BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES - CHAPTER 27 The Pupil of the Marshalsea

The day was sunny, and the Marshalsea, with the hot noon striking

upon it, was unwontedly quiet. Arthur Clennam dropped into a

solitary arm-chair, itself as faded as any debtor in the jail, and

yielded himself to his thoughts.

In the unnatural peace of having gone through the dreaded arrest,

and got there,--the first change of feeling which the prison most

commonly induced, and from which dangerous resting-place so many

men had slipped down to the depths of degradation and disgrace by

so many ways,--he could think of some passages in his life, almost

as if he were removed from them into another state of existence.

Taking into account where he was, the interest that had first

brought him there when he had been free to keep away, and the

gentle presence that was equally inseparable from the walls and

bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his later

life which no walls or bars could imprison, it was not remarkable

that everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again

to Little Dorrit. Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the

fact itself, but because of the reminder it brought with it, how

much the dear little creature had influenced his better

resolutions.

None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this

wise, until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings

the right perception with it. It comes with sickness, it comes

with sorrow, it comes with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one

of the most frequent uses of adversity. It came to Clennam in his

adversity, strongly and tenderly. 'When I first gathered myself

together,' he thought, 'and set something like purpose before my

jaded eyes, whom had I before me, toiling on, for a good object's

sake, without encouragement, without notice, against ignoble

obstacles that would have turned an army of received heroes and

heroines? One weak girl! When I tried to conquer my misplaced

love, and to be generous to the man who was more fortunate than I,

though he should never know it or repay me with a gracious word, in

whom had I watched patience, self-denial, self-subdual, charitable

construction, the noblest generosity of the affections? In the

same poor girl! If I, a man, with a man's advantages and means and

energies, had slighted the whisper in my heart, that if my father

had erred, it was my first duty to conceal the fault and to repair

it, what youthful figure with tender feet going almost bare on the

damp ground, with spare hands ever working, with its slight shape

but half protected from the sharp weather, would have stood before

me to put me to shame? Little Dorrit's.' So always as he sat

alone in the faded chair, thinking. Always, Little Dorrit. Until

it seemed to him as if he met the reward of having wandered away

from her, and suffered anything to pass between him and his

remembrance of her virtues.

His door was opened, and the head of the elder Chivery was put in

a very little way, without being turned towards him.

'I am off the Lock, Mr Clennam, and going out. Can I do anything

for you?'

'Many thanks. Nothing.'

'You'll excuse me opening the door,' said Mr Chivery; 'but I

couldn't make you hear.'

'Did you knock?'

'Half-a-dozen times.'

Rousing himself, Clennam observed that the prison had awakened from

its noontide doze, that the inmates were loitering about the shady

yard, and that it was late in the afternoon. He had been thinking

for hours.

'Your things is come,' said Mr Chivery, 'and my son is going to

carry 'em up. I should have sent 'em up but for his wishing to

carry 'em himself. Indeed he would have 'em himself, and so I

couldn't send 'em up. Mr Clennam, could I say a word to you?'

'Pray come in,' said Arthur; for Mr Chivery's head was still put in

at the door a very little way, and Mr Chivery had but one ear upon

him, instead of both eyes. This was native delicacy in Mr Chivery

--true politeness; though his exterior had very much of a turnkey

about it, and not the least of a gentleman.

'Thank you, sir,' said Mr Chivery, without advancing; 'it's no odds

me coming in. Mr Clennam, don't you take no notice of my son (if

you'll be so good) in case you find him cut up anyways difficult.

My son has a 'art, and my son's 'art is in the right place. Me and

his mother knows where to find it, and we find it sitiwated

correct.'

With this mysterious speech, Mr Chivery took his ear away and shut

the door. He might have been gone ten minutes, when his son

succeeded him.

'Here's your portmanteau,' he said to Arthur, putting it carefully

down.

'It's very kind of you. I am ashamed that you should have the

trouble.'

He was gone before it came to that; but soon returned, saying

exactly as before, 'Here's your black box:' which he also put down

with care.

'I am very sensible of this attention. I hope we may shake hands

now, Mr John.'

Young John, however, drew back, turning his right wrist in a socket

made of his left thumb and middle-finger and said as he had said at

first, 'I don't know as I can. No; I find I can't!' He then stood

regarding the prisoner sternly, though with a swelling humour in

his eyes that looked like pity.

'Why are you angry with me,' said Clennam, 'and yet so ready to do

me these kind services? There must be some mistake between us. If

I have done anything to occasion it I am sorry.'

'No mistake, sir,' returned John, turning the wrist backwards and

forwards in the socket, for which it was rather tight. 'No

mistake, sir, in the feelings with which my eyes behold you at the

present moment! If I was at all fairly equal to your weight, Mr

Clennam--which I am not; and if you weren't under a cloud--which

you are; and if it wasn't against all rules of the Marshalsea--

which it is; those feelings are such, that they would stimulate me,

more to having it out with you in a Round on the present spot than

to anything else I could name.'

Arthur looked at him for a moment in some wonder, and some little

anger. 'Well, well!' he said. 'A mistake, a mistake!' Turning

away, he sat down with a heavy sigh in the faded chair again.

Young John followed him with his eyes, and, after a short pause,

cried out, 'I beg your pardon!'

'Freely granted,' said Clennam, waving his hand without raising his

sunken head. 'Say no more. I am not worth it.'

'This furniture, sir,' said Young John in a voice of mild and soft

explanation, 'belongs to me. I am in the habit of letting it out

to parties without furniture, that have the room. It an't much,

but it's at your service. Free, I mean. I could not think of

letting you have it on any other terms. You're welcome to it for

nothing.'

Arthur raised his head again to thank him, and to say he could not

accept the favour. John was still turning his wrist, and still

contending with himself in his former divided manner.

'What is the matter between us?' said Arthur.

'I decline to name it, sir,' returned Young John, suddenly turning

loud and sharp. 'Nothing's the matter.'

Arthur looked at him again, in vain, for an explanation of his

behaviour. After a while, Arthur turned away his head again.

Young John said, presently afterwards, with the utmost mildness:

'The little round table, sir, that's nigh your elbow, was--you know

whose--I needn't mention him--he died a great gentleman. I bought

it of an individual that he gave it to, and that lived here after

him. But the individual wasn't any ways equal to him. Most

individuals would find it hard to come up to his level.'

Arthur drew the little table nearer, rested his arm upon it, and

kept it there.

'Perhaps you may not be aware, sir,' said Young John, 'that I

intruded upon him when he was over here in London. On the whole he

was of opinion that it WAS an intrusion, though he was so good as

to ask me to sit down and to inquire after father and all other old

friends. Leastways humblest acquaintances. He looked, to me, a

good deal changed, and I said so when I came back. I asked him if

Miss Amy was well--'

'And she was?'

'I should have thought you would have known without putting the

question to such as me,' returned Young John, after appearing to

take a large invisible pill. 'Since you do put me the question, I

am sorry I can't answer it. But the truth is, he looked upon the

inquiry as a liberty, and said, "What was that to me?" It was then

I became quite aware I was intruding: of which I had been fearful

before. However, he spoke very handsome afterwards; very

handsome.'

They were both silent for several minutes: except that Young John

remarked, at about the middle of the pause, 'He both spoke and

acted very handsome.'

It was again Young John who broke the silence by inquiring:

'If it's not a liberty, how long may it be your intentions, sir, to

go without eating and drinking?'

'I have not felt the want of anything yet,' returned Clennam. 'I

have no appetite just now.'

'The more reason why you should take some support, sir,' urged

Young John. 'If you find yourself going on sitting here for hours

and hours partaking of no refreshment because you have no appetite,

why then you should and must partake of refreshment without an

appetite. I'm going to have tea in my own apartment. If it's not

a liberty, please to come and take a cup. Or I can bring a tray

here in two minutes.'

Feeling that Young John would impose that trouble on himself if he

refused, and also feeling anxious to show that he bore in mind both

the elder Mr Chivery's entreaty, and the younger Mr Chivery's

apology, Arthur rose and expressed his willingness to take a cup of

tea in Mr john's apartment. Young John locked his door for him as

they went out, slided the key into his pocket with great dexterity,

and led the way to his own residence.

It was at the top of the house nearest to the gateway. It was the

room to which Clennam had hurried on the day when the enriched

family had left the prison for ever, and where he had lifted her

insensible from the floor. He foresaw where they were going as

soon as their feet touched the staircase. The room was so far

changed that it was papered now, and had been repainted, and was

far more comfortably furnished; but he could recall it just as he

had seen it in that single glance, when he raised her from the

ground and carried her down to the carriage.

Young John looked hard at him, biting his fingers.

'I see you recollect the room, Mr Clennam?'

'I recollect it well, Heaven bless her!'

Oblivious of the tea, Young John continued to bite his fingers and

to look at his visitor, as long as his visitor continued to glance

about the room. Finally, he made a start at the teapot, gustily

rattled a quantity of tea into it from a canister, and set off for

the common kitchen to fill it with hot water.

The room was so eloquent to Clennam in the changed circumstances of

his return to the miserable Marshalsea; it spoke to him so

mournfully of her, and of his loss of her; that it would have gone

hard with him to resist it, even though he had not been alone.

Alone, he did not try. He had his hand on the insensible wall as

tenderly as if it had been herself that he touched, and pronounced

her name in a low voice. He stood at the window, looking over the

prison-parapet with its grim spiked border, and breathed a

benediction through the summer haze towards the distant land where

she was rich and prosperous.

Young John was some time absent, and, when he came back, showed

that he had been outside by bringing with him fresh butter in a

cabbage leaf, some thin slices of boiled ham in another cabbage

leaf, and a little basket of water-cresses and salad herbs. When

these were arranged upon the table to his satisfaction, they sat

down to tea.

Clennam tried to do honour to the meal, but unavailingly. The ham

sickened him, the bread seemed to turn to sand in his mouth. He

could force nothing upon himself but a cup of tea.

'Try a little something green,' said Young John, handing him the

basket.

He took a sprig or so of water-cress, and tried again; but the

bread turned to a heavier sand than before, and the ham (though it

was good enough of itself) seemed to blow a faint simoom of ham

through the whole Marshalsea.

'Try a little more something green, sir,' said Young John; and

again handed the basket.

It was so like handing green meat into the cage of a dull

imprisoned bird, and John had so evidently brought the little

basket as a handful of fresh relief from the stale hot paving-

stones and bricks of the jail, that Clennam said, with a smile, 'It

was very kind of you to think of putting this between the wires;

but I cannot even get this down to-day.'

As if the difficulty were contagious, Young John soon pushed away

his own plate, and fell to folding the cabbage-leaf that had

contained the ham. When he had folded it into a number of layers,

one over another, so that it was small in the palm of his hand, he

began to flatten it between both his hands, and to eye Clennam

attentively.

'I wonder,' he at length said, compressing his green packet with

some force, 'that if it's not worth your while to take care of

yourself for your own sake, it's not worth doing for some one

else's.'

'Truly,' returned Arthur, with a sigh and a smile, 'I don't know

for whose.'

'Mr Clennam,' said John, warmly, 'I am surprised that a gentleman

who is capable of the straightforwardness that you are capable of,

should be capable of the mean action of making me such an answer.

Mr Clennam, I am surprised that a gentleman who is capable of

having a heart of his own, should be capable of the heartlessness

of treating mine in that way. I am astonished at it, sir. Really

and truly I am astonished!'

Having got upon his feet to emphasise his concluding words, Young

John sat down again, and fell to rolling his green packet on his

right leg; never taking his eyes off Clennam, but surveying him

with a fixed look of indignant reproach.

'I had got over it, sir,' said John. 'I had conquered it, knowing

that it must be conquered, and had come to the resolution to think

no more about it. I shouldn't have given my mind to it again, I

hope, if to this prison you had not been brought, and in an hour

unfortunate for me, this day!' (In his agitation Young John

adopted his mother's powerful construction of sentences.) 'When you

first came upon me, sir, in the Lodge, this day, more as if a Upas

tree had been made a capture of than a private defendant, such

mingled streams of feelings broke loose again within me, that

everything was for the first few minutes swept away before them,

and I was going round and round in a vortex. I got out of it. I

struggled, and got out of it. If it was the last word I had to

speak, against that vortex with my utmost powers I strove, and out

of it I came. I argued that if I had been rude, apologies was due,

and those apologies without a question of demeaning, I did make.

And now, when I've been so wishful to show that one thought is next

to being a holy one with me and goes before all others--now, after

all, you dodge me when I ever so gently hint at it, and throw me

back upon myself. For, do not, sir,' said Young John, 'do not be

so base as to deny that dodge you do, and thrown me back upon

myself you have!'

All amazement, Arthur gazed at him like one lost, only saying,

'What is it? What do you mean, John?' But, John, being in that

state of mind in which nothing would seem to be more impossible to

a certain class of people than the giving of an answer, went ahead

blindly.

'I hadn't,' John declared, 'no, I hadn't, and I never had the

audaciousness to think, I am sure, that all was anything but lost.

I hadn't, no, why should I say I hadn't if I ever had, any hope

that it was possible to be so blest, not after the words that

passed, not even if barriers insurmountable had not been raised!

But is that a reason why I am to have no memory, why I am to have

no thoughts, why I am to have no sacred spots, nor anything?'

'What can you mean?' cried Arthur.

'It's all very well to trample on it, sir,' John went on, scouring

a very prairie of wild words, 'if a person can make up his mind to

be guilty of the action. It's all very well to trample on it, but

it's there. It may be that it couldn't be trampled upon if it

wasn't there. But that doesn't make it gentlemanly, that doesn't

make it honourable, that doesn't justify throwing a person back

upon himself after he has struggled and strived out of himself like

a butterfly. The world may sneer at a turnkey, but he's a man--

when he isn't a woman, which among female criminals he's expected

to be.'

Ridiculous as the incoherence of his talk was, there was yet a

truthfulness in Young john's simple, sentimental character, and a

sense of being wounded in some very tender respect, expressed in

his burning face and in the agitation of his voice and manner,

which Arthur must have been cruel to disregard. He turned his

thoughts back to the starting-point of this unknown injury; and in

the meantime Young John, having rolled his green packet pretty

round, cut it carefully into three pieces, and laid it on a plate

as if it were some particular delicacy.

'It seems to me just possible,' said Arthur, when he had retraced

the conversation to the water-cresses and back again, 'that you

have made some reference to Miss Dorrit.'

'It is just possible, sir,' returned John Chivery.

'I don't understand it. I hope I may not be so unlucky as to make

you think I mean to offend you again, for I never have meant to

offend you yet, when I say I don't understand it.'

'Sir,' said Young John, 'will you have the perfidy to deny that you

know and long have known that I felt towards Miss Dorrit, call it

not the presumption of love, but adoration and sacrifice ?'

'Indeed, John, I will not have any perfidy if I know it; why you

should suspect me of it I am at a loss to think. Did you ever hear

from Mrs Chivery, your mother, that I went to see her once?'

'No, sir,' returned John, shortly. 'Never heard of such a thing.'

'But I did. Can you imagine why?'

'No, sir,' returned John, shortly. 'I can't imagine why.'

'I will tell you. I was solicitous to promote Miss Dorrit's

happiness; and if I could have supposed that Miss Dorrit returned

your affection--'

Poor John Chivery turned crimson to the tips of his ears. 'Miss

Dorrit never did, sir. I wish to be honourable and true, so far as

in my humble way I can, and I would scorn to pretend for a moment

that she ever did, or that she ever led me to believe she did; no,

nor even that it was ever to be expected in any cool reason that

she would or could. She was far above me in all respects at all

times. As likewise,' added John, 'similarly was her gen-teel

family.'

His chivalrous feeling towards all that belonged to her made him so

very respectable, in spite of his small stature and his rather weak

legs, and his very weak hair, and his poetical temperament, that a

Goliath might have sat in his place demanding less consideration at

Arthur's hands.

'You speak, john,' he said, with cordial admiration, 'like a Man.'

'Well, sir,' returned John, brushing his hand across his eyes,

'then I wish you'd do the same.'

He was quick with this unexpected retort, and it again made Arthur

regard him with a wondering expression of face.

'Leastways,' said John, stretching his hand across the tea-tray,

'if too strong a remark, withdrawn! But, why not, why not? When

I say to you, Mr Clennam, take care of yourself for some one else's

sake, why not be open, though a turnkey? Why did I get you the

room which I knew you'd like best? Why did I carry up your things?

Not that I found 'em heavy; I don't mention 'em on that accounts;

far from it. Why have I cultivated you in the manner I have done

since the morning? On the ground of your own merits? No. They're

very great, I've no doubt at all; but not on the ground of them.

Another's merits have had their weight, and have had far more

weight with Me. Then why not speak free?'

'Unaffectedly, John,' said Clennam, 'you are so good a fellow and

I have so true a respect for your character, that if I have

appeared to be less sensible than I really am of the fact that the

kind services you have rendered me to-day are attributable to my

having been trusted by Miss Dorrit as her friend--I confess it to

be a fault, and I ask your forgiveness.'

'Oh! why not,' John repeated with returning scorn, 'why not speak

free!'

'I declare to you,' returned Arthur, 'that I do not understand you.

Look at me. Consider the trouble I have been in. Is it likely

that I would wilfully add to my other self-reproaches, that of

being ungrateful or treacherous to you. I do not understand you.'

john's incredulous face slowly softened into a face of doubt. He

rose, backed into the garret-window of the room, beckoned Arthur to

come there, and stood looking at him thoughtfully.

'Mr Clennam, do you mean to say that you don't know?'

'What, John?'

'Lord,' said Young John, appealing with a gasp to the spikes on the

wall. 'He says, What!'

Clennam looked at the spikes, and looked at John; and looked at the

spikes, and looked at John.

'He says What! And what is more,' exclaimed Young John, surveying

him in a doleful maze, 'he appears to mean it! Do you see this

window, sir?'

'Of course I see this window.'

'See this room?'

'Why, of course I see this room.'

'That wall opposite, and that yard down below? They have all been

witnesses of it, from day to day, from night to night, from week to

week, from month to month. For how often have I seen Miss Dorrit

here when she has not seen me!'

'Witnesses of what?' said Clennam.

'Of Miss Dorrit's love.'

'For whom?'

'You,' said John. And touched him with the back of his hand upon

the breast, and backed to his chair, and sat down on it with a pale

face, holding the arms, and shaking his head at him.

If he had dealt Clennam a heavy blow, instead of laying that light

touch upon him, its effect could not have been to shake him more.

He stood amazed; his eyes looking at John; his lips parted, and

seeming now and then to form the word 'Me!' without uttering it;

his hands dropped at his sides; his whole appearance that of a man

who has been awakened from sleep, and stupefied by intelligence

beyond his full comprehension.

'Me!' he at length said aloud.

'Ah!' groaned Young John. 'You!'

He did what he could to muster a smile, and returned, 'Your fancy.

You are completely mistaken.'

'I mistaken, sir!' said Young John. '_I_ completely mistaken on

that subject! No, Mr Clennam, don't tell me so. On any other, if

you like, for I don't set up to be a penetrating character, and am

well aware of my own deficiencies. But, _I_ mistaken on a point

that has caused me more smart in my breast than a flight of

savages' arrows could have done! _I_ mistaken on a point that

almost sent me into my grave, as I sometimes wished it would, if

the grave could only have been made compatible with the tobacco-

business and father and mother's feelings! I mistaken on a point

that, even at the present moment, makes me take out my pocket-

handkercher like a great girl, as people say: though I am sure I

don't know why a great girl should be a term of reproach, for every

rightly constituted male mind loves 'em great and small. Don't

tell me so, don't tell me so!'

Still highly respectable at bottom, though absurd enough upon the

surface, Young John took out his pocket-handkerchief with a genuine

absence both of display and concealment, which is only to be seen

in a man with a great deal of good in him, when he takes out his

pocket-handkerchief for the purpose of wiping his eyes. Having

dried them, and indulged in the harmless luxury of a sob and a

sniff, he put it up again.

The touch was still in its influence so like a blow that Arthur

could not get many words together to close the subject with. He

assured John Chivery when he had returned his handkerchief to his

pocket, that he did all honour to his disinterestedness and to the

fidelity of his remembrance of Miss Dorrit. As to the impression

on his mind, of which he had just relieved it--here John

interposed, and said, 'No impression! Certainty!'--as to that,

they might perhaps speak of it at another time, but would say no

more now. Feeling low-spirited and weary, he would go back to his

room, with john's leave, and come out no more that night. John

assented, and he crept back in the shadow of the wall to his own

lodging.

The feeling of the blow was still so strong upon him that, when the

dirty old woman was gone whom he found sitting on the stairs

outside his door, waiting to make his bed, and who gave him to

understand while doing it, that she had received her instructions

from Mr Chivery, 'not the old 'un but the young 'un,' he sat down

in the faded arm-chair, pressing his head between his hands, as if

he had been stunned. Little Dorrit love him! More bewildering to

him than his misery, far.

Consider the improbability. He had been accustomed to call her his

child, and his dear child, and to invite her confidence by dwelling

upon the difference in their respective ages, and to speak of

himself as one who was turning old. Yet she might not have thought

him old. Something reminded him that he had not thought himself

so, until the roses had floated away upon the river.

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.

Read next: BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES#CHAPTER 28 An Appearance in the Marshalsea

Read previous: BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES#CHAPTER 26 Reaping the Whirlwind

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