Tales from Dickens

by Hallie Erminie Rives; Charles Dickens

She even had a would-be lover, too. The son of one of the turnkeys, a young man with weak legs and weak, light hair, soft-hearted and soft-headed, had long pursued her in vain. He was now engaged in seeking comfort for his hopeless love by composing epitaphs for his own tombstone, such as:

Here Lie the Mortal Remains of
JOHN CHIVERY
Never Anything Worth Mentioning
Who Died of a Broken Heart, Requesting With
His Last Breath that the Word
AMY
Might be Inscribed Over His Ashes
Which Was Done by His Afflicted Parents

Old Mr. Dorrit held his position among the Marshalsea prisoners with great fancied dignity and received all visitors and new-comers in his room like a man of society at home. During that evening Arthur called on him and treated the old man so courteously and talked to Little Dorrit with such kindness that she began to love him from that moment.

Many things of Little Dorrit's pathetic story Arthur learned that night. His first surprise at finding her in the Clennam house mingled strangely with his old thought that his father on his death-bed seemed to be troubled by some remorseful memory; and as he slept in the gloomy prison he dreamed that the little seamstress was in some mysterious way mingled with this wrong and remorse.

There was more truth than fancy in this dream. Not knowing the true history of his parentage, and wholly ignorant of the sad life and death of the poor singer, his own unhappy mother, Arthur had never heard the name Dorrit. He did not know, to be sure, that it was the name of the wealthy patron who had once educated her. As a matter of fact, this patron had been Little Dorrit's own uncle, who now was living in poverty. It was to his youngest niece that the will Mrs. Clennam had wickedly hidden declared the money should go. And as Little Dorrit was this niece, it rightfully belonged to her. The real reason of Mrs. Clennam's apparent kindness to Little Dorrit was the pricking of her conscience, which gave her no rest.

But all this Arthur could not guess. Nevertheless, he had gained such an interest in the little seamstress that next day he determined to find out all he could about her father's unfortunate affairs.

He had great difficulty in this. The Government had taken charge of old Mr. Dorrit's debts, and his affairs were in the hands of a department which some people sneeringly called the "Circumlocution Office"—because it took so much time and talk for it to accomplish anything. This department had a great many clerks, every one of whom seemed to have nothing to do but to keep people from troubling them by finding out anything.

Arthur went to one clerk, who sent him to a Mr. Tite Barnacle, a fat, pompous man with a big collar, a big watch chain and stiff boots. Mr. Barnacle treated him quite as an outsider and would give him no information whatever. Then he tried another department, where they said they knew nothing of the matter. Still a third advised him not to bother about it. So at last he had to give up, quite discouraged.

Though he could do nothing for Little Dorrit's father, Arthur did what he could for her lazy brother. He paid his debts so that he was released from the Marshalsea, and this kindness, though Tip himself was ungrateful to the last degree, endeared him still more to Little Dorrit, who needed his friendship so greatly.

The night her brother was released she came to Arthur to thank him—alone save for a half-witted woman named Maggie, who believed she herself was only ten years old, and called Little Dorrit "Little Mother," and who used to go with her when she went through the streets at night. Little Dorrit was dressed so thinly and looked so slight and helpless that when she left, Arthur felt as if he would like to take her up in his arms and carry her home again.