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LITTLE DORRIT
By CHARLES DICKENS " JEFFERY, what girl was that in my mother's room just now?" "Oh, she? Little Dorrit? She's nothing; she's a whim of-hers." And thus Mrs. Flintwinch, wife of the crafty, crablike walking footman of the household, introduced to Arthur Clennam the name of the poor little seamstress of the paralytic Mrs. Clennam. He had noted her pale, transparent face, quick in expression though not beautiful in feature, excepting for its soft hazel eyes. A delicately bent head, a tiny form, a shabby dress-it must needs have been very shabby to look at all so, being so neat-were Little Dorrit as she sat at work. A strange presentiment came into Arthur's mind that, in some way, this gentle maiden was connected with his history. For twenty years young Clennam had lived in China with his father, only to return now, puzzled over a mysterious watch which that father, in the very last moments of his life, had given to his son, murmuring faintly and indistinctly at the time, "Your mother." Naturally Arthur had assumed that it was intended for Mrs. Clennam, whom he and the world supposed to be his mother. Inside the watch-casing was an old silk paper with the initials D N F worked into it in beads. It was a message-but the young man could not fathom it and the old woman would not enlighten him. Was Little Dorrit, to whom the stony Mrs. Clennam paid such strange, unusual kindness, connected with the mystery? They grew to see more of each other-the girl and the young man-and Arthur learned that the generous little Amy Dorrit was sup-porting not only her poor old father, who had been condemned to a debtors' prison, _ but also her pretty, frivolous sister Fanny, and her wild, lazy brother Tip. Under the then existing English laws they were all allowed to live with their father in that dreary prison. Little wonder that Clennam often spoke kindly to her and that he helped the family. But love had not yet come to him-though it had to Little Dorrit. He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw the quickened bosom, and yet the remotest suspicion of the truth never dawned upon his mind. It must be added here that Little Dorrit had innocently won the love of another man, the sentimental son of the prison turnkey, small of stature, with rather weak legs and very weak eyes, gentle, but great of soul, poetical, faithful. If one were to doubt his devotion he need only read the inscription for his own tombstone, which the romantic youth had composed when Little Dorrit said "No" to him. It ran thus: Here Lie the Mortal Remains of JOHN CHIVERY Never Anything Worth Mentioning Who Died of a Broken Heart Requesting With His Last Breath That the Word AMY Might Be Inscribed Over His Ashes Which Was Done by His Afflicted Parents. But at last the tables turned for our little heroine. A queer, kind-hearted rent-collector, Pancks-a panting little steam-tug of a man, with his puffing and his pauses-had learned to value the friendship of the mother-less girl, and so, having accidentally discovered that her father was the probable heir to an enormous estate, had run down the clues until finally the great wealth was turned over to old Mr. Dorrit. Then away from the dreary prison hurried the entire family. Yet riches brought slight pleasure to Little Dorrit. The much-changed father became ashamed of his debtor life, and, with the now richly dressed sister and the gambling brother, put on many airs. The father even employed a chaperon named Mrs. General to teach Little Dorrit society manners. "Don't say `Father,'" declared this lady. " `Papa' as a preferable word; it gives a pretty form to the lips. `Father' is rather vulgar, my dear. You will find it serviceable in the formation of a demeanor if you say to your-self, on entering a room filled with company, `Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism.' " At this juncture the wealthy Mr. Merdle took an active part in the Dorrits' lives. The chuckle-headed son of the Merdles fell in love with Fanny, and after their marriage Mr. Dorrit put all his wealth into Mr. Merdle's schemes-for had not this wonderful Merdle, through various mysterious in-vestments, made tremendous fortunes for himself and others? By a strange fatality Arthur, too, was led to invest his firm's money in the famous Mr. Merdle's schemes. And then the bubble broke. Merdle committed suicide. Investigations showed that he had fleeced everybody. The Dorrits' money was gone. Arthur's firm was ruined and Arthur himself was thrown into prison-the same poor debtors' prison that had, for so long, been the home of Little Dorrit. The days dragged wearily on. At last Arthur, despondent and crushed, haggard from brooding and stricken with fever, one day saw, as in a vision, kneeling before him the figure of dear Little Dorrit. She had hastened to make happier the lot of the man who had helped her family in the same gloomy surroundings and whom she loved. She nursed him in his sickness. She offered him all her money to help him over-come his distress. And then, as he refused the money, he realized, for the first time, that she loved him-and that he, too, loved her. A feeling of peace comes over his mind. The clouds begin to break. And strange to say it is a rascally adventurer, Rigaud, a murderous jailbird with drooping nose and ascending mustache, who opens the rift still farther for the sunshine. He has discovered Mrs. Clennam's secret, having stolen the strong-box that Flintwinch had smuggled into Holland and in which lay a page of the will of Arthur's uncle, a page which Mrs. Clennam had concealed for years. Rigaud visits the strange old lady. Leaning over the sofa, poised on two legs of his chair and his left elbow, coarse, insolent, rapacious, cruel, he reveals to her his knowledge. Then, torn by the explosion of her passion, the old lady vehemently tells her own story. She had learned, after Mr. Clennam's marriage to her (a marriage commanded by his overbearing uncle), that her husband had loved and gone through a sort of ceremony with a beautiful young singer whom Frederick Dorrit, a kind-hearted musician (the uncle of Little Dorrit), was befriending and giving an education. She had obtained the first clue from those initials in her husband's watch which she found years ago, signifying "Do Not Forget." She accused both her husband and the woman who put the initials there. "I said to her," declared Mrs. Clennam, "`You have a child; I have none. You love that child. Give him to me and swear never again to see his father. Then I will support you and not expose your shame. And I will reclaim the otherwise lost boy.'" Thus it had been that Arthur came into the Clennam home. At this point in her narrative Rigaud contemptuously interrupted. "Come straight to the stolen money," he commanded. "Wretch!" she responded, "know then that I suppressed a part of the will of my husband's uncle "-the part in which that uncle had revealed the maternity of Arthur and had left, as a repentant compensation, a legacy to Arthur's mother and to the niece of the man who had befriended her-"but I found that niece of Frederick Dorrit and what I did for her was better for her far than the money." Instantly Rigaud, seeking to blackmail the old lady, declared he had deposited with the niece, Little Amy Dorrit, then at the prison with Arthur, a packet containing the suppressed section of the will, with instruc- tions to open it at a certain hour unless re-claimed by him. What would Mrs. Clemmam pay him to reclaim it? To the astonishment of all, the paralytic old lady rises to her feet and rushes from the house to the prison, seeks Little Dorrit, calls for the packet, and then bids Amy read it, at the same time begging her to forgive the past. "I forgive you freely," cries the generous girl. "God bless you!" was the fervent and broken response. And then came the good news that Arthur's firm had re-established itself and that he would be able now to leave the debtors' prison. So they were married-but not before Little Dorrit had handed to Arthur a folded bit of legal paper, asking him not to open it, but to burn it in her presence. "Is it a charm?" he asked, smilingly. "And does the charm want any words to be said?" he added, as he held the paper over the flames. "You can say (if you don't mind), `I love you!'" answered Little Dorrit. So he said it and the paper burned away. With it died the secret of Arthur's birth, never to be known to him; with it also Little Dorrit had voluntarily destroyed the evidence of her own legacy. And they were married with the sun shining on them through the painted figure of our Saviour on the window. Then they went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and, as they passed along in the sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the forward, and the vain fretted and chafed and made their usual uproar. |