Little Dorrit
the yard below looked up, his recognition of their salutes just stopped
short of a blessing.
When Little Dorrit had her work on the table, and Maggy hers on the
bedstead, Fanny fell to tying her bonnet as a preliminary to her
departure. Arthur, still having his purpose, still remained. At this
time the door opened, without any notice, and Mr Tip came in. He kissed
Amy as she started up to meet him, nodded to Fanny, nodded to his
father, gloomed on the visitor without further recognition, and sat
down.
‘Tip, dear,’ said Little Dorrit, mildly, shocked by this, ‘don’t you
see--’
‘Yes, I see, Amy. If you refer to the presence of any visitor you have
here--I say, if you refer to that,’ answered Tip, jerking his head with
emphasis towards his shoulder nearest Clennam, ‘I see!’
‘Is that all you say?’
‘That’s all I say. And I suppose,’ added the lofty young man, after a
moment’s pause, ‘that visitor will understand me, when I say that’s all
I say. In short, I suppose the visitor will understand that he hasn’t
used me like a gentleman.’
‘I do not understand that,’ observed the obnoxious personage referred to
with tranquillity.
‘No? Why, then, to make it clearer to you, sir, I beg to let you know
that when I address what I call a properly-worded appeal, and an urgent
appeal, and a delicate appeal, to an individual, for a small temporary
accommodation, easily within his power--easily within his power,
mind!--and when that individual writes back word to me that he begs to
be excused, I consider that he doesn’t treat me like a gentleman.’
The Father of the Marshalsea, who had surveyed his son in silence, no
sooner heard this sentiment, than he began in angry voice:--
‘How dare you--’ But his son stopped him.
‘Now, don’t ask me how I dare, father, because that’s bosh. As to the
fact of the line of conduct I choose to adopt towards the individual
present, you ought to be proud of my showing a proper spirit.’
‘I should think so!’ cried Fanny.
‘A proper spirit?’ said the Father. ‘Yes, a proper spirit; a becoming
spirit. Is it come to this that my son teaches me--_me_--spirit!’
‘Now, don’t let us bother about it, father, or have any row on the
subject. I have fully made up my mind that the individual present has
not treated me like a gentleman. And there’s an end of it.’
‘But there is not an end of it, sir,’ returned the Father. ‘But there
shall not be an end of it. You have made up your mind? You have made up
your mind?’
‘Yes, _I_ have. What’s the good of keeping on like that?’
‘Because,’ returned the Father, in a great heat, ‘you had no right to
make up your mind to what is monstrous, to what is--ha--immoral, to what
is--hum--parricidal. No, Mr Clennam, I beg, sir. Don’t ask me to desist;
there is a--hum--a general principle involved here, which rises even
above considerations of--ha--hospitality. I object to the assertion made
by my son. I--ha--I personally repel it.’
‘Why, what is it to you, father?’ returned the son, over his shoulder.
‘What is it to me, sir? I have a--hum--a spirit, sir, that will not
endure it. I,’ he took out his pocket-handkerchief again and dabbed his
face. ‘I am outraged and insulted by it. Let me suppose the case that I
myself may at a certain time--ha--or times, have made a--hum--an appeal,
and a properly-worded appeal, and a delicate appeal, and an urgent
appeal to some individual for a small temporary accommodation. Let me
suppose that that accommodation could have been easily extended, and was
not extended, and that that individual informed me that he begged to
be excused. Am I to be told by my own son, that I therefore received
treatment not due to a gentleman, and that I--ha--I submitted to it?’
His daughter Amy gently tried to calm him, but he would not on any
account be calmed. He said his spirit was up, and wouldn’t endure this.
Was he to be told that, he wished to know again, by his own son on his
own hearth, to his own face? Was that humiliation to be put upon him by
his own blood?
‘You are putting it on yourself, father, and getting into all this
injury of your own accord!’ said the young gentleman morosely. ‘What I
have made up my mind about has nothing to do with you. What I said had
nothing to do with you. Why need you go trying on other people’s hats?’
‘I reply it has everything to do with me,’ returned the Father. ‘I point
out to you, sir, with indignation, that--hum--the--ha--delicacy and
peculiarity of your father’s position should strike you dumb, sir, if
nothing else should, in laying down such--ha--such unnatural principles.
Besides; if you are not filial, sir, if you discard that duty, you
are at least--hum--not a Christian? Are you--ha--an Atheist? And is it
Christian, let me ask you, to stigmatise and denounce an individual
for begging to be excused this time, when the same individual
may--ha--respond with the required accommodation next time? Is it the
part of a Christian not to--hum--not to try him again?’ He had worked
himself into quite a religious glow and fervour.
‘I see precious well,’ said Mr Tip, rising, ‘that I shall get no
sensible or fair argument here to-night, and so the best thing I can do
is to cut. Good night, Amy. Don’t be vexed. I am very sorry it happens
here, and you here, upon my soul I am; but I can’t altogether part with
my spirit, even for your sake, old girl.’
With those words he put on his hat and went out, accompanied by Miss
Fanny; who did not consider it spirited on her part to take leave of
Clennam with any less opposing demonstration than a stare, importing
that she had always known him for one of the large body of conspirators.
When they were gone, the Father of the Marshalsea was at first inclined
to sink into despondency again, and would have done so, but that a
gentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to
the Snuggery. It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his
own accidental detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about
the misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten.
He presented himself as deputation to escort the Father to the Chair, it
being an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled
Collegians in the enjoyment of a little Harmony.
‘Such, you see, Mr Clennam,’ said the Father, ‘are the incongruities
of my position here. But a public duty! No man, I am sure, would more
readily recognise a public duty than yourself.’
Clennam besought him not to delay a moment.
‘Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr Clennam to stay longer, I can
leave the honours of our poor apology for an establishment with
confidence in your hands, and perhaps you may do something towards
erasing from Mr Clennam’s mind the--ha--untoward and unpleasant
circumstance which has occurred since tea-time.’
Clennam assured him that it had made no impression on his mind, and
therefore required no erasure.
‘My dear sir,’ said the Father, with a removal of his black cap and a
grasp of Clennam’s hand, combining to express the safe receipt of his
note and enclosure that afternoon, ‘Heaven ever bless you!’
So, at last, Clennam’s purpose in remaining was attained, and he could
speak to Little Dorrit with nobody by. Maggy counted as nobody, and she
was by.
CHAPTER 32. More Fortune-Telling
Maggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opaque
frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her
serviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side
of the room. What with her flapping cap, and what with her unserviceable
eye, she was quite partitioned off from her Little Mother, whose seat
was opposite the window. The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement
of the yard had much diminished since the taking of the Chair, the tide
of Collegians having set strongly in the direction of Harmony. Some few
who had no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled
about; and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife and the depressed
unseasoned prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs and
such unsightly discomforts draggle in corners of other places. It was
the quietest time the College knew, saving the night hours when the
Collegians took the benefit of the act of sleep. The occasional rattle
of applause upon the tables of the Snuggery, denoted the successful
termination of a morsel of Harmony; or the responsive acceptance, by
the united children, of some toast or sentiment offered to them by their
Father. Occasionally, a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality
informed the listener that some boastful bass was in blue water, or in
the hunting field, or with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among
the heather; but the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got
him hard and fast.
As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she
trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam gently
put his hand upon her work, and said, ‘Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it
down.’
She yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then
nervously clasping together, but he took one of them.
‘How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit!’
‘I have been busy, sir.’
‘But I heard only to-day,’ said Clennam, ‘by mere accident, of your
having been with those good people close by me. Why not come to me,
then?’
‘I--I don’t know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You
generally are now, are you not?’
He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes
that drooped the moment they were raised to his--he saw them almost with
as much concern as tenderness.
‘My child, your manner is so changed!’
The trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing her
hand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head
bent and her whole form trembling.
‘My own Little Dorrit,’ said Clennam, compassionately.
She burst into tears. Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared for at
least a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some little while
before he spoke again.
‘I cannot bear,’ he said then, ‘to see you weep; but I hope this is a
relief to an overcharged heart.’
‘Yes it is, sir. Nothing but that.’
‘Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here just
now. It is of no moment; not the least. I am only unfortunate to have
come in the way. Let it go by with these tears. It is not worth one of
them. One of them? Such an idle thing should be repeated, with my glad
consent, fifty times a day, to save you a moment’s heart-ache, Little
Dorrit.’
She had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual manner,
‘You are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it to be sorry
for and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you--’
‘Hush!’ said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand.
‘Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be new
indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, anything
but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You remember it, don’t
you?’
‘I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my
mistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in this
place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!’ In raising
her eyes with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she
had done yet, and said, with a quick change of tone, ‘You have not been
ill, Mr Clennam?’
‘No.’
‘Nor tried? Nor hurt?’ she asked him, anxiously.
It fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He said
in reply:
‘To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over.
Do I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-command