Little Dorrit

He turned himself about, and went on.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Arthur, stopping him once more, ‘but will you allow me to ask you another question? Can any one go in here?’

‘Any one can go in,’ replied the old man; plainly adding by the significance of his emphasis, ‘but it is not every one who can go out.’

‘Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place?’

‘Sir,’ returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff in his hand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him. ‘I am.’

‘I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have a good object. Do you know the name of Dorrit here?’

‘My name, sir,’ replied the old man most unexpectedly, ‘is Dorrit.’

Arthur pulled off his hat to him. ‘Grant me the favour of half-a-dozen words. I was wholly unprepared for your announcement, and hope that assurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the liberty of addressing you. I have recently come home to England after a long absence. I have seen at my mother’s – Mrs Clennam in the city – a young woman working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken of as Little Dorrit. I have felt sincerely interested in her, and have had a great desire to know something more about her. I saw her, not a minute before you came up, pass in at that door.’

The old man looked at him attentively. ‘Are you a sailor, sir?’ he asked. He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head that replied to him. ‘Not a sailor? I judged from your sunburnt face that you might be. Are you in earnest, sir?’

‘I do assure you that I am, and do entreat you to believe that I am, in plain earnest.’

‘I know very little of the world, sir,’ returned the other, who had a weak and quavering voice. ‘I am merely passing on, like the shadow over the sun-dial. It would be worth no man’s while to mislead me; it would really be too easy – too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction. The young woman whom you saw go in here is my brother’s child. My brother is William Dorrit; I am Frederick. You say you have seen her at your mother’s (I know your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest in her, and you wish to know what she does here. Come and see.’

He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.

‘My brother,’ said the old man, pausing on the step and slowly facing round again, ‘has been here many years; and much that happens even among ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn’t enter upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece’s working at her needle. Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said among us. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now! Come and see.’

Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was turned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into a lodge or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door and a grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before, turned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the turnkey on duty, as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and the companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted.

The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain and blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered about, but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old man, taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or fourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs. ‘They are rather dark, sir, but you will not find anything in the way.’

He paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story. He had no sooner turned the handle than the visitor saw Little Dorrit, and saw the reason of her setting so much store by dining alone.

She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and was already warming it on a gridiron over the fire for her father, clad in an old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his supper at the table. A clean cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon, salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot. Such zests as his particular little phial of cayenne pepper and his pennyworth of pickles in a saucer, were not wanting.

She started, coloured deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more with his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her to be reassured and to trust him.

‘I found this gentleman,’ said the uncle – ‘Mr Clennam, William, son of Amy’s friend – at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my brother William, sir.’

‘I hope,’ said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, ‘that my respect for your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you, sir.’

‘Mr Clennam,’ returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the flat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, ‘you do me honour. You are welcome, sir;’ with a low bow. ‘Frederick, a chair. Pray sit down, Mr Clennam.’

He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his manner. These were the ceremonies with which he received the collegians.

‘You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen to these walls. Perhaps you are aware – my daughter Amy may have mentioned that I am the Father of this place.’

‘I – so I have understood,’ said Arthur, dashing at the assertion.

‘You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl, sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear, put this dish on; Mr Clennam will excuse the primitive customs to which we are reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me the honour, sir, to – ’

‘Thank you,’ returned Arthur. ‘Not a morsel.’

He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and that the probability of his daughter’s having had a reserve as to her family history, should be so far out of his mind.

She filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to his hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. Evidently in observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself, and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled and took nothing. Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud of him, half ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost heart.

The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an amiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at distinction. ‘Frederick,’ said he, ‘you and Fanny sup at your lodgings to-night, I know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?’

‘She is walking with Tip.’

‘Tip – as you may know – is my son, Mr Clennam. He has been a little wild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was rather’ – he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round the room – ‘a little adverse. Your first visit here, sir?’

‘My first.’

‘You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody – of any pretensions – any pretensions – comes here without being presented to me.’

‘As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,’ said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.

‘Yes!’ the Father of the Marshalsea assented. ‘We have even exceeded that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee – quite a Levee. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the name of the gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last Christmas week by that agreeable coal-merchant who was remanded for six months.’

‘I don’t remember his name, father.’

‘Frederick, do you remember his name?’

Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that Frederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, with any hope of information.

‘I mean,’ said his brother, ‘the gentleman who did that handsome action with so much delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite escaped me. Mr Clennam, as I have happened to mention handsome and delicate action, you may like, perhaps, to know what it was.’

‘Very much,’ said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate head beginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over it.

‘It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is almost a duty to mention it. I said at the time that I always would mention it on every suitable occasion, without regard to personal sensitiveness. A – well – a – it’s of no use to disguise the fact – you must know, Mr Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire to offer some little – Testimonial – to the Father of the place.’

To see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half-repressed, and her timid little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, sad sight.

‘Sometimes,’ he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated, and clearing his throat every now and then; ‘sometimes – hem – it takes one shape and sometimes another; but it is generally – ha – Money. And it is, I cannot but confess it, it is too often – hem – acceptable. This gentleman that I refer to, was presented to me, Mr Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying to my feelings, and conversed not only with great politeness, but with great – ahem – information.’ All this time, though he had finished his supper, he was nervously going about his plate with his knife and fork, as if some of it were still before him. ‘It appeared from his conversation that he had a garden, though he was delicate of mentioning it at first, as gardens are – hem – are not accessible to me. But it came out, through my admiring a very fine cluster of geranium – beautiful cluster of geranium to be sure – which he had brought from his conservatory. On my taking notice of its rich colour, he showed me a piece of paper round it, on which was written, “For the Father of the Marshalsea,” and presented it to me. But this was – hem – not all. He made a particular request, on taking leave, that I would remove the paper in half an hour. I – ha – I did so; and I found that it contained – ahem – two guineas. I assure you, Mr Clennam, I have received – hem – Testimonials in many ways, and of many degrees of value, and they have always been – ha – unfortunately acceptable; but I never was more pleased than with this – ahem – this particular Testimonial.’

Arthur was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a theme, when a bell began to ring, and footsteps approached the door. A pretty girl of a far better figure and much more developed than Little Dorrit, though looking much younger in the face when the two were observed together, stopped in the doorway on seeing a stranger; and a young man who was with her, stopped too.

‘Mr Clennam, Fanny. My eldest daughter and my son, Mr Clennam. The bell is a signal for visitors to retire, and so they have come to say good night; but there is plenty of time, plenty of time. Girls, Mr Clennam will excuse any household business you may have together. He knows, I dare say, that I have but one room here.’

‘I only want my clean dress from Amy, father,’ said the second girl.

‘And I my clothes,’ said Tip.

Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest of drawers above and a bedstead below, and produced two little bundles, which she handed to her brother and sister. ‘Mended and made up?’ Clennam heard the sister ask in a whisper. To which Amy answered ‘Yes.’ He had risen now, and took the opportunity of glancing round the room. The bare walls had been coloured green, evidently by an unskilled hand, and were poorly decorated with a few prints. The window was curtained, and the floor carpeted; and there were shelves and pegs, and other such conveniences, that had accumulated in the course of years. It was a close, confined room, poorly furnished; and the chimney smoked to boot, or the tin screen at the top of the fireplace was superfluous; but constant pains and care had made it neat, and even, after its kind, comfortable.

All the while the bell was ringing, and the uncle was anxious to go. ‘Come, Fanny, come, Fanny,’ he said, with his ragged clarionet case under his arm; ‘the lock, child, the lock!’

Fanny bade her father good night, and whisked off airily. Tip had already clattered down-stairs. ‘Now, Mr Clennam,’ said the uncle, looking back as he shuffled out after them, ‘the lock, sir, the lock.’