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

to the Lodge and found Mr. Chivery on the lock, and went in. Now, it happened that the Father of the Marshalsea was sauntering towards the Lodge at the moment when they were coming out of it, entering the prison arm in arm. As the spectacle of their approach met his view, he displayed the utmost agitation and despondency of mind; and⁠—altogether regardless of Old Nandy, who, making his reverence, stood with his hat in his hand, as he always did in that gracious presence⁠—turned about, and hurried in at his own doorway and up the staircase.

Leaving the old unfortunate, whom in an evil hour she had taken under her protection, with a hurried promise to return to him directly, Little Dorrit hastened after her father, and, on the staircase, found Fanny following her, and flouncing up with offended dignity. The three came into the room almost together; and the Father sat down in his chair, buried his face in his hands, and uttered a groan.

“Of course,” said Fanny. “Very proper. Poor, afflicted Pa! Now, I hope you believe me, Miss?”

“What is it, father?” cried Little Dorrit, bending over him. “Have I made you unhappy, father? Not I, I hope!”

“You hope, indeed! I dare say! Oh, you”⁠—Fanny paused for a sufficiently strong expression⁠—“you Common-minded little Amy! You complete prison-child!”

He stopped these angry reproaches with a wave of his hand, and sobbed out, raising his face and shaking his melancholy head at his younger daughter, “Amy, I know that you are innocent in intention. But you have cut me to the soul.”

“Innocent in intention!” the implacable Fanny struck in. “Stuff in intention! Low in intention! Lowering of the family in intention!”

“Father!” cried Little Dorrit, pale and trembling. “I am very sorry. Pray forgive me. Tell me how it is, that I may not do it again!”

“How it is, you prevaricating little piece of goods!” cried Fanny. “You know how it is. I have told you already, so don’t fly in the face of Providence by attempting to deny it!”

“Hush! Amy,” said the father, passing his pocket-handkerchief several times across his face, and then grasping it convulsively in the hand that dropped across his knee, “I have done what I could to keep you select here; I have done what I could to retain you a position here. I may have succeeded; I may not. You may know it; you may not. I give no opinion. I have endured everything here but humiliation. That I have happily been spared⁠—until this day.”

Here his convulsive grasp unclosed itself, and he put his pocket-handkerchief to his eyes again. Little Dorrit, on the ground beside him, with her imploring hand upon his arm, watched him remorsefully. Coming out of his fit of grief, he clenched his pocket-handkerchief once more.

“Humiliation I have happily been spared until this day. Through all my troubles there has been that⁠—Spirit in myself, and that⁠—that submission to it, if I may use the term, in those about me, which has spared me⁠—ha⁠—humiliation. But this day, this minute, I have keenly felt it.”

“Of course! How could it be otherwise?” exclaimed the irrepressible Fanny. “Careering and prancing about with a Pauper!” (airgun again).

“But, dear father,” cried Little Dorrit, “I don’t justify myself for having wounded your dear heart⁠—no! Heaven knows I don’t!” She clasped her hands in quite an agony of distress. “I do nothing but beg and pray you to be comforted and overlook it. But if I had not known that you were kind to the old man yourself, and took much notice of him, and were always glad to see him, I would not have come here with him, father, I would not, indeed. What I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done in mistake. I would not wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!” said Little Dorrit, her heart well-nigh broken, “for anything the world could give me, or anything it could take away.”

Fanny, with a partly angry and partly repentant sob, began to cry herself, and to say⁠—as this young lady always said when she was half in passion and half out of it, half spiteful with herself and half spiteful with everybody else⁠—that she wished she were dead.

The Father of the Marshalsea in the meantime took his younger daughter to his breast, and patted her head.

“There, there! Say no more, Amy, say no more, my child. I will forget it as soon as I can. I,” with hysterical cheerfulness, “I⁠—shall soon be able to dismiss it. It is perfectly true, my dear, that I am always glad to see my old pensioner⁠—as such, as such⁠—and that I do⁠—ha⁠—extend as much protection and kindness to the⁠—hum⁠—the bruised reed⁠—I trust I may so call him without impropriety⁠—as in my circumstances, I can. It is quite true that this is the case, my dear child. At the same time, I preserve in doing this, if I may⁠—ha⁠—if I may use the expression⁠—Spirit. Becoming Spirit. And there are some things which are,” he stopped to sob, “irreconcilable with that, and wound that⁠—wound it deeply. It is not that I have seen my good Amy attentive, and⁠—ha⁠—condescending to my old pensioner⁠—it is not that that hurts me. It is, if I am to close the painful subject by being explicit, that I have seen my child, my own child, my own daughter, coming into this College out of the public streets⁠—smiling! smiling!⁠—arm in arm with⁠—O my God, a livery!”

This reference to the coat of no cut and no time, the unfortunate gentleman gasped forth, in a scarcely audible voice, and with his clenched pocket-handkerchief raised in the air. His excited feelings might have found some further painful utterance, but for a knock at the door, which had been already twice repeated, and to which Fanny (still wishing herself dead, and indeed now going so far as to add, buried) cried “Come in!”

“Ah, Young John!” said the Father, in an altered and calmed voice. “What is it, Young John?”

“A letter