Dear Mr Clennam,
As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and
as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other
trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure
for even that, though I hope you will some day), I am now going to
devote an hour to writing to you again. This time, I write from Rome.
We left Venice before Mr and Mrs Gowan did, but they were not so long
upon the road as we were, and did not travel by the same way, and so
when we arrived we found them in a lodging here, in a place called the
Via Gregoriana. I dare say you know it.
Now I am going to tell you all I can about them, because I know that is
what you most want to hear. Theirs is not a very comfortable lodging,
but perhaps I thought it less so when I first saw it than you would have
done, because you have been in many different countries and have
seen many different customs. Of course it is a far, far better
place--millions of times--than any I have ever been used to until
lately; and I fancy I don't look at it with my own eyes, but with hers.
For it would be easy to see that she has always been brought up in a
tender and happy home, even if she had not told me so with great love
for it.
Well, it is a rather bare lodging up a rather dark common staircase, and
it is nearly all a large dull room, where Mr Gowan paints. The windows
are blocked up where any one could look out, and the walls have been
all drawn over with chalk and charcoal by others who have lived there
before--oh,--I should think, for years!
There is a curtain more dust-coloured than red, which divides it, and
the part behind the curtain makes the private sitting-room.
When I first saw her there she was alone, and her work had fallen out of
her hand, and she was looking up at the sky shining through the tops of
the windows. Pray do not be uneasy when I tell you, but it was not
quite so airy, nor so bright, nor so cheerful, nor so happy and youthful
altogether as I should have liked it to be.
On account of Mr Gowan's painting Papa's picture (which I am not quite
convinced I should have known from the likeness if I had not seen him
doing it), I have had more opportunities of being with her since then
than I might have had without this fortunate chance. She is very much
alone. Very much alone indeed.
Shall I tell you about the second time I saw her? I went one day, when
it happened that I could run round by myself, at four or five o'clock
in the afternoon. She was then dining alone, and her solitary dinner had
been brought in from somewhere, over a kind of brazier with a fire in
it, and she had no company or prospect of company, that I could see,
but the old man who had brought it. He was telling her a long story (of
robbers outside the walls being taken up by a stone statue of a Saint),
to entertain her--as he said to me when I came out, 'because he had a
daughter of his own, though she was not so pretty.'
I ought now to mention Mr Gowan, before I say what little more I have to
say about her. He must admire her beauty, and he must be proud of her,
for everybody praises it, and he must be fond of her, and I do not
doubt that he is--but in his way. You know his way, and if it appears
as careless and discontented in your eyes as it does in mine, I am not
wrong in thinking that it might be better suited to her. If it does not
seem so to you, I am quite sure I am wholly mistaken; for your unchanged
poor child confides in your knowledge and goodness more than she could
ever tell you if she was to try. But don't be frightened, I am not going
to try. Owing (as I think, if you think so too) to Mr Gowan's unsettled
and dissatisfied way, he applies himself to his profession very little.
He does nothing steadily or patiently; but equally takes things up and
throws them down, and does them, or leaves them undone, without caring
about them. When I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings
for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no
belief in anybody else, because he has no belief in himself. Is it so?
I wonder what you will say when you come to this! I know how you will
look, and I can almost hear the voice in which you would tell me on the
Iron Bridge.
Mr Gowan goes out a good deal among what is considered the best company
here--though he does not look as if he enjoyed it or liked it when he is
with it--and she sometimes accompanies him, but lately she has gone out
very little. I think I have noticed that they have an inconsistent way
of speaking about her, as if she had made some great self-interested
success in marrying Mr Gowan, though, at the same time, the very same
people, would not have dreamed of taking him for themselves or their
daughters. Then he goes into the country besides, to think about making
sketches; and in all places where there are visitors, he has a large
acquaintance and is very well known. Besides all this, he has a friend
who is much in his society both at home and away from home, though he
treats this friend very coolly and is very uncertain in his behaviour
to him. I am quite sure (because she has told me so), that she does not
like this friend. He is so revolting to me, too, that his being away
from here, at present, is quite a relief to my mind. How much more to
hers!
But what I particularly want you to know, and why I have resolved
to tell you so much while I am afraid it may make you a little
uncomfortable without occasion, is this. She is so true and so devoted,
and knows so completely that all her love and duty are his for ever,
that you may be certain she will love him, admire him, praise him, and
conceal all his faults, until she dies. I believe she conceals them, and
always will conceal them, even from herself.
She has given him a heart that can never be taken back; and however much
he may try it, he will never wear out its affection. You know the truth
of this, as you know everything, far far better than I; but I cannot
help telling you what a nature she shows, and that you can never think
too well of her.
I have not yet called her by her name in this letter, but we are such
friends now that I do so when we are quietly together, and she speaks to
me by my name--I mean, not my Christian name, but the name you gave me.
When she began to call me Amy, I told her my short story, and that you
had always called me Little Dorrit. I told her that the name was much
dearer to me than any other, and so she calls me Little Dorrit too.
Perhaps you have not heard from her father or mother yet, and may not
know that she has a baby son. He was born only two days ago, and just a
week after they came. It has made them very happy. However, I must tell
you, as I am to tell you all, that I fancy they are under a constraint
with Mr Gowan, and that they feel as if his mocking way with them was
sometimes a slight given to their love for her. It was but yesterday,
when I was there, that I saw Mr Meagles change colour, and get up and
go out, as if he was afraid that he might say so, unless he prevented
himself by that means. Yet I am sure they are both so considerate,
good-humoured, and reasonable, that he might spare them. It is hard in
him not to think of them a little more.
I stopped at the last full stop to read all this over. It looked at
first as if I was taking on myself to understand and explain so much,
that I was half inclined not to send it. But when I thought it over a
little, I felt more hopeful for your knowing at once that I had only
been watchful for you, and had only noticed what I think I have noticed,
because I was quickened by your interest in it. Indeed, you may be sure
that is the truth.
And now I have done with the subject in the present letter, and have
little left to say.
We are all quite well, and Fanny improves every day. You can hardly
think how kind she is to me, and what pains she takes with me. She has
a lover, who has followed her, first all the way from Switzerland, and
then all the way from Venice, and who has just confided to me that he
means to follow her everywhere. I was much confused by his speaking to
me about it, but he would. I did not know what to say, but at last I
told him that I thought he had better not. For Fanny (but I did not tell
him this) is much too spirited and clever to suit him. Still, he said he
would, all the same. I have no lover, of course.
If you should ever get so far as this in this long letter, you will
perhaps say, Surely Little Dorrit will not leave off without telling me
something about her travels, and surely it is time she did. I think it
is indeed, but I don't know what to tell you. Since we left Venice we
have been in a great many wonderful places, Genoa and Florence among
them, and have seen so many wonderful sights, that I am almost giddy
when I think what a crowd they make.
But you can tell me so much more about them than I can tell you, that
why should I tire you with my accounts and descriptions?
Dear Mr Clennam, as I had the courage to tell you what the familiar
difficulties in my travelling mind were before, I will not be a coward
now. One of my frequent thoughts is this:--Old as these cities are,
their age itself is hardly so curious, to my reflections, as that they
should have been in their places all through those days when I did not
even know of the existence of more than two or three of them, and when
I scarcely knew of anything outside our old walls. There is something
melancholy in it, and I don't know why. When we went to see the famous
leaning tower at Pisa, it was a bright sunny day, and it and the
buildings near it looked so old, and the earth and the sky looked so
young, and its shadow on the ground was so soft and retired! I could not
at first think how beautiful it was, or how curious, but I thought, 'O
how many times when the shadow of the wall was falling on our room, and
when that weary tread of feet was going up and down the yard--O how many
times this place was just as quiet and lovely as it is to-day!' It quite
overpowered me. My heart was so full that tears burst out of my eyes,
though I did what I could to restrain them. And I have the same feeling
often--often.
Do you know that since the change in our fortunes, though I appear to
myself to have dreamed more than before, I have always dreamed of myself
as very young indeed! I am not very old, you may say. No, but that is
not what I mean. I have always dreamed of myself as a child learning
to do needlework. I have often dreamed of myself as back there, seeing
faces in the yard little known, and which I should have thought I had
quite forgotten; but, as often as not, I have been abroad here--in
Switzerland, or France, or Italy--somewhere where we have been--yet
always as that little child. I have dreamed of going down to Mrs
General, with the patches on my clothes in which I can first remember
myself. I have over and over again dreamed of taking my place at dinner
at Venice when we have had a large company, in the mourning for my poor
mother which I wore when I was eight years old, and wore long after it
was threadbare and would mend no more. It has been a great distress to
me to think how irreconcilable the company would consider it with my
father's wealth, and how I should displease and disgrace him and Fanny
and Edward by so plainly disclosing what they wished to keep secret. But
I have not grown out of the little child in thinking of it; and at the
self-same moment I have dreamed that I have sat with the heart-ache at
table, calculating the expenses of the dinner, and quite distracting
myself with thinking how they were ever to be made good. I have never
dreamed of the change in our fortunes itself; I have never dreamed of
your coming back with me that memorable morning to break it; I have
never even dreamed of you.
Dear Mr Clennam, it is possible that I have thought of you--and
others--so much by day, that I have no thoughts left to wander round
you by night. For I must now confess to you that I suffer from
home-sickness--that I long so ardently and earnestly for home, as
sometimes, when no one sees me, to pine for it. I cannot bear to turn my
face further away from it. My heart is a little lightened when we turn
towards it, even for a few miles, and with the knowledge that we are
soon to turn away again. So dearly do I love the scene of my poverty and
your kindness. O so dearly, O so dearly!
Heaven knows when your poor child will see England again. We are all
fond of the life here (except me), and there are no plans for our
return. My dear father talks of a visit to London late in this next
spring, on some affairs connected with the property, but I have no hope
that he will bring me with him.
I have tried to get on a little better under Mrs General's instruction,
and I hope I am not quite so dull as I used to be. I have begun to speak
and understand, almost easily, the hard languages I told you about. I
did not remember, at the moment when I wrote last, that you knew them
both; but I remembered it afterwards, and it helped me on. God bless
you, dear Mr Clennam. Do not forget your ever grateful and affectionate
LITTLE DORRIT.
P.S.--Particularly remember that Minnie Gowan deserves the best
remembrance in which you can hold her. You cannot think too generously
or too highly of her. I forgot Mr Pancks last time. Please, if you
should see him, give him your Little Dorrit's kind regard. He was very
good to Little D.