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

in whose gentle bosoms it awakened implacable feelings. Concurrently, active preparations were made for the day on which some of its treasures were to be publicly displayed. Cards of breakfast-invitation were sent out to half the English in the city of Romulus; the other half made arrangements to be under arms, as criticising volunteers, at various outer points of the solemnity. The most high and illustrious English Signor Edgardo Dorrit, came post through the deep mud and ruts (from forming a surface under the improving Neapolitan nobility), to grace the occasion. The best hotel and all its culinary myrmidons, were set to work to prepare the feast. The drafts of Mr. Dorrit almost constituted a run on the Torlonia Bank. The British Consul hadn’t had such a marriage in the whole of his Consularity.

The day came, and the She-Wolf in the Capitol might have snarled with envy to see how the Island Savages contrived these things nowadays. The murderous-headed statues of the wicked Emperors of the Soldiery, whom sculptors had not been able to flatter out of their villainous hideousness, might have come off their pedestals to run away with the Bride. The choked old fountain, where erst the gladiators washed, might have leaped into life again to honour the ceremony. The Temple of Vesta might have sprung up anew from its ruins, expressly to lend its countenance to the occasion. Might have done; but did not. Like sentient things⁠—even like the lords and ladies of creation sometimes⁠—might have done much, but did nothing. The celebration went off with admirable pomp; monks in black robes, white robes, and russet robes stopped to look after the carriages; wandering peasants in fleeces of sheep, begged and piped under the house-windows; the English volunteers defiled; the day wore on to the hour of vespers; the festival wore away; the thousand churches rang their bells without any reference to it; and St. Peter denied that he had anything to do with it.

But by that time the Bride was near the end of the first day’s journey towards Florence. It was the peculiarity of the nuptials that they were all Bride. Nobody noticed the Bridegroom. Nobody noticed the first Bridesmaid. Few could have seen Little Dorrit (who held that post) for the glare, even supposing many to have sought her. So, the Bride had mounted into her handsome chariot, incidentally accompanied by the Bridegroom; and after rolling for a few minutes smoothly over a fair pavement, had begun to jolt through a Slough of Despond, and through a long, long avenue of wrack and ruin. Other nuptial carriages are said to have gone the same road, before and since.

If Little Dorrit found herself left a little lonely and a little low that night, nothing would have done so much against her feeling of depression as the being able to sit at work by her father, as in the old time, and help him to his supper and his rest. But that was not to be thought of now, when they sat in the state-equipage with Mrs. General on the coach-box. And as to supper! If Mr. Dorrit had wanted supper, there was an Italian cook and there was a Swiss confectioner, who must have put on caps as high as the Pope’s Mitre, and have performed the mysteries of Alchemists in a copper-saucepaned laboratory below, before he could have got it.

He was sententious and didactic that night. If he had been simply loving, he would have done Little Dorrit more good; but she accepted him as he was⁠—when had she not accepted him as he was!⁠—and made the most and best of him. Mrs. General at length retired. Her retirement for the night was always her frostiest ceremony, as if she felt it necessary that the human imagination should be chilled into stone to prevent its following her. When she had gone through her rigid preliminaries, amounting to a sort of genteel platoon-exercise, she withdrew. Little Dorrit then put her arm round her father’s neck, to bid him good night.

“Amy, my dear,” said Mr. Dorrit, taking her by the hand, “this is the close of a day, that has⁠—ha⁠—greatly impressed and gratified me.”

“A little tired you, dear, too?”

“No,” said Mr. Dorrit, “no: I am not sensible of fatigue when it arises from an occasion so⁠—hum⁠—replete with gratification of the purest kind.”

Little Dorrit was glad to find him in such heart, and smiled from her own heart.

“My dear,” he continued, “this is an occasion⁠—ha⁠—teeming with a good example. With a good example, my favourite and attached child⁠—hum⁠—to you.”

Little Dorrit, fluttered by his words, did not know what to say, though he stopped as if he expected her to say something.

“Amy,” he resumed; “your dear sister, our Fanny, has contracted ha hum⁠—a marriage, eminently calculated to extend the basis of our⁠—ha⁠—connection, and to⁠—hum⁠—consolidate our social relations. My love, I trust that the time is not far distant when some⁠—ha⁠—eligible partner may be found for you.”

“Oh no! Let me stay with you. I beg and pray that I may stay with you! I want nothing but to stay and take care of you!”

She said it like one in sudden alarm.

“Nay, Amy, Amy,” said Mr. Dorrit. “This is weak and foolish, weak and foolish. You have a⁠—ha⁠—responsibility imposed upon you by your position. It is to develop that position, and be⁠—hum⁠—worthy of that position. As to taking care of me; I can⁠—ha⁠—take care of myself. Or,” he added after a moment, “if I should need to be taken care of, I⁠—hum⁠—can, with the⁠—ha⁠—blessing of Providence, be taken care of, I⁠—ha hum⁠—I cannot, my dear child, think of engrossing, and⁠—ha⁠—as it were, sacrificing you.”

O what a time of day at which to begin that profession of self-denial; at which to make it, with an air of taking credit for it; at which to believe it, if such a thing could be!

“Don’t speak, Amy. I positively say I cannot do it. I⁠—ha⁠—must not do it. My⁠—hum⁠—conscience would not allow it. I therefore, my love, take the opportunity afforded by