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

him the trouble of coming to her (which, in his gallantry, he had proposed), the envoy threw open the door, and escorted Mrs. General to the presence. It was quite a walk, by mysterious staircases and corridors, from Mrs. General’s apartment⁠—hoodwinked by a narrow side street with a low gloomy bridge in it, and dungeon-like opposite tenements, their walls besmeared with a thousand downward stains and streaks, as if every crazy aperture in them had been weeping tears of rust into the Adriatic for centuries⁠—to Mr. Dorrit’s apartment: with a whole English house-front of window, a prospect of beautiful church-domes rising into the blue sky sheer out of the water which reflected them, and a hushed murmur of the Grand Canal laving the doorways below, where his gondolas and gondoliers attended his pleasure, drowsily swinging in a little forest of piles.

Mr. Dorrit, in a resplendent dressing-gown and cap⁠—the dormant grub that had so long bided its time among the Collegians had burst into a rare butterfly⁠—rose to receive Mrs. General. A chair to Mrs. General. An easier chair, sir; what are you doing, what are you about, what do you mean? Now, leave us!

“Mrs. General,” said Mr. Dorrit, “I took the liberty⁠—”

“By no means,” Mrs. General interposed. “I was quite at your disposition. I had had my coffee.”

“⁠—I took the liberty,” said Mr. Dorrit again, with the magnificent placidity of one who was above correction, “to solicit the favour of a little private conversation with you, because I feel rather worried respecting my⁠—ha⁠—my younger daughter. You will have observed a great difference of temperament, madam, between my two daughters?”

Said Mrs. General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was never without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted), “There is a great difference.”

“May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?” said Mr. Dorrit, with a deference not incompatible with majestic serenity.

“Fanny,” returned Mrs. General, “has force of character and self-reliance. Amy, none.”

None? O Mrs. General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars. O Mrs. General, ask the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing-master who taught her sister to dance. O Mrs. General, Mrs. General, ask me, her father, what I owe her; and hear my testimony touching the life of this slighted little creature from her childhood up!

No such adjuration entered Mr. Dorrit’s head. He looked at Mrs. General, seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind the proprieties, and he said in a thoughtful manner, “True, madam.”

“I would not,” said Mrs. General, “be understood to say, observe, that there is nothing to improve in Fanny. But there is material there⁠—perhaps, indeed, a little too much.”

“Will you be kind enough, madam,” said Mr. Dorrit, “to be⁠—ha⁠—more explicit? I do not quite understand my elder daughter’s having⁠—hum⁠—too much material. What material?”

“Fanny,” returned Mrs. General, “at present forms too many opinions. Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.”

Lest he himself should be found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr. Dorrit hastened to reply, “Unquestionably, madam, you are right.” Mrs. General returned, in her emotionless and expressionless manner, “I believe so.”

“But you are aware, my dear madam,” said Mr. Dorrit, “that my daughters had the misfortune to lose their lamented mother when they were very young; and that, in consequence of my not having been until lately the recognised heir to my property, they have lived with me as a comparatively poor, though always proud, gentleman, in⁠—ha hum⁠—retirement!”

“I do not,” said Mrs. General, “lose sight of the circumstance.”

“Madam,” pursued Mr. Dorrit, “of my daughter Fanny, under her present guidance and with such an example constantly before her⁠—”

(Mrs. General shut her eyes.)

—“I have no misgivings. There is adaptability of character in Fanny. But my younger daughter, Mrs. General, rather worries and vexes my thoughts. I must inform you that she has always been my favourite.”

“There is no accounting,” said Mrs. General, “for these partialities.”

“Ha⁠—no,” assented Mr. Dorrit. “No. Now, madam, I am troubled by noticing that Amy is not, so to speak, one of ourselves. She does not care to go about with us; she is lost in the society we have here; our tastes are evidently not her tastes. Which,” said Mr. Dorrit, summing up with judicial gravity, “is to say, in other words, that there is something wrong in⁠—ha⁠—Amy.”

“May we incline to the supposition,” said Mrs. General, with a little touch of varnish, “that something is referable to the novelty of the position?”

“Excuse me, madam,” observed Mr. Dorrit, rather quickly. “The daughter of a gentleman, though⁠—ha⁠—himself at one time comparatively far from affluent⁠—comparatively⁠—and herself reared in⁠—hum⁠—retirement, need not of necessity find this position so very novel.”

“True,” said Mrs. General, “true.”

“Therefore, madam,” said Mr. Dorrit, “I took the liberty” (he laid an emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, with urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), “I took the liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I might mention the topic to you, and inquire how you would advise me?”

“Mr. Dorrit,” returned Mrs. General, “I have conversed with Amy several times since we have been residing here, on the general subject of the formation of a demeanour. She has expressed herself to me as wondering exceedingly at Venice. I have mentioned to her that it is better not to wonder. I have pointed out to her that the celebrated Mr. Eustace, the classical tourist, did not think much of it; and that he compared the Rialto, greatly to its disadvantage, with Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges. I need not add, after what you have said, that I have not yet found my arguments successful. You do me the honour to ask me what to advise. It always appears to me (if this should prove to be a baseless assumption, I shall be pardoned), that Mr. Dorrit has been accustomed to exercise influence over the minds of others.”

“Hum⁠—madam,” said Mr. Dorrit, “I have been at the head of⁠—ha of a considerable community. You are right in supposing that I am not unaccustomed to⁠—an influential position.”

“I am happy,” returned Mrs. General, “to be so corroborated. I would therefore the more confidently recommend that Mr. Dorrit should speak to Amy himself, and make his observations and wishes known to her. Being his favourite, besides,