The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls of Rome, when Mr Dorrit’s carriage, still on its last wearisome stage, rattled over the solitary Campagna. The savage herdsmen and the fierce-looking peasants who had chequered the way while the light lasted, had all gone down with the sun, and left the wilderness blank. At some turns of the road, a pale flare on the horizon, like an exhalation from the ruin-sown land, showed that the city was yet far off; but this poor relief was rare and short-lived. The carriage dipped down again into a hollow of the black dry sea, and for a long time there was nothing visible save its petrified swell and the gloomy sky. Mr Dorrit, though he had his castle-building to engage his mind, could not be quite easy in that desolate place. He was far more curious, in every swerve of the carriage, and every cry of the postilions, than he had been since he quitted London. The valet on the box evidently quaked. The Courier in the rumble was not altogether comfortable in his mind. As often as Mr Dorrit let down the glass and looked back at him (which was very often), he saw him smoking John Chivery out, it is true, but still generally standing up the while and looking about him, like a man who had his suspicions, and kept upon his guard. Then would Mr Dorrit, pulling up the glass again, reflect that those postilions were cut-throat looking fellows, and that he would have done better to have slept at Civita Vecchia, and have started betimes in the morning. But, for all this, he worked at his castle in the intervals.
And now, fragments of ruinous enclosure, yawning window-gap and crazy wall, deserted houses, leaking wells, broken water-tanks, spectral cypress-trees, patches of tangled vine, and the changing of the track to a long, irregular, disordered lane where everything was crumbling away, from the unsightly buildings to the jolting road—now, these objects showed that they were nearing Rome. And now, a sudden twist and stoppage of the carriage inspired Mr Dorrit with the mistrust that the brigand moment was come for twisting him into a ditch and robbing him; until, letting down the glass again and looking out, he perceived himself assailed by nothing worse than a funeral procession, which came mechanically chaunting by, with an indistinct show of dirty vestments, lurid torches, swinging censers, and a great cross borne before a priest. He was an ugly priest by torchlight; of a lowering aspect, with an overhanging brow; and as his eyes met those of Mr Dorrit, looking bareheaded out of the carriage, his lips, moving as they chaunted, seemed to threaten that important traveller; likewise the action of his hand, which was in fact his manner of returning the traveller’s salutation, seemed to come in aid of that menace. So thought Mr Dorrit, made fanciful by the weariness of building and travelling, as the priest drifted past him, and the procession straggled away, taking its dead along with it. Upon their so-different way went Mr Dorrit’s company too; and soon, with their coach load of luxuries from the two great capitals of Europe, they were (like the Goths reversed) beating at the gates of Rome.
Mr Dorrit was not expected by his own people that night. He had been; but they had given him up until to-morrow, not doubting that it was later than he would care, in those parts, to be out. Thus, when his equipage stopped at his own gate, no one but the porter appeared to receive him. Was Miss Dorrit from home? he asked. No. She was within. Good, said Mr Dorrit to the assembling servants; let them keep where they were; let them help to unload the carriage; he would find Miss Dorrit for himself.
So he went up his grand staircase, slowly, and tired, and looked into various chambers which were empty, until he saw a light in a small ante-room. It was a curtained nook, like a tent, within two other rooms; and it looked warm and bright in colour, as he approached it through the dark avenue they made.
There was a draped doorway, but no door; and as he stopped here, looking in unseen, he felt a pang. Surely not like jealousy? For why like jealousy? There was only his daughter and his brother there: he, with his chair drawn to the hearth, enjoying the warmth of the evening wood fire; she seated at a little table, busied with some embroidery work. Allowing for the great difference in the still-life of the picture, the figures were much the same as of old; his brother being sufficiently like himself to represent himself, for a moment, in the composition. So had he sat many a night, over a coal fire far away; so had she sat, devoted to him. Yet surely there was nothing to be jealous of in the old miserable poverty. Whence, then, the pang in his heart?
‘Do you know, uncle, I think you are growing young again?’
Her uncle shook his head and said, ‘Since when, my dear; since when?’
‘I think,’ returned Little Dorrit, plying her needle, ‘that you have been growing younger for weeks past. So cheerful, uncle, and so ready, and so interested.’
‘My dear child—all you.’
‘All me, uncle!’
‘Yes, yes. You have done me a world of good. You have been so considerate of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying to hide your attentions from me, that I—well, well, well! It’s treasured up, my darling, treasured up.’
‘There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle,’ said Little Dorrit, cheerfully.
‘Well, well, well!’ murmured the old man. ‘Thank God!’
She paused for an instant in her work to look at him, and her look revived that former pain in her father’s breast; in his poor weak breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, the little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which the morning without a night only can clear away.
‘I have been freer with you, you see, my dove,’ said the old man, ‘since we have been alone. I say, alone, for I don’t count Mrs General; I don’t care for her; she has nothing to do with me. But I know Fanny was impatient of me. And I don’t wonder at it, or complain of it, for I am sensible that I must be in the way, though I try to keep out of it as well as I can. I know I am not fit company for our company. My brother William,’ said the old man admiringly, ‘is fit company for monarchs; but not so your uncle, my dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William Dorrit, and he knows it quite well. Ah! Why, here’s your father, Amy! My dear William, welcome back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see you!’
(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in the doorway.)
Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her father’s neck, and kissed him again and again. Her father was a little impatient, and a little querulous. ‘I am glad to find you at last, Amy,’ he said. ‘Ha. Really I am glad to find—hum—any one to receive me at last. I appear to have been—ha—so little expected, that upon my word I began—ha hum—to think it might be right to offer an apology for—ha—taking the liberty of coming back at all.’
‘It was so late, my dear William,’ said his brother, ‘that we had given you up for to-night.’
‘I am stronger than you, dear Frederick,’ returned his brother with an elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; ‘and I hope I can travel without detriment at—ha—any hour I choose.’
‘Surely, surely,’ returned the other, with a misgiving that he had given offence. ‘Surely, William.’
‘Thank you, Amy,’ pursued Mr Dorrit, as she helped him to put off his wrappers. ‘I can do it without assistance. I—ha—need not trouble you, Amy. Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of wine, or—hum—would it cause too much inconvenience?’
‘Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes.’
‘Thank you, my love,’ said Mr Dorrit, with a reproachful frost upon him; ‘I—ha—am afraid I am causing inconvenience. Hum. Mrs General pretty well?’
‘Mrs General complained of a headache, and of being fatigued; and so, when we gave you up, she went to bed, dear.’
Perhaps Mr Dorrit thought that Mrs General had done well in being overcome by the disappointment of his not arriving. At any rate, his face relaxed, and he said with obvious satisfaction, ‘Extremely sorry to hear that Mrs General is not well.’
During this short dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him, with something more than her usual interest. It would seem as though he had a changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he perceived and resented it; for he said with renewed peevishness, when he had divested himself of his travelling-cloak, and had come to the fire:
‘Amy, what are you looking at? What do you see in me that causes you to—ha—concentrate your solicitude on me in that—hum—very particular manner?’
‘I did not know it, father; I beg your pardon. It gladdens my eyes to see you again; that’s all.’
‘Don’t say that’s all, because—ha—that’s not all. You—hum—you think,’ said Mr Dorrit, with an accusatory emphasis, ‘that I am not looking well.’
‘I thought you looked a little tired, love.’
‘Then you are mistaken,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Ha, I am not tired. Ha, hum. I am very much fresher than I was when I went away.’
He was so inclined to be angry that she said nothing more in her justification, but remained quietly beside him embracing his arm. As he stood thus, with his brother on the other side, he fell into a heavy doze, of not a minute’s duration, and awoke with a start.
‘Frederick,’ he said, turning to his brother: ‘I recommend you to go to bed immediately.’
‘No, William. I’ll wait and see you sup.’
‘Frederick,’ he retorted, ‘I beg you to go to bed. I—ha—make it a personal request that you go to bed. You ought to have been in bed long ago. You are very feeble.’
‘Hah!’ said the old man, who had no wish but to please him. ‘Well, well, well! I dare say I am.’
‘My dear Frederick,’ returned Mr Dorrit, with an astonishing superiority to his brother’s failing powers, ‘there can be no doubt of it. It is painful to me to see you so weak. Ha. It distresses me. Hum. I don’t find you looking at all well. You are not fit for this sort of thing. You should be more careful, you should be very careful.’
‘Shall I go to bed?’ asked Frederick.
‘Dear Frederick,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘do, I adjure you! Good night, brother. I hope you will be stronger to-morrow. I am not at all pleased with your looks. Good night, dear fellow.’ After dismissing his brother in this gracious way, he fell into a doze again before the old man was well out of the room: and he would have stumbled forward upon the logs, but for his daughter’s restraining hold.
‘Your uncle wanders very much, Amy,’ he said, when he was thus roused. ‘He is less—ha—coherent, and his conversation is more—hum—broken, than I have—ha, hum—ever known. Has he had any illness since I have been gone?’
‘No, father.’
‘You—ha—see a great change in him, Amy?’
‘I have not observed it, dear.’
‘Greatly broken,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘Greatly broken. My poor, affectionate, failing Frederick! Ha. Even taking into account what he was before, he is—hum—sadly broken!’
His supper, which was brought to him there, and spread upon the little table where he had seen her working, diverted his attention. She sat at his side as in the days that were gone, for the first time since those days ended. They were alone, and she helped him to his meat and poured out his drink for him, as she had been used to do in the prison. All this happened now, for the first time since their accession to wealth. She was afraid to look at him much, after the offence he had taken; but she noticed two occasions in the course of his meal, when he all of a sudden looked at her, and looked about him, as if the association were so strong that he needed assurance from his sense of sight that they were not in the old prison-room. Both times, he put his hand to his head as if he missed his old black cap—though it had been ignominiously given away in the Marshalsea, and had never got free to that hour, but still hovered about the yards on the head of his successor.
He took very little supper, but was a long time over it, and often reverted to his brother’s declining state. Though he expressed the greatest pity for him, he was almost bitter upon him. He said that poor Frederick—ha hum—drivelled. There was no other word to express it; drivelled. Poor fellow! It was melancholy to reflect what Amy must have undergone from the excessive tediousness of his Society—wandering and babbling on, poor dear estimable creature, wandering and babbling on—if it had not been for the relief she had had in Mrs General. Extremely sorry, he then repeated with his former satisfaction, that that—ha—superior woman was poorly.
Little Dorrit, in her watchful love, would have remembered the lightest thing he said or did that night, though she had had no subsequent reason to recall that night. She always remembered that, when he looked about him under the strong influence of the old association, he tried to keep it out of her mind, and perhaps out of his own too, by immediately expatiating on the great riches and great company that had encompassed him in his absence, and on the lofty position he and his family had to sustain. Nor did she fail to recall that there were two under-currents, side by side, pervading all his discourse and all his manner; one showing her how well he had got on without her, and how independent he was of her; the other, in a fitful and unintelligible way almost complaining of her, as if it had been possible that she had neglected him while he was away.
His telling her of the glorious state that Mr Merdle kept, and of the court that bowed before him, naturally brought him to Mrs Merdle. So naturally indeed, that although there was an unusual want of sequence in the greater part of his remarks, he passed to her at once, and asked how she was.
‘She is very well. She is going away next week.’
‘Home?’ asked Mr Dorrit.
‘After a few weeks’ stay upon the road.’
‘She will be a vast loss here,’ said Mr Dorrit. ‘A vast—ha—acquisition at home. To Fanny, and to—hum—the rest of the—ha—great world.’
Little Dorrit thought of the competition that was to be entered upon, and assented very softly.
‘Mrs Merdle is going to have a great farewell Assembly, dear, and a dinner before it. She has been expressing her anxiety that you should return in time. She has invited both you and me to her dinner.’
‘She is—ha—very kind. When is the day?’
‘The day after to-morrow.’
‘Write round in the morning, and say that I have returned, and shall—hum—be delighted.’
‘May I walk with you up the stairs to your room, dear?’
‘No!’ he answered, looking angrily round; for he was moving away, as if forgetful of leave-taking. ‘You may not, Amy. I want no help. I am your father, not your infirm uncle!’ He checked himself, as abruptly as he had broken into this reply, and said, ‘You have not kissed me, Amy. Good night, my dear! We must marry—ha—we must marry you, now.’ With that he went, more slowly and more tired, up the staircase to his rooms, and, almost as soon as he got there, dismissed his valet. His next care was to look about him for his Paris purchases, and, after opening their cases and carefully surveying them, to put them away under lock and key. After that, what with dozing and what with castle-building, he lost himself for a long time, so that there was a touch of morning on the eastward rim of the desolate Campagna when he crept to bed.
Mrs General sent up her compliments in good time next day, and hoped he had rested well after this fatiguing journey. He sent down his compliments, and begged to inform Mrs General that he had rested very well indeed, and was in high condition. Nevertheless, he did not come forth from his own rooms until late in the afternoon; and, although he then caused himself to be magnificently arrayed for a drive with Mrs General and his daughter, his appearance was scarcely up to his description of himself.
As the family had no visitors that day, its four members dined alone together. He conducted Mrs General to the seat at his right hand with immense ceremony; and Little Dorrit could not but notice as she followed with her uncle, both that he was again elaborately dressed, and that his manner towards Mrs General was very particular. The perfect formation of that accomplished lady’s surface rendered it difficult to displace an atom of its genteel glaze, but Little Dorrit thought she descried a slight thaw of triumph in a corner of her frosty eye.
Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the Pruney and Prismatic nature of the family banquet, Mr Dorrit several times fell asleep while it was in progress. His fits of dozing were as sudden as they had been overnight, and were as short and profound. When the first of these slumberings seized him, Mrs General looked almost amazed: but, on each recurrence of the symptoms, she told her polite beads, Papa, Potatoes, Poultry, Prunes, and Prism; and, by dint of going through that infallible performance very slowly, appeared to finish her rosary at about the same time as Mr Dorrit started from his sleep.
He was again painfully aware of a somnolent tendency in Frederick (which had no existence out of his own imagination), and after dinner, when Frederick had withdrawn, privately apologised to Mrs General for the poor man. ‘The most estimable and affectionate of brothers,’ he said, ‘but—ha, hum—broken up altogether. Unhappily, declining fast.’
‘Mr Frederick, sir,’ quoth Mrs General, ‘is habitually absent and drooping, but let us hope it is not so bad as that.’
Mr Dorrit, however, was determined not to let him off. ‘Fast declining, madam. A wreck............