Chapter: Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea
in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great
Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the
paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that
sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a positive shortcoming in point
of gentlemanly feeling. An impression of disappointment, occasioned
by the discovery that Mr Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for
which, in the confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give
him credit, began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that
gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family
circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts.
He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and
representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called to
pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him personally.
There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it was) wanting in
him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of politeness,
    but, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps
    cherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently
    brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial
    unsolicited, it might still be within the compass of his nature to
    bear the part of a responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way
    tending.

    In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had been
    accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the
    gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father
    of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of
    the gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the
    Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark. He was not surprised
    by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery when that officer was on
    the lock, for he made little distinction between Mr Chivery's politeness
    and that of the other turnkeys. It was on one particular afternoon that
    Mr Chivery surprised him all at once, and stood forth from his
    companions in bold relief.

    Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge,
    had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam,
    coming out of the prison, should find him on duty alone.

    '(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,' said Mr Chivery in a secret manner;
    'but which way might you be going?'

    'I am going over the Bridge.' He saw in Mr Chivery, with some
    astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his key on
    his lips.

    '(Private) I ask your pardon again,' said Mr Chivery, 'but could you go
    round by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time to look in
    at that address?' handing him a little card, printed for circulation
    among the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, Importers of pure
    Havannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-flavoured Cubas, Dealers in
    Fancy Snuffs, &c. &c.

    '(Private) It an't tobacco business,' said Mr Chivery. 'The truth is,
    it's my wife. She's wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a point
    respecting--yes,' said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam's look of
    apprehension with a nod, 'respecting _her_.'

    'I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.'

    'Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an't above ten minutes out of your
    way. Please to ask for _Mrs_ Chivery!' These instructions, Mr Chivery, who
    had already let him out, cautiously called through a little slide in the
    outer door, which he could draw back from within for the inspection of
    visitors when it pleased him.

    Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address
    set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a very small
    establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the counter working
    at her needle. Little jars of tobacco, little boxes of cigars, a
    little assortment of pipes, a little jar or two of snuff, and a little
    instrument like a shoeing horn for serving it out, composed the retail
    stock in trade.

    Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the
    solicitation of Mr Chivery. About something relating to Miss Dorrit, he
    believed. Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose up from her seat
    behind the counter, and deploringly shook her head.

    'You may see him now,' said she, 'if you'll condescend to take a peep.'

    With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little
    parlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a very
    little dull back-yard. In this yard a wash of sheets and table-cloths
    tried (in vain, for want of air) to get itself dried on a line or two;
    and among those flapping articles was sitting in a chair, like the
    last mariner left alive on the deck of a damp ship without the power of
    furling the sails, a little woe-begone young man.

    'Our John,' said Mrs Chivery.

    Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be doing
    there?

    'It's the only change he takes,' said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head
    afresh. 'He won't go out, even in the back-yard, when there's no linen;
    but when there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off, he'll sit
    there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!' Mrs
    Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her
    eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of the business.

    'Please to take a seat, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Miss Dorrit is the
    matter with Our John, sir; he's a breaking his heart for her, and I
    would wish to take the liberty to ask how it's to be made good to his
    parents when bust?'

    Mrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected about
    Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, uttered this
    speech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards began again to
    shake her head and dry her eyes.

    'Sir,' said she in continuation, 'you are acquainted with the family,
    and have interested yourself with the family, and are influential with
    the family. If you can promote views calculated to make two young people
    happy, let me, for Our John's sake, and for both their sakes, implore
    you so to do!'

    'I have been so habituated,' returned Arthur, at a loss, 'during
    the short time I have known her, to consider Little--I have been so
    habituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed from
    that in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by surprise.
    Does she know your son?'

    'Brought up together, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Played together.'

    'Does she know your son as her admirer?'

    'Oh! bless you, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant
    shiver, 'she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing he
    was that. His cane alone would have told it long ago, if nothing else
    had. Young men like John don't take to ivory hands a pinting, for
    nothing. How did I first know it myself? Similarly.'

    'Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.'

    'Then she knows it, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'by word of mouth.'

    'Are you sure?'

    'Sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'sure and certain as in this house I am. I see
    my son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I see my
    son come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I know he
    done it!' Mrs Chivery derived a surprising force of emphasis from the
    foregoing circumstantiality and repetition.

    'May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which
    causes you so much uneasiness?'

    'That,' said Mrs Chivery, 'took place on that same day when to this
    house I see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself in this
    house since. Never was like what he has been since, not from the hour
    when to this house seven year ago me and his father, as tenants by the
    quarter, came!' An effect in the nature of an affidavit was gained from
    this speech by Mrs Chivery's peculiar power of construction.

    'May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?'

    'You may,' said Mrs Chivery, 'and I will give it to you in honour and in
    word as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has every one's good word
    and every one's good wish. He played with her as a child when in that
    yard a child she played. He has known her ever since. He went out upon
    the Sunday afternoon when in this very parlour he had dined, and met
    her, with appointment or without appointment; which, I do not pretend to
    say. He made his offer to her. Her brother and sister is high in their
    views, and against Our John. Her father is all for himself in his views
    and against sharing her with any one. Under which circumstances she
    has answered Our John, "No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have
    any husband, it is not my intentions ever to become a wife, it is my
    intentions to be always a sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy of
    you, and forget me!" This is the way in which she is doomed to be a
    constant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant slave she
    unto them should be. This is the way in which Our John has come to find
    no pleasure but in taking cold among the linen, and in showing in that
    yard, as in that yard I have myself shown you, a broken-down ruin that
    goes home to his mother's heart!' Here the good woman pointed to the
    little window, whence her son might be seen sitting disconsolate in
    the tuneless groves; and again shook her head and wiped her eyes, and
    besought him, for the united sakes of both the young people, to exercise
    his influence towards the bright reversal of these dismal events.

    She was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so
    undeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative
    positions of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that Clennam
    could not feel positive on the other side. He had come to attach to
    Little Dorrit an interest so peculiar--an interest that removed her
    from, while it grew out of, the common and coarse things surrounding
    her--that he found it disappointing, disagreeable, almost painful, to
    suppose her in love with young Mr Chivery in the back-yard, or any such
    person. On the other hand, he reasoned with himself that she was just
    as good and just as true in love with him, as not in love with him;
    and that to make a kind of domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty
    of isolation at heart from the only people she knew, would be but a
    weakness of his own fancy, and not a kind one. Still, her youthful and
    ethereal appearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice
    and eyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out
    of her own individuality, and the strong difference between herself and
    those about her, were not in unison, and were determined not to be in
    unison, with this newly presented idea.

    He told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in his
    mind--he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking--that he might be
    relied upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the happiness of
    Miss Dorrit, and to further the wishes of her heart if it were in his
    power to do so, and if he could discover what they were. At the same
    time he cautioned her against assumptions and appearances; enjoined
    strict silence and secrecy, lest Miss Dorrit should be made unhappy; and
    particularly advised her to endeavour to win her son's confidence and so
    to make quite sure of the state of the case. Mrs Chivery considered the
    latter precaution superfluous, but said she would try. She shook her
    head as if she had not derived all the comfort she had fondly expected
    from this interview, but thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had
    kindly taken. They then parted good friends, and Arthur walked away.

    The crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two
    crowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off in
    the quieter direction of the Iron Bridge. He had scarcely set foot upon
    it, when he saw Little Dorrit walking on before him. It was a pleasant
    day, with a light breeze blowing, and she seemed to have that minute
    come there for air. He had left her in her father's room within an hour.

    It was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her face
    and manner when no one else was by. He quickened his pace; but before he
    reached her, she turned her head.

    'Have I startled you?' he asked.

    'I thought I knew the step,' she answered, hesitating.

    'And did you know it, Little Dorrit? You could hardly have expected
    mine.'

    'I did not expect any. But when I heard a step, I thought it--sounded
    like yours.'

    'Are you going further?'

    'No, sir, I am only walking here for a little change.'

    They walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with him,
    and looked up in his face as she said, after glancing around:

    'It is so strange. Perhaps you can hardly understand it. I sometimes
    have a sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk here.'

    'Unfeeling?'

    'To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such change
    and motion. Then to go back, you know, and find him in the same cramped
    place.'

    'Ah yes! But going back, you must remember that you take with you the
    spirit and influence of such things to cheer him.'

    'Do I? I hope I may! I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and make me
    out too powerful. If you were in prison, could I bring such comfort to
    you?'

    'Yes, Little Dorrit, I am sure of it.'

    He gathered from a tremor on her lip, and a passing shadow of great
    agitation on her face, that her mind was with her father. He remained
    silent for a few moments, that she might regain her composure. The
    Little Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in unison than ever with
    Mrs Chivery's theory, and yet was not irreconcilable with a new fancy
    which sprung up within him, that there might be some one else in the
    hopeless--newer fancy still--in the hopeless unattainable distance.

    They turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggy coming! Little Dorrit
    looked up, surprised, and they confronted Maggy, who brought herself
    at sight of them to a dead stop. She had been trotting along, so
    preoccupied and busy that she had not recognised them until they turned
    upon her. She was now in a moment so conscience-stricken that her very
    basket partook of the change.

    'Maggy, you promised me to stop near father.'

    'So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn't let me. If he takes and
    sends me out I must go. If he takes and says, "Maggy, you hurry away and
    back with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence if the answer's a
    good 'un," I must take it. Lor, Little Mother, what's a poor thing of
    ten year old to do? And if Mr Tip--if he happens to be a coming in as
    I come out, and if he says "Where are you going, Maggy?" and if I says,
    "I'm a going So and So," and if he says, "I'll have a Try too," and if
    he goes into the George and writes a letter and if he gives it me and
    says, "Take that one to the same place, and if the answer's a good 'un
    I'll give you a shilling," it ain't my fault, mother!'

    Arthur read, in Little Dorrit's downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw that
    the letters were addressed.

    'I'm a going So and So. There! That's where I am a going to,' said
    Maggy. 'I'm a going So and So. It ain't you, Little Mother, that's got
    anything to do with it--it's you, you know,' said Maggy, addressing
    Arthur. 'You'd better come, So and So, and let me take and give 'em to
    you.'

    'We will not be so particular as that, Maggy. Give them me here,' said
    Clennam in a low voice.

    'Well, then, come across the road,' answered Maggy in a very loud
    whisper. 'Little Mother wasn't to know nothing of it, and she would
    never have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and So, instead
    of bothering and loitering about. It ain't my fault. I must do what I am
    told. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for telling me.'

    Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the letters.
    That from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly finding himself in
    the novel position of having been disappointed of a remittance from
    the City on which he had confidently counted, he took up his pen, being
    restrained by the unhappy circumstance of his incarceration during
    three-and-twenty years (doubly underlined), from coming himself, as
    he would otherwise certainly have done--took up his pen to entreat Mr
    Clennam to advance him the sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his
    I.O.U., which he begged to enclose. That from the son set forth that
    Mr Clennam would, he knew, be gratified to hear that he had at
    length obtained permanent employment of a highly satisfactory nature,
    accompanied with every prospect of complete success in life; but that
    the temporary inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary
    to that date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that
            generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting
            towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of a
    false friend and the present high price of provisions, had reduced
    him to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter before six that
    evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, Mr Clennam would be
    happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends
    who had a lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the
    exception of a trifling balance of one pound seventeen and fourpence;
    the loan of which balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught
    with the usual beneficent consequences.

    These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and
    pocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and
    excusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son. He then
    commissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her the
    shilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise would have
    disappointed her otherwise.

    When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as before,
    she said all at once:

    'I think I had better go. I had better go home.'

    'Don't be distressed,' said Clennam, 'I have answered the letters. They
    were nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing.'

    'But I am afraid,' she returned, 'to leave him, I am afraid to leave
    any of them. When I am gone, they pervert--but they don't mean it--even
    Maggy.'

    'It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. And
    in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only
    saving you uneasiness.'

    'Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but the
    other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that
    I had its tone and character. It must be so. I am sure it must be when I
    see these things. My place is there. I am better there, it is unfeeling
    in me to be here, when I can do the least thing there. Good-bye. I had
    far better stay at home!'

    The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself
    from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the
    tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her.

    'Don't call it home, my child!' he entreated. 'It is always painful to
    me to hear you call it home.'

    'But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever forget it
    for a single moment?'

    'You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.'

    'I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; much
    better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don't go with me, let me
    go by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you, thank you.'

    He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move
    while her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had fluttered
    out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and stood thinking.

    She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the
    letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way?

    No.

    When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on,
    when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had
    been distressed, but not like this. Something had made her keenly and
    additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some one in the hopeless
    unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind,
    by his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge
    with the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the
    ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream,
    here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet?

    He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; he
    thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he thought
    of her when the day came round again. And the poor child Little Dorrit
    thought of him--too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!--in the shadow of
    the Marshalsea wall.

 Arthur visits the Marshalsea all the time, although Dorrit is really starting to dislike him. Why? Because he keeps not giving the old man any money. Really. The nerve. One day Clennam is waylaid by Mrs. Chivery, who wants to show him her son John. Ever since Little Dorrit turned him down, John Chivery has been a shell of a man - totally depressed all the time. According to Mrs. Chivery, Little Dorrit actually is totally into John but won't marry him because she feels so much duty and responsibility toward her family. Arthur is taken aback - he's never thought about Little Dorrit as a woman, let alone one who might have romantic or sexual feelings for anyone. Nice little bit of infantilizing right there. But he says he'll try to figure out what the deal is and fix the situation if possible. He goes out and meets Little Dorrit walking around. She says she feels guilty whenever she walks around outside the prison since Dorrit can't. Yeesh. It's a like a cross between survivor guilt and Stockholm syndrome. Maggy runs into them. She's been sent on an errand by Dorrit and Tip to deliver some begging letters to Arthur. Arthur sends Dorrit back money, but none for Tip. Little Dorrit guesses what the letters were and freaks out in embarrassment, but Arthur tells her it's cool. She then says she needs to go home. Arthur asks her to stop calling the prison her home. To which she is all, OK, well, what place should I call home? After she leaves, Arthur wonders why she was so much more concerned this time about the begging. He thinks it might be because she really is into John Chivery. Did we mention that Arthur is a bit slow on the uptake where chicks are concerned?

