That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a
physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of
the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no
pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, and
become developed in the most unlikely constitutions: is a fact as firmly
established by experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere. A
blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind, if the tainted, in
whose weakness or wickedness these virulent disorders are bred, could be
instantly seized and placed in close confinement (not to say summarily
smothered) before the poison is communicable.
As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar, so the
sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused the air to resound
more and more with the name of Merdle. It was deposited on every lip, and
carried into every ear. There never was, there never had been, there never again
should be, such a man as Mr Merdle. Nobody, as aforesaid, knew what he had done;
but everybody knew him to be the greatest that had appeared.
Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, where there was not one unappropriated
halfpenny, as lively an interest was taken in this paragon of men as on the
Stock Exchange. Mrs Plornish, now established in the small grocery and general
trade in a snug little shop at the crack end of the Yard, at the top of the
steps, with her little old father and Maggy acting as assistants, habitually
held forth about him over the counter in conversation with her customers. Mr
Plornish, who had a small share in a small builder's business in the
neighbourhood, said, trowel in hand, on the tops of scaffolds and on the tiles
of houses, that people did tell him as Mr Merdle was the one, mind you, to put
us all to rights in respects of that which all on us looked to, and to bring us
all safe home as much as we needed, mind you, fur toe be brought. Mr Baptist,
sole lodger of Mr and Mrs Plornish was reputed in whispers to lay by the savings
which were the result of his simple and moderate life, for investment in one of
Mr Merdle's certain enterprises. The female Bleeding Hearts, when they came for
ounces of tea, and hundredweights of talk, gave Mrs Plornish to understand, That
how, ma'am, they had heard from their cousin Mary Anne, which worked in the
line, that his lady's dresses would fill three waggons. That how she was as
handsome a lady, ma'am, as lived, no matter wheres, and a busk like marble
itself. That how, according to what they was told, ma'am, it was her son by a
former husband as was took into the Government; and a General he had been, and
armies he had marched again and victory crowned, if all you heard was to be
believed. That how it was reported that Mr Merdle's words had been, that if they
could have made it worth his while to take the whole Government he would have
took it without a profit, but that take it he could not and stand a loss. That
how it was not to be expected, ma'am, that he should lose by it, his ways being,
as you might say and utter no falsehood, paved with gold; but that how it was
much to be regretted that something handsome hadn't been got up to make it worth
his while; for it was such and only such that knowed the heighth to which the
bread and butchers' meat had rose, and it was such and only such that both could
and would bring that heighth down.
So rife and potent was the fever in Bleeding Heart Yard, that Mr Pancks's
rent-days caused no interval in the patients. The disease took the singular
form, on those occasions, of causing the infected to find an unfathomable excuse
and consolation in allusions to the magic name.
'Now, then!' Mr Pancks would say, to a defaulting lodger. 'Pay up!
Come on!'
'I haven't got it, Mr Pancks,' Defaulter would reply. 'I tell you the truth,
sir, when I say I haven't got so much as a single sixpence of it to bless myself
with.'
'This won't do, you know,' Mr Pancks would retort. 'You don't expect it will
do; do you?' Defaulter would admit, with a low-spirited 'No, sir,' having no
such expectation.
'My proprietor isn't going to stand this, you know,' Mr Pancks would proceed.
'He don't send me here for this. Pay up! Come!'
The Defaulter would make answer, 'Ah, Mr Pancks. If I was the rich gentleman
whose name is in everybody's mouth--if my name was Merdle, sir--I'd soon pay up,
and be glad to do it.'
Dialogues on the rent-question usually took place at the house- doors or in
the entries, and in the presence of several deeply interested Bleeding Hearts.
They always received a reference of this kind with a low murmur of response, as
if it were convincing; and the Defaulter, however black and discomfited before,
always cheered up a little in making it.
'If I was Mr Merdle, sir, you wouldn't have cause to complain of me then. No,
believe me!' the Defaulter would proceed with a shake of the head. 'I'd pay up
so quick then, Mr Pancks, that you shouldn't have to ask me.'
The response would be heard again here, implying that it was impossible to
say anything fairer, and that this was the next thing to paying the money down.
Mr Pancks would be now reduced to saying as he booked the case, 'Well! You'll
have the broker in, and be turned out; that's what'll happen to you. It's no use
talking to me about Mr Merdle. You are not Mr Merdle, any more than I am.'
'No, sir,' the Defaulter would reply. 'I only wish you were him, sir.'
The response would take this up quickly; replying with great feeling, 'Only
wish you were him, sir.'
'You'd be easier with us if you were Mr Merdle, sir,' the Defaulter would go
on with rising spirits, 'and it would be better for all parties. Better for our
sakes, and better for yours, too. You wouldn't have to worry no one, then, sir.
You wouldn't have to worry us, and you wouldn't have to worry yourself. You'd be
easier in your own mind, sir, and you'd leave others easier, too, you would, if
you were Mr Merdle.'
Mr Pancks, in whom these impersonal compliments produced an irresistible
sheepishness, never rallied after such a charge. He could only bite his nails
and puff away to the next Defaulter. The responsive Bleeding Hearts would then
gather round the Defaulter whom he had just abandoned, and the most extravagant
rumours would circulate among them, to their great comfort, touching the amount
of Mr Merdle's ready money.
From one of the many such defeats of one of many rent-days, Mr Pancks, having
finished his day's collection, repaired with his note-book under his arm to Mrs
Plornish's corner. Mr Pancks's object was not professional, but social. He had
had a trying day, and wanted a little brightening. By this time he was on
friendly terms with the Plornish family, having often looked in upon them at
similar seasons, and borne his part in recollections of Miss Dorrit.
Mrs Plornish's shop-parlour had been decorated under her own eye, and
presented, on the side towards the shop, a little fiction in which Mrs Plornish
unspeakably rejoiced. This poetical heightening of the parlour consisted in the
wall being painted to represent the exterior of a thatched cottage; the artist
having introduced (in as effective a manner as he found compatible with their
highly disproportionate dimensions) the real door and window. The modest
sunflower and hollyhock were depicted as flourishing with great luxuriance on
this rustic dwelling, while a quantity of dense smoke issuing from the chimney
indicated good cheer within, and also, perhaps, that it had not been lately
swept. A faithful dog was represented as flying at the legs of the friendly
visitor, from the threshold; and a circular pigeon-house, enveloped in a cloud
of pigeons, arose from behind the garden-paling. On the door (when it was shut),
appeared the semblance of a brass-plate, presenting the inscription, Happy
Cottage, T. and M. Plornish; the partnership expressing man and wife. No Poetry
and no Art ever charmed the imagination more than the union of the two in this
counterfeit cottage charmed Mrs Plornish. It was nothing to her that Plornish
had a habit of leaning against it as he smoked his pipe after work, when his hat
blotted out the pigeon-house and all the pigeons, when his back swallowed up the
dwelling, when his hands in his pockets uprooted the blooming garden and laid
waste the adjacent country. To Mrs Plornish, it was still a most beautiful
cottage, a most wonderful deception; and it made no difference that Mr
Plornish's eye was some inches above the level of the gable bed-room in the
thatch. To come out into the shop after it was shut, and hear her father sing a
song inside this cottage, was a perfect Pastoral to Mrs Plornish, the Golden Age
revived. And truly if that famous period had been revived, or had ever been at
all, it may be doubted whether it would have produced many more heartily
admiring daughters than the poor woman.
Warned of a visitor by the tinkling bell at the shop-door, Mrs Plornish came
out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be. 'I guessed it was you, Mr Pancks,'
said she, 'for it's quite your regular night; ain't it? Here's father, you see,
come out to serve at the sound of the bell, like a brisk young shopman. Ain't he
looking well? Father's more pleased to see you than if you was a customer, for
he dearly loves a gossip; and when it turns upon Miss Dorrit, he loves it all
the more. You never heard father in such voice as he is at present,' said Mrs
Plornish, her own voice quavering, she was so proud and pleased. 'He gave us
Strephon last night to that degree that Plornish gets up and makes him this
speech across the table. "John Edward Nandy," says Plornish to father, "I never
heard you come the warbles as I have heard you come the warbles this night."
An't it gratifying, Mr Pancks, though; really?'
Mr Pancks, who had snorted at the old man in his friendliest manner, replied
in the affirmative, and casually asked whether that lively Altro chap had come
in yet? Mrs Plornish answered no, not yet, though he had gone to the West-End
with some work, and had said he should be back by tea-time. Mr Pancks was then
hospitably pressed into Happy Cottage, where he encountered the elder Master
Plornish just come home from school. Examining that young student, lightly, on
the educational proceedings of the day, he found that the more advanced pupils
who were in the large text and the letter M, had been set the copy 'Merdle,
Millions.'
'And how are you getting on, Mrs Plornish,' said Pancks, 'since we're
mentioning millions?'
'Very steady, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs Plornish. 'Father, dear, would you
go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before tea, your taste being
so beautiful?'
John Edward Nandy trotted away, much gratified, to comply with his daughter's
request. Mrs Plornish, who was always in mortal terror of mentioning pecuniary
affairs before the old gentleman, lest any disclosure she made might rouse his
spirit and induce him to run away to the workhouse, was thus left free to be
confidential with Mr Pancks.
'It's quite true that the business is very steady indeed,' said Mrs Plornish,
lowering her voice; 'and has a excellent connection. The only thing that stands
in its way, sir, is the Credit.'
This drawback, rather severely felt by most people who engaged in commercial
transactions with the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard, was a large
stumbling-block in Mrs Plornish's trade. When Mr Dorrit had established her in
the business, the Bleeding Hearts had shown an amount of emotion and a
determination to support her in it, that did honour to human nature. Recognising
her claim upon their generous feelings as one who had long been a member of
their community, they pledged themselves, with great feeling, to deal with Mrs
Plornish, come what would and bestow their patronage on no other establishment.
Influenced by these noble sentiments, they had even gone out of their way to
purchase little luxuries in the grocery and butter line to which they were
unaccustomed; saying to one another, that if they did stretch a point, was it
not for a neighbour and a friend, and for whom ought a point to be stretched if
not for such? So stimulated, the business was extremely brisk, and the articles
in stock went off with the greatest celerity. In short, if the Bleeding Hearts
had but paid, the undertaking would have been a complete success; whereas, by
reason of their exclusively confining themselves to owing, the profits actually
realised had not yet begun to appear in the books.
Mr Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his hair up in
the contemplation of this state of accounts, when old Mr Nandy, re-entering the
cottage with an air of mystery, entreated them to come and look at the strange
behaviour of Mr Baptist, who seemed to have met with something that had scared
him. All three going into the shop, and watching through the window, then saw Mr
Baptist, pale and agitated, go through the following extraordinary performances.
First, he was observed hiding at the top of the steps leading down into the
Yard, and peeping up and down the street with his head cautiously thrust out
close to the side of the shop-door. After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of
his retreat, and went briskly down the street as if he were going away
altogether; then, suddenly turned about, and went, at the same pace, and with
the same feint, up the street. He had gone no further up the street than he had
gone down, when he crossed the road and disappeared. The object of this last
manoeuvre was only apparent, when his entering the shop with a sudden twist,
from the steps again, explained that he had made a wide and obscure circuit
round to the other, or Doyce and Clennam, end of the Yard, and had come through
the Yard and bolted in. He was out of breath by that time, as he might well be,
and his heart seemed to jerk faster than the little shop-bell, as it quivered
and jingled behind him with his hasty shutting of the door.
'Hallo, old chap!' said Mr Pancks. 'Altro, old boy! What's the matter?'
Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as well as Mr
Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too. Nevertheless, Mrs Plornish,
with a pardonable vanity in that accomplishment of hers which made her all but
Italian, stepped in as interpreter.
'E ask know,' said Mrs Plornish, 'What go wrong?'
'Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona,' returned Mr Baptist, imparting
great stealthiness to his flurried back-handed shake of his right forefinger.
'Come there!'
Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as
signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the Italian
tongue. She immediately complied with Mr Baptist's request, and they all went
into the cottage.
'E ope you no fright,' said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr Pancks in a
new way with her usual fertility of resource. 'What appen? Peaka Padrona!'
'I have seen some one,' returned Baptist. 'I have rincontrato him.'
'Im? Oo him?' asked Mrs Plornish.
'A bad man. A baddest man. I have hoped that I should never see him again.'
'Ow you know him bad?' asked Mrs Plornish.
'It does not matter, Padrona. I know it too well.'
''E see you?' asked Mrs Plornish.
'No. I hope not. I believe not.'
'He says,' Mrs Plornish then interpreted, addressing her father and Pancks
with mild condescension, 'that he has met a bad man, but he hopes the bad man
didn't see him--Why,' inquired Mrs Plornish, reverting to the Italian language,
'why ope bad man no see?'
'Padrona, dearest,' returned the little foreigner whom she so considerately
protected, 'do not ask, I pray. Once again I say it matters not. I have fear of
this man. I do not wish to see him, I do not wish to be known of him--never
again! Enough, most beautiful. Leave it.'
The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual liveliness to the
rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him further: the rather as the tea had
been drawing for some time on the hob. But she was not the less surprised and
curious for asking no more questions; neither was Mr Pancks, whose expressive
breathing had been labouring hard since the entrance of the little man, like a
locomotive engine with a great load getting up a steep incline. Maggy, now
better dressed than of yore, though still faithful to the monstrous character of
her cap, had been in the background from the first with open mouth and eyes,
which staring and gaping features were not diminished in breadth by the untimely
suppression of the subject. However, no more was said about it, though much
appeared to be thought on all sides: by no means excepting the two young
Plornishes, who partook of the evening meal as if their eating the bread and
butter were rendered almost superfluous by the painful probability of the worst
of men shortly presenting himself for the purpose of eating them. Mr Baptist, by
degrees began to chirp a little; but never stirred from the seat he had taken
behind the door and close to the window, though it was not his usual place. As
often as the little bell rang, he started and peeped out secretly, with the end
of the little curtain in his hand and the rest before his face; evidently not at
all satisfied but that the man he dreaded had tracked him through all his
doublings and turnings, with the certainty of a terrible bloodhound.
The entrance, at various times, of two or three customers and of Mr Plornish,
gave Mr Baptist just enough of this employment to keep the attention of the
company fixed upon him. Tea was over, and the children were abed, and Mrs
Plornish was feeling her way to the dutiful proposal that her father should
favour them with Chloe, when the bell rang again, and Mr Clennam came in.
Clennam had been poring late over his books and letters; for the
waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office ravaged his time sorely.
Over and above that, he was depressed and made uneasy by the late occurrence
at his mother's. He looked worn and solitary. He felt so, too; but,
nevertheless, was returning home from his counting- house by that end of the
Yard to give them the intelligence that he had received another letter from Miss
Dorrit.
The news made a sensation in the cottage which drew off the general attention
from Mr Baptist. Maggy, who pushed her way into the foreground immediately,
would have seemed to draw in the tidings of her Little Mother equally at her
ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but that the last were obstructed by tears. She was
particularly delighted when Clennam assured her that there were hospitals, and
very kindly conducted hospitals, in Rome. Mr Pancks rose into new distinction in
virtue of being specially remembered in the letter. Everybody was pleased and
interested, and Clennam was well repaid for his trouble. 'But you are tired,
sir. Let me make you a cup of tea,' said Mrs Plornish, 'if you'd condescend to
take such a thing in the cottage; and many thanks to you, too, I am sure, for
bearing us in mind so kindly.'
Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his personal
acknowledgments, tendered them in the form which always expressed his highest
ideal of a combination of ceremony with sincerity.
'John Edward Nandy,' said Mr Plornish, addressing the old gentleman. 'Sir.
It's not too often that you see unpretending actions without a spark of pride,
and therefore when you see them give grateful honour unto the same, being that
if you don't, and live to want 'em, it follows serve you right.'
To which Mr Nandy replied:
'I am heartily of your opinion, Thomas, and which your opinion is the same as
mine, and therefore no more words and not being backwards with that opinion,
which opinion giving it as yes, Thomas, yes, is the opinion in which yourself
and me must ever be unanimously jined by all, and where there is not difference
of opinion there can be none but one opinion, which fully no, Thomas, Thomas, no
!'
Arthur, with less formality, expressed himself gratified by their high
appreciation of so very slight an attention on his part; and explained as to the
tea that he had not yet dined, and was going straight home to refresh after a
long day's labour, or he would have readily accepted the hospitable offer. As Mr
Pancks was somewhat noisily getting his steam up for departure, he concluded by
asking that gentleman if he would walk with him? Mr Pancks said he desired no
better engagement, and the two took leave of Happy Cottage.
'If you will come home with me, Pancks,' said Arthur, when they got into the
street, 'and will share what dinner or supper there is, it will be next door to
an act of charity; for I am weary and out of sorts to-night.'
'Ask me to do a greater thing than that,' said Pancks, 'when you want it
done, and I'll do it.'
Between this eccentric personage and Clennam, a tacit understanding and
accord had been always improving since Mr Pancks flew over Mr Rugg's back in the
Marshalsea Yard. When the carriage drove away on the memorable day of the
family's departure, these two had looked after it together, and had walked
slowly away together. When the first letter came from little Dorrit, nobody was
more interested in hearing of her than Mr Pancks. The second letter, at that
moment in Clennam's breast-pocket, particularly remembered him by name. Though
he had never before made any profession or protestation to Clennam, and though
what he had just said was little enough as to the words in which it was
expressed, Clennam had long had a growing belief that Mr Pancks, in his own odd
way, was becoming attached to him. All these strings intertwining made Pancks a
very cable of anchorage that night.
'I am quite alone,' Arthur explained as they walked on. 'My partner is away,
busily engaged at a distance on his branch of our business, and you shall do
just as you like.'
'Thank you. You didn't take particular notice of little Altro just now; did
you?' said Pancks.
'No. Why?'
'He's a bright fellow, and I like him,' said Pancks. 'Something has gone
amiss with him to-day. Have you any idea of any cause that can have overset
him?'
'You surprise me! None whatever.'
Mr Pancks gave his reasons for the inquiry. Arthur was quite unprepared for
them, and quite unable to suggest an explanation of them.
'Perhaps you'll ask him,' said Pancks, 'as he's a stranger?'
'Ask him what?' returned Clennam.
'What he has on his mind.'
'I ought first to see for myself that he has something on his mind, I think,'
said Clennam. 'I have found him in every way so diligent, so grateful (for
little enough), and so trustworthy, that it might look like suspecting him. And
that would be very unjust.'
'True,' said Pancks. 'But, I say! You oughtn't to be anybody's proprietor, Mr
Clennam. You're much too delicate.' 'For the matter of that,' returned Clennam
laughing, 'I have not a large proprietary share in Cavalletto. His carving is
his livelihood. He keeps the keys of the Factory, watches it every alternate
night, and acts as a sort of housekeeper to it generally; but we have little
work in the way of his ingenuity, though we give him what we have. No! I am
rather his adviser than his proprietor. To call me his standing counsel and his
banker would be nearer the fact. Speaking of being his banker, is it not
curious, Pancks, that the ventures which run just now in so many people's heads,
should run even in little Cavalletto's?'
'Ventures?' retorted Pancks, with a snort. 'What ventures?'
'These Merdle enterprises.'
'Oh! Investments,' said Pancks. 'Ay, ay! I didn't know you were speaking of
investments.' His quick way of replying caused Clennam to look at him, with a
doubt whether he meant more than he said. As it was accompanied, however, with a
quickening of his pace and a corresponding increase in the labouring of his
machinery, Arthur did not pursue the matter, and they soon arrived at his house.
A dinner of soup and a pigeon-pie, served on a little round table before the
fire, and flavoured with a bottle of good wine, oiled Mr Pancks's works in a
highly effective manner; so that when Clennam produced his Eastern pipe, and
handed Mr Pancks another Eastern pipe, the latter gentleman was perfectly
comfortable.
They puffed for a while in silence, Mr Pancks like a steam-vessel with wind,
tide, calm water, and all other sea-going conditions in her favour. He was the
first to speak, and he spoke thus:
'Yes. Investments is the word.'
Clennam, with his former look, said 'Ah!'
'I am going back to it, you see,' said Pancks.
'Yes. I see you are going back to it,' returned Clennam, wondering why.
'Wasn't it a curious thing that they should run in little Altro's head? Eh?'
said Pancks as he smoked. 'Wasn't that how you put it?'
'That was what I said.'
'Ay! But think of the whole Yard having got it. Think of their all meeting me
with it, on my collecting days, here and there and everywhere. Whether they pay,
or whether they don't pay. Merdle, Merdle, Merdle. Always Merdle.'
'Very strange how these runs on an infatuation prevail,' said Arthur.
'An't it?' returned Pancks. After smoking for a minute or so, more drily than
comported with his recent oiling, he added: 'Because you see these people don't
understand the subject.'
'Not a bit,' assented Clennam.
'Not a bit,' cried Pancks. 'Know nothing of figures. Know nothing of money
questions. Never made a calculation. Never worked it, sir!'
'If they had--' Clennam was going on to say; when Mr Pancks, without change
of countenance, produced a sound so far surpassing all his usual efforts, nasal
or bronchial, that he stopped.
'If they had?' repeated Pancks in an inquiring tone.
'I thought you--spoke,' said Arthur, hesitating what name to give the
interruption.
'Not at all,' said Pancks. 'Not yet. I may in a minute. If they had?'
'If they had,' observed Clennam, who was a little at a loss how to take his
friend, 'why, I suppose they would have known better.'
'How so, Mr Clennam?' Pancks asked quickly, and with an odd effect of having
been from the commencement of the conversation loaded with the heavy charge he
now fired off. 'They're right, you know. They don't mean to be, but they're
right.'
'Right in sharing Cavalletto's inclination to speculate with Mr Merdle?'
'Per-fectly, sir,' said Pancks. 'I've gone into it. I've made the
calculations. I've worked it. They're safe and genuine.' Relieved by having got
to this, Mr Pancks took as long a pull as his lungs would permit at his Eastern
pipe, and looked sagaciously and steadily at Clennam while inhaling and exhaling
too.
In those moments, Mr Pancks began to give out the dangerous infection with
which he was laden. It is the manner of communicating these diseases; it is the
subtle way in which they go about.
'Do you mean, my good Pancks,' asked Clennam emphatically, 'that you would
put that thousand pounds of yours, let us say, for instance, out at this kind of
interest?'
'Certainly,' said Pancks. 'Already done it, sir.'
Mr Pancks took another long inhalation, another long exhalation, another long
sagacious look at Clennam.
'I tell you, Mr Clennam, I've gone into it,' said Pancks. 'He's a man of
immense resources--enormous capital--government influence. They're the best
schemes afloat. They're safe. They're certain.'
'Well!' returned Clennam, looking first at him gravely and then at the fire
gravely. 'You surprise me!'
'Bah!' Pancks retorted. 'Don't say that, sir. It's what you ought to do
yourself! Why don't you do as I do?'
Of whom Mr Pancks had taken the prevalent disease, he could no more have told
than if he had unconsciously taken a fever. Bred at first, as many physical
diseases are, in the wickedness of men, and then disseminated in their
ignorance, these epidemics, after a period, get communicated to many sufferers
who are neither ignorant nor wicked. Mr Pancks might, or might not, have caught
the illness himself from a subject of this class; but in this category he
appeared before Clennam, and the infection he threw off was all the more
virulent.
'And you have really invested,' Clennam had already passed to that word,
'your thousand pounds, Pancks?'
'To be sure, sir!' replied Pancks boldly, with a puff of smoke. 'And only
wish it ten!'
Now, Clennam had two subjects lying heavy on his lonely mind that night; the
one, his partner's long-deferred hope; the other, what he had seen and heard at
his mother's. In the relief of having this companion, and of feeling that he
could trust him, he passed on to both, and both brought him round again, with an
increase and acceleration of force, to his point of departure.
It came about in the simplest manner. Quitting the investment subject, after
an interval of silent looking at the fire through the smoke of his pipe, he told
Pancks how and why he was occupied with the great National Department. 'A hard
case it has been, and a hard case it is on Doyce,' he finished by saying, with
all the honest feeling the topic roused in him.
'Hard indeed,' Pancks acquiesced. 'But you manage for him, Mr Clennam?'
'How do you mean ?'
'Manage the money part of the business?'
'Yes. As well as I can.'
'Manage it better, sir,' said Pancks. 'Recompense him for his toils and
disappointments. Give him the chances of the time. He'll never benefit himself
in that way, patient and preoccupied workman. He looks to you, sir.'
'I do my best, Pancks,' returned Clennam, uneasily. 'As to duly weighing and
considering these new enterprises of which I have had no experience, I doubt if
I am fit for it, I am growing old.'
'Growing old?' cried Pancks. 'Ha, ha!'
There was something so indubitably genuine in the wonderful laugh, and series
of snorts and puffs, engendered in Mr Pancks's astonishment at, and utter
rejection of, the idea, that his being quite in earnest could not be questioned.
'Growing old?' cried Pancks. 'Hear, hear, hear! Old? Hear him, hear him!'
The positive refusal expressed in Mr Pancks's continued snorts, no less than
in these exclamations, to entertain the sentiment for a single instant, drove
Arthur away from it. Indeed, he was fearful of something happening to Mr Pancks
in the violent conflict that took place between the breath he jerked out of
himself and the smoke he jerked into himself. This abandonment of the second
topic threw him on the third.
'Young, old, or middle-aged, Pancks,' he said, when there was a favourable
pause, 'I am in a very anxious and uncertain state; a state that even leads me
to doubt whether anything now seeming to belong to me, may be really mine. Shall
I tell you how this is? Shall I put a great trust in you?'
'You shall, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you believe me worthy of it.'
'I do.'
'You may!' Mr Pancks's short and sharp rejoinder, confirmed by the sudden
outstretching of his coaly hand, was most expressive and convincing. Arthur
shook the hand warmly.
He then, softening the nature of his old apprehensions as much as was
possible consistently with their being made intelligible and never alluding to
his mother by name, but speaking vaguely of a relation of his, confided to Mr
Pancks a broad outline of the misgivings he entertained, and of the interview he
had witnessed. Mr Pancks listened with such interest that, regardless of the
charms of the Eastern pipe, he put it in the grate among the fire- irons, and
occupied his hands during the whole recital in so erecting the loops and hooks
of hair all over his head, that he looked, when it came to a conclusion, like a
journeyman Hamlet in conversation with his father's spirit.
'Brings me back, sir,' was his exclamation then, with a startling touch on
Clennam's knee, 'brings me back, sir, to the Investments! I don't say anything
of your making yourself poor to repair a wrong you never committed. That's you.
A man must be himself. But I say this, fearing you may want money to save your
own blood from exposure and disgrace--make as much as you can!'
Arthur shook his head, but looked at him thoughtfully too.
'Be as rich as you can, sir,' Pancks adjured him with a powerful
concentration of all his energies on the advice. 'Be as rich as you honestly
can. It's your duty. Not for your sake, but for the sake of others. Take time by
the forelock. Poor Mr Doyce (who really is growing old) depends upon you. Your
relative depends upon you. You don't know what depends upon you.'
'Well, well, well!' returned Arthur. 'Enough for to-night.'
'One word more, Mr Clennam,' retorted Pancks, 'and then enough for to-night.
Why should you leave all the gains to the gluttons, knaves, and impostors? Why
should you leave all the gains that are to be got to my proprietor and the like
of him? Yet you're always doing it. When I say you, I mean such men as you. You
know you are. Why, I see it every day of my life. I see nothing else. It's my
business to see it. Therefore I say,' urged Pancks, 'Go in and win!'
'But what of Go in and lose?' said Arthur.
'Can't be done, sir,' returned Pancks. 'I have looked into it. Name up
everywhere--immense resources--enormous capital--great position--high
connection--government influence. Can't be done!'
Gradually, after this closing exposition, Mr Pancks subsided; allowed his
hair to droop as much as it ever would droop on the utmost persuasion; reclaimed
the pipe from the fire-irons, filled it anew, and smoked it out. They said
little more; but were company to one another in silently pursuing the same
subjects, and did not part until midnight. On taking his leave, Mr Pancks, when
he had shaken hands with Clennam, worked completely round him before he steamed
out at the door. This, Arthur received as an assurance that he might implicitly
rely on Pancks, if he ever should come to need assistance; either in any of the
matters of which they had spoken that night, or any other subject that could in
any way affect himself.
At intervals all next day, and even while his attention was fixed on other
things, he thought of Mr Pancks's investment of his thousand pounds, and of his
having 'looked into it.' He thought of Mr Pancks's being so sanguine in this
matter, and of his not being usually of a sanguine character. He thought of the
great National Department, and of the delight it would be to him to see Doyce
better off. He thought of the darkly threatening place that went by the name of
Home in his remembrance, and of the gathering shadows which made it yet more
darkly threatening than of old. He observed anew that wherever he went, he saw,
or heard, or touched, the celebrated name of Merdle; he found it difficult even
to remain at his desk a couple of hours, without having it presented to one of
his bodily senses through some agency or other. He began to think it was curious
too that it should be everywhere, and that nobody but he should seem to have any
mistrust of it. Though indeed he began to remember, when he got to this, even he
did not mistrust it; he had only happened to keep aloof from it.
Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the signs of
sickening.
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