Chapter 24: The Evening of a Long Day

Little Dorrit

by Charles Dickens

That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle,
continued his shining course. It began to be widely understood that
one who had done society the admirable service of making so much
money out of it, could not be suffered to remain a commoner. A
baronetcy was spoken of with confidence; a peerage was frequently
mentioned. Rumour had it that Mr Merdle had set his golden face
against a baronetcy; that he had plainly intimated to Lord Decimus
that a baronetcy was not enough for him; that he had said, 'No--a
Peerage, or plain Merdle.' This was reported to have plunged Lord
Decimus as nigh to his noble chin in a slough of doubts as so lofty a
person could be sunk. For the Barnacles, as a group of themselves in
creation, had an idea that such distinctions belonged to them; and
that when a soldier, sailor, or lawyer became ennobled, they let him
in, as it were, by an act of condescension, at the family door, and
immediately shut it again. Not only (said Rumour) had the troubled
Decimus his own hereditary part in this impression, but he also knew
of several Barnacle claims already on the file, which came into
collision with that of the master spirit.

Right or wrong, Rumour was very busy; and Lord Decimus, while he
was, or was supposed to be, in stately excogitation of the
difficulty, lent her some countenance by taking, on several public
occasions, one of those elephantine trots of his through a jungle of
overgrown sentences, waving Mr Merdle about on his trunk as Gigantic
Enterprise, The Wealth of England, Elasticity, Credit, Capital,
Prosperity, and all manner of blessings.

So quietly did the mowing of the old scythe go on, that fully
three months had passed unnoticed since the two English brothers had
been laid in one tomb in the strangers' cemetery at Rome. Mr and Mrs
Sparkler were established in their own house: a little manSion,
rather of the Tite Barnacle class, quite a triumph of inconvenience,
with a perpetual smell in it of the day before yesterday's soup and
coach-horses, but extremely dear, as being exactly in the centre of
the habitable globe. In this enviable abode (and envied it really
was by many people), Mrs Sparkler had intended to proceed at once to
the demolition of the Bosom, when active hostilities had been
suspended by the arrival of the Courier with his tidings of death.
Mrs Sparkler, who was not unfeeling, had received them with a violent
burst of grief, which had lasted twelve hours; after which, she had
arisen to see about her mourning, and to take every precaution that
could ensure its being as becoming as Mrs Merdle's. A gloom was then
cast over more than one distinguished family (according to the
politest sources of intelligence), and the Courier went back
again.

Mr and Mrs Sparkler had been dining alone, with their gloom cast
over them, and Mrs Sparkler reclined on a drawing-room sofa. It was
a hot summer Sunday evening. The residence in the centre of the
habitable globe, at all times stuffed and close as if it had an
incurable cold in its head, was that evening particularly
stifling.

The bells of the churches had done their worst in the way of
clanging among the unmelodious echoes of the streets, and the lighted
windows of the churches had ceased to be yellow in the grey dusk, and
had died out opaque black. Mrs Sparkler, lying on her sofa, looking
through an open window at the opposite side of a narrow street over
boxes of mignonette and flowers, was tired of the view. Mrs
Sparkler, looking at another window where her husband stood in the
balcony, was tired of that view. Mrs Sparkler, looking at herself in
her mourning, was even tired of that view: though, naturally, not so
tired of that as of the other two.

'It's like lying in a well,' said Mrs Sparkler, changing her
position fretfully. 'Dear me, Edmund, if you have anything to say,
why don't you say it?'

Mr Sparkler might have replied with ingenuousness, 'My life, I
have nothing to say.' But, as the repartee did not occur to him, he
contented himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at the
side of his wife's couch.

'Good gracious, Edmund!' said Mrs Sparkler more fretfully still,
you are absolutely putting mignonette up your nose! Pray don't!'

Mr Sparkler, in absence of mind--perhaps in a more literal
absence of mind than is usually understood by the phrase--had smelt
so hard at a sprig in his hand as to be on the verge of the offence
in question. He smiled, said, 'I ask your pardon, my dear,' and
threw it out of window.

'You make my head ache by remaining in that position, Edmund,'
said Mrs Sparkler, raising her eyes to him after another minute; 'you
look so aggravatingly large by this light. Do sit down.'

'Certainly, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler, and took a chair on the
same spot.

'If I didn't know that the longest day was past,' said Fanny,
yawning in a dreary manner, 'I should have felt certain this was the
longest day. I never did experience such a day.'

'Is that your fan, my love?' asked Mr Sparkler, picking up one
and presenting it.

'Edmund,' returned his wife, more wearily yet, 'don't ask weak
questions, I entreat you not. Whose can it be but mine?'

'Yes, I thought it was yours,' said Mr Sparkler.

'Then you shouldn't ask,' retorted Fanny. After a little while
she turned on her sofa and exclaimed, 'Dear me, dear me, there never
was such a long day as this!' After another little while, she got up
slowly, walked about, and came back again.

'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler, flashing with an original
conception, 'I think you must have got the fidgets.'

'Oh, Fidgets!' repeated Mrs Sparkler. 'Don't.'

'My adorable girl,' urged Mr Sparkler, 'try your aromatic
vinegar. I have often seen my mother try it, and it seemingly
refreshed her.

And she is, as I believe you are aware, a remarkably fine woman,
with no non--'

'Good Gracious!' exclaimed Fanny, starting up again. 'It's
beyond all patience! This is the most wearisome day that ever did
dawn upon the world, I am certain.'

Mr Sparkler looked meekly after her as she lounged about the
room, and he appeared to be a little frightened. When she had tossed
a few trifles about, and had looked down into the darkening street
out of all the three windows, she returned to her sofa, and threw
herself among its pillows.

'Now Edmund, come here! Come a little nearer, because I want to
be able to touch you with my fan, that I may impress you very much
with what I am going to say. That will do. Quite close enough. Oh,
you do look so big!'

Mr Sparkler apologised for the circumstance, pleaded that he
couldn't help it, and said that 'our fellows,' without more
particularly indicating whose fellows, used to call him by the name
of Quinbus Flestrin, Junior, or the Young Man Mountain.

'You ought to have told me so before,' Fanny complained.

'My dear,' returned Mr Sparkler, rather gratified, 'I didn't
know It would interest you, or I would have made a point of telling
you.' 'There! For goodness sake, don't talk,' said Fanny; 'I want to
talk, myself. Edmund, we must not be alone any more. I must take
such precautions as will prevent my being ever again reduced to the
state of dreadful depression in which I am this evening.'

'My dear,' answered Mr Sparkler; 'being as you are well known to
be, a remarkably fine woman with no--'

'Oh, good gracious!' cried Fanny.

Mr Sparkler was so discomposed by the energy of this
exclamation, accompanied with a flouncing up from the sofa and a
flouncing down again, that a minute or two elapsed before he felt
himself equal to saying in explanation:

'I mean, my dear, that everybody knows you are calculated to
shine in society.'

'Calculated to shine in society,' retorted Fanny with great
irritability; 'yes, indeed! And then what happens? I no sooner
recover, in a visiting point of view, the shock of poor dear papa's
death, and my poor uncle's--though I do not disguise from myself that
the last was a happy release, for, if you are not presentable you had
much better die--'

'You are not referring to me, my love, I hope?' Mr Sparkler
humbly interrupted.

'Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint. Am I not expressly
speaking of my poor uncle?'

'You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl,'
said Mr Sparkler, 'that I felt a little uncomfortable. Thank you, my
love.'

'Now you have put me out,' observed Fanny with a resigned toss
of her fan, 'and I had better go to bed.'

'Don't do that, my love,' urged Mr Sparkler. 'Take time.'

Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut,
and her eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had
utterly given up all terrestrial affairs. At length, without the
slightest notice, she opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a
short, sharp manner:

'What happens then, I ask! What happens? Why, I find myself at
the very period when I might shine most in society, and should most
like for very momentous reasons to shine in society--I find myself in
a situation which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going into
society. it's too bad, really!'

'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler. 'I don't think it need keep you at
home.' 'Edmund, you ridiculous creature,' returned Fanny, with great
indignation; 'do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth and
not wholly devoid of personal attractions, can put herself, at such a
time, in competition as to figure with a woman in every other way her
inferior? If you do suppose such a thing, your folly is
boundless.'

Mr Sparkler submitted that he had thought 'it might be got
over.' 'Got over!' repeated Fanny, with immeasurable scorn.

'For a time,' Mr Sparkler submitted.

Honouring the last feeble suggestion with no notice, Mrs
Sparkler declared with bitterness that it really was too bad, and
that positively it was enough to make one wish one was dead!

'However,' she said, when she had in some measure recovered from
her sense of personal ill-usage; 'provoking as it is, and cruel as it
seems, I suppose it must be submitted to.'

'Especially as it was to be expected,' said Mr Sparkler.

'Edmund,' returned his wife, 'if you have nothing more becoming
to do than to attempt to insult the woman who has honoured you with
her hand, when she finds herself in adversity, I think you had better
go to bed!'

Mr Sparkler was much afflicted by the charge, and offered a most
tender and earnest apology. His apology was accepted; but Mrs
Sparkler requested him to go round to the other side of the sofa and
sit in the window-curtain, to tone himself down.

'Now, Edmund,' she said, stretching out her fan, and touching
him with it at arm's length, 'what I was going to say to you when you
began as usual to prose and worry, is, that I shall guard against our
being alone any more, and that when circumstances prevent my going
out to my own satisfaction, I must arrange to have some people or
other always here; for I really cannot, and will not, have another
such day as this has been.'

Mr Sparkler's sentiments as to the plan were, in brief, that it
had no nonsense about it. He added, 'And besides, you know it's
likely that you'll soon have your sister--'

'Dearest Amy, yes!' cried Mrs Sparkler with a sigh of affection.
'Darling little thing! Not, however, that Amy would do here
alone.'

Mr Sparkler was going to say 'No?' interrogatively, but he saw
his danger and said it assentingly, 'No, Oh dear no; she wouldn't do
here alone.'

'No, Edmund. For not only are the virtues of the precious child
of that still character that they require a contrast--require life
and movement around them to bring them out in their right colours and
make one love them of all things; but she will require to be roused,
on more accounts than one.'

'That's it,' said Mr Sparkler. 'Roused.'

'Pray don't, Edmund! Your habit of interrupting without having
the least thing in the world to say, distracts one. You must be
broken of it. Speaking of Amy;--my poor little pet was devotedly
attached to poor papa, and no doubt will have lamented his loss
exceedingly, and grieved very much. I have done so myself. I have
felt it dreadfully. But Amy will no doubt have felt it even more,
from having been on the spot the whole time, and having been with
poor dear papa at the last; which I unhappily was not.'

Here Fanny stopped to weep, and to say, 'Dear, dear, beloved
papa! How truly gentlemanly he was! What a contrast to poor
uncle!'

'From the effects of that trying time,' she pursued, 'my good
little Mouse will have to be roused. Also, from the effects of this
long attendance upon Edward in his illness; an attendance which is
not yet over, which may even go on for some time longer, and which in
the meanwhile unsettles us all by keeping poor dear papa's affairs
from being wound up. Fortunately, however, the papers with his
agents here being all sealed up and locked up, as he left them when
he providentially came to England, the affairs are in that state of
order that they can wait until my brother Edward recovers his health
in Sicily, sufficiently to come over, and administer, or execute, or
whatever it may be that will have to be done.'

'He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round,' Mr
Sparkler made bold to opine.

'For a wonder, I can agree with you,' returned his wife,
languidly turning her eyelids a little in his direction (she held
forth, in general, as if to the drawing-room furniture), 'and can
adopt your words. He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him
round. There are times when my dear child is a little wearing to an
active mind; but, as a nurse, she is Perfection. Best of Amys!'

Mr Sparkler, growing rash on his late success, observed that
Edward had had, biggodd, a long bout of it, my dear girl.

'If Bout, Edmund,' returned Mrs Sparkler, 'is the slang term for
indisposition, he has. If it is not, I am unable to give an opinion
on the barbarous language you address to Edward's sister. That he
contracted Malaria Fever somewhere, either by travelling day and
night to Rome, where, after all, he arrived too late to see poor dear
papa before his death--or under some other unwholesome
circumstances--is indubitable, if that is what you mean. Likewise
that his extremely careless life has made him a very bad subject for
it indeed.'

Mr Sparkler considered it a parallel case to that of some of our
fellows in the West Indies with Yellow Jack. Mrs Sparkler closed her
eyes again, and refused to have any consciousness of our fellows of
the West Indies, or of Yellow Jack.

'So, Amy,' she pursued, when she reopened her eyelids, 'will
require to be roused from the effects of many tedious and anxious
weeks. And lastly, she will require to be roused from a low tendency
which I know very well to be at the bottom of her heart. Don't ask
me what it is, Edmund, because I must decline to tell you.'

'I am not going to, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler.

'I shall thus have much improvement to effect in my sweet
child,' Mrs Sparkler continued, 'and cannot have her near me too
soon. Amiable and dear little Twoshoes! As to the settlement of
poor papa's affairs, my interest in that is not very selfish. Papa
behaved very generously to me when I was married, and I have little
or nothing to expect. Provided he had made no will that can come
into force, leaving a legacy to Mrs General, I am contented. Dear
papa, dear papa.'

She wept again, but Mrs General was the best of restoratives.
The name soon stimulated her to dry her eyes and say:

'It is a highly encouraging circumstance in Edward's illness, I
am thankful to think, and gives one the greatest confidence in his
sense not being impaired, or his proper spirit weakened--down to the
time of poor dear papa's death at all events--that he paid off Mrs
General instantly, and sent her out of the house. I applaud him for
it. I could forgive him a great deal for doing, with such
promptitude, so exactly what I would have done myself!'

Mrs Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification, when a
double knock was heard at the door. A very odd knock. Low, as if to
avoid making a noise and attracting attention. Long, as if the
person knocking were preoccupied in mind, and forgot to leave off.

'Halloa!' said Mr Sparkler. 'Who's this?'

'Not Amy and Edward without notice and without a carriage!' said
Mrs Sparkler. 'Look out.'

The room was dark, but the street was lighter, because of its
lamps. Mr Sparkler's head peeping over the balcony looked so very
bulky and heavy that it seemed on the point of overbalancing him and
flattening the unknown below.

'It's one fellow,' said Mr Sparkler. 'I can't see who--stop
though!' On this second thought he went out into the balcony again
and had another look. He came back as the door was opened, and
announced that he believed he had identified 'his governor's tile.'
He was not mistaken, for his governor, with his tile in his hand, was
introduced immediately afterwards.

'Candles!' said Mrs Sparkler, with a word of excuse for the
darkness.

'It's light enough for me,' said Mr Merdle.

When the candles were brought in, Mr Merdle was discovered
standing behind the door, picking his lips. 'I thought I'd give you
a call,' he said. 'I am rather particularly occupied just now; and,
as I happened to be out for a stroll, I thought I'd give you a
call.'

As he was in dinner dress, Fanny asked him where he had been
dining?

'Well,' said Mr Merdle, 'I haven't been dining anywhere,
particularly.'

'Of course you have dined?' said Fanny.

'Why--no, I haven't exactly dined,' said Mr Merdle.

He had passed his hand over his yellow forehead and considered,
as if he were not sure about it. Something to eat was proposed.
'No, thank you,' said Mr Merdle, 'I don't feel inclined for it. I
was to have dined out along with Mrs Merdle. But as I didn't feel
inclined for dinner, I let Mrs Merdle go by herself just as we were
getting into the carriage, and thought I'd take a stroll instead.'

Would he have tea or coffee? 'No, thank you,' said Mr Merdle.
'I looked in at the Club, and got a bottle of wine.'

At this period of his visit, Mr Merdle took the chair.which
Edmund Sparkler had offered him, and which he had hitherto been
pushing slowly about before him, like a dull man with a pair of
skates on for the first time, who could not make up his mind to
start. He now put his hat upon another chair beside him, and,
looking down into it as if it were some twenty feet deep, said again:
'You see I thought I'd give you a call.'

'Flattering to us,' said Fanny, 'for you are not a calling
man.'

'No--no,' returned Mr Merdle, who was by this time taking
himself into custody under both coat-sleeves. 'No, I am not a
calling man.'

'You have too much to do for that,' said Fanny. 'Having so much
to do, Mr Merdle, loss of appetite is a serious thing with you, and
you must have it seen to. You must not be ill.' 'Oh! I am very
well,' replied Mr Merdle, after deliberating about it. 'I am as well
as I usually am. I am well enough. I am as well as I want to
be.'

The master-mind of the age, true to its characteristic of being
at all times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself
and great difficulty in saying it, became mute again. Mrs Sparkler
began to wonder how long the master-mind meant to stay.

'I was speaking of poor papa when you came in, sir.'

'Aye! Quite a coincidence,' said Mr Merdle.

Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue
talking. 'I was saying,' she pursued, 'that my brother's illness has
occasioned a delay in examining and arranging papa's property.'

'Yes,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes. There has been a delay.'

'Not that it is of consequence,' said Fanny.

'Not,' assented Mr Merdle, after having examined the cornice of
all that part of the room which was within his range: 'not that it is
of any consequence.'

'My only anxiety is,' said Fanny, 'that Mrs General should not
get anything.'

'She won't get anything,' said Mr Merdle.

Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion. Mr Merdle,
after taking another gaze into the depths of his hat as if he thought
he saw something at the bottom, rubbed his hair and slowly appended
to his last remark the confirmatory words, 'Oh dear no. No. Not
she. Not likely.'

As the topic seemed exhausted, and Mr Merdle too, Fanny inquired
if he were going to take up Mrs Merdle and the carriage in his way
home?

'No,' he answered; 'I shall go by the shortest way, and leave
Mrs Merdle to--' here he looked all over the palms of both his hands
as if he were telling his own fortune--'to take care of herself. I
dare say she'll manage to do it.'

'Probably,' said Fanny.

There was then a long silence; during which, Mrs Sparkler, lying
back on her sofa again, shut her eyes and raised her eyebrows in her
former retirement from mundane affairs.

'But, however,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am equally detaining you and
myself. I thought I'd give you a call, you know.'

'Charmed, I am sure,' said Fanny.

'So I am off,' added Mr Merdle, getting up. 'Could you lend me
a penknife?'

It was an odd thing, Fanny smilingly observed, for her who could
seldom prevail upon herself even to write a letter, to lend to a man
of such vast business as Mr Merdle. 'Isn't it?' Mr Merdle
acquiesced; 'but I want one; and I know you have got several little
wedding keepsakes about, with scissors and tweezers and such things
in them. You shall have it back to-morrow.'

'Edmund,' said Mrs Sparkler, 'open (now, very carefully, I beg
and beseech, for you are so very awkward) the mother of pearl box on
my little table there, and give Mr Merdle the mother of pearl
penknife.'

'Thank you,' said Mr Merdle; 'but if you have got one with a
darker handle, I think I should prefer one with a darker handle.'

'Tortoise-shell?'

'Thank you,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes. I think I should prefer
tortoise-shell.'

Edmund accordingly received instructions to open the
tortoise-shell box, and give Mr Merdle the tortoise-shell knife. On
his doing so, his wife said to the master-spirit graciously:

'I will forgive you, if you ink it.'

'I'll undertake not to ink it,' said Mr Merdle.

The illustrious visitor then put out his coat-cuff, and for a
moment entombed Mrs Sparkler's hand: wrist, bracelet, and all. Where
his own hand had shrunk to, was not made manifest, but it was as
remote from Mrs Sparkler's sense of touch as if he had been a highly
meritorious Chelsea Veteran or Greenwich Pensioner.

Thoroughly convinced, as he went out of the room, that it was
the longest day that ever did come to an end at last, and that there
never was a woman, not wholly devoid of personal attractions, so worn
out by idiotic and lumpish people, Fanny passed into the balcony for
a breath of air. Waters of vexation filled her eyes; and they had
the effect of making the famous Mr Merdle, in going down the street,
appear to leap, and waltz, and gyrate, as if he were possessed of
several Devils.