The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on
Clennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the community
within.
Too depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who got
together to forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to join in
the poor socialities of the tavern; he kept his own room, and was held
in distrust.
Some said he was proud; some objected that he was
sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for that he was a
poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts. The whole population were
shy of him on these various counts of indictment, but especially the
last, which involved a species of domestic treason; and he soon became
so confirmed in his seclusion, that his only time for walking up and
down was when the evening Club were assembled at their songs and toasts
and sentiments, and when the yard was nearly left to the women and
children.
Imprisonment began to tell upon him. He knew that he idled and moped.
After what he had known of the influences of imprisonment within the
four small walls of the very room he occupied, this consciousness made
him afraid of himself. Shrinking from the observation of other men, and
shrinking from his own, he began to change very sensibly. Anybody might
see that the shadow of the wall was dark upon him.
One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in jail, and
when he had been trying to read and had not been able to release even
the imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea, a footstep stopped
at his door, and a hand tapped at it. He arose and opened it, and an
agreeable voice accosted him with 'How do you do, Mr Clennam? I hope I
am not unwelcome in calling to see you.'
It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand. He looked very
good-natured and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free, in
contrast with the squalid prison.
'You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam,' he said, taking the seat
which Clennam offered him.
'I must confess to being much surprised.'
'Not disagreeably, I hope?'
'By no means.'
'Thank you. Frankly,' said the engaging young Barnacle, 'I have been
excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of a
temporary retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two private
gentlemen) that our place has had nothing to do with it?'
'Your office?'
'Our Circumlocution place.'
'I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable
establishment.'
Upon my life,' said the vivacious young Barnacle, 'I am heartily glad to
know it. It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it. I should have
so exceedingly regretted our place having had anything to do with your
difficulties.'
Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the responsibility.
'That's right,' said Ferdinand. 'I am very happy to hear it. I was
rather afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor you,
because there is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that kind
of thing now and then. We don't want to do it; but if men will be
gravelled, why--we can't help it.'
'Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say,' returned Arthur,
gloomily, 'I am much obliged to you for your interest in me.'
'No, but really! Our place is,' said the easy young Barnacle, 'the most
inoffensive place possible. You'll say we are a humbug. I won't say
we are not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be, and must be.
Don't you see?'
'I do not,' said Clennam.
'You don't regard it from the right point of view. It is the point of
view that is the essential thing. Regard our place from the point of
view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as capital a
Department as you'll find anywhere.'
'Is your place there to be left alone?' asked Clennam.
'You exactly hit it,' returned Ferdinand. 'It is there with the express
intention that everything shall be left alone. That is what it means.
That is what it's for. No doubt there's a certain form to be kept up
that it's for something else, but it's only a form. Why, good Heaven,
we are nothing but forms! Think what a lot of our forms you have gone
through. And you have never got any nearer to an end?'
'Never,' said Clennam.
'Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have
us--official and effectual. It's like a limited game of cricket. A field
of outsiders are always going in to bowl at the Public Service, and we
block the balls.'
Clennam asked what became of the bowlers? The airy young Barnacle
replied that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lamed, got their backs
broken, died off, gave it up, went in for other games.
'And this occasions me to congratulate myself again,' he pursued,
'on the circumstance that our place has had nothing to do with your
temporary retirement. It very easily might have had a hand in it;
because it is undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky place, in
our effects upon people who will not leave us alone. Mr Clennam, I am
quite unreserved with you. As between yourself and myself, I know I may
be. I was so, when I first saw you making the mistake of not leaving us
alone; because I perceived that you were inexperienced and sanguine, and
had--I hope you'll not object to my saying--some simplicity.'
'Not at all.'
'Some simplicity. Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I went out
of my way to hint to you (which really was not official, but I never am
official when I can help it) something to the effect that if I were you,
I wouldn't bother myself. However, you did bother yourself, and you have
since bothered yourself. Now, don't do it any more.'
'I am not likely to have the opportunity,' said Clennam.
'Oh yes, you are! You'll leave here. Everybody leaves here. There are no
ends of ways of leaving here. Now, don't come back to us. That entreaty
is the second object of my call. Pray, don't come back to us. Upon my
honour,' said Ferdinand in a very friendly and confiding way, 'I shall
be greatly vexed if you don't take warning by the past and keep away
from us.'
'And the invention?' said Clennam.
'My good fellow,' returned Ferdinand, 'if you'll excuse the freedom of
that form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and nobody
cares twopence-halfpenny about it.'
'Nobody in the Office, that is to say?'
'Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any
invention. You have no idea how many people want to be left alone.
You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the
Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don't be bored by it) tends
to being left alone. Believe me, Mr Clennam,' said the sprightly young
Barnacle in his pleasantest manner, 'our place is not a wicked Giant to
be charged at full tilt; but only a windmill showing you, as it grinds
immense quantities of chaff, which way the country wind blows.'
'If I could believe that,' said Clennam, 'it would be a dismal prospect
for all of us.'
'Oh! Don't say so!' returned Ferdinand. 'It's all right. We must have
humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug.
A little humbug, and a groove, and everything goes on admirably, if you
leave it alone.'
With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the rising
Barnacles who were born of woman, to be followed under a variety of
watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved, Ferdinand
rose. Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and courteous
bearing, or adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the
circumstances of his visit.
'Is it fair to ask,' he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with a real
feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good-humour, 'whether it
is true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of this passing
inconvenience?'
'I am one of the many he has ruined. Yes.'
'He must have been an exceedingly clever fellow,' said Ferdinand
Barnacle.
Arthur, not being in the mood to extol the memory of the deceased, was
silent.
'A consummate rascal, of course,' said Ferdinand, 'but remarkably
clever! One cannot help admiring the fellow. Must have been such a
master of humbug. Knew people so well--got over them so completely--did
so much with them!' In his easy way, he was really moved to genuine
admiration.
'I hope,' said Arthur, 'that he and his dupes may be a warning to people
not to have so much done with them again.'
'My dear Mr Clennam,' returned Ferdinand, laughing, 'have you really
such a verdant hope? The next man who has as large a capacity and as
genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as well. Pardon me, but
I think you really have no idea how the human bees will swarm to the
beating of any old tin kettle; in that fact lies the complete manual of
governing them. When they can be got to believe that the kettle is made
of the precious metals, in that fact lies the whole power of men like
our late lamented. No doubt there are here and there,' said Ferdinand
politely, 'exceptional cases, where people have been taken in for what
appeared to them to be much better reasons; and I need not go far to
find such a case; but they don't invalidate the rule. Good day! I hope
that when I have the pleasure of seeing you, next, this passing cloud
will have given place to sunshine. Don't come a step beyond the door. I
know the way out perfectly. Good day!'
With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went
down-stairs, hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in the
front court-yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his noble
kinsman, who wanted a little coaching before he could triumphantly
answer certain infidel Snobs who were going to question the Nobs about
their statesmanship.
He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two
afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like an
elderly Phoebus.
'How do you do to-day, sir?' said Mr Rugg. 'Is there any little thing I
can do for you to-day, sir?'
'No, I thank you.'
Mr Rugg's enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a housekeeper's
enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a washerwoman's enjoyment of a
heavy wash, or a dustman's enjoyment of an overflowing dust-bin, or any
other professional enjoyment of a mess in the way of business.
'I still look round, from time to time, sir,' said Mr Rugg, cheerfully,
'to see whether any lingering Detainers are accumulating at the gate.
They have fallen in pretty thick, sir; as thick as we could have
expected.'
He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of
congratulation: rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a
little.
'As thick,' repeated Mr Rugg, 'as we could reasonably have expected.
Quite a shower-bath of 'em. I don't often intrude upon you now, when I
look round, because I know you are not inclined for company, and that if
you wished to see me, you would leave word in the Lodge. But I am here
pretty well every day, sir. Would this be an unseasonable time, sir,'
asked Mr Rugg, coaxingly, 'for me to offer an observation?'
'As seasonable a time as any other.'
'Hum! Public opinion, sir,' said Mr Rugg, 'has been busy with you.'
'I don't doubt it.'
'Might it not be advisable, sir,' said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly yet, 'now
to make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to public opinion?
We all do it in one way or another. The fact is, we must do it.'
'I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no business to
expect that I ever shall.'
'Don't say that, sir, don't say that. The cost of being moved to the
Bench is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is strong that
you ought to be there, why--really--'
'I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, 'that my
determination to remain here was a matter of taste.'
'Well, sir, well! But is it good taste, is it good taste? That's the
Question.' Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be quite pathetic.
'I was almost going to say, is it good feeling? This is an extensive
affair of yours; and your remaining here where a man can come for a
pound or two, is remarked upon as not in keeping. It is not in keeping.
I can't tell you, sir, in how many quarters I heard it mentioned. I
heard comments made upon it last night in a Parlour frequented by what
I should call, if I did not look in there now and then myself, the best
legal company--I heard, there, comments on it that I was sorry to hear.
They hurt me on your account. Again, only this morning at breakfast. My
daughter (but a woman, you'll say: yet still with a feeling for these
things, and even with some little personal experience, as the plaintiff
in Rugg and Bawkins) was expressing her great surprise; her great
surprise.
Now under these circumstances, and considering that none of us can quite
set ourselves above public opinion, wouldn't a trifling concession to
that opinion be--Come, sir,' said Rugg, 'I will put it on the lowest
ground of argument, and say, amiable?'
Arthur's thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit, and the
question remained unanswered.
'As to myself, sir,' said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had reduced
him to a state of indecision, 'it is a principle of mine not to consider
myself when a client's inclinations are in the scale. But, knowing your
considerate character and general wish to oblige, I will repeat that I
should prefer your being in the Bench.
Your case has made a noise; it is a creditable case to be professionally
concerned in; I should feel on a better standing with my connection, if
you went to the Bench. Don't let that influence you, sir. I merely state
the fact.'
So errant had the prisoner's attention already grown in solitude and
dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only one
silent figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had to shake
off a kind of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg, recall the thread
of his talk, and hurriedly say, 'I am unchanged, and unchangeable, in my
decision. Pray, let it be; let it be!' Mr Rugg, without concealing that
he was nettled and mortified, replied:
'Oh! Beyond a doubt, sir. I have travelled out of the record, sir, I am
aware, in putting the point to you. But really, when I herd it remarked
in several companies, and in very good company, that however worthy of a
foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit of an Englishman to remain in
the Marshalsea when the glorious liberties of his island home admit
of his removal to the Bench, I thought I would depart from the narrow
professional line marked out to me, and mention it. Personally,' said Mr
Rugg, 'I have no opinion on the topic.'
'That's well,' returned Arthur.
'Oh! None at all, sir!' said Mr Rugg. 'If I had, I should have been
unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in this
place by a gentleman of a high family riding a saddle-horse. But it was
not my business. If I had, I might have wished to be now empowered to
mention to another gentleman, a gentleman of military exterior at
present waiting in the Lodge, that my client had never intended to
remain here, and was on the eve of removal to a superior abode. But my
course as a professional machine is clear; I have nothing to do with it.
Is it your good pleasure to see the gentleman, sir?'
'Who is waiting to see me, did you say?'
'I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I was your
professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very limited
function was performed. Happily,' said Mr Rugg, with sarcasm, 'I did not
so far travel out of the record as to ask the gentleman for his name.'
'I suppose I have no resource but to see him,' sighed Clennam, wearily.
'Then it IS your good pleasure, sir?' retorted Rugg. 'Am I honoured by
your instructions to mention as much to the gentleman, as I pass out? I
am? Thank you, sir. I take my leave.' His leave he took accordingly, in
dudgeon.
The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened Clennam's
curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a half-forgetfulness
of such a visitor's having been referred to, was already creeping over
it as a part of the sombre veil which almost always dimmed it now, when
a heavy footstep on the stairs aroused him. It appeared to ascend them,
not very promptly or spontaneously, yet with a display of stride and
clatter meant to be insulting. As it paused for a moment on the
landing outside his door, he could not recall his association with the
peculiarity of its sound, though he thought he had one. Only a moment
was given him for consideration. His door was immediately swung open
by a thump, and in the doorway stood the missing Blandois, the cause of
many anxieties.
'Salve, fellow jail-bird!' said he. 'You want me, it seems. Here I am!'
Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder, Cavalletto
followed him into the room. Mr Pancks followed Cavalletto. Neither of
the two had been there since its present occupant had had possession of
it. Mr Pancks, breathing hard, sidled near the window, put his hat on
the ground, stirred his hair up with both hands, and folded his arms,
like a man who had come to a pause in a hard day's work. Mr Baptist,
never taking his eyes from his dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on
the floor with his back against the door and one of his ankles in
each hand: resuming the attitude (except that it was now expressive of
unwinking watchfulness) in which he had sat before the same man in the
deeper shade of another prison, one hot morning at Marseilles. 'I have
it on the witnessing of these two madmen,' said Monsieur Blandois,
otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, 'that you want me, brother-bird.
Here I am!' Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was
turned up by day, he leaned his back against it as a resting-place,
without removing his hat from his head, and stood defiantly lounging
with his hands in his pockets.
'You villain of ill-omen!' said Arthur. 'You have purposely cast a
dreadful suspicion upon my mother's house. Why have you done it?
What prompted you to the devilish invention?'
Monsieur Rigaud, after frowning at him for a moment, laughed. 'Hear this
noble gentleman! Listen, all the world, to this creature of Virtue! But
take care, take care. It is possible, my friend, that your ardour is a
little compromising. Holy Blue! It is possible.'
'Signore!' interposed Cavalletto, also addressing Arthur: 'for to
commence, hear me! I received your instructions to find him, Rigaud; is
it not?'
'It is the truth.'
'I go, consequentementally,'--it would have given Mrs Plornish great
concern if she could have been persuaded that his occasional lengthening
of an adverb in this way, was the chief fault of his English,--'first
among my countrymen. I ask them what news in Londra, of foreigners
arrived. Then I go among the French. Then I go among the Germans. They
all tell me. The great part of us know well the other, and they all tell
me. But!--no person can tell me nothing of him, Rigaud. Fifteen times,'
said Cavalletto, thrice throwing out his left hand with all its fingers
spread, and doing it so rapidly that the sense of sight could hardly
follow the action, 'I ask of him in every place where go the foreigners;
and fifteen times,' repeating the same swift performance, 'they know
nothing. But!--' At this significant Italian rest on the word 'But,' his
backhanded shake of his right forefinger came into play; a very little,
and very cautiously.
'But!--After a long time when I have not been able to find that he
is here in Londra, some one tells me of a soldier with white
hair--hey?--not hair like this that he carries--white--who lives retired
secrettementally, in a certain place. But!--' with another rest upon
the word, 'who sometimes in the after-dinner, walks, and smokes. It is
necessary, as they say in Italy (and as they know, poor people), to
have patience. I have patience. I ask where is this certain place. One.
believes it is here, one believes it is there. Eh well! It is not here,
it is not there. I wait patientissamentally. At last I find it. Then I
watch; then I hide, until he walks and smokes. He is a soldier with grey
hair--But!--' a very decided rest indeed, and a very vigorous play from
side to side of the back-handed forefinger--'he is also this man that
you see.'
It was noticeable, that, in his old habit of submission to one who had
been at the trouble of asserting superiority over him, he even then
bestowed upon Rigaud a confused bend of his head, after thus pointing
him out.
'Eh well, Signore!' he cried in conclusion, addressing Arthur again. 'I
waited for a good opportunity. I writed some words to Signor Panco,' an
air of novelty came over Mr Pancks with this designation, 'to come and
help. I showed him, Rigaud, at his window, to Signor Panco, who was
often the spy in the day. I slept at night near the door of the house.
At last we entered, only this to-day, and now you see him! As he would
not come up in presence of the illustrious Advocate,' such was Mr
Baptist's honourable mention of Mr Rugg, 'we waited down below there,
together, and Signor Panco guarded the street.'
At the close of this recital, Arthur turned his eyes upon the impudent
and wicked face. As it met his, the nose came down over the moustache
and the moustache went up under the nose. When nose and moustache had
settled into their places again, Monsieur Rigaud loudly snapped his
fingers half-a-dozen times; bending forward to jerk the snaps at Arthur,
as if they were palpable missiles which he jerked into his face.
'Now, Philosopher!' said Rigaud.'What do you want with me?'
'I want to know,' returned Arthur, without disguising his abhorrence,
'how you dare direct a suspicion of murder against my mother's house?'
'Dare!' cried Rigaud. 'Ho, ho! Hear him! Dare? Is it dare? By Heaven, my
small boy, but you are a little imprudent!'
'I want that suspicion to be cleared away,' said Arthur. 'You shall
be taken there, and be publicly seen. I want to know, moreover,
what business you had there when I had a burning desire to fling you
down-stairs. Don't frown at me, man! I have seen enough of you to know
that you are a bully and coward. I need no revival of my spirits from
the effects of this wretched place to tell you so plain a fact, and one
that you know so well.'
White to the lips, Rigaud stroked his moustache, muttering, 'By Heaven,
my small boy, but you are a little compromising of my lady, your
respectable mother'--and seemed for a minute undecided how to act.
His indecision was soon gone. He sat himself down with a threatening
swagger, and said:
'Give me a bottle of wine. You can buy wine here. Send one of your
madmen to get me a bottle of wine. I won't talk to you without wine.
Come! Yes or no?'
'Fetch him what he wants, Cavalletto,' said Arthur, scornfully,
producing the money.
'Contraband beast,' added Rigaud, 'bring Port wine! I'll drink nothing
but Porto-Porto.'
The contraband beast, however, assuring all present, with his
significant finger, that he peremptorily declined to leave his post at
the door, Signor Panco offered his services. He soon returned with the
bottle of wine: which, according to the custom of the place, originating
in a scarcity of corkscrews among the Collegians (in common with a
scarcity of much else), was already opened for use.
'Madman! A large glass,' said Rigaud.
Signor Panco put a tumbler before him; not without a visible conflict of
feeling on the question of throwing it at his head.
'Haha!' boasted Rigaud. 'Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.
A gentleman from the beginning, and a gentleman to the end. What
the Devil! A gentleman must be waited on, I hope? It's a part of my
character to be waited on!'
He half filled the tumbler as he said it, and drank off the contents
when he had done saying it.
'Hah!' smacking his lips. 'Not a very old prisoner that! I judge by your
looks, brave sir, that imprisonment will subdue your blood much sooner
than it softens this hot wine. You are mellowing--losing body and colour
already. I salute you!'
He tossed off another half glass: holding it up both before and
afterwards, so as to display his small, white hand.
'To business,' he then continued. 'To conversation. You have shown
yourself more free of speech than body, sir.'
'I have used the freedom of telling you what you know yourself to be.
You know yourself, as we all know you, to be far worse than that.'
'Add, always a gentleman, and it's no matter. Except in that regard, we
are all alike. For example: you couldn't for your life be a gentleman;
I couldn't for my life be otherwise. How great the difference! Let us go
on. Words, sir, never influence the course of the cards, or the course
of the dice. Do you know that? You do? I also play a game, and words are
without power over it.'
Now that he was confronted with Cavalletto, and knew that his story was
known--whatever thin disguise he had worn, he dropped; and faced it out,
with a bare face, as the infamous wretch he was.
'No, my son,' he resumed, with a snap of his fingers. 'I play my game
to the end in spite of words; and Death of my Body and Death of my Soul!
I'll win it. You want to know why I played this little trick that
you have interrupted? Know then that I had, and that I have--do you
understand me? have--a commodity to sell to my lady your respectable
mother. I described my precious commodity, and fixed my price. Touching
the bargain, your admirable mother was a little too calm, too stolid,
too immovable and statue-like. In fine, your admirable mother vexed me.
To make variety in my position, and to amuse myself--what! a gentleman
must be amused at somebody's expense!--I conceived the happy idea of
disappearing. An idea, see you, that your characteristic mother and my
Flintwinch would have been well enough pleased to execute. Ah! Bah,
bah, bah, don't look as from high to low at me! I repeat it. Well enough
pleased, excessively enchanted, and with all their hearts ravished. How
strongly will you have it?'
He threw out the lees of his glass on the ground, so that they nearly
spattered Cavalletto. This seemed to draw his attention to him anew. He
set down his glass and said:
'I'll not fill it. What! I am born to be served. Come then, you
Cavalletto, and fill!'
The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with Rigaud,
and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and poured out
from the bottle into the glass. The blending, as he did so, of his old
submission with a sense of something humorous; the striving of that
with a certain smouldering ferocity, which might have flashed fire in
an instant (as the born gentleman seemed to think, for he had a wary
eye upon him); and the easy yielding of all to a good-natured, careless,
predominant propensity to sit down on the ground again: formed a very
remarkable combination of character.
'This happy idea, brave sir,' Rigaud resumed after drinking, 'was a
happy idea for several reasons. It amused me, it worried your dear
mama and my Flintwinch, it caused you agonies (my terms for a lesson
in politeness towards a gentleman), and it suggested to all the amiable
persons interested that your entirely devoted is a man to fear. By
Heaven, he is a man to fear! Beyond this; it might have restored her wit
to my lady your mother--might, under the pressing little suspicion your
wisdom has recognised, have persuaded her at last to announce, covertly,
in the journals, that the difficulties of a certain contract would be
removed by the appearance of a certain important party to it. Perhaps
yes, perhaps no. But that, you have interrupted. Now, what is it you
say? What is it you want?'
Never had Clennam felt more acutely that he was a prisoner in bonds,
than when he saw this man before him, and could not accompany him to his
mother's house. All the undiscernible difficulties and dangers he had
ever feared were closing in, when he could not stir hand or foot.
'Perhaps, my friend, philosopher, man of virtue, Imbecile, what you
will; perhaps,' said Rigaud, pausing in his drink to look out of his
glass with his horrible smile, 'you would have done better to leave me
alone?'
'No! At least,' said Clennam, 'you are known to be alive and unharmed.
At least you cannot escape from these two witnesses; and they can
produce you before any public authorities, or before hundreds of
people!'
'But will not produce me before one,' said Rigaud, snapping his
fingers again with an air of triumphant menace. 'To the Devil with your
witnesses! To the Devil with your produced! To the Devil with yourself!
What! Do I know what I know, for that? Have I my commodity on sale, for
that? Bah, poor debtor! You have interrupted my little project. Let it
pass. How then? What remains? To you, nothing; to me, all. Produce
me! Is that what you want? I will produce myself, only too quickly.
Contrabandist!
Give me pen, ink, and paper.'
Cavalletto got up again as before, and laid them before him in his
former manner. Rigaud, after some villainous thinking and smiling,
wrote, and read aloud, as follows:
'To MRS CLENNAM.
'Wait answer.
'Prison of the Marshalsea. 'At the apartment of your son.
'Dear Madam,--I am in despair to be informed to-day by our prisoner here
(who has had the goodness to employ spies to seek me, living for politic
reasons in retirement), that you have had fears for my safety.
'Reassure yourself, dear madam. I am well, I am strong and constant.
'With the greatest impatience I should fly to your house, but that I
foresee it to be possible, under the circumstances, that you will not
yet have quite definitively arranged the little proposition I have had
the honour to submit to you. I name one week from this day, for a last
final visit on my part; when you will unconditionally accept it or
reject it, with its train of consequences.
'I suppress my ardour to embrace you and achieve this interesting
business, in order that you may have leisure to adjust its details to
our perfect mutual satisfaction.
'In the meanwhile, it is not too much to propose (our prisoner having
deranged my housekeeping), that my expenses of lodging and nourishment
at an hotel shall be paid by you. 'Receive, dear madam, the assurance of
my highest and most distinguished consideration,
'RIGAUD BLANDOIS.
'A thousand friendships to that dear Flintwinch.
'I kiss the hands of Madame F.'
When he had finished this epistle, Rigaud folded it and tossed it with
a flourish at Clennam's feet. 'Hola you! Apropos of producing, let
somebody produce that at its address, and produce the answer here.'
'Cavalletto,' said Arthur. 'Will you take this fellow's letter?'
But, Cavalletto's significant finger again expressing that his post was
at the door to keep watch over Rigaud, now he had found him with so much
trouble, and that the duty of his post was to sit on the floor backed up
by the door, looking at Rigaud and holding his own ankles,--Signor Panco
once more volunteered. His services being accepted, Cavalletto suffered
the door to open barely wide enough to admit of his squeezing himself
out, and immediately shut it on him.
'Touch me with a finger, touch me with an epithet, question my
superiority as I sit here drinking my wine at my pleasure,' said Rigaud,
'and I follow the letter and cancel my week's grace. You wanted me? You
have got me! How do you like me?'
'You know,' returned Clennam, with a bitter sense of his helplessness,
'that when I sought you, I was not a prisoner.'
'To the Devil with you and your prison,' retorted Rigaud, leisurely,
as he took from his pocket a case containing the materials for making
cigarettes, and employed his facile hands in folding a few for present
use; 'I care for neither of you. Contrabandist! A light.'
Again Cavalletto got up, and gave him what he wanted. There had been
something dreadful in the noiseless skill of his cold, white hands, with
the fingers lithely twisting about and twining one over another like
serpents. Clennam could not prevent himself from shuddering inwardly, as
if he had been looking on at a nest of those creatures.
'Hola, Pig!' cried Rigaud, with a noisy stimulating cry, as if
Cavalletto were an Italian horse or mule. 'What! The infernal old jail
was a respectable one to this. There was dignity in the bars and stones
of that place. It was a prison for men. But this? Bah! A hospital for
imbeciles!'
He smoked his cigarette out, with his ugly smile so fixed upon his face
that he looked as though he were smoking with his drooping beak of a
nose, rather than with his mouth; like a fancy in a weird picture. When
he had lighted a second cigarette at the still burning end of the first,
he said to Clennam:
'One must pass the time in the madman's absence. One must talk. One
can't drink strong wine all day long, or I would have another bottle.
She's handsome, sir. Though not exactly to my taste, still, by
the Thunder and the Lightning! handsome. I felicitate you on your
admiration.'
'I neither know nor ask,' said Clennam, 'of whom you speak.'
'Della bella Gowana, sir, as they say in Italy. Of the Gowan, the fair
Gowan.'
'Of whose husband you were the--follower, I think?'
'Sir? Follower? You are insolent. The friend.'
'Do you sell all your friends?'
Rigaud took his cigarette from his mouth, and eyed him with a momentary
revelation of surprise. But he put it between his lips again, as he
answered with coolness:
'I sell anything that commands a price. How do your lawyers live, your
politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange? How do you live?
How do you come here? Have you sold no friend? Lady of mine! I rather
think, yes!'
Clennam turned away from him towards the window, and sat looking out at
the wall.
'Effectively, sir,' said Rigaud, 'Society sells itself and sells me: and
I sell Society. I perceive you have acquaintance with another lady. Also
handsome. A strong spirit. Let us see. How do they call her? Wade.'
He received no answer, but could easily discern that he had hit the
mark.
'Yes,' he went on, 'that handsome lady and strong spirit addresses me in
the street, and I am not insensible. I respond. That handsome lady and
strong spirit does me the favour to remark, in full confidence, "I have
my curiosity, and I have my chagrins. You are not more than ordinarily
honourable, perhaps?" I announce myself, "Madame, a gentleman from
the birth, and a gentleman to the death; but NOT more than ordinarily
honourable. I despise such a weak fantasy." Thereupon she is pleased to
compliment. "The difference between you and the rest is," she answers,
"that you say so." For she knows Society. I accept her congratulations
with gallantry and politeness. Politeness and little gallantries are
inseparable from my character. She then makes a proposition, which is,
in effect, that she has seen us much together; that it appears to her
that I am for the passing time the cat of the house, the friend of
the family; that her curiosity and her chagrins awaken the fancy to be
acquainted with their movements, to know the manner of their life, how
the fair Gowana is beloved, how the fair Gowana is cherished, and so
on. She is not rich, but offers such and such little recompenses for the
little cares and derangements of such services; and I graciously--to do
everything graciously is a part of my character--consent to accept them.
O yes! So goes the world. It is the mode.'
Though Clennam's back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth to the
end of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his that were too
near together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very carriage of the
head, as he passed with his braggart recklessness from clause to clause
of what he said, that he was saying nothing which Clennam did not
already know.
'Whoof! The fair Gowana!' he said, lighting a third cigarette with a
sound as if his lightest breath could blow her away. 'Charming, but
imprudent! For it was not well of the fair Gowana to make mysteries of
letters from old lovers, in her bedchamber on the mountain, that her
husband might not see them. No, no. That was not well. Whoof! The Gowana
was mistaken there.'
'I earnestly hope,' cried Arthur aloud, 'that Pancks may not be long
gone, for this man's presence pollutes the room.'
'Ah! But he'll flourish here, and everywhere,' said Rigaud, with an
exulting look and snap of his fingers. 'He always has; he always will!'
Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in the room besides
that on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting himself on the breast as the
gallant personage of the song.
'Who passes by this road so late?
Compagnon de la Majolaine!
Who passes by this road so late?
Always gay!
'Sing the Refrain, pig! You could sing it once, in another jail. Sing
it! Or, by every Saint who was stoned to death, I'll be affronted and
compromising; and then some people who are not dead yet, had better have
been stoned along with them!'
'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Compagnon de la Majolaine!
Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Always gay!'
Partly in his old habit of submission, partly because his not doing it
might injure his benefactor, and partly because he would as soon do
it as anything else, Cavalletto took up the Refrain this time. Rigaud
laughed, and fell to smoking with his eyes shut.
Possibly another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr Pancks's step was
heard upon the stairs, but the interval seemed to Clennam insupportably
long. His step was attended by another step; and when Cavalletto opened
the door, he admitted Mr Pancks and Mr Flintwinch. The latter was no
sooner visible, than Rigaud rushed at him and embraced him boisterously.
'How do you find yourself, sir?' said Mr Flintwinch, as soon as he could
disengage himself, which he struggled to do with very little ceremony.
'Thank you, no; I don't want any more.' This was in reference to another
menace of attention from his recovered friend.
'Well, Arthur. You remember what I said to you about sleeping dogs and
missing ones. It's come true, you see.'
He was as imperturbable as ever, to all appearance, and nodded his head
in a moralising way as he looked round the room.
'And this is the Marshalsea prison for debt!' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Hah!
you have brought your pigs to a very indifferent market, Arthur.'
If Arthur had patience, Rigaud had not. He took his little Flintwinch,
with fierce playfulness, by the two lapels of his coat, and cried:
'To the Devil with the Market, to the Devil with the Pigs, and to the
Devil with the Pig-Driver! Now! Give me the answer to my letter.'
'If you can make it convenient to let go a moment, sir,' returned Mr
Flintwinch, 'I'll first hand Mr Arthur a little note that I have for
him.'
He did so. It was in his mother's maimed writing, on a slip of paper,
and contained only these words:
'I hope it is enough that you have ruined yourself. Rest contented
without more ruin. Jeremiah Flintwinch is my messenger and
representative. Your affectionate M. C.'
Clennam read this twice, in silence, and then tore it to pieces. Rigaud
in the meanwhile stepped into a chair, and sat himself on the back with
his feet upon the seat.
'Now, Beau Flintwinch,' he said, when he had closely watched the note to
its destruction, 'the answer to my letter?'
'Mrs Clennam did not write, Mr Blandois, her hands being cramped,
and she thinking it as well to send it verbally by me.' Mr Flintwinch
screwed this out of himself, unwillingly and rustily. 'She sends
her compliments, and says she doesn't on the whole wish to term
you unreasonable, and that she agrees. But without prejudicing the
appointment that stands for this day week.'
Monsieur Rigaud, after indulging in a fit of laughter, descended from
his throne, saying, 'Good! I go to seek an hotel!' But, there his eyes
encountered Cavalletto, who was still at his post.
'Come, Pig,' he added, 'I have had you for a follower against my will;
now, I'll have you against yours. I tell you, my little reptiles, I
am born to be served. I demand the service of this contrabandist as my
domestic until this day week.'
In answer to Cavalletto's look of inquiry, Clennam made him a sign
to go; but he added aloud, 'unless you are afraid of him.' Cavalletto
replied with a very emphatic finger-negative.'No, master, I am not
afraid of him, when I no more keep it secrettementally that he was once
my comrade.' Rigaud took no notice of either remark until he had lighted
his last cigarette and was quite ready for walking.
'Afraid of him,' he said then, looking round upon them all. 'Whoof! My
children, my babies, my little dolls, you are all afraid of him. You
give him his bottle of wine here; you give him meat, drink, and lodging
there; you dare not touch him with a finger or an epithet. No. It is his
character to triumph! Whoof!
'Of all the king's knights he's the flower, And he's always gay!'
With this adaptation of the Refrain to himself, he stalked out of the
room closely followed by Cavalletto, whom perhaps he had pressed into
his service because he tolerably well knew it would not be easy to get
rid of him. Mr Flintwinch, after scraping his chin, and looking about
with caustic disparagement of the Pig-Market, nodded to Arthur, and
followed. Mr Pancks, still penitent and depressed, followed too; after
receiving with great attention a secret word or two of instructions from
Arthur, and whispering back that he would see this affair out, and stand
by it to the end.
The prisoner, with the feeling that he was more despised, more scorned
and repudiated, more helpless, altogether more miserable and fallen than
before, was left alone again.