Chapter: The changes of a fevered room are slow and fluctuating; but the changes
of the fevered world are rapid and irrevocable.

It was Little Dorrit's lot to wait upon both kinds of change. The
Marshalsea walls, during a portion of every day, again embraced her in
their shadows as their child, while she thought for Clennam, worked for
him, watched him, and only left him, still to devote her utmost love and
care to him. Her part in the life outside the gate urged its pressing
claims upon her too, and her patience untiringly responded to them.
Here was Fanny, proud, fitful, whimsical, further advanced in that
disqualified state for going into society which had so much fretted
her on the evening of the tortoise-shell knife, resolved always to want
comfort, resolved not to be comforted, resolved to be deeply wronged,
    and resolved that nobody should have the audacity to think her so. Here
    was her brother, a weak, proud, tipsy, young old man, shaking from
    head to foot, talking as indistinctly as if some of the money he plumed
    himself upon had got into his mouth and couldn't be got out, unable to
    walk alone in any act of his life, and patronising the sister whom he
    selfishly loved (he always had that negative merit, ill-starred and
            ill-launched Tip!) because he suffered her to lead him. Here was Mrs
    Merdle in gauzy mourning--the original cap whereof had possibly been
    rent to pieces in a fit of grief, but had certainly yielded to a highly
    becoming article from the Parisian market--warring with Fanny foot to
    foot, and breasting her with her desolate bosom every hour in the day.
    Here was poor Mr Sparkler, not knowing how to keep the peace between
    them, but humbly inclining to the opinion that they could do no better
    than agree that they were both remarkably fine women, and that there was
    no nonsense about either of them--for which gentle recommendation they
    united in falling upon him frightfully. Then, too, here was Mrs General,
    got home from foreign parts, sending a Prune and a Prism by post every
    other day, demanding a new Testimonial by way of recommendation to some
    vacant appointment or other. Of which remarkable gentlewoman it may be
    finally observed, that there surely never was a gentlewoman of whose
    transcendent fitness for any vacant appointment on the face of this
earth, so many people were (as the warmth of her Testimonials evinced)
    so perfectly satisfied--or who was so very unfortunate in having a
    large circle of ardent and distinguished admirers, who never themselves
    happened to want her in any capacity.

    On the first crash of the eminent Mr Merdle's decease, many important
    persons had been unable to determine whether they should cut Mrs Merdle,
    or comfort her. As it seemed, however, essential to the strength of
    their own case that they should admit her to have been cruelly deceived,
    they graciously made the admission, and continued to know her. It
    followed that Mrs Merdle, as a woman of fashion and good breeding who
    had been sacrificed to the wiles of a vulgar barbarian (for Mr Merdle
            was found out from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, the
            moment he was found out in his pocket), must be actively championed by
    her order for her order's sake. She returned this fealty by causing it
    to be understood that she was even more incensed against the felonious
    shade of the deceased than anybody else was; thus, on the whole, she
    came out of her furnace like a wise woman, and did exceedingly well.

    Mr Sparkler's lordship was fortunately one of those shelves on which a
    gentleman is considered to be put away for life, unless there should be
    reasons for hoisting him up with the Barnacle crane to a more lucrative
    height. That patriotic servant accordingly stuck to his colours (the
            Standard of four Quarterings), and was a perfect Nelson in respect
    of nailing them to the mast. On the profits of his intrepidity, Mrs
    Sparkler and Mrs Merdle, inhabiting different floors of the genteel
    little temple of inconvenience to which the smell of the day before
    yesterday's soup and coach-horses was as constant as Death to man,
    arrayed themselves to fight it out in the lists of Society, sworn
    rivals. And Little Dorrit, seeing all these things as they developed
    themselves, could not but wonder, anxiously, into what back corner of
    the genteel establishment Fanny's children would be poked by-and-by, and
    who would take care of those unborn little victims.

    Arthur being far too ill to be spoken with on subjects of emotion or
    anxiety, and his recovery greatly depending on the repose into which
    his weakness could be hushed, Little Dorrit's sole reliance during this
    heavy period was on Mr Meagles. He was still abroad; but she had written
    to him through his daughter, immediately after first seeing Arthur in
    the Marshalsea and since, confiding her uneasiness to him on the points
    on which she was most anxious, but especially on one. To that one,
    the continued absence of Mr Meagles abroad, instead of his comforting
    presence in the Marshalsea, was referable.

    Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had fallen
    into Rigaud's hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general outline of
    that story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted his fate. The
    old cautious habits of the scales and scoop at once showed Mr Meagles
    the importance of recovering the original papers; wherefore he wrote
    back to Little Dorrit, strongly confirming her in the solicitude she
    expressed on that head, and adding that he would not come over to
    England 'without making some attempt to trace them out.'

    By this time Mr Henry Gowan had made up his mind that it would be
    agreeable to him not to know the Meagleses. He was so considerate as to
    lay no injunctions on his wife in that particular; but he mentioned
    to Mr Meagles that personally they did not appear to him to get on
    together, and that he thought it would be a good thing if--politely, and
    without any scene, or anything of that sort--they agreed that they were
    the best fellows in the world, but were best apart. Poor Mr Meagles, who
    was already sensible that he did not advance his daughter's happiness by
    being constantly slighted in her presence, said 'Good, Henry! You are
    my Pet's husband; you have displaced me, in the course of nature; if
    you wish it, good!' This arrangement involved the contingent advantage,
    which perhaps Henry Gowan had not foreseen, that both Mr and Mrs
    Meagles were more liberal than before to their daughter, when their
    communication was only with her and her young child: and that his high
    spirit found itself better provided with money, without being under the
    degrading necessity of knowing whence it came.

    Mr Meagles, at such a period, naturally seized an occupation with great
    ardour. He knew from his daughter the various towns which Rigaud had
    been haunting, and the various hotels at which he had been living for
    some time back. The occupation he set himself was to visit these with
    all discretion and speed, and, in the event of finding anywhere that he
    had left a bill unpaid, and a box or parcel behind, to pay such bill,
    and bring away such box or parcel.

    With no other attendant than Mother, Mr Meagles went upon his
    pilgrimage, and encountered a number of adventures. Not the least of his
    difficulties was, that he never knew what was said to him, and that he
    pursued his inquiries among people who never knew what he said to them.
    Still, with an unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow
    the mother tongue of the whole world, only the people were too stupid
    to know it, Mr Meagles harangued innkeepers in the most voluble manner,
    entered into loud explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly
    renounced replies in the native language of the respondents, on the
    ground that they were 'all bosh.' Sometimes interpreters were called
    in; whom Mr Meagles addressed in such idiomatic terms of speech, as
    instantly to extinguish and shut up--which made the matter worse. On a
    balance of the account, however, it may be doubted whether he lost much;
    for, although he found no property, he found so many debts and various
    associations of discredit with the proper name, which was the only word
    he made intelligible, that he was almost everywhere overwhelmed with
    injurious accusations. On no fewer than four occasions the police
    were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of
    Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious
    language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant),
    and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and
    public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a
    cheerful and fluent Briton as he was, with Mother under his arm.

    But, in his own tongue, and in his own head, Mr Meagles was a clear,
    shrewd, persevering man. When he had 'worked round,' as he called it, to
    Paris in his pilgrimage, and had wholly failed in it so far, he was not
    disheartened. 'The nearer to England I follow him, you see, Mother,'
    argued Mr Meagles, 'the nearer I am likely to come to the papers,
    whether they turn up or no. Because it is only reasonable to conclude
    that he would deposit them somewhere where they would be safe from
    people over in England, and where they would yet be accessible to
    himself, don't you see?'

    At Paris Mr Meagles found a letter from Little Dorrit, lying waiting for
    him; in which she mentioned that she had been able to talk for a minute
    or two with Mr Clennam about this man who was no more; and that when she
    told Mr Clennam that his friend Mr Meagles, who was on his way to see
    him, had an interest in ascertaining something about the man if he
    could, he had asked her to tell Mr Meagles that he had been known
    to Miss Wade, then living in such a street at Calais. 'Oho!' said Mr
    Meagles.

    As soon afterwards as might be in those Diligence days, Mr Meagles
    rang the cracked bell at the cracked gate, and it jarred open, and the
    peasant-woman stood in the dark doorway, saying, 'Ice-say! Seer! Who?'
    In acknowledgment of whose address, Mr Meagles murmured to himself that
    there was some sense about these Calais people, who really did know
    something of what you and themselves were up to; and returned, 'Miss
    Wade, my dear.' He was then shown into the presence of Miss Wade.

    'It's some time since we met,' said Mr Meagles, clearing his throat; 'I
    hope you have been pretty well, Miss Wade?'

    Without hoping that he or anybody else had been pretty well, Miss Wade
    asked him to what she was indebted for the honour of seeing him again?
    Mr Meagles, in the meanwhile, glanced all round the room without
    observing anything in the shape of a box.

    'Why, the truth is, Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, in a comfortable,
    managing, not to say coaxing voice, 'it is possible that you may be able
    to throw a light upon a little something that is at present dark. Any
    unpleasant bygones between us are bygones, I hope. Can't be helped now.
    You recollect my daughter? Time changes so! A mother!'

    In his innocence, Mr Meagles could not have struck a worse key-note. He
    paused for any expression of interest, but paused in vain.

    'That is not the subject you wished to enter on?' she said, after a cold
    silence.

    'No, no,' returned Mr Meagles. 'No. I thought your good nature might--'

    'I thought you knew,' she interrupted, with a smile, 'that my good
    nature is not to be calculated upon?'

    'Don't say so,' said Mr Meagles; 'you do yourself an injustice. However,
    to come to the point.' For he was sensible of having gained nothing
    by approaching it in a roundabout way. 'I have heard from my friend
    Clennam, who, you will be sorry to hear, has been and still is very
    ill--'

    He paused again, and again she was silent.

    '--that you had some knowledge of one Blandois, lately killed in London
    by a violent accident. Now, don't mistake me! I know it was a slight
    knowledge,' said Mr Meagles, dexterously forestalling an angry
    interruption which he saw about to break. 'I am fully aware of that. It
    was a slight knowledge, I know. But the question is,' Mr Meagles's voice
    here became comfortable again, 'did he, on his way to England last time,
    leave a box of papers, or a bundle of papers, or some papers or other in
    some receptacle or other--any papers--with you: begging you to allow him
    to leave them here for a short time, until he wanted them?'

    'The question is?' she repeated. 'Whose question is?'

    'Mine,' said Mr Meagles. 'And not only mine but Clennam's question, and
    other people's question. Now, I am sure,' continued Mr Meagles, whose
    heart was overflowing with Pet, 'that you can't have any unkind feeling
    towards my daughter; it's impossible. Well! It's her question, too;
    being one in which a particular friend of hers is nearly interested.
    So here I am, frankly to say that is the question, and to ask, Now, did
    he?'

    'Upon my word,' she returned, 'I seem to be a mark for everybody who
    knew anything of a man I once in my life hired, and paid, and dismissed,
    to aim their questions at!'

    'Now, don't,' remonstrated Mr Meagles, 'don't! Don't take offence,
    because it's the plainest question in the world, and might be asked
    of any one. The documents I refer to were not his own, were wrongfully
    obtained, might at some time or other be troublesome to an innocent
    person to have in keeping, and are sought by the people to whom they
    really belong. He passed through Calais going to London, and there were
    reasons why he should not take them with him then, why he should wish
    to be able to put his hand upon them readily, and why he should distrust
    leaving them with people of his own sort. Did he leave them here? I
    declare if I knew how to avoid giving you offence, I would take any
    pains to do it. I put the question personally, but there's nothing
    personal in it. I might put it to any one; I have put it already to many
    people. Did he leave them here? Did he leave anything here?'

    'No.'

    'Then unfortunately, Miss Wade, you know nothing about them?'

    'I know nothing about them. I have now answered your unaccountable
    question. He did not leave them here, and I know nothing about them.'

    'There!' said Mr Meagles rising. 'I am sorry for it; that's over; and I
    hope there is not much harm done.--Tattycoram well, Miss Wade?'

    'Harriet well? O yes!'

    'I have put my foot in it again,' said Mr Meagles, thus corrected. 'I
    can't keep my foot out of it here, it seems. Perhaps, if I had thought
    twice about it, I might never have given her the jingling name. But,
    when one means to be good-natured and sportive with young people, one
    doesn't think twice. Her old friend leaves a kind word for her, Miss
    Wade, if you should think proper to deliver it.'

    She said nothing as to that; and Mr Meagles, taking his honest face out
    of the dull room, where it shone like a sun, took it to the Hotel where
    he had left Mrs Meagles, and where he made the Report: 'Beaten, Mother;
    no effects!' He took it next to the London Steam Packet, which sailed in
    the night; and next to the Marshalsea.

    The faithful John was on duty when Father and Mother Meagles presented
    themselves at the wicket towards nightfall. Miss Dorrit was not there
    then, he said; but she had been there in the morning, and invariably
    came in the evening. Mr Clennam was slowly mending; and Maggy and Mrs
    Plornish and Mr Baptist took care of him by turns. Miss Dorrit was sure
    to come back that evening before the bell rang. There was the room the
    Marshal had lent her, up-stairs, in which they could wait for her, if
    they pleased. Mistrustful that it might be hazardous to Arthur to see
    him without preparation, Mr Meagles accepted the offer; and they were
    left shut up in the room, looking down through its barred window into
    the jail.

    The cramped area of the prison had such an effect on Mrs Meagles that
    she began to weep, and such an effect on Mr Meagles that he began to
    gasp for air. He was walking up and down the room, panting, and making
    himself worse by laboriously fanning himself with her handkerchief, when
    he turned towards the opening door.

    'Eh? Good gracious!' said Mr Meagles, 'this is not Miss Dorrit! Why,
    Mother, look! Tattycoram!'

    No other. And in Tattycoram's arms was an iron box some two feet square.
    Such a box had Affery Flintwinch seen, in the first of her dreams, going
    out of the old house in the dead of the night under Double's arm. This,
    Tattycoram put on the ground at her old master's feet: this, Tattycoram
    fell on her knees by, and beat her hands upon, crying half in exultation
    and half in despair, half in laughter and half in tears, 'Pardon, dear
    Master; take me back, dear Mistress; here it is!'

    'Tatty!' exclaimed Mr Meagles.

    'What you wanted!' said Tattycoram. 'Here it is! I was put in the next
    room not to see you. I heard you ask her about it, I heard her say she
    hadn't got it, I was there when he left it, and I took it at bedtime and
    brought it away. Here it is!'

    'Why, my girl,' cried Mr Meagles, more breathless than before, 'how did
    you come over?'

    'I came in the boat with you. I was sitting wrapped up at the other end.
    When you took a coach at the wharf, I took another coach and followed
    you here. She never would have given it up after what you had said to
    her about its being wanted; she would sooner have sunk it in the sea, or
    burnt it. But, here it is!'

    The glow and rapture that the girl was in, with her 'Here it is!'

    'She never wanted it to be left, I must say that for her; but he left
    it, and I knew well that after what you said, and after her denying
    it, she never would have given it up. But here it is! Dear Master, dear
    Mistress, take me back again, and give me back the dear old name! Let
    this intercede for me. Here it is!'

    Father and Mother Meagles never deserved their names better than when
    they took the headstrong foundling-girl into their protection again.

    'Oh! I have been so wretched,' cried Tattycoram, weeping much more,
    'always so unhappy, and so repentant! I was afraid of her from the first
    time I saw her. I knew she had got a power over me through understanding
    what was bad in me so well. It was a madness in me, and she could raise
    it whenever she liked. I used to think, when I got into that state, that
    people were all against me because of my first beginning; and the kinder
    they were to me, the worse fault I found in them. I made it out that
    they triumphed above me, and that they wanted to make me envy them, when
    I know--when I even knew then--that they never thought of such a thing.
    And my beautiful young mistress not so happy as she ought to have been,
    and I gone away from her! Such a brute and a wretch as she must think
    me! But you'll say a word to her for me, and ask her to be as forgiving
    as you two are? For I am not so bad as I was,' pleaded Tattycoram; 'I am
    bad enough, but not so bad as I was, indeed. I have had Miss Wade
    before me all this time, as if it was my own self grown ripe--turning
    everything the wrong way, and twisting all good into evil. I have had
    her before me all this time, finding no pleasure in anything but keeping
    me as miserable, suspicious, and tormenting as herself. Not that she had
    much to do, to do that,' cried Tattycoram, in a closing great burst of
    distress, 'for I was as bad as bad could be. I only mean to say, that,
    after what I have gone through, I hope I shall never be quite so bad
    again, and that I shall get better by very slow degrees. I'll try very
    hard. I won't stop at five-and-twenty, sir, I'll count five-and-twenty
    hundred, five-and-twenty thousand!'

    Another opening of the door, and Tattycoram subsided, and Little Dorrit
    came in, and Mr Meagles with pride and joy produced the box, and her
    gentle face was lighted up with grateful happiness and joy. The secret
    was safe now! She could keep her own part of it from him; he should
    never know of her loss; in time to come he should know all that was of
    import to himself; but he should never know what concerned her only.
    That was all passed, all forgiven, all forgotten.

    'Now, my dear Miss Dorrit,' said Mr Meagles; 'I am a man of business--or
    at least was--and I am going to take my measures promptly, in that
    character. Had I better see Arthur to-night?'

    'I think not to-night. I will go to his room and ascertain how he is.
    But I think it will be better not to see him to-night.'

    'I am much of your opinion, my dear,' said Mr Meagles, 'and therefore
    I have not been any nearer to him than this dismal room. Then I shall
    probably not see him for some little time to come. But I'll explain what
    I mean when you come back.'

    She left the room. Mr Meagles, looking through the bars of the window,
    saw her pass out of the Lodge below him into the prison-yard. He said
    gently, 'Tattycoram, come to me a moment, my good girl.'

    She went up to the window.

    'You see that young lady who was here just now--that little, quiet,
    fragile figure passing along there, Tatty? Look. The people stand out
    of the way to let her go by. The men--see the poor, shabby fellows--pull
    off their hats to her quite politely, and now she glides in at that
    doorway. See her, Tattycoram?'

    'Yes, sir.'

    'I have heard tell, Tatty, that she was once regularly called the child
    of this place. She was born here, and lived here many years. I can't
    breathe here. A doleful place to be born and bred in, Tattycoram?'

    'Yes indeed, sir!'

    'If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that
    everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast
    it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably an useless
    existence. Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her young life has
    been one of active resignation, goodness, and noble service. Shall I
    tell you what I consider those eyes of hers, that were here just now, to
    have always looked at, to get that expression?'

    'Yes, if you please, sir.'

    'Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no
    antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us
    with the Almighty, or with ourselves.'

    They remained at the window, Mother joining them and pitying the
    prisoners, until she was seen coming back. She was soon in the room, and
    recommended that Arthur, whom she had left calm and composed, should not
    be visited that night.

    'Good!' said Mr Meagles, cheerily. 'I have not a doubt that's best. I
    shall trust my remembrances then, my sweet nurse, in your hands, and I
    well know they couldn't be in better. I am off again to-morrow morning.'

    Little Dorrit, surprised, asked him where?

    'My dear,' said Mr Meagles, 'I can't live without breathing. This place
    has taken my breath away, and I shall never get it back again until
    Arthur is out of this place.'

    'How is that a reason for going off again to-morrow morning?'

    'You shall understand,' said Mr Meagles. 'To-night we three will put up
    at a City Hotel. To-morrow morning, Mother and Tattycoram will go down
    to Twickenham, where Mrs Tickit, sitting attended by Dr Buchan in the
    parlour-window, will think them a couple of ghosts; and I shall go
    abroad again for Doyce. We must have Dan here. Now, I tell you, my love,
    it's of no use writing and planning and conditionally speculating upon
    this and that and the other, at uncertain intervals and distances; we
    must have Doyce here. I devote myself at daybreak to-morrow morning, to
    bringing Doyce here. It's nothing to me to go and find him. I'm an old
    traveller, and all foreign languages and customs are alike to me--I
    never understand anything about any of 'em. Therefore I can't be put
    to any inconvenience. Go at once I must, it stands to reason; because
    I can't live without breathing freely; and I can't breathe freely until
    Arthur is out of this Marshalsea. I am stifled at the present moment,
    and have scarcely breath enough to say this much, and to carry this
    precious box down-stairs for you.'

    They got into the street as the bell began to ring, Mr Meagles carrying
    the box. Little Dorrit had no conveyance there: which rather surprised
    him. He called a coach for her and she got into it, and he placed the
    box beside her when she was seated. In her joy and gratitude she kissed
    his hand.

    'I don't like that, my dear,' said Mr Meagles. 'It goes against my
    feeling of what's right, that _you_ should do homage to _me_--at the
    Marshalsea Gate.'

    She bent forward, and kissed his cheek.

    'You remind me of the days,' said Mr Meagles, suddenly drooping--'but
    she's very fond of him, and hides his faults, and thinks that no
    one sees them--and he certainly is well connected and of a very good
    family!'

    It was the only comfort he had in the loss of his daughter, and if he
    made the most of it, who could blame him?

 After Merdle's suicide, Fanny, Sparkler, and Mrs. Merdle are now forced to live together on Sparkler's salary from his Circumlocution Office job. Which is fine - except they've become very accustomed to being super-rich, and now they're just snobby middle class. Also, Fanny and Mrs. Merdle do nothing but fight. Amy tells Meagles briefly some of what was in the Blandois documents, and he recommends trying to find and secure the originals. Then Henry Gowan tells his father-in-law that he wishes to never have anything to do with him, and so the Meagleses interact only with Pet. The whole thing is obviously stressful. Meagles volunteers to hunt down the papers and travels all over Europe. Finally he gets a tip about Blandois's connection to Miss Wade, and he tracks her down in Calais. She denies having the papers and refuses to deal with Meagles. She takes everything he says the wrong way and is her normal cold, unfeeling self. Just as the Meagleses have given up and returned to England, in their hotel they find... Tattycoram! She is holding the box with the documents! Tattycoram begs them to take her back and says that Miss Wade had the documents the whole time but didn't want to give them up. She tells them that she realized Miss Wade's life was her future if she couldn't figure out a way to stop being so angry about her birth and her station in life. They come to see Amy, and Meagles tells her that he's leaving the next day to find and bring back to London... Doyce!

