Little Dorrit

Thus Flora, in taking leave of her favourite. Little Dorrit thanked her, and embraced her, over and over again; and finally came out of the house with Clennam, and took coach for the Marshalsea.

It was a strangely unreal ride through the old squalid streets, with a sensation of being raised out of them into an airy world of wealth and grandeur. When Arthur told her that she would soon ride in her own carriage through very different scenes, when all the familiar experiences would have vanished away, she looked frightened. But when he substituted her father for herself, and told her how he would ride in his carriage, and how great and grand he would be, her tears of joy and innocent pride fell fast. Seeing that the happiness her mind could realise was all shining upon him, Arthur kept that single figure before her; and so they rode brightly through the poor streets in the prison neighbourhood to carry him the great news.

When Mr Chivery, who was on duty, admitted them into the Lodge, he saw something in their faces which filled him with astonishment. He stood looking after them, when they hurried into the prison, as though he perceived that they had come back accompanied by a ghost a-piece. Two or three Collegians whom they passed, looked after them too, and presently joining Mr Chivery, formed a little group on the Lodge steps, in the midst of which there spontaneously originated a whisper that the Father was going to get his discharge. Within a few minutes, it was heard in the remotest room in the College.

Little Dorrit opened the door from without, and they both entered. He was sitting in his old grey gown and his old black cap, in the sunlight by the window, reading his newspaper. His glasses were in his hand, and he had just looked round; surprised at first, no doubt, by her step upon the stairs, not expecting her until night; surprised again, by seeing Arthur Clennam in her company. As they came in, the same unwonted look in both of them which had already caught attention in the yard below, struck him. He did not rise or speak, but laid down his glasses and his newspaper on the table beside him, and looked at them with his mouth a little open and his lips trembling. When Arthur put out his hand, he touched it, but not with his usual state; and then he turned to his daughter, who had sat down close beside him with her hands upon his shoulder, and looked attentively in her face.

‘Father! I have been made so happy this morning!’

‘You have been made so happy, my dear?’

‘By Mr Clennam, father. He brought me such joyful and wonderful intelligence about you! If he had not with his great kindness and gentleness, prepared me for it, father – prepared me for it, father – I think I could not have borne it.’

Her agitation was exceedingly great, and the tears rolled down her face. He put his hand suddenly to his heart, and looked at Clennam.

‘Compose yourself, sir,’ said Clennam, ‘and take a little time to think. To think of the brightest and most fortunate accidents of life. We have all heard of great surprises of joy. They are not at an end, sir. They are rare, but not at an end.’

‘Mr Clennam? Not at an end? Not at an end for – ’ He touched himself upon the breast, instead of saying ‘me.’

‘No,’ returned Clennam.

‘What surprise,’ he asked, keeping his left hand over his heart, and there stopping in his speech, while with his right hand he put his glasses exactly level on the table: ‘what such surprise can be in store for me?’

‘Let me answer with another question. Tell me, Mr Dorrit, what surprise would be the most unlooked for and the most acceptable to you. Do not be afraid to imagine it, or to say what it would be.’

He looked steadfastly at Clennam, and, so looking at him, seemed to change into a very old haggard man. The sun was bright upon the wall beyond the window, and on the spikes at top. He slowly stretched out the hand that had been upon his heart, and pointed at the wall.

‘It is down,’ said Clennam. ‘Gone!’

He remained in the same attitude, looking steadfastly at him.

‘And in its place,’ said Clennam, slowly and distinctly, ‘are the means to possess and enjoy the utmost that they have so long shut out. Mr Dorrit, there is not the smallest doubt that within a few days you will be free, and highly prosperous. I congratulate you with all my soul on this change of fortune, and on the happy future into which you are soon to carry the treasure you have been blest with here – the best of all the riches you can have elsewhere – the treasure at your side.’

With those words, he pressed his hand and released it; and his daughter, laying her face against his, encircled him in the hour of his prosperity with her arms, as she had in the long years of his adversity encircled him with her love and toil and truth; and poured out her full heart in gratitude, hope, joy, blissful ecstasy, and all for him.

‘I shall see him as I never saw him yet. I shall see my dear love, with the dark cloud cleared away. I shall see him, as my poor mother saw him long ago. O my dear, my dear! O father, father! O thank God, thank God!’

He yielded himself to her kisses and caresses, but did not return them, except that he put an arm about her. Neither did he say one word. His steadfast look was now divided between her and Clennam, and he began to shake as if he were very cold. Explaining to Little Dorrit that he would run to the coffee-house for a bottle of wine, Arthur fetched it with all the haste he could use. While it was being brought from the cellar to the bar, a number of excited people asked him what had happened; when he hurriedly informed them that Mr Dorrit had succeeded to a fortune.

On coming back with the wine in his hand, he found that she had placed her father in his easy chair, and had loosened his shirt and neckcloth. They filled a tumbler with wine, and held it to his lips. When he had swallowed a little, he took the glass himself and emptied it. Soon after that, he leaned back in his chair and cried, with his handkerchief before his face.

After this had lasted a while Clennam thought it a good season for diverting his attention from the main surprise, by relating its details. Slowly, therefore, and in a quiet tone of voice, he explained them as best he could, and enlarged on the nature of Pancks’s service.

‘He shall be – ha – he shall be handsomely recompensed, sir,’ said the Father, starting up and moving hurriedly about the room. ‘Assure yourself, Mr Clennam, that everybody concerned shall be – ha – shall be nobly rewarded. No one, my dear sir, shall say that he has an unsatisfied claim against me. I shall repay the – hum – the advances I have had from you, sir, with peculiar pleasure. I beg to be informed at your earliest convenience, what advances you have made my son.’

He had no purpose in going about the room, but he was not still a moment.

‘Everybody,’ he said, ‘shall be remembered. I will not go away from here in anybody’s debt. All the people who have been – ha – well behaved towards myself and my family, shall be rewarded. Chivery shall be rewarded. Young John shall be rewarded. I particularly wish, and intend, to act munificently, Mr Clennam.’

‘Will you allow me,’ said Arthur, laying his purse on the table, ‘to supply any present contingencies, Mr Dorrit? I thought it best to bring a sum of money for the purpose.’

‘Thank you, sir, thank you. I accept with readiness, at the present moment, what I could not an hour ago have conscientiously taken. I am obliged to you for the temporary accommodation. Exceedingly temporary, but well timed – well timed.’ His hand had closed upon the money, and he carried it about with him. ‘Be so kind, sir, as to add the amount to those former advances to which I have already referred; being careful, if you please, not to omit advances made to my son. A mere verbal statement of the gross amount is all I shall – ha – all I shall require.’

His eye fell upon his daughter at this point, and he stopped for a moment to kiss her, and to pat her head.

‘It will be necessary to find a milliner, my love, and to make a speedy and complete change in your very plain dress. Something must be done with Maggy too, who at present is – ha – barely respectable, barely respectable. And your sister, Amy, and your brother. And my brother, your uncle – poor soul, I trust this will rouse him – messengers must be despatched to fetch them. They must be informed of this. We must break it to them cautiously, but they must be informed directly. We owe it as a duty to them and to ourselves, from this moment, not to let them – hum – not to let them do anything.’

This was the first intimation he had ever given, that he was privy to the fact that they did something for a livelihood.

He was still jogging about the room, with the purse clutched in his hand, when a great cheering arose in the yard. ‘The news has spread already,’ said Clennam, looking down from the window. ‘Will you show yourself to them, Mr Dorrit? They are very earnest, and they evidently wish it.’

‘I – hum – ha – I confess I could have desired, Amy my dear,’ he said, jogging about in a more feverish flutter than before, ‘to have made some change in my dress first, and to have bought a – hum – a watch and chain. But if it must be done as it is, it – ha – it must be done. Fasten the collar of my shirt, my dear. Mr Clennam, would you oblige me – hum – with a blue neckcloth you will find in that drawer at your elbow. Button my coat across at the chest, my love. It looks – ha – it looks broader, buttoned.’

With his trembling hand he pushed his grey hair up, and then, taking Clennam and his daughter for supporters, appeared at the window leaning on an arm of each. The Collegians cheered him very heartily, and he kissed his hand to them with great urbanity and protection. When he withdrew into the room again, he said ‘Poor creatures!’ in a tone of much pity for their miserable condition.

Little Dorrit was deeply anxious that he should lie down to compose himself. On Arthur’s speaking to her of his going to inform Pancks that he might now appear as soon as he would, and pursue the joyful business to its close, she entreated him in a whisper to stay with her until her father should be quite calm and at rest. He needed no second entreaty; and she prepared her father’s bed, and begged him to lie down. For another half-hour or more he would be persuaded to do nothing but go about the room, discussing with himself the probabilities for and against the Marshal’s allowing the whole of the prisoners to go to the windows of the official residence which commanded the street, to see himself and family depart for ever in a carriage – which, he said, he thought would be a Sight for them. But gradually he began to droop and tire, and at last stretched himself upon the bed.

She took her faithful place beside him, fanning him and cooling his forehead; and he seemed to be falling asleep (always with the money in his hand), when he unexpectedly sat up and said:

‘Mr Clennam, I beg your pardon. Am I to understand, my dear sir, that I could – ha – could pass through the Lodge at this moment, and – hum – take a walk?’

‘I think not, Mr Dorrit,’ was the unwilling reply. ‘There are certain forms to be completed; and although your detention here is now in itself a form, I fear it is one that for a little longer has to be observed too.’

At this he shed tears again.

‘It is but a few hours, sir,’ Clennam cheerfully urged upon him.

‘A few hours, sir,’ he returned in a sudden passion. ‘You talk very easily of hours, sir! How long do you suppose, sir, that an hour is to a man who is choking for want of air?’

It was his last demonstration for that time; as, after shedding some more tears and querulously complaining that he couldn’t breathe, he slowly fell into a slumber. Clennam had abundant occupation for his thoughts, as he sat in the quiet room watching the father on his bed, and the daughter fanning his face.

Little Dorrit had been thinking too. After softly putting his grey hair aside, and touching his forehead with her lips, she looked towards Arthur, who came nearer to her, and pursued in a low whisper the subject of her thoughts.

‘Mr Clennam, will he pay all his debts before he leaves here?’

‘No doubt. All.’

‘All the debts for which he had been imprisoned here, all my life and longer?’

‘No doubt.’

There was something of uncertainty and remonstrance in her look; something that was not all satisfaction. He wondered to detect it, and said:

‘You are glad that he should do so?’

‘Are you?’ asked Little Dorrit, wistfully.

‘Am I? Most heartily glad!’

‘Then I know I ought to be.’

‘And are you not?’

‘It seems to me hard,’ said Little Dorrit, ‘that he should have lost so many years and suffered so much, and at last pay all the debts as well. It seems to me hard that he should pay in life and money both.’

‘My dear child – ’ Clennam was beginning.

‘Yes, I know I am wrong,’ she pleaded timidly, ‘don’t think any worse of me; it has grown up with me here.’

The prison, which could spoil so many things, had tainted Little Dorrit’s mind no more than this. Engendered as the confusion was, in compassion for the poor prisoner, her father, it was the first speck Clennam had ever seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever saw, of the prison atmosphere upon her.

He thought this, and forbore to say another word. With the thought, her purity and goodness came before him in their brightest light. The little spot made them the more beautiful.

Worn out with her own emotions, and yielding to the silence of the room, her hand slowly slackened and failed in its fanning movement, and her head dropped down on the pillow at her father’s side. Clennam rose softly, opened and closed the door without a sound, and passed from the prison, carrying the quiet with him into the turbulent streets.