Chapter 14: Taking Advice

Little Dorrit

by Charles Dickens

When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow
Tiber that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one of
the Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of
news with which they had no nearer concern than with any other piece
of news--any other Accident or Offence--in the English papers. Some
laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that the post was
virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his name was good
enough for it; some, and these the more solemn political oracles,
said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen himself, and that the sole
constitutional purpose of all places within the gift of Decimus, was,
that Decimus should strengthen himself. A few bilious Britons there
were who would not subscribe to this article of faith; but their
objection was purely theoretical. In a practical point of view, they
listlessly abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other
Britons unknown, somewhere, or nowhere. In like manner, at home,
great numbers of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty
consecutive hours, that those invisible and anonymous Britons 'ought
to take it up;' and that if they quietly acquiesced in it, they
deserved it. But of what class the remiss Britons were composed, and
where the unlucky creatures hid themselves, and why they hid
themselves, and how it constantly happened that they neglected their
interests, when so many other Britons were quite at a loss to account
for their not looking after those interests, was not, either upon the
shore of the yellow Tiber or the shore of the black Thames, made
apparent to men.

Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations
on it, with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the
setting displays the jewel. Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the
place. Mr Merdle wished him to take it, and he had taken it. She
hoped Edmund might like it, but really she didn't know. It would
keep him in town a good deal, and he preferred the country. Still,
it was not a disagreeable position--and it was a position. There was
no denying that the thing was a compliment to Mr Merdle, and was not
a bad thing for Edmund if he liked it. It was just as well that he
should have something to do, and it was just as well that he should
have something for doing it. Whether it would be more agreeable to
Edmund than the army, remained to be seen.

Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make
things of small account, and really enhancing them in the process.
While Henry Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the
whole round of his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and
the town of Albano, vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his
eyes, that Sparkler was the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted,
altogether most lovable jackass that ever grazed on the public
common; and that only one circumstance could have delighted him
(Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass's) getting this post, and
that would have been his (Gowan's) getting it himself. He said it
was the very thing for Sparkler. There was nothing to do, and he
would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to draw, and he
would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate, capital
appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of himself,
in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great an affection
was so admirably stabled. Nor did his benevolence stop here. He
took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr Sparkler out, and
make him conspicuous before the company; and, although the
considerate action always resulted in that young gentleman's making a
dreary and forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly
intention was not to be doubted.

Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr
Sparkler's affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation
of being universally known in that light, and of not having dismissed
Mr Sparkler, however capriciously she used him. Hence, she was
sufficiently identified with the gentleman to feel compromised by his
being more than usually ridiculous; and hence, being by no means
deficient in quickness, she sometimes came to his rescue against
Gowan, and did him very good service. But, while doing this, she was
ashamed of him, undetermined whether to get rid of him or more
decidedly encourage him, distracted with apprehensions that she was
every day becoming more and more immeshed in her uncertainties, and
tortured by misgivings that Mrs Merdle triumphed in her distress.
With this tumult in her mind, it is no subject for surprise that Miss
Fanny came home one night in a state of agitation from a concert and
ball at Mrs Merdle's house, and on her sister affectionately trying
to soothe her, pushed that sister away from the toilette-table at
which she sat angrily trying to cry, and declared with a heaving
bosom that she detested everybody, and she wished she was dead.

'Dear Fanny, what is the matter? Tell me.'

'Matter, you little Mole,' said Fanny. 'If you were not the
blindest of the blind, you would have no occasion to ask me. The
idea of daring to pretend to assert that you have eyes in your head,
and yet ask me what's the matter!'

'Is it Mr Sparkler, dear?' 'Mis-ter Spark-ler!' repeated Fanny,
with unbounded scorn, as if he were the last subject in the Solar
system that could possibly be near her mind. 'No, Miss Bat, it is
not.'

Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful for having called
her sister names; declaring with sobs that she knew she made herself
hateful, but that everybody drove her to it.

'I don't think you are well to-night, dear Fanny.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' replied the young lady, turning angry
again; 'I am as well as you are. Perhaps I might say better, and yet
make no boast of it.'

Poor Little Dorrit, not seeing her way to the offering of any
soothing words that would escape repudiation, deemed it best to
remain quiet. At first, Fanny took this ill, too; protesting to her
looking-glass, that of all the trying sisters a girl could have, she
did think the most trying sister was a flat sister. That she knew
she was at times a wretched temper; that she knew she made herself
hateful; that when she made herself hateful, nothing would do her
half the good as being told so; but that, being afflicted with a flat
sister, she never was told so, and the consequence resulted that she
was absolutely tempted and goaded into making herself disagreeable.
Besides (she angrily told her looking- glass), she didn't want to be
forgiven. It was not a right example, that she should be constantly
stooping to be forgiven by a younger sister. And this was the Art of
it--that she was always being placed in the position of being
forgiven, whether she liked it or not. Finally she burst into
violent weeping, and, when her sister came and sat close at her side
to comfort her, said, 'Amy, you're an Angel!'

'But, I tell you what, my Pet,' said Fanny, when her sister's
gentleness had calmed her, 'it now comes to this; that things cannot
and shall not go on as they are at present going on, and that there
must be an end of this, one way or another.'

As the announcement was vague, though very peremptory, Little
Dorrit returned, 'Let us talk about it.'

'Quite so, my dear,' assented Fanny, as she dried her eyes.
'Let us talk about it. I am rational again now, and you shall advise
me. Will you advise me, my sweet child?'

Even Amy smiled at this notion, but she said, 'I will, Fanny, as
well as I can.'

'Thank you, dearest Amy,' returned Fanny, kissing her. 'You are
my anchor.'

Having embraced her Anchor with great affection, Fanny took a
bottle of sweet toilette water from the table, and called to her maid
for a fine handkerchief. She then dismissed that attendant for the
night, and went on to be advised; dabbing her eyes and forehead from
time to time to cool them.

'My love,' Fanny began, 'our characters and points of view are
sufficiently different (kiss me again, my darling), to make it very
probable that I shall surprise you by what I am going to say. What I
am going to say, my dear, is, that notwithstanding our property, we
labour, socially speaking, under disadvantages. You don't quite
understand what I mean, Amy?'

'I have no doubt I shall,' said Amy, mildly, 'after a few words
more.'

'Well, my dear, what I mean is, that we are, after all,
newcomers into fashionable life.'

'I am sure, Fanny,' Little Dorrit interposed in her zealous
admiration, 'no one need find that out in you.'

'Well, my dear child, perhaps not,' said Fanny, 'though it's
most kind and most affectionate in you, you precious girl, to say
so.' Here she dabbed her sister's forehead, and blew upon it a
little. 'But you are,' resumed Fanny, 'as is well known, the dearest
little thing that ever was! To resume, my child. Pa is extremely
gentlemanly and extremely well informed, but he is, in some trifling
respects, a little different from other gentlemen of his fortune:
partly on account of what he has gone through, poor dear: partly, I
fancy, on account of its often running in his mind that other people
are thinking about that, while he is talking to them. Uncle, my
love, is altogether unpresentable. Though a dear creature to whom I
am tenderly attached, he is, socially speaking, shocking. Edward is
frightfully expensive and dissipated. I don't mean that there is
anything ungenteel in that itself--far from it-- but I do mean that
he doesn't do it well, and that he doesn't, if I may so express
myself, get the money's-worth in the sort of dissipated reputation
that attaches to him.'

'Poor Edward!' sighed Little Dorrit, with the whole family
history in the sigh.

'Yes. And poor you and me, too,' returned Fanny, rather
sharply.

'Very true! Then, my dear, we have no mother, and we have a Mrs
General. And I tell you again, darling, that Mrs General, if I may
reverse a common proverb and adapt it to her, is a cat in gloves who
will catch mice. That woman, I am quite sure and confident, will be
our mother-in-law.'

'I can hardly think, Fanny-' Fanny stopped her.

'Now, don't argue with me about it, Amy,' said she, 'because I
know better.' Feeling that she had been sharp again, she dabbed her
sister's forehead again, and blew upon it again. 'To resume once
more, my dear. It then becomes a question with me (I am proud and
spirited, Amy, as you very well know: too much so, I dare say)
whether I shall make up my mind to take it upon myself to carry the
family through.' 'How?' asked her sister, anxiously.

'I will not,' said Fanny, without answering the question,
'submit to be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General; and I will not submit
to be, in any respect whatever, either patronised or tormented by Mrs
Merdle.'

Little Dorrit laid her hand upon the hand that held the bottle
of sweet water, with a still more anxious look. Fanny, quite
punishing her own forehead with the vehement dabs she now began to
give it, fitfully went on.

'That he has somehow or other, and how is of no consequence,
attained a very good position, no one can deny. That it is a very
good connection, no one can deny. And as to the question of clever
or not clever, I doubt very much whether a clever husband would be
suitable to me. I cannot submit. I should not be able to defer to
him enough.'

'O, my dear Fanny!' expostulated Little Dorrit, upon whom a kind
of terror had been stealing as she perceived what her sister meant.
'If you loved any one, all this feeling would change. If you loved
any one, you would no more be yourself, but you would quite lose and
forget yourself in your devotion to him. If you loved him, Fanny--'
Fanny had stopped the dabbing hand, and was looking at her
fixedly.

'O, indeed!' cried Fanny. 'Really? Bless me, how much some
people know of some subjects! They say every one has a subject, and
I certainly seem to have hit upon yours, Amy. There, you little
thing, I was only in fun,' dabbing her sister's forehead; 'but don't
you be a silly puss, and don't you think flightily and eloquently
about degenerate impossibilities. There! Now, I'll go back to
myself.'

'Dear Fanny, let me say first, that I would far rather we worked
for a scanty living again than I would see you rich and married to Mr
Sparkler.'

'Let you say, my dear?' retorted Fanny. 'Why, of course, I will
let you say anything. There is no constraint upon you, I hope. We
are together to talk it over. And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I have
not the slightest intention of doing so to-night, my dear, or
to-morrow morning either.'

'But at some time?'

'At no time, for anything I know at present,' answered Fanny,
with indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a
burning restlessness, she added, 'You talk about the clever men, you
little thing! It's all very fine and easy to talk about the clever
men; but where are they? I don't see them anywhere near me!'

'My dear Fanny, so short a time--'

'Short time or long time,' interrupted Fanny. 'I am impatient
of our situation. I don't like our situation, and very little would
induce me to change it. Other girls, differently reared and
differently circumstanced altogether, might wonder at what I say or
may do. Let them. They are driven by their lives and characters; I
am driven by mine.'

'Fanny, my dear Fanny, you know that you have qualities to make
you the wife of one very superior to Mr Sparkler.'

'Amy, my dear Amy,' retorted Fanny, parodying her words, 'I know
that I wish to have a more defined and distinct position, in which I
can assert myself with greater effect against that insolent
woman.'

'Would you therefore--forgive my asking, Fanny--therefore marry
her son?'

'Why, perhaps,' said Fanny, with a triumphant smile. 'There may
be many less promising ways of arriving at an end than that, my dear.
That piece of insolence may think, now, that it would be a great
success to get her son off upon me, and shelve me. But, perhaps, she
little thinks how I would retort upon her if I married her son.

I would oppose her in everything, and compete with her. I would
make it the business of my life.'

Fanny set down the bottle when she came to this, and walked
about the room; always stopping and standing still while she
spoke.

'One thing I could certainly do, my child: I could make her
older. And I would!'

This was followed by another walk.

'I would talk of her as an old woman. I would pretend to know
--if I didn't, but I should from her son--all about her age. And she
should hear me say, Amy: affectionately, quite dutifully and
affectionately: how well she looked, considering her time of life. I
could make her seem older at once, by being myself so much younger.
I may not be as handsome as she is; I am not a fair judge of that
question, I suppose; but I know I am handsome enough to be a thorn in
her side. And I would be!'

'My dear sister, would you condemn yourself to an unhappy life
for this?'

'It wouldn't be an unhappy life, Amy. It would be the life I am
fitted for. Whether by disposition, or whether by circumstances, is
no matter; I am better fitted for such a life than for almost any
other.'

There was something of a desolate tone in those words; but, with
a short proud laugh she took another walk, and after passing a great
looking-glass came to another stop.

'Figure! Figure, Amy! Well. The woman has a good figure. I
will give her her due, and not deny it. But is it so far beyond all
others that it is altogether unapproachable? Upon my word, I am not
so sure of it. Give some much younger woman the latitude as to dress
that she has, being married; and we would see about that, my
dear!'

Something in the thought that was agreeable and flattering,
brought her back to her seat in a gayer temper. She took her
sister's hands in hers, and clapped all four hands above her head as
she looked in her sister's face laughing:

'And the dancer, Amy, that she has quite forgotten--the dancer
who bore no sort of resemblance to me, and of whom I never remind
her, oh dear no!--should dance through her life, and dance in her
way, to such a tune as would disturb her insolent placidity a little.
just a little, my dear Amy, just a little!'

Meeting an earnest and imploring look in Amy's face, she brought
the four hands down, and laid only one on Amy's lips.

'Now, don't argue with me, child,' she said in a sterner way,
'because it is of no use. I understand these subjects much better
than you do. I have not nearly made up my mind, but it may be. Now
we have talked this over comfortably, and may go to bed. You best
and dearest little mouse, Good night!' With those words Fanny
weighed her Anchor, and--having taken so much advice--left off being
advised for that occasion.

Thenceforward, Amy observed Mr Sparkler's treatment by his
enslaver, with new reasons for attaching importance to all that
passed between them. There were times when Fanny appeared quite
unable to endure his mental feebleness, and when she became so
sharply impatient of it that she would all but dismiss him for good.
There were other times when she got on much better with him; when he
amused her, and when her sense of superiority seemed to
counterbalance that opposite side of the scale. If Mr Sparkler had
been other than the faithfullest and most submissive of swains, he
was sufficiently hard pressed to have fled from the scene of his
trials, and have set at least the whole distance from Rome to London
between himself and his enchantress. But he had no greater will of
his own than a boat has when it is towed by a steam-ship; and he
followed his cruel mistress through rough and smooth, on equally
strong compulsion.

Mrs Merdle, during these passages, said little to Fanny, but
said more about her. She was, as it were, forced to look at her
through her eye-glass, and in general conversation to allow
commendations of her beauty to be wrung from her by its irresistible
demands. The defiant character it assumed when Fanny heard these
extollings (as it generally happened that she did), was not
expressive of concessions to the impartial bosom; but the utmost
revenge the bosom took was, to say audibly, 'A spoilt beauty--but
with that face and shape, who could wonder?'

It might have been about a month or six weeks after the night of
the new advice, when Little Dorrit began to think she detected some
new understanding between Mr Sparkler and Fanny. Mr Sparkler, as if
in attendance to some compact, scarcely ever spoke without first
looking towards Fanny for leave. That young lady was too discreet
ever to look back again; but, if Mr Sparkler had permission to speak,
she remained silent; if he had not, she herself spoke. Moreover, it
became plain whenever Henry Gowan attempted to perform the friendly
office of drawing him out, that he was not to be drawn. And not only
that, but Fanny would presently, without any pointed application in
the world, chance to say something with such a sting in it that Gowan
would draw back as if he had put his hand into a bee-hive.

There was yet another circumstance which went a long way to
confirm Little Dorrit in her fears, though it was not a great
circumstance in itself. Mr Sparkler's demeanour towards herself
changed. It became fraternal. Sometimes, when she was in the outer
circle of assemblies--at their own residence, at Mrs Merdle's, or
elsewhere-- she would find herself stealthily supported round the
waist by Mr Sparkler's arm. Mr Sparkler never offered the slightest
explanation of this attention; but merely smiled with an air of
blundering, contented, good-natured proprietorship, which, in so
heavy a gentleman, was ominously expressive.

Little Dorrit was at home one day, thinking about Fanny with a
heavy heart. They had a room at one end of their drawing-room suite,
nearly all irregular bay-window, projecting over the street, and
commanding all the picturesque life and variety of the Corso, both up
and down. At three or four o'clock in the afternoon, English time,
the view from this window was very bright and peculiar; and Little
Dorrit used to sit and muse here, much as she had been used to while
away the time in her balcony at Venice. Seated thus one day, she was
softly touched on the shoulder, and Fanny said, 'Well, Amy dear,' and
took her seat at her side. Their seat was a part of the window; when
there was anything in the way of a procession going on, they used to
have bright draperies hung out of the window, and used to kneel or
sit on this seat, and look out at it, leaning on the brilliant
colour. But there was no procession that day, and Little Dorrit was
rather surprised by Fanny's being at home at that hour, as she was
generally out on horseback then.

'Well, Amy,' said Fanny, 'what are you thinking of, little one?'
'I was thinking of you, Fanny.'

'No? What a coincidence! I declare here's some one else. You
were not thinking of this some one else too; were you, Amy?'

Amy had been thinking of this some one else too; for it was Mr
Sparkler. She did not say so, however, as she gave him her hand. Mr
Sparkler came and sat down on the other side of her, and she felt the
fraternal railing come behind her, and apparently stretch on to
include Fanny.

'Well, my little sister,' said Fanny with a sigh, 'I suppose you
know what this means?'

'She's as beautiful as she's doated on,' stammered Mr Sparkler--
'and there's no nonsense about her--it's arranged--'

'You needn't explain, Edmund,' said Fanny.

'No, my love,' said Mr Sparkler.

'In short, pet,' proceeded Fanny, 'on the whole, we are engaged.
We must tell papa about it either to-night or to-morrow, according
to the opportunities. Then it's done, and very little more need be
said.'

'My dear Fanny,' said Mr Sparkler, with deference, 'I should
like to say a word to Amy.'

'Well, well! Say it for goodness' sake,' returned the young
lady.

'I am convinced, my dear Amy,' said Mr Sparkler, 'that if ever
there was a girl, next to your highly endowed and beautiful sister,
who had no nonsense about her--'

'We know all about that, Edmund,' interposed Miss Fanny. 'Never
mind that. Pray go on to something else besides our having no
nonsense about us.'

'Yes, my love,' said Mr Sparkler. 'And I assure you, Amy, that
nothing can be a greater happiness to myself, myself--next to the
happiness of being so highly honoured with the choice of a glorious
girl who hasn't an atom of--'

'Pray, Edmund, pray!' interrupted Fanny, with a slight pat of
her pretty foot upon the floor.

'My love, you're quite right,' said Mr Sparkler, 'and I know I
have a habit of it. What I wished to declare was, that nothing can
be a greater happiness to myself, myself-next to the happiness of
being united to pre-eminently the most glorious of girls--than to
have the happiness of cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of
Amy. I may not myself,' said Mr Sparkler manfully, 'be up to the
mark on some other subjects at a short notice, and I am aware that if
you were to poll Society the general opinion would be that I am not;
but on the subject of Amy I am up to the mark!'

Mr Sparkler kissed her, in witness thereof.

'A knife and fork and an apartment,' proceeded Mr Sparkler,
growing, in comparison with his oratorical antecedents, quite
diffuse, 'will ever be at Amy's disposal. My Governor, I am sure,
will always be proud to entertain one whom I so much esteem. And
regarding my mother,' said Mr Sparkler, 'who is a remarkably fine
woman, with--'

'Edmund, Edmund!' cried Miss Fanny, as before.

'With submission, my soul,' pleaded Mr Sparkler. 'I know I have
a habit of it, and I thank you very much, my adorable girl, for
taking the trouble to correct it; but my mother is admitted on all
sides to be a remarkably fine woman, and she really hasn't any.'

'That may be, or may not be,' returned Fanny, 'but pray don't
mention it any more.'

'I will not, my love,' said Mr Sparkler.

'Then, in fact, you have nothing more to say, Edmund; have you?'
inquired Fanny.

'So far from it, my adorable girl,' answered Mr Sparkler, 'I
apologise for having said so much.'

Mr Sparkler perceived, by a kind of inspiration, that the
question implied had he not better go? He therefore withdrew the
fraternal railing, and neatly said that he thought he would, with
submission, take his leave. He did not go without being
congratulated by Amy, as well as she could discharge that office in
the flutter and distress of her spirits.

When he was gone, she said, 'O Fanny, Fanny!' and turned to her
sister in the bright window, and fell upon her bosom and cried there.
Fanny laughed at first; but soon laid her face against her sister's
and cried too--a little. It was the last time Fanny ever showed that
there was any hidden, suppressed, or conquered feeling in her on the
matter. From that hour the way she had chosen lay before her, and
she trod it with her own imperious self-willed step.