Upon their so-different way went Mr Dorrit's company too;
and soon, with their coach load of luxuries from the two great capitals
of Europe, they were (like the Goths reversed) beating at the gates of
Rome.
Mr Dorrit was not expected by his own people that night. He had been;
but they had given him up until to-morrow, not doubting that it was
later than he would care, in those parts, to be out. Thus, when his
equipage stopped at his own gate, no one but the porter appeared to
receive him. Was Miss Dorrit from home? he asked. No. She was within.
Good, said Mr Dorrit to the assembling servants; let them keep where
they were; let them help to unload the carriage; he would find Miss
Dorrit for himself. So he went up his grand staircase, slowly, and
tired, and looked into various chambers which were empty, until he saw a
light in a small ante-room. It was a curtained nook, like a tent,
within two other rooms; and it looked warm and bright in colour, as he
approached it through the dark avenue they made.
There was a draped doorway, but no door; and as he stopped here, looking
in unseen, he felt a pang. Surely not like jealousy? For why like
jealousy? There was only his daughter and his brother there: he, with
his chair drawn to the hearth, enjoying the warmth of the evening wood
fire; she seated at a little table, busied with some embroidery work.
Allowing for the great difference in the still-life of the picture, the
figures were much the same as of old; his brother being sufficiently
like himself to represent himself, for a moment, in the composition.
So had he sat many a night, over a coal fire far away; so had she sat,
devoted to him. Yet surely there was nothing to be jealous of in the old
miserable poverty. Whence, then, the pang in his heart?
'Do you know, uncle, I think you are growing young again?'
Her uncle shook his head and said, 'Since when, my dear; since when?'
'I think,' returned Little Dorrit, plying her needle, 'that you have
been growing younger for weeks past. So cheerful, uncle, and so ready,
and so interested.'
'My dear child--all you.'
'All me, uncle!'
'Yes, yes. You have done me a world of good. You have been so
considerate of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying to
hide your attentions from me, that I--well, well, well! It's treasured
up, my darling, treasured up.'
'There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle,' said Little
Dorrit, cheerfully.
'Well, well, well!' murmured the old man. 'Thank God!'
She paused for an instant in her work to look at him, and her look
revived that former pain in her father's breast; in his poor weak
breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, the
little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which the
morning without a night only can clear away.
'I have been freer with you, you see, my dove,' said the old man, 'since
we have been alone. I say, alone, for I don't count Mrs General; I
don't care for her; she has nothing to do with me. But I know Fanny was
impatient of me. And I don't wonder at it, or complain of it, for I am
sensible that I must be in the way, though I try to keep out of it as
well as I can. I know I am not fit company for our company. My brother
William,' said the old man admiringly, 'is fit company for monarchs;
but not so your uncle, my dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William
Dorrit, and he knows it quite well. Ah! Why, here's your father, Amy!
My dear William, welcome back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see
you!'
(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in
the doorway.)
Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her father's
neck, and kissed him again and again. Her father was a little impatient,
and a little querulous. 'I am glad to find you at last, Amy,' he said.
'Ha. Really I am glad to find--hum--any one to receive me at last.
I appear to have been--ha--so little expected, that upon my word
I began--ha hum--to think it might be right to offer an apology
for--ha--taking the liberty of coming back at all.'
'It was so late, my dear William,' said his brother, 'that we had given
you up for to-night.'
'I am stronger than you, dear Frederick,' returned his brother with an
elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; 'and I hope I can
travel without detriment at--ha--any hour I choose.'
'Surely, surely,' returned the other, with a misgiving that he had given
offence. 'Surely, William.'
'Thank you, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, as she helped him to put off his
wrappers. 'I can do it without assistance. I--ha--need not trouble you,
Amy. Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of wine, or--hum--would
it cause too much inconvenience?'
'Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes.'
'Thank you, my love,' said Mr Dorrit, with a reproachful frost upon him;
'I--ha--am afraid I am causing inconvenience. Hum. Mrs General pretty
well?'
'Mrs General complained of a headache, and of being fatigued; and so,
when we gave you up, she went to bed, dear.'
Perhaps Mr Dorrit thought that Mrs General had done well in being
overcome by the disappointment of his not arriving. At any rate, his
face relaxed, and he said with obvious satisfaction, 'Extremely sorry to
hear that Mrs General is not well.'
During this short dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him, with
something more than her usual interest. It would seem as though he had
a changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he perceived and resented
it; for he said with renewed peevishness, when he had divested himself
of his travelling-cloak, and had come to the fire: 'Amy, what are you
looking at? What do you see in me that causes you to--ha--concentrate
your solicitude on me in that--hum--very particular manner?'
'I did not know it, father; I beg your pardon. It gladdens my eyes to
see you again; that's all.'
'Don't say that's all, because--ha--that's not all. You--hum--you
think,' said Mr Dorrit, with an accusatory emphasis, 'that I am not
looking well.' 'I thought you looked a little tired, love.'
'Then you are mistaken,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Ha, I am not tired. Ha, hum. I
am very much fresher than I was when I went away.'
He was so inclined to be angry that she said nothing more in her
justification, but remained quietly beside him embracing his arm. As
he stood thus, with his brother on the other side, he fell into a heavy
doze, of not a minute's duration, and awoke with a start.
'Frederick,' he said, turning to his brother: 'I recommend you to go to
bed immediately.'
'No, William. I'll wait and see you sup.'
'Frederick,' he retorted, 'I beg you to go to bed. I--ha--make it a
personal request that you go to bed. You ought to have been in bed long
ago. You are very feeble.'
'Hah!' said the old man, who had no wish but to please him. 'Well, well,
well! I dare say I am.'
'My dear Frederick,' returned Mr Dorrit, with an astonishing superiority
to his brother's failing powers, 'there can be no doubt of it. It is
painful to me to see you so weak. Ha. It distresses me. Hum. I don't
find you looking at all well. You are not fit for this sort of thing.
You should be more careful, you should be very careful.'
'Shall I go to bed?' asked Frederick.
'Dear Frederick,' said Mr Dorrit, 'do, I adjure you! Good night,
brother. I hope you will be stronger to-morrow. I am not at all pleased
with your looks. Good night, dear fellow.' After dismissing his brother
in this gracious way, he fell into a doze again before the old man was
well out of the room: and he would have stumbled forward upon the logs,
but for his daughter's restraining hold.
'Your uncle wanders very much, Amy,' he said, when he was thus roused.
'He is less--ha--coherent, and his conversation is more--hum--broken,
than I have--ha, hum--ever known. Has he had any illness since I have
been gone?' 'No, father.'
'You--ha--see a great change in him, Amy?'
'I have not observed it, dear.'
'Greatly broken,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Greatly broken. My poor,
affectionate, failing Frederick! Ha. Even taking into account what he
was before, he is--hum--sadly broken!'
His supper, which was brought to him there, and spread upon the little
table where he had seen her working, diverted his attention.
She sat at his side as in the days that were gone, for the first time
since those days ended. They were alone, and she helped him to his meat
and poured out his drink for him, as she had been used to do in the
prison. All this happened now, for the first time since their accession
to wealth. She was afraid to look at him much, after the offence he had
taken; but she noticed two occasions in the course of his meal, when
he all of a sudden looked at her, and looked about him, as if the
association were so strong that he needed assurance from his sense of
sight that they were not in the old prison-room. Both times, he put his
hand to his head as if he missed his old black cap--though it had been
ignominiously given away in the Marshalsea, and had never got free
to that hour, but still hovered about the yards on the head of his
successor.
He took very little supper, but was a long time over it, and often
reverted to his brother's declining state. Though he expressed the
greatest pity for him, he was almost bitter upon him. He said that poor
Frederick--ha hum--drivelled. There was no other word to express it;
drivelled. Poor fellow! It was melancholy to reflect what Amy must have
undergone from the excessive tediousness of his Society--wandering and
babbling on, poor dear estimable creature, wandering and babbling on--if
it had not been for the relief she had had in Mrs General.
Extremely sorry, he then repeated with his former satisfaction, that
that--ha--superior woman was poorly.
Little Dorrit, in her watchful love, would have remembered the lightest
thing he said or did that night, though she had had no subsequent reason
to recall that night. She always remembered that, when he looked about
him under the strong influence of the old association, he tried to
keep it out of her mind, and perhaps out of his own too, by immediately
expatiating on the great riches and great company that had encompassed
him in his absence, and on the lofty position he and his family had to
sustain. Nor did she fail to recall that there were two under-currents,
side by side, pervading all his discourse and all his manner; one
showing her how well he had got on without her, and how independent
he was of her; the other, in a fitful and unintelligible way almost
complaining of her, as if it had been possible that she had neglected
him while he was away.
His telling her of the glorious state that Mr Merdle kept, and of the
court that bowed before him, naturally brought him to Mrs Merdle. So
naturally indeed, that although there was an unusual want of sequence in
the greater part of his remarks, he passed to her at once, and asked how
she was.
'She is very well. She is going away next week.'
'Home?' asked Mr Dorrit.
'After a few weeks' stay upon the road.'
'She will be a vast loss here,' said Mr Dorrit. 'A vast--ha--acquisition
at home. To Fanny, and to--hum--the rest of the--ha--great world.'
Little Dorrit thought of the competition that was to be entered upon,
and assented very softly.
'Mrs Merdle is going to have a great farewell Assembly, dear, and a
dinner before it. She has been expressing her anxiety that you should
return in time. She has invited both you and me to her dinner.'
'She is--ha--very kind. When is the day?'
'The day after to-morrow.'
'Write round in the morning, and say that I have returned, and
shall--hum--be delighted.'
'May I walk with you up the stairs to your room, dear?'
'No!' he answered, looking angrily round; for he was moving away, as if
forgetful of leave-taking. 'You may not, Amy. I want no help. I am your
father, not your infirm uncle!' He checked himself, as abruptly as he
had broken into this reply, and said, 'You have not kissed me, Amy. Good
night, my dear! We must marry--ha--we must marry YOU, now.' With that
he went, more slowly and more tired, up the staircase to his rooms, and,
almost as soon as he got there, dismissed his valet. His next care was
to look about him for his Paris purchases, and, after opening their
cases and carefully surveying them, to put them away under lock and
key. After that, what with dozing and what with castle-building, he lost
himself for a long time, so that there was a touch of morning on the
eastward rim of the desolate Campagna when he crept to bed.
Mrs General sent up her compliments in good time next day, and hoped
he had rested well after this fatiguing journey. He sent down his
compliments, and begged to inform Mrs General that he had rested very
well indeed, and was in high condition. Nevertheless, he did not come
forth from his own rooms until late in the afternoon; and, although he
then caused himself to be magnificently arrayed for a drive with
Mrs General and his daughter, his appearance was scarcely up to his
description of himself. As the family had no visitors that day, its four
members dined alone together. He conducted Mrs General to the seat at
his right hand with immense ceremony; and Little Dorrit could not
but notice as she followed with her uncle, both that he was again
elaborately dressed, and that his manner towards Mrs General was very
particular. The perfect formation of that accomplished lady's surface
rendered it difficult to displace an atom of its genteel glaze, but
Little Dorrit thought she descried a slight thaw of triumph in a corner
of her frosty eye.
Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the Pruney and
Prismatic nature of the family banquet, Mr Dorrit several times fell
asleep while it was in progress. His fits of dozing were as sudden as
they had been overnight, and were as short and profound. When the first
of these slumberings seized him, Mrs General looked almost amazed: but,
on each recurrence of the symptoms, she told her polite beads, Papa,
Potatoes, Poultry, Prunes, and Prism; and, by dint of going through that
infallible performance very slowly, appeared to finish her rosary at
about the same time as Mr Dorrit started from his sleep.
He was again painfully aware of a somnolent tendency in Frederick (which
had no existence out of his own imagination), and after dinner, when
Frederick had withdrawn, privately apologised to Mrs General for the
poor man. 'The most estimable and affectionate of brothers,' he said,
'but--ha, hum--broken up altogether. Unhappily, declining fast.'
'Mr Frederick, sir,' quoth Mrs General, 'is habitually absent and
drooping, but let us hope it is not so bad as that.'
Mr Dorrit, however, was determined not to let him off. 'Fast declining,
madam. A wreck. A ruin. Mouldering away before our eyes. Hum. Good
Frederick!'
'You left Mrs Sparkler quite well and happy, I trust?' said Mrs General,
after heaving a cool sigh for Frederick.
'Surrounded,' replied Mr Dorrit, 'by--ha--all that can charm the taste,
and--hum--elevate the mind. Happy, my dear madam, in a--hum--husband.'
Mrs General was a little fluttered; seeming delicately to put the word
away with her gloves, as if there were no knowing what it might lead to.
'Fanny,' Mr Dorrit continued. 'Fanny, Mrs General, has high
qualities. Ha. Ambition--hum--purpose, consciousness of--ha--position,
determination to support that position--ha, hum--grace, beauty, and
native nobility.'
'No doubt,' said Mrs General (with a little extra stiffness).
'Combined with these qualities, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'Fanny
has--ha--manifested one blemish which has made me--hum--made me uneasy,
and--ha--I must add, angry; but which I trust may now be considered
at an end, even as to herself, and which is undoubtedly at an end as
to--ha--others.'
'To what, Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, with her gloves again
somewhat excited, 'can you allude? I am at a loss to--'
'Do not say that, my dear madam,' interrupted Mr Dorrit.
Mrs General's voice, as it died away, pronounced the words, 'at a loss
to imagine.'
After which Mr Dorrit was seized with a doze for about a minute, out of
which he sprang with spasmodic nimbleness.
'I refer, Mrs General, to that--ha--strong spirit of opposition,
or--hum--I might say--ha--jealousy in Fanny, which has occasionally
risen against the--ha--sense I entertain of--hum--the claims of--ha--the
lady with whom I have now the honour of communing.'
'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, 'is ever but too obliging, ever but
too appreciative. If there have been moments when I have imagined that
Miss Dorrit has indeed resented the favourable opinion Mr Dorrit has
formed of my services, I have found, in that only too high opinion, my
consolation and recompense.'
'Opinion of your services, madam?' said Mr Dorrit.
'Of,' Mrs General repeated, in an elegantly impressive manner, 'my
services.'
'Of your services alone, dear madam?' said Mr Dorrit.
'I presume,' retorted Mrs General, in her former impressive manner, 'of
my services alone. For, to what else,' said Mrs General, with a slightly
interrogative action of her gloves, 'could I impute--'
'To--ha--yourself, Mrs General. Ha, hum. To yourself and your merits,'
was Mr Dorrit's rejoinder.
'Mr Dorrit will pardon me,' said Mrs General, 'if I remark that this
is not a time or place for the pursuit of the present conversation.
Mr Dorrit will excuse me if I remind him that Miss Dorrit is in the
adjoining room, and is visible to myself while I utter her name. Mr
Dorrit will forgive me if I observe that I am agitated, and that I find
there are moments when weaknesses I supposed myself to have subdued,
return with redoubled power. Mr Dorrit will allow me to withdraw.'
'Hum. Perhaps we may resume this--ha--interesting conversation,' said
Mr Dorrit, 'at another time; unless it should be, what I hope it is
not--hum--in any way disagreeable to--ah--Mrs General.' 'Mr Dorrit,'
said Mrs General, casting down her eyes as she rose with a bend, 'must
ever claim my homage and obedience.'
Mrs General then took herself off in a stately way, and not with that
amount of trepidation upon her which might have been expected in a less
remarkable woman. Mr Dorrit, who had conducted his part of the dialogue
with a certain majestic and admiring condescension--much as some people
may be seen to conduct themselves in Church, and to perform their part
in the service--appeared, on the whole, very well satisfied with himself
and with Mrs General too. On the return of that lady to tea, she had
touched herself up with a little powder and pomatum, and was not without
moral enchantment likewise: the latter showing itself in much sweet
patronage of manner towards Miss Dorrit, and in an air of as tender
interest in Mr Dorrit as was consistent with rigid propriety. At the
close of the evening, when she rose to retire, Mr Dorrit took her by the
hand as if he were going to lead her out into the Piazza of the people
to walk a minuet by moonlight, and with great solemnity conducted her to
the room door, where he raised her knuckles to his lips. Having parted
from her with what may be conjectured to have been a rather bony kiss of
a cosmetic flavour, he gave his daughter his blessing, graciously. And
having thus hinted that there was something remarkable in the wind, he
again went to bed.
He remained in the seclusion of his own chamber next morning; but, early
in the afternoon, sent down his best compliments to Mrs General, by Mr
Tinkler, and begged she would accompany Miss Dorrit on an airing
without him. His daughter was dressed for Mrs Merdle's dinner before he
appeared. He then presented himself in a refulgent condition as to his
attire, but looking indefinably shrunken and old. However, as he was
plainly determined to be angry with her if she so much as asked him how
he was, she only ventured to kiss his cheek, before accompanying him to
Mrs Merdle's with an anxious heart.
The distance that they had to go was very short, but he was at his
building work again before the carriage had half traversed it. Mrs
Merdle received him with great distinction; the bosom was in admirable
preservation, and on the best terms with itself; the dinner was very
choice; and the company was very select.
It was principally English; saving that it comprised the usual French
Count and the usual Italian Marchese--decorative social milestones,
always to be found in certain places, and varying very little in
appearance. The table was long, and the dinner was long; and Little
Dorrit, overshadowed by a large pair of black whiskers and a large white
cravat, lost sight of her father altogether, until a servant put a scrap
of paper in her hand, with a whispered request from Mrs Merdle that she
would read it directly. Mrs Merdle had written on it in pencil, 'Pray
come and speak to Mr Dorrit, I doubt if he is well.'
She was hurrying to him, unobserved, when he got up out of his chair,
and leaning over the table called to her, supposing her to be still in
her place:
'Amy, Amy, my child!'
The action was so unusual, to say nothing of his strange eager
appearance and strange eager voice, that it instantaneously caused a
profound silence.
'Amy, my dear,' he repeated. 'Will you go and see if Bob is on the
lock?'
She was at his side, and touching him, but he still perversely supposed
her to be in her seat, and called out, still leaning over the table,
'Amy, Amy. I don't feel quite myself. Ha. I don't know what's the matter
with me. I particularly wish to see Bob. Ha. Of all the turnkeys, he's
as much my friend as yours. See if Bob is in the lodge, and beg him to
come to me.'
All the guests were now in consternation, and everybody rose.
'Dear father, I am not there; I am here, by you.'
'Oh! You are here, Amy! Good. Hum. Good. Ha. Call Bob. If he has been
relieved, and is not on the lock, tell Mrs Bangham to go and fetch him.'
She was gently trying to get him away; but he resisted, and would not
go.
'I tell you, child,' he said petulantly, 'I can't be got up the narrow
stairs without Bob. Ha. Send for Bob. Hum. Send for Bob--best of all the
turnkeys--send for Bob!'
He looked confusedly about him, and, becoming conscious of the number of
faces by which he was surrounded, addressed them:
'Ladies and gentlemen, the duty--ha--devolves upon me of--hum--welcoming
you to the Marshalsea! Welcome to the Marshalsea! The space
is--ha--limited--limited--the parade might be wider; but you will
find it apparently grow larger after a time--a time, ladies and
gentlemen--and the air is, all things considered, very good. It blows
over the--ha--Surrey hills. Blows over the Surrey hills. This is the
Snuggery. Hum. Supported by a small subscription of the--ha--Collegiate
body. In return for which--hot water--general kitchen--and little
domestic advantages. Those who are habituated to the--ha--Marshalsea,
are pleased to call me its father. I am accustomed to be complimented by
strangers as the--ha--Father of the Marshalsea. Certainly, if years of
residence may establish a claim to so--ha--honourable a title, I may
accept the--hum--conferred distinction. My child, ladies and gentlemen.
My daughter. Born here!'
She was not ashamed of it, or ashamed of him. She was pale and
frightened; but she had no other care than to soothe him and get him
away, for his own dear sake. She was between him and the wondering
faces, turned round upon his breast with her own face raised to his. He
held her clasped in his left arm, and between whiles her low voice was
heard tenderly imploring him to go away with her.
'Born here,' he repeated, shedding tears. 'Bred here. Ladies and
gentlemen, my daughter. Child of an unfortunate father, but--ha--always
a gentleman. Poor, no doubt, but--hum--proud. Always proud. It
has become a--hum--not infrequent custom for my--ha--personal
admirers--personal admirers solely--to be pleased to express
their desire to acknowledge my semi-official position here,
by offering--ha--little tributes, which usually take the form
of--ha--voluntary recognitions of my humble endeavours to--hum--to
uphold a Tone here--a Tone--I beg it to be understood that I do not
consider myself compromised. Ha. Not compromised. Ha. Not a beggar. No;
I repudiate the title! At the same time far be it from me to--hum--to
put upon the fine feelings by which my partial friends are actuated,
the slight of scrupling to admit that those offerings are--hum--highly
acceptable. On the contrary, they are most acceptable. In my child's
name, if not in my own, I make the admission in the fullest manner, at
the same time reserving--ha--shall I say my personal dignity? Ladies and
gentlemen, God bless you all!'
By this time, the exceeding mortification undergone by the Bosom had
occasioned the withdrawal of the greater part of the company into other
rooms. The few who had lingered thus long followed the rest, and Little
Dorrit and her father were left to the servants and themselves. Dearest
and most precious to her, he would come with her now, would he not? He
replied to her fervid entreaties, that he would never be able to get up
the narrow stairs without Bob; where was Bob, would nobody fetch Bob?
Under pretence of looking for Bob, she got him out against the stream of
gay company now pouring in for the evening assembly, and got him into a
coach that had just set down its load, and got him home.
The broad stairs of his Roman palace were contracted in his failing
sight to the narrow stairs of his London prison; and he would suffer no
one but her to touch him, his brother excepted. They got him up to his
room without help, and laid him down on his bed. And from that hour his
poor maimed spirit, only remembering the place where it had broken its
wings, cancelled the dream through which it had since groped, and knew
of nothing beyond the Marshalsea. When he heard footsteps in the street,
he took them for the old weary tread in the yards. When the hour came
for locking up, he supposed all strangers to be excluded for the night.
When the time for opening came again, he was so anxious to see Bob, that
they were fain to patch up a narrative how that Bob--many a year dead
then, gentle turnkey--had taken cold, but hoped to be out to-morrow, or
the next day, or the next at furthest.
He fell away into a weakness so extreme that he could not raise his
hand. But he still protected his brother according to his long usage;
and would say with some complacency, fifty times a day, when he saw him
standing by his bed, 'My good Frederick, sit down. You are very feeble
indeed.'
They tried him with Mrs General, but he had not the faintest knowledge
of her. Some injurious suspicion lodged itself in his brain, that she
wanted to supplant Mrs Bangham, and that she was given to drinking. He
charged her with it in no measured terms; and was so urgent with his
daughter to go round to the Marshal and entreat him to turn her out,
that she was never reproduced after the first failure. Saving that
he once asked 'if Tip had gone outside?' the remembrance of his two
children not present seemed to have departed from him. But the child who
had done so much for him and had been so poorly repaid, was never out of
his mind. Not that he spared her, or was fearful of her being spent by
watching and fatigue; he was not more troubled on that score than he
had usually been. No; he loved her in his old way. They were in the jail
again, and she tended him, and he had constant need of her, and could
not turn without her; and he even told her, sometimes, that he was
content to have undergone a great deal for her sake. As to her, she bent
over his bed with her quiet face against his, and would have laid down
her own life to restore him.
When he had been sinking in this painless way for two or three days, she
observed him to be troubled by the ticking of his watch--a pompous gold
watch that made as great a to-do about its going as if nothing else
went but itself and Time. She suffered it to run down; but he was still
uneasy, and showed that was not what he wanted. At length he roused
himself to explain that he wanted money to be raised on this watch. He
was quite pleased when she pretended to take it away for the purpose,
and afterwards had a relish for his little tastes of wine and jelly,
that he had not had before.
He soon made it plain that this was so; for, in another day or two
he sent off his sleeve-buttons and finger-rings. He had an amazing
satisfaction in entrusting her with these errands, and appeared to
consider it equivalent to making the most methodical and provident
arrangements. After his trinkets, or such of them as he had been able to
see about him, were gone, his clothes engaged his attention; and it
is as likely as not that he was kept alive for some days by the
satisfaction of sending them, piece by piece, to an imaginary
pawnbroker's.
Thus for ten days Little Dorrit bent over his pillow, laying her cheek
against his. Sometimes she was so worn out that for a few minutes
they would slumber together. Then she would awake; to recollect with
fast-flowing silent tears what it was that touched her face, and to see,
stealing over the cherished face upon the pillow, a deeper shadow than
the shadow of the Marshalsea Wall.
Quietly, quietly, all the lines of the plan of the great Castle
melted one after another. Quietly, quietly, the ruled and cross-ruled
countenance on which they were traced, became fair and blank.
Quietly, quietly, the reflected marks of the prison bars and of the
zig-zag iron on the wall-top, faded away. Quietly, quietly, the face
subsided into a far younger likeness of her own than she had ever seen
under the grey hair, and sank to rest.
At first her uncle was stark distracted. 'O my brother! O William,
William! You to go before me; you to go alone; you to go, and I to
remain! You, so far superior, so distinguished, so noble; I, a poor
useless creature fit for nothing, and whom no one would have missed!'
It did her, for the time, the good of having him to think of and to
succour.
'Uncle, dear uncle, spare yourself, spare me!'
The old man was not deaf to the last words. When he did begin to
restrain himself, it was that he might spare her. He had no care for
himself; but, with all the remaining power of the honest heart, stunned
so long and now awaking to be broken, he honoured and blessed her.
'O God,' he cried, before they left the room, with his wrinkled hands
clasped over her. 'Thou seest this daughter of my dear dead brother! All
that I have looked upon, with my half-blind and sinful eyes, Thou hast
discerned clearly, brightly. Not a hair of her head shall be harmed
before Thee. Thou wilt uphold her here to her last hour. And I know Thou
wilt reward her hereafter!'
They remained in a dim room near, until it was almost midnight, quiet
and sad together. At times his grief would seek relief in a burst like
that in which it had found its earliest expression; but, besides that
his little strength would soon have been unequal to such strains, he
never failed to recall her words, and to reproach himself and calm
himself. The only utterance with which he indulged his sorrow, was the
frequent exclamation that his brother was gone, alone; that they had
been together in the outset of their lives, that they had fallen into
misfortune together, that they had kept together through their many
years of poverty, that they had remained together to that day; and that
his brother was gone alone, alone!
They parted, heavy and sorrowful. She would not consent to leave him
anywhere but in his own room, and she saw him lie down in his clothes
upon his bed, and covered him with her own hands. Then she sank upon her
own bed, and fell into a deep sleep: the sleep of exhaustion and
rest, though not of complete release from a pervading consciousness of
affliction. Sleep, good Little Dorrit. Sleep through the night!
It was a moonlight night; but the moon rose late, being long past the
full. When it was high in the peaceful firmament, it shone through
half-closed lattice blinds into the solemn room where the stumblings and
wanderings of a life had so lately ended. Two quiet figures were within
the room; two figures, equally still and impassive, equally removed
by an untraversable distance from the teeming earth and all that it
contains, though soon to lie in it.
One figure reposed upon the bed. The other, kneeling on the floor,
drooped over it; the arms easily and peacefully resting on the coverlet;
the face bowed down, so that the lips touched the hand over which with
its last breath it had bent. The two brothers were before their Father;
far beyond the twilight judgment of this world; high above its mists and
obscurities.