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

Then he added behind his hand, (“Union, poor old fellow. Out for the day.”)

By this time Maggy, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had spread the board, and the repast was ready. It being hot weather and the prison very close, the window was as wide open as it could be pushed. “If Maggy will spread that newspaper on the windowsill, my dear,” remarked the Father complacently and in a half whisper to Little Dorrit, “my old pensioner can have his tea there, while we are having ours.”

So, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in width, standard measure, Mrs. Plornish’s father was handsomely regaled. Clennam had never seen anything like his magnanimous protection by that other Father, he of the Marshalsea; and was lost in the contemplation of its many wonders.

The most striking of these was perhaps the relishing manner in which he remarked on the pensioner’s infirmities and failings, as if he were a gracious Keeper making a running commentary on the decline of the harmless animal he exhibited.

“Not ready for more ham yet, Nandy? Why, how slow you are! (His last teeth,” he explained to the company, “are going, poor old boy.”)

At another time, he said, “No shrimps, Nandy?” and on his not instantly replying, observed, (“His hearing is becoming very defective. He’ll be deaf directly.”)

At another time he asked him, “Do you walk much, Nandy, about the yard within the walls of that place of yours?”

“No, sir; no. I haven’t any great liking for that.”

“No, to be sure,” he assented. “Very natural.” Then he privately informed the circle (“Legs going.”)

Once he asked the pensioner, in that general clemency which asked him anything to keep him afloat, how old his younger grandchild was?

“John Edward,” said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and fork to consider. “How old, sir? Let me think now.”

The Father of the Marshalsea tapped his forehead (“Memory weak.”)

“John Edward, sir? Well, I really forget. I couldn’t say at this minute, sir, whether it’s two and two months, or whether it’s two and five months. It’s one or the other.”

“Don’t distress yourself by worrying your mind about it,” he returned, with infinite forbearance. (“Faculties evidently decaying⁠—old man rusts in the life he leads!”)

The more of these discoveries that he persuaded himself he made in the pensioner, the better he appeared to like him; and when he got out of his chair after tea to bid the pensioner goodbye, on his intimating that he feared, honoured sir, his time was running out, he made himself look as erect and strong as possible.

“We don’t call this a shilling, Nandy, you know,” he said, putting one in his hand. “We call it tobacco.”

“Honoured sir, I thank you. It shall buy tobacco. My thanks and duty to Miss Amy and Miss Fanny. I wish you good night, Mr. Clennam.”

“And mind you don’t forget us, you know, Nandy,” said the Father. “You must come again, mind, whenever you have an afternoon. You must not come out without seeing us, or we shall be jealous. Good night, Nandy. Be very careful how you descend the stairs, Nandy; they are rather uneven and worn.” With that he stood on the landing, watching the old man down: and when he came into the room again, said, with a solemn satisfaction on him, “A melancholy sight that, Mr. Clennam, though one has the consolation of knowing that he doesn’t feel it himself. The poor old fellow is a dismal wreck. Spirit broken and gone⁠—pulverised⁠—crushed out of him, sir, completely!”

As Clennam had a purpose in remaining, he said what he could responsive to these sentiments, and stood at the window with their enunciator, while Maggy and her Little Mother washed the tea-service and cleared it away. He noticed that his companion stood at the window with the air of an affable and accessible Sovereign, and that, when any of his people in the yard below looked up, his recognition of their salutes just stopped short of a blessing.

When Little Dorrit had her work on the table, and Maggy hers on the bedstead, Fanny fell to tying her bonnet as a preliminary to her departure. Arthur, still having his purpose, still remained. At this time the door opened, without any notice, and Mr. Tip came in. He kissed Amy as she started up to meet him, nodded to Fanny, nodded to his father, gloomed on the visitor without further recognition, and sat down.

“Tip, dear,” said Little Dorrit, mildly, shocked by this, “don’t you see⁠—”

“Yes, I see, Amy. If you refer to the presence of any visitor you have here⁠—I say, if you refer to that,” answered Tip, jerking his head with emphasis towards his shoulder nearest Clennam, “I see!”

“Is that all you say?”

“That’s all I say. And I suppose,” added the lofty young man, after a moment’s pause, “that visitor will understand me, when I say that’s all I say. In short, I suppose the visitor will understand that he hasn’t used me like a gentleman.”

“I do not understand that,” observed the obnoxious personage referred to with tranquillity.

“No? Why, then, to make it clearer to you, sir, I beg to let you know that when I address what I call a properly-worded appeal, and an urgent appeal, and a delicate appeal, to an individual, for a small temporary accommodation, easily within his power⁠—easily within his power, mind!⁠—and when that individual writes back word to me that he begs to be excused, I consider that he doesn’t treat me like a gentleman.”

The Father of the Marshalsea, who had surveyed his son in silence, no sooner heard this sentiment, than he began in angry voice:⁠—

“How dare you⁠—” But his son stopped him.

“Now, don’t ask me how I dare, father, because that’s bosh. As to the fact of the line of conduct I choose to adopt towards the individual present, you ought to be proud of my showing a proper spirit.”

“I should think so!” cried Fanny.

“A proper spirit?” said the Father. “Yes, a proper spirit; a