I won’t, Jeremiah--no, I won’t--no, I won’t! I won’t go! I’ll stay
here. I’ll hear all I don’t know, and say all I know. I will, at last,
if I die for it. I will, I will, I will, I will!’
Mr Flintwinch, stiffening with indignation and amazement, moistened the
fingers of one hand at his lips, softly described a circle with them in
the palm of the other hand, and continued with a menacing grin to
screw himself in the direction of his wife; gasping some remark as he
advanced, of which, in his choking anger, only the words, ‘Such a dose!’
were audible.
‘Not a bit nearer, Jeremiah!’ cried Affery, never ceasing to beat the
air. ‘Don’t come a bit nearer to me, or I’ll rouse the neighbourhood!
I’ll throw myself out of window. I’ll scream Fire and Murder! I’ll wake
the dead! Stop where you are, or I’ll make shrieks enough to wake the
dead!’
The determined voice of Mrs Clennam echoed ‘Stop!’ Jeremiah had stopped
already.
‘It is closing in, Flintwinch. Let her alone. Affery, do you turn
against me after these many years?’
‘I do, if it’s turning against you to hear what I don’t know, and say
what I know. I have broke out now, and I can’t go back. I am determined
to do it. I will do it, I will, I will, I will! If that’s turning
against you, yes, I turn against both of you two clever ones. I told
Arthur when he first come home to stand up against you. I told him it
was no reason, because I was afeard of my life of you, that he should
be. All manner of things have been a-going on since then, and I won’t
be run up by Jeremiah, nor yet I won’t be dazed and scared, nor made a
party to I don’t know what, no more. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! I’ll
up for Arthur when he has nothing left, and is ill, and in prison, and
can’t up for himself. I will, I will, I will, I will!’
‘How do you know, you heap of confusion,’ asked Mrs Clennam sternly,
‘that in doing what you are doing now, you are even serving Arthur?’
‘I don’t know nothing rightly about anything,’ said Affery; ‘and if
ever you said a true word in your life, it’s when you call me a heap of
confusion, for you two clever ones have done your most to make me such.
You married me whether I liked it or not, and you’ve led me, pretty well
ever since, such a life of dreaming and frightening as never was known,
and what do you expect me to be but a heap of confusion? You wanted to
make me such, and I am such; but I won’t submit no longer; no, I won’t,
I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!’ She was still beating the air against all
comers.
After gazing at her in silence, Mrs Clennam turned to Rigaud. ‘You
see and hear this foolish creature. Do you object to such a piece of
distraction remaining where she is?’
‘I, madame,’ he replied, ‘do I? That’s a question for you.’
‘I do not,’ she said, gloomily. ‘There is little left to choose now.
Flintwinch, it is closing in.’
Mr Flintwinch replied by directing a look of red vengeance at his wife,
and then, as if to pinion himself from falling upon her, screwed his
crossed arms into the breast of his waistcoat, and with his chin very
near one of his elbows stood in a corner, watching Rigaud in the oddest
attitude. Rigaud, for his part, arose from his chair, and seated himself
on the table with his legs dangling. In this easy attitude, he met Mrs
Clennam’s set face, with his moustache going up and his nose coming
down.
‘Madame, I am a gentleman--’
‘Of whom,’ she interrupted in her steady tones, ‘I have heard
disparagement, in connection with a French jail and an accusation of
murder.’
He kissed his hand to her with his exaggerated gallantry.
‘Perfectly. Exactly. Of a lady too! What absurdity! How incredible! I
had the honour of making a great success then; I hope to have the
honour of making a great success now. I kiss your hands. Madame, I am a
gentleman (I was going to observe), who when he says, “I will definitely
finish this or that affair at the present sitting,” does definitely
finish it. I announce to you that we are arrived at our last sitting on
our little business. You do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?’
She kept her eyes fixed upon him with a frown. ‘Yes.’
‘Further, I am a gentleman to whom mere mercenary trade-bargains are
unknown, but to whom money is always acceptable as the means of pursuing
his pleasures. You do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?’
‘Scarcely necessary to ask, one would say. Yes.’
‘Further, I am a gentleman of the softest and sweetest disposition,
but who, if trifled with, becomes enraged. Noble natures under such
circumstances become enraged. I possess a noble nature. When the lion
is awakened--that is to say, when I enrage--the satisfaction of my
animosity is as acceptable to me as money. You always do me the favour
to follow, and to comprehend?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, somewhat louder than before.
‘Do not let me derange you; pray be tranquil. I have said we are now
arrived at our last sitting. Allow me to recall the two sittings we have
held.’
‘It is not necessary.’
‘Death, madame,’ he burst out, ‘it’s my fancy! Besides, it clears the
way. The first sitting was limited. I had the honour of making your
acquaintance--of presenting my letter; I am a Knight of Industry, at
your service, madame, but my polished manners had won me so much of
success, as a master of languages, among your compatriots who are as
stiff as their own starch is to one another, but are ready to relax to
a foreign gentleman of polished manners--and of observing one or two
little things,’ he glanced around the room and smiled, ‘about this
honourable house, to know which was necessary to assure me, and
to convince me that I had the distinguished pleasure of making the
acquaintance of the lady I sought. I achieved this. I gave my word
of honour to our dear Flintwinch that I would return. I gracefully
departed.’
Her face neither acquiesced nor demurred. The same when he paused, and
when he spoke, it as yet showed him always the one attentive frown,
and the dark revelation before mentioned of her being nerved for the
occasion.
‘I say, gracefully departed, because it was graceful to retire without
alarming a lady. To be morally graceful, not less than physically, is
a part of the character of Rigaud Blandois. It was also politic, as
leaving you with something overhanging you, to expect me again with a
little anxiety on a day not named. But your slave is politic. By Heaven,
madame, politic! Let us return. On the day not named, I have again the
honour to render myself at your house. I intimate that I have something
to sell, which, if not bought, will compromise madame whom I highly
esteem. I explain myself generally. I demand--I think it was a thousand
pounds. Will you correct me?’
Thus forced to speak, she replied with constraint, ‘You demanded as much
as a thousand pounds.’
‘I demand at present, Two. Such are the evils of delay. But to return
once more. We are not accordant; we differ on that occasion. I am
playful; playfulness is a part of my amiable character. Playfully, I
become as one slain and hidden. For, it may alone be worth half the sum
to madame, to be freed from the suspicions that my droll idea awakens.