Tales from Dickens

by Hallie Erminie Rives; Charles Dickens

Poor little Dorrit! She was far lonelier now than she had ever been before in the debtors' prison—lonelier and unhappier than Arthur Clennam in London could have guessed. The gay, fashionable life of her brother and sister did not attract her. She was timid of joining in their gaieties. She asked leave only to be left alone, and went about the city in a gondola in a quiet, scared, lost manner. It often seemed to her as if the Marshalsea must be just behind the next big building, or Mrs. Clennam's house, where she had first met Arthur, just around the next corner. And she used to look into gondolas as they passed, as if she might see Arthur any minute.

In the days of their prison-poverty Fanny had occasionally earned some money by dancing at a theater. There she had met a silly, chuckle-headed young man, the son of a Mrs. Merdle, and he had been fascinated by her beauty. Now, in their wealth, he saw Fanny again and fell even more deeply in love with her. Mrs. Merdle was a cold-hearted, artificial woman, who kept a parrot that was always shrieking, and who thought of nothing but riches and society. She would have refused to let her son marry Fanny in the old days, but now it was another matter. He proposed, and Fanny, who had been made angry a thousand times by Mrs. Merdle's insolence and patronizing ways, made up her mind to marry him if only to take her revenge on his mother.

Mrs. Merdle's husband always stayed in London. He was immensely rich—so rich that people said everything he touched turned into gold. He was a quiet, dull man, with dull red cheeks, and cared nothing at all for society, though everybody flattered and courted him.

When old Mr. Dorrit saw Mrs. Merdle's son was in love with Fanny he was greatly pleased. He had by this time grown so selfish that he considered much less her happiness than his own profit, and he thought if they were married he could persuade Mr. Merdle to invest his own great fortune for him, so that he would be even richer than he was now. Mr. Merdle's name had been growing bigger and bigger every day. Nobody believed the great man could make a mistake, but that he was going to keep on getting richer and richer (though nobody knew how he did it) as long as he lived.

So, before long, Fanny married Mrs. Merdle's son, and went back to London to take up life in the magnificent Merdle mansion with her silly, chuckle-headed husband. Mr. Merdle had got a very rich position for him in the "Circumlocution Office" with which Arthur Clennam had had so much trouble once on a time.

Old Mr. Dorrit went to London, too, and, as he had schemed, gave the famous Mr. Merdle all his fortune to invest. Then he returned to Italy, where, in Rome, his faithful and lonely Little Dorrit waited lovingly for him.

On the night after he reached Rome Mrs. Merdle gave a dinner party to a large company, and Little Dorrit and her father attended.

In the midst of the dinner he suddenly called to her across the table. His voice was so loud and excited that all the guests were frightened and rose to their feet. Little Dorrit ran to him and put her arms about him, for she saw at once that he was not himself.

He began to address the company, and his first words showed that his mind had failed. He imagined he was still in the debtors' prison and that all the rich people about him were the other poor prisoners. He made them a speech, welcoming them to its walls, thanking them in advance for any money they might give to him as "The Father of the Marshalsea." And he ended by calling for the old turnkey he had known there to help him up the narrow stair to bed, as he had been used to do in the prison.

Little Dorrit was not ashamed—she loved him too much for that. Her only wish was to soothe him, and with a pale, frightened face, she begged him to come with her.