Chapter: Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without
finding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer
shot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and
winged a Collegian or two.

Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the
sentimental son of a turnkey. His father hoped, in the fulness of time,
            to leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had from his
            early youth familiarised him with the duties of his office, and with an
            ambition to retain the prison-lock in the family. While the succession
            was yet in abeyance, he assisted his mother in the conduct of a snug
            tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane (his father being
                    a non-resident turnkey), which could usually command a neat connection
            within the College walls.

            Years agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in her
            little arm-chair by the high Lodge-fender, Young John (family name,
                    Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with admiring wonder.
            When he had played with her in the yard, his favourite game had been to
            counterfeit locking her up in corners, and to counterfeit letting
            her out for real kisses. When he grew tall enough to peep through the
            keyhole of the great lock of the main door, he had divers times set down
            his father's dinner, or supper, to get on as it might on the outer side
            thereof, while he stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her
            through that airy perspective.

            If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less penetrable
            days of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and
            is happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had soon strung it up
            again and screwed it tight. At nineteen, his hand had inscribed in chalk
            on that part of the wall which fronted her lodgings, on the occasion of
            her birthday, 'Welcome sweet nursling of the Fairies!' At twenty-three,
            the same hand falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of
            the Marshalsea, and Father of the queen of his soul.

            Young John was small of stature, with rather weak legs and very weak
            light hair. One of his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to peep through
                    the keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger than the other, as if
            it couldn't collect itself. Young John was gentle likewise. But he was
            great of soul. Poetical, expansive, faithful.

            Though too humble before the ruler of his heart to be sanguine, Young
            John had considered the object of his attachment in all its lights and
            shades. Following it out to blissful results, he had descried, without
            self-commendation, a fitness in it. Say things prospered, and they were
            united. She, the child of the Marshalsea; he, the lock-keeper. There
            was a fitness in that. Say he became a resident turnkey. She would
            officially succeed to the chamber she had rented so long. There was a
            beautiful propriety in that. It looked over the wall, if you stood on
            tip-toe; and, with a trellis-work of scarlet beans and a canary or so,
            would become a very Arbour. There was a charming idea in that. Then,
            being all in all to one another, there was even an appropriate grace in
            the lock. With the world shut out (except that part of it which would
                    be shut in); with its troubles and disturbances only known to them by
            hearsay, as they would be described by the pilgrims tarrying with them
            on their way to the Insolvent Shrine; with the Arbour above, and the
            Lodge below; they would glide down the stream of time, in pastoral
            domestic happiness. Young John drew tears from his eyes by finishing the
            picture with a tombstone in the adjoining churchyard, close against the
            prison wall, bearing the following touching inscription: 'Sacred to
            the Memory Of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty years Turnkey, and fifty years
            Head Turnkey, Of the neighbouring Marshalsea, Who departed this life,
            universally respected, on the thirty-first of December, One thousand
            eight hundred and eighty-six, Aged eighty-three years. Also of his truly
            beloved and truly loving wife, AMY, whose maiden name was DORRIT, Who
            survived his loss not quite forty-eight hours, And who breathed her last
            in the Marshalsea aforesaid. There she was born, There she lived, There
            she died.'

            The Chivery parents were not ignorant of their son's attachment--indeed
            it had, on some exceptional occasions, thrown him into a state of mind
            that had impelled him to conduct himself with irascibility towards the
            customers, and damage the business--but they, in their turns, had worked
            it out to desirable conclusions. Mrs Chivery, a prudent woman, had
            desired her husband to take notice that their John's prospects of the
            Lock would certainly be strengthened by an alliance with Miss Dorrit,
            who had herself a kind of claim upon the College and was much respected
            there. Mrs Chivery had desired her husband to take notice that if, on
            the one hand, their John had means and a post of trust, on the other
            hand, Miss Dorrit had family; and that her (Mrs Chivery's) sentiment
            was, that two halves made a whole. Mrs Chivery, speaking as a mother and
            not as a diplomatist, had then, from a different point of view, desired
            her husband to recollect that their John had never been strong, and
            that his love had fretted and worrited him enough as it was, without
            his being driven to do himself a mischief, as nobody couldn't say
            he wouldn't be if he was crossed. These arguments had so powerfully
            influenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of few words, that he
            had on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy what he termed 'a lucky
            touch,' signifying that he considered such commendation of him to Good
            Fortune, preparatory to his that day declaring his passion and
            becoming triumphant. But Young John had never taken courage to make
            the declaration; and it was principally on these occasions that he had
            returned excited to the tobacco shop, and flown at the customers.

            In this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit herself was the last
            person considered. Her brother and sister were aware of it, and attained
            a sort of station by making a peg of it on which to air the miserably
            ragged old fiction of the family gentility. Her sister asserted the
            family gentility by flouting the poor swain as he loitered about the
            prison for glimpses of his dear. Tip asserted the family gentility, and
            his own, by coming out in the character of the aristocratic brother, and
            loftily swaggering in the little skittle ground respecting seizures by
            the scruff of the neck, which there were looming probabilities of some
            gentleman unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned. These
            were not the only members of the Dorrit family who turned it to account.
            No, no. The Father of the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing about
            the matter, of course: his poor dignity could not see so low. But he
            took the cigars, on Sundays, and was glad to get them; and sometimes
            even condescended to walk up and down the yard with the donor (who was
                    proud and hopeful then), and benignantly to smoke one in his society.
            With no less readiness and condescension did he receive attentions from
            Chivery Senior, who always relinquished his arm-chair and newspaper to
            him, when he came into the Lodge during one of his spells of duty; and
            who had even mentioned to him, that, if he would like at any time after
            dusk quietly to step out into the fore-court and take a look at the
            street, there was not much to prevent him. If he did not avail himself
            of this latter civility, it was only because he had lost the relish for
            it; inasmuch as he took everything else he could get, and would say at
            times, 'Extremely civil person, Chivery; very attentive man and very
            respectful. Young Chivery, too; really almost with a delicate perception
            of one's position here. A very well conducted family indeed, the
            Chiveries. Their behaviour gratifies me.'

            The devoted Young John all this time regarded the family with reverence.
            He never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but did homage to the
            miserable Mumbo jumbo they paraded. As to resenting any affront from _her_
            brother, he would have felt, even if he had not naturally been of a most
            pacific disposition, that to wag his tongue or lift his hand against
            that sacred gentleman would be an unhallowed act. He was sorry that
            his noble mind should take offence; still, he felt the fact to be not
            incompatible with its nobility, and sought to propitiate and conciliate
            that gallant soul. Her father, a gentleman in misfortune--a gentleman of
            a fine spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with him--he deeply
            honoured. Her sister he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a young
            lady of infinite accomplishments, who could not forget the past. It was
            an instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit's worth and difference from
            all the rest, that the poor young fellow honoured and loved her for
            being simply what she was.

            The tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was carried
            out in a rural establishment one story high, which had the benefit of
            the air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane jail, and the advantage of a
            retired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment. The business
            was of too modest a character to support a life-size Highlander, but it
            maintained a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who looked like
            a fallen Cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt.

            From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of
            baked viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand; not
            empty-handed, but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly attired in
            a plum-coloured coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his
            figure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden sprigs; a
            chaste neckerchief much in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of
            lilac pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons so highly decorated with
            side-stripes that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of
            state very high and hard. When the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that
            in addition to these adornments her John carried a pair of white kid
            gloves, and a cane like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory
            hand marshalling him the way that he should go; and when she saw him, in
            this heavy marching order, turn the corner to the right; she remarked to
            Mr Chivery, who was at home at the time, that she thought she knew which
            way the wind blew.

            The Collegians were entertaining a considerable number of visitors that
            Sunday afternoon, and their Father kept his room for the purpose of
            receiving presentations. After making the tour of the yard, Little
            Dorrit's lover with a hurried heart went up-stairs, and knocked with his
            knuckles at the Father's door.

            'Come in, come in!' said a gracious voice. The Father's voice, her
            father's, the Marshalsea's father's. He was seated in his black velvet
            cap, with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the
            table, and two chairs arranged. Everything prepared for holding his
            Court.

            'Ah, Young John! How do you do, how do you do!'

            'Pretty well, I thank you, sir. I hope you are the same.'

            'Yes, John Chivery; yes. Nothing to complain of.'

            'I have taken the liberty, sir, of--'

            'Eh?' The Father of the Marshalsea always lifted up his eyebrows at this
            point, and became amiably distraught and smilingly absent in mind.

            '--A few cigars, sir.'

            'Oh!' (For the moment, excessively surprised.) 'Thank you, Young John,
            thank you. But really, I am afraid I am too--No? Well then, I will say
            no more about it. Put them on the mantelshelf, if you please, Young
            John. And sit down, sit down. You are not a stranger, John.'

            'Thank you, sir, I am sure--Miss;' here Young John turned the great hat
            round and round upon his left-hand, like a slowly twirling mouse-cage;
            'Miss Amy quite well, sir?'

            'Yes, John, yes; very well. She is out.'

            'Indeed, sir?'

            'Yes, John. Miss Amy is gone for an airing. My young people all go out a
            good deal. But at their time of life, it's natural, John.'

            'Very much so, I am sure, sir.'

            'An airing. An airing. Yes.' He was blandly tapping his fingers on
            the table, and casting his eyes up at the window. 'Amy has gone for
            an airing on the Iron Bridge. She has become quite partial to the Iron
            Bridge of late, and seems to like to walk there better than anywhere.'
            He returned to conversation. 'Your father is not on duty at present, I
            think, John?'

            'No, sir, he comes on later in the afternoon.' Another twirl of the
            great hat, and then Young John said, rising, 'I am afraid I must wish
            you good day, sir.'

            'So soon? Good day, Young John. Nay, nay,' with the utmost
            condescension, 'never mind your glove, John. Shake hands with it on. You
            are no stranger here, you know.'

            Highly gratified by the kindness of his reception, Young John descended
            the staircase. On his way down he met some Collegians bringing up
            visitors to be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit happened to call
            over the banisters with particular distinctness, 'Much obliged to you
            for your little testimonial, John!'

            Little Dorrit's lover very soon laid down his penny on the tollplate of
            the Iron Bridge, and came upon it looking about him for the well-known
            and well-beloved figure. At first he feared she was not there; but as he
            walked on towards the Middlesex side, he saw her standing still, looking
            at the water. She was absorbed in thought, and he wondered what
            she might be thinking about. There were the piles of city roofs and
            chimneys, more free from smoke than on week-days; and there were the
            distant masts and steeples. Perhaps she was thinking about them.

            Little Dorrit mused so long, and was so entirely preoccupied, that
            although her lover stood quiet for what he thought was a long time, and
            twice or thrice retired and came back again to the former spot, still
            she did not move. So, in the end, he made up his mind to go on, and seem
            to come upon her casually in passing, and speak to her. The place was
            quiet, and now or never was the time to speak to her.

            He walked on, and she did not appear to hear his steps until he was
            close upon her. When he said 'Miss Dorrit!' she started and fell back
            from him, with an expression in her face of fright and something like
            dislike that caused him unutterable dismay. She had often avoided him
            before--always, indeed, for a long, long while. She had turned away and
            glided off so often when she had seen him coming toward her, that the
            unfortunate Young John could not think it accidental. But he had hoped
            that it might be shyness, her retiring character, her foreknowledge of
            the state of his heart, anything short of aversion. Now, that momentary
            look had said, 'You, of all people! I would rather have seen any one on
            earth than you!'

            It was but a momentary look, inasmuch as she checked it, and said in her
            soft little voice, 'Oh, Mr John! Is it you?' But she felt what it had
            been, as he felt what it had been; and they stood looking at one another
            equally confused.

            'Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you.'

            'Yes, rather. I--I came here to be alone, and I thought I was.'

            'Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this way, because Mr Dorrit
            chanced to mention, when I called upon him just now, that you--'

            She caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, 'O father,
            father!' in a heartrending tone, and turning her face away.

            'Miss Amy, I hope I don't give you any uneasiness by naming Mr Dorrit.
            I assure you I found him very well and in the best of Spirits, and he
            showed me even more than his usual kindness; being so very kind as to
            say that I was not a stranger there, and in all ways gratifying me very
            much.'

            To the inexpressible consternation of her lover, Little Dorrit, with her
            hands to her averted face, and rocking herself where she stood as if she
            were in pain, murmured, 'O father, how can you! O dear, dear father, how
            can you, can you, do it!'

            The poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflowing with sympathy, but not
            knowing what to make of this, until, having taken out her handkerchief
            and put it to her still averted face, she hurried away. At first he
            remained stock still; then hurried after her.

            'Miss Amy, pray! Will you have the goodness to stop a moment? Miss Amy,
            if it comes to that, let _me_ go. I shall go out of my senses, if I have
            to think that I have driven you away like this.'

            His trembling voice and unfeigned earnestness brought Little Dorrit to
            a stop. 'Oh, I don't know what to do,' she cried, 'I don't know what to
            do!'

            To Young John, who had never seen her bereft of her quiet self-command,
            who had seen her from her infancy ever so reliable and self-suppressed,
            there was a shock in her distress, and in having to associate himself
            with it as its cause, that shook him from his great hat to the
            pavement. He felt it necessary to explain himself. He might be
            misunderstood--supposed to mean something, or to have done something,
            that had never entered into his imagination. He begged her to hear him
            explain himself, as the greatest favour she could show him.

            'Miss Amy, I know very well that your family is far above mine. It were
            vain to conceal it. There never was a Chivery a gentleman that ever
            I heard of, and I will not commit the meanness of making a false
            representation on a subject so momentous. Miss Amy, I know very well
            that your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn
            me from a height. What I have to do is to respect them, to wish to be
            admitted to their friendship, to look up at the eminence on which they
            are placed from my lowlier station--for, whether viewed as tobacco or
            viewed as the lock, I well know it is lowly--and ever wish them well and
            happy.'

            There really was a genuineness in the poor fellow, and a contrast
            between the hardness of his hat and the softness of his heart (albeit,
                    perhaps, of his head, too), that was moving. Little Dorrit entreated him
            to disparage neither himself nor his station, and, above all things, to
            divest himself of any idea that she supposed hers to be superior. This
            gave him a little comfort.

            'Miss Amy,' he then stammered, 'I have had for a long time--ages they
            seem to me--Revolving ages--a heart-cherished wish to say something to
            you. May I say it?'

            Little Dorrit involuntarily started from his side again, with the
            faintest shadow of her former look; conquering that, she went on at
            great speed half across the Bridge without replying!

            'May I--Miss Amy, I but ask the question humbly--may I say it? I have
            been so unlucky already in giving you pain without having any such
            intentions, before the holy Heavens! that there is no fear of my saying
            it unless I have your leave. I can be miserable alone, I can be cut up
            by myself, why should I also make miserable and cut up one that I would
            fling myself off that parapet to give half a moment's joy to! Not that
            that's much to do, for I'd do it for twopence.'

            The mournfulness of his spirits, and the gorgeousness of his appearance,
            might have made him ridiculous, but that his delicacy made him
            respectable. Little Dorrit learnt from it what to do.

            'If you please, John Chivery,' she returned, trembling, but in a quiet
            way, 'since you are so considerate as to ask me whether you shall say
            any more--if you please, no.'

            'Never, Miss Amy?'

            'No, if you please. Never.'

            'O Lord!' gasped Young John.

            'But perhaps you will let me, instead, say something to you. I want
            to say it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is possible to
            express. When you think of us, John--I mean my brother, and sister,
            and me--don't think of us as being any different from the rest; for,
            whatever we once were (which I hardly know) we ceased to be long ago,
            and never can be any more. It will be much better for you, and much
            better for others, if you will do that instead of what you are doing
            now.'

            Young John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in mind, and
            would be heartily glad to do anything she wished.

            'As to me,' said Little Dorrit, 'think as little of me as you can; the
            less, the better. When you think of me at all, John, let it only be as
            the child you have seen grow up in the prison with one set of duties
            always occupying her; as a weak, retired, contented, unprotected girl. I
            particularly want you to remember, that when I come outside the gate, I
            am unprotected and solitary.'

            He would try to do anything she wished. But why did Miss Amy so much
            want him to remember that?

            'Because,' returned Little Dorrit, 'I know I can then quite trust you
            not to forget to-day, and not to say any more to me. You are so generous
            that I know I can trust to you for that; and I do and I always will. I
            am going to show you, at once, that I fully trust you. I like this place
            where we are speaking better than any place I know;' her slight colour
            had faded, but her lover thought he saw it coming back just then; 'and I
            may be often here. I know it is only necessary for me to tell you so, to
            be quite sure that you will never come here again in search of me. And I
            am--quite sure!'

            She might rely upon it, said Young John. He was a miserable wretch, but
            her word was more than a law for him.

            'And good-bye, John,' said Little Dorrit. 'And I hope you will have a
            good wife one day, and be a happy man. I am sure you will deserve to be
            happy, and you will be, John.'

            As she held out her hand to him with these words, the heart that was
            under the waistcoat of sprigs--mere slop-work, if the truth must be
            known--swelled to the size of the heart of a gentleman; and the poor
            common little fellow, having no room to hold it, burst into tears.

            'Oh, don't cry,' said Little Dorrit piteously. 'Don't, don't! Good-bye,
            John. God bless you!'

            'Good-bye, Miss Amy. Good-bye!'

            And so he left her: first observing that she sat down on the corner of a
            seat, and not only rested her little hand upon the rough wall, but laid
            her face against it too, as if her head were heavy, and her mind were
            sad.

            It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects,
            to behold her lover, with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the velvet
            collar turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat buttoned
            to conceal the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the little
            direction-post pointing inexorably home, creeping along by the worst
            back-streets, and composing, as he went, the following new inscription
            for a tombstone in St George's Churchyard:

            'Here lie the mortal remains Of JOHN CHIVERY, Never anything worth
            mentioning, Who died about the end of the year one thousand eight
            hundred and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Requesting with his last
            breath that the word AMY might be inscribed over his ashes, which was
            accordingly directed to be done, By his afflicted Parents.'

 The prison's new turnkey has a son named John Chivery, who is basically an emo boy: thin, pale, emotional, and constantly fantasizing about what his tombstone will say. This John Chivery has a huge crush on Little Dorrit. His parents are into the two of them getting married, thinking that he will bring money and she will bring social status to the marriage. This is funny, because her social status is high only for the delusionals inside the prison. John spends a lot of time trying to butter up the Dorrit family. Tip and Fanny put on a lot of airs and generally treat him as one step above a servant. Mr. Dorrit, on the other hand, is happy to accept his constant gifts of cigars and pretends like he doesn't know what they're for. One day John brings by some cigars and asks about Amy. Dorrit tells him casually that Amy is out for a walk on the Iron Bridge. John takes off, with Dorrit still pretending like he doesn't know what's going on. John finds Little Dorrit staring into the water on the bridge. He walks up to her and starts to propose. Little Dorrit immediately freaks out, tries to run away, and generally seems to really really not want to deal with his declarations of love. He lets slip that it was actually her father that hinted for him to come here. Little Dorrit is floored that dear old dad would sell her out for some cigars. John asks her permission to start telling her all about his feelings, and she takes him literally and declines to give her permission. She also tells him that since he is such a nice, kind guy, she hopes he'll never talk about that stuff ever again. He promises. Then he walks home composing sad obituaries for himself dying of a broken heart. Fast forward a hundred years and he'd be writing a depressing acoustic guitar song in his bedroom.

