Little Dorrit

‘O, indeed!’ cried Fanny. ‘Really? Bless me, how much some people know of some subjects! They say every one has a subject, and I certainly seem to have hit upon yours, Amy. There, you little thing, I was only in fun,’ dabbing her sister’s forehead; ‘but don’t you be a silly puss, and don’t you think flightily and eloquently about degenerate impossibilities. There! Now, I’ll go back to myself.’

‘Dear Fanny, let me say first, that I would far rather we worked for a scanty living again than I would see you rich and married to Mr Sparkler.’

‘Let you say, my dear?’ retorted Fanny. ‘Why, of course, I will let you say anything. There is no constraint upon you, I hope. We are together to talk it over. And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I have not the slightest intention of doing so to-night, my dear, or to-morrow morning either.’

‘But at some time?’

‘At no time, for anything I know at present,’ answered Fanny, with indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a burning restlessness, she added, ‘You talk about the clever men, you little thing! It’s all very fine and easy to talk about the clever men; but where are they? I don’t see them anywhere near me!’

‘My dear Fanny, so short a time – ’

‘Short time or long time,’ interrupted Fanny. ‘I am impatient of our situation. I don’t like our situation, and very little would induce me to change it. Other girls, differently reared and differently circumstanced altogether, might wonder at what I say or may do. Let them. They are driven by their lives and characters; I am driven by mine.’

‘Fanny, my dear Fanny, you know that you have qualities to make you the wife of one very superior to Mr Sparkler.’

‘Amy, my dear Amy,’ retorted Fanny, parodying her words, ‘I know that I wish to have a more defined and distinct position, in which I can assert myself with greater effect against that insolent woman.’

‘Would you therefore – forgive my asking, Fanny – therefore marry her son?’

‘Why, perhaps,’ said Fanny, with a triumphant smile. ‘There may be many less promising ways of arriving at an end than that, my dear. That piece of insolence may think, now, that it would be a great success to get her son off upon me, and shelve me. But, perhaps, she little thinks how I would retort upon her if I married her son. I would oppose her in everything, and compete with her. I would make it the business of my life.’

Fanny set down the bottle when she came to this, and walked about the room; always stopping and standing still while she spoke.

‘One thing I could certainly do, my child: I could make her older. And I would!’

This was followed by another walk.

‘I would talk of her as an old woman. I would pretend to know – if I didn’t, but I should from her son – all about her age. And she should hear me say, Amy: affectionately, quite dutifully and affectionately: how well she looked, considering her time of life. I could make her seem older at once, by being myself so much younger. I may not be as handsome as she is; I am not a fair judge of that question, I suppose; but I know I am handsome enough to be a thorn in her side. And I would be!’

‘My dear sister, would you condemn yourself to an unhappy life for this?’

‘It wouldn’t be an unhappy life, Amy. It would be the life I am fitted for. Whether by disposition, or whether by circumstances, is no matter; I am better fitted for such a life than for almost any other.’

There was something of a desolate tone in those words; but, with a short proud laugh she took another walk, and after passing a great looking-glass came to another stop.

‘Figure! Figure, Amy! Well. The woman has a good figure. I will give her her due, and not deny it. But is it so far beyond all others that it is altogether unapproachable? Upon my word, I am not so sure of it. Give some much younger woman the latitude as to dress that she has, being married; and we would see about that, my dear!’

Something in the thought that was agreeable and flattering, brought her back to her seat in a gayer temper. She took her sister’s hands in hers, and clapped all four hands above her head as she looked in her sister’s face laughing:

‘And the dancer, Amy, that she has quite forgotten – the dancer who bore no sort of resemblance to me, and of whom I never remind her, oh dear no! – should dance through her life, and dance in her way, to such a tune as would disturb her insolent placidity a little. Just a little, my dear Amy, just a little!’

Meeting an earnest and imploring look in Amy’s face, she brought the four hands down, and laid only one on Amy’s lips.

‘Now, don’t argue with me, child,’ she said in a sterner way, ‘because it is of no use. I understand these subjects much better than you do. I have not nearly made up my mind, but it may be. Now we have talked this over comfortably, and may go to bed. You best and dearest little mouse, Good night!’ With those words Fanny weighed her Anchor, and – having taken so much advice – left off being advised for that occasion.

Thenceforward, Amy observed Mr Sparkler’s treatment by his enslaver, with new reasons for attaching importance to all that passed between them. There were times when Fanny appeared quite unable to endure his mental feebleness, and when she became so sharply impatient of it that she would all but dismiss him for good. There were other times when she got on much better with him; when he amused her, and when her sense of superiority seemed to counterbalance that opposite side of the scale. If Mr Sparkler had been other than the faithfullest and most submissive of swains, he was sufficiently hard pressed to have fled from the scene of his trials, and have set at least the whole distance from Rome to London between himself and his enchantress. But he had no greater will of his own than a boat has when it is towed by a steam-ship; and he followed his cruel mistress through rough and smooth, on equally strong compulsion.

Mrs Merdle, during these passages, said little to Fanny, but said more about her. She was, as it were, forced to look at her through her eye-glass, and in general conversation to allow commendations of her beauty to be wrung from her by its irresistible demands. The defiant character it assumed when Fanny heard these extollings (as it generally happened that she did), was not expressive of concessions to the impartial bosom; but the utmost revenge the bosom took was, to say audibly, ‘A spoilt beauty – but with that face and shape, who could wonder?’

It might have been about a month or six weeks after the night of the new advice, when Little Dorrit began to think she detected some new understanding between Mr Sparkler and Fanny. Mr Sparkler, as if in attendance to some compact, scarcely ever spoke without first looking towards Fanny for leave. That young lady was too discreet ever to look back again; but, if Mr Sparkler had permission to speak, she remained silent; if he had not, she herself spoke. Moreover, it became plain whenever Henry Gowan attempted to perform the friendly office of drawing him out, that he was not to be drawn. And not only that, but Fanny would presently, without any pointed application in the world, chance to say something with such a sting in it that Gowan would draw back as if he had put his hand into a bee-hive.

There was yet another circumstance which went a long way to confirm Little Dorrit in her fears, though it was not a great circumstance in itself. Mr Sparkler’s demeanour towards herself changed. It became fraternal. Sometimes, when she was in the outer circle of assemblies – at their own residence, at Mrs Merdle’s, or elsewhere – she would find herself stealthily supported round the waist by Mr Sparkler’s arm. Mr Sparkler never offered the slightest explanation of this attention; but merely smiled with an air of blundering, contented, good-natured proprietorship, which, in so heavy a gentleman, was ominously expressive.

Little Dorrit was at home one day, thinking about Fanny with a heavy heart. They had a room at one end of their drawing-room suite, nearly all irregular bay-window, projecting over the street, and commanding all the picturesque life and variety of the Corso, both up and down. At three or four o’clock in the afternoon, English time, the view from this window was very bright and peculiar; and Little Dorrit used to sit and muse here, much as she had been used to while away the time in her balcony at Venice. Seated thus one day, she was softly touched on the shoulder, and Fanny said, ‘Well, Amy dear,’ and took her seat at her side. Their seat was a part of the window; when there was anything in the way of a procession going on, they used to have bright draperies hung out of the window, and used to kneel or sit on this seat, and look out at it, leaning on the brilliant colour. But there was no procession that day, and Little Dorrit was rather surprised by Fanny’s being at home at that hour, as she was generally out on horseback then.

‘Well, Amy,’ said Fanny, ‘what are you thinking of, little one?’

‘I was thinking of you, Fanny.’

‘No? What a coincidence! I declare here’s some one else. You were not thinking of this some one else too; were you, Amy?’

Amy had been thinking of this some one else too; for it was Mr Sparkler. She did not say so, however, as she gave him her hand. Mr Sparkler came and sat down on the other side of her, and she felt the fraternal railing come behind her, and apparently stretch on to include Fanny.

‘Well, my little sister,’ said Fanny with a sigh, ‘I suppose you know what this means?’

‘She’s as beautiful as she’s doated on,’ stammered Mr Sparkler – ‘and there’s no nonsense about her – it’s arranged – ’

‘You needn’t explain, Edmund,’ said Fanny.

‘No, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler.

‘In short, pet,’ proceeded Fanny, ‘on the whole, we are engaged. We must tell papa about it either to-night or to-morrow, according to the opportunities. Then it’s done, and very little more need be said.’

‘My dear Fanny,’ said Mr Sparkler, with deference, ‘I should like to say a word to Amy.’

‘Well, well! Say it for goodness’ sake,’ returned the young lady.

‘I am convinced, my dear Amy,’ said Mr Sparkler, ‘that if ever there was a girl, next to your highly endowed and beautiful sister, who had no nonsense about her – ’

‘We know all about that, Edmund,’ interposed Miss Fanny. ‘Never mind that. Pray go on to something else besides our having no nonsense about us.’

‘Yes, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler. ‘And I assure you, Amy, that nothing can be a greater happiness to myself, myself – next to the happiness of being so highly honoured with the choice of a glorious girl who hasn’t an atom of – ’

‘Pray, Edmund, pray!’ interrupted Fanny, with a slight pat of her pretty foot upon the floor.

‘My love, you’re quite right,’ said Mr Sparkler, ‘and I know I have a habit of it. What I wished to declare was, that nothing can be a greater happiness to myself, myself-next to the happiness of being united to pre-eminently the most glorious of girls – than to have the happiness of cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of Amy. I may not myself,’ said Mr Sparkler manfully, ‘be up to the mark on some other subjects at a short notice, and I am aware that if you were to poll Society the general opinion would be that I am not; but on the subject of Amy I AM up to the mark!’

Mr Sparkler kissed her, in witness thereof.

‘A knife and fork and an apartment,’ proceeded Mr Sparkler, growing, in comparison with his oratorical antecedents, quite diffuse, ‘will ever be at Amy’s disposal. My Governor, I am sure, will always be proud to entertain one whom I so much esteem. And regarding my mother,’ said Mr Sparkler, ‘who is a remarkably fine woman, with – ’

‘Edmund, Edmund!’ cried Miss Fanny, as before.

‘With submission, my soul,’ pleaded Mr Sparkler. ‘I know I have a habit of it, and I thank you very much, my adorable girl, for taking the trouble to correct it; but my mother is admitted on all sides to be a remarkably fine woman, and she really hasn’t any.’

‘That may be, or may not be,’ returned Fanny, ‘but pray don’t mention it any more.’

‘I will not, my love,’ said Mr Sparkler.

‘Then, in fact, you have nothing more to say, Edmund; have you?’ inquired Fanny.

‘So far from it, my adorable girl,’ answered Mr Sparkler, ‘I apologise for having said so much.’

Mr Sparkler perceived, by a kind of inspiration, that the question implied had he not better go? He therefore withdrew the fraternal railing, and neatly said that he thought he would, with submission, take his leave. He did not go without being congratulated by Amy, as well as she could discharge that office in the flutter and distress of her spirits.

When he was gone, she said, ‘O Fanny, Fanny!’ and turned to her sister in the bright window, and fell upon her bosom and cried there. Fanny laughed at first; but soon laid her face against her sister’s and cried too – a little. It was the last time Fanny ever showed that there was any hidden, suppressed, or conquered feeling in her on the matter. From that hour the way she had chosen lay before her, and she trod it with her own imperious self-willed step.