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Little Dorrit,' said she,'or you will be late, poor child!'

In all the dreams Mistress Affery had been piling up since she first

became devoted to the pursuit, she had dreamed nothing more astonishing

than this. Her head ached with the idea that she would find the other

clever one kissing Little Dorrit next, and then the two clever ones

embracing each other and dissolving into tears of tenderness for all

mankind. The idea quite stunned her, as she attended the light footsteps

down the stairs, that the house door might be safely shut.

On opening it to let Little Dorrit out, she found Mr Pancks, instead

of having gone his way, as in any less wonderful place and among less

wonderful phenomena he might have been reasonably expected to do,

fluttering up and down the court outside the house.

The moment he saw Little Dorrit, he passed her briskly, said with his

finger to his nose (as Mrs Affery distinctly heard), 'Pancks the gipsy,

fortune-telling,' and went away. 'Lord save us, here's a gipsy and a

fortune-teller in it now!' cried Mistress Affery. 'What next! She stood

at the open door, staggering herself with this enigma, on a rainy,

thundery evening. The clouds were flying fast, and the wind was coming

up in gusts, banging some neighbouring shutters that had broken loose,

twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weather-cocks, and rushing round

and round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to blow

the dead citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering in

all quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for this

attempted desecration, and to mutter, 'Let them rest! Let them rest!'

Mistress Affery, whose fear of thunder and lightning was only to

be equalled by her dread of the haunted house with a premature and

preternatural darkness in it, stood undecided whether to go in or not,

until the question was settled for her by the door blowing upon her in

a violent gust of wind and shutting her out. 'What's to be done now,

what's to be done now!' cried Mistress Affery, wringing her hands in

this last uneasy dream of all; 'when she's all alone by herself

inside, and can no more come down to open it than the churchyard dead

themselves!'

In this dilemma, Mistress Affery, with her apron as a hood to keep the

rain off, ran crying up and down the solitary paved enclosure several

times. Why she should then stoop down and look in at the keyhole of the

door as if an eye would open it, it would be difficult to say; but it

is none the less what most people would have done in the same situation,

and it is what she did.

From this posture she started up suddenly, with a half scream, feeling

something on her shoulder. It was the touch of a hand; of a man's hand.

The man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur about

it, and a heap of cloak. He looked like a foreigner. He had a quantity

of hair and moustache--jet black, except at the shaggy ends, where

it had a tinge of red--and a high hook nose. He laughed at Mistress

Affery's start and cry; and as he laughed, his moustache went up under

his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache.

'What's the matter?' he asked in plain English. 'What are you frightened

at?'

'At you,' panted Affery.

'Me, madam?'

'And the dismal evening, and--and everything,' said Affery. 'And here!

The wind has been and blown the door to, and I can't get in.'

'Hah!' said the gentleman, who took that very coolly. 'Indeed! Do you

know such a name as Clennam about here?'

'Lord bless us, I should think I did, I should think I did!' cried

Affery, exasperated into a new wringing of hands by the inquiry.

'Where about here?'

'Where!' cried Affery, goaded into another inspection of the keyhole.

'Where but here in this house? And she's all alone in her room, and lost

the use of her limbs and can't stir to help herself or me, and t'other

clever one's out, and Lord forgive me!' cried Affery, driven into a

frantic dance by these accumulated considerations, 'if I ain't a-going

headlong out of my mind!'

Taking a warmer view of the matter now that it concerned himself, the

gentleman stepped back to glance at the house, and his eye soon rested

on the long narrow window of the little room near the hall-door.

'Where may the lady be who has lost the use of her limbs, madam?' he

inquired, with that peculiar smile which Mistress Affery could not

choose but keep her eyes upon.

'Up there!' said Affery. 'Them two windows.'

'Hah! I am of a fair size, but could not have the honour of presenting

myself in that room without a ladder. Now, madam, frankly--frankness is

a part of my character--shall I open the door for you?'

'Yes, bless you, sir, for a dear creetur, and do it at once,' cried

Affery, 'for she may be a-calling to me at this very present minute, or

may be setting herself a fire and burning herself to death, or there's

no knowing what may be happening to her, and me a-going out of my mind

at thinking of it!'

'Stay, my good madam!' He restrained her impatience with a smooth white

hand. 'Business-hours, I apprehend, are over for the day?' 'Yes, yes,

yes,' cried Affery. 'Long ago.'

'Let me make, then, a fair proposal. Fairness is a part of my character.

I am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see.'

He showed her that his cloak was very wet, and that his boots

were saturated with water; she had previously observed that he was

dishevelled and sallow, as if from a rough voyage, and so chilled that

he could not keep his teeth from chattering. 'I am just landed from the

packet-boat, madam, and have been delayed by the weather: the infernal

weather! In consequence of this, madam, some necessary business that

I should otherwise have transacted here within the regular hours

(necessary business because money-business), still remains to be done.

Now, if you will fetch any authorised neighbouring somebody to do it in

return for my opening the door, I'll open the door. If this arrangement

should be objectionable, I'll--' and with the same smile he made a

significant feint of backing away.

Mistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise, gave

in her willing adhesion to it. The gentleman at once requested her to

do him the favour of holding his cloak, took a short run at the narrow

window, made a leap at the sill, clung his way up the bricks, and in

a moment had his hand at the sash, raising it. His eyes looked so very

sinister, as he put his leg into the room and glanced round at Mistress

Affery, that she thought with a sudden coldness, if he were to go

straight up-stairs to murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent

him?

Happily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at the

house door. 'Now, my dear madam,' he said, as he took back his cloak and

threw it on, 'if you have the goodness to--what the Devil's that!'

The strangest of sounds. Evidently close at hand from the peculiar

shock it communicated to the air, yet subdued as if it were far off. A

tremble, a rumble, and a fall of some light dry matter.

'What the Devil is it?'

'I don't know what it is, but I've heard the like of it over and over

again,' said Affery, who had caught his arm. He could hardly be a very

brave man, even she thought in her dreamy start and fright, for his

trembling lips had turned colourless. After listening a few moments, he

made light of it.

'Bah! Nothing! Now, my dear madam, I think you spoke of some clever

personage. Will you be so good as to confront me with that genius?' He

held the door in his hand, as though he were quite ready to shut her out

again if she failed.

'Don't you say anything about the door and me, then,' whispered Affery.

'Not a word.'

'And don't you stir from here, or speak if she calls, while I run round

the corner.'

'Madam, I am a statue.'

Affery had so vivid a fear of his going stealthily up-stairs the moment

her back was turned, that after hurrying out of sight, she returned to

the gateway to peep at him. Seeing him still on the threshold, more out

of the house than in it, as if he had no love for darkness and no

desire to probe its mysteries, she flew into the next street, and sent a

message into the tavern to Mr Flintwinch, who came out directly. The

two returning together--the lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up

briskly behind, animated with the hope of shaking her before she could

get housed--saw the gentleman standing in the same place in the dark,

and heard the strong voice of Mrs Clennam calling from her room, 'Who is

it? What is it? Why does no one answer? Who is that, down there?'

CHAPTER 30. The Word of a Gentleman

When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the

twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back.

'Death of my soul!' he exclaimed. 'Why, how did you get here?'

Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger's

wonder in full. He gazed at him with blank astonishment; he looked over

his own shoulder, as expecting to see some one he had not been aware of

standing behind him; he gazed at the stranger again, speechlessly, at

a loss to know what he meant; he looked to his wife for explanation;

receiving none, he pounced upon her, and shook her with such heartiness

that he shook her cap off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim

raillery, as he did it, 'Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my

woman! This is some of your tricks! You have been dreaming again,

mistress. What's it about? Who is it? What does it mean! Speak out or be

choked! It's the only choice I'll give you.'

Supposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the moment,

her choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not a syllable

to this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging violently backwards

and forwards, resigned herself to her punishment. The stranger, however,

picking up her cap with an air of gallantry, interposed.

'Permit me,' said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah, who

stopped and released his victim. 'Thank you. Excuse me. Husband and

wife I know, from this playfulness. Haha! Always agreeable to see that

relation playfully maintained. Listen! May I suggest that somebody

up-stairs, in the dark, is becoming energetically curious to know what

is going on here?'

This reference to Mrs Clennam's voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to step

into the hall and call up the staircase. 'It's all right, I am here,

Affery is coming with your light.' Then he said to the latter

flustered woman, who was putting her cap on, 'Get out with you, and get

up-stairs!' and then turned to the stranger and said to him, 'Now, sir,

what might you please to want?'

'I am afraid,' said the stranger, 'I must be so troublesome as to

propose a candle.'

'True,' assented Jeremiah. 'I was going to do so. Please to stand where

you are while I get one.'

The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into the

gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his

eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box.

When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match

after match that he struck into it lighted sufficiently to throw a dull

glare about his groping face, and to sprinkle his hands with pale little

spots of fire, but not sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger,

taking advantage of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked

intently and wonderingly at him. Jeremiah, when he at last lighted

the candle, knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of

a lowering watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the

doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression.

'Be so good,' said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a pretty

sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, 'as to step into my

counting-house.--It's all right, I tell you!' petulantly breaking off to

answer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied, though Affery was there,

speaking in persuasive tones. 'Don't I tell you it's all right? Preserve

the woman, has she no reason at all in her!'

'Timorous,' remarked the stranger.

'Timorous?' said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went

before with the candle. 'More courageous than ninety men in a hundred,

sir, let me tell you.'

'Though an invalid?'

'Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name left

in the House now. My partner.' Saying something apologetically as he

crossed the hall, to the effect that at that time of night they were

not in the habit of receiving any one, and were always shut up,

Mr Flintwinch led the way into his own office, which presented a

sufficiently business-like appearance. Here he put the light on his

desk, and said to the stranger, with his wryest twist upon him, 'Your

commands.'

'MY name is Blandois.'

'Blandois. I don't know it,' said Jeremiah.

'I thought it possible,' resumed the other, 'that you might have been

advised from Paris--'

'We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of

Blandois,' said Jeremiah.

'No?'

'No.'

Jeremiah stood in his favourite attitude. The smiling Mr Blandois,

opening his cloak to get his hand to a breast-pocket, paused to say,

with a laugh in his glittering eyes, which it occurred to Mr Flintwinch

were too near together: