Chapter 28: Nobody's Disappearance

Little Dorrit

by Charles Dickens

Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover
his lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance,
breathing nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade
too. No answer coming to these epistles, or to another written to
the stubborn girl by the hand of her late young mistress, which might
have melted her if anything could (all three letters were returned
weeks afterwards as having been refused at the house- door), he
deputed Mrs Meagles to make the experiment of a personal interview.
That worthy lady being unable to obtain one, and being steadfastly
denied admission, Mr Meagles besought Arthur to essay once more what
he could do. All that came of his compliance was, his discovery that
the empty house was left in charge of the old woman, that Miss Wade
was gone, that the waifs and strays of furniture were gone, and that
the old woman would accept any number of half-crowns and thank the
donor kindly, but had no information whatever to exchange for those
coins, beyond constantly offering for perusal a memorandum relative
to fixtures, which the house- agent's young man had left in the
hall.

Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate
and leave her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining
the mastery over the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for
six successive days, published a discreetly covert advertisement in
the morning papers, to the effect that if a certain young person who
had lately left home without reflection, would at any time apply to
his address at Twickenham, everything would be as it had been before,
and no reproaches need be apprehended. The unexpected consequences
of this notification suggested to the dismayed Mr Meagles for the
first time that some hundreds of young persons must be leaving their
homes without reflection every day; for shoals of wrong young people
came down to Twickenham, who, not finding themselves received with
enthusiasm, generally demanded compensation by way of damages, in
addition to coach-hire there and back. Nor were these the only
uninvited clients whom the advertisement produced. The swarm of
begging-letter writers, who would seem to be always watching eagerly
for any hook, however small, to hang a letter upon, wrote to say that
having seen the advertisement, they were induced to apply with
confidence for various sums, ranging from ten shillings to fifty
pounds: not because they knew anything about the young person, but
because they felt that to part with those donations would greatly
relieve the advertiser's mind. Several projectors, likewise, availed
themselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles; as,
for example, to apprise him that their attention having been called
to the advertisement by a friend, they begged to state that if they
should ever hear anything of the young person, they would not fail to
make it known to him immediately, and that in the meantime if he
would oblige them with the funds necessary for bringing to perfection
a certain entirely novel description of Pump, the happiest results
would ensue to mankind.

Mr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements,
had begun reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when
the new and active firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private
capacities, went down on a Saturday to stay at the cottage until
Monday. The senior partner took the coach, and the junior partner
took his walking-stick.

A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end
of his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He
had that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care,
which country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns.
Everything within his view was lovely and placid. The rich foliage
of the trees, the luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers, the
little green islands in the river, the beds of rushes, the
water-lilies floating on the surface of the stream, the distant
voices in boats borne musically towards him on the ripple of the
water and the evening air, were all expressive of rest. In the
occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar, or twittering of a bird
not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog, or lowing of a cow--in
all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath of rest, which
seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened the fragrant
air. The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the glorious
track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm. Upon the purple
tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand up which the
shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush. Between the
real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was no division;
both were so untroubled and clear, and, while so fraught with solemn
mystery of life and death, so hopefully reassuring to the gazer's
soothed heart, because so tenderly and mercifully beautiful.

Clennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times, to
look about him and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the
shadows, looked at, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the water.
He was slowly resuming his way, when he saw a figure in the path
before him which he had, perhaps, already associated with the evening
and its impressions.

Minnie was there, alone. She had some roses in her hand, and
seemed to have stood still on seeing him, waiting for him. Her face
was towards him, and she appeared to have been coming from the
opposite direction. There was a flutter in her manner, which Clennam
had never seen in it before; and as he came near her, it entered his
mind all at once that she was there of a set purpose to speak to
him.

She gave him her hand, and said, 'You wonder to see me here by
myself? But the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than I
meant at first. I thought it likely I might meet you, and that made
me more confident. You always come this way, do you not?'

As Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand
falter on his arm, and saw the roses shake.

'Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam? I gathered them as I
came out of the garden. Indeed, I almost gathered them for you,
thinking it so likely I might meet you. Mr Doyce arrived more than
an hour ago, and told us you were walking down.'

His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and
thanked her. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they
turned into it on his movement or on hers matters little. He never
knew how that was.

'It is very grave here,' said Clennam, 'but very pleasant at
this hour. Passing along this deep shade, and out at that arch of
light at the other end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the
best approach, I think.' In her simple garden-hat and her light
summer dress, with her rich brown hair naturally clustering about
her, and her wonderful eyes raised to his for a moment with a look in
which regard for him and trustfulness in him were strikingly blended
with a kind of timid sorrow for him, she was so beautiful that it was
well for his peace--or ill for his peace, he did not quite know
which--that he had made that vigorous resolution he had so often
thought about.

She broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa
had been thinking of another tour abroad? He said he had heard it
mentioned. She broke another momentary silence by adding, with some
hesitation, that papa had abandoned the idea.

At this, he thought directly, 'they are to be married.'

'Mr Clennam,' she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and
speaking so low that he bent his head to hear her. 'I should very
much like to give you my confidence, if you would not mind having the
goodness to receive it. I should have very much liked to have given
it to you long ago, because--I felt that you were becoming so much
our friend.'

'How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time! Pray give
it to me. Pray trust me.'

'I could never have been afraid of trusting you,' she returned,
raising her eyes frankly to his face. 'I think I would have done so
some time ago, if I had known how. But I scarcely know how, even
now.'

'Mr Gowan,' said Arthur Clennam, 'has reason to be very happy.
God bless his wife and him!'

She wept, as she tried to thank him. He reassured her, took her
hand as it lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the
remaining roses from it, and put it to his lips. At that time, it
seemed to him, he first finally resigned the dying hope that had
flickered in nobody's heart so much to its pain and trouble; and from
that time he became in his own eyes, as to any similar hope or
prospect, a very much older man who had done with that part of
life.

He put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little
while, slowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees. Then he
asked her, in a voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else
that she would say to him as her friend and her father's friend, many
years older than herself; was there any trust she would repose in
him, any service she would ask of him, any little aid to her
happiness that she could give him the lasting gratification of
believing it was in his power to render?

She was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little
hidden sorrow or sympathy--what could it have been?--that she said,
bursting into tears again: 'O Mr Clennam! Good, generous, Mr
Clennam, pray tell me you do not blame me.'

'I blame you?' said Clennam. 'My dearest girl! I blame you?
No!'

After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking
confidentially up into his face, with some hurried words to the
effect that she thanked him from her heart (as she did, if it be the
source of earnestness), she gradually composed herself, with now and
then a word of encouragement from him, as they walked on slowly and
almost silently under the darkening trees.

'And, now, Minnie Gowan,' at length said Clennam, smiling; 'will
you ask me nothing?'

'Oh! I have very much to ask of you.'

'That's well! I hope so; I am not disappointed.'

'You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can
hardly think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,' she spoke with great
agitation, 'seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice,
but I do so dearly love it!'

'I am sure of that,' said Clennam. 'Can you suppose I doubt
it?'

'No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much
and being so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It
seems so neglectful of it, so unthankful.'

'My dear girl,' said Clennam, 'it is in the natural progress and
change of time. All homes are left so.'

'Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in
them as there will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any
scarcity of far better and more endearing and more accomplished girls
than I am; not that I am much, but that they have made so much of
me!'

Pet's affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while
she pictured what would happen.

'I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that
at first I cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many
years. And it is then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time, that
I beg and entreat you to remember him, and sometimes to keep him
company when you can spare a little while; and to tell him that you
know I was fonder of him when I left him, than I ever was in all my
life. For there is nobody--he told me so himself when he talked to
me this very day--there is nobody he likes so well as you, or trusts
so much.'

A clue to what had passed between the father and daughter
dropped like a heavy stone into the well of Clennam's heart, and
swelled the water to his eyes. He said, cheerily, but not quite so
cheerily as he tried to say, that it should be done--that he gave her
his faithful promise.

'If I do not speak of mama,' said Pet, more moved by, and more
pretty in, her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself even
to consider--for which reason he counted the trees between them and
the fading light as they slowly diminished in number--'it is because
mama will understand me better in this action, and will feel my loss
in a different way, and will look forward in a different manner. But
you know what a dear, devoted mother she is, and you will remember
her too; will you not?'

Let Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do
all she wished.

'And, dear Mr Clennam,' said Minnie, 'because papa and one whom
I need not name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another
yet, as they will by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and the
pride, and pleasure of my new life, to draw them to a better
knowledge of one another, and to be a happiness to one another, and
to be proud of one another, and to love one another, both loving me
so dearly; oh, as you are a kind, true man! when I am first
separated from home (I am going a long distance away), try to
reconcile papa to him a little more, and use your great influence to
keep him before papa's mind free from prejudice and in his real form.
Will you do this for me, as you are a noble-hearted friend?'

Poor Pet! Self-deceived, mistaken child! When were such
changes ever made in men's natural relations to one another: when was
such reconcilement of ingrain differences ever effected! It has been
tried many times by other daughters, Minnie; it has never succeeded;
nothing has ever come of it but failure.

So Clennam thought. So he did not say; it was too late. He
bound himself to do all she asked, and she knew full well that he
would do it.

They were now at the last tree in the avenue. She stopped, and
withdrew her arm. Speaking to him with her eyes lifted up to his,
and with the hand that had lately rested on his sleeve trembling by
touching one of the roses in his breast as an additional appeal to
him, she said:

'Dear Mr Clennam, in my happiness--for I am happy, though you
have seen me crying--I cannot bear to leave any cloud between us. If
you have anything to forgive me (not anything that I have wilfully
done, but any trouble I may have caused you without meaning it, or
having it in my power to help it), forgive me to-night out of your
noble heart!'

He stooped to meet the guileless face that met his without
shrinking. He kissed it, and answered, Heaven knew that he had
nothing to forgive. As he stooped to meet the innocent face once
again, she whispered, 'Good-bye!' and he repeated it. It was taking
leave of all his old hopes--all nobody's old restless doubts. They
came out of the avenue next moment, arm-in-arm as they had entered
it: and the trees seemed to close up behind them in the darkness,
like their own perspective of the past.

The voices of Mr and Mrs Meagles and Doyce were audible
directly, speaking near the garden gate. Hearing Pet's name among
them, Clennam called out, 'She is here, with me.' There was some
little wondering and laughing until they came up; but as soon as they
had all come together, it ceased, and Pet glided away.

Mr Meagles, Doyce, and Clennam, without speaking, walked up and
down on the brink of the river, in the light of the rising moon, for
a few minutes; and then Doyce lingered behind, and went into the
house. Mr Meagles and Clennam walked up and down together for a few
minutes more without speaking, until at length the former broke
silence.

'Arthur,' said he, using that familiar address for the first
time in their communication, 'do you remember my telling you, as we
walked up and down one hot morning, looking over the harbour at
Marseilles, that Pet's baby sister who was dead seemed to Mother and
me to have grown as she had grown, and changed as she had
changed?'

'Very well.'

'You remember my saying that our thoughts had never been able to
separate those twin sisters, and that, in our fancy, whatever Pet
was, the other was?'

'Yes, very well.'

'Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, much subdued, 'I carry that fancy
further to-night. I feel to-night, my dear fellow, as if you had
loved my dead child very tenderly, and had lost her when she was like
what Pet is now.'

'Thank you!' murmured Clennam, 'thank you!' And pressed his
hand.

'Will you come in?' said Mr Meagles, presently.

'In a little while.'

Mr Meagles fell away, and he was left alone. When he had walked
on the river's brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour,
he put his hand in his breast and tenderly took out the handful of
roses. Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his
lips, but certainly he bent down on the shore and gently launched
them on the flowing river. Pale and unreal in the moonlight, the
river floated them away. The lights were bright within doors when he
entered, and the faces on which they shone, his own face not
excepted, were soon quietly cheerful. They talked of many subjects
(his partner never had had such a ready store to draw upon for the
beguiling of the time), and so to bed, and to sleep. While the
flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away upon the
river; and thus do greater things that once were in our breasts, and
near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas.