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?