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

of your good sense, wide range of experience, and cultivated feeling,” said Mrs. Merdle from her nest of crimson and gold⁠—and there put up her glass to refresh her memory as to whom she was addressing⁠—“that the stage sometimes has a fascination for young men of that class of character. In saying the stage, I mean the people on it of the female sex. Therefore, when I heard that my son was supposed to be fascinated by a dancer, I knew what that usually meant in Society, and confided in her being a dancer at the Opera, where young men moving in Society are usually fascinated.”

She passed her white hands over one another, observant of the sisters now; and the rings upon her fingers grated against each other with a hard sound.

“As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was I was much surprised and much distressed. But when I found that your sister, by rejecting my son’s advances (I must add, in an unexpected manner), had brought him to the point of proposing marriage, my feelings were of the profoundest anguish⁠—acute.”

She traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right.

“In a distracted condition, which only a mother⁠—moving in Society⁠—can be susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the theatre, and represent my state of mind to the dancer. I made myself known to your sister. I found her, to my surprise, in many respects different from my expectations; and certainly in none more so, than in meeting me with⁠—what shall I say⁠—a sort of family assertion on her own part?” Mrs. Merdle smiled.

“I told you, ma’am,” said Fanny, with a heightening colour, “that although you found me in that situation, I was so far above the rest, that I considered my family as good as your son’s; and that I had a brother who, knowing the circumstances, would be of the same opinion, and would not consider such a connection any honour.”

“Miss Dorrit,” said Mrs. Merdle, after frostily looking at her through her glass, “precisely what I was on the point of telling your sister, in pursuance of your request. Much obliged to you for recalling it so accurately and anticipating me. I immediately,” addressing Little Dorrit, “(for I am the creature of impulse), took a bracelet from my arm, and begged your sister to let me clasp it on hers, in token of the delight I had in our being able to approach the subject so far on a common footing.” (This was perfectly true, the lady having bought a cheap and showy article on her way to the interview, with a general eye to bribery.)

“And I told you, Mrs. Merdle,” said Fanny, “that we might be unfortunate, but we are not common.”

“I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit,” assented Mrs. Merdle.

“And I told you, Mrs. Merdle,” said Fanny, “that if you spoke to me of the superiority of your son’s standing in Society, it was barely possible that you rather deceived yourself in your suppositions about my origin; and that my father’s standing, even in the Society in which he now moved (what that was, was best known to myself), was eminently superior, and was acknowledged by everyone.”

“Quite accurate,” rejoined Mrs. Merdle. “A most admirable memory.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my sister the rest.”

“There is very little to tell,” said Mrs. Merdle, reviewing the breadth of bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough to be unfeeling in, “but it is to your sister’s credit. I pointed out to your sister the plain state of the case; the impossibility of the Society in which we moved recognising the Society in which she moved⁠—though charming, I have no doubt; the immense disadvantage at which she would consequently place the family she had so high an opinion of, upon which we should find ourselves compelled to look down with contempt, and from which (socially speaking) we should feel obliged to recoil with abhorrence. In short, I made an appeal to that laudable pride in your sister.”

“Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs. Merdle,” Fanny pouted, with a toss of her gauzy bonnet, “that I had already had the honour of telling your son that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to him.”

“Well, Miss Dorrit,” assented Mrs. Merdle, “perhaps I might have mentioned that before. If I did not think of it, perhaps it was because my mind reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time that he might persevere and you might have something to say to him. I also mentioned to your sister⁠—I again address the nonprofessional Miss Dorrit⁠—that my son would have nothing in the event of such a marriage, and would be an absolute beggar. (I mention that merely as a fact which is part of the narrative, and not as supposing it to have influenced your sister, except in the prudent and legitimate way in which, constituted as our artificial system is, we must all be influenced by such considerations.) Finally, after some high words and high spirit on the part of your sister, we came to the complete understanding that there was no danger; and your sister was so obliging as to allow me to present her with a mark or two of my appreciation at my dressmaker’s.”

Little Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled face.

“Also,” said Mrs. Merdle, “as to promise to give me the present pleasure of a closing interview, and of parting with her on the best of terms. On which occasion,” added Mrs. Merdle, quitting her nest, and putting something in Fanny’s hand, “Miss Dorrit will permit me to say Farewell with best wishes in my own dull manner.”

The sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage of the parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it out, seemed to mock them with a pompous dance of his body without moving his feet, and suddenly turned himself upside down and trailed