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

Mr. Sparkler considered it a parallel case to that of some of our fellows in the West Indies with Yellow Jack. Mrs. Sparkler closed her eyes again, and refused to have any consciousness of our fellows of the West Indies, or of Yellow Jack.

“So, Amy,” she pursued, when she reopened her eyelids, “will require to be roused from the effects of many tedious and anxious weeks. And lastly, she will require to be roused from a low tendency which I know very well to be at the bottom of her heart. Don’t ask me what it is, Edmund, because I must decline to tell you.”

“I am not going to, my dear,” said Mr. Sparkler.

“I shall thus have much improvement to effect in my sweet child,” Mrs. Sparkler continued, “and cannot have her near me too soon. Amiable and dear little Twoshoes! As to the settlement of poor papa’s affairs, my interest in that is not very selfish. Papa behaved very generously to me when I was married, and I have little or nothing to expect. Provided he had made no will that can come into force, leaving a legacy to Mrs. General, I am contented. Dear papa, dear papa.”

She wept again, but Mrs. General was the best of restoratives. The name soon stimulated her to dry her eyes and say:

“It is a highly encouraging circumstance in Edward’s illness, I am thankful to think, and gives one the greatest confidence in his sense not being impaired, or his proper spirit weakened⁠—down to the time of poor dear papa’s death at all events⁠—that he paid off Mrs. General instantly, and sent her out of the house. I applaud him for it. I could forgive him a great deal for doing, with such promptitude, so exactly what I would have done myself!”

Mrs. Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification, when a double knock was heard at the door. A very odd knock. Low, as if to avoid making a noise and attracting attention. Long, as if the person knocking were preoccupied in mind, and forgot to leave off.

“Halloa!” said Mr. Sparkler. “Who’s this?”

“Not Amy and Edward without notice and without a carriage!” said Mrs. Sparkler. “Look out.”

The room was dark, but the street was lighter, because of its lamps. Mr. Sparkler’s head peeping over the balcony looked so very bulky and heavy that it seemed on the point of overbalancing him and flattening the unknown below.

“It’s one fellow,” said Mr. Sparkler. “I can’t see who⁠—stop though!”

On this second thought he went out into the balcony again and had another look. He came back as the door was opened, and announced that he believed he had identified “his governor’s tile.” He was not mistaken, for his governor, with his tile in his hand, was introduced immediately afterwards.

“Candles!” said Mrs. Sparkler, with a word of excuse for the darkness.

“It’s light enough for me,” said Mr. Merdle.

When the candles were brought in, Mr. Merdle was discovered standing behind the door, picking his lips. “I thought I’d give you a call,” he said. “I am rather particularly occupied just now; and, as I happened to be out for a stroll, I thought I’d give you a call.”

As he was in dinner dress, Fanny asked him where he had been dining?

“Well,” said Mr. Merdle, “I haven’t been dining anywhere, particularly.”

“Of course you have dined?” said Fanny.

“Why⁠—no, I haven’t exactly dined,” said Mr. Merdle.

He had passed his hand over his yellow forehead and considered, as if he were not sure about it. Something to eat was proposed. “No, thank you,” said Mr. Merdle, “I don’t feel inclined for it. I was to have dined out along with Mrs. Merdle. But as I didn’t feel inclined for dinner, I let Mrs. Merdle go by herself just as we were getting into the carriage, and thought I’d take a stroll instead.”

Would he have tea or coffee? “No, thank you,” said Mr. Merdle. “I looked in at the Club, and got a bottle of wine.”

At this period of his visit, Mr. Merdle took the chair which Edmund Sparkler had offered him, and which he had hitherto been pushing slowly about before him, like a dull man with a pair of skates on for the first time, who could not make up his mind to start. He now put his hat upon another chair beside him, and, looking down into it as if it were some twenty feet deep, said again: “You see I thought I’d give you a call.”

“Flattering to us,” said Fanny, “for you are not a calling man.”

“No⁠—no,” returned Mr. Merdle, who was by this time taking himself into custody under both coat-sleeves. “No, I am not a calling man.”

“You have too much to do for that,” said Fanny. “Having so much to do, Mr. Merdle, loss of appetite is a serious thing with you, and you must have it seen to. You must not be ill.”

“Oh! I am very well,” replied Mr. Merdle, after deliberating about it. “I am as well as I usually am. I am well enough. I am as well as I want to be.”

The mastermind of the age, true to its characteristic of being at all times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself and great difficulty in saying it, became mute again. Mrs. Sparkler began to wonder how long the mastermind meant to stay.

“I was speaking of poor papa when you came in, sir.”

“Aye! Quite a coincidence,” said Mr. Merdle.

Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue talking. “I was saying,” she pursued, “that my brother’s illness has occasioned a delay in examining and arranging papa’s property.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Merdle; “yes. There has been a delay.”

“Not that it is of consequence,” said Fanny.

“Not,” assented Mr. Merdle, after having examined the cornice of all that part of the room which was within his range: “not that it is of any consequence.”

“My only anxiety is,” said Fanny, “that Mrs. General should not get anything.”

“She won’t get anything,” said Mr. Merdle.

Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion. Mr. Merdle, after taking another gaze into the depths of his hat as if he thought he saw