arthur, meanwhile, had missed little dorrit greatly. he was very friendly with a couple named meagles—a comely, healthy, good-humored and kind-hearted pair, and he was so lonely he almost thought himself in love with their daughter "pet" for a while. but pet soon married a portrait-painter and went to live abroad.
mr. and mrs. meagles had a little orphan maid whom they called "tattycoram," for no particular reason except that her first name had been hattie, and the name of the man who founded the asylum where they found her was "coram." tattycoram had a very bad temper, so that mr. meagles, when he saw one of these fits coming on, used to stop and say, "count twenty-five, tattycoram." and tattycoram would count twenty-five, and by that time the fit of temper was over.
but one day she had an attack that was very much worse than usual—so much worse that she couldn't wait to count twenty-five, and ran away. and it was a long time before they saw tattycoram again.
at mr. meagles's house arthur met an inventor named doyce, a quiet, straightforward man, whom he soon came to like. doyce had made[pg 281] a useful invention and for twelve years had been trying to bring it to the notice of the british government. but this matter, too, had to go through the famous "circumlocution office," and so there it had stuck just as arthur's inquiry had done.
arthur having chosen no new business as yet, before long proposed a partnership between himself and doyce. the latter agreed readily, and the new firm was established. soon after this doyce went abroad on business, leaving arthur to manage the affairs.
all might have gone well but for the fame of mr. merdle. his wealth seemed so enormous, and his plans so sure, that many people throughout england, just as old mr. dorrit had done, put their money in his care. even pancks, the rent collector, did so, and strongly advised arthur to do the same. convinced by such advice arthur was unhappily led to invest the money of the new firm in merdle's schemes.
one day soon after, mr. merdle, whom every one had looked up to and respected, killed himself, and then to every one's astonishment it was found that his money was all gone, that his schemes were all exploded, and that the famous man who had dined and wined with the great was simply the greatest forger and the greatest thief that had ever cheated the gallows.
but it was too late then. arthur's firm was utterly ruined with all the rest. what hurt him most[pg 282] was the knowledge that by using the firm's money he had ruined his honest partner, doyce.
in order to set the latter as near right as he could, arthur turned over every cent of his own personal fortune to pay as much of the firm's debt as it would, keeping nothing of value but his clothes and his books. beside doing this, he wrote out a statement, declaring that he, arthur clennam, had of his own act and against his partner's express caution, used the firm's money for this purpose, and that he alone, and not doyce, was to blame. he declared also that his own share (if any remained out of the wreck) should go to his partner, and that he himself would work as a mere clerk, at as small a salary as he could live on.
he published this statement at once, unwisely no doubt, when all london was so enraged against merdle and glad to have some one on whom to vent its madness. in the public anger and excitement the generosity of his act was lost sight of. a few hours later a man who had invested some of his money in arthur's firm, and thus lost it, had him arrested for debt, and that night he entered the dismal iron gates of the marshalsea prison, not now as a visitor, but as one whom the pitiless bars locked in from liberty.
the turnkey took him up the old familiar staircase and into the old familiar room in which he had so often been. and as he sat down in its loneliness, thinking of the fair, slight form that had[pg 283] dwelt in it so long, he turned his face to the wall and sobbed aloud, "oh, my little dorrit!"
wherever he looked he seemed to see her, and just as she herself in a foreign country found herself looking and listening for his step and voice, so, too, it was with him.
in the days that followed he thought of her all the while. he was too depressed and too retiring and unhappy to mingle with the other prisoners, so he kept his own room and made no friends. the rest disliked him and said he was proud or sullen.
a burning, reckless mood soon added its sufferings to his dread and hatred of the place. the thought grew on him that he would in the end break his heart and die there. he felt that he was being stifled, and at times the longing to be free made him believe he must go mad. a week of this suffering found him in his bed in the grasp of a slow, wasting fever. he felt light-headed and delirious, and heard tunes playing that he knew were only in his brain.
one day when he had dragged himself to his chair by the window, the door of his room seemed to open to a quiet figure, which dropped a mantle it wore; then it seemed to be little dorrit in her old dress, and it seemed first to smile and then to burst into tears.
he roused himself, and all at once he saw that it was no dream. she was really there, kneeling by him now with her tears falling on his hands[pg 284] and her voice crying, "oh, my best friend! don't let me see you weep! i am your own poor child come back!"
no one had told her he was ill, for she had just returned from italy. she made the room fresh and neat, sewed a white curtain for its window, and sent out for grapes, roast chicken and jellies, and every good thing. she sat by him all day, smoothing his hot pillow or giving him a cooling drink.
though he had been strangely blind, he knew at last that she must have loved him all along. and to find her great heart turned to him thus in his misfortune made him realize that during all those months in the lonely prison he had been loving her, too, though he had not known it.
a feeling of peace came to him. whenever he opened his eyes he saw her at his side—the same trusting little dorrit that he had always known.
