第 55 页

begin the world anew. As the fierce dark teaching of his childhood had

never sunk into his heart, so that first article in his code of morals

was, that he must begin, in practical humility, with looking well to

his feet on Earth, and that he could never mount on wings of words to

Heaven. Duty on earth, restitution on earth, action on earth; these

first, as the first steep steps upward. Strait was the gate and narrow

was the way; far straiter and narrower than the broad high road paved

with vain professions and vain repetitions, motes from other men's eyes

and liberal delivery of others to the judgment--all cheap materials

costing absolutely nothing.

No. It was not a selfish fear or hesitation that rendered him

uneasy, but a mistrust lest Pancks might not observe his part of the

understanding between them, and, making any discovery, might take some

course upon it without imparting it to him. On the other hand, when he

recalled his conversation with Pancks, and the little reason he had to

suppose that there was any likelihood of that strange personage being

on that track at all, there were times when he wondered that he made so

much of it. Labouring in this sea, as all barks labour in cross seas, he

tossed about and came to no haven.

The removal of Little Dorrit herself from their customary association,

did not mend the matter. She was so much out, and so much in her own

room, that he began to miss her and to find a blank in her place. He had

written to her to inquire if she were better, and she had written

back, very gratefully and earnestly telling him not to be uneasy on her

behalf, for she was quite well; but he had not seen her, for what, in

their intercourse, was a long time.

He returned home one evening from an interview with her father, who had

mentioned that she was out visiting--which was what he always said

when she was hard at work to buy his supper--and found Mr Meagles in an

excited state walking up and down his room. On his opening the door, Mr

Meagles stopped, faced round, and said:

'Clennam!--Tattycoram!'

'What's the matter?'

'Lost!'

'Why, bless my heart alive!' cried Clennam in amazement. 'What do you

mean?'

'Wouldn't count five-and-twenty, sir; couldn't be got to do it; stopped

at eight, and took herself off.'

'Left your house?'

'Never to come back,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head. 'You don't know

that girl's passionate and proud character. A team of horses couldn't

draw her back now; the bolts and bars of the old Bastille couldn't keep

her.'

'How did it happen? Pray sit down and tell me.'

'As to how it happened, it's not so easy to relate: because you must

have the unfortunate temperament of the poor impetuous girl herself,

before you can fully understand it. But it came about in this way. Pet

and Mother and I have been having a good deal of talk together of late.

I'll not disguise from you, Clennam, that those conversations have not

been of as bright a kind as I could wish; they have referred to our

going away again. In proposing to do which, I have had, in fact, an

object.'

Nobody's heart beat quickly.

'An object,' said Mr Meagles, after a moment's pause, 'that I will not

disguise from you, either, Clennam. There's an inclination on the part

of my dear child which I am sorry for. Perhaps you guess the person.

Henry Gowan.'

'I was not unprepared to hear it.'

'Well!' said Mr Meagles, with a heavy sigh, 'I wish to God you had never

had to hear it. However, so it is. Mother and I have done all we could

to get the better of it, Clennam. We have tried tender advice, we

have tried time, we have tried absence. As yet, of no use. Our late

conversations have been upon the subject of going away for another year

at least, in order that there might be an entire separation and breaking

off for that term. Upon that question, Pet has been unhappy, and

therefore Mother and I have been unhappy.' Clennam said that he could

easily believe it.

'Well!' continued Mr Meagles in an apologetic way, 'I admit as a

practical man, and I am sure Mother would admit as a practical woman,

that we do, in families, magnify our troubles and make mountains of our

molehills in a way that is calculated to be rather trying to people who

look on--to mere outsiders, you know, Clennam.

Still, Pet's happiness or unhappiness is quite a life or death question

with us; and we may be excused, I hope, for making much of it. At all

events, it might have been borne by Tattycoram. Now, don't you think

so?'

'I do indeed think so,' returned Clennam, in most emphatic recognition

of this very moderate expectation.

'No, sir,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head ruefully. 'She couldn't

stand it. The chafing and firing of that girl, the wearing and tearing

of that girl within her own breast, has been such that I have

softly said to her again and again in passing her, "Five-and-twenty,

Tattycoram, five-and-twenty!" I heartily wish she could have gone

on counting five-and-twenty day and night, and then it wouldn't have

happened.'

Mr Meagles with a despondent countenance in which the goodness of his

heart was even more expressed than in his times of cheerfulness and

gaiety, stroked his face down from his forehead to his chin, and shook

his head again.

'I said to Mother (not that it was necessary, for she would have thought

it all for herself), we are practical people, my dear, and we know her

story; we see in this unhappy girl some reflection of what was raging in

her mother's heart before ever such a creature as this poor thing was

in the world; we'll gloss her temper over, Mother, we won't notice it at

present, my dear, we'll take advantage of some better disposition in her

another time. So we said nothing. But, do what we would, it seems as if

it was to be; she broke out violently one night.'

'How, and why?'

'If you ask me Why,' said Mr Meagles, a little disturbed by the

question, for he was far more intent on softening her case than the

family's, 'I can only refer you to what I have just repeated as having

been pretty near my words to Mother. As to How, we had said Good night

to Pet in her presence (very affectionately, I must allow), and she

had attended Pet up-stairs--you remember she was her maid. Perhaps Pet,

having been out of sorts, may have been a little more inconsiderate than

usual in requiring services of her: but I don't know that I have any

right to say so; she was always thoughtful and gentle.'

'The gentlest mistress in the world.'

'Thank you, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand; 'you

have often seen them together. Well! We presently heard this unfortunate

Tattycoram loud and angry, and before we could ask what was the matter,

Pet came back in a tremble, saying she was frightened of her. Close

after her came Tattycoram in a flaming rage. "I hate you all three,"

says she, stamping her foot at us. "I am bursting with hate of the whole

house."'

'Upon which you--?'

'I?' said Mr Meagles, with a plain good faith that might have commanded

the belief of Mrs Gowan herself. 'I said, count five-and-twenty,

Tattycoram.'

Mr Meagles again stroked his face and shook his head, with an air of

profound regret.

'She was so used to do it, Clennam, that even then, such a picture of

passion as you never saw, she stopped short, looked me full in the face,

and counted (as I made out) to eight. But she couldn't control herself

to go any further. There she broke down, poor thing, and gave the other

seventeen to the four winds. Then it all burst out. She detested us, she

was miserable with us, she couldn't bear it, she wouldn't bear it, she

was determined to go away. She was younger than her young mistress, and

would she remain to see her always held up as the only creature who was

young and interesting, and to be cherished and loved? No. She wouldn't,

she wouldn't, she wouldn't! What did we think she, Tattycoram, might

have been if she had been caressed and cared for in her childhood, like

her young mistress? As good as her? Ah! Perhaps fifty times as good.

When we pretended to be so fond of one another, we exulted over her;

that was what we did; we exulted over her and shamed her. And all in

the house did the same. They talked about their fathers and mothers, and

brothers and sisters; they liked to drag them up before her face. There

was Mrs Tickit, only yesterday, when her little grandchild was with her,

had been amused by the child's trying to call her (Tattycoram) by the

wretched name we gave her; and had laughed at the name. Why, who didn't;

and who were we that we should have a right to name her like a dog or a

cat? But she didn't care. She would take no more benefits from us; she

would fling us her name back again, and she would go. She would leave

us that minute, nobody should stop her, and we should never hear of her

again.'

Mr Meagles had recited all this with such a vivid remembrance of his

original, that he was almost as flushed and hot by this time as he

described her to have been.

'Ah, well!' he said, wiping his face. 'It was of no use trying reason

then, with that vehement panting creature (Heaven knows what her

mother's story must have been); so I quietly told her that she should

not go at that late hour of night, and I gave her MY hand and took her

to her room, and locked the house doors. But she was gone this morning.'

'And you know no more of her?'

'No more,' returned Mr Meagles. 'I have been hunting about all day. She

must have gone very early and very silently. I have found no trace of

her down about us.'

'Stay! You want,' said Clennam, after a moment's reflection, 'to see

her? I assume that?'

'Yes, assuredly; I want to give her another chance; Mother and Pet

want to give her another chance; come! You yourself,' said Mr Meagles,

persuasively, as if the provocation to be angry were not his own at all,

'want to give the poor passionate girl another chance, I know, Clennam.'

'It would be strange and hard indeed if I did not,' said Clennam, 'when

you are all so forgiving. What I was going to ask you was, have you

thought of that Miss Wade?'

'I have. I did not think of her until I had pervaded the whole of our

neighbourhood, and I don't know that I should have done so then but

for finding Mother and Pet, when I went home, full of the idea that

Tattycoram must have gone to her. Then, of course, I recalled what she

said that day at dinner when you were first with US.'

'Have you any idea where Miss Wade is to be found?'

'To tell you the truth,' returned Mr Meagles, 'it's because I have an

addled jumble of a notion on that subject that you found me waiting

here. There is one of those odd impressions in my house, which do

mysteriously get into houses sometimes, which nobody seems to have

picked up in a distinct form from anybody, and yet which everybody seems

to have got hold of loosely from somebody and let go again, that she

lives, or was living, thereabouts.' Mr Meagles handed him a slip of

paper, on which was written the name of one of the dull by-streets in

the Grosvenor region, near Park Lane.

'Here is no number,' said Arthur looking over it.

'No number, my dear Clennam?' returned his friend. 'No anything! The

very name of the street may have been floating in the air; for, as I

tell you, none of my people can say where they got it from. However,

it's worth an inquiry; and as I would rather make it in company than

alone, and as you too were a fellow-traveller of that immovable woman's,

I thought perhaps--' Clennam finished the sentence for him by taking up

his hat again, and saying he was ready.

It was now summer-time; a grey, hot, dusty evening. They rode to the top

of Oxford Street, and there alighting, dived in among the great streets

of melancholy stateliness, and the little streets that try to be as

stately and succeed in being more melancholy, of which there is a

labyrinth near Park Lane. Wildernesses of corner houses, with barbarous

old porticoes and appurtenances; horrors that came into existence under

some wrong-headed person in some wrong-headed time, still demanding

the blind admiration of all ensuing generations and determined to do

so until they tumbled down; frowned upon the twilight. Parasite little

tenements, with the cramp in their whole frame, from the dwarf hall-door

on the giant model of His Grace's in the Square to the squeezed window

of the boudoir commanding the dunghills in the Mews, made the evening

doleful. Rickety dwellings of undoubted fashion, but of a capacity to

hold nothing comfortably except a dismal smell, looked like the last

result of the great mansions' breeding in-and-in; and, where their

little supplementary bows and balconies were supported on thin iron

columns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon crutches.

Here and there a Hatchment, with the whole science of Heraldry in it,

loomed down upon the street, like an Archbishop discoursing on Vanity.

The shops, few in number, made no show; for popular opinion was as

nothing to them. The pastrycook knew who was on his books, and in

that knowledge could be calm, with a few glass cylinders of dowager

peppermint-drops in his window, and half-a-dozen ancient specimens of

currant-jelly. A few oranges formed the greengrocer's whole concession

to the vulgar mind. A single basket made of moss, once containing

plovers' eggs, held all that the poulterer had to say to the rabble.

Everybody in those streets seemed (which is always the case at that hour