Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (best books to read for students TXT) 📖

his back swallowed up the dwelling, when his hands in his pockets uprooted the blooming garden and laid waste the adjacent country. To Mrs Plornish, it was still a most beautiful cottage, a most wonderful deception; and it made no difference that Mr Plornish’s eye was some inches above the level of the gable bedroom in the thatch. To come out into the shop after it was shut, and hear her father sing a song inside this cottage, was a perfect Pastoral to Mrs Plornish, the Golden Age revived. And truly if that famous period had been revived, or had ever been at all, it may be doubted whether it would have produced many more heartily admiring daughters than the poor woman.

Warned of a visitor by the tinkling bell at the shop-door, Mrs Plornish came out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be. ‘I guessed it was you, Mr Pancks,’ said she, ‘for it’s quite your regular night; ain’t it? Here’s father, you see, come out to serve at the sound of the bell, like a brisk young shopman. Ain’t he looking well? Father’s more pleased to see you than if you was a customer, for he dearly loves a gossip; and when it turns upon Miss Dorrit, he loves it all the more. You never heard father in such voice as he is at present,’ said Mrs Plornish, her own voice quavering, she was so proud and pleased. ‘He gave us Strephon last night to that degree that Plornish gets up and makes him this speech across the table. “John Edward Nandy,” says Plornish to father, “I never heard you come the warbles as I have heard you come the warbles this night.” An’t it gratifying, Mr Pancks, though; really?’

Mr Pancks, who had snorted at the old man in his friendliest manner, replied in the affirmative, and casually asked whether that lively Altro chap had come in yet? Mrs Plornish answered no, not yet, though he had gone to the West-End with some work, and had said he should be back by tea-time. Mr Pancks was then hospitably pressed into Happy Cottage, where he encountered the elder Master Plornish just come home from school. Examining that young student, lightly, on the educational proceedings of the day, he found that the more advanced pupils who were in the large text and the letter M, had been set the copy ‘Merdle, Millions.’

‘And how are you getting on, Mrs Plornish,’ said Pancks, ‘since we’re mentioning millions?’

‘Very steady, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs Plornish. ‘Father, dear, would you go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before tea, your taste being so beautiful?’

John Edward Nandy trotted away, much gratified, to comply with his daughter’s request. Mrs Plornish, who was always in mortal terror of mentioning pecuniary affairs before the old gentleman, lest any disclosure she made might rouse his spirit and induce him to run away to the workhouse, was thus left free to be confidential with Mr Pancks.

‘It’s quite true that the business is very steady indeed,’ said Mrs Plornish, lowering her voice; ‘and has a excellent connection. The only thing that stands in its way, sir, is the Credit.’

This drawback, rather severely felt by most people who engaged in commercial transactions with the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard, was a large stumbling-block in Mrs Plornish’s trade. When Mr Dorrit had established her in the business, the Bleeding Hearts had shown an amount of emotion and a determination to support her in it, that did honour to human nature. Recognising her claim upon their generous feelings as one who had long been a member of their community, they pledged themselves, with great feeling, to deal with Mrs Plornish, come what would and bestow their patronage on no other establishment. Influenced by these noble sentiments, they had even gone out of their way to purchase little luxuries in the grocery and butter line to which they were unaccustomed; saying to one another, that if they did stretch a point, was it not for a neighbour and a friend, and for whom ought a point to be stretched if not for such? So stimulated, the business was extremely brisk, and the articles in stock went off with the greatest celerity. In short, if the Bleeding Hearts had but paid, the undertaking would have been a complete success; whereas, by reason of their exclusively confining themselves to owing, the profits actually realised had not yet begun to appear in the books.

Mr Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his hair up in the contemplation of this state of accounts, when old Mr Nandy, re-entering the cottage with an air of mystery, entreated them to come and look at the strange behaviour of Mr Baptist, who seemed to have met with something that had scared him. All three going into the shop, and watching through the window, then saw Mr Baptist, pale and agitated, go through the following extraordinary performances. First, he was observed hiding at the top of the steps leading down into the Yard, and peeping up and down the street with his head cautiously thrust out close to the side of the shop-door. After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of his retreat, and went briskly down the street as if he were going away altogether; then, suddenly turned about, and went, at the same pace, and with the same feint, up the street. He had gone no further up the street than he had gone down, when he crossed the road and disappeared. The object of this last manoeuvre was only apparent, when his entering the shop with a sudden twist, from the steps again, explained that he had made a wide and obscure circuit round to the other, or Doyce and Clennam, end of the Yard, and had come through the Yard and bolted in. He was out of breath by that time, as he might well be, and his heart seemed to jerk faster than the little shop-bell, as it quivered and jingled behind him with his hasty shutting of the door.

‘Hallo, old chap!’ said Mr Pancks. ‘Altro, old boy! What’s the matter?’

Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as well as Mr Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too. Nevertheless, Mrs Plornish, with a pardonable vanity in that accomplishment of hers which made her all but Italian, stepped in as interpreter.

‘E ask know,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘What go wrong?’

‘Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona,’ returned Mr Baptist, imparting great stealthiness to his flurried backhanded shake of his right forefinger. ‘Come there!’

Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the Italian tongue. She immediately complied with Mr Baptist’s request, and they all went into the cottage.

‘E ope you no fright,’ said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr Pancks in a new way with her usual fertility of resource. ‘What appen? Peaka Padrona!’

‘I have seen some one,’ returned Baptist. ‘I have rincontrato him.’

‘Im? Oo him?’ asked Mrs Plornish.

‘A bad man. A baddest man. I have hoped that I should never see him again.’ ‘Ow you know him bad?’ asked Mrs Plornish.

‘It does not matter, Padrona. I know it too well.’

”E see you?’ asked Mrs Plornish.

‘No. I hope not. I believe not.’

‘He says,’ Mrs Plornish then interpreted, addressing her father and Pancks with mild condescension, ‘that he has met a bad man, but he hopes the bad man didn’t see him—Why,’ inquired Mrs Plornish, reverting to the Italian language, ‘why ope bad man no see?’

‘Padrona, dearest,’ returned the little foreigner whom she so considerately protected, ‘do not ask, I pray. Once again I say it matters not. I have fear of this man. I do not wish to see him, I do not wish to be known of him—never again! Enough, most beautiful. Leave it.’

The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual liveliness to the rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him further: the rather as the tea had been drawing for some time on the hob. But she was not the less surprised and curious for asking no more questions; neither was Mr Pancks, whose expressive breathing had been labouring hard since the entrance of the little man, like a locomotive engine with a great load getting up a steep incline. Maggy, now better dressed than of yore, though still faithful to the monstrous character of her cap, had been in the background from the first with open mouth and eyes, which staring and gaping features were not diminished in breadth by the untimely suppression of the subject. However, no more was said about it, though much appeared to be thought on all sides: by no means excepting the two young Plornishes, who partook of the evening meal as if their eating the bread and butter were rendered almost superfluous by the painful probability of the worst of men shortly presenting himself for the purpose of eating them. Mr Baptist, by degrees began to chirp a little; but never stirred from the seat he had taken behind the door and close to the window, though it was not his usual place. As often as the little bell rang, he started and peeped out secretly, with the end of the little curtain in his hand and the rest before his face; evidently not at all satisfied but that the man he dreaded had tracked him through all his doublings and turnings, with the certainty of a terrible bloodhound.

The entrance, at various times, of two or three customers and of Mr Plornish, gave Mr Baptist just enough of this employment to keep the attention of the company fixed upon him. Tea was over, and the children were abed, and Mrs Plornish was feeling her way to the dutiful proposal that her father should favour them with Chloe, when the bell rang again, and Mr Clennam came in.

Clennam had been poring late over his books and letters; for the waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office ravaged his time sorely.

Over and above that, he was depressed and made uneasy by the late occurrence at his mother’s. He looked worn and solitary. He felt so, too; but, nevertheless, was returning home from his counting-house by that end of the Yard to give them the intelligence that he had received another letter from Miss Dorrit.

The news made a sensation in the cottage which drew off the general attention from Mr Baptist. Maggy, who pushed her way into the foreground immediately, would have seemed to draw in the tidings of her Little Mother equally at her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but that the last were obstructed by tears. She was particularly delighted when Clennam assured her that there were hospitals, and very kindly conducted hospitals, in Rome. Mr Pancks rose into new distinction in virtue of being specially remembered in the letter. Everybody was pleased and interested, and Clennam was well repaid for his trouble. ‘But you are tired, sir. Let me make you a cup of tea,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘if you’d condescend to take such a thing in the cottage; and many thanks to you, too, I am sure, for bearing us in mind so kindly.’

Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his personal acknowledgments, tendered them in the form which always expressed his highest ideal of a combination of ceremony with sincerity.

‘John Edward Nandy,’ said Mr Plornish, addressing the old gentleman. ‘Sir. It’s not too often that you see unpretending actions without a spark of pride, and therefore when you see them give grateful honour unto the same, being that if you don’t, and live to want ‘em, it follows serve you right.’

To which Mr Nandy replied:

‘I am heartily