第 128 页

seemed to address him, and he answered, and started.

Dozing and dreaming, without the power of reckoning time, so that

a minute might have been an hour and an hour a minute, some abiding

impression of a garden stole over him--a garden of flowers, with a

damp warm wind gently stirring their scents. It required such a painful

effort to lift his head for the purpose of inquiring into this, or

inquiring into anything, that the impression appeared to have become

quite an old and importunate one when he looked round. Beside the

tea-cup on his table he saw, then, a blooming nosegay: a wonderful

handful of the choicest and most lovely flowers.

Nothing had ever appeared so beautiful in his sight. He took them up and

inhaled their fragrance, and he lifted them to his hot head, and he put

them down and opened his parched hands to them, as cold hands are opened

to receive the cheering of a fire. It was not until he had delighted in

them for some time, that he wondered who had sent them; and opened his

door to ask the woman who must have put them there, how they had come

into her hands. But she was gone, and seemed to have been long gone; for

the tea she had left for him on the table was cold. He tried to drink

some, but could not bear the odour of it: so he crept back to his chair

by the open window, and put the flowers on the little round table of

old.

When the first faintness consequent on having moved about had left him,

he subsided into his former state. One of the night-tunes was playing

in the wind, when the door of his room seemed to open to a light touch,

and, after a moment's pause, a quiet figure seemed to stand there, with

a black mantle on it. It seemed to draw the mantle off and drop it on

the ground, and then it seemed to be his Little Dorrit in her old, worn

dress. It seemed to tremble, and to clasp its hands, and to smile, and

to burst into tears.

He roused himself, and cried out. And then he saw, in the loving,

pitying, sorrowing, dear face, as in a mirror, how changed he was; and

she came towards him; and with her hands laid on his breast to keep him

in his chair, and with her knees upon the floor at his feet, and with

her lips raised up to kiss him, and with her tears dropping on him as

the rain from Heaven had dropped upon the flowers, Little Dorrit, a

living presence, called him by his name.

'O, my best friend! Dear Mr Clennam, don't let me see you weep! Unless

you weep with pleasure to see me. I hope you do. Your own poor child

come back!' So faithful, tender, and unspoiled by Fortune. In the sound

of her voice, in the light of her eyes, in the touch of her hands, so

Angelically comforting and true!

As he embraced her, she said to him, 'They never told me you were ill,'

and drawing an arm softly round his neck, laid his head upon her bosom,

put a hand upon his head, and resting her cheek upon that hand, nursed

him as lovingly, and GOD knows as innocently, as she had nursed her

father in that room when she had been but a baby, needing all the care

from others that she took of them.

When he could speak, he said, 'Is it possible that you have come to me?

And in this dress?'

'I hoped you would like me better in this dress than any other. I have

always kept it by me, to remind me: though I wanted no reminding. I am

not alone, you see. I have brought an old friend with me.'

Looking round, he saw Maggy in her big cap which had been long

abandoned, with a basket on her arm as in the bygone days, chuckling

rapturously.

'It was only yesterday evening that I came to London with my brother.

I sent round to Mrs Plornish almost as soon as we arrived, that I might

hear of you and let you know I had come. Then I heard that you were

here. Did you happen to think of me in the night? I almost believe you

must have thought of me a little. I thought of you so anxiously, and it

appeared so long to morning.'

'I have thought of you--' he hesitated what to call her. She perceived

it in an instant.

'You have not spoken to me by my right name yet. You know what my right

name always is with you.'

'I have thought of you, Little Dorrit, every day, every hour, every

minute, since I have been here.'

'Have you? Have you?'

He saw the bright delight of her face, and the flush that kindled in

it, with a feeling of shame. He, a broken, bankrupt, sick, dishonoured

prisoner.

'I was here before the gates were opened, but I was afraid to come

straight to you. I should have done you more harm than good, at first;

for the prison was so familiar and yet so strange, and it brought back

so many remembrances of my poor father, and of you too, that at first

it overpowered me. But we went to Mr Chivery before we came to the gate,

and he brought us in, and got john's room for us--my poor old room, you

know--and we waited there a little. I brought the flowers to the door,

but you didn't hear me.' She looked something more womanly than when

she had gone away, and the ripening touch of the Italian sun was visible

upon her face. But, otherwise, she was quite unchanged. The same deep,

timid earnestness that he had always seen in her, and never without

emotion, he saw still. If it had a new meaning that smote him to the

heart, the change was in his perception, not in her.

She took off her old bonnet, hung it in the old place, and noiselessly

began, with Maggy's help, to make his room as fresh and neat as it could

be made, and to sprinkle it with a pleasant-smelling water. When that

was done, the basket, which was filled with grapes and other fruit,

was unpacked, and all its contents were quietly put away. When that was

done, a moment's whisper despatched Maggy to despatch somebody else to

fill the basket again; which soon came back replenished with new

stores, from which a present provision of cooling drink and jelly, and

a prospective supply of roast chicken and wine and water, were the first

extracts. These various arrangements completed, she took out her old

needle-case to make him a curtain for his window; and thus, with a quiet

reigning in the room, that seemed to diffuse itself through the else

noisy prison, he found himself composed in his chair, with Little Dorrit

working at his side.

To see the modest head again bent down over its task, and the nimble

fingers busy at their old work--though she was not so absorbed in it,

but that her compassionate eyes were often raised to his face, and, when

they drooped again had tears in them--to be so consoled and comforted,

and to believe that all the devotion of this great nature was turned to

him in his adversity to pour out its inexhaustible wealth of goodness

upon him, did not steady Clennam's trembling voice or hand, or

strengthen him in his weakness. Yet it inspired him with an inward

fortitude, that rose with his love. And how dearly he loved her now,

what words can tell!

As they sat side by side in the shadow of the wall, the shadow fell like

light upon him. She would not let him speak much, and he lay back in

his chair, looking at her. Now and again she would rise and give him

the glass that he might drink, or would smooth the resting-place of his

head; then she would gently resume her seat by him, and bend over her

work again.

The shadow moved with the sun, but she never moved from his side, except

to wait upon him. The sun went down and she was still there. She had

done her work now, and her hand, faltering on the arm of his chair since

its last tending of him, was hesitating there yet. He laid his hand upon

it, and it clasped him with a trembling supplication.

'Dear Mr Clennam, I must say something to you before I go. I have put it

off from hour to hour, but I must say it.'

'I too, dear Little Dorrit. I have put off what I must say.' She

nervously moved her hand towards his lips as if to stop him; then it

dropped, trembling, into its former place.

'I am not going abroad again. My brother is, but I am not. He was always

attached to me, and he is so grateful to me now--so much too grateful,

for it is only because I happened to be with him in his illness--that

he says I shall be free to stay where I like best, and to do what I like

best. He only wishes me to be happy, he says.'

There was one bright star shining in the sky. She looked up at it While

she spoke, as if it were the fervent purpose of her own heart shining

above her.

'You will understand, I dare say, without my telling you, that my

brother has come home to find my dear father's will, and to take

possession of his property. He says, if there is a will, he is sure I

shall be left rich; and if there is none, that he will make me so.'

He would have spoken; but she put up her trembling hand again, and he

stopped.

'I have no use for money, I have no wish for it. It would be of no value

at all to me but for your sake. I could not be rich, and you here. I

must always be much worse than poor, with you distressed. Will you let

me lend you all I have? Will you let me give it you? Will you let me

show you that I have never forgotten, that I never can forget, your

protection of me when this was my home? Dear Mr Clennam, make me of all

the world the happiest, by saying Yes. Make me as happy as I can be in

leaving you here, by saying nothing to-night, and letting me go

away with the hope that you will think of it kindly; and that for my

sake--not for yours, for mine, for nobody's but mine!--you will give me

the greatest joy I can experience on earth, the joy of knowing that I

have been serviceable to you, and that I have paid some little of the

great debt of my affection and gratitude. I can't say what I wish to

say. I can't visit you here where I have lived so long, I can't think of

you here where I have seen so much, and be as calm and comforting as I

ought. My tears will make their way. I cannot keep them back. But

pray, pray, pray, do not turn from your Little Dorrit, now, in your

affliction! Pray, pray, pray, I beg you and implore you with all my

grieving heart, my friend--my dear!--take all I have, and make it a

Blessing to me!'

The star had shone on her face until now, when her face sank upon his

hand and her own.

It had grown darker when he raised her in his encircling arm, and softly

answered her.

'No, darling Little Dorrit. No, my child. I must not hear of such a

sacrifice. Liberty and hope would be so dear, bought at such a price,

that I could never support their weight, never bear the reproach of

possessing them. But with what ardent thankfulness and love I say this,

I may call Heaven to witness!'

'And yet you will not let me be faithful to you in your affliction?'

'Say, dearest Little Dorrit, and yet I will try to be faithful to you.

If, in the bygone days when this was your home and when this was your

dress, I had understood myself (I speak only of myself) better, and

had read the secrets of my own breast more distinctly; if, through my

reserve and self-mistrust, I had discerned a light that I see brightly

now when it has passed far away, and my weak footsteps can never

overtake it; if I had then known, and told you that I loved and honoured

you, not as the poor child I used to call you, but as a woman whose

true hand would raise me high above myself and make me a far happier and

better man; if I had so used the opportunity there is no recalling--as

I wish I had, O I wish I had!--and if something had kept us apart then,

when I was moderately thriving, and when you were poor; I might have met

your noble offer of your fortune, dearest girl, with other words than

these, and still have blushed to touch it. But, as it is, I must never

touch it, never!'

She besought him, more pathetically and earnestly, with her little

supplicatory hand, than she could have done in any words.

'I am disgraced enough, my Little Dorrit. I must not descend so low as

that, and carry you--so dear, so generous, so good--down with me. GOD

bless you, GOD reward you! It is past.' He took her in his arms, as if

she had been his daughter.

'Always so much older, so much rougher, and so much less worthy, even

what I was must be dismissed by both of us, and you must see me only as

I am. I put this parting kiss upon your cheek, my child--who might have

been more near to me, who never could have been more dear--a ruined man

far removed from you, for ever separated from you, whose course is

run while yours is but beginning. I have not the courage to ask to be

forgotten by you in my humiliation; but I ask to be remembered only as I

am.'

The bell began to ring, warning visitors to depart. He took her mantle

from the wall, and tenderly wrapped it round her.

'One other word, my Little Dorrit. A hard one to me, but it is a

necessary one. The time when you and this prison had anything in common

has long gone by. Do you understand?'

'O! you will never say to me,' she cried, weeping bitterly, and holding

up her clasped hands in entreaty, 'that I am not to come back any more!

You will surely not desert me so!'

'I would say it, if I could; but I have not the courage quite to shut

out this dear face, and abandon all hope of its return. But do not come

soon, do not come often! This is now a tainted place, and I well know

the taint of it clings to me. You belong to much brighter and better

scenes. You are not to look back here, my Little Dorrit; you are to look

away to very different and much happier paths. Again, GOD bless you in

them! GOD reward you!'

Maggy, who had fallen into very low spirits, here cried, 'Oh get him

into a hospital; do get him into a hospital, Mother! He'll never look

like hisself again, if he an't got into a hospital. And then the little

woman as was always a spinning at her wheel, she can go to the cupboard

with the Princess, and say, what do you keep the Chicking there for? and

then they can take it out and give it to him, and then all be happy!'