II How the Prison Gates Were Opened
Among the ladies for whom Little Dorrit sewed by the day was a Mrs. Clennam, a cold, stern person who lived in a cold, stern house. Yet she gave the child plenty of work and paid her fairly well. So Little Dorrit was often to be found in some gloomy corner there, sewing away busily and adding nothing at all to the few far-away sounds of the quiet old rooms.
Mrs. Clennam lived alone, except for a dried-up servant or two, and she herself had lost the use of her limbs. So it is no wonder that the house was gloomy, and that Mrs. Clennam’s son Arthur found it so, when he returned from a long visit in India. Arthur Clennam was a young man who had ideas of his own, and who had disappointed his mother by refusing to continue his father’s business. They were not in sympathy—which made the house seem all the colder. But he was kind, open-hearted, and impulsive.
Though timid Little Dorrit kept as much in the dark corners as possible, Arthur soon noticed her, and asked one of the old servants who she was. He could learn nothing except that she was a seamstress who came by the day to sew, and who went away every night, no one knew where. The child interested him, and he resolved to follow her one evening and learn where she lived. He did so, and was amazed to see her enter the gate of a large forbidding building,—he did not know what building, as he had been long abroad.
Just then he saw an old man, in a threadbare coat, once blue, come tottering along, carrying a clarinet in a limp, worn-out case. As this old man was about to enter the same gate, Arthur stopped him with a question.
“Pray, sir,” said he, “what is this place?”
“Ay! This place?” returned the old man, staying a pinch of snuff on its road, and pointing at the place without looking at it. “This is the Marshalsea, sir.”
“The debtors’ prison?”
“Sir,” said the old man, with the air of deeming it not quite necessary to insist upon that name, “the debtors’ prison.”
He turned himself about, and went on.
“I beg your pardon,” said Arthur, stopping him once more, “but will you allow me to ask you another question? Can any one go in here?”
“Any one can go in,” replied the old man; “but it is not every one who can go out.”
“Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place?”
“Sir,” returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff in his hand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him, “I am.”
“I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have a good object. Do you know the name of Dorrit here?”
“My name, sir,” replied the old man most unexpectedly, “is Dorrit.”
Arthur pulled off his hat to him. “Grant me the favor of half a dozen words. I have recently come home to England after a long absence. I have seen at my mother’s—Mrs. Clennam in the city—a young woman working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken of as Little Dorrit. I have felt sincerely interested in her, and have had a great desire to know something more about her. I saw her, not a minute before you came up, pass in at that door.”
The old man looked at him attentively. “Are you in earnest, sir?”
“I do assure you that I am.”
“I know very little of the world, sir,” returned the other, who had a weak and quavering voice. “I am merely passing on, like the shadow over the sun-dial. It would be worth no man’s while to mislead me; it would really be too easy—too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction. The young woman whom you saw go in here is my brother’s child. My brother is William Dorrit; I am Frederick. You say you have seen her at your mother’s (I know your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest in her, and you wish to know what she does here. Come and see.”
He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.
“My brother,” said the old man, pausing on the step, and slowly facing round again, “has been here many years; and much that happens even among ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn’t enter upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece’s working at her needle. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now! Come and see.”
Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was turned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into a lodge, or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door and a grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before, turned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the turnkey on duty, as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and the companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted.
The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain and blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered about, but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old man taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or fourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs.
“They are rather dark, sir, but you will not find anything in the way,” he said.
He paused for a moment before opening the door on the second story. He had no sooner turned the handle, than the visitor saw Little Dorrit, and understood the reason of her dining alone, as she always preferred to do.
She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and was already warming it on a gridiron over the fire, for her father, who, clad in an old gray gown and a black cap, was awaiting his supper at the table. A clean cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon, salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot. Such zests as his cayenne pepper and pickles in a saucer were not wanting.
She started, colored deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more with his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her to be reassured and to trust him.
“I found this gentleman,” said the uncle—“Mr. Clennam, William, son of Amy’s friend—at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my brother William, sir.”
“I hope,” said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, “that my respect for your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you, sir.”
“Mr. Clennam,” returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the flat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, “you do me honor. You are welcome, sir.” With a low bow. “Frederick, a chair. Pray sit down, Mr. Clennam.”
He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his manner.
These were the ceremonies with which he received all visitors.
“You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen to these walls. Perhaps you are aware—my daughter Amy may have mentioned—that I am the Father of this place.”
“I—so I have understood,” said Arthur, dashing at the assertion.
“You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl, sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear, put the dish on; Mr. Clennam will excuse the primitive customs to which we are reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me the honor, sir, to—”
“Thank you,” returned Arthur. “I have dined.”
She filled her father’s glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to his hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. She put some bread before herself, and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled and took nothing. Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud of him, half-ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost heart.
The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an amiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at distinction.
“Frederick,” said he, “you and Fanny sup at your lodgings to-night, I know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?”
“She is walking with Tip.”
“Tip—as you may know—is my son, Mr. Clennam. He has been a little wild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was rather”—he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round the room—“a little adverse. Your first visit here, sir?”
“My first.”
“You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody—of any pretensions—any pretensions—comes here without being presented to me.”
“As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,” said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.
“Yes!” the Father of the Marshalsea assented. “We have even exceeded that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a reception!”
Thus the old man prattled on, proud of his queer distinction, and yet showing traces of the fine gentleman he once was. And while he listened, Arthur felt his heart throb with sympathy for the brave girl, sitting silent across the table, who had so long borne the burdens of this ruined family upon her frail shoulders.
He could not say anything to her, here, but when he rose to take his leave, he asked her by a look to come with him to the gate. He felt he must make some explanation for thus intruding and learning her secret.
“Pray forgive me,” he said, when they paused alone at the gate. “I followed you to-night from my mother’s. I should not have done so, but, believe me, it was only in the hope of doing you some service. What I have seen here, in this short time, has increased ten-fold my heartfelt wish to be a friend to you.”
She seemed to take courage while he spoke to her.
“You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me. But I—but I wish you had not watched me.”
He understood the emotion with which she said it to arise in her father’s behalf; and he respected it, and was silent.
“Mrs. Clennam has been of great service to me. I don’t know what we should have done without the employment she has given me. I am afraid it may not be a good return to become secret with her. I can say no more to-night, sir. I am sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank you, thank you.”
She was so agitated, and he was so moved by compassion for her, and by deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him, that he could scarcely tear himself away. But the stoppage of the bell, and the quiet in the prison, were a warning to depart; and with a few hurried words of kindness he left her gliding back to her father.
The next day, Arthur missed Little Dorrit at his home, and wondered if she might be ill. The weather was stormy, but she was not usually hindered by that. So he walked out toward the prison to look for her; and was presently rewarded by seeing her hurrying along in the face of the gale.
She had just reached the iron bridge, some distance from the gates, when his voice caused her to stop short. The wind blew roughly, the wet squalls came rattling past them, skimming the pools on the road and pavement, and raining them down into the river. The clouds raced on furiously in the lead-colored sky, the smoke and mist raced after them, the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction. Little Dorrit seemed the least, the quietest, and weakest of Heaven’s creatures.
“Let me put you in a coach,” said Arthur Clennam, very nearly adding, “my poor child.”
She hurriedly declined, thanking him, and saying that wet or dry made little difference to her; she was used to go about in all weathers. He knew it to be so, and was touched with more pity, thinking of the slight figure at his side, making its nightly way through the damp, dark, boisterous streets, to such a place of rest.
“But I am glad to have seen you, sir,” she added shyly. “I did not want you to think that we were ungrateful for your interest and kindness, last night. And, besides, I had something else to say—”
She paused as if unable to go on.
“To say to me—” he prompted.
“That I hope you will not misunderstand my father. Don’t judge him, sir, as you would judge others outside the gates. He has been there so long! I never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have grown different in some things since.”
“My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me.”
“Not,” she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently crept upon her that she might seem to be abandoning him, “not that he has anything to be ashamed of for himself, or that I have anything to be ashamed of for him. He only requires to be understood. I only ask for him that his life may be fairly remembered. All that he said was quite true. He is very much respected. Everybody who comes in is glad to know him. He is more courted than any one else. He is far more thought of than the Marshal is.” If ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in Little Dorrit when she grew boastful of her father.
“It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman’s, and quite a study. He is not to be blamed for being in need, poor love. Who could be in prison a quarter of a century, and be prosperous!”
What affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed tears, what a great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light that shed false brightness round him!
“If I have found it best to conceal where my home is, it is not because I am ashamed of him. God forbid! Nor am I so much ashamed of the place itself as might be supposed. People are not bad because they come there. I have known many good friends there, and have spent many happy hours.”
She had relieved the faithful fulness of her heart, and modestly said, raising her eyes appealingly to her new friend’s, “I did not mean to say so much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this before. But it seems to set it more right than it was last night. I said I wished you had not followed me, sir. I don’t wish it so much now, unless you should think—indeed I don’t wish it at all, unless I should have spoken so confusedly, that—that you can scarcely understand me, which I am afraid may be the case.”
He told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and putting himself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well as he could.
“I feel permitted now,” he said, “to ask you a little more concerning your father. Has he many creditors?”
“Oh! a great number.”
“I mean detaining creditors who keep him where he is?”
“Oh, yes! a great number.”
“Can you tell me—I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you cannot—who is the most influential of them?”
Little Dorrit was not sure of any names, but she had heard her father mention several people with whom he said he once had dealings. She told him these names, and Clennam made a careful note of them.
“It can do no harm,” he thought, “to see some of these people.”
The thought did not come so quietly but that she quickly guessed it.
“Ah,” said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild despair of a lifetime. “Many people used to think once of getting my poor father out, but you don’t know how hopeless it is.”
She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with eyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from his purpose of helping her.
But presently an incident happened which showed him a new side to her life—still of helpfulness and service.
They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a voice cried, “Little mother, little mother!”
Little Dorrit stopped, looking back, when an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them, fell down, and scattered the contents of a large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud.
“Oh, Maggy,” said Little Dorrit, “what a clumsy child you are!”
Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and began to pick up the potatoes, in which both the others helped. Maggy picked up very few potatoes, and a great quantity of mud. She was a curious, overgrown creature of about eight-and-twenty, with a vacant smiling face and a tattered shawl. She seemed twice as large as the child to whom she evidently looked for protection and called “little mother.”
Arthur Clennam looked with the expression of one saying, “May I ask who this is?” Little Dorrit, whose hand Maggy had begun to fondle, answered in words. They were under a gateway into which the majority of the potatoes had rolled.
“This is Maggy, sir.”
“Maggy, sir,” echoed the personage presented. “Little mother!”
“She is the granddaughter—”
“Granddaughter,” echoed Maggy.
“Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long time. Maggy, how old are you?”
“Ten, mother,” said Maggy.
“You can’t think how good she is, sir,” said Little Dorrit, with infinite tenderness.
“Good she is,” echoed Maggy, transferring the pronoun in a most expressive way from herself to her little mother.
“Or how clever,” said Little Dorrit. “She goes on errands as well as any one.” Maggy laughed. “And is as trustworthy as the Bank of England.” Maggy laughed. “She earns her own living entirely. Entirely, sir!” in a lower and triumphant tone. “Really does!”
“What is her history!” asked Clennam.
“Think of that, Maggy!” said Little Dorrit, taking Maggy’s two large hands and clapping them together. “A gentleman from thousands of miles away, wanting to know your history!”
“My history?” cried Maggy. “Little mother.”
“She means me,” said Little Dorrit, rather confused; “she is very much attached to me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should have been; was she, Maggy? When Maggy was ten years old,” she continued, “she had a bad fever, sir, and has never grown any older since.”
“Ten years old,” said Maggy, nodding her head. “But what a nice hospital! So comfortable, wasn’t it? Oh, so nice it was. Such a Ev’nly place!”
“She had never been at peace before, sir,” continued the young girl, turning towards Arthur for an instant and speaking low, “and she always runs off upon that.”
“Such beds there is there!” cried Maggy. “Such lemonades! Such oranges! Such d’licious broth and wine! Such Chicking! Oh, ain’t it a delightful place to go and stop at!”
“So Maggy stopped there as long as she could,” said Little Dorrit, in her former tone of telling a child’s story, the tone designed for Maggy’s ear; “and at last, when she could stop there no longer, she came out. Then, because she was never to be more than ten years old, however long she lived—”
“However long she lived,” echoed Maggy.
“And because she was very weak—indeed, was so weak that when she began to laugh she couldn’t stop herself—which was a great pity—”
Maggy grew mighty grave of a sudden.
“Her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and for some years was very unkind to her indeed. At length, in course of time, Maggy began to take pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and very industrious; and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often as she liked, and got enough to do to support herself, and does support herself. And that,” said Little Dorrit, clapping the two great hands together again, “is Maggy’s history, as Maggy knows!”
Ah! that was all the history, as Little Dorrit told it. But Arthur, reading between the lines, saw in Maggy’s absolute love and devotion the weeks and months of toil and care on the part of a pitying faithful child whose own burden seemed great enough without carrying others. The dirty gateway with the wind and rain whistling through it, and the basket of muddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again or taken up, never seemed the common hole it really was, when he looked back to it by these lights. Never, never!
Thereafter, Arthur Clennam, who was a man of some means, devoted a great part of his time to tracing out the Dorrit records. He went from one government office to another—a long, weary round of them—before he could get any light on the matter. He employed an agent whose specialty was to search out lost estates. And at last, after several months, their combined efforts were rewarded.
Mr. Dorrit was found to be heir-at-law to a large estate that had long lain unknown, unclaimed, and growing greater. His right to it was cleared up by this skilful agent; so that all Mr. Dorrit had to do, now, would be to discharge his debts, and he would be a free man.
When Arthur was convinced of this surprising fortune, he hastened first to Little Dorrit, whom he wished to see alone. But before he could say a word, his face told her that something unusual was afoot.
Hastily dropping her sewing, she cried, “Mr. Clennam! What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, nothing! That is—nothing bad. I have come to tell you good news.”
“Good fortune?”
“Wonderful fortune!”
Her lips seemed to repeat the words, but no sound came.
“Dear Little Dorrit,” he said, “your father—”
The ice of the pale face broke at the word, and little lights of expression passed all over it. They were all expressions of pain. Her breath was faint and hurried. Her heart beat fast, but he saw that the eyes appealed to him to go on.
“Your father can be free within this week. He does not know it; we must go to him from here, to tell him of it. Your father will be free within a few days. Remember we must go to him, from here, to tell him of it!”
That brought her back. Her eyes were closing, but they opened again.
“This is not all the good fortune. This is not all the wonderful good fortune, Little Dorrit. Shall I tell you more?”
Her lips shaped “Yes.”
“He will be a rich man: A great sum of money is waiting to be paid over to him as his inheritance; you are all henceforth very wealthy. Bravest and best of children, I thank Heaven that you are rewarded!”
She turned her head towards his shoulder, and raised her arm towards his neck; then cried out, “Father! Father! Father!” and swooned away.
The housekeeper came running in at this, and Little Dorrit was soon revived, smiling bravely at her own weakness. But the news had been too much for her. It was the dream of her lifetime—come true!
“Come!” she exclaimed, “we must not lose a moment, but must hasten to my father!”
When the turnkey, who was on duty, admitted them into the lodge, he saw something in their faces which filled him with astonishment. He stood looking after them, when they hurried into the prison, as though he perceived that they had come back accompanied by a ghost apiece. Two or three debtors whom they passed, looked after them too, and presently joining the turnkey, formed a little group on the lodge steps, in the midst of which there originated a whisper that the Father was going to get his discharge. Within a few minutes it was heard in the remotest room in the prison.
Little Dorrit opened the door from without, and they both entered. Her father was sitting in his old gray gown, and his old black cap, in the sunlight by the window, reading his newspaper. His glasses were in his hand, and he had just looked round; surprised at first, no doubt, by her step upon the stairs, not expecting her until night; surprised again, by seeing Arthur Clennam in her company. As they came in, the same unwonted look in both of them, which had already caught attention in the yard below, struck him. He did not rise or speak, but laid down his glasses and his newspaper on the table beside him, and looked at them with his mouth a little open, and his lips trembling. When Arthur put out his hand, he touched it, but not with his usual state; and then he turned to his daughter, who had sat down close beside him with her hands upon his shoulder, and looked attentively in her face.
“Father! I have been made so happy this morning!”
“You have been made so happy, my dear?”
“By Mr. Clennam, father. He brought me such joyful and wonderful intelligence about you!”
Her agitation was great, and the tears rolled down her face. He put his hand suddenly to his heart, and looked at Clennam.
“Compose yourself, sir,” said Clennam, “and take a little time to think. To think of the brightest and most fortunate accidents of life. We have all heard of great surprises of joy. They are not at an end.”
“Mr. Clennam? Not at an end? Not at an end for—” He touched himself upon the breast, instead of saying “me.”
“No,” returned Clennam.
He looked at Clennam, and, so looking at him, seemed to change into a very old haggard man. The sun was bright upon the wall beyond the window, and on the spikes at the top. He slowly stretched out the hand that had been upon his heart, and pointed at the wall.
“It is down,” said Clennam. “Gone!”
He remained in the same attitude, looking steadfastly at him.
“And in its place,” said Clennam, slowly and distinctly, “are the means to possess and enjoy the utmost that they have so long shut out. Mr. Dorrit, there is not the smallest doubt that within a few days you will be free, and highly prosperous. I congratulate you with all my soul on this change of fortune, and on the happy future into which you are soon to carry the treasure you have been blessed with here—the best of all the riches you can have elsewhere—the treasure in the dear child at your side.”
With those words, he pressed Mr. Dorrit’s hand and released it; and his daughter, laying her face against his, encircled him in the hour of his prosperity with her arms, as she had in the long years of his adversity encircled him with her love and toil and truth; and poured out her full heart in gratitude, hope, joy, blissful ecstasy, and all for him.
“I shall see him, as I never saw him yet. I shall see my dear father, with the dark cloud cleared away. I shall see him, as my poor mother saw him long ago. Oh, my dear, my dear! Oh, father, father! Oh, thank God, thank God!”
Mr. Dorrit came slowly out of the daze into which he had seemed to fall. To divert his mind, Arthur told him how the good fortune had been found through the skill of an agent.
“He shall be rewarded!” he exclaimed, starting up. “Every one shall be—ha!—handsomely rewarded! Every cent I owe shall be paid. Oh! can this be true? A freeman, and all my debts paid! Give me my purse, Amy!”
He clutched it as if it were already overflowing with gold, and paced rapidly up and down the room. Just then a great cheering arose in the prison yard.
“The news has spread already,” said Clennam, looking down from the window. “Will you show yourself to them, Mr. Dorrit? They are very earnest, and evidently wish it.”
“I—hum—ha—I confess I could have desired, Amy, my dear,” he said, jogging about in a more feverish flutter than before, “to have made some change in my dress first, and to have bought a—hum—a watch and chain. But if it must be done as it is, it—-ha—it must be done. Fasten the collar of my shirt, my dear. Mr. Clennam, would you oblige me—hum—with a blue neckcloth you will find in that drawer at your elbow. Button my coat across at the chest, my love. It looks—ha—it looks broader, buttoned.”
With his trembling hand he pushed his gray hair up, and then, taking Clennam and his daughter for supporters, appeared at the window leaning on an arm of each. The inmates cheered him very heartily, and he kissed his hand to them with great urbanity and protection. When he withdrew into the room again, he said “Poor creatures!” in a tone of much pity for their miserable condition.
Presently he said, unexpectedly:
“Mr. Clennam, I beg your pardon. Am I to understand, my dear sir, that I could—ha—could pass through the lodge at this moment, and—hum—take a walk?”
“I think not, Mr. Dorrit,” was the unwilling reply. “There are certain forms to be completed; and although your detention here is now in itself a form, I fear it has to be observed for a few hours longer.”
“A few hours, sir,” he returned in a sudden passion. “You talk very easily of hours, sir! How long do you suppose, sir, that an hour is to a man who is choking for want of air?”
It was the cry of a man who had been imprisoned for nearly a quarter of a century.
Little Dorrit had been thinking too. After softly putting his gray hair aside, and touching his forehead with her lips, she looked towards Arthur, who came nearer to her, and pursued in a low whisper the subject of her thoughts.
“Mr. Clennam, will he pay all his debts before he leaves here?”
“No doubt. All.”
“All the debts for which he has been imprisoned here, all my life and longer?”
“No doubt.”
There was something of uncertainty and remonstrance in her look; something that was not all satisfaction. He wondered to detect it, and said:
“Are you not glad?”
“It seems to me hard,” said Little Dorrit, “that he should have lost so many years and suffered so much, and at last pay all the debts as well. It seems to me hard that he should pay in life and money both.”
“My dear child—” Clennam was beginning.
“Yes, I know I am wrong,” she pleaded timidly, “don’t think any worse of me; it has grown up with me here.”
The prison, which could spoil so many things, had tainted Little Dorrit’s mind no more than this. It was the first speck Clennam had ever seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever saw, of the prison atmosphere upon her.
He thought this, and forebore to say another word. With the thought, her purity and goodness came before him in their brightest light. The little spot made them the more beautiful.