 CHAPTER 18. BOOK THE SECOND OF LITTLE DOROTE. Read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff. LITTLE DOROTE by Charles Dickens. BOOK THE SECOND. CHAPTER 18. A CARCELL IN THE AIR. MANY FOLD ARE THE CARES OF WEALTH AND STATE. MR. DOROTE's satisfaction in remembering that it had not been necessary for him to announce himself to Glenamon Company, or to make an allusion to his having had any knowledge of the intrusive person of that name, had been damned overnight, while it was still fresh, by a debate that arose within him whether or no he should take the Marshall Sea in his way back and look at the old gate. He had decided not to do so, and had astonished the coachman by being very fierce with him for proposing to go over London Bridge and recrust the river by Waterloo Bridge, a cause which would have taken him almost within sight of his old quarters. Still, for all that, the question had raised a conflict in his breast. And for some odd reason or no reason, he was vaguely dissatisfied. Even at the Myrtle dinner table next day, he was so out of sorts about it that he continued at intervals to turn it over and over in a manner frightfully inconsistent with the good society surrounding him. It made him hot to think what the chief butler's opinion of him would have been if that illustrious personage could have plumped with that heavy eye of his stream of his meditations. The farewell banquet was of a gorgeous nature and wound up his visit in a most brilliant manner. Finally combined with the attractions of her youth and beauty, a certain weight of self-sustainment as if she had been married twenty years. He felt that he could leave her with a quiet mind to tread the paths of distinction and wished, but without abatement of patronage, and without prejudice to the retiring virtues of his favorite child, that he had such another daughter. My dear, he told her at parting, our family looks to you to assert its dignity and maintain its importance. I know you will never disappoint it. No, Papa, said Fanny, you may rely upon that, I think, my best love to dearest Amy, and I will write to her very soon. Shall I convey any message to anybody else? asked Mr. Dorrid in an insinuating manner. Papa, said Fanny, before whom Mrs. General instantly loomed, no, I thank you, you are very kind, Pa, but I must beg to be excused. There is no other message to send, I thank you, dear Papa, that it would be at all agreeable to you to take. They parted in an outer drawing room, where only Mr. Sparkler waited on his lady, and dutifully bided his time for shaking hands. When Mr. Sparkler was admitted to this closing audience, Mr. Murdoch came creeping in with not much more appearance of arms in his sleeves, than if he had been the twin brother of Miss Biffin, and insisted on escorting Mr. Dorrid downstairs. All Mr. Dorrid's protestations, being in vain, he enjoyed the honour of being accompanied by the whole door, by this distinguished man, who, as Mr. Dorrid told him in shaking hands on the step, had really overwhelmed him with attentions and services during this memorable visit. Thus they parted. Mr. Dorrid entering his carriage with a swelling breast, not at all sorry that his courier, who had come to take leave in the lower regions, should have an opportunity of beholding the grandeur of his departure. The aforesaid grandeur was yet full upon Mr. Dorrid, when he alighted at his hotel, helped out by the courier and some half-dozen of the hotel servants, he was passing through the hall with a serene magnificence when low, a side presented itself that struck him dumb and motionless. John Chivory, in his best clothes, with his tall hat under his arm, his ivory-handled cane gently embarrassing his deportment, and a bundle of cigars in his hand. Now young man, said the porter, this is the gentleman. This young man has persisted in waiting, sir, saying you would be glad to see him. Mr. Dorrid glared on the young man, choked, and said, in the mildest of tones, Oh, young John, it is young John, I think, is it not? Yes, sir, returned young John. I, er, thought it was young John. Said Mr. Dorrid, the young man may come up, turning to the attendants as he passed on. Oh, yes, he may come up, let young John follow. I will speak to him above. Young John followed, smiling and much gratified. Mr. Dorrid's rooms were reached, candles were lighted. The attendants withdrew. Now, sir, said Mr. Dorrid, turning round upon him and seizing him by the collar when they were safely alone. What do you mean by this? The amazement and horror depicted on the unfortunate John's face, for he had rather expected to be embraced next, were of that powerfully expressive nature that Mr. Dorrid withdrew his hand and merely glared at him. How dare you do this? Said Mr. Dorrid. How do you presume to come here? How dare you insult me? I insult you, sir. cried young John. Oh, yes, sir. returned Mr. Dorrid. Insult me. Your coming here is an affront, an impertinence, an audacity. You are not wanted here. Who sent you here? What the devil do you do here? I thought, sir, said young John, with a spale and shock to face as ever had been turned to Mr. Dorrid's in his life, even in his college life. I thought, sir, you might not object to have the goodness to accept a bundle. Damn your bundle, sir, cried Mr. Dorrid in irrepressible rage. I don't smoke. I humbly beg your pardon, sir. You used to. Tell me that again, cried Mr. Dorrid quite beside himself, and I'll take the poker to you. John cheevery backed to the door. Stop, sir, cried Mr. Dorrid. Stop, sit down, confound you, sit down. John cheevery dropped into the chair nearest the door, and Mr. Dorrid walked up and down the room, rapidly at first, then more slowly. Once he went to the window and stood there with his forehead against the glass. All of a sudden he turned and said, What else did you come for, sir? Nothing else in the world, sir. Oh, dear me, only to say, sir, that I hoped you as well, and only to ask if Miss Amy was well. What's that to you, sir? retorted Mr. Dorrid. It's nothing to me, sir, by rights. I never thought of lessening the distance betwixt us, I'm sure. I know it's a liberty, sir, but I never thought you'd have taken ill. Upon my word and honour, sir, said young John with emotion. In my poor way, too proud to have come, I assure you, if I had thought so. Mr. Dorrid was ashamed. He went back to the window and leaned his forehead against the glass for some time. When he turned, he had his handkerchief in his hand, and he had been wiping his eyes with it, and he looked tired and ill. Young John, I am very sorry to have been hasty with you, but some remembrances are not happy remembrances, and you shouldn't have come. I feel that now, sir, returned John Givory, but I didn't before, and Evan knows I meant no harm, sir. No, no, said Mr. Dorrid. I am sure of that. Give me your hand, young John. Give me your hand. Young John gave it, but Mr. Dorrid had driven his heart out of it, and nothing could change his face now, from its white, shocked look. There, said Mr. Dorrid, slowly shaking hands with him, sit down again, young John. Thank you, sir, but I'd rather stand. Mr. Dorrid sat down instead. After painfully holding his head a little while, he turned it to his visitor and said, with an effort to be easy. And how is your father, young John? How are they all, young John? Thank you, sir. They're all pretty well, sir. They're not any ways complaining. You are in your old business, I see, John, said Mr. Dorrid, with a glance at the offending bundle he had anathematized. Partly, sir, I am in my... John hesitated a little, father's business likewise. Oh, indeed, said Mr. Dorrid. Do you go upon the... Lock, sir? Yes, sir. Much to do, John? Yes, sir. We're pretty heavy at present. I don't know how he is, but we generally are pretty heavy. At this time of the year, young John? Mostly at all times of the year, sir. I don't know the time that makes much difference to us. I wish you good night, sir. Stay a moment, John. Stay a moment. Leave me the cigars, John. I beg. Certainly, sir. John put them with a trembling hand on the table. Stay a moment, young John. Stay another moment. It would be a gratification to me to send a little testimonial by such a trusty messenger to be divided among them, them according to their wants. Would you object to take it, John? Maybe anyway, sir. There's many of them, I'm sure, that would be the better for it. Thank you, John. I, er, I'll write it, John. His hand shook so that he was a long time writing it, and rode it in a tremulous scroll at last. It was a check for one hundred pounds. He folded it up, put it in young John's hand, and pressed the hand in his. I hope you'll overlook what has passed, John. Don't speak of it, sir, on any accounts. I don't, in any ways, bear malice, I'm sure. But nothing while John was there could change John's face to its natural color and expression or restore John's natural manner. And, John, said Mr. Dorit, giving his hand the final pressure and releasing it, I hope we, er, agree that we have spoken together in confidence and that you will abstain in going out from saying anything to anyone that might, er, suggest that, er, er, once I, er, Oh, I assure you, sir, returned John Chivory. In my poor unboi, sir, I am too proud and honorable to do it, sir. Mr. Dorit was not too proud and honorable to listen at the door that he might ascertain for himself whether John really went straight out or lingered to have any talk with anyone. There was no doubt that he went direct out at the door and away down the street with a quick step. After remaining alone for an hour, Mr. Dorit rang for the courier who found him with his chair on the hearth rug sitting with his back towards him and his face to the fire. You can take that bundle of cigars to smoke on the journey, if you like, said Mr. Dorit, with a careless wave of his hand. Oh, brought by, er, a little offering from her, a son of old tenant of mine. Next morning, son saw Mr. Dorit's equi-pitch upon the Dover Road, where every red-jacketed pastilian was the sign of a cruel house established for the unmerciful plundering of travellers. The whole business of the human race between London and Dover being spoliation, Mr. Dorit was waylaid at Dartford, pillaged at Gravesend, rifle at Rochester, pleased at Sittingbourne, and sacked at Canterbury. However, it being the courier's business to get him out of the hands of the bandit, the courier brought him off at every stage, and so the red-jackets went gleaming merrily along the spring landscape, rising and falling to a regular measure between Mr. Dorit in his snuck corner and the next chalky rise in the dusty highway. Another day, son saw him at Calais and having now got the channel between himself and John Chivory, he began to feel safe and to find that the foreign air was lighter to breathe than the air of England. Born again by the heavy French roads for Paris, having now quite recovered his equanimity, Mr. Dorit in his snuck corner fell to Castle building as he rode along. It was evident that he had a very large castle in hand. All day long he was running towers up, taking towers down, adding a wing here, putting on a battlement there, looking to the walls, strengthening the defences, giving ornamental touches to the interior, making in all respects a superb castle of it. His preoccupied face so clearly denoted the pursuit in which he was engaged, that every cripple at the post houses, not blind, who shoved his little battered tin box in at the carriage window for charity in the name of heaven, charity in the name of our lady, charity in the name of all the saints, knew as well what work he was at, as their countryman Lebron could have known it himself, though he had made that English traveller the subject of a special physiognomical treatise. Arrived at Paris and resting there three days, Mr. Dorit strolled much about the streets alone, looking in at the shop windows, and particularly the jewellery's windows. Ultimately he went into the most famous jewellers and said he wanted to buy a little gift for a lady. It was a charming little woman to whom he said it, a sprightly little woman, dressed in perfect taste, who came out of a green velvet bow to attend upon him, from posting up some dainty little books of account, which one could hardly suppose to be ruled for the entry of any articles more commercial than kisses, at a dainty little shining desk which looked in itself like a sweetmeat. For example then, said the little woman, what species of gift did Mosieu desire? A love gift? Mr. Dorit smiled and said, eh, well, perhaps. What did he know? It was always possible, the sex being so charming. Would she show him some? Most willingly, said the little woman, flattered and enchanted to show him many. But, pardon, to begin with, you would have the great goodness to observe that there were love gifts and there were napsal gifts. For example, these ravishing earrings that necklace so superb to correspond to what one called a love gift. These brooches in these rings of a beauty so gracious and celestial were what one called, with the permission of Mosieu, napsal gifts. Perhaps it would be a good arrangement, Mr. Dorit hinted, smiling, to purchase both and to present the love gift first and to finish with the napsal offering. Our heaven, said the little woman, laying the tips of the fingers of her to little hands against each other. That would be generous indeed. That would be a special gallantry. And without doubt, the lady so crushed with gifts would find them irresistible. Mr. Dorit was not sure of that. But, for example, the sprightly little woman was very sure of it, she said. So, Mr. Dorit bought a gift of each sword and paid handsomely for it. As he strolled back to his hotel afterwards, he carried his head high, having plainly got up his castle now to a much loftier altitude than the two square towers of Notre-Dame. Building away with all his might but reserving the plans of his castle exclusively for his own eye, Mr. Dorit posted away for Marseille. Building on, building on, busily, busily from morning to night, falling asleep and leaving great blocks of building materials dangling in the air, waking again to resume work and get them into their places. What time the courier in the rumble, smoking young John's best cigars, left a little thread of thin light smoke behind, perhaps as he built a castle or two with stray pieces of Mr. Dorit's money. Not a fortified town that they passed in all their journey was so strong, not a cathedral summit was as high as Mr. Dorit's castle. Neither the sown nor the rown sped with the swiftness of that peerless building, nor was the Mediterranean deeper than its foundations, nor were the distant landscapes of the Cornice Road, nor the hills and bay of Genoa the superb more beautiful. Mr. Dorit and his matchless castle were disembarked among the dirty white houses and dirtier felons of Givita Vecchia and then scrambled on to Rome as they could, through the filth that festered on the way. End of chapter the 18th, book the second of Little Dorit. This recording is in the public domain. Chapter the 19th, book the second of Little Dorit. Read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff. Little Dorit by Charles Dickens. Book the second. Chapter the 19th. The storming of the castle in the air. The sun had gone down full four hours and it was later than most travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls of Rome, when Mr. Dorit's carriage, still on its last wearisome stage, rattled over the solitary campania. The savage herdsmen and the fierce-looking peasants who had checkered the way while the light lasted had all gone down with the sun and left the wilderness blank. At some turns of the road, a pale flare on the horizon, like an exhalation from the ruin's own land, showed that the city was yet far off. But this poor relief was rare and short-lived. The carriage dipped down again into a hollow of the black dry sea and for a long time there was nothing visible, save its petrified swell and the gloomy sky. Mr. Dorit, though he had his castle building to engage his mind, could not be quite easy in that desolate place. He was far more curious in every swerve of the carriage and every cry of the postillions than he had been since he quitted London. The valet on the box evidently quaked. The courier in the rumble was not altogether comfortable in his mind. As often as Mr. Dorit let down the glass and looked back at him, which was very often, he saw him smoking John Chivory out. It is true, but still generally standing up the while and looking about him, like a man who had his suspicions and kept upon his guard. Then would Mr. Dorit, pulling up the glass again, reflect that those pastillions were cut throat-looking fellows and that he would have done better to have slept at Chivita Vecchia and have started betimes in the morning. But for all this he worked at his castle in the intervals. And now, fragments of ruinous enclosure, yawning window gap and crazy wall, deserted houses, leaking wells, broken water tanks, spectral cypress trees, patches of tangled vine and the changing of the track to a long, irregular, disordered lane where everything was crumbling away from the unsightly buildings to the jolting road. Now these objects showed that they were nearing Rome. And now a sudden twist and stoppage of the carriage inspired Mr. Dorit with the mistrust that the brilliant moment was come for twisting him into a ditch and robbing him. Until letting down the glass again and looking out, he perceived himself assailed by nothing worse than a funeral procession which came mechanically chaunting by with an indistinct show of dirty vestments, lurid torches, swinging sensors and a great cross born before a priest. He was an ugly priest by torchlight, of a lowering aspect with an overhanging brow and as his eyes met those of Mr. Dorit, looking bareheaded out of the carriage, his lips, moving as they chanted, seemed to threaten that important traveller. Likewise, the action of his hand which was in fact his manner of returning the traveller's salutation seemed to come in aid of that menace. So thought Mr. Dorit, made fanciful by the weariness of building and travelling as the priest drifted past him and the procession straggled away, taking its dead along with it. Upon their so different way went Mr. Dorit'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. Dorit was not expected by his own people that night. He had been, but they had given him up until tomorrow. Mr. Dorit, but they had given him up until tomorrow, not a 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 Mr. Dorit from home? he asked. No, she was with him. Good said Mr. Dorit to the assembling servants. Let them keep where they were. Let them help to unload the carriage. He would find Mr. Dorit 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, anti-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. 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 here. He, with his chair, drawn to the hearth, enjoying the warmth of the evening wood fire. She seated at a little table, busyed 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 Dorit, playing 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 impressions 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 Dorit 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, 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 couldn'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 Dorit is no credit to William Dorit, and he knows it quite well. Ah, why, here is your father, Amy, my dear William, welcome back, my beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see you. Turning his head and speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in the doorway. Little Dorit 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 anyone to receive me at last. I appear to have been so little expected that upon my word I began to think it might be right to offer an apology for 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 tonight. 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 a detriment at all any hour I choose. Surely, surely, returned the other with a misgiving that he had given offence. Surely, William. Thank you, Amy, pursued Mr. Dorit as she helped him to put off his wrappers. I can do it without assistance. Need not trouble you, Amy? Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of wine, or would it cause too much inconvenience? Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes. Thank you, my love, said Mr. Dorit, with a reproachful frost upon him. I am afraid I am causing inconvenience. Mrs. General pretty well? Mrs. General complained of a headache and of being fatigued and so, when we give you up, she went to bed, dear. Perhaps Mr. Dorit 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 devastated himself of his traveling cloak and had come to the fire. Hey me, what are you looking at? What do you see in me that causes you to concentrate your solitude on me in that 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 that's not all. You think, said Mr. Dorit with an accusatory emphasis, that I am not looking well. I thought you looked a little tired, love. Then you are mistaken, said Mr. Dorit. I am not tired. 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 dose of not a minute's duration and a walk 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 make it a personal request that you go to bed. You ought to have been in bed long ago. You are very feeble. Ha! 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. Dorit 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. 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. Dorit, do I adore you. Good night, brother. I hope you will be stronger tomorrow. 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 dose 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 wonders very much, Amy. He said, when he was thus roused, he is less coherent and his conversation is more broken than I have ever known. Has he had any illness since I have been gone? No, father. You see a great change in him, Amy. I have not observed it, dear. Greatly broken, said Mr. Dorit, greatly broken, my poor affectionate, failing Frederick. Even taking into account what he was before, I am 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 he 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 and placed his old black cap, though it had been ignominiously given away in the Marshall sea and had never got free to that hour but still hovered about the arts 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 driveled. There was no other word to express it. Driveled. 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 that she had had in Mrs. General. Extremely sorry. He then repeated with his former satisfaction that, that her superior woman was poorly. Little Dorit 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 undercurrents 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. He's telling her of the glorious state that Mr. Murdell kept and of the court that bowed before him naturally brought him to Mrs. Murdell 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. Dorit after a few weeks stay upon the road. She will be a vast loss here said Mr. Dorit a vast acquisition at home to Fanny and to him the rest of the great world. Little Dorit thought of the competition that was to be entered upon and assented very softly. Mrs. Murdell 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 very kind when is the day? the day after tomorrow right around in the morning and say that I have returned and shall be delighted. May I walk with you up the stairs to your room dear? No. He answered looking angrily around 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 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 dosing 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 Campania 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 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 Dorit 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 Dorit thought she described a slight thaw of triumph in a corner of her frosty eye Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the prune and prismatic nature of the family banquet Mr. Dorit several times fell asleep while it was in progress the dosing were as sudden as they had been overnight and were as short and profound when the first of the slumbering 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. Dorit 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 apologized to Mrs. General for the poor man the most estimable and affectionate of brothers he said but broken up altogether unhappily declining fast Mr. Frederick sir quote Mrs. General is habitually absent and drooping but let us hope it is not so bad as that Mr. Dorit however was determined not to let him off fast declining madame a wreck a ruin mouldering away before our eyes 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. Dorit by all that can charm the taste and elevate the mind happy my dear madam in a 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. Dorit continued Fanny Mrs. General has high qualities ambition purpose consciousness of position determination to support that position grace beauty and native nobility no doubt Mrs. General with a little extra stiffness combined with these qualities madam Mr. Dorit manifested one blemish which has made me made me uneasy and 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 others to what Mr. Dorit returned Mrs. General with her gloves again somewhat excited can you allude I am at a loss to my dear madam interrupted Mr. Dorit Mrs. General's voice as it died away pronounced the words at a loss to imagine after which Mr. Dorit was seized with a dose for about a minute out of which he sprang with spasmodic nimbleness I refer Mrs. General to that strong spirit of opposition or I might say jealousy in Fanny which has occasionally risen against the sense I entertain of the claims of the lady with whom I have now the honour of communing Mr. Dorit returned Mrs. General is ever but too obliging ever but too appreciative if there have been moments when I have imagined that Mr. Dorit has indeed resented the favourable opinion Mr. Dorit has formed of my services I have found in that only too high opinion my consolation is opinion of your services madam said Mr. Dorit of Mrs. General repeated in an elegantly impressive manner my services of your services alone dear madam said Mr. Dorit I presume retorted Mrs. General in her former impressive manner of my services alone for to what else said Mrs. General with a slightly brave action of her gloves could I impute to her yourself Mrs. General to yourself and your merits was Mr. Dorit's rejoinder Mr. Dorit 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. Dorit will excuse me if I remind him that Mr. Dorit is in the adjoining room while I utter her name Mr. Dorit will forgive me if I observe that I am agitated and that I find there are moments when weaknesses I suppose myself to have subdued return with redoubled power Mr. Dorit will allow me to withdraw perhaps we may resume this her interesting conversation said Mr. Dorit utter another time unless it should be what I hope it is not her mean anyway to her Mrs. General Mr. Dorit 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. Dorit 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 palmatum and was not without moral enchantment likewise the latter showing itself in much sweet patronage of manner towards Mr. Dorit and in an air of a standard interest in Mr. Dorit as was consistent with rigid propriety at the close of the evening when she rose to retire Mr. Dorit took her by the hand as if he were going to lead her out into the piazzas 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 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. Tinkla and begged she would accompany Mr. Dorit on an airing without him his daughter was dressed for Mrs. Myrtle'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. Myrtle'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. Myrtle 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 Marquis 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 Dorit overshadowed by a large pair of black whiskers and a large white cravat lost sight of her father altogether until a servant put up a scrap of paper in her hand with a whispered request from Mrs. Myrtle that she would read it directly Mrs. Myrtle had written on it in pencil pray come and speak to Mr. Dorit 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 I don't know what's the matter with me I particularly wish to see Bob her of all the turn keys he is as much as 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, good call Bob if he has been relieved and is not on the lock tell Mrs. Bangum 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 sent for Bob best of all the turn keys sent for Bob he looked confusedly about him and becoming conscious of the number of faces by which he was surrounded and asked them ladies and gentlemen the duty devolves upon me welcoming you to the marshall sea welcome to the marshall sea the spaces are limited, limited the parade might be wider but you will find it apparently grow larger after a time time ladies and gentlemen and the air is all things considered very good it blows over the sari hills this is the snaggery supported by a small subscription of the collegiate body in return for which hot water general kitchen and little domestic advantages those who are habituated to the marshall sea are pleased to call me its father I am accustomed to be recommended by strangers as the father of the marshall sea certainly if years of residence may establish a claim to so honourable a title I may accept the 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 she had no other care than to soothe him and get him away for his own dear sake she was between him and the wandering faces turned round upon his breast with her own face raised to his he held her clasped in his left arm and between wiles her low voice was heard tenderly imploring him to go away with her born here he repeated shedding tears bred here a gentleman my daughter child of an unfortunate father but him always a gentleman poor no doubt but him proud always proud it has become a not infrequent custom for my personal admirers personal admirers solely to be pleased to express their desire to acknowledge my semi-official position here by offering her little disputes which usually take the form of voluntary recognitions of my humble endeavours to uphold a tone here a tone I beg it to be understood that I do not consider myself compromised not compromised not a beggar no I repudiate the title at the same time far be it from me to put upon the fine feelings by which my partial friends are actuated the slide of scrupling to admit that those offerings are 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 a 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 Dorit 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 forbidden treatise that he would never be able to get up the narrow stairs without Bob where was Bob would nobody fetch Bob and a 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 accepted 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 Marshall sea 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 feigned to patch up a narrative how that Bob many a year dead then gentle turnkey had taken cold but hoped to be out tomorrow 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 50 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. Bangum 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 Marshall 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 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 to have the best 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 watch 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 pawnbrokers thus for ten days little Dorit 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 martial sea 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 faded marks of the prison bars and of the zigzag 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 sang to rest at first her uncle was stark distracted oh my brother oh 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 suck her 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 stands so long and now awaking to be broken he honored and blessed her oh 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 sat 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 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 Dorit 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 untroversable 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 on 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 end of chapter the 19th book the second of Little Dorit this recording is in the public domain chapter the 20th book the second of Little Dorit read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff Little Dorit by Charles Dickens book the second chapter the 20th introduces the next the passengers were landing from the packet on the pier at Kale a low lying place and a low spirited place Kale was with the tide ebbing out towards low water mark there had been no more water on the bar than had suffice to float the packet in and now the bar itself with the shallow break of sea over it looked like a lazy marine monster just risen to the surface whose form was indistinctly shown as it lay asleep the meagre lighthouse all in white haunting the seaboard as if it were the ghost of an edifice that had once had colour and rotantity dropped melancholy tears after its late buffeting by the waves the long rows of gaunt black piles slimy and wet and weather worn with funeral garlands of seaweed twisted about them by the late tide might have represented an unsightly marine cemetery every wave dashed storm beat an object was so low and so little under the broad grey sky in the noise of the wind and sea and before the curling lines of surf making at it ferociously that the wonder was there was any Kale left in the wind and sea the wonder was there was any Kale left and at it's low gates and low wall and low roofs and low ditches and low sand hills and low ramparts and flat streets had not yielded long ago to the undermining and besieging sea like the fortifications children make on the seashore after slipping among oozy piles and planks stumbling up wet steps and encountering many salt difficulties the passengers entered on their comfortless peregrination along the pier where all the French vagabonds and English outlaws in the town half the population attended to prevent their recovery from bewilderment after being minutely inspected by all the English and claimed and reclaimed and counterclaimed as prizes by all the French in a hand to hand scaffold three quarters of a mile long they were at last free to enter the streets and to make off in their various directions hotly pursued clenum harassed by more anxieties than one was among this devoted band having rescued the most defenseless of his compatriots from situations of great extremity he now went his way alone or as nearly alone as he could be with a native gentleman in a suit of grease and a cup of the same material giving chase at a distance of some 50 yards and continually calling after him hi, I say you sir I say nice hotel even this hospitable person however was left behind at last and clenum pursued his way un molested there was a tranquil air in the town after the turbulence of the channel and the beach and its dullness in that comparison was agreeable he met new groups of his countrymen who had all a straggling air of having at one time overblown themselves like certain uncomfortable kinds of flowers and of being now mere weeds they had all an air too of lounging out a limited round day after day which strongly reminded him of the Marshall sea but taking no further note of them than was sufficient to give birth to the reflection he sought out a certain street and number which he kept in his mind so pang said he murmured to himself as he stopped before a dull house answering to the address I suppose his information to be correct in his discovery among Mr. Caspi's loose papers indisputable but without it I should hardly have supposed this to be a likely place a dead sort of house with a dead wall over the way and a dead gateway at the side where a pendant bell handle produced two dead tinkles and a knocker produced a dead flat surface tapping that seemed not to have depth enough in it to penetrate even the cracker door however the door jarred open on a dead sort of spring and he closed it behind him as he entered a dull yard soon brought to a close by another dead wall where an attempt had been made to train some creeping shrubs which were dead and to make a little fountain in a grotto which was dry and to decorate that with a little statue which was gone the entry to the house was on the left and it was garnished as the outer gateway was with two printed bills in French and English announcing furnished apartments to let with immediate possession a strong cheerful peasant woman all stocking petty coat white cap and earring stood here in a dark doorway and said with a pleasant show of teeth I say sir, who? Clenum, replying in French said the English lady he wished to see the English lady and to then understand if you please return the peasant woman in French likewise he did both and followed her up a dark bastard case to a back room on the first floor hence there was a gloomy view of the yard that was dull and of the shrubs that were dead and of the fountain that was dry and of the pedestal of the statue that was gone Monsieur Blandois said Clenum with pleasure, monsieur thereupon the woman withdrew and led him to look at the room it was the pattern of room always to be found in such a house cool, dull and dark floor, very slippery a room not large enough to skate in nor adapted to the easy pursuit of any other occupation red and white curtained windows little straw mat little round table with a tumultuous assemblage of legs underneath clumsy rush, bottom chairs two great red velvet armchairs affording plenty of space to be uncomfortable in bureau, chimney, glass in several pieces pretending to be in one piece pair of gaudy vases of very artificial flowers between them a Greek warrior with his helmet off sacrificing a clock to the genius of France after some pause a door of communication with another room was opened and a lady entered she manifested great surprise on seeing Clenum and her glance went round the room in search of someone else pardon me, miss weight, I am alone it was not your name that was brought to me? no, I know that excuse me, I have already had experience that my name does not predispose you to an interview and I ventured to mention the name of one I am in search of prey, she returned motioning him to a chair so coldly that he remained standing what name was it that you gave? I mentioned the name of Blandois a name you are acquainted with it is strange she said frowning that you should still press an undesired interest in me and my acquaintances in me and my affairs, Mr. Clenum I don't know what you mean pardon me you know the name what can you have to do with the name what can I have to do with the name what can you have to do with my knowing or not knowing any name I know many names and I have forgotten many more this may be in the one class or it may be in the other or I may never have heard it I am acquainted with no reason for examining myself or for being examined about it if you will allow me said Clenum, I will tell you my reason for pressing the subject I admit that I do press it and I must beg you to forgive me if I do so very earnestly the reason is all mine I do not insinuate that it is in any way yours well sir she returned repeating a little less hotly than before her former invitation to him to be seated to which he now deferred as she seated herself I am at least glad to know that this is not another bondswoman of some friend of yours who is bereft of free choice and whom I have spirited away I will hear your reason if you please first to identify the person of whom we speak said Clenum, let me observe that it is the person you met in London some time back you will remember meeting him near the river in the Adelphi you mix yourself most and accountably with my business she replied looking full at him with stern displeasure how do you know that I entreat you not to take it ill by mere accident what accident? solely the accident of coming upon you in the street and seeing the meeting do you speak of yourself or of someone else? of myself I saw it to be sure it was in the open street she observed after a few moments of less and less angry reflection 50 people might have seen it it would have signified nothing if they had nor do I make my having seen it of any moment nor otherwise than as an explanation of my coming here do I connect my visit with it or the favour that I have to ask oh you have to ask a favour it occurred to me and the handsome face looked bitterly at him that your manner was softened Mr. Clenum he was content to protest against this by a slight action without contesting it in words he then referred to Blandwa's disappearance of which it was probable she had heard however probable it was to him she had heard of no such thing let him look round him she said and judge for himself what general intelligence was likely to reach the ears of a woman who had been shut up there while it was rife devouring her own heart when she had uttered this denial which he believed to be true she asked him what he meant by disappearance that led to his narrating the circumstances in detail and expressing something of his anxiety to discover what had really become of the man and to repel the dark suspicions that clouded about his mother's house she heard him with evident surprise and with more marks of suppressed interest than he had seen in her still they did not overcome her distant proud and self-secluded manner she had finished she said nothing but these words you have not yet told me sir what I have to do with it or what the favor is will you be so good as come to that I assume said Arthur persevering in his endeavor to soften her scornful demeanor that being in communication may I say confidential communication with this person you may say of course whatever you like she remarked but I do not subscribe to your assumptions Mr. Clenum or to anyone's that being at least in personal communication with him said Clenum changing the form of his position in the hope of making it unobjectionable you can tell me something of his antecedents pursuits habits, usual place of residence can give me some little clue by which to seek him out in the likeliest manner to produce him or establish what has become of him this is the favor I ask and I ask it in a distress of mind for which I hope you will feel some consideration if you should have any reason for imposing conditions upon me I will respect it without asking what it is you chance to see me in the street with the man she observed after being to his modification evidently more occupied with her own reflections on the matter than with his appeal then he knew the man before not before afterwards I never saw him before but I saw him again on this very night of his disappearance in my mother's room in fact I left him there you will read in this paper all that is known of him he handed her one of the printed bills which she read with a steady and attentive face this is more than I knew of him she said giving it back Clenum's looks expressed his heavy disappointment perhaps his incredulity for she added in the same unsympathetic tone you don't believe it still it is so as to personal communication it seems that there was personal communication between him and your mother and yet you say you believe her declaration that she knows no more of him a sufficiently expressive hint of suspicion was conveyed in these words and in the smile by which they were accompanied to bring the blood into Clenum's cheeks come sir she said with a cruel pleasure in repeating the stab I will be as open with you as you can desire I will confess that if I cared for my credit which I do not or had a good name to preserve which I have not for I am utterly indifferent to its being considered good or bad I should regard myself as heavily compromised by having had anything to do with this fellow yet he never passed in at my door never sat in colloquy with me until midnight she took her revenge for her old grudge in thus turning his subject against him hers was not the nature to spare him and she had no compunction that he is a low mercenary wretch that I first saw him prowling about Italy where I was not long ago but I hired him there as the suitable instrument of a purpose I happened to have I have no objection to tell you in short it was worth my while for my own pleasure the gratification of a strong feeling to pay a spy who would fetch and carry for money I paid this creature and I dare say that if I had wanted to make such a bargain and if I could have paid him enough and if he could have done it in the dark free from all risk he would have taken any life with as little scruple as he took my money that at least is my opinion of him and I see it is not very far removed from yours your mother's opinion of him I am to assume following your example of assuming this and that was vastly different my mother let me remind you was first brought into communication with him in the unlucky cause of business it appears to have been an unlucky cause of business that last brought her into communication with him returned miss Wade and business hours on that occasion were late you imply said Arthur smarting under those cool-handed thrusts of which he had deeply felt the force already that there was something Mr. Clenum she compositely interrupted recollect that I do not speak by implication about the man he is, I say again without a disguise a low mercenary wretch I suppose such a creature goes where there is occasion for him if I had not had occasion for him you would not have seen him and me together rung by her persistence in keeping that dark side of the case before him of which there was a half hidden shadow in his own breast Clenum was silent I have spoken of him as still living she added but he may have been put out of the way for anything I know for anything I care also I have no further occasion for him with a heavy sigh and in despondent air Arthur Clenum slowly rose she did not rise also but said having looked at him in the meanwhile with a fixed look of suspicion and lips angrily compressed he was the chosen associate of your dear friend Mr. Gowan was he not why don't you ask your dear friend to help you the denial that he was a dear friend rose to Arthur's lips but he repressed it remembering his old struggles and resolutions and said further than that he has never seen Blandoir since Blandoir set out for England Mr. Gowan knows nothing additional about him he was a chance acquaintance made abroad a chance acquaintance made abroad she repeated yes dear friend has need to divert himself with all the acquaintances he can make seeing what a wife he has I hate his wife sir the anger with which he said it the more remarkable for being so much under her restrained fixed Clenum's attention and kept him on the spot it flashed out of her dark eyes as they regarded him quivered in her nostrils and fired the very breath she exhaled but her face was otherwise composed into a disdainful serenity and her attitude was as calmly and heartily graceful as if she had been in a mood of complete indifference all I will say is Miss Wade he remarked that you can have received no provocation to a feeling in which I believe you have no sharer you may ask your dear friend if you choose she returned for his opinion upon that subject I am scarcely on those intimate terms with my dear friend said Arthur in spite of his resolutions that would render my approaching the subject very probable Miss Wade I hate him she returned worse than his wife because I was once dupe enough and false enough to myself almost to love him you have seen me sir only on commonplace occasions when I dare say you have thought me a commonplace woman a little more self-willed than the generality you don't know what I mean by hating if you know me no better than that you can't know without knowing with what care I have studied myself and people about me for this reason I have for some time inclined to tell you what my life has been not to propitiate your opinion for I set no value on it but that you may comprehend when you think of your dear friend and his dear wife what I mean by hating is nothing I have written and put by for your perusal or shall I hold my hand Arthur begged her to give it to him she went to the bureau unlocked it and took from an inner drawer a few folded sheets of paper without any conciliation of him scarcely addressing him rather speaking as if she were speaking to her own looking glass for the justification of her own stubbornness she said as she gave them to him now you may know what I mean by hating no more of that sir whether you find me temporarily and cheaply lodging in an empty London house or in a Calais apartment you find Harriet with me you may like to see her before you leave Harriet come in she called Harriet again the second call produced Harriet one study quorum here is Mr. Clenum said Miss Wade not come for you it has given you up what you have by this time having no authority or influence yes assented Clenum not come in search of you you see but still seeking someone he wants that Blandoir man with whom I saw you in the Strand in London hinted Arthur if you know anything of him Harriet accept that he came from Venice which we all know tell it to Mr. Clenum freely I know nothing more about him said the girl are you satisfied Miss Wade inquired of Arthur he had no reason to disbelieve them the girl's manner being so natural as to be almost convincing if he had had any previous doubts he replied I must seek for intelligence elsewhere he was not going in the same breath but he had risen before the girl entered and she evidently thought he was she looked quickly at him and said are you well sir who she stopped herself in saying what would have been all of them glanced at Miss Wade and said Mr. and Mrs. Meagles they were when I last heard of them they are not at home by the way let me ask you is it true that you were seen there where where does anyone say I was seen returned the girl suddenly casting down her eyes looking in at the garden gate of the cottage no said Miss Wade she has never been near it you are wrong then said the girl I went down there the last time we were in London I went one afternoon when you left me alone and I did look in you poor spirited girl returned Miss Wade with infinite contempt does all our companionship do all our conversations do all your old complaining still for so little as that there was no harm in looking in at the gate for an instant said the girl I saw by the windows that the family were not there why should you go near that place because I wanted to see it because I felt that I should like to look at it again as each of the two handsome faces looked at the other Glenham felt how each of the two natures must be constantly tearing the other two pieces oh said Miss Wade coldly subduing and removing her glance if you had any desire to see the place where you led the life from which I rescued you because you had found out what it was that is another thing but is that your truth to me is that your fidelity to me is that the common cause I make with you you are not worth the confidence I have placed in you you are not worth the favor I have shown you you are no higher than a spaniel and had better go back to the people who did worse than whip you if you speak so of them with anyone else by to here you'll provoke me to take their part said the girl go back to them Miss Wade retorted go back to them you know very well retorted Harriet in her turn that I won't go back to them you know very well that I have thrown them off and never can, never shall, never will go back to them let them alone then Miss Wade you prefer their plenty to your less fat living here she rejoined you exalt them and slight me what else should I have expected I ought to have known it it's not so said the girl flushing high and you don't say what you mean I know what you mean you are approaching me underhanded with having nobody but you to look to and because I have nobody but you to look to you think you are to make me do or not do everything you please and how to put any affront upon me you are as bad as they were every bit but I will not be quite tamed and made submissive I will say again that I went to look at the house because I had often thought that I should like to see it once more I will ask again how they are because I once liked them and at times thought they were kind to me Europe on Glenham said that he was sure they would still receive her kindly if she should ever decide to return never said the girl passionately I shall never do that nobody knows that better than Miss White though she taunts me because she has made me her dependent and I know I am so and I know she is overjoyed when she can bring it to my mind a good pretence said Miss White with no less anger, haughtiness and bitterness but too threadbare to cover what I plainly see in this my poverty will not bear competition with their money better go back at once better go back at once and have done with it Arthur Glenham looked at them standing a little distance asunder in the dull confined room each proudly cherishing her own anger each with a fixed determination torturing her own breast and torturing the others he said a word or two of leave-taking but Miss White barely inclined her head and Harriet with the assumed humiliation of an abject dependent and serve but not without a defiance for all that made as if she were too low to notice or to be noticed he came down the dark winding stairs into the yard with an increased sense upon him of the gloom of the wall that was dead and of the shrubs that were dead and of the fountain that was dry and of the statue that was gone pondering much on what he had seen and heard in that house as well as on the failure of all his efforts to trace the suspicious character who was lost he returned to London and to England by the packet that had taken him over on the way he unfolded the sheets of paper and read in them what is reproduced in the next chapter end of chapter the 20th book the second of Little Dorit this recording is in the public domain chapter the 21st book the second of Little Dorit read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff Little Dorit by Charles Dickens book the second chapter the 21st the history of a self-tormentor I have the misfortune of not being a fool from a very early age I have detected that those about me thought they hid from me if I could have been habitually imposed upon instead of habitually discerning the truth I might have lived as smoothly as most fools do my childhood was passed with a grandmother that is to say with a lady who represented that relative to me and who took that title on herself she had no claim to it but I, being to that extent a little fool had no suspicion of her she had some children of her own family in her house and some children of other people all girls ten in number including me we all lived together and were educated together I must have been about twelve years old when I began to see how determinedly those girls patronized me I was stalled I was an orphan there was no other orphan among us and I perceived here was the first disadvantage of not being a fool that they conciliated me in an insolent pity and in a sense of superiority I did not set this down as a discovery rashly I tried them often I could hardly make them quarrel with me when I succeeded with any of them they were sure to come after an hour or two and begin a reconciliation I tried them over and over again and I never knew them wait for me to begin they were always forgiving me in their vanity and condescension little images of grown people one of them was my chosen friend I loved that stupid might in a passionate way that she could no more deserve than I can remember without feeling ashamed of though I was but a child she had what they called an amiable temper an affectionate temper she could distribute and did distribute pretty looks and smiles to everyone among them I believe there was not a soul in the place except myself who knew that she did it purposely to wound and gall me nevertheless I so loved that unworthy girl that my life was made stormy by my fondness for her I was constantly lectured and disgraced for what was called trying her in other words charging her with her little perfidy and throwing her into tears by showing her that I read her heart however I loved her faithfully and one time I went home with her for the holidays she was worse at home than she had been at school she had a crowd of cousins and acquaintances and we had dances at her house and went out to dances at other houses and both at home and out she tormented my love beyond endurance her plan was to make them all fond of her and so drive me wild with jealousy to be familiar and endearing with them all and so make me mad with envying them when we were left alone in our bedroom at night I would reproach her with my perfect knowledge of her baseness and then she would cry and cry and say I was cruel and then I would hold her in my arms till morning loving her as much as ever and often feeling as if rather than suffer so I could so hold her in my arms and plunge to the bottom of a river where I would still hold her after we were both dead it came to an end and I was relieved in the family there was an aunt who was not fond of me I doubt if any of the family liked me much but I never wanted them to like me being altogether bound up in the one girl the aunt was a young woman and she had a serious way with her eyes of watching me she was an audacious woman and openly looked compassionate let me after one of the nights that I have spoken of I came down into a green house before breakfast Charlotte, the name of my false young friend had gone down before me and I heard this aunt speaking to her about me as I entered I stopped where I was among the leaves and listened the aunt said Charlotte, Miss Wade is wearing you to death and this must not continue I repeat the very words I heard now what did she answer? did she say it is I who am wearing her to death I who am keeping her on a rack and I am the executioner yet she tells me every night that she loves me devotedly though she knows what I make her undergo no my first memorable experience was true to what I knew her to be and to all my experience she began sobbing and weeping to secure the aunt's sympathy to herself and said dear aunt she has an unhappy temper other girls at school besides I try hard to make it better we all try hard upon that the aunt fondled her as if she had said something noble instead of despicable and false and kept up the infamous pretense by replying but there are reasonable limits my dear love to everything and I see that this poor miserable girl causes you more constant and useless distress than even so good an effort justifies the poor miserable girl came out of her concealment as you may be prepared to hear and said send me home I never said another word to either of them or to any of them but send me home or I will walk home alone night and day when I got home I told my supposed grandmother that unless I was sent away to finish my education somewhere else before that girl came back or before any one of them came back I would burn my sight away by throwing myself into the fire rather than I would endure to look at their plotting faces I went among young women next and I found them no better no words and fair pretenses but I penetrated below those assertions of themselves and appreciations of me and they were no better before I left them I learned that I had no grandmother and no recognized relation I carried the light of that information both into my past and into my future it showed me many new occasions on which people triumphed over me when they made a pretence of treating me with consideration or doing me a service a man of business had a small property in trust for me I was to be a governess I became a governess and went into the family of a poor nobleman where there were two daughters, little children but the parents wished them to grow up if possible under one instructress the mother was young and pretty from the first she made a show of behaving to me with great delicacy I kept my resentment to myself but I knew very well that it was her way of betting the knowledge that she was my mistress and might have behaved differently to her servant if it had been her fancy I say I did not resent it nor did I but I showed her by not gratifying her that I understood her when she pressed me to take wine I took water if there happened to be anything choice at table she always sent it to me but I always declined it and at of the rejected dishes these disappointments of her patronage were a sharp retort and made me feel independent I liked the children they were timid but on the whole disposed to attach themselves to me there was a nurse however in the house a rosy-faced woman always making an obtrusive pretence of being gay and good-humoured who had nursed them both and who had secured their affections before I saw them I could almost have settled down to my fate but for this woman her artful devices for keeping herself before the children in constant competition with me might have blinded many in my place but I saw through them from the first on the pretext of arranging my rooms and waiting on me and taking care of my wardrobe all of which she did busily she was never absent the most crafty of her many subtleties was her faint of seeking to make the children fonder of me she would lead them to me and coax them to me come to good miss Wade come to dear miss Wade come to pretty miss Wade she loves you very much miss Wade is a clever lady who has read heaps of books and can tell you far better and more interesting stories than I know come and ear miss Wade how could I engage their attentions when my heart was burning against these ignorant designs how could I wonder when I saw their innocent faces shrinking away and their arms twining round her neck instead of mine then she would look up at me shaking their curls from her face and say they'll come around soon miss Wade very simple and loving ma'am don't be all cast down about it ma'am exalting over me there was another thing the woman did at times when she saw that she had safely plunged me into a black despondent brooding by these means she would call the attention of the children to it and would show them the difference between herself and me oh sh poor miss Wade is not well don't make a noise my dears her head aches come and comfort her come and ask her if she is better come and ask her to lie down I hope you have nothing on your mind ma'am don't take all ma'am and be sorry it became intolerable her ladyship, my mistress coming in one day when I was alone and at the height of feeling that I could support it no longer I told her I must go I could not bear the presence of that woman door miss Wade poor door is devoted to you would do anything for you I knew beforehand she would say so I was quite prepared for it I only answered it was not for me to contradict my mistress I must go I hope miss Wade, she returned instantly assuming the tone of superiority she had always so thinly concealed that nothing I have ever said or done since we have been together has justified your use of that disagreeable word mistress I must have been wholly inadvertent on my part pray tell me what it is I replied that I had no complaint to make either of my mistress or to my mistress but I must go she hesitated a moment and then sat down beside me and laid her hand on mine as if that honour would obliterate any remembrance miss Wade I fear you are unhappy through causes over which I have no influence I smiled thinking of the experience the word awakened and said I have an unhappy temper I suppose I did not say that it is an easy way of accounting for anything said I it may be but I did not say so what I wish to approach is something very different my husband and I have exchanged some remarks upon the subject when we have observed with pain that you have not been easy with us easy? oh, you are such great people my lady said I I am unfortunate in using a word which may convey a meaning and evidently does quite opposite to my intention she had not expected my reply and it shamed her I only mean not happy with us it is a difficult topic to enter on but from one young woman to another perhaps in short we have been apprehensive that you may allow some family circumstances of which no one can be more innocent than yourself to pray upon your spirits if so let us entreat you not to make them a cause of grief my husband himself as is well known formally had a very dear sister who was not in law his sister but who was universally beloved and respected I saw directly that they had taken me in for the sake of the dead woman whoever she was and to have that boast of me and advantage of me I saw in the nurses knowledge of it an encouragement to goad me as she had done and I saw in the children's shrinking away a vague impression that I was not like other people I left that house that night after one or two short and very similar experiences which are not to the present purpose I entered another family where I had but one pupil a girl of fifteen who was the only daughter the parents here were elderly people people of station and rich an every whom they had brought up was a frequent visitor at the house among many other visitors and he began to pay me attention I was resolute in repassing him or I had determined when I went there that no one should pity me or condescend to me but he wrote me a letter it led to our being engaged to be married he was a year younger than I and young looking even when that allowance was made he was an absence from India where he had a post that was soon to grow into a very good one in six months we were to be married and were to go to India I was to stay in the house and was to be married from the house nobody objected to any part of the plan I cannot avoid saying he admired me but if I could, I would vanity has nothing to do with the declaration for his admiration worried me he took no pains to hide it and caused me to feel among the rich people as if he had bought me for my looks and made a show of his purchase to justify himself they appraised me in their own minds and saw and were curious to ascertain what my full value was I resolved that they should not know I was immovable and silent before them and would have suffered any one of them to kill me sooner than I would have laid myself out to bespeak their approval he told me I did not do myself justice I told him I did and it was because I did and meant to do so to the last that I would not stoop to propitiate any of them he was concerned and even shocked when I added that I wished he would not parade his attachment before them but he said he would sacrifice even the honest impulses of his affection to my peace under that pretense he began to retort upon me by the hour together he would keep at a distance from me talking to anyone rather than to me I have sat alone and unnoticed half an evening while he conversed with his young cousin, my pupil I have seen all the while in people's eyes that they thought the two looked nearer on inequality than he and I I have sat, divining their thoughts until I have felt that his young appearance made me ridiculous and have raged against myself forever loving him or I did love him once undeserving as he was and little as he thought of all these agonies that it cost me agonies which should have made him holy and gratefully mined to his life's end I have loved him I bore with his cousins praising him to my face and with her pretending to think that it pleased me but full well knowing that it wrangled in my breast for his sake while I have sat in his presence recalling all my slides and wrongs and deliberating whether I should not fly from the house at once and never see him again I have loved him his aunt, my mistress you will please to remember he willfully added to my trials and vexations it was her delight to expatiate on the style in which we were to live in India and on the establishment we should keep and the company we should entertain when he got his advancement my pride rose against this barefaced way of pointing out the contrast my married life was to present to my then dependent and inferior position I suppressed my indignation but I showed her my intention was not lost upon me and I repaid her annoyance by effecting humility what she described would surely be a great deal too much honour for me I would tell her I was afraid I might not be able to support so great a change think of a mere governess, a daughter's governess coming to that high distinction it made her uneasy and made them all uneasy when I answered in this way they knew that I fully understood her it was at the time when my troubles were at their highest and when I was most incensed against my lover for his ingratitude in caring as little as he did for the innumerable distresses and modifications I underwent on his account that your dear friend Mr. Gowan appeared at the house he had been intimate there for a long time but had been abroad he understood the state of things at a glance and he understood me he was the first person I had ever seen in my life who had understood me he was not in the house three times before I knew that he accompanied every movement of my mind in his coldly easy way with all of them and with me and with the whole subject I saw it clearly in his light protestations of admiration of my future husband in his enthusiasm regarding our engagement and our prospects in his hopeful congratulations on our future wealth and his despondent references to his own poverty all equally hollow and jesting and full of mockery I saw it clearly he made me feel more and more resentful and more and more contemptible by always presenting to me everything that surrounded me with some new hateful light upon it while he pretended to exhibit it in its best aspect for my admiration and his own he was like the dressed up death in the Dutch series whatever figure he took upon his arm whether it was youth or age, beauty or ugliness whether he danced with it, sang with it, played with it, or prayed with it he made it ghastly you will understand then that when your dear friend complimented me he really condoled with me that when he soothed me under my vexations he laid bare every smarting wound I had that when he declared my faithful swain to be the most loving young fellow in the world with the tenderest heart that ever beat he touched my old misgiving that I was made ridiculous these were not great services, you may say they were acceptable to me because they echoed my own mind and confirmed my own knowledge I soon began to like the society of your dear friend better than any other when I perceived, which I did almost as soon that jealousy was growing out of this I liked this society still better had I not been subject to jealousy and were the endurance to be all mine no, let him know what it was I was delighted that he should know it I was delighted that he should feel keenly and I hoped he did more than that it was tame in comparison with Mr. Gowan who knew how to address me in equal terms and how to anatomize the wretched people around us this went on until the aunt, my mistress took it upon herself to speak to me it was scarcely worth alluding to she knew I meant nothing but she suggested from herself knowing it was only necessary to suggest that it might be better I was a little less companiable with Mr. Gowan I asked her how she could answer for what I meant she could always answer she replied for my meaning nothing wrong I thanked her but said I would prefer to answer for myself and to myself her other servants would probably be grateful for good characters but I wanted none other conversation followed and induced me to ask her how she knew that it was only necessary for her to make a suggestion to me to have it obeyed did she presume on my birth or on my hire I was not bought body and soul she seemed to think that her distinguished nephew had gone into a slave market and purchased a wife it would probably have come sooner or later to the end to which it did come but she brought it to its issue at once she told me with assumed commiseration that I had an unhappy temper on this repetition of the old wicked injury I withheld no longer but exposed to her all I had known of her and seen in her and all I had undergone within myself since I had occupied the despicable position of being engaged to her nephew I told her that Mr. Gowan was the only relief I had had in my degradation that I had borne it too long and that I shook it off too late but that I would see none of them more and I never did your dear friend followed me to my retreat and was very droll on the severance of the connection though he was sorry too for the excellent people in their way the best he had ever met and deplored the necessity of breaking mere house flies on the wheel he protested before long and far more truly than I then supposed that he was not worth acceptance by a woman of such endowments and such power of character but well well your dear friend amused me and amused himself as long as it suited his inclinations and then reminded me that we were both people of the world that we both understood mankind that we both knew there was no such thing as romance that we were both prepared for going different ways to seek our fortunes like people of sense and that we both foresaw that whenever we encountered one another again we should meet as the best friends on earth so he said and I did not contradict him it was not very long before I found that he was courting his present wife and that she had been taken away to be out of his reach I hated her then quite as much as I hate her now and naturally therefore could desire nothing better than that she should marry him but I was restlessly curious to look at her so curious that I felt it to be one of the few sources of entertainment left to me I travelled a little travelled until I found myself in her society and in yours your dear friend I think was not known to you then and had not given you any of those signal marks of his friendship which he has bestowed upon you in that company I found a girl in various circumstances of whose position there was a singular likeness to my own and in whose character I was interested and pleased to see much of the rising against swollen patronage and selfishness calling themselves kindness protection, benevolence and other fine names which I have described as inherent in my nature I often heard it said too that she had an unhappy temper well understanding what was meant by the convenient phrase and wanting a companion with a knowledge of what I knew I thought I would try to release the girl from her bondage and sense of injustice I have no occasion to relate that I succeeded we have been together ever since sharing my small means end of chapter the 21st book the second of Little Dorrid this recording is in the public domain