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

in the Lodge as she passed through it; and a Collegian who had come in on Saturday night, received the intimation from the elbow of a more seasoned Collegian, “Look out. Here she is!”

She wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr. Cripples’s, she found that both her sister and her uncle had gone to the theatre where they were engaged. Having taken thought of this probability by the way, and having settled that in such case she would follow them, she set off afresh for the theatre, which was on that side of the river, and not very far away.

Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of the ways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort of door, with a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to be ashamed of itself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to approach it; being further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen close-shaved gentlemen with their hats very strangely on, who were lounging about the door, looking not at all unlike Collegians. On her applying to them, reassured by this resemblance, for a direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for her to enter a dark hall⁠—it was more like a great grim lamp gone out than anything else⁠—where she could hear the distant playing of music and the sound of dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he had a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in a corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a message up to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went through. The first lady who went through had a roll of music, half in her muff and half out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition altogether, that it seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to iron her. But as she was very good-natured, and said, “Come with me; I’ll soon find Miss Dorrit for you,” Miss Dorrit’s sister went with her, drawing nearer and nearer at every step she took in the darkness to the sound of music and the sound of dancing feet.

At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people were tumbling over one another, and where there was such a confusion of unaccountable shapes of beams, bulkheads, brick walls, ropes, and rollers, and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight, that they seemed to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of the universe. Little Dorrit, left to herself, and knocked against by somebody every moment, was quite bewildered, when she heard her sister’s voice.

“Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?”

“I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day tomorrow, and knew you might be engaged all day today, I thought⁠—”

“But the idea, Amy, of you coming behind! I never did!” As her sister said this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she conducted her to a more open part of the maze, where various golden chairs and tables were heaped together, and where a number of young ladies were sitting on anything they could find, chattering. All these young ladies wanted ironing, and all had a curious way of looking everywhere while they chattered.

Just as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap put his head round a beam on the left, and said, “Less noise there, ladies!” and disappeared. Immediately after which, a sprightly gentleman with a quantity of long black hair looked round a beam on the right, and said, “Less noise there, darlings!” and also disappeared.

“The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last thing I could have conceived!” said her sister. “Why, how did you ever get here?”

“I don’t know. The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to bring me in.”

“Like you quiet little things! You can make your way anywhere, I believe. I couldn’t have managed it, Amy, though I know so much more of the world.”

It was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was a plain domestic little creature, without the great and sage experience of the rest. This family fiction was the family assertion of itself against her services. Not to make too much of them.

“Well! And what have you got on your mind, Amy? Of course you have got something on your mind about me?” said Fanny. She spoke as if her sister, between two and three years her junior, were her prejudiced grandmother.

“It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the bracelet, Fanny⁠—”

The monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the left, and said, “Look out there, ladies!” and disappeared. The sprightly gentleman with the black hair as suddenly put his head round the beam on the right, and said, “Look out there, darlings!” and also disappeared. Thereupon all the young ladies rose and began shaking their skirts out behind.

“Well, Amy?” said Fanny, doing as the rest did; “what were you going to say?”

“Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me, Fanny, I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want to know a little more if you will confide more to me.”

“Now, ladies!” said the boy in the Scotch cap. “Now, darlings!” said the gentleman with the black hair. They were everyone gone in a moment, and the music and the dancing feet were heard again.

Little Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these rapid interruptions. Her sister and the rest were a long time gone; and during their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of the gentleman with the black hair) was continually calling out through the music, “One, two, three, four,