Чарльз Диккенс
Little Dorrit
‘If I forgot my ignorances in my life of health and freedom, I might complain of the life to which I am now condemned. I never do; I never have done. If I forgot that this scene, the Earth, is expressly meant to be a scene of gloom, and hardship, and dark trial, for the creatures who are made out of its dust, I might have some tenderness for its vanities. But I have no such tenderness. If I did not know that we are, every one, the subject (most justly the subject) of a wrath that must be satisfied, and against which mere actions are nothing, I might repine at the difference between me, imprisoned here, and the people who pass that gateway yonder. But I take it as a grace and favour to be elected to make the satisfaction I am making here, to know what I know for certain here, and to work out what I have worked out here. My affliction might otherwise have had no meaning to me. Hence I would forget, and I do forget, nothing. Hence I am contented, and say it is better with me than with millions.’
As she spoke these words, she put her hand upon the watch, and restored it to the precise spot on her little table which it always occupied. With her touch lingering upon it, she sat for some moments afterwards, looking at it steadily and half-defiantly.
Mr Blandois, during this exposition, had been strictly attentive, keeping his eyes fastened on the lady, and thoughtfully stroking his moustache with his two hands. Mr Flintwinch had been a little fidgety, and now struck in.
‘There, there, there!’ said he. ‘That is quite understood, Mrs Clennam, and you have spoken piously and well. Mr Blandois, I suspect, is not of a pious cast.’
‘On the contrary, sir!’ that gentleman protested, snapping his fingers. ‘Your pardon! It’s a part of my character. I am sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and imaginative. A sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and imaginative man, Mr Flintwinch, must be that, or nothing!’
There was an inkling of suspicion in Mr Flintwinch’s face that he might be nothing, as he swaggered out of his chair (it was characteristic of this man, as it is of all men similarly marked, that whatever he did, he overdid, though it were sometimes by only a hairsbreadth), and approached to take his leave of Mrs Clennam.
‘With what will appear to you the egotism of a sick old woman, sir,’ she then said, ‘though really through your accidental allusion, I have been led away into the subject of myself and my infirmities. Being so considerate as to visit me, I hope you will be likewise so considerate as to overlook that. Don’t compliment me, if you please.’ For he was evidently going to do it. ‘Mr Flintwinch will be happy to render you any service, and I hope your stay in this city may prove agreeable.’
Mr Blandois thanked her, and kissed his hand several times. ‘This is an old room,’ he remarked, with a sudden sprightliness of manner, looking round when he got near the door, ‘I have been so interested that I have not observed it. But it’s a genuine old room.’
‘It is a genuine old house,’ said Mrs Clennam, with her frozen smile. ‘A place of no pretensions, but a piece of antiquity.’
‘Faith!’ cried the visitor. ‘If Mr Flintwinch would do me the favour to take me through the rooms on my way out, he could hardly oblige me more. An old house is a weakness with me. I have many weaknesses, but none greater. I love and study the picturesque in all its varieties. I have been called picturesque myself. It is no merit to be picturesque – I have greater merits, perhaps – but I may be, by an accident. Sympathy, sympathy!’
‘I tell you beforehand, Mr Blandois, that you’ll find it very dingy and very bare,’ said Jeremiah, taking up the candle. ‘It’s not worth your looking at.‘But Mr Blandois, smiting him in a friendly manner on the back, only laughed; so the said Blandois kissed his hand again to Mrs Clennam, and they went out of the room together.
‘You don’t care to go up-stairs?’ said Jeremiah, on the landing.
‘On the contrary, Mr Flintwinch; if not tiresome to you, I shall be ravished!’
Mr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr Blandois followed close. They ascended to the great garret bed-room which Arthur had occupied on the night of his return. ‘There, Mr Blandois!’ said Jeremiah, showing it, ‘I hope you may think that worth coming so high to see. I confess I don’t.’
Mr Blandois being enraptured, they walked through other garrets and passages, and came down the staircase again. By this time Mr Flintwinch had remarked that he never found the visitor looking at any room, after throwing one quick glance around, but always found the visitor looking at him, Mr Flintwinch. With this discovery in his thoughts, he turned about on the staircase for another experiment. He met his eyes directly; and on the instant of their fixing one another, the visitor, with that ugly play of nose and moustache, laughed (as he had done at every similar moment since they left Mrs Clennam’s chamber) a diabolically silent laugh.
As a much shorter man than the visitor, Mr Flintwinch was at the physical disadvantage of being thus disagreeably leered at from a height; and as he went first down the staircase, and was usually a step or two lower than the other, this disadvantage was at the time increased. He postponed looking at Mr Blandois again until this accidental inequality was removed by their having entered the late Mr Clennam’s room. But, then twisting himself suddenly round upon him, he found his look unchanged.
‘A most admirable old house,’ smiled Mr Blandois. ‘So mysterious. Do you never hear any haunted noises here?’
‘Noises,’ returned Mr Flintwinch. ‘No.’
‘Nor see any devils?’
‘Not,’ said Mr Flintwinch, grimly screwing himself at his questioner, ‘not any that introduce themselves under that name and in that capacity.’
‘Haha! A portrait here, I see.’
(Still looking at Mr Flintwinch, as if he were the portrait.)
‘It’s a portrait, sir, as you observe.’
‘May I ask the subject, Mr Flintwinch?’
‘Mr Clennam, deceased. Her husband.’
‘Former owner of the remarkable watch, perhaps?’ said the visitor.
Mr Flintwinch, who had cast his eyes towards the portrait, twisted himself about again, and again found himself the subject of the same look and smile. ‘Yes, Mr Blandois,’ he replied tartly. ‘It was his, and his uncle’s before him, and Lord knows who before him; and that’s all I can tell you of its pedigree.’
‘That’s a strongly marked character, Mr Flintwinch, our friend up-stairs.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Jeremiah, twisting himself at the visitor again, as he did during the whole of this dialogue, like some screw-machine that fell short of its grip; for the other never changed, and he always felt obliged to retreat a little. ‘She is a remarkable woman. Great fortitude – great strength of mind.’
‘They must have been very happy,’ said Blandois.
‘Who?’ demanded Mr Flintwinch, with another screw at him.
Mr Blandois shook his right forefinger towards the sick room, and his left forefinger towards the portrait, and then, putting his arms akimbo and striding his legs wide apart, stood smiling down at Mr Flintwinch with the advancing nose and the retreating moustache.
‘As happy as most other married people, I suppose,’ returned Mr Flintwinch. ‘I can’t say. I don’t know. There are secrets in all families.’
‘Secrets!’ cried Mr Blandois, quickly. ‘Say it again, my son.’
‘I say,’ replied Mr Flintwinch, upon whom he had swelled himself so suddenly that Mr Flintwinch found his face almost brushed by the dilated chest. ‘I say there are secrets in all families.’
‘So there are,’ cried the other, clapping him on both shoulders, and rolling him backwards and forwards. ‘Haha! you are right. So there are! Secrets! Holy Blue! There are the devil’s own secrets in some families, Mr Flintwinch!’ With that, after clapping Mr Flintwinch on both shoulders several times, as if in a friendly and humorous way he were rallying him on a joke he had made, he threw up his arms, threw back his head, hooked his hands together behind it, and burst into a roar of laughter. It was in vain for Mr Flintwinch to try another screw at him. He had his laugh out.
‘But, favour me with the candle a moment,’ he said, when he had done. ‘Let us have a look at the husband of the remarkable lady. Hah!’ holding up the light at arm’s length. ‘A decided expression of face here too, though not of the same character. Looks as if he were saying, what is it – Do Not Forget – does he not, Mr Flintwinch? By Heaven, sir, he does!’
As he returned the candle, he looked at him once more; and then, leisurely strolling out with him into the hall, declared it to be a charming old house indeed, and one which had so greatly pleased him that he would not have missed inspecting it for a hundred pounds.
Throughout these singular freedoms on the part of Mr Blandois, which involved a general alteration in his demeanour, making it much coarser and rougher, much more violent and audacious than before, Mr Flintwinch, whose leathern face was not liable to many changes, preserved its immobility intact. Beyond now appearing perhaps, to have been left hanging a trifle too long before that friendly operation of cutting down, he outwardly maintained an equable composure. They had brought their survey to a close in the little room at the side of the hall, and he stood there, eyeing Mr Blandois.
‘I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir,’ was his calm remark. ‘I didn’t expect it. You seem to be quite in good spirits.’
‘In admirable spirits,’ returned Blandois. ‘Word of honour! never more refreshed in spirits. Do you ever have presentiments, Mr Flintwinch?’
‘I am not sure that I know what you mean by the term, sir,’ replied that gentleman.
‘Say, in this case, Mr Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of pleasure to come.’
‘I can’t say I’m sensible of such a sensation at present,’ returned Mr Flintwinch with the utmost gravity. ‘If I should find it coming on, I’ll mention it.’
‘Now I,’ said Blandois, ‘I, my son, have a presentiment to-night that we shall be well acquainted. Do you find it coming on?’
‘N-no,’ returned Mr Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself. ‘I can’t say I do.’
‘I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately acquainted. – You have no feeling of that sort yet?’
‘Not yet,’ said Mr Flintwinch.
Mr Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about a little in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his own, and invited him to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a dear deep old dog as he was.
Without a moment’s indecision, Mr Flintwinch accepted the invitation, and they went out to the quarters where the traveller was lodged, through a heavy rain which had rattled on the windows, roofs, and pavements, ever since nightfall. The thunder and lightning had long ago passed over, but the rain was furious. On their arrival at Mr Blandois’ room, a bottle of port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who (crushing every pretty thing he could collect, in the soft disposition of his dainty figure) coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr Flintwinch took a chair opposite to him, with the table between them. Mr Blandois proposed having the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr Flintwinch assented. The bumpers filled, Mr Blandois, with a roystering gaiety, clinked the top of his glass against the bottom of Mr Flintwinch’s, and the bottom of his glass against the top of Mr Flintwinch’s, and drank to the intimate acquaintance he foresaw. Mr Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all the wine he could get, and said nothing. As often as Mr Blandois clinked glasses (which was at every replenishment), Mr Flintwinch stolidly did his part of the clinking, and would have stolidly done his companion’s part of the wine as well as his own: being, except in the article of palate, a mere cask.
In short, Mr Blandois found that to pour port wine into the reticent Flintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up. Moreover, he had the appearance of a perfect ability to go on all night; or, if occasion were, all next day and all next night; whereas Mr Blandois soon grew indistinctly conscious of swaggering too fiercely and boastfully. He therefore terminated the entertainment at the end of the third bottle.
‘You will draw upon us to-morrow, sir,’ said Mr Flintwinch, with a business-like face at parting.
‘My Cabbage,’ returned the other, taking him by the collar with both hands, ‘I’ll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my Flintwinch. Receive at parting;’ here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundly on both cheeks; ‘the word of a gentleman! By a thousand Thunders, you shall see me again!’
He did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice came duly to hand. Inquiring after him at night, Mr Flintwinch found, with surprise, that he had paid his bill and gone back to the Continent by way of Calais. Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out of his cogitating face a lively conviction that Mr Blandois would keep his word on this occasion, and would be seen again.
CHAPTER 31. Spirit
Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping along with a scared air, as though bewildered and a little frightened by the noise and bustle. This old man is always a little old man. If he were ever a big old man, he has shrunk into a little old man; if he were always a little old man, he has dwindled into a less old man. His coat is a colour, and cut, that never was the mode anywhere, at any period. Clearly, it was not made for him, or for any individual mortal. Some wholesale contractor measured Fate for five thousand coats of such quality, and Fate has lent this old coat to this old man, as one of a long unfinished line of many old men. It has always large dull metal buttons, similar to no other buttons. This old man wears a hat, a thumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has never adapted itself to the shape of his poor head. His coarse shirt and his coarse neckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and hat; they have the same character of not being his – of not being anybody’s. Yet this old man wears these clothes with a certain unaccustomed air of being dressed and elaborated for the public ways; as though he passed the greater part of his time in a nightcap and gown. And so, like the country mouse in the second year of a famine, come to see the town mouse, and timidly threading his way to the town-mouse’s lodging through a city of cats, this old man passes in the streets.
Sometimes, on holidays towards evening, he will be seen to walk with a slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist and marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. A very small measure will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with a half-pint pot. Some pitying acquaintance – chance acquaintance very often – has warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the consequence will be the lapse of a longer time than usual before he shall pass again. For the little old man is going home to the Workhouse; and on his good behaviour they do not let him out often (though methinks they might, considering the few years he has before him to go out in, under the sun); and on his bad behaviour they shut him up closer than ever in a grove of two score and nineteen more old men, every one of whom smells of all the others.
Mrs Plornish’s father, – a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like a worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music-binding business, and met with great misfortunes, and who had seldom been able to make his way, or to see it or to pay it, or to do anything at all with it but find it no thoroughfare, – had retired of his own accord to the Workhouse which was appointed by law to be the Good Samaritan of his district (without the twopence, which was bad political economy), on the settlement of that execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the Marshalsea College. Previous to his son-in-law’s difficulties coming to that head, Old Nandy (he was always so called in his legal Retreat, but he was Old Mr Nandy among the Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of the Plornish fireside, and taken his bite and sup out of the Plornish cupboard. He still hoped to resume that domestic position when Fortune should smile upon his son-in-law; in the meantime, while she preserved an immovable countenance, he was, and resolved to remain, one of these little old men in a grove of little old men with a community of flavour.
But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and no Old Men’s Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter’s admiration. Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father’s talents as she could possibly have been if they had made him Lord Chancellor. She had as firm a belief in the sweetness and propriety of his manners as she could possibly have had if he had been Lord Chamberlain. The poor little old man knew some pale and vapid little songs, long out of date, about Chloe, and Phyllis, and Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus; and for Mrs Plornish there was no such music at the Opera as the small internal flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself of these ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by a baby. On his ‘days out,’ those flecks of light in his flat vista of pollard old men,’ it was at once Mrs Plornish’s delight and sorrow, when he was strong with meat, and had taken his full halfpenny-worth of porter, to say, ‘Sing us a song, Father.’ Then he would give them Chloe, and if he were in pretty good spirits, Phyllis also – Strephon he had hardly been up to since he went into retirement – and then would Mrs Plornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as Father, and wipe her eyes.
If he had come from Court on these occasions, nay, if he had been the noble Refrigerator come home triumphantly from a foreign court to be presented and promoted on his last tremendous failure, Mrs Plornish could not have handed him with greater elevation about Bleeding Heart Yard. ‘Here’s Father,’ she would say, presenting him to a neighbour. ‘Father will soon be home with us for good, now. Ain’t Father looking well? Father’s a sweeter singer than ever; you’d never have forgotten it, if you’d aheard him just now.’ As to Mr Plornish, he had married these articles of belief in marrying Mr Nandy’s daughter, and only wondered how it was that so gifted an old gentleman had not made a fortune. This he attributed, after much reflection, to his musical genius not having been scientifically developed in his youth. ‘For why,’ argued Mr Plornish, ‘why go a-binding music when you’ve got it in yourself? That’s where it is, I consider.’
Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a certain sumptuous way – an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring audience to witness that he really could not help being more free with this old fellow than they might have expected, on account of his simplicity and poverty – was mightily good to him. Old Nandy had been several times to the Marshalsea College, communicating with his son-in-law during his short durance there; and had happily acquired to himself, and had by degrees and in course of time much improved, the patronage of the Father of that national institution.
Mr Dorrit was in the habit of receiving this old man as if the old man held of him in vassalage under some feudal tenure. He made little treats and teas for him, as if he came in with his homage from some outlying district where the tenantry were in a primitive state. It seemed as if there were moments when he could by no means have sworn but that the old man was an ancient retainer of his, who had been meritoriously faithful. When he mentioned him, he spoke of him casually as his old pensioner. He had a wonderful satisfaction in seeing him, and in commenting on his decayed condition after he was gone. It appeared to him amazing that he could hold up his head at all, poor creature. ‘In the Workhouse, sir, the Union; no privacy, no visitors, no station, no respect, no speciality. Most deplorable!’
It was Old Nandy’s birthday, and they let him out. He said nothing about its being his birthday, or they might have kept him in; for such old men should not be born. He passed along the streets as usual to Bleeding Heart Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, and gave them Phyllis. He had hardly concluded, when Little Dorrit looked in to see how they all were.
‘Miss Dorrit,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘here’s Father! Ain’t he looking nice? And such voice he’s in!’
Little Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not seen him this long time.
‘No, they’re rather hard on poor Father,’ said Mrs Plornish with a lengthening face, ‘and don’t let him have half as much change and fresh air as would benefit him. But he’ll soon be home for good, now. Won’t you, Father?’
‘Yes, my dear, I hope so. In good time, please God.’
Here Mr Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he invariably made, word for word the same, on all such opportunities. It was couched in the following terms:
‘John Edward Nandy. Sir. While there’s a ounce of wittles or drink of any sort in this present roof, you’re fully welcome to your share on it. While there’s a handful of fire or a mouthful of bed in this present roof, you’re fully welcome to your share on it. If so be as there should be nothing in this present roof, you should be as welcome to your share on it as if it was something, much or little. And this is what I mean and so I don’t deceive you, and consequently which is to stand out is to entreat of you, and therefore why not do it?’
To this lucid address, which Mr Plornish always delivered as if he had composed it (as no doubt he had) with enormous labour, Mrs Plornish’s father pipingly replied:
‘I thank you kindly, Thomas, and I know your intentions well, which is the same I thank you kindly for. But no, Thomas. Until such times as it’s not to take it out of your children’s mouths, which take it is, and call it by what name you will it do remain and equally deprive, though may they come, and too soon they can not come, no Thomas, no!’
Mrs Plornish, who had been turning her face a little away with a corner of her apron in her hand, brought herself back to the conversation again by telling Miss Dorrit that Father was going over the water to pay his respects, unless she knew of any reason why it might not be agreeable.
Her answer was, ‘I am going straight home, and if he will come with me I shall be so glad to take care of him – so glad,’ said Little Dorrit, always thoughtful of the feelings of the weak, ‘of his company.’
‘There, Father!’ cried Mrs Plornish. ‘Ain’t you a gay young man to be going for a walk along with Miss Dorrit! Let me tie your neck-handkerchief into a regular good bow, for you’re a regular beau yourself, Father, if ever there was one.’
With this filial joke his daughter smartened him up, and gave him a loving hug, and stood at the door with her weak child in her arms, and her strong child tumbling down the steps, looking after her little old father as he toddled away with his arm under Little Dorrit’s.
They walked at a slow pace, and Little Dorrit took him by the Iron Bridge and sat him down there for a rest, and they looked over at the water and talked about the shipping, and the old man mentioned what he would do if he had a ship full of gold coming home to him (his plan was to take a noble lodging for the Plornishes and himself at a Tea Gardens, and live there all the rest of their lives, attended on by the waiter), and it was a special birthday of the old man. They were within five minutes of their destination, when, at the corner of her own street, they came upon Fanny in her new bonnet bound for the same port.
‘Why, good gracious me, Amy!’ cried that young lady starting. ‘You never mean it!’
‘Mean what, Fanny dear?’
‘Well! I could have believed a great deal of you,’ returned the young lady with burning indignation, ‘but I don’t think even I could have believed this, of even you!’
‘Fanny!’ cried Little Dorrit, wounded and astonished.
‘Oh! Don’t Fanny me, you mean little thing, don’t! The idea of coming along the open streets, in the broad light of day, with a Pauper!’ (firing off the last word as if it were a ball from an air-gun).
‘O Fanny!’
‘I tell you not to Fanny me, for I’ll not submit to it! I never knew such a thing. The way in which you are resolved and determined to disgrace us on all occasions, is really infamous. You bad little thing!’
‘Does it disgrace anybody,’ said Little Dorrit, very gently, ‘to take care of this poor old man?’
‘Yes, miss,’ returned her sister, ‘and you ought to know it does. And you do know it does, and you do it because you know it does. The principal pleasure of your life is to remind your family of their misfortunes. And the next great pleasure of your existence is to keep low company. But, however, if you have no sense of decency, I have. You’ll please to allow me to go on the other side of the way, unmolested.’
With this, she bounced across to the opposite pavement. The old disgrace, who had been deferentially bowing a pace or two off (for Little Dorrit had let his arm go in her wonder, when Fanny began), and who had been hustled and cursed by impatient passengers for stopping the way, rejoined his companion, rather giddy, and said, ‘I hope nothing’s wrong with your honoured father, Miss? I hope there’s nothing the matter in the honoured family?’
‘No, no,’ returned Little Dorrit. ‘No, thank you. Give me your arm again, Mr Nandy. We shall soon be there now.’
So she talked to him as she had talked before, and they came to the Lodge and found Mr Chivery on the lock, and went in. Now, it happened that the Father of the Marshalsea was sauntering towards the Lodge at the moment when they were coming out of it, entering the prison arm in arm. As the spectacle of their approach met his view, he displayed the utmost agitation and despondency of mind; and – altogether regardless of Old Nandy, who, making his reverence, stood with his hat in his hand, as he always did in that gracious presence – turned about, and hurried in at his own doorway and up the staircase.
Leaving the old unfortunate, whom in an evil hour she had taken under her protection, with a hurried promise to return to him directly, Little Dorrit hastened after her father, and, on the staircase, found Fanny following her, and flouncing up with offended dignity. The three came into the room almost together; and the Father sat down in his chair, buried his face in his hands, and uttered a groan.
‘Of course,’ said Fanny. ‘Very proper. Poor, afflicted Pa! Now, I hope you believe me, Miss?’
‘What is it, father?’ cried Little Dorrit, bending over him. ‘Have I made you unhappy, father? Not I, I hope!’
‘You hope, indeed! I dare say! Oh, you’ – Fanny paused for a sufficiently strong expression – ‘you Common-minded little Amy! You complete prison-child!’
He stopped these angry reproaches with a wave of his hand, and sobbed out, raising his face and shaking his melancholy head at his younger daughter, ‘Amy, I know that you are innocent in intention. But you have cut me to the soul.’
‘Innocent in intention!’ the implacable Fanny struck in. ‘Stuff in intention! Low in intention! Lowering of the family in intention!’
‘Father!’ cried Little Dorrit, pale and trembling. ‘I am very sorry. Pray forgive me. Tell me how it is, that I may not do it again!’
‘How it is, you prevaricating little piece of goods!’ cried Fanny. ‘You know how it is. I have told you already, so don’t fly in the face of Providence by attempting to deny it!’
‘Hush! Amy,’ said the father, passing his pocket-handkerchief several times across his face, and then grasping it convulsively in the hand that dropped across his knee, ‘I have done what I could to keep you select here; I have done what I could to retain you a position here. I may have succeeded; I may not. You may know it; you may not. I give no opinion. I have endured everything here but humiliation. That I have happily been spared – until this day.’
Here his convulsive grasp unclosed itself, and he put his pocket-handkerchief to his eyes again. Little Dorrit, on the ground beside him, with her imploring hand upon his arm, watched him remorsefully. Coming out of his fit of grief, he clenched his pocket-handkerchief once more.
‘Humiliation I have happily been spared until this day. Through all my troubles there has been that – Spirit in myself, and that – that submission to it, if I may use the term, in those about me, which has spared me – ha – humiliation. But this day, this minute, I have keenly felt it.’
‘Of course! How could it be otherwise?’ exclaimed the irrepressible Fanny. ‘Careering and prancing about with a Pauper!’ (air-gun again).
‘But, dear father,’ cried Little Dorrit, ‘I don’t justify myself for having wounded your dear heart – no! Heaven knows I don’t!’ She clasped her hands in quite an agony of distress. ‘I do nothing but beg and pray you to be comforted and overlook it. But if I had not known that you were kind to the old man yourself, and took much notice of him, and were always glad to see him, I would not have come here with him, father, I would not, indeed. What I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done in mistake. I would not wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!’ said Little Dorrit, her heart well-nigh broken, ‘for anything the world could give me, or anything it could take away.’
Fanny, with a partly angry and partly repentant sob, began to cry herself, and to say – as this young lady always said when she was half in passion and half out of it, half spiteful with herself and half spiteful with everybody else – that she wished she were dead.
