Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens [big ebook reader txt] 📗

“I am going over the Bridge.” He saw in Mr. Chivery, with some astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his key on his lips.

“(Private) I ask your pardon again,” said Mr. Chivery, “but could you go round by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time to look in at that address?” handing him a little card, printed for circulation among the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, Importers of pure Havannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-flavoured Cubas, Dealers in Fancy Snuffs, etc.

“(Private) It an’t tobacco business,” said Mr. Chivery. “The truth is, it’s my wife. She’s wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a point respecting⁠—yes,” said Mr. Chivery, answering Clennam’s look of apprehension with a nod, “respecting her.”

“I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.”

“Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an’t above ten minutes out of your way. Please to ask for Mrs Chivery!” These instructions, Mr. Chivery, who had already let him out, cautiously called through a little slide in the outer door, which he could draw back from within for the inspection of visitors when it pleased him.

Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a very small establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the counter working at her needle. Little jars of tobacco, little boxes of cigars, a little assortment of pipes, a little jar or two of snuff, and a little instrument like a shoeing horn for serving it out, composed the retail stock in trade.

Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the solicitation of Mr. Chivery. About something relating to Miss Dorrit, he believed. Mrs. Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose up from her seat behind the counter, and deploringly shook her head.

“You may see him now,” said she, “if you’ll condescend to take a peep.”

With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little parlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a very little dull backyard. In this yard a wash of sheets and tablecloths tried (in vain, for want of air) to get itself dried on a line or two; and among those flapping articles was sitting in a chair, like the last mariner left alive on the deck of a damp ship without the power of furling the sails, a little woebegone young man.

“Our John,” said Mrs. Chivery.

Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be doing there?

“It’s the only change he takes,” said Mrs. Chivery, shaking her head afresh. “He won’t go out, even in the backyard, when there’s no linen; but when there’s linen to keep the neighbours’ eyes off, he’ll sit there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!” Mrs. Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of the business.

“Please to take a seat, sir,” said Mrs. Chivery. “Miss Dorrit is the matter with Our John, sir; he’s a breaking his heart for her, and I would wish to take the liberty to ask how it’s to be made good to his parents when bust?”

Mrs. Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected about Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, uttered this speech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards began again to shake her head and dry her eyes.

“Sir,” said she in continuation, “you are acquainted with the family, and have interested yourself with the family, and are influential with the family. If you can promote views calculated to make two young people happy, let me, for Our John’s sake, and for both their sakes, implore you so to do!”

“I have been so habituated,” returned Arthur, at a loss, “during the short time I have known her, to consider Little⁠—I have been so habituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed from that in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by surprise. Does she know your son?”

“Brought up together, sir,” said Mrs. Chivery. “Played together.”

“Does she know your son as her admirer?”

“Oh! bless you, sir,” said Mrs. Chivery, with a sort of triumphant shiver, “she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing he was that. His cane alone would have told it long ago, if nothing else had. Young men like John don’t take to ivory hands a pinting, for nothing. How did I first know it myself? Similarly.”

“Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.”

“Then she knows it, sir,” said Mrs. Chivery, “by word of mouth.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sir,” said Mrs. Chivery, “sure and certain as in this house I am. I see my son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I see my son come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I know he done it!” Mrs. Chivery derived a surprising force of emphasis from the foregoing circumstantiality and repetition.

“May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which causes you so much uneasiness?”

“That,” said Mrs. Chivery, “took place on that same day when to this house I see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself in this house since. Never was like what he has been since, not from the hour when to this house seven year ago me and his father, as tenants by the quarter, came!” An effect in the nature of an affidavit was gained from this speech by Mrs. Chivery’s peculiar power of construction.

“May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?”

“You may,” said Mrs. Chivery, “and I will give it to you in honour and in word as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has everyone’s good word and everyone’s good wish. He played with her as a child when in that yard a child she played. He has known her ever since. He went out upon