Little Dorrit, whether speaking or silent, had preserved her quiet
earnestness and her loving look. It had not been clouded, except for a
passing moment, until now. But now that she was left alone with him
the fingers of her lightly folded hands were agitated, and there was
repressed emotion in her face. Not for herself. S
he might feel a little wounded, but her care was not
for herself. Her thoughts still turned, as they always had turned, to
him. A faint misgiving, which had hung about her since their accession
to fortune, that even now she could never see him as he used to be
before the prison days, had gradually begun to assume form in her mind.
She felt that, in what he had just now said to her and in his whole
bearing towards her, there was the well-known shadow of the Marshalsea
wall. It took a new shape, but it was the old sad shadow. She began
with sorrowful unwillingness to acknowledge to herself that she was
not strong enough to keep off the fear that no space in the life of man
could overcome that quarter of a century behind the prison bars. She had
no blame to bestow upon him, therefore: nothing to reproach him with,
no emotions in her faithful heart but great compassion and unbounded
tenderness. This is why it was, that, even as he sat before her on his sofa, in the
brilliant light of a bright Italian day, the wonderful city without and
the splendours of an old palace within, she saw him at the moment in the
long-familiar gloom of his Marshalsea lodging, and wished to take her
seat beside him, and comfort him, and be again full of confidence with
him, and of usefulness to him. If he divined what was in her thoughts,
his own were not in tune with it.
After some uneasy moving in his seat, he got up and walked about,
looking very much dissatisfied. 'Is there anything else you wish to say to me, dear father?' 'No, no. Nothing else.' 'I am sorry you have not been pleased with me, dear. I hope you will not
think of me with displeasure now. I am going to try, more than ever, to
adapt myself as you wish to what surrounds me--for indeed I have tried
all along, though I have failed, I know.'
'Amy,' he returned, turning short upon her.'You--ha--habitually hurt
me.' 'Hurt you, father! I!' 'There is a--hum--a topic,' said Mr Dorrit, looking all about the
ceiling of the room, and never at the attentive, uncomplainingly shocked
face, 'a painful topic, a series of events which I wish--ha--altogether
to obliterate. This is understood by your sister, who has already
remonstrated with you in my presence; it is understood by your brother;
it is understood by--ha hum--by every one of delicacy and sensitiveness
except yourself--ha--I am sorry to say, except yourself. You,
Amy--hum--you alone and only you--constantly revive the topic, though
not in words.'