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

known in; who was a stranger in the land; who had not a fortune to compensate, in any measure, for these defects; who had nothing in his favour but his honest love and his general wish to do right⁠—suppose such a man were to come to this house, and were to yield to the captivation of this charming girl, and were to persuade himself that he could hope to win her; what a weakness it would be!”

He softly opened his window, and looked out upon the serene river. Year after year so much allowance for the drifting of the ferryboat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet.

Why should he be vexed or sore at heart? It was not his weakness that he had imagined. It was nobody’s, nobody’s within his knowledge; why should it trouble him? And yet it did trouble him. And he thought⁠—who has not thought for a moment, sometimes?⁠—that it might be better to flow away monotonously, like the river, and to compound for its insensibility to happiness with its insensibility to pain.

XVII Nobody’s Rival

Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about him. As the morning was fine and he had an hour on his hands, he crossed the river by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath through some meadows. When he came back to the towing-path, he found the ferryboat on the opposite side, and a gentleman hailing it and waiting to be taken over.

This gentleman looked barely thirty. He was well dressed, of a sprightly and gay appearance, a well-knit figure, and a rich dark complexion. As Arthur came over the stile and down to the water’s edge, the lounger glanced at him for a moment, and then resumed his occupation of idly tossing stones into the water with his foot. There was something in his way of spurning them out of their places with his heel, and getting them into the required position, that Clennam thought had an air of cruelty in it. Most of us have more or less frequently derived a similar impression from a man’s manner of doing some very little thing: plucking a flower, clearing away an obstacle, or even destroying an insentient object.

The gentleman’s thoughts were preoccupied, as his face showed, and he took no notice of a fine Newfoundland dog, who watched him attentively, and watched every stone too, in its turn, eager to spring into the river on receiving his master’s sign. The ferryboat came over, however, without his receiving any sign, and when it grounded his master took him by the collar and walked him into it.

“Not this morning,” he said to the dog. “You won’t do for ladies’ company, dripping wet. Lie down.”

Clennam followed the man and the dog into the boat, and took his seat. The dog did as he was ordered. The man remained standing, with his hands in his pockets, and towered between Clennam and the prospect. Man and dog both jumped lightly out as soon as they touched the other side, and went away. Clennam was glad to be rid of them.

The church clock struck the breakfast hour as he walked up the little lane by which the garden-gate was approached. The moment he pulled the bell a deep loud barking assailed him from within the wall.

“I heard no dog last night,” thought Clennam. The gate was opened by one of the rosy maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland dog and the man.

“Miss Minnie is not down yet, gentlemen,” said the blushing portress, as they all came together in the garden. Then she said to the master of the dog, “Mr. Clennam, sir,” and tripped away.

“Odd enough, Mr. Clennam, that we should have met just now,” said the man. Upon which the dog became mute. “Allow me to introduce myself⁠—Henry Gowan. A pretty place this, and looks wonderfully well this morning!”

The manner was easy, and the voice agreeable; but still Clennam thought, that if he had not made that decided resolution to avoid falling in love with Pet, he would have taken a dislike to this Henry Gowan.

“It’s new to you, I believe?” said this Gowan, when Arthur had extolled the place.

“Quite new. I made acquaintance with it only yesterday afternoon.”

“Ah! Of course this is not its best aspect. It used to look charming in the spring, before they went away last time. I should like you to have seen it then.”

But for that resolution so often recalled, Clennam might have wished him in the crater of Mount Etna, in return for this civility.

“I have had the pleasure of seeing it under many circumstances during the last three years, and it’s⁠—a Paradise.”

It was (at least it might have been, always excepting for that wise resolution) like his dexterous impudence to call it a Paradise. He only called it a Paradise because he first saw her coming, and so made her out within her hearing to be an angel, Confusion to him!

And ah! how beaming she looked, and how glad! How she caressed the dog, and how the dog knew her! How expressive that heightened colour in her face, that fluttered manner, her downcast eyes, her irresolute happiness! When had Clennam seen her look like this? Not that there was any reason why he might, could, would, or should have ever seen her look like this, or that he had ever hoped for himself to see her look like this; but still⁠—when had he ever known her do it!

He stood at a little distance from them. This Gowan when he had talked about a Paradise, had gone up to her and taken her hand. The dog had put his great paws on her arm and laid his head against her dear bosom. She had laughed and welcomed them, and made far too much of the dog, far, far, too much⁠—that is to say, supposing there had been any third person looking