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

solicitous to promote Miss Dorrit’s happiness; and if I could have supposed that Miss Dorrit returned your affection⁠—”

Poor John Chivery turned crimson to the tips of his ears. “Miss Dorrit never did, sir. I wish to be honourable and true, so far as in my humble way I can, and I would scorn to pretend for a moment that she ever did, or that she ever led me to believe she did; no, nor even that it was ever to be expected in any cool reason that she would or could. She was far above me in all respects at all times. As likewise,” added John, “similarly was her gen‑teel family.”

His chivalrous feeling towards all that belonged to her made him so very respectable, in spite of his small stature and his rather weak legs, and his very weak hair, and his poetical temperament, that a Goliath might have sat in his place demanding less consideration at Arthur’s hands.

“You speak, John,” he said, with cordial admiration, “like a Man.”

“Well, sir,” returned John, brushing his hand across his eyes, “then I wish you’d do the same.”

He was quick with this unexpected retort, and it again made Arthur regard him with a wondering expression of face.

“Leastways,” said John, stretching his hand across the tea-tray, “if too strong a remark, withdrawn! But, why not, why not? When I say to you, Mr. Clennam, take care of yourself for someone else’s sake, why not be open, though a turnkey? Why did I get you the room which I knew you’d like best? Why did I carry up your things? Not that I found ’em heavy; I don’t mention ’em on that accounts; far from it. Why have I cultivated you in the manner I have done since the morning? On the ground of your own merits? No. They’re very great, I’ve no doubt at all; but not on the ground of them. Another’s merits have had their weight, and have had far more weight with me. Then why not speak free?”

“Unaffectedly, John,” said Clennam, “you are so good a fellow and I have so true a respect for your character, that if I have appeared to be less sensible than I really am of the fact that the kind services you have rendered me today are attributable to my having been trusted by Miss Dorrit as her friend⁠—I confess it to be a fault, and I ask your forgiveness.”

“Oh! why not,” John repeated with returning scorn, “why not speak free!”

“I declare to you,” returned Arthur, “that I do not understand you. Look at me. Consider the trouble I have been in. Is it likely that I would wilfully add to my other self-reproaches, that of being ungrateful or treacherous to you. I do not understand you.”

John’s incredulous face slowly softened into a face of doubt. He rose, backed into the garret-window of the room, beckoned Arthur to come there, and stood looking at him thoughtfully.

“Mr. Clennam, do you mean to say that you don’t know?”

“What, John?”

“Lord,” said Young John, appealing with a gasp to the spikes on the wall. “He says, What!”

Clennam looked at the spikes, and looked at John; and looked at the spikes, and looked at John.

“He says What! And what is more,” exclaimed Young John, surveying him in a doleful maze, “he appears to mean it! Do you see this window, sir?”

“Of course I see this window.”

“See this room?”

“Why, of course I see this room.”

“That wall opposite, and that yard down below? They have all been witnesses of it, from day to day, from night to night, from week to week, from month to month. For how often have I seen Miss Dorrit here when she has not seen me!”

“Witnesses of what?” said Clennam.

“Of Miss Dorrit’s love.”

“For whom?”

“You,” said John. And touched him with the back of his hand upon the breast, and backed to his chair, and sat down on it with a pale face, holding the arms, and shaking his head at him.

If he had dealt Clennam a heavy blow, instead of laying that light touch upon him, its effect could not have been to shake him more. He stood amazed; his eyes looking at John; his lips parted, and seeming now and then to form the word “Me!” without uttering it; his hands dropped at his sides; his whole appearance that of a man who has been awakened from sleep, and stupefied by intelligence beyond his full comprehension.

“Me!” he at length said aloud.

“Ah!” groaned Young John. “You!”

He did what he could to muster a smile, and returned, “Your fancy. You are completely mistaken.”

“I mistaken, sir!” said Young John. “I completely mistaken on that subject! No, Mr. Clennam, don’t tell me so. On any other, if you like, for I don’t set up to be a penetrating character, and am well aware of my own deficiencies. But, I mistaken on a point that has caused me more smart in my breast than a flight of savages’ arrows could have done! I mistaken on a point that almost sent me into my grave, as I sometimes wished it would, if the grave could only have been made compatible with the tobacco-business and father and mother’s feelings! I mistaken on a point that, even at the present moment, makes me take out my pocket-handkerchief like a great girl, as people say: though I am sure I don’t know why a great girl should be a term of reproach, for every rightly constituted male mind loves ’em great and small. Don’t tell me so, don’t tell me so!”

Still highly respectable at bottom, though absurd enough upon the surface, Young John took out his pocket-handkerchief with a genuine absence both of display and concealment, which is only to be seen in a man with a great deal of good in him, when he takes out his pocket-handkerchief for the purpose of wiping his eyes. Having dried them, and indulged in the harmless luxury of a sob and a sniff, he put it up again.

The touch was