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

or they might have kept him in; for such old men should not be born. He passed along the streets as usual to Bleeding Heart Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, and gave them Phyllis. He had hardly concluded, when Little Dorrit looked in to see how they all were.

“Miss Dorrit,” said Mrs. Plornish, “here’s Father! Ain’t he looking nice? And such voice he’s in!”

Little Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not seen him this long time.

“No, they’re rather hard on poor Father,” said Mrs. Plornish with a lengthening face, “and don’t let him have half as much change and fresh air as would benefit him. But he’ll soon be home for good, now. Won’t you, Father?”

“Yes, my dear, I hope so. In good time, please God.”

Here Mr. Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he invariably made, word for word the same, on all such opportunities. It was couched in the following terms:

“John Edward Nandy. Sir. While there’s a ounce of wittles or drink of any sort in this present roof, you’re fully welcome to your share on it. While there’s a handful of fire or a mouthful of bed in this present roof, you’re fully welcome to your share on it. If so be as there should be nothing in this present roof, you should be as welcome to your share on it as if it was something, much or little. And this is what I mean and so I don’t deceive you, and consequently which is to stand out is to entreat of you, and therefore why not do it?”

To this lucid address, which Mr. Plornish always delivered as if he had composed it (as no doubt he had) with enormous labour, Mrs. Plornish’s father pipingly replied:

“I thank you kindly, Thomas, and I know your intentions well, which is the same I thank you kindly for. But no, Thomas. Until such times as it’s not to take it out of your children’s mouths, which take it is, and call it by what name you will it do remain and equally deprive, though may they come, and too soon they can not come, no Thomas, no!”

Mrs. Plornish, who had been turning her face a little away with a corner of her apron in her hand, brought herself back to the conversation again by telling Miss Dorrit that Father was going over the water to pay his respects, unless she knew of any reason why it might not be agreeable.

Her answer was, “I am going straight home, and if he will come with me I shall be so glad to take care of him⁠—so glad,” said Little Dorrit, always thoughtful of the feelings of the weak, “of his company.”

“There, Father!” cried Mrs. Plornish. “Ain’t you a gay young man to be going for a walk along with Miss Dorrit! Let me tie your neck-handkerchief into a regular good bow, for you’re a regular beau yourself, Father, if ever there was one.”

With this filial joke his daughter smartened him up, and gave him a loving hug, and stood at the door with her weak child in her arms, and her strong child tumbling down the steps, looking after her little old father as he toddled away with his arm under Little Dorrit’s.

They walked at a slow pace, and Little Dorrit took him by the Iron Bridge and sat him down there for a rest, and they looked over at the water and talked about the shipping, and the old man mentioned what he would do if he had a ship full of gold coming home to him (his plan was to take a noble lodging for the Plornishes and himself at a Tea Gardens, and live there all the rest of their lives, attended on by the waiter), and it was a special birthday of the old man. They were within five minutes of their destination, when, at the corner of her own street, they came upon Fanny in her new bonnet bound for the same port.

“Why, good gracious me, Amy!” cried that young lady starting. “You never mean it!”

“Mean what, Fanny dear?”

“Well! I could have believed a great deal of you,” returned the young lady with burning indignation, “but I don’t think even I could have believed this, of even you!”

“Fanny!” cried Little Dorrit, wounded and astonished.

“Oh! Don’t Fanny me, you mean little thing, don’t! The idea of coming along the open streets, in the broad light of day, with a Pauper!” (firing off the last word as if it were a ball from an airgun).

“O Fanny!”

“I tell you not to Fanny me, for I’ll not submit to it! I never knew such a thing. The way in which you are resolved and determined to disgrace us on all occasions, is really infamous. You bad little thing!”

“Does it disgrace anybody,” said Little Dorrit, very gently, “to take care of this poor old man?”

“Yes, miss,” returned her sister, “and you ought to know it does. And you do know it does, and you do it because you know it does. The principal pleasure of your life is to remind your family of their misfortunes. And the next great pleasure of your existence is to keep low company. But, however, if you have no sense of decency, I have. You’ll please to allow me to go on the other side of the way, unmolested.”

With this, she bounced across to the opposite pavement. The old disgrace, who had been deferentially bowing a pace or two off (for Little Dorrit had let his arm go in her wonder, when Fanny began), and who had been hustled and cursed by impatient passengers for stopping the way, rejoined his companion, rather giddy, and said, “I hope nothing’s wrong with your honoured father, Miss? I hope there’s nothing the matter in the honoured family?”

“No, no,” returned Little Dorrit. “No, thank you. Give me your arm again, Mr. Nandy. We shall soon be there now.”

So she talked to him as she had talked before, and they came