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

you’ll approve of. Let us take one of those same little children to be a little maid to Pet. We are practical people. So if we should find her temper a little defective, or any of her ways a little wide of ours, we shall know what we have to take into account. We shall know what an immense deduction must be made from all the influences and experiences that have formed us⁠—no parents, no child-brother or sister, no individuality of home, no Glass Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. And that’s the way we came by Tattycoram.”

“And the name itself⁠—”

“By George!” said Mr. Meagles, “I was forgetting the name itself. Why, she was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle⁠—an arbitrary name, of course. Now, Harriet we changed into Hattey, and then into Tatty, because, as practical people, we thought even a playful name might be a new thing to her, and might have a softening and affectionate kind of effect, don’t you see? As to Beadle, that I needn’t say was wholly out of the question. If there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms, anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks our English holding on by nonsense after everyone has found it out, it is a beadle. You haven’t seen a beadle lately?”

“As an Englishman who has been more than twenty years in China, no.”

“Then,” said Mr. Meagles, laying his forefinger on his companion’s breast with great animation, “don’t you see a beadle, now, if you can help it. Whenever I see a beadle in full fig, coming down a street on a Sunday at the head of a charity school, I am obliged to turn and run away, or I should hit him. The name of Beadle being out of the question, and the originator of the Institution for these poor foundlings having been a blessed creature of the name of Coram, we gave that name to Pet’s little maid. At one time she was Tatty, and at one time she was Coram, until we got into a way of mixing the two names together, and now she is always Tattycoram.”

“Your daughter,” said the other, when they had taken another silent turn to and fro, and, after standing for a moment at the wall glancing down at the sea, had resumed their walk, “is your only child, I know, Mr. Meagles. May I ask you⁠—in no impertinent curiosity, but because I have had so much pleasure in your society, may never in this labyrinth of a world exchange a quiet word with you again, and wish to preserve an accurate remembrance of you and yours⁠—may I ask you, if I have not gathered from your good wife that you have had other children?”

“No. No,” said Mr. Meagles. “Not exactly other children. One other child.”

“I am afraid I have inadvertently touched upon a tender theme.”

“Never mind,” said Mr. Meagles. “If I am grave about it, I am not at all sorrowful. It quiets me for a moment, but does not make me unhappy. Pet had a twin sister who died when we could just see her eyes⁠—exactly like Pet’s⁠—above the table, as she stood on tiptoe holding by it.”

“Ah! indeed, indeed!”

“Yes, and being practical people, a result has gradually sprung up in the minds of Mrs. Meagles and myself which perhaps you may⁠—or perhaps you may not⁠—understand. Pet and her baby sister were so exactly alike, and so completely one, that in our thoughts we have never been able to separate them since. It would be of no use to tell us that our dead child was a mere infant. We have changed that child according to the changes in the child spared to us and always with us. As Pet has grown, that child has grown; as Pet has become more sensible and womanly, her sister has become more sensible and womanly by just the same degrees. It would be as hard to convince me that if I was to pass into the other world tomorrow, I should not, through the mercy of God, be received there by a daughter, just like Pet, as to persuade me that Pet herself is not a reality at my side.”

“I understand you,” said the other, gently.

“As to her,” pursued her father, “the sudden loss of her little picture and playfellow, and her early association with that mystery in which we all have our equal share, but which is not often so forcibly presented to a child, has necessarily had some influence on her character. Then, her mother and I were not young when we married, and Pet has always had a sort of grown-up life with us, though we have tried to adapt ourselves to her. We have been advised more than once when she has been a little ailing, to change climate and air for her as often as we could⁠—especially at about this time of her life⁠—and to keep her amused. So, as I have no need to stick at a bank-desk now (though I have been poor enough in my time I assure you, or I should have married Mrs. Meagles long before), we go trotting about the world. This is how you found us staring at the Nile, and the Pyramids, and the Sphinxes, and the Desert, and all the rest of it; and this is how Tattycoram will be a greater traveller in course of time than Captain Cook.”

“I thank you,” said the other, “very heartily for your confidence.”

“Don’t mention it,” returned Mr. Meagles, “I am sure you are quite welcome. And now, Mr. Clennam, perhaps I may ask you whether you have yet come to a decision where to go next?”

“Indeed, no. I am such a waif and stray everywhere, that I am liable to be drifted where any current may set.”

“It’s extraordinary to me⁠—if you’ll excuse my freedom in saying so⁠—that you don’t go straight to London,” said Mr. Meagles, in the tone of a confidential adviser.

“Perhaps I shall.”

“Ay!