When they had first met this gallant gentleman at Geneva,
Gowan had been undecided whether to kick him or encourage him; and had
remained for about four-and-twenty hours, so troubled to settle
the point to his satisfaction, that he had thought of tossing up a
five-franc piece on the terms, 'Tails, kick; heads, encourage,' and
abiding by the voice of the oracle. It chanced, however, that his wife
expressed a dislike to the engaging Blandois, and that the balance
of feeling in the hotel was against him. Upon it, Gowan resolved to
encourage him.
Why this perversity, if it were not in a generous fit?--which it was
not. Why should Gowan, very much the superior of Blandois of Paris, and
very well able to pull that prepossessing gentleman to pieces and find
out the stuff he was made of, take up with such a man? In the first
place, he opposed the first separate wish he observed in his wife,
because her father had paid his debts and it was desirable to take an
early opportunity of asserting his independence. In the second place,
he opposed the prevalent feeling, because with many capacities of
being otherwise, he was an ill-conditioned man. He found a pleasure in
declaring that a courtier with the refined manners of Blandois ought
to rise to the greatest distinction in any polished country. He found a
pleasure in setting up Blandois as the type of elegance, and making
him a satire upon others who piqued themselves on personal graces.
He seriously protested that the bow of Blandois was perfect, that the
address of Blandois was irresistible, and that the picturesque ease
of Blandois would be cheaply purchased (if it were not a gift, and
unpurchasable) for a hundred thousand francs. That exaggeration in the
manner of the man which has been noticed as appertaining to him and to
every such man, whatever his original breeding, as certainly as the sun
belongs to this system, was acceptable to Gowan as a caricature, which
he found it a humorous resource to have at hand for the ridiculing of
numbers of people who necessarily did more or less of what Blandois
overdid. Thus he had taken up with him; and thus, negligently
strengthening these inclinations with habit, and idly deriving some
amusement from his talk, he had glided into a way of having him for
a companion. This, though he supposed him to live by his wits at
play-tables and the like; though he suspected him to be a coward, while
he himself was daring and courageous; though he thoroughly knew him to
be disliked by Minnie; and though he cared so little for him, after all,
that if he had given her any tangible personal cause to regard him with
aversion, he would have had no compunction whatever in flinging him out
of the highest window in Venice into the deepest water of the city.
Little Dorrit would have been glad to make her visit to Mrs Gowan,
alone; but as Fanny, who had not yet recovered from her Uncle's protest,
though it was four-and-twenty hours of age, pressingly offered her
company, the two sisters stepped together into one of the gondolas under
Mr Dorrit's window, and, with the courier in attendance, were taken in
high state to Mrs Gowan's lodging. In truth, their state was rather too
high for the lodging, which was, as Fanny complained, 'fearfully out of
the way,' and which took them through a complexity of narrow streets of
water, which the same lady disparaged as 'mere ditches.'
The house, on a little desert island, looked as if it had broken
away from somewhere else, and had floated by chance into its present
anchorage in company with a vine almost as much in want of training as
the poor wretches who were lying under its leaves. The features of the
surrounding picture were, a church with hoarding and scaffolding about
it, which had been under suppositious repair so long that the means of
repair looked a hundred years old, and had themselves fallen into decay;
a quantity of washed linen, spread to dry in the sun; a number of houses
at odds with one another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like
rotten pre-Adamite cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites;
and a feverish bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all
hanging askew, and something draggled and dirty dangling out of most of
them.
On the first-floor of the house was a Bank--a surprising experience for
any gentleman of commercial pursuits bringing laws for all mankind from
a British city--where two spare clerks, like dried dragoons, in green
velvet caps adorned with golden tassels, stood, bearded, behind a small
counter in a small room, containing no other visible objects than an
empty iron-safe with the door open, a jug of water, and a papering of
garland of roses; but who, on lawful requisition, by merely dipping
their hands out of sight, could produce exhaustless mounds of five-franc
pieces. Below the Bank was a suite of three or four rooms with barred
windows, which had the appearance of a jail for criminal rats. Above the
Bank was Mrs Gowan's residence.
Notwithstanding that its walls were blotched, as if missionary maps were
bursting out of them to impart geographical knowledge; notwithstanding
that its weird furniture was forlornly faded and musty, and that the
prevailing Venetian odour of bilge water and an ebb tide on a weedy
shore was very strong; the place was better within, than it promised.
The door was opened by a smiling man like a reformed assassin--a
temporary servant--who ushered them into the room where Mrs Gowan sat,
with the announcement that two beautiful English ladies were come to see
the mistress.
Mrs Gowan, who was engaged in needlework, put her work aside in a
covered basket, and rose, a little hurriedly. Miss Fanny was excessively
courteous to her, and said the usual nothings with the skill of a
veteran.
'Papa was extremely sorry,' proceeded Fanny, 'to be engaged to-day (he
is so much engaged here, our acquaintance being so wretchedly large!);
and particularly requested me to bring his card for Mr Gowan. That I may
be sure to acquit myself of a commission which he impressed upon me at
least a dozen times, allow me to relieve my conscience by placing it on
the table at once.'
Which she did with veteran ease.
'We have been,' said Fanny, 'charmed to understand that you know the
Merdles. We hope it may be another means of bringing us together.'
'They are friends,' said Mrs Gowan, 'of Mr Gowan's family. I have not
yet had the pleasure of a personal introduction to Mrs Merdle, but I
suppose I shall be presented to her at Rome.'
'Indeed?' returned Fanny, with an appearance of amiably quenching her
own superiority. 'I think you'll like her.'
'You know her very well?'
'Why, you see,' said Fanny, with a frank action of her pretty shoulders,
'in London one knows every one. We met her on our way here, and, to say
the truth, papa was at first rather cross with her for taking one of the
rooms that our people had ordered for us.
However, of course, that soon blew over, and we were all good friends
again.'
Although the visit had as yet given Little Dorrit no opportunity of
conversing with Mrs Gowan, there was a silent understanding between
them, which did as well. She looked at Mrs Gowan with keen and unabated
interest; the sound of her voice was thrilling to her; nothing that was
near her, or about her, or at all concerned her, escaped Little Dorrit.
She was quicker to perceive the slightest matter here, than in any other
case--but one.
'You have been quite well,' she now said, 'since that night?'
'Quite, my dear. And you?' 'Oh! I am always well,' said Little Dorrit,
timidly. 'I--yes, thank you.'
There was no reason for her faltering and breaking off, other than that
Mrs Gowan had touched her hand in speaking to her, and their looks had
met. Something thoughtfully apprehensive in the large, soft eyes, had
checked Little Dorrit in an instant.
'You don't know that you are a favourite of my husband's, and that I am
almost bound to be jealous of you?' said Mrs Gowan.
Little Dorrit, blushing, shook her head.
'He will tell you, if he tells you what he tells me, that you are
quieter and quicker of resource than any one he ever saw.'
'He speaks far too well of me,' said Little Dorrit.
'I doubt that; but I don't at all doubt that I must tell him you
are here. I should never be forgiven, if I were to let you--and Miss
Dorrit--go, without doing so. May I? You can excuse the disorder and
discomfort of a painter's studio?'
The inquiries were addressed to Miss Fanny, who graciously replied that
she would be beyond anything interested and enchanted. Mrs Gowan went to
a door, looked in beyond it, and came back. 'Do Henry the favour to come
in,' said she, 'I knew he would be pleased!'
The first object that confronted Little Dorrit, entering first, was
Blandois of Paris in a great cloak and a furtive slouched hat, standing
on a throne platform in a corner, as he had stood on the Great Saint
Bernard, when the warning arms seemed to be all pointing up at him. She
recoiled from this figure, as it smiled at her.
'Don't be alarmed,' said Gowan, coming from his easel behind the door.
'It's only Blandois. He is doing duty as a model to-day. I am making
a study of him. It saves me money to turn him to some use. We poor
painters have none to spare.'
Blandois of Paris pulled off his slouched hat, and saluted the ladies
without coming out of his corner.
'A thousand pardons!' said he. 'But the Professore here is so inexorable
with me, that I am afraid to stir.'
'Don't stir, then,' said Gowan coolly, as the sisters approached the
easel. 'Let the ladies at least see the original of the daub, that they
may know what it's meant for. There he stands, you see. A bravo waiting
for his prey, a distinguished noble waiting to save his country, the
common enemy waiting to do somebody a bad turn, an angelic messenger
waiting to do somebody a good turn--whatever you think he looks most
like!' 'Say, Professore Mio, a poor gentleman waiting to do homage to
elegance and beauty,' remarked Blandois.
'Or say, Cattivo Soggetto Mio,' returned Gowan, touching the painted
face with his brush in the part where the real face had moved, 'a
murderer after the fact. Show that white hand of yours, Blandois. Put it
outside the cloak. Keep it still.'
Blandois' hand was unsteady; but he laughed, and that would naturally
shake it.
'He was formerly in some scuffle with another murderer, or with a
victim, you observe,' said Gowan, putting in the markings of the hand
with a quick, impatient, unskilful touch, 'and these are the tokens of
it. Outside the cloak, man!--Corpo di San Marco, what are you thinking
of?'
Blandois of Paris shook with a laugh again, so that his hand shook more;
now he raised it to twist his moustache, which had a damp appearance;
and now he stood in the required position, with a little new swagger.
His face was so directed in reference to the spot where Little Dorrit
stood by the easel, that throughout he looked at her. Once attracted by
his peculiar eyes, she could not remove her own, and they had looked
at each other all the time. She trembled now; Gowan, feeling it, and
supposing her to be alarmed by the large dog beside him, whose head she
caressed in her hand, and who had just uttered a low growl, glanced at
her to say, 'He won't hurt you, Miss Dorrit.'
'I am not afraid of him,' she returned in the same breath; 'but will you
look at him?'
In a moment Gowan had thrown down his brush, and seized the dog with
both hands by the collar.
'Blandois! How can you be such a fool as to provoke him! By Heaven, and
the other place too, he'll tear you to bits! Lie down!
Lion! Do you hear my voice, you rebel!
'The great dog, regardless of being half-choked by his collar, was
obdurately pulling with his dead weight against his master, resolved to
get across the room. He had been crouching for a spring at the moment
when his master caught him.
'Lion! Lion!' He was up on his hind legs, and it was a wrestle between
master and dog. 'Get back! Down, Lion! Get out of his sight, Blandois!
What devil have you conjured into the dog?'
'I have done nothing to him.'
'Get out of his sight or I can't hold the wild beast! Get out of the
room! By my soul, he'll kill you!'
The dog, with a ferocious bark, made one other struggle as Blandois
vanished; then, in the moment of the dog's submission, the master,
little less angry than the dog, felled him with a blow on the head, and
standing over him, struck him many times severely with the heel of his
boot, so that his mouth was presently bloody.
'Now get you into that corner and lie down,' said Gowan, 'or I'll take
you out and shoot you.'
Lion did as he was ordered, and lay down licking his mouth and chest.
Lion's master stopped for a moment to take breath, and then, recovering
his usual coolness of manner, turned to speak to his frightened wife
and her visitors. Probably the whole occurrence had not occupied two
minutes.
'Come, come, Minnie! You know he is always good-humoured and tractable.
Blandois must have irritated him,--made faces at him. The dog has his
likings and dislikings, and Blandois is no great favourite of his; but
I am sure you will give him a character, Minnie, for never having been
like this before.'
Minnie was too much disturbed to say anything connected in reply; Little
Dorrit was already occupied in soothing her; Fanny, who had cried out
twice or thrice, held Gowan's arm for protection; Lion, deeply ashamed
of having caused them this alarm, came trailing himself along the ground
to the feet of his mistress.
'You furious brute,' said Gowan, striking him with his foot again. 'You
shall do penance for this.' And he struck him again, and yet again.
'O, pray don't punish him any more,' cried Little Dorrit. 'Don't hurt
him. See how gentle he is!' At her entreaty, Gowan spared him; and he
deserved her intercession, for truly he was as submissive, and as sorry,
and as wretched as a dog could be.
It was not easy to recover this shock and make the visit unrestrained,
even though Fanny had not been, under the best of circumstances, the
least trifle in the way. In such further communication as passed among
them before the sisters took their departure, Little Dorrit fancied it
was revealed to her that Mr Gowan treated his wife, even in his very
fondness, too much like a beautiful child. He seemed so unsuspicious of
the depths of feeling which she knew must lie below that surface, that
she doubted if there could be any such depths in himself. She wondered
whether his want of earnestness might be the natural result of his want
of such qualities, and whether it was with people as with ships, that,
in too shallow and rocky waters, their anchors had no hold, and they
drifted anywhere.
He attended them down the staircase, jocosely apologising for the
poor quarters to which such poor fellows as himself were limited, and
remarking that when the high and mighty Barnacles, his relatives, who
would be dreadfully ashamed of them, presented him with better, he would
live in better to oblige them. At the water's edge they were saluted by
Blandois, who looked white enough after his late adventure, but who made
very light of it notwithstanding,--laughing at the mention of Lion.
Leaving the two together under the scrap of vine upon the causeway,
Gowan idly scattering the leaves from it into the water, and Blandois
lighting a cigarette, the sisters were paddled away in state as they had
come. They had not glided on for many minutes, when Little Dorrit became
aware that Fanny was more showy in manner than the occasion appeared to
require, and, looking about for the cause through the window and through
the open door, saw another gondola evidently in waiting on them.
As this gondola attended their progress in various artful ways;
sometimes shooting on a-head, and stopping to let them pass; sometimes,
when the way was broad enough, skimming along side by side with them;
and sometimes following close astern; and as Fanny gradually made no
disguise that she was playing off graces upon somebody within it, of
whom she at the same time feigned to be unconscious; Little Dorrit at
length asked who it was?
To which Fanny made the short answer, 'That gaby.'
'Who?' said Little Dorrit.
'My dear child,' returned Fanny (in a tone suggesting that before her
Uncle's protest she might have said, You little fool, instead), 'how
slow you are! Young Sparkler.'
She lowered the window on her side, and, leaning back and resting her
elbow on it negligently, fanned herself with a rich Spanish fan of black
and gold. The attendant gondola, having skimmed forward again, with some
swift trace of an eye in the window, Fanny laughed coquettishly and
said, 'Did you ever see such a fool, my love?'
'Do you think he means to follow you all the way?' asked Little Dorrit.
'My precious child,' returned Fanny, 'I can't possibly answer for what
an idiot in a state of desperation may do, but I should think it highly
probable. It's not such an enormous distance. All Venice would scarcely
be that, I imagine, if he's dying for a glimpse of me.'
'And is he?' asked Little Dorrit in perfect simplicity.
'Well, my love, that really is an awkward question for me to answer,'
said her sister. 'I believe he is. You had better ask Edward. He tells
Edward he is, I believe. I understand he makes a perfect spectacle of
himself at the Casino, and that sort of places, by going on about me.
But you had better ask Edward if you want to know.'
'I wonder he doesn't call,' said Little Dorrit after thinking a moment.
'My dear Amy, your wonder will soon cease, if I am rightly informed.
I should not be at all surprised if he called to-day. The creature has
only been waiting to get his courage up, I suspect.'
'Will you see him?'
'Indeed, my darling,' said Fanny, 'that's just as it may happen. Here he
is again. Look at him. O, you simpleton!'
Mr Sparkler had, undeniably, a weak appearance; with his eye in the
window like a knot in the glass, and no reason on earth for stopping his
bark suddenly, except the real reason.
'When you asked me if I will see him, my dear,' said Fanny, almost as
well composed in the graceful indifference of her attitude as Mrs Merdle
herself, 'what do you mean?' 'I mean,' said Little Dorrit--'I think I
rather mean what do you mean, dear Fanny?'
Fanny laughed again, in a manner at once condescending, arch, and
affable; and said, putting her arm round her sister in a playfully
affectionate way:
'Now tell me, my little pet. When we saw that woman at Martigny, how
did you think she carried it off? Did you see what she decided on in a
moment?'
'No, Fanny.'
'Then I'll tell you, Amy. She settled with herself, now I'll never
refer to that meeting under such different circumstances, and I'll never
pretend to have any idea that these are the same girls. That's her way
out of a difficulty. What did I tell you when we came away from Harley
Street that time? She is as insolent and false as any woman in the
world. But in the first capacity, my love, she may find people who can
match her.'
A significant turn of the Spanish fan towards Fanny's bosom, indicated
with great expression where one of these people was to be found.
'Not only that,' pursued Fanny, 'but she gives the same charge to
Young Sparkler; and doesn't let him come after me until she has got it
thoroughly into his most ridiculous of all ridiculous noddles (for one
really can't call it a head), that he is to pretend to have been first
struck with me in that Inn Yard.'
'Why?' asked Little Dorrit.
'Why? Good gracious, my love!' (again very much in the tone of You
stupid little creature) 'how can you ask? Don't you see that I may have
become a rather desirable match for a noddle? And don't you see that she
puts the deception upon us, and makes a pretence, while she shifts it
from her own shoulders (very good shoulders they are too, I must say),'
observed Miss Fanny, glancing complacently at herself, 'of considering
our feelings?'
'But we can always go back to the plain truth.'
'Yes, but if you please we won't,' retorted Fanny. 'No; I am not going
to have that done, Amy. The pretext is none of mine; it's hers, and she
shall have enough of it.'
In the triumphant exaltation of her feelings, Miss Fanny, using her
Spanish fan with one hand, squeezed her sister's waist with the other,
as if she were crushing Mrs Merdle.
'No,' repeated Fanny. 'She shall find me go her way. She took it, and
I'll follow it. And, with the blessing of fate and fortune, I'll go on
improving that woman's acquaintance until I have given her maid,
before her eyes, things from my dressmaker's ten times as handsome and
expensive as she once gave me from hers!'
Little Dorrit was silent; sensible that she was not to be heard on
any question affecting the family dignity, and unwilling to lose to no
purpose her sister's newly and unexpectedly restored favour. She could
not concur, but she was silent. Fanny well knew what she was thinking
of; so well, that she soon asked her.
Her reply was, 'Do you mean to encourage Mr Sparkler, Fanny?'
'Encourage him, my dear?' said her sister, smiling contemptuously, 'that
depends upon what you call encourage. No, I don't mean to encourage him.
But I'll make a slave of him.'
Little Dorrit glanced seriously and doubtfully in her face, but Fanny
was not to be so brought to a check. She furled her fan of black and
gold, and used it to tap her sister's nose; with the air of a proud
beauty and a great spirit, who toyed with and playfully instructed a
homely companion.
'I shall make him fetch and carry, my dear, and I shall make him subject
to me. And if I don't make his mother subject to me, too, it shall not
be my fault.'
'Do you think--dear Fanny, don't be offended, we are so comfortable
together now--that you can quite see the end of that course?'
'I can't say I have so much as looked for it yet, my dear,' answered
Fanny, with supreme indifference; 'all in good time. Such are my
intentions. And really they have taken me so long to develop, that here
we are at home. And Young Sparkler at the door, inquiring who is within.
By the merest accident, of course!'
In effect, the swain was standing up in his gondola, card-case in
hand, affecting to put the question to a servant. This conjunction
of circumstances led to his immediately afterwards presenting himself
before the young ladies in a posture, which in ancient times would not
have been considered one of favourable augury for his suit; since the
gondoliers of the young ladies, having been put to some inconvenience
by the chase, so neatly brought their own boat in the gentlest collision
with the bark of Mr Sparkler, as to tip that gentleman over like a
larger species of ninepin, and cause him to exhibit the soles of his
shoes to the object of his dearest wishes: while the nobler portions of
his anatomy struggled at the bottom of his boat in the arms of one of
his men.
However, as Miss Fanny called out with much concern, Was the gentleman
hurt, Mr Sparkler rose more restored than might have been expected, and
stammered for himself with blushes, 'Not at all so.' Miss Fanny had no
recollection of having ever seen him before, and was passing on, with a
distant inclination of her head, when he announced himself by name. Even
then she was in a difficulty from being unable to call it to mind, until
he explained that he had had the honour of seeing her at Martigny. Then
she remembered him, and hoped his lady-mother was well.
'Thank you,' stammered Mr Sparkler, 'she's uncommonly well--at least,
poorly.'
'In Venice?' said Miss Fanny.
'In Rome,' Mr Sparkler answered. 'I am here by myself, myself. I came to
call upon Mr Edward Dorrit myself. Indeed, upon Mr Dorrit likewise. In
fact, upon the family.'
Turning graciously to the attendants, Miss Fanny inquired whether her
papa or brother was within? The reply being that they were both within,
Mr Sparkler humbly offered his arm. Miss Fanny accepting it, was squired
up the great staircase by Mr Sparkler, who, if he still believed (which
there is not any reason to doubt) that she had no nonsense about her,
rather deceived himself.
Arrived in a mouldering reception-room, where the faded hangings, of a
sad sea-green, had worn and withered until they looked as if they
might have claimed kindred with the waifs of seaweed drifting under
the windows, or clinging to the walls and weeping for their imprisoned
relations, Miss Fanny despatched emissaries for her father and brother.
Pending whose appearance, she showed to great advantage on a sofa,
completing Mr Sparkler's conquest with some remarks upon Dante--known
to that gentleman as an eccentric man in the nature of an Old File,
who used to put leaves round his head, and sit upon a stool for some
unaccountable purpose, outside the cathedral at Florence.
Mr Dorrit welcomed the visitor with the highest urbanity, and most
courtly manners. He inquired particularly after Mrs Merdle. He inquired
particularly after Mr Merdle. Mr Sparkler said, or rather twitched out
of himself in small pieces by the shirt-collar, that Mrs Merdle having
completely used up her place in the country, and also her house at
Brighton, and being, of course, unable, don't you see, to remain in
London when there wasn't a soul there, and not feeling herself this year
quite up to visiting about at people's places, had resolved to have
a touch at Rome, where a woman like herself, with a proverbially fine
appearance, and with no nonsense about her, couldn't fail to be a great
acquisition. As to Mr Merdle, he was so much wanted by the men in the
City and the rest of those places, and was such a doosed extraordinary
phenomenon in Buying and Banking and that, that Mr Sparkler doubted if
the monetary system of the country would be able to spare him; though
that his work was occasionally one too many for him, and that he would
be all the better for a temporary shy at an entirely new scene and
climate, Mr Sparkler did not conceal. As to himself, Mr Sparkler
conveyed to the Dorrit family that he was going, on rather particular
business, wherever they were going.
This immense conversational achievement required time, but was effected.
Being effected, Mr Dorrit expressed his hope that Mr Sparkler would
shortly dine with them. Mr Sparkler received the idea so kindly that Mr
Dorrit asked what he was going to do that day, for instance? As he was
going to do nothing that day (his usual occupation, and one for which he
was particularly qualified), he was secured without postponement; being
further bound over to accompany the ladies to the Opera in the evening.
At dinner-time Mr Sparkler rose out of the sea, like Venus's son taking
after his mother, and made a splendid appearance ascending the great
staircase. If Fanny had been charming in the morning, she was now thrice
charming, very becomingly dressed in her most suitable colours, and with
an air of negligence upon her that doubled Mr Sparkler's fetters, and
riveted them.
'I hear you are acquainted, Mr Sparkler,' said his host at dinner,
'with--ha--Mr Gowan. Mr Henry Gowan?'
'Perfectly, sir,' returned Mr Sparkler. 'His mother and my mother are
cronies in fact.'
'If I had thought of it, Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, with a patronage as
magnificent as that of Lord Decimus himself, 'you should have despatched
a note to them, asking them to dine to-day. Some of our people could
have--ha--fetched them, and taken them home. We could have spared
a--hum--gondola for that purpose. I am sorry to have forgotten this.
Pray remind me of them to-morrow.'
Little Dorrit was not without doubts how Mr Henry Gowan might take their
patronage; but she promised not to fail in the reminder.
'Pray, does Mr Henry Gowan paint--ha--Portraits?' inquired Mr Dorrit.
Mr Sparkler opined that he painted anything, if he could get the job.
'He has no particular walk?' said Mr Dorrit.
Mr Sparkler, stimulated by Love to brilliancy, replied that for a
particular walk a man ought to have a particular pair of shoes; as, for
example, shooting, shooting-shoes; cricket, cricket-shoes. Whereas, he
believed that Henry Gowan had no particular pair of shoes.
'No speciality?' said Mr Dorrit.
This being a very long word for Mr Sparkler, and his mind being
exhausted by his late effort, he replied, 'No, thank you. I seldom take
it.'
'Well!' said Mr Dorrit. 'It would be very agreeable to me to present
a gentleman so connected, with some--ha--Testimonial of my desire to
further his interests, and develop the--hum--germs of his genius. I
think I must engage Mr Gowan to paint my picture. If the result should
be--ha--mutually satisfactory, I might afterwards engage him to try his
hand upon my family.'
The exquisitely bold and original thought presented itself to Mr
Sparkler, that there was an opening here for saying there were some of
the family (emphasising 'some' in a marked manner) to whom no painter
could render justice. But, for want of a form of words in which to
express the idea, it returned to the skies.
This was the more to be regretted as Miss Fanny greatly applauded the
notion of the portrait, and urged her papa to act upon it. She surmised,
she said, that Mr Gowan had lost better and higher opportunities by
marrying his pretty wife; and Love in a cottage, painting pictures for
dinner, was so delightfully interesting, that she begged her papa to
give him the commission whether he could paint a likeness or not: though
indeed both she and Amy knew he could, from having seen a speaking
likeness on his easel that day, and having had the opportunity of
comparing it with the original. These remarks made Mr Sparkler (as
perhaps they were intended to do) nearly distracted; for while on
the one hand they expressed Miss Fanny's susceptibility of the tender
passion, she herself showed such an innocent unconsciousness of his
admiration that his eyes goggled in his head with jealousy of an unknown
rival.
Descending into the sea again after dinner, and ascending out of it
at the Opera staircase, preceded by one of their gondoliers, like an
attendant Merman, with a great linen lantern, they entered their box,
and Mr Sparkler entered on an evening of agony. The theatre being
dark, and the box light, several visitors lounged in during the
representation; in whom Fanny was so interested, and in conversation
with whom she fell into such charming attitudes, as she had little
confidences with them, and little disputes concerning the identity of
people in distant boxes, that the wretched Sparkler hated all mankind.
But he had two consolations at the close of the performance. She gave
him her fan to hold while she adjusted her cloak, and it was his
blessed privilege to give her his arm down-stairs again. These crumbs of
encouragement, Mr Sparkler thought, would just keep him going; and it is
not impossible that Miss Dorrit thought so too.
The Merman with his light was ready at the box-door, and other Mermen
with other lights were ready at many of the doors. The Dorrit Merman
held his lantern low, to show the steps, and Mr Sparkler put on another
heavy set of fetters over his former set, as he watched her radiant
feet twinkling down the stairs beside him. Among the loiterers here, was
Blandois of Paris. He spoke, and moved forward beside Fanny.
Little Dorrit was in front with her brother and Mrs General (Mr Dorrit
had remained at home), but on the brink of the quay they all came
together. She started again to find Blandois close to her, handing Fanny
into the boat.
'Gowan has had a loss,' he said, 'since he was made happy to-day by a
visit from fair ladies.'
'A loss?' repeated Fanny, relinquished by the bereaved Sparkler, and
taking her seat.
'A loss,' said Blandois. 'His dog Lion.'
Little Dorrit's hand was in his, as he spoke.
'He is dead,' said Blandois.
'Dead?' echoed Little Dorrit. 'That noble dog?'
'Faith, dear ladies!' said Blandois, smiling and shrugging his
shoulders, 'somebody has poisoned that noble dog. He is as dead as the
Doges!'