His patronage did not stop here; for he charged Maggy to get the tea
ready, and instructed her to buy certain tea-cakes, fresh butter,
eggs, cold ham, and shrimps: to purchase which collation he gave her a
bank-note for ten pounds, laying strict injunctions on her to be careful
of the change. These preparations were in an advanced stage of progress,
and his daughter Amy had come back with her work, when Clennam presented
himself; whom he most graciously received, and besought to join their
meal.
'Amy, my love, you know Mr Clennam even better than I have the happiness
of doing. Fanny, my dear, you are acquainted with Mr Clennam.' Fanny
acknowledged him haughtily; the position she tacitly took up in all such
cases being that there was a vast conspiracy to insult the family by not
understanding it, or sufficiently deferring to it, and here was one of
the conspirators. 'This, Mr Clennam, you must know, is an old pensioner of mine, Old
Nandy, a very faithful old man.' (He always spoke of him as an object
of great antiquity, but he was two or three years younger than himself.)
'Let me see. You know Plornish, I think? I think my daughter Amy has
mentioned to me that you know poor Plornish?'
'O yes!' said Arthur Clennam. 'Well, sir, this is Mrs Plornish's father.' 'Indeed? I am glad to see him.' 'You would be more glad if you knew his many good qualities, Mr
Clennam.' 'I hope I shall come to know them through knowing him,' said Arthur,
secretly pitying the bowed and submissive figure.
'It is a holiday with him, and he comes to see his old friends, who are
always glad to see him,' observed the Father of the Marshalsea.
Then he added behind his hand, ('Union, poor old fellow. Out for the
day.') By this time Maggy, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had spread
the board, and the repast was ready. It being hot weather and the prison
very close, the window was as wide open as it could be pushed. 'If Maggy
will spread that newspaper on the window-sill, my dear,' remarked the
Father complacently and in a half whisper to Little Dorrit, 'my old
pensioner can have his tea there, while we are having ours.'
So, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in
width, standard measure, Mrs Plornish's father was handsomely regaled.
Clennam had never seen anything like his magnanimous protection by that
other Father, he of the Marshalsea; and was lost in the contemplation of
its many wonders.