She returned this fealty by causing it

to be understood that she was even more incensed against the felonious

shade of the deceased than anybody else was; thus, on the whole, she

came out of her furnace like a wise woman, and did exceedingly well.

Mr Sparkler's lordship was fortunately one of those shelves on which a

gentleman is considered to be put away for life, unless there should be

reasons for hoisting him up with the Barnacle crane to a more lucrative

height. That patriotic servant accordingly stuck to his colours (the

Standard of four Quarterings), and was a perfect Nelson in respect

of nailing them to the mast. On the profits of his intrepidity, Mrs

Sparkler and Mrs Merdle, inhabiting different floors of the genteel

little temple of inconvenience to which the smell of the day before

yesterday's soup and coach-horses was as constant as Death to man,

arrayed themselves to fight it out in the lists of Society, sworn

rivals. And Little Dorrit, seeing all these things as they developed

themselves, could not but wonder, anxiously, into what back corner of

the genteel establishment Fanny's children would be poked by-and-by, and

who would take care of those unborn little victims.

Arthur being far too ill to be spoken with on subjects of emotion or

anxiety, and his recovery greatly depending on the repose into which

his weakness could be hushed, Little Dorrit's sole reliance during this

heavy period was on Mr Meagles. He was still abroad; but she had written

to him through his daughter, immediately after first seeing Arthur in

the Marshalsea and since, confiding her uneasiness to him on the points

on which she was most anxious, but especially on one. To that one,

the continued absence of Mr Meagles abroad, instead of his comforting

presence in the Marshalsea, was referable.

Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had fallen

into Rigaud's hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general outline of

that story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted his fate. The

old cautious habits of the scales and scoop at once showed Mr Meagles

the importance of recovering the original papers; wherefore he wrote

back to Little Dorrit, strongly confirming her in the solicitude she

expressed on that head, and adding that he would not come over to

England 'without making some attempt to trace them out.'

By this time Mr Henry Gowan had made up his mind that it would be

agreeable to him not to know the Meagleses. He was so considerate as to

lay no injunctions on his wife in that particular; but he mentioned

to Mr Meagles that personally they did not appear to him to get on

together, and that he thought it would be a good thing if--politely, and

without any scene, or anything of that sort--they agreed that they were

the best fellows in the world, but were best apart. Poor Mr Meagles, who

was already sensible that he did not advance his daughter's happiness by

being constantly slighted in her presence, said 'Good, Henry! You are

my Pet's husband; you have displaced me, in the course of nature; if

you wish it, good!' This arrangement involved the contingent advantage,

which perhaps Henry Gowan had not foreseen, that both Mr and Mrs

Meagles were more liberal than before to their daughter, when their

communication was only with her and her young child: and that his high

spirit found itself better provided with money, without being under the

degrading necessity of knowing whence it came.

Mr Meagles, at such a period, naturally seized an occupation with great

ardour. He knew from his daughter the various towns which Rigaud had

been haunting, and the various hotels at which he had been living for

some time back. The occupation he set himself was to visit these with

all discretion and speed, and, in the event of finding anywhere that he

had left a bill unpaid, and a box or parcel behind, to pay such bill,

and bring away such box or parcel.

With no other attendant than Mother, Mr Meagles went upon his

pilgrimage, and encountered a number of adventures. Not the least of his

difficulties was, that he never knew what was said to him, and that he

pursued his inquiries among people who never knew what he said to them.

Still, with an unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow

the mother tongue of the whole world, only the people were too stupid

to know it, Mr Meagles harangued innkeepers in the most voluble manner,

entered into loud explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly

renounced replies in the native language of the respondents, on the

ground that they were 'all bosh.' Sometimes interpreters were called

in; whom Mr Meagles addressed in such idiomatic terms of speech, as

instantly to extinguish and shut up--which made the matter worse. On a

balance of the account, however, it may be doubted whether he lost much;

for, although he found no property, he found so many debts and various

associations of discredit with the proper name, which was the only word

he made intelligible, that he was almost everywhere overwhelmed with

injurious accusations. On no fewer than four occasions the police

were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of

Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious

language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant),

and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and

public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a

cheerful and fluent Briton as he was, with Mother under his arm.

But, in his own tongue, and in his own head, Mr Meagles was a clear,

shrewd, persevering man. When he had 'worked round,' as he called it, to

Paris in his pilgrimage, and had wholly failed in it so far, he was not

disheartened. 'The nearer to England I follow him, you see, Mother,'

argued Mr Meagles, 'the nearer I am likely to come to the papers,

whether they turn up or no. Because it is only reasonable to conclude

that he would deposit them somewhere where they would be safe from

people over in England, and where they would yet be accessible to

himself, don't you see?'

At Paris Mr Meagles found a letter from Little Dorrit, lying waiting for

him; in which she mentioned that she had been able to talk for a minute

or two with Mr Clennam about this man who was no more; and that when she

told Mr Clennam that his friend Mr Meagles, who was on his way to see

him, had an interest in ascertaining something about the man if he

could, he had asked her to tell Mr Meagles that he had been known

to Miss Wade, then living in such a street at Calais. 'Oho!' said Mr

Meagles.

As soon afterwards as might be in those Diligence days, Mr Meagles

rang the cracked bell at the cracked gate, and it jarred open, and the

peasant-woman stood in the dark doorway, saying, 'Ice-say! Seer! Who?'

In acknowledgment of whose address, Mr Meagles murmured to himself that

there was some sense about these Calais people, who really did know

something of what you and themselves were up to; and returned, 'Miss

Wade, my dear.' He was then shown into the presence of Miss Wade.

'It's some time since we met,' said Mr Meagles, clearing his throat; 'I

hope you have been pretty well, Miss Wade?'

Without hoping that he or anybody else had been pretty well, Miss Wade

asked him to what she was indebted for the honour of seeing him again?

Mr Meagles, in the meanwhile, glanced all round the room without

observing anything in the shape of a box.

'Why, the truth is, Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, in a comfortable,

managing, not to say coaxing voice, 'it is possible that you may be able

to throw a light upon a little something that is at present dark. Any

unpleasant bygones between us are bygones, I hope. Can't be helped now.

You recollect my daughter? Time changes so! A mother!'

In his innocence, Mr Meagles could not have struck a worse key-note. He

paused for any expression of interest, but paused in vain.

'That is not the subject you wished to enter on?' she said, after a cold

silence.

'No, no,' returned Mr Meagles. 'No. I thought your good nature might--'

'I thought you knew,' she interrupted, with a smile, 'that my good

nature is not to be calculated upon?'

'Don't say so,' said Mr Meagles; 'you do yourself an injustice. However,

to come to the point.' For he was sensible of having gained nothing

by approaching it in a roundabout way. 'I have heard from my friend

Clennam, who, you will be sorry to hear, has been and still is very

ill--'

He paused again, and again she was silent.

'--that you had some knowledge of one Blandois, lately killed in London

by a violent accident. Now, don't mistake me! I know it was a slight

knowledge,' said Mr Meagles, dexterously forestalling an angry

interruption which he saw about to break. 'I am fully aware of that. It

was a slight knowledge, I know. But the question is,' Mr Meagles's voice

here became comfortable again, 'did he, on his way to England last time,

leave a box of papers, or a bundle of papers, or some papers or other in

some receptacle or other--any papers--with you: begging you to allow him

to leave them here for a short time, until he wanted them?'

'The question is?' she repeated. 'Whose question is?'

'Mine,' said Mr Meagles. 'And not only mine but Clennam's question, and

other people's question. Now, I am sure,' continued Mr Meagles, whose

heart was overflowing with Pet, 'that you can't have any unkind feeling

towards my daughter; it's impossible. Well! It's her question, too;

being one in which a particular friend of hers is nearly interested.

So here I am, frankly to say that is the question, and to ask, Now, did

he?'

'Upon my word,' she returned, 'I seem to be a mark for everybody who

knew anything of a man I once in my life hired, and paid, and dismissed,

to aim their questions at!'

'Now, don't,' remonstrated Mr Meagles, 'don't! Don't take offence,

because it's the plainest question in the world, and might be asked

of any one. The documents I refer to were not his own, were wrongfully

obtained, might at some time or other be troublesome to an innocent

person to have in keeping, and are sought by the people to whom they

really belong. He passed through Calais going to London, and there were

reasons why he should not take them with him then, why he should wish

to be able to put his hand upon them readily, and why he should distrust

leaving them with people of his own sort. Did he leave them here? I

declare if I knew how to avoid giving you offence, I would take any

pains to do it. I put the question personally, but there's nothing

personal in it. I might put it to any one; I have put it already to many

people. Did he leave them here? Did he leave anything here?'

'No.'

'Then unfortunately, Miss Wade, you know nothing about them?'

'I know nothing about them. I have now answered your unaccountable

question. He did not leave them here, and I know nothing about them.'

'There!' said Mr Meagles rising. 'I am sorry for it; that's over; and I

hope there is not much harm done.--Tattycoram well, Miss Wade?'

'Harriet well? O yes!'

'I have put my foot in it again,' said Mr Meagles, thus corrected. 'I

can't keep my foot out of it here, it seems. Perhaps, if I had thought

twice about it, I might never have given her the jingling name. But,

when one means to be good-natured and sportive with young people, one

doesn't think twice. Her old friend leaves a kind word for her, Miss

Wade, if you should think proper to deliver it.'

She said nothing as to that; and Mr Meagles, taking his honest face out

of the dull room, where it shone like a sun, took it to the Hotel where

he had left Mrs Meagles, and where he made the Report: 'Beaten, Mother;

no effects!' He took it next to the London Steam Packet, which sailed in

the night; and next to the Marshalsea.

The faithful John was on duty when Father and Mother Meagles presented

themselves at the wicket towards nightfall. Miss Dorrit was not there

then, he said; but she had been there in the morning, and invariably

came in the evening. Mr Clennam was slowly mending; and Maggy and Mrs

Plornish and Mr Baptist took care of him by turns. Miss Dorrit was sure

to come back that evening before the bell rang. There was the room the

Marshal had lent her, up-stairs, in which they could wait for her, if

they pleased. Mistrustful that it might be hazardous to Arthur to see

him without preparation, Mr Meagles accepted the offer; and they were

left shut up in the room, looking down through its barred window into

the jail.

The cramped area of the prison had such an effect on Mrs Meagles that

she began to weep, and such an effect on Mr Meagles that he began to

gasp for air. He was walking up and down the room, panting, and making

himself worse by laboriously fanning himself with her handkerchief, when

he turned towards the opening door.

'Eh? Good gracious!' said Mr Meagles, 'this is not Miss Dorrit! Why,

Mother, look! Tattycoram!'

No other. And in Tattycoram's arms was an iron box some two feet square.

Such a box had Affery Flintwinch seen, in the first of her dreams, going

out of the old house in the dead of the night under Double's arm. This,

Tattycoram put on the ground at her old master's feet: this, Tattycoram

fell on her knees by, and beat her hands upon, crying half in exultation

and half in despair, half in laughter and half in tears, 'Pardon, dear

Master; take me back, dear Mistress; here it is!'

'Tatty!' exclaimed Mr Meagles.

'What you wanted!' said Tattycoram. 'Here it is! I was put in the next

room not to see you. I heard you ask her about it, I heard her say she

hadn't got it, I was there when he left it, and I took it at bedtime and

brought it away. Here it is!'

'Why, my girl,' cried Mr Meagles, more breathless than before, 'how did

you come over?'

'I came in the boat with you. I was sitting wrapped up at the other end.

When you took a coach at the wharf, I took another coach and followed

you here. She never would have given it up after what you had said to

her about its being wanted; she would sooner have sunk it in the sea, or

burnt it. But, here it is!'

The glow and rapture that the girl was in, with her 'Here it is!'

'She never wanted it to be left, I must say that for her; but he left

it, and I knew well that after what you said, and after her denying

it, she never would have given it up. But here it is! Dear Master, dear

Mistress, take me back again, and give me back the dear old name! Let

this intercede for me. Here it is!'

Father and Mother Meagles never deserved their names better than when

they took the headstrong foundling-girl into their protection again.

'Oh! I have been so wretched,' cried Tattycoram, weeping much more,

'always so unhappy, and so repentant! I was afraid of her from the first

time I saw her. I knew she had got a power over me through understanding

what was bad in me so well. It was a madness in me, and she could raise

it whenever she liked. I used to think, when I got into that state, that

people were all against me because of my first beginning; and the kinder

they were to me, the worse fault I found in them. I made it out that

they triumphed above me, and that they wanted to make me envy them, when

I know--when I even knew then--that they never thought of such a thing.

And my beautiful young mistress not so happy as she ought to have been,

and I gone away from her! Such a brute and a wretch as she must think

me! But you'll say a word to her for me, and ask her to be as forgiving

as you two are? For I am not so bad as I was,' pleaded Tattycoram; 'I am

bad enough, but not so bad as I was, indeed. I have had Miss Wade

before me all this time, as if it was my own self grown ripe--turning

everything the wrong way, and twisting all good into evil. I have had

her before me all this time, finding no pleasure in anything but keeping

me as miserable, suspicious, and tormenting as herself. Not that she had

much to do, to do that,' cried Tattycoram, in a closing great burst of

distress, 'for I was as bad as bad could be. I only mean to say, that,

after what I have gone through, I hope I shall never be quite so bad

again, and that I shall get better by very slow degrees. I'll try very

hard. I won't stop at five-and-twenty, sir, I'll count five-and-twenty

hundred, five-and-twenty thousand!'

Another opening of the door, and Tattycoram subsided, and Little Dorrit

came in, and Mr Meagles with pride and joy produced the box, and her

gentle face was lighted up with grateful happiness and joy.

The secret was safe now! She could keep her own part of it from him; he

should never know of her loss; in time to come he should know all that

was of import to himself; but he should never know what concerned her

only. That was all passed, all forgiven, all forgotten.

'Now, my dear Miss Dorrit,' said Mr Meagles; 'I am a man of business--or

at least was--and I am going to take my measures promptly, in that

character. Had I better see Arthur to-night?'

'I think not to-night. I will go to his room and ascertain how he is.

But I think it will be better not to see him to-night.'

'I am much of your opinion, my dear,' said Mr Meagles, 'and therefore

I have not been any nearer to him than this dismal room. Then I shall

probably not see him for some little time to come. But I'll explain what

I mean when you come back.'

She left the room. Mr Meagles, looking through the bars of the window,

saw her pass out of the Lodge below him into the prison-yard. He said

gently, 'Tattycoram, come to me a moment, my good girl.'

She went up to the window.

'You see that young lady who was here just now--that little, quiet,

fragile figure passing along there, Tatty? Look. The people stand out

of the way to let her go by. The men--see the poor, shabby fellows--pull

off their hats to her quite politely, and now she glides in at that

doorway. See her, Tattycoram?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I have heard tell, Tatty, that she was once regularly called the child

of this place. She was born here, and lived here many years.

I can't breathe here. A doleful place to be born and bred in,

Tattycoram?'

'Yes indeed, sir!'

'If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that

everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast

it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably an useless

existence. Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her young life has

been one of active resignation, goodness, and noble service. Shall I

tell you what I consider those eyes of hers, that were here just now, to

have always looked at, to get that expression?'

'Yes, if you please, sir.'

'Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no

antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us

with the Almighty, or with ourselves.'

They remained at the window, Mother joining them and pitying the

prisoners, until she was seen coming back. She was soon in the room, and

recommended that Arthur, whom she had left calm and composed, should not

be visited that night.

'Good!' said Mr Meagles, cheerily. 'I have not a doubt that's best. I

shall trust my remembrances then, my sweet nurse, in your hands, and I

well know they couldn't be in better. I am off again to-morrow morning.'

Little Dorrit, surprised, asked him where?

'My dear,' said Mr Meagles, 'I can't live without breathing. This place

has taken my breath away, and I shall never get it back again until

Arthur is out of this place.'

'How is that a reason for going off again to-morrow morning?'

'You shall understand,' said Mr Meagles. 'To-night we three will put up

at a City Hotel. To-morrow morning, Mother and Tattycoram will go down

to Twickenham, where Mrs Tickit, sitting attended by Dr Buchan in the

parlour-window, will think them a couple of ghosts; and I shall go

abroad again for Doyce. We must have Dan here. Now, I tell you, my love,

it's of no use writing and planning and conditionally speculating upon

this and that and the other, at uncertain intervals and distances; we

must have Doyce here. I devote myself at daybreak to-morrow morning, to

bringing Doyce here. It's nothing to me to go and find him. I'm an old

traveller, and all foreign languages and customs are alike to me--I

never understand anything about any of 'em. Therefore I can't be put

to any inconvenience. Go at once I must, it stands to reason; because

I can't live without breathing freely; and I can't breathe freely until

Arthur is out of this Marshalsea. I am stifled at the present moment,

and have scarcely breath enough to say this much, and to carry this

precious box down-stairs for you.'

They got into the street as the bell began to ring, Mr Meagles carrying

the box. Little Dorrit had no conveyance there: which rather surprised

him. He called a coach for her and she got into it, and he placed the

box beside her when she was seated. In her joy and gratitude she kissed

his hand.

'I don't like that, my dear,' said Mr Meagles. 'It goes against my

feeling of what's right, that YOU should do homage to ME--at the

Marshalsea Gate.'

She bent forward, and kissed his cheek.

'You remind me of the days,' said Mr Meagles, suddenly drooping--'but

she's very fond of him, and hides his faults, and thinks that no

one sees them--and he certainly is well connected and of a very good

family!'

It was the only comfort he had in the loss of his daughter, and if he

made the most of it, who could blame him?




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024