David Copperfield

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Title: David Copperfield
Author: Charles Dickens
Release Date: December, 1996 [Etext #766]
Posting Date: November 24, 2009
Last Updated: September 25, 2016
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAVID COPPERFIELD ***
Produced by Jo Churcher
DAVID COPPERFIELD
By Charles Dickens
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO
THE HON. Mr. AND Mrs. RICHARD WATSON,
OF ROCKINGHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
CONTENTS
I. I Am Born
II. I Observe
III. I Have a Change
IV. I Fall into Disgrace
V. I Am Sent Away
VI. I Enlarge My Circle of Acquaintance
VII. My ‘First Half’ at Salem House
VIII. My Holidays. Especially One Happy Afternoon
IX. I Have a Memorable Birthday
X. I Become Neglected, and Am Provided For
XI. I Begin Life on My Own Account, and Don’t Like It
XII. Liking Life on My Own Account No Better, I Form a Great Resolution
XIII. The Sequel of My Resolution
XIV. My Aunt Makes up Her Mind About Me
XV. I Make Another Beginning
XVI. I Am a New Boy in More Senses Than One
XVII. Somebody Turns Up
XVIII. A Retrospect
XIX. I Look About Me and Make a Discovery
XX. Steerforth’s Home
XXI. Little Em’ly
XXII. Some Old Scenes, and Some New People
XXIII. I Corroborate Mr. Dick, and Choose a Profession
XXIV. My First Dissipation
XXV. Good and Bad Angels
XXVI. I Fall into Captivity
XXVII. Tommy Traddles
XXVIII. Mr. Micawber’s Gauntlet
XXIX. I Visit Steerforth at His Home, Again
XXX. A Loss
XXXI. A Greater Loss
XXXII. The Beginning of a Long Journey
XXXIII. Blissful
XXXIV. My Aunt Astonishes Me
XXXV. Depression
XXXVI. Enthusiasm
XXXVII. A Little Cold Water
XXXVIII. A Dissolution of Partnership
XXXIX. Wickfield and Heep
XL. The Wanderer
XLI. Dora’s Aunts
XLII. Mischief
XLIII. Another Retrospect
XLIV. Our Housekeeping
XLV. Mr. Dick Fulfils My Aunt’s Predictions
XLVI. Intelligence
XLVII. Martha
XLVIII. Domestic
XLIX. I Am Involved in Mystery
L. Mr. Peggotty’s Dream Comes True
LI. The Beginning of a Longer Journey
LII. I Assist at an Explosion
LIII. Another Retrospect
LIV. Mr. Micawber’s Transactions
LV. Tempest
LVI. The New Wound, and the Old
LVII. The Emigrants
LVIII. Absence
LIX. Return
LX. Agnes
LXI. I Am Shown Two Interesting Penitents
LXII. A Light Shines on My Way
LXIII. A Visitor
LXIV. A Last Retrospect
PREFACE TO 1850 EDITION
I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this Book, in
the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the
composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest
in it, is so recent and strong; and my mind is so divided between
pleasure and regret--pleasure in the achievement of a long design,
regret in the separation from many companions--that I am in danger of
wearying the reader whom I love, with personal confidences, and private
emotions.
Besides which, all that I could say of the Story, to any purpose, I have
endeavoured to say in it.
It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how sorrowfully
the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or
how an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself
into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain
are going from him for ever. Yet, I have nothing else to tell; unless,
indeed, I were to confess (which might be of less moment still) that no
one can ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I have
believed it in the writing.
Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. I cannot close
this Volume more agreeably to myself, than with a hopeful glance towards
the time when I shall again put forth my two green leaves once a month,
and with a faithful remembrance of the genial sun and showers that have
fallen on these leaves of David Copperfield, and made me happy.
London, October, 1850.
PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION
I REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book, that I did not find it
easy to get sufficiently far away from it, in the first sensations of
having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal
heading would seem to require. My interest in it was so recent and
strong, and my mind was so divided between pleasure and regret--pleasure
in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many
companions--that I was in danger of wearying the reader with personal
confidences and private emotions.
Besides which, all that I could have said of the Story to any purpose, I
had endeavoured to say in it.
It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the
pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’ imaginative task; or how
an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into
the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going
from him for ever. Yet, I had nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I
were to confess (which might be of less moment still), that no one can
ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I believed it in
the writing.
So true are these avowals at the present day, that I can now only take
the reader into one confidence more. Of all my books, I like this the
best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child
of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I
love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a
favourite child. And his name is
DAVID COPPERFIELD.
1869
THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER
CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that
station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my
life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have
been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night.
It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry,
simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by
the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a
lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility
of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be
unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and
spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to
all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a
Friday night.
I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show
better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified
by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark,
that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still
a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of
having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in
the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it.
I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the
newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going
people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and
preferred cork jackets, I don’t know; all I know is, that there was but
one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the
bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance
in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher
bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead
loss--for as to sherry, my poor dear mother’s own sherry was in the
market then--and ten years afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffle
down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a
head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I
remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of
myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by
an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it
the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny
short--as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to
endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will
be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned,
but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it
was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the
water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which
she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation
at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go
‘meandering’ about the world. It was in vain to represent to her
that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this
objectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis and
with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, ‘Let us
have no meandering.’
Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back to my birth.
I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or ‘there by’, as they say in
Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father’s eyes had closed upon
the light of this world six months, when mine opened on it. There is
something strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never saw
me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy remembrance that I have
of my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the
churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it
lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlour
was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house
were--almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes--bolted and locked
against it.
An aunt of my father’s, and consequently a great-aunt of mine, of whom
I shall have more to relate by and by, was the principal magnate of our
family. Miss Trotwood, or Miss Betsey, as my poor mother always called
her, when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable
personage to mention her at all (which was seldom), had been married
to a husband younger than herself, who was very handsome, except in the
sense of the homely adage, ‘handsome is, that handsome does’--for he
was strongly suspected of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of having
once, on a disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determined
arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs’ window. These
evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betsey to pay him
off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He went to India with
his capital, and there, according to a wild legend in our family, he was
once seen riding on an elephant, in company with a Baboon; but I think
it must have been a Baboo--or a Begum. Anyhow, from India tidings of his
death reached home, within ten years. How they affected my aunt, nobody
knew; for immediately upon the separation, she took her maiden name
again, bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off,
established herself there as a single woman with one servant, and
was understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible
retirement.
My father had once been a favourite of hers, I believe; but she was
mortally affronted by his marriage, on the ground that my mother was ‘a
wax doll’. She had never seen my mother, but she knew her to be not
yet twenty. My father and Miss Betsey never met again. He was double
my mother’s age when he married, and of but a delicate constitution. He
died a year afterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I came
into the world.
This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of, what I may be
excused for calling, that eventful and important Friday. I can make no
claim therefore to have known, at that time, how matters stood; or to
have any remembrance, founded on the evidence of my own senses, of what
follows.
My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low in
spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about
herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by
some grosses of prophetic pins, in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at
all excited on the subject of his arrival; my mother, I say, was sitting
by the fire, that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and
very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her,
when, lifting her eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite, she
saw a strange lady coming up the garden.
My mother had a sure foreboding at the second glance, that it was
Miss Betsey. The setting sun was glowing on the strange lady, over the
garden-fence, and she came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity
of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to
nobody else.
When she reached the house, she gave another proof of her identity.
My father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any
ordinary Christian; and now, instead of ringing the bell, she came and
looked in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against
the glass to that extent, that my poor dear mother used to say it became
perfectly flat and white in a moment.
She gave my mother such a turn, that I have always been convinced I am
indebted to Miss Betsey for having been born on a Friday.
My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in
the corner. Miss Betsey, looking round the room, slowly and inquiringly,
began on the other side, and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen’s Head
in a Dutch clock, until they reached my mother. Then she made a frown
and a gesture to my mother, like one who was accustomed to be obeyed, to
come and open the door. My mother went.
‘Mrs. David Copperfield, I think,’ said Miss Betsey; the emphasis
referring, perhaps, to my mother’s mourning weeds, and her condition.
‘Yes,’ said my mother, faintly.
‘Miss Trotwood,’ said the visitor. ‘You have heard of her, I dare say?’
My mother answered she had had that pleasure. And she had a disagreeable
consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpowering
pleasure.
‘Now you see her,’ said Miss Betsey. My mother bent her head, and begged
her to walk in.
They went into the parlour my mother had come from, the fire in the best
room on the other side of the passage not being lighted--not having
been lighted, indeed, since my father’s funeral; and when they were both
seated, and Miss Betsey said nothing, my mother, after vainly trying to
restrain herself, began to cry. ‘Oh tut, tut, tut!’ said Miss Betsey, in
a hurry. ‘Don’t do that! Come, come!’
My mother couldn’t help it notwithstanding, so she cried until she had
had her cry out.
‘Take off your cap, child,’ said Miss Betsey, ‘and let me see you.’
My mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this odd
request, if she had any disposition to do so. Therefore she did as she
was told, and did it with such nervous hands that her hair (which was
luxuriant and beautiful) fell all about her face.
‘Why, bless my heart!’ exclaimed Miss Betsey. ‘You are a very Baby!’
My mother was, no doubt, unusually youthful in appearance even for her
years; she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, and said,
sobbing, that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow, and
would be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause which
ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, and
that with no ungentle hand; but, looking at her, in her timid hope, she
found that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands
folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender, frowning at the fire.
‘In the name of Heaven,’ said Miss Betsey, suddenly, ‘why Rookery?’
‘Do you mean the house, ma’am?’ asked my mother.
‘Why Rookery?’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Cookery would have been more to the
purpose, if you had had any practical ideas of life, either of you.’
‘The name was Mr. Copperfield’s choice,’ returned my mother. ‘When he
bought the house, he liked to think that there were rooks about it.’
The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old
elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor Miss
Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another,
like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such
repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if
their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind,
some weatherbeaten ragged old rooks’-nests, burdening their higher
branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea.
‘Where are the birds?’ asked Miss Betsey.
‘The--?’ My mother had been thinking of something else.
‘The rooks--what has become of them?’ asked Miss Betsey.
‘There have not been any since we have lived here,’ said my mother. ‘We
thought--Mr. Copperfield thought--it was quite a large rookery; but
the nests were very old ones, and the birds have deserted them a long
while.’
‘David Copperfield all over!’ cried Miss Betsey. ‘David Copperfield from
head to foot! Calls a house a rookery when there’s not a rook near it,
and takes the birds on trust, because he sees the nests!’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned my mother, ‘is dead, and if you dare to
speak unkindly of him to me--’
My poor dear mother, I suppose, had some momentary intention of
committing an assault and battery upon my aunt, who could easily have
settled her with one hand, even if my mother had been in far better
training for such an encounter than she was that evening. But it passed
with the action of rising from her chair; and she sat down again very
meekly, and fainted.
When she came to herself, or when Miss Betsey had restored her,
whichever it was, she found the latter standing at the window. The
twilight was by this time shading down into darkness; and dimly as they
saw each other, they could not have done that without the aid of the
fire.
‘Well?’ said Miss Betsey, coming back to her chair, as if she had only
been taking a casual look at the prospect; ‘and when do you expect--’
‘I am all in a tremble,’ faltered my mother. ‘I don’t know what’s the
matter. I shall die, I am sure!’
‘No, no, no,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Have some tea.’
‘Oh dear me, dear me, do you think it will do me any good?’ cried my
mother in a helpless manner.
‘Of course it will,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘It’s nothing but fancy. What do
you call your girl?’
‘I don’t know that it will be a girl, yet, ma’am,’ said my mother
innocently.
‘Bless the Baby!’ exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting the
second sentiment of the pincushion in the drawer upstairs, but
applying it to my mother instead of me, ‘I don’t mean that. I mean your
servant-girl.’
‘Peggotty,’ said my mother.
‘Peggotty!’ repeated Miss Betsey, with some indignation. ‘Do you mean to
say, child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church,
and got herself named Peggotty?’ ‘It’s her surname,’ said my mother,
faintly. ‘Mr. Copperfield called her by it, because her Christian name
was the same as mine.’
‘Here! Peggotty!’ cried Miss Betsey, opening the parlour door. ‘Tea.
Your mistress is a little unwell. Don’t dawdle.’
Having issued this mandate with as much potentiality as if she had been
a recognized authority in the house ever since it had been a house,
and having looked out to confront the amazed Peggotty coming along the
passage with a candle at the sound of a strange voice, Miss Betsey shut
the door again, and sat down as before: with her feet on the fender, the
skirt of her dress tucked up, and her hands folded on one knee.
‘You were speaking about its being a girl,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘I have no
doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be a girl.
Now child, from the moment of the birth of this girl--’
‘Perhaps boy,’ my mother took the liberty of putting in.
‘I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl,’ returned Miss
Betsey. ‘Don’t contradict. From the moment of this girl’s birth, child,
I intend to be her friend. I intend to be her godmother, and I beg
you’ll call her Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. There must be no mistakes
in life with THIS Betsey Trotwood. There must be no trifling with HER
affections, poor dear. She must be well brought up, and well guarded
from reposing any foolish confidences where they are not deserved. I
must make that MY care.’
There was a twitch of Miss Betsey’s head, after each of these sentences,
as if her own old wrongs were working within her, and she repressed any
plainer reference to them by strong constraint. So my mother suspected,
at least, as she observed her by the low glimmer of the fire: too
much scared by Miss Betsey, too uneasy in herself, and too subdued and
bewildered altogether, to observe anything very clearly, or to know what
to say.
‘And was David good to you, child?’ asked Miss Betsey, when she had been
silent for a little while, and these motions of her head had gradually
ceased. ‘Were you comfortable together?’
‘We were very happy,’ said my mother. ‘Mr. Copperfield was only too good
to me.’
‘What, he spoilt you, I suppose?’ returned Miss Betsey.
‘For being quite alone and dependent on myself in this rough world
again, yes, I fear he did indeed,’ sobbed my mother.
‘Well! Don’t cry!’ said Miss Betsey. ‘You were not equally matched,
child--if any two people can be equally matched--and so I asked the
question. You were an orphan, weren’t you?’ ‘Yes.’
‘And a governess?’
‘I was nursery-governess in a family where Mr. Copperfield came to
visit. Mr. Copperfield was very kind to me, and took a great deal of
notice of me, and paid me a good deal of attention, and at last proposed
to me. And I accepted him. And so we were married,’ said my mother
simply.
‘Ha! Poor Baby!’ mused Miss Betsey, with her frown still bent upon the
fire. ‘Do you know anything?’
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ faltered my mother.
‘About keeping house, for instance,’ said Miss Betsey.
‘Not much, I fear,’ returned my mother. ‘Not so much as I could wish.
But Mr. Copperfield was teaching me--’
[‘Much he knew about it himself!’) said Miss Betsey in a parenthesis.
--‘And I hope I should have improved, being very anxious to learn, and
he very patient to teach me, if the great misfortune of his death’--my
mother broke down again here, and could get no farther.
‘Well, well!’ said Miss Betsey. --‘I kept my housekeeping-book
regularly, and balanced it with Mr. Copperfield every night,’ cried my
mother in another burst of distress, and breaking down again.
‘Well, well!’ said Miss Betsey. ‘Don’t cry any more.’ --‘And I am
sure we never had a word of difference respecting it, except when Mr.
Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each
other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines,’ resumed my
mother in another burst, and breaking down again.
‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ said Miss Betsey, ‘and you know that will
not be good either for you or for my god-daughter. Come! You mustn’t do
it!’
This argument had some share in quieting my mother, though her
increasing indisposition had a larger one. There was an interval of
silence, only broken by Miss Betsey’s occasionally ejaculating ‘Ha!’ as
she sat with her feet upon the fender.
‘David had bought an annuity for himself with his money, I know,’ said
she, by and by. ‘What did he do for you?’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said my mother, answering with some difficulty, ‘was
so considerate and good as to secure the reversion of a part of it to
me.’
‘How much?’ asked Miss Betsey.
‘A hundred and five pounds a year,’ said my mother.
‘He might have done worse,’ said my aunt.
The word was appropriate to the moment. My mother was so much worse
that Peggotty, coming in with the teaboard and candles, and seeing at a
glance how ill she was,--as Miss Betsey might have done sooner if there
had been light enough,--conveyed her upstairs to her own room with all
speed; and immediately dispatched Ham Peggotty, her nephew, who had been
for some days past secreted in the house, unknown to my mother, as a
special messenger in case of emergency, to fetch the nurse and doctor.
Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived
within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of
portentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied
over her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers’ cotton. Peggotty
knowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing about her,
she was quite a mystery in the parlour; and the fact of her having a
magazine of jewellers’ cotton in her pocket, and sticking the article
in her ears in that way, did not detract from the solemnity of her
presence.
The doctor having been upstairs and come down again, and having
satisfied himself, I suppose, that there was a probability of this
unknown lady and himself having to sit there, face to face, for some
hours, laid himself out to be polite and social. He was the meekest of
his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to
take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet,
and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest
depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody
else. It is nothing to say that he hadn’t a word to throw at a dog. He
couldn’t have thrown a word at a mad dog. He might have offered him one
gently, or half a one, or a fragment of one; for he spoke as slowly as
he walked; but he wouldn’t have been rude to him, and he couldn’t have
been quick with him, for any earthly consideration.
Mr. Chillip, looking mildly at my aunt with his head on one side, and
making her a little bow, said, in allusion to the jewellers’ cotton, as
he softly touched his left ear:
‘Some local irritation, ma’am?’
‘What!’ replied my aunt, pulling the cotton out of one ear like a cork.
Mr. Chillip was so alarmed by her abruptness--as he told my mother
afterwards--that it was a mercy he didn’t lose his presence of mind. But
he repeated sweetly:
‘Some local irritation, ma’am?’
‘Nonsense!’ replied my aunt, and corked herself again, at one blow.
Mr. Chillip could do nothing after this, but sit and look at her feebly,
as she sat and looked at the fire, until he was called upstairs again.
After some quarter of an hour’s absence, he returned.
‘Well?’ said my aunt, taking the cotton out of the ear nearest to him.
‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘we are--we are progressing slowly,
ma’am.’
‘Ba--a--ah!’ said my aunt, with a perfect shake on the contemptuous
interjection. And corked herself as before.
Really--really--as Mr. Chillip told my mother, he was almost shocked;
speaking in a professional point of view alone, he was almost shocked.
But he sat and looked at her, notwithstanding, for nearly two hours,
as she sat looking at the fire, until he was again called out. After
another absence, he again returned.
‘Well?’ said my aunt, taking out the cotton on that side again.
‘Well, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘we are--we are progressing slowly,
ma’am.’
‘Ya--a--ah!’ said my aunt. With such a snarl at him, that Mr. Chillip
absolutely could not bear it. It was really calculated to break his
spirit, he said afterwards. He preferred to go and sit upon the stairs,
in the dark and a strong draught, until he was again sent for.
Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very dragon at
his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness,
reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlour-door an hour
after this, he was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking to
and fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he could make
his escape. That there were now occasional sounds of feet and voices
overhead which he inferred the cotton did not exclude, from the
circumstance of his evidently being clutched by the lady as a victim on
whom to expend her superabundant agitation when the sounds were loudest.
That, marching him constantly up and down by the collar (as if he had
been taking too much laudanum), she, at those times, shook him, rumpled
his hair, made light of his linen, stopped his ears as if she confounded
them with her own, and otherwise tousled and maltreated him. This was
in part confirmed by his aunt, who saw him at half past twelve o’clock,
soon after his release, and affirmed that he was then as red as I was.
The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, if
at any time. He sidled into the parlour as soon as he was at liberty,
and said to my aunt in his meekest manner:
‘Well, ma’am, I am happy to congratulate you.’
‘What upon?’ said my aunt, sharply.
Mr. Chillip was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my aunt’s
manner; so he made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to
mollify her.
‘Mercy on the man, what’s he doing!’ cried my aunt, impatiently. ‘Can’t
he speak?’
‘Be calm, my dear ma’am,’ said Mr. Chillip, in his softest accents.
‘There is no longer any occasion for uneasiness, ma’am. Be calm.’
It has since been considered almost a miracle that my aunt didn’t shake
him, and shake what he had to say, out of him. She only shook her own
head at him, but in a way that made him quail.
‘Well, ma’am,’ resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had courage, ‘I am
happy to congratulate you. All is now over, ma’am, and well over.’
During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the delivery
of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly.
‘How is she?’ said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet still tied
on one of them.
‘Well, ma’am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope,’ returned Mr.
Chillip. ‘Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to be,
under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot be any
objection to your seeing her presently, ma’am. It may do her good.’
‘And SHE. How is SHE?’ said my aunt, sharply.
Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at my
aunt like an amiable bird.
‘The baby,’ said my aunt. ‘How is she?’
‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Chillip, ‘I apprehended you had known. It’s a
boy.’
My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in the
manner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr. Chillip’s head with it, put it on
bent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a discontented
fairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, whom it was popularly
supposed I was entitled to see; and never came back any more.
No. I lay in my basket, and my mother lay in her bed; but Betsey
Trotwood Copperfield was for ever in the land of dreams and shadows, the
tremendous region whence I had so lately travelled; and the light upon
the window of our room shone out upon the earthly bourne of all such
travellers, and the mound above the ashes and the dust that once was he,
without whom I had never been.
CHAPTER 2. I OBSERVE
The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look
far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty
hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all, and eyes so
dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face,
and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn’t
peck her in preference to apples.
I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed
to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going
unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind
which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of
Peggotty’s forefinger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being
roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater.
This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go
farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe
the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite
wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most
grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety
be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the
rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness,
and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an
inheritance they have preserved from their childhood.
I might have a misgiving that I am ‘meandering’ in stopping to say this,
but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions, in part
upon my own experience of myself; and if it should appear from
anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close
observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I
undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics.
Looking back, as I was saying, into the blank of my infancy, the first
objects I can remember as standing out by themselves from a confusion of
things, are my mother and Peggotty. What else do I remember? Let me see.
There comes out of the cloud, our house--not new to me, but quite
familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground-floor is Peggotty’s
kitchen, opening into a back yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in
the centre, without any pigeons in it; a great dog-kennel in a corner,
without any dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me,
walking about, in a menacing and ferocious manner. There is one cock who
gets upon a post to crow, and seems to take particular notice of me as
I look at him through the kitchen window, who makes me shiver, he is so
fierce. Of the geese outside the side-gate who come waddling after
me with their long necks stretched out when I go that way, I dream at
night: as a man environed by wild beasts might dream of lions.
Here is a long passage--what an enormous perspective I make of
it!--leading from Peggotty’s kitchen to the front door. A dark
store-room opens out of it, and that is a place to be run past at
night; for I don’t know what may be among those tubs and jars and old
tea-chests, when there is nobody in there with a dimly-burning light,
letting a mouldy air come out of the door, in which there is the smell
of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all at one whiff. Then
there are the two parlours: the parlour in which we sit of an evening,
my mother and I and Peggotty--for Peggotty is quite our companion, when
her work is done and we are alone--and the best parlour where we sit
on a Sunday; grandly, but not so comfortably. There is something of a
doleful air about that room to me, for Peggotty has told me--I don’t
know when, but apparently ages ago--about my father’s funeral, and the
company having their black cloaks put on. One Sunday night my mother
reads to Peggotty and me in there, how Lazarus was raised up from the
dead. And I am so frightened that they are afterwards obliged to take me
out of bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window,
with the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon.
There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as the grass of
that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so
quiet as its tombstones. The sheep are feeding there, when I kneel up,
early in the morning, in my little bed in a closet within my mother’s
room, to look out at it; and I see the red light shining on the
sun-dial, and think within myself, ‘Is the sun-dial glad, I wonder, that
it can tell the time again?’
Here is our pew in the church. What a high-backed pew! With a window
near it, out of which our house can be seen, and IS seen many times
during the morning’s service, by Peggotty, who likes to make herself
as sure as she can that it’s not being robbed, or is not in flames. But
though Peggotty’s eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does,
and frowns to me, as I stand upon the seat, that I am to look at the
clergyman. But I can’t always look at him--I know him without that white
thing on, and I am afraid of his wondering why I stare so, and perhaps
stopping the service to inquire--and what am I to do? It’s a dreadful
thing to gape, but I must do something. I look at my mother, but she
pretends not to see me. I look at a boy in the aisle, and he makes faces
at me. I look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through
the porch, and there I see a stray sheep--I don’t mean a sinner, but
mutton--half making up his mind to come into the church. I feel that
if I looked at him any longer, I might be tempted to say something out
loud; and what would become of me then! I look up at the monumental
tablets on the wall, and try to think of Mr. Bodgers late of this
parish, and what the feelings of Mrs. Bodgers must have been, when
affliction sore, long time Mr. Bodgers bore, and physicians were in
vain. I wonder whether they called in Mr. Chillip, and he was in vain;
and if so, how he likes to be reminded of it once a week. I look from
Mr. Chillip, in his Sunday neckcloth, to the pulpit; and think what a
good place it would be to play in, and what a castle it would make, with
another boy coming up the stairs to attack it, and having the velvet
cushion with the tassels thrown down on his head. In time my eyes
gradually shut up; and, from seeming to hear the clergyman singing a
drowsy song in the heat, I hear nothing, until I fall off the seat with
a crash, and am taken out, more dead than alive, by Peggotty.
And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed
bedroom-windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the
ragged old rooks’-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom
of the front garden. Now I am in the garden at the back, beyond the
yard where the empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are--a very preserve
of butterflies, as I remember it, with a high fence, and a gate and
padlock; where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper and richer than
fruit has ever been since, in any other garden, and where my
mother gathers some in a basket, while I stand by, bolting furtive
gooseberries, and trying to look unmoved. A great wind rises, and the
summer is gone in a moment. We are playing in the winter twilight,
dancing about the parlour. When my mother is out of breath and rests
herself in an elbow-chair, I watch her winding her bright curls round
her fingers, and straitening her waist, and nobody knows better than I
do that she likes to look so well, and is proud of being so pretty.
That is among my very earliest impressions. That, and a sense that we
were both a little afraid of Peggotty, and submitted ourselves in most
things to her direction, were among the first opinions--if they may be
so called--that I ever derived from what I saw.
Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlour fire, alone. I
had been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I must have read very
perspicuously, or the poor soul must have been deeply interested, for I
remember she had a cloudy impression, after I had done, that they were
a sort of vegetable. I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy; but
having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my mother came home from
spending the evening at a neighbour’s, I would rather have died upon
my post (of course) than have gone to bed. I had reached that stage of
sleepiness when Peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely large.
I propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and looked
perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little bit of wax-candle
she kept for her thread--how old it looked, being so wrinkled in
all directions!--at the little house with a thatched roof, where the
yard-measure lived; at her work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of
St. Paul’s Cathedral (with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass
thimble on her finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so
sleepy, that I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment, I was
gone.
‘Peggotty,’ says I, suddenly, ‘were you ever married?’
‘Lord, Master Davy,’ replied Peggotty. ‘What’s put marriage in your
head?’
She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. And then she
stopped in her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its
thread’s length.
‘But WERE you ever married, Peggotty?’ says I. ‘You are a very handsome
woman, an’t you?’
I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly; but of
another school of beauty, I considered her a perfect example. There
was a red velvet footstool in the best parlour, on which my mother
had painted a nosegay. The ground-work of that stool, and Peggotty’s
complexion appeared to me to be one and the same thing. The stool was
smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that made no difference.
‘Me handsome, Davy!’ said Peggotty. ‘Lawk, no, my dear! But what put
marriage in your head?’
‘I don’t know!--You mustn’t marry more than one person at a time, may
you, Peggotty?’
‘Certainly not,’ says Peggotty, with the promptest decision.
‘But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry
another person, mayn’t you, Peggotty?’
‘YOU MAY,’ says Peggotty, ‘if you choose, my dear. That’s a matter of
opinion.’
‘But what is your opinion, Peggotty?’ said I.
I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so
curiously at me.
‘My opinion is,’ said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a little
indecision and going on with her work, ‘that I never was married myself,
Master Davy, and that I don’t expect to be. That’s all I know about the
subject.’
‘You an’t cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?’ said I, after sitting
quiet for a minute.
I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was quite
mistaken: for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking of her own),
and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it
a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump,
whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the
buttons on the back of her gown flew off. And I recollect two bursting
to the opposite side of the parlour, while she was hugging me.
‘Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills,’ said Peggotty, who
was not quite right in the name yet, ‘for I an’t heard half enough.’
I couldn’t quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why she
was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we returned to those
monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in
the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran away from them, and baffled
them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on
account of their unwieldy make; and we went into the water after them,
as natives, and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats; and in
short we ran the whole crocodile gauntlet. I did, at least; but I had
my doubts of Peggotty, who was thoughtfully sticking her needle into
various parts of her face and arms, all the time.
We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when
the garden-bell rang. We went out to the door; and there was my mother,
looking unusually pretty, I thought, and with her a gentleman with
beautiful black hair and whiskers, who had walked home with us from
church last Sunday.
As my mother stooped down on the threshold to take me in her arms and
kiss me, the gentleman said I was a more highly privileged little fellow
than a monarch--or something like that; for my later understanding
comes, I am sensible, to my aid here.
‘What does that mean?’ I asked him, over her shoulder.
He patted me on the head; but somehow, I didn’t like him or his deep
voice, and I was jealous that his hand should touch my mother’s in
touching me--which it did. I put it away, as well as I could.
‘Oh, Davy!’ remonstrated my mother.
‘Dear boy!’ said the gentleman. ‘I cannot wonder at his devotion!’
I never saw such a beautiful colour on my mother’s face before. She
gently chid me for being rude; and, keeping me close to her shawl,
turned to thank the gentleman for taking so much trouble as to bring her
home. She put out her hand to him as she spoke, and, as he met it with
his own, she glanced, I thought, at me.
‘Let us say “good night”, my fine boy,’ said the gentleman, when he had
bent his head--I saw him!--over my mother’s little glove.
‘Good night!’ said I.
‘Come! Let us be the best friends in the world!’ said the gentleman,
laughing. ‘Shake hands!’
My right hand was in my mother’s left, so I gave him the other.
‘Why, that’s the Wrong hand, Davy!’ laughed the gentleman.
My mother drew my right hand forward, but I was resolved, for my former
reason, not to give it him, and I did not. I gave him the other, and he
shook it heartily, and said I was a brave fellow, and went away.
At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last
look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut.
Peggotty, who had not said a word or moved a finger, secured the
fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlour. My mother,
contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the
fire, remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing to herself.
--‘Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma’am,’ said Peggotty, standing
as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick in
her hand.
‘Much obliged to you, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, in a cheerful
voice, ‘I have had a VERY pleasant evening.’
‘A stranger or so makes an agreeable change,’ suggested Peggotty.
‘A very agreeable change, indeed,’ returned my mother.
Peggotty continuing to stand motionless in the middle of the room, and
my mother resuming her singing, I fell asleep, though I was not so sound
asleep but that I could hear voices, without hearing what they said.
When I half awoke from this uncomfortable doze, I found Peggotty and my
mother both in tears, and both talking.
‘Not such a one as this, Mr. Copperfield wouldn’t have liked,’ said
Peggotty. ‘That I say, and that I swear!’
‘Good Heavens!’ cried my mother, ‘you’ll drive me mad! Was ever any
poor girl so ill-used by her servants as I am! Why do I do myself
the injustice of calling myself a girl? Have I never been married,
Peggotty?’
‘God knows you have, ma’am,’ returned Peggotty. ‘Then, how can you
dare,’ said my mother--‘you know I don’t mean how can you dare,
Peggotty, but how can you have the heart--to make me so uncomfortable
and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I
haven’t, out of this place, a single friend to turn to?’
‘The more’s the reason,’ returned Peggotty, ‘for saying that it won’t
do. No! That it won’t do. No! No price could make it do. No!’--I thought
Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic
with it.
‘How can you be so aggravating,’ said my mother, shedding more tears
than before, ‘as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go on as
if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over
and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities
nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people
are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to
do, I ask you? Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or
disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I
dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you’d quite enjoy it.’
Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought.
‘And my dear boy,’ cried my mother, coming to the elbow-chair in which
I was, and caressing me, ‘my own little Davy! Is it to be hinted to me
that I am wanting in affection for my precious treasure, the dearest
little fellow that ever was!’
‘Nobody never went and hinted no such a thing,’ said Peggotty.
‘You did, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘You know you did. What else
was it possible to infer from what you said, you unkind creature,
when you know as well as I do, that on his account only last quarter I
wouldn’t buy myself a new parasol, though that old green one is frayed
the whole way up, and the fringe is perfectly mangy? You know it is,
Peggotty. You can’t deny it.’ Then, turning affectionately to me, with
her cheek against mine, ‘Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty,
cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say “yes”, dear boy, and
Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty’s love is a great deal better than
mine, Davy. I don’t love you at all, do I?’
At this, we all fell a-crying together. I think I was the loudest of
the party, but I am sure we were all sincere about it. I was quite
heart-broken myself, and am afraid that in the first transports of
wounded tenderness I called Peggotty a ‘Beast’. That honest creature was
in deep affliction, I remember, and must have become quite buttonless
on the occasion; for a little volley of those explosives went off,
when, after having made it up with my mother, she kneeled down by the
elbow-chair, and made it up with me.
We went to bed greatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, for a long
time; and when one very strong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found
my mother sitting on the coverlet, and leaning over me. I fell asleep in
her arms, after that, and slept soundly.
Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again,
or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared,
I cannot recall. I don’t profess to be clear about dates. But there he
was, in church, and he walked home with us afterwards. He came in, too,
to look at a famous geranium we had, in the parlour-window. It did not
appear to me that he took much notice of it, but before he went he asked
my mother to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it
for himself, but he refused to do that--I could not understand why--so
she plucked it for him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would
never, never part with it any more; and I thought he must be quite a
fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day or two.
Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always
been. My mother deferred to her very much--more than usual, it occurred
to me--and we were all three excellent friends; still we were different
from what we used to be, and were not so comfortable among ourselves.
Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty perhaps objected to my mother’s
wearing all the pretty dresses she had in her drawers, or to her
going so often to visit at that neighbour’s; but I couldn’t, to my
satisfaction, make out how it was.
Gradually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black
whiskers. I liked him no better than at first, and had the same uneasy
jealousy of him; but if I had any reason for it beyond a child’s
instinctive dislike, and a general idea that Peggotty and I could make
much of my mother without any help, it certainly was not THE reason that
I might have found if I had been older. No such thing came into my mind,
or near it. I could observe, in little pieces, as it were; but as to
making a net of a number of these pieces, and catching anybody in it,
that was, as yet, beyond me.
One autumn morning I was with my mother in the front garden, when Mr.
Murdstone--I knew him by that name now--came by, on horseback. He reined
up his horse to salute my mother, and said he was going to Lowestoft to
see some friends who were there with a yacht, and merrily proposed to
take me on the saddle before him if I would like the ride.
The air was so clear and pleasant, and the horse seemed to like the
idea of the ride so much himself, as he stood snorting and pawing at the
garden-gate, that I had a great desire to go. So I was sent upstairs
to Peggotty to be made spruce; and in the meantime Mr. Murdstone
dismounted, and, with his horse’s bridle drawn over his arm, walked
slowly up and down on the outer side of the sweetbriar fence, while my
mother walked slowly up and down on the inner to keep him company. I
recollect Peggotty and I peeping out at them from my little window; I
recollect how closely they seemed to be examining the sweetbriar between
them, as they strolled along; and how, from being in a perfectly angelic
temper, Peggotty turned cross in a moment, and brushed my hair the wrong
way, excessively hard.
Mr. Murdstone and I were soon off, and trotting along on the green turf
by the side of the road. He held me quite easily with one arm, and I
don’t think I was restless usually; but I could not make up my mind to
sit in front of him without turning my head sometimes, and looking up in
his face. He had that kind of shallow black eye--I want a better word to
express an eye that has no depth in it to be looked into--which, when
it is abstracted, seems from some peculiarity of light to be disfigured,
for a moment at a time, by a cast. Several times when I glanced at him,
I observed that appearance with a sort of awe, and wondered what he
was thinking about so closely. His hair and whiskers were blacker and
thicker, looked at so near, than even I had given them credit for being.
A squareness about the lower part of his face, and the dotted indication
of the strong black beard he shaved close every day, reminded me of
the wax-work that had travelled into our neighbourhood some half-a-year
before. This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and
brown, of his complexion--confound his complexion, and his memory!--made
me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man. I have no
doubt that my poor dear mother thought him so too.
We went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars
in a room by themselves. Each of them was lying on at least four chairs,
and had a large rough jacket on. In a corner was a heap of coats and
boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together.
They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner, when we
came in, and said, ‘Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were dead!’
‘Not yet,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
‘And who’s this shaver?’ said one of the gentlemen, taking hold of me.
‘That’s Davy,’ returned Mr. Murdstone.
‘Davy who?’ said the gentleman. ‘Jones?’
‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
‘What! Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield’s encumbrance?’ cried the gentleman.
‘The pretty little widow?’
‘Quinion,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘take care, if you please. Somebody’s
sharp.’
‘Who is?’ asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up, quickly; being
curious to know.
‘Only Brooks of Sheffield,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield; for,
at first, I really thought it was I.
There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr.
Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he
was mentioned, and Mr. Murdstone was a good deal amused also. After some
laughing, the gentleman whom he had called Quinion, said:
‘And what is the opinion of Brooks of Sheffield, in reference to the
projected business?’
‘Why, I don’t know that Brooks understands much about it at present,’
replied Mr. Murdstone; ‘but he is not generally favourable, I believe.’
There was more laughter at this, and Mr. Quinion said he would ring the
bell for some sherry in which to drink to Brooks. This he did; and when
the wine came, he made me have a little, with a biscuit, and, before
I drank it, stand up and say, ‘Confusion to Brooks of Sheffield!’ The
toast was received with great applause, and such hearty laughter that
it made me laugh too; at which they laughed the more. In short, we quite
enjoyed ourselves.
We walked about on the cliff after that, and sat on the grass, and
looked at things through a telescope--I could make out nothing myself
when it was put to my eye, but I pretended I could--and then we came
back to the hotel to an early dinner. All the time we were out, the two
gentlemen smoked incessantly--which, I thought, if I might judge from
the smell of their rough coats, they must have been doing, ever since
the coats had first come home from the tailor’s. I must not forget that
we went on board the yacht, where they all three descended into the
cabin, and were busy with some papers. I saw them quite hard at work,
when I looked down through the open skylight. They left me, during this
time, with a very nice man with a very large head of red hair and a very
small shiny hat upon it, who had got a cross-barred shirt or waistcoat
on, with ‘Skylark’ in capital letters across the chest. I thought it was
his name; and that as he lived on board ship and hadn’t a street door
to put his name on, he put it there instead; but when I called him Mr.
Skylark, he said it meant the vessel.
I observed all day that Mr. Murdstone was graver and steadier than the
two gentlemen. They were very gay and careless. They joked freely with
one another, but seldom with him. It appeared to me that he was
more clever and cold than they were, and that they regarded him with
something of my own feeling. I remarked that, once or twice when Mr.
Quinion was talking, he looked at Mr. Murdstone sideways, as if to make
sure of his not being displeased; and that once when Mr. Passnidge (the
other gentleman) was in high spirits, he trod upon his foot, and gave
him a secret caution with his eyes, to observe Mr. Murdstone, who was
sitting stern and silent. Nor do I recollect that Mr. Murdstone laughed
at all that day, except at the Sheffield joke--and that, by the by, was
his own.
We went home early in the evening. It was a very fine evening, and my
mother and he had another stroll by the sweetbriar, while I was sent in
to get my tea. When he was gone, my mother asked me all about the day I
had had, and what they had said and done. I mentioned what they had said
about her, and she laughed, and told me they were impudent fellows who
talked nonsense--but I knew it pleased her. I knew it quite as well as
I know it now. I took the opportunity of asking if she was at all
acquainted with Mr. Brooks of Sheffield, but she answered No, only she
supposed he must be a manufacturer in the knife and fork way.
Can I say of her face--altered as I have reason to remember it, perished
as I know it is--that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this
instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a
crowded street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it
faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it
fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings
her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than I have
been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then?
I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this talk,
and she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down playfully by the
side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her hands, and laughing, said:
‘What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I can’t believe it.’
‘“Bewitching--“’ I began.
My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me.
‘It was never bewitching,’ she said, laughing. ‘It never could have been
bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn’t!’
‘Yes, it was. “Bewitching Mrs. Copperfield”,’ I repeated stoutly. ‘And,
“pretty.”’
‘No, no, it was never pretty. Not pretty,’ interposed my mother, laying
her fingers on my lips again.
‘Yes it was. “Pretty little widow.”’
‘What foolish, impudent creatures!’ cried my mother, laughing and
covering her face. ‘What ridiculous men! An’t they? Davy dear--’
‘Well, Ma.’
‘Don’t tell Peggotty; she might be angry with them. I am dreadfully
angry with them myself; but I would rather Peggotty didn’t know.’
I promised, of course; and we kissed one another over and over again,
and I soon fell fast asleep.
It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if it were the next day
when Peggotty broached the striking and adventurous proposition I am
about to mention; but it was probably about two months afterwards.
We were sitting as before, one evening (when my mother was out as
before), in company with the stocking and the yard-measure, and the bit
of wax, and the box with St. Paul’s on the lid, and the crocodile book,
when Peggotty, after looking at me several times, and opening her mouth
as if she were going to speak, without doing it--which I thought was
merely gaping, or I should have been rather alarmed--said coaxingly:
‘Master Davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a
fortnight at my brother’s at Yarmouth? Wouldn’t that be a treat?’
‘Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?’ I inquired, provisionally.
‘Oh, what an agreeable man he is!’ cried Peggotty, holding up her hands.
‘Then there’s the sea; and the boats and ships; and the fishermen; and
the beach; and Am to play with--’
Peggotty meant her nephew Ham, mentioned in my first chapter; but she
spoke of him as a morsel of English Grammar.
I was flushed by her summary of delights, and replied that it would
indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say?
‘Why then I’ll as good as bet a guinea,’ said Peggotty, intent upon my
face, ‘that she’ll let us go. I’ll ask her, if you like, as soon as ever
she comes home. There now!’
‘But what’s she to do while we’re away?’ said I, putting my small elbows
on the table to argue the point. ‘She can’t live by herself.’
If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of
that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth
darning.
‘I say! Peggotty! She can’t live by herself, you know.’
‘Oh, bless you!’ said Peggotty, looking at me again at last. ‘Don’t
you know? She’s going to stay for a fortnight with Mrs. Grayper. Mrs.
Grayper’s going to have a lot of company.’
Oh! If that was it, I was quite ready to go. I waited, in the utmost
impatience, until my mother came home from Mrs. Grayper’s (for it was
that identical neighbour), to ascertain if we could get leave to carry
out this great idea. Without being nearly so much surprised as I had
expected, my mother entered into it readily; and it was all arranged
that night, and my board and lodging during the visit were to be paid
for.
The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it came
soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid
that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion
of nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. We were to go in a
carrier’s cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would
have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up over-night,
and sleep in my hat and boots.
It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how
eager I was to leave my happy home; to think how little I suspected what
I did leave for ever.
I am glad to recollect that when the carrier’s cart was at the gate, and
my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for
the old place I had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. I am
glad to know that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat
against mine.
I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother
ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me
once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which
she lifted up her face to mine, and did so.
As we left her standing in the road, Mr. Murdstone came up to where
she was, and seemed to expostulate with her for being so moved. I was
looking back round the awning of the cart, and wondered what business
it was of his. Peggotty, who was also looking back on the other side,
seemed anything but satisfied; as the face she brought back in the cart
denoted.
I sat looking at Peggotty for some time, in a reverie on this
supposititious case: whether, if she were employed to lose me like the
boy in the fairy tale, I should be able to track my way home again by
the buttons she would shed.
CHAPTER 3. I HAVE A CHANGE
The carrier’s horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope,
and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep people
waiting to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he
sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said
he was only troubled with a cough. The carrier had a way of keeping his
head down, like his horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove,
with one of his arms on each of his knees. I say ‘drove’, but it struck
me that the cart would have gone to Yarmouth quite as well without him,
for the horse did all that; and as to conversation, he had no idea of it
but whistling.
Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have
lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the same
conveyance. We ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. Peggotty always
went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of
which never relaxed; and I could not have believed unless I had heard
her do it, that one defenceless woman could have snored so much.
We made so many deviations up and down lanes, and were such a long time
delivering a bedstead at a public-house, and calling at other places,
that I was quite tired, and very glad, when we saw Yarmouth. It looked
rather spongy and soppy, I thought, as I carried my eye over the great
dull waste that lay across the river; and I could not help wondering, if
the world were really as round as my geography book said, how any
part of it came to be so flat. But I reflected that Yarmouth might be
situated at one of the poles; which would account for it.
As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a
straight low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so
might have improved it; and also that if the land had been a little more
separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite
so much mixed up, like toast and water, it would have been nicer. But
Peggotty said, with greater emphasis than usual, that we must take
things as we found them, and that, for her part, she was proud to call
herself a Yarmouth Bloater.
When we got into the street (which was strange enough to me) and smelt
the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors walking
about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I
had done so busy a place an injustice; and said as much to Peggotty, who
heard my expressions of delight with great complacency, and told me it
was well known (I suppose to those who had the good fortune to be born
Bloaters) that Yarmouth was, upon the whole, the finest place in the
universe.
‘Here’s my Am!’ screamed Peggotty, ‘growed out of knowledge!’
He was waiting for us, in fact, at the public-house; and asked me how I
found myself, like an old acquaintance. I did not feel, at first, that
I knew him as well as he knew me, because he had never come to our house
since the night I was born, and naturally he had the advantage of me.
But our intimacy was much advanced by his taking me on his back to carry
me home. He was, now, a huge, strong fellow of six feet high, broad in
proportion, and round-shouldered; but with a simpering boy’s face and
curly light hair that gave him quite a sheepish look. He was dressed in
a canvas jacket, and a pair of such very stiff trousers that they
would have stood quite as well alone, without any legs in them. And you
couldn’t so properly have said he wore a hat, as that he was covered in
a-top, like an old building, with something pitchy.
Ham carrying me on his back and a small box of ours under his arm,
and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes
bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand, and went
past gas-works, rope-walks, boat-builders’ yards, shipwrights’ yards,
ship-breakers’ yards, caulkers’ yards, riggers’ lofts, smiths’ forges,
and a great litter of such places, until we came out upon the dull waste
I had already seen at a distance; when Ham said,
‘Yon’s our house, Mas’r Davy!’
I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the wilderness,
and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could I make
out. There was a black barge, or some other kind of superannuated boat,
not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel sticking
out of it for a chimney and smoking very cosily; but nothing else in the
way of a habitation that was visible to me.
‘That’s not it?’ said I. ‘That ship-looking thing?’
‘That’s it, Mas’r Davy,’ returned Ham.
If it had been Aladdin’s palace, roc’s egg and all, I suppose I could
not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. There
was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there
were little windows in it; but the wonderful charm of it was, that
it was a real boat which had no doubt been upon the water hundreds of
times, and which had never been intended to be lived in, on dry land.
That was the captivation of it to me. If it had ever been meant to be
lived in, I might have thought it small, or inconvenient, or lonely; but
never having been designed for any such use, it became a perfect abode.
It was beautifully clean inside, and as tidy as possible. There was a
table, and a Dutch clock, and a chest of drawers, and on the chest of
drawers there was a tea-tray with a painting on it of a lady with a
parasol, taking a walk with a military-looking child who was trundling a
hoop. The tray was kept from tumbling down, by a bible; and the tray, if
it had tumbled down, would have smashed a quantity of cups and saucers
and a teapot that were grouped around the book. On the walls there were
some common coloured pictures, framed and glazed, of scripture subjects;
such as I have never seen since in the hands of pedlars, without seeing
the whole interior of Peggotty’s brother’s house again, at one view.
Abraham in red going to sacrifice Isaac in blue, and Daniel in yellow
cast into a den of green lions, were the most prominent of these. Over
the little mantelshelf, was a picture of the ‘Sarah Jane’ lugger, built
at Sunderland, with a real little wooden stern stuck on to it; a work of
art, combining composition with carpentry, which I considered to be one
of the most enviable possessions that the world could afford. There
were some hooks in the beams of the ceiling, the use of which I did not
divine then; and some lockers and boxes and conveniences of that sort,
which served for seats and eked out the chairs.
All this I saw in the first glance after I crossed the
threshold--child-like, according to my theory--and then Peggotty opened
a little door and showed me my bedroom. It was the completest and most
desirable bedroom ever seen--in the stern of the vessel; with a little
window, where the rudder used to go through; a little looking-glass,
just the right height for me, nailed against the wall, and framed with
oyster-shells; a little bed, which there was just room enough to get
into; and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. The walls
were whitewashed as white as milk, and the patchwork counterpane made my
eyes quite ache with its brightness. One thing I particularly noticed
in this delightful house, was the smell of fish; which was so searching,
that when I took out my pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it
smelt exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster. On my imparting this
discovery in confidence to Peggotty, she informed me that her brother
dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish; and I afterwards found that a
heap of these creatures, in a state of wonderful conglomeration with one
another, and never leaving off pinching whatever they laid hold of,
were usually to be found in a little wooden outhouse where the pots and
kettles were kept.
We were welcomed by a very civil woman in a white apron, whom I had seen
curtseying at the door when I was on Ham’s back, about a quarter of a
mile off. Likewise by a most beautiful little girl (or I thought her so)
with a necklace of blue beads on, who wouldn’t let me kiss her when I
offered to, but ran away and hid herself. By and by, when we had dined
in a sumptuous manner off boiled dabs, melted butter, and potatoes, with
a chop for me, a hairy man with a very good-natured face came home. As
he called Peggotty ‘Lass’, and gave her a hearty smack on the cheek, I
had no doubt, from the general propriety of her conduct, that he was her
brother; and so he turned out--being presently introduced to me as Mr.
Peggotty, the master of the house.
‘Glad to see you, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘You’ll find us rough, sir,
but you’ll find us ready.’
I thanked him, and replied that I was sure I should be happy in such a
delightful place.
‘How’s your Ma, sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Did you leave her pretty
jolly?’
I gave Mr. Peggotty to understand that she was as jolly as I could wish,
and that she desired her compliments--which was a polite fiction on my
part.
‘I’m much obleeged to her, I’m sure,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Well, sir,
if you can make out here, fur a fortnut, ‘long wi’ her,’ nodding at his
sister, ‘and Ham, and little Em’ly, we shall be proud of your company.’
Having done the honours of his house in this hospitable manner, Mr.
Peggotty went out to wash himself in a kettleful of hot water, remarking
that ‘cold would never get his muck off’. He soon returned, greatly
improved in appearance; but so rubicund, that I couldn’t help
thinking his face had this in common with the lobsters, crabs, and
crawfish,--that it went into the hot water very black, and came out very
red.
After tea, when the door was shut and all was made snug (the nights
being cold and misty now), it seemed to me the most delicious retreat
that the imagination of man could conceive. To hear the wind getting
up out at sea, to know that the fog was creeping over the desolate flat
outside, and to look at the fire, and think that there was no house near
but this one, and this one a boat, was like enchantment. Little Em’ly
had overcome her shyness, and was sitting by my side upon the lowest and
least of the lockers, which was just large enough for us two, and just
fitted into the chimney corner. Mrs. Peggotty with the white apron, was
knitting on the opposite side of the fire. Peggotty at her needlework
was as much at home with St. Paul’s and the bit of wax-candle, as if
they had never known any other roof. Ham, who had been giving me my
first lesson in all-fours, was trying to recollect a scheme of telling
fortunes with the dirty cards, and was printing off fishy impressions of
his thumb on all the cards he turned. Mr. Peggotty was smoking his pipe.
I felt it was a time for conversation and confidence.
‘Mr. Peggotty!’ says I.
‘Sir,’ says he.
‘Did you give your son the name of Ham, because you lived in a sort of
ark?’
Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered:
‘No, sir. I never giv him no name.’
‘Who gave him that name, then?’ said I, putting question number two of
the catechism to Mr. Peggotty.
‘Why, sir, his father giv it him,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘I thought you were his father!’
‘My brother Joe was his father,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘Dead, Mr. Peggotty?’ I hinted, after a respectful pause.
‘Drowndead,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham’s father, and
began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody
else there. I was so curious to know, that I made up my mind to have it
out with Mr. Peggotty.
‘Little Em’ly,’ I said, glancing at her. ‘She is your daughter, isn’t
she, Mr. Peggotty?’
‘No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was her father.’
I couldn’t help it. ‘--Dead, Mr. Peggotty?’ I hinted, after another
respectful silence.
‘Drowndead,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the
bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said:
‘Haven’t you ANY children, Mr. Peggotty?’
‘No, master,’ he answered with a short laugh. ‘I’m a bacheldore.’
‘A bachelor!’ I said, astonished. ‘Why, who’s that, Mr. Peggotty?’
pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting.
‘That’s Missis Gummidge,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?’
But at this point Peggotty--I mean my own peculiar Peggotty--made such
impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could
only sit and look at all the silent company, until it was time to go to
bed. Then, in the privacy of my own little cabin, she informed me that
Ham and Em’ly were an orphan nephew and niece, whom my host had
at different times adopted in their childhood, when they were left
destitute: and that Mrs. Gummidge was the widow of his partner in
a boat, who had died very poor. He was but a poor man himself, said
Peggotty, but as good as gold and as true as steel--those were her
similes. The only subject, she informed me, on which he ever showed a
violent temper or swore an oath, was this generosity of his; and if it
were ever referred to, by any one of them, he struck the table a heavy
blow with his right hand (had split it on one such occasion), and swore
a dreadful oath that he would be ‘Gormed’ if he didn’t cut and run
for good, if it was ever mentioned again. It appeared, in answer to
my inquiries, that nobody had the least idea of the etymology of this
terrible verb passive to be gormed; but that they all regarded it as
constituting a most solemn imprecation.
I was very sensible of my entertainer’s goodness, and listened to the
women’s going to bed in another little crib like mine at the opposite
end of the boat, and to him and Ham hanging up two hammocks for
themselves on the hooks I had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious
state of mind, enhanced by my being sleepy. As slumber gradually stole
upon me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the
flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy apprehension of the great deep
rising in the night. But I bethought myself that I was in a boat, after
all; and that a man like Mr. Peggotty was not a bad person to have on
board if anything did happen.
Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Almost as soon as it
shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, and out
with little Em’ly, picking up stones upon the beach.
‘You’re quite a sailor, I suppose?’ I said to Em’ly. I don’t know that I
supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it an act of gallantry to
say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little
image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my
head to say this.
‘No,’ replied Em’ly, shaking her head, ‘I’m afraid of the sea.’
‘Afraid!’ I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big
at the mighty ocean. ‘I an’t!’
‘Ah! but it’s cruel,’ said Em’ly. ‘I have seen it very cruel to some of
our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house, all to pieces.’
‘I hope it wasn’t the boat that--’
‘That father was drownded in?’ said Em’ly. ‘No. Not that one, I never
see that boat.’
‘Nor him?’ I asked her.
Little Em’ly shook her head. ‘Not to remember!’
Here was a coincidence! I immediately went into an explanation how I had
never seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always lived
by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then, and
always meant to live so; and how my father’s grave was in the churchyard
near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of which I had
walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. But there were
some differences between Em’ly’s orphanhood and mine, it appeared. She
had lost her mother before her father; and where her father’s grave was
no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the depths of the sea.
‘Besides,’ said Em’ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, ‘your
father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a
fisherman and my mother was a fisherman’s daughter, and my uncle Dan is
a fisherman.’
‘Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he?’ said I.
‘Uncle Dan--yonder,’ answered Em’ly, nodding at the boat-house.
‘Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think?’
‘Good?’ said Em’ly. ‘If I was ever to be a lady, I’d give him a sky-blue
coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a
cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money.’
I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures.
I must acknowledge that I felt it difficult to picture him quite at his
ease in the raiment proposed for him by his grateful little niece, and
that I was particularly doubtful of the policy of the cocked hat; but I
kept these sentiments to myself.
Little Em’ly had stopped and looked up at the sky in her enumeration
of these articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again,
picking up shells and pebbles.
‘You would like to be a lady?’ I said.
Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded ‘yes’.
‘I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, then.
Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn’t mind then, when
there comes stormy weather.---Not for our own sakes, I mean. We would
for the poor fishermen’s, to be sure, and we’d help ‘em with money when
they come to any hurt.’ This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and
therefore not at all improbable picture. I expressed my pleasure in the
contemplation of it, and little Em’ly was emboldened to say, shyly,
‘Don’t you think you are afraid of the sea, now?’
It was quiet enough to reassure me, but I have no doubt if I had seen a
moderately large wave come tumbling in, I should have taken to my heels,
with an awful recollection of her drowned relations. However, I said
‘No,’ and I added, ‘You don’t seem to be either, though you say you
are,’--for she was walking much too near the brink of a sort of old
jetty or wooden causeway we had strolled upon, and I was afraid of her
falling over.
‘I’m not afraid in this way,’ said little Em’ly. ‘But I wake when it
blows, and tremble to think of Uncle Dan and Ham and believe I hear ‘em
crying out for help. That’s why I should like so much to be a lady. But
I’m not afraid in this way. Not a bit. Look here!’
She started from my side, and ran along a jagged timber which protruded
from the place we stood upon, and overhung the deep water at some
height, without the least defence. The incident is so impressed on my
remembrance, that if I were a draughtsman I could draw its form here,
I dare say, accurately as it was that day, and little Em’ly springing
forward to her destruction (as it appeared to me), with a look that I
have never forgotten, directed far out to sea.
The light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe
to me, and I soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry I had uttered;
fruitlessly in any case, for there was no one near. But there have been
times since, in my manhood, many times there have been, when I have
thought, Is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that
in the sudden rashness of the child and her wild look so far off, there
was any merciful attraction of her into danger, any tempting her towards
him permitted on the part of her dead father, that her life might have
a chance of ending that day? There has been a time since when I have
wondered whether, if the life before her could have been revealed to me
at a glance, and so revealed as that a child could fully comprehend it,
and if her preservation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I
ought to have held it up to save her. There has been a time since--I do
not say it lasted long, but it has been--when I have asked myself the
question, would it have been better for little Em’ly to have had the
waters close above her head that morning in my sight; and when I have
answered Yes, it would have been.
This may be premature. I have set it down too soon, perhaps. But let it
stand.
We strolled a long way, and loaded ourselves with things that we thought
curious, and put some stranded starfish carefully back into the water--I
hardly know enough of the race at this moment to be quite certain
whether they had reason to feel obliged to us for doing so, or the
reverse--and then made our way home to Mr. Peggotty’s dwelling. We
stopped under the lee of the lobster-outhouse to exchange an innocent
kiss, and went in to breakfast glowing with health and pleasure.
‘Like two young mavishes,’ Mr. Peggotty said. I knew this meant, in our
local dialect, like two young thrushes, and received it as a compliment.
Of course I was in love with little Em’ly. I am sure I loved that
baby quite as truly, quite as tenderly, with greater purity and more
disinterestedness, than can enter into the best love of a later time
of life, high and ennobling as it is. I am sure my fancy raised up
something round that blue-eyed mite of a child, which etherealized,
and made a very angel of her. If, any sunny forenoon, she had spread
a little pair of wings and flown away before my eyes, I don’t think I
should have regarded it as much more than I had had reason to expect.
We used to walk about that dim old flat at Yarmouth in a loving manner,
hours and hours. The days sported by us, as if Time had not grown up
himself yet, but were a child too, and always at play. I told Em’ly
I adored her, and that unless she confessed she adored me I should be
reduced to the necessity of killing myself with a sword. She said she
did, and I have no doubt she did.
As to any sense of inequality, or youthfulness, or other difficulty
in our way, little Em’ly and I had no such trouble, because we had no
future. We made no more provision for growing older, than we did for
growing younger. We were the admiration of Mrs. Gummidge and Peggotty,
who used to whisper of an evening when we sat, lovingly, on our little
locker side by side, ‘Lor! wasn’t it beautiful!’ Mr. Peggotty smiled at
us from behind his pipe, and Ham grinned all the evening and did nothing
else. They had something of the sort of pleasure in us, I suppose, that
they might have had in a pretty toy, or a pocket model of the Colosseum.
I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make herself so
agreeable as she might have been expected to do, under the circumstances
of her residence with Mr. Peggotty. Mrs. Gummidge’s was rather a fretful
disposition, and she whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for
other parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for
her; but there were moments when it would have been more agreeable, I
thought, if Mrs. Gummidge had had a convenient apartment of her own to
retire to, and had stopped there until her spirits revived.
Mr. Peggotty went occasionally to a public-house called The Willing
Mind. I discovered this, by his being out on the second or third evening
of our visit, and by Mrs. Gummidge’s looking up at the Dutch clock,
between eight and nine, and saying he was there, and that, what was
more, she had known in the morning he would go there.
Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had burst into tears
in the forenoon, when the fire smoked. ‘I am a lone lorn creetur’,’ were
Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, ‘and
everythink goes contrary with me.’
‘Oh, it’ll soon leave off,’ said Peggotty--I again mean our
Peggotty--‘and besides, you know, it’s not more disagreeable to you than
to us.’
‘I feel it more,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.
It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. Gummidge’s
peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be the warmest and
snuggest in the place, as her chair was certainly the easiest, but it
didn’t suit her that day at all. She was constantly complaining of the
cold, and of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she called
‘the creeps’. At last she shed tears on that subject, and said again
that she was ‘a lone lorn creetur’ and everythink went contrary with
her’.
‘It is certainly very cold,’ said Peggotty. ‘Everybody must feel it so.’
‘I feel it more than other people,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.
So at dinner; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped immediately after me,
to whom the preference was given as a visitor of distinction. The
fish were small and bony, and the potatoes were a little burnt. We all
acknowledged that we felt this something of a disappointment; but Mrs.
Gummidge said she felt it more than we did, and shed tears again, and
made that former declaration with great bitterness.
Accordingly, when Mr. Peggotty came home about nine o’clock, this
unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge was knitting in her corner, in a very wretched
and miserable condition. Peggotty had been working cheerfully. Ham had
been patching up a great pair of waterboots; and I, with little Em’ly
by my side, had been reading to them. Mrs. Gummidge had never made any
other remark than a forlorn sigh, and had never raised her eyes since
tea.
‘Well, Mates,’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking his seat, ‘and how are you?’
We all said something, or looked something, to welcome him, except Mrs.
Gummidge, who only shook her head over her knitting.
‘What’s amiss?’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a clap of his hands. ‘Cheer up,
old Mawther!’ (Mr. Peggotty meant old girl.)
Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She took out an old
black silk handkerchief and wiped her eyes; but instead of putting it
in her pocket, kept it out, and wiped them again, and still kept it out,
ready for use.
‘What’s amiss, dame?’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘Nothing,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge. ‘You’ve come from The Willing Mind,
Dan’l?’
‘Why yes, I’ve took a short spell at The Willing Mind tonight,’ said Mr.
Peggotty.
‘I’m sorry I should drive you there,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.
‘Drive! I don’t want no driving,’ returned Mr. Peggotty with an honest
laugh. ‘I only go too ready.’
‘Very ready,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes.
‘Yes, yes, very ready. I am sorry it should be along of me that you’re
so ready.’
‘Along o’ you! It an’t along o’ you!’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Don’t ye
believe a bit on it.’
‘Yes, yes, it is,’ cried Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I know what I am. I know that I
am a lone lorn creetur’, and not only that everythink goes contrary with
me, but that I go contrary with everybody. Yes, yes. I feel more than
other people do, and I show it more. It’s my misfortun’.’
I really couldn’t help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the
misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides Mrs.
Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering with
another entreaty to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up.
‘I an’t what I could wish myself to be,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I am far
from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrary. I feel my
troubles, and they make me contrary. I wish I didn’t feel ‘em, but I
do. I wish I could be hardened to ‘em, but I an’t. I make the house
uncomfortable. I don’t wonder at it. I’ve made your sister so all day,
and Master Davy.’
Here I was suddenly melted, and roared out, ‘No, you haven’t, Mrs.
Gummidge,’ in great mental distress.
‘It’s far from right that I should do it,’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘It an’t
a fit return. I had better go into the house and die. I am a lone lorn
creetur’, and had much better not make myself contrary here. If thinks
must go contrary with me, and I must go contrary myself, let me go
contrary in my parish. Dan’l, I’d better go into the house, and die and
be a riddance!’
Mrs. Gummidge retired with these words, and betook herself to bed. When
she was gone, Mr. Peggotty, who had not exhibited a trace of any feeling
but the profoundest sympathy, looked round upon us, and nodding his head
with a lively expression of that sentiment still animating his face,
said in a whisper:
‘She’s been thinking of the old ‘un!’
I did not quite understand what old one Mrs. Gummidge was supposed to
have fixed her mind upon, until Peggotty, on seeing me to bed, explained
that it was the late Mr. Gummidge; and that her brother always took that
for a received truth on such occasions, and that it always had a moving
effect upon him. Some time after he was in his hammock that night, I
heard him myself repeat to Ham, ‘Poor thing! She’s been thinking of the
old ‘un!’ And whenever Mrs. Gummidge was overcome in a similar manner
during the remainder of our stay (which happened some few times), he
always said the same thing in extenuation of the circumstance, and
always with the tenderest commiseration.
So the fortnight slipped away, varied by nothing but the variation of
the tide, which altered Mr. Peggotty’s times of going out and coming in,
and altered Ham’s engagements also. When the latter was unemployed, he
sometimes walked with us to show us the boats and ships, and once
or twice he took us for a row. I don’t know why one slight set of
impressions should be more particularly associated with a place than
another, though I believe this obtains with most people, in reference
especially to the associations of their childhood. I never hear the
name, or read the name, of Yarmouth, but I am reminded of a certain
Sunday morning on the beach, the bells ringing for church, little Em’ly
leaning on my shoulder, Ham lazily dropping stones into the water, and
the sun, away at sea, just breaking through the heavy mist, and showing
us the ships, like their own shadows.
At last the day came for going home. I bore up against the separation
from Mr. Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge, but my agony of mind at leaving
little Em’ly was piercing. We went arm-in-arm to the public-house where
the carrier put up, and I promised, on the road, to write to her. (I
redeemed that promise afterwards, in characters larger than those in
which apartments are usually announced in manuscript, as being to let.)
We were greatly overcome at parting; and if ever, in my life, I have had
a void made in my heart, I had one made that day.
Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my
home again, and had thought little or nothing about it. But I was no
sooner turned towards it, than my reproachful young conscience seemed
to point that way with a ready finger; and I felt, all the more for the
sinking of my spirits, that it was my nest, and that my mother was my
comforter and friend.
This gained upon me as we went along; so that the nearer we drew, the
more familiar the objects became that we passed, the more excited I was
to get there, and to run into her arms. But Peggotty, instead of sharing
in those transports, tried to check them (though very kindly), and
looked confused and out of sorts.
Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the
carrier’s horse pleased--and did. How well I recollect it, on a cold
grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain!
The door opened, and I looked, half laughing and half crying in my
pleasant agitation, for my mother. It was not she, but a strange
servant.
‘Why, Peggotty!’ I said, ruefully, ‘isn’t she come home?’
‘Yes, yes, Master Davy,’ said Peggotty. ‘She’s come home. Wait a bit,
Master Davy, and I’ll--I’ll tell you something.’
Between her agitation, and her natural awkwardness in getting out of the
cart, Peggotty was making a most extraordinary festoon of herself, but
I felt too blank and strange to tell her so. When she had got down, she
took me by the hand; led me, wondering, into the kitchen; and shut the
door.
‘Peggotty!’ said I, quite frightened. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing’s the matter, bless you, Master Davy dear!’ she answered,
assuming an air of sprightliness.
‘Something’s the matter, I’m sure. Where’s mama?’
‘Where’s mama, Master Davy?’ repeated Peggotty.
‘Yes. Why hasn’t she come out to the gate, and what have we come in here
for? Oh, Peggotty!’ My eyes were full, and I felt as if I were going to
tumble down.
‘Bless the precious boy!’ cried Peggotty, taking hold of me. ‘What is
it? Speak, my pet!’
‘Not dead, too! Oh, she’s not dead, Peggotty?’
Peggotty cried out No! with an astonishing volume of voice; and then sat
down, and began to pant, and said I had given her a turn.
I gave her a hug to take away the turn, or to give her another turn
in the right direction, and then stood before her, looking at her in
anxious inquiry.
‘You see, dear, I should have told you before now,’ said Peggotty,
‘but I hadn’t an opportunity. I ought to have made it, perhaps, but
I couldn’t azackly’--that was always the substitute for exactly, in
Peggotty’s militia of words--‘bring my mind to it.’
‘Go on, Peggotty,’ said I, more frightened than before.
‘Master Davy,’ said Peggotty, untying her bonnet with a shaking hand,
and speaking in a breathless sort of way. ‘What do you think? You have
got a Pa!’
I trembled, and turned white. Something--I don’t know what, or
how--connected with the grave in the churchyard, and the raising of the
dead, seemed to strike me like an unwholesome wind.
‘A new one,’ said Peggotty.
‘A new one?’ I repeated.
Peggotty gave a gasp, as if she were swallowing something that was very
hard, and, putting out her hand, said:
‘Come and see him.’
‘I don’t want to see him.’ --‘And your mama,’ said Peggotty.
I ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour, where
she left me. On one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, Mr.
Murdstone. My mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly
I thought.
‘Now, Clara my dear,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘Recollect! control yourself,
always control yourself! Davy boy, how do you do?’
I gave him my hand. After a moment of suspense, I went and kissed my
mother: she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down
again to her work. I could not look at her, I could not look at him,
I knew quite well that he was looking at us both; and I turned to the
window and looked out there, at some shrubs that were drooping their
heads in the cold.
As soon as I could creep away, I crept upstairs. My old dear bedroom was
changed, and I was to lie a long way off. I rambled downstairs to find
anything that was like itself, so altered it all seemed; and roamed into
the yard. I very soon started back from there, for the empty dog-kennel
was filled up with a great dog--deep mouthed and black-haired like
Him--and he was very angry at the sight of me, and sprang out to get at
me.
CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE
If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could
give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day--who sleeps there now,
I wonder!--to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it.
I went up there, hearing the dog in the yard bark after me all the way
while I climbed the stairs; and, looking as blank and strange upon the
room as the room looked upon me, sat down with my small hands crossed,
and thought.
I thought of the oddest things. Of the shape of the room, of the
cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in
the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the
washing-stand being rickety on its three legs, and having a discontented
something about it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the
influence of the old one. I was crying all the time, but, except that I
was conscious of being cold and dejected, I am sure I never thought
why I cried. At last in my desolation I began to consider that I was
dreadfully in love with little Em’ly, and had been torn away from her to
come here where no one seemed to want me, or to care about me, half as
much as she did. This made such a very miserable piece of business of
it, that I rolled myself up in a corner of the counterpane, and cried
myself to sleep.
I was awoke by somebody saying ‘Here he is!’ and uncovering my hot head.
My mother and Peggotty had come to look for me, and it was one of them
who had done it.
‘Davy,’ said my mother. ‘What’s the matter?’
I thought it was very strange that she should ask me, and answered,
‘Nothing.’ I turned over on my face, I recollect, to hide my trembling
lip, which answered her with greater truth. ‘Davy,’ said my mother.
‘Davy, my child!’
I dare say no words she could have uttered would have affected me
so much, then, as her calling me her child. I hid my tears in the
bedclothes, and pressed her from me with my hand, when she would have
raised me up.
‘This is your doing, Peggotty, you cruel thing!’ said my mother. ‘I have
no doubt at all about it. How can you reconcile it to your conscience,
I wonder, to prejudice my own boy against me, or against anybody who is
dear to me? What do you mean by it, Peggotty?’
Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in a
sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner, ‘Lord
forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said this minute,
may you never be truly sorry!’
‘It’s enough to distract me,’ cried my mother. ‘In my honeymoon, too,
when my most inveterate enemy might relent, one would think, and not
envy me a little peace of mind and happiness. Davy, you naughty boy!
Peggotty, you savage creature! Oh, dear me!’ cried my mother, turning
from one of us to the other, in her pettish wilful manner, ‘what a
troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to
be as agreeable as possible!’
I felt the touch of a hand that I knew was neither hers nor Peggotty’s,
and slipped to my feet at the bed-side. It was Mr. Murdstone’s hand, and
he kept it on my arm as he said:
‘What’s this? Clara, my love, have you forgotten?--Firmness, my dear!’
‘I am very sorry, Edward,’ said my mother. ‘I meant to be very good, but
I am so uncomfortable.’
‘Indeed!’ he answered. ‘That’s a bad hearing, so soon, Clara.’
‘I say it’s very hard I should be made so now,’ returned my mother,
pouting; ‘and it is--very hard--isn’t it?’
He drew her to him, whispered in her ear, and kissed her. I knew as
well, when I saw my mother’s head lean down upon his shoulder, and her
arm touch his neck--I knew as well that he could mould her pliant nature
into any form he chose, as I know, now, that he did it.
‘Go you below, my love,’ said Mr. Murdstone. ‘David and I will come
down, together. My friend,’ turning a darkening face on Peggotty, when
he had watched my mother out, and dismissed her with a nod and a smile;
‘do you know your mistress’s name?’
‘She has been my mistress a long time, sir,’ answered Peggotty, ‘I ought
to know it.’ ‘That’s true,’ he answered. ‘But I thought I heard you, as
I came upstairs, address her by a name that is not hers. She has taken
mine, you know. Will you remember that?’
Peggotty, with some uneasy glances at me, curtseyed herself out of the
room without replying; seeing, I suppose, that she was expected to go,
and had no excuse for remaining. When we two were left alone, he shut
the door, and sitting on a chair, and holding me standing before him,
looked steadily into my eyes. I felt my own attracted, no less steadily,
to his. As I recall our being opposed thus, face to face, I seem again
to hear my heart beat fast and high.
‘David,’ he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, ‘if I
have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think I do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I beat him.’
I had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but I felt, in my
silence, that my breath was shorter now.
‘I make him wince, and smart. I say to myself, “I’ll conquer that
fellow”; and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, I should do
it. What is that upon your face?’
‘Dirt,’ I said.
He knew it was the mark of tears as well as I. But if he had asked the
question twenty times, each time with twenty blows, I believe my baby
heart would have burst before I would have told him so.
‘You have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow,’ he said,
with a grave smile that belonged to him, ‘and you understood me very
well, I see. Wash that face, sir, and come down with me.’
He pointed to the washing-stand, which I had made out to be like Mrs.
Gummidge, and motioned me with his head to obey him directly. I had
little doubt then, and I have less doubt now, that he would have knocked
me down without the least compunction, if I had hesitated.
‘Clara, my dear,’ he said, when I had done his bidding, and he walked me
into the parlour, with his hand still on my arm; ‘you will not be made
uncomfortable any more, I hope. We shall soon improve our youthful
humours.’
God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have
been made another creature perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that
season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish
ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might
have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my
hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate
him. I thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so
scared and strange, and that, presently, when I stole to a chair, she
followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still--missing, perhaps, some
freedom in my childish tread--but the word was not spoken, and the time
for it was gone.
We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my
mother--I am afraid I liked him none the better for that--and she was
very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an elder sister
of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that
evening. I am not certain whether I found out then, or afterwards, that,
without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share in,
or some annual charge upon the profits of, a wine-merchant’s house
in London, with which his family had been connected from his
great-grandfather’s time, and in which his sister had a similar
interest; but I may mention it in this place, whether or no.
After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating an
escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away, lest
it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up to the
garden-gate and he went out to receive the visitor. My mother followed
him. I was timidly following her, when she turned round at the parlour
door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as she had been used to
do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him. She did
this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and,
putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near
to where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew
hers through his arm.
It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she
was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and
voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose,
as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers,
she had carried them to that account. She brought with her two
uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard
brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard
steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung
upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at
that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was.
She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome, and there
formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation. Then she
looked at me, and said:
‘Is that your boy, sister-in-law?’
My mother acknowledged me.
‘Generally speaking,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘I don’t like boys. How d’ye
do, boy?’
Under these encouraging circumstances, I replied that I was very well,
and that I hoped she was the same; with such an indifferent grace, that
Miss Murdstone disposed of me in two words:
‘Wants manner!’
Having uttered which, with great distinctness, she begged the favour of
being shown to her room, which became to me from that time forth a place
of awe and dread, wherein the two black boxes were never seen open or
known to be left unlocked, and where (for I peeped in once or twice when
she was out) numerous little steel fetters and rivets, with which Miss
Murdstone embellished herself when she was dressed, generally hung upon
the looking-glass in formidable array.
As well as I could make out, she had come for good, and had no intention
of ever going again. She began to ‘help’ my mother next morning, and was
in and out of the store-closet all day, putting things to rights, and
making havoc in the old arrangements. Almost the first remarkable thing
I observed in Miss Murdstone was, her being constantly haunted by
a suspicion that the servants had a man secreted somewhere on the
premises. Under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the
coal-cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the
door of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again, in the belief that
she had got him.
Though there was nothing very airy about Miss Murdstone, she was a
perfect Lark in point of getting up. She was up (and, as I believe
to this hour, looking for that man) before anybody in the house was
stirring. Peggotty gave it as her opinion that she even slept with one
eye open; but I could not concur in this idea; for I tried it myself
after hearing the suggestion thrown out, and found it couldn’t be done.
On the very first morning after her arrival she was up and ringing her
bell at cock-crow. When my mother came down to breakfast and was going
to make the tea, Miss Murdstone gave her a kind of peck on the cheek,
which was her nearest approach to a kiss, and said:
‘Now, Clara, my dear, I am come here, you know, to relieve you of all
the trouble I can. You’re much too pretty and thoughtless’--my mother
blushed but laughed, and seemed not to dislike this character--‘to have
any duties imposed upon you that can be undertaken by me. If you’ll be
so good as give me your keys, my dear, I’ll attend to all this sort of
thing in future.’
From that time, Miss Murdstone kept the keys in her own little jail all
day, and under her pillow all night, and my mother had no more to do
with them than I had.
My mother did not suffer her authority to pass from her without a shadow
of protest. One night when Miss Murdstone had been developing certain
household plans to her brother, of which he signified his approbation,
my mother suddenly began to cry, and said she thought she might have
been consulted.
‘Clara!’ said Mr. Murdstone sternly. ‘Clara! I wonder at you.’
‘Oh, it’s very well to say you wonder, Edward!’ cried my mother, ‘and
it’s very well for you to talk about firmness, but you wouldn’t like it
yourself.’
Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. and
Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed
my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon, I
nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another
name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil’s humour,
that was in them both. The creed, as I should state it now, was this.
Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in his world was to be so firm as Mr.
Murdstone; nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody
was to be bent to his firmness. Miss Murdstone was an exception.
She might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an inferior and
tributary degree. My mother was another exception. She might be firm,
and must be; but only in bearing their firmness, and firmly believing
there was no other firmness upon earth.
‘It’s very hard,’ said my mother, ‘that in my own house--’
‘My own house?’ repeated Mr. Murdstone. ‘Clara!’
‘OUR own house, I mean,’ faltered my mother, evidently frightened--‘I
hope you must know what I mean, Edward--it’s very hard that in YOUR own
house I may not have a word to say about domestic matters. I am sure
I managed very well before we were married. There’s evidence,’ said my
mother, sobbing; ‘ask Peggotty if I didn’t do very well when I wasn’t
interfered with!’
‘Edward,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘let there be an end of this. I go
tomorrow.’
‘Jane Murdstone,’ said her brother, ‘be silent! How dare you to
insinuate that you don’t know my character better than your words
imply?’
‘I am sure,’ my poor mother went on, at a grievous disadvantage, and
with many tears, ‘I don’t want anybody to go. I should be very
miserable and unhappy if anybody was to go. I don’t ask much. I am not
unreasonable. I only want to be consulted sometimes. I am very much
obliged to anybody who assists me, and I only want to be consulted as a
mere form, sometimes. I thought you were pleased, once, with my being a
little inexperienced and girlish, Edward--I am sure you said so--but you
seem to hate me for it now, you are so severe.’
‘Edward,’ said Miss Murdstone, again, ‘let there be an end of this. I go
tomorrow.’
‘Jane Murdstone,’ thundered Mr. Murdstone. ‘Will you be silent? How dare
you?’
Miss Murdstone made a jail-delivery of her pocket-handkerchief, and held
it before her eyes.
‘Clara,’ he continued, looking at my mother, ‘you surprise me! You
astound me! Yes, I had a satisfaction in the thought of marrying
an inexperienced and artless person, and forming her character, and
infusing into it some amount of that firmness and decision of which
it stood in need. But when Jane Murdstone is kind enough to come to my
assistance in this endeavour, and to assume, for my sake, a condition
something like a housekeeper’s, and when she meets with a base return--’
‘Oh, pray, pray, Edward,’ cried my mother, ‘don’t accuse me of being
ungrateful. I am sure I am not ungrateful. No one ever said I was
before. I have many faults, but not that. Oh, don’t, my dear!’
‘When Jane Murdstone meets, I say,’ he went on, after waiting until my
mother was silent, ‘with a base return, that feeling of mine is chilled
and altered.’
‘Don’t, my love, say that!’ implored my mother very piteously.
‘Oh, don’t, Edward! I can’t bear to hear it. Whatever I am, I am
affectionate. I know I am affectionate. I wouldn’t say it, if I
wasn’t sure that I am. Ask Peggotty. I am sure she’ll tell you I’m
affectionate.’
‘There is no extent of mere weakness, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone in
reply, ‘that can have the least weight with me. You lose breath.’
‘Pray let us be friends,’ said my mother, ‘I couldn’t live under
coldness or unkindness. I am so sorry. I have a great many defects, I
know, and it’s very good of you, Edward, with your strength of mind, to
endeavour to correct them for me. Jane, I don’t object to anything. I
should be quite broken-hearted if you thought of leaving--’ My mother
was too much overcome to go on.
‘Jane Murdstone,’ said Mr. Murdstone to his sister, ‘any harsh words
between us are, I hope, uncommon. It is not my fault that so unusual an
occurrence has taken place tonight. I was betrayed into it by another.
Nor is it your fault. You were betrayed into it by another. Let us both
try to forget it. And as this,’ he added, after these magnanimous words,
‘is not a fit scene for the boy--David, go to bed!’
I could hardly find the door, through the tears that stood in my eyes.
I was so sorry for my mother’s distress; but I groped my way out, and
groped my way up to my room in the dark, without even having the heart
to say good night to Peggotty, or to get a candle from her. When her
coming up to look for me, an hour or so afterwards, awoke me, she said
that my mother had gone to bed poorly, and that Mr. and Miss Murdstone
were sitting alone.
Going down next morning rather earlier than usual, I paused outside the
parlour door, on hearing my mother’s voice. She was very earnestly and
humbly entreating Miss Murdstone’s pardon, which that lady granted, and
a perfect reconciliation took place. I never knew my mother afterwards
to give an opinion on any matter, without first appealing to Miss
Murdstone, or without having first ascertained by some sure means, what
Miss Murdstone’s opinion was; and I never saw Miss Murdstone, when out
of temper (she was infirm that way), move her hand towards her bag as
if she were going to take out the keys and offer to resign them to my
mother, without seeing that my mother was in a terrible fright.
The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone
religion, which was austere and wrathful. I have thought, since,
that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of Mr.
Murdstone’s firmness, which wouldn’t allow him to let anybody off from
the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse
for. Be this as it may, I well remember the tremendous visages with
which we used to go to church, and the changed air of the place. Again,
the dreaded Sunday comes round, and I file into the old pew first, like
a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. Again, Miss Murdstone,
in a black velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall,
follows close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. There is no
Peggotty now, as in the old time. Again, I listen to Miss Murdstone
mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel
relish. Again, I see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says
‘miserable sinners’, as if she were calling all the congregation names.
Again, I catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly
between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low
thunder. Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that
our good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right,
and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I
move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with
her prayer-book, and makes my side ache.
Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at my
mother and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on arm-in-arm,
and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those looks, and wonder if
my mother’s step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if the
gaiety of her beauty be really almost worried away. Again, I wonder
whether any of the neighbours call to mind, as I do, how we used to
walk home together, she and I; and I wonder stupidly about that, all the
dreary dismal day.
There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-school.
Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother had of course
agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on the subject yet.
In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home. Shall I ever forget those
lessons! They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by
Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them
a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled
firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept
at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing
enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly
remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look
upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their
shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present
themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no
feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked
along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been
cheered by the gentleness of my mother’s voice and manner all the
way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember as the
death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They
were very long, very numerous, very hard--perfectly unintelligible,
some of them, to me--and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I
believe my poor mother was herself.
Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again.
I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books,
and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her
writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair
by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss
Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight
of these two has such an influence over me, that I begin to feel the
words I have been at infinite pains to get into my head, all sliding
away, and going I don’t know where. I wonder where they do go, by the
by?
I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a
history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give
it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have
got it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip
over another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over
half-a-dozen words, and stop. I think my mother would show me the book
if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly:
‘Oh, Davy, Davy!’
‘Now, Clara,’ says Mr. Murdstone, ‘be firm with the boy. Don’t say, “Oh,
Davy, Davy!” That’s childish. He knows his lesson, or he does not know
it.’
‘He does NOT know it,’ Miss Murdstone interposes awfully.
‘I am really afraid he does not,’ says my mother.
‘Then, you see, Clara,’ returns Miss Murdstone, ‘you should just give
him the book back, and make him know it.’
‘Yes, certainly,’ says my mother; ‘that is what I intend to do, my dear
Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don’t be stupid.’
I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am
not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down
before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before,
and stop to think. But I can’t think about the lesson. I think of the
number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone’s cap, or of the price of Mr.
Murdstone’s dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that I have
no business with, and don’t want to have anything at all to do with. Mr.
Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting
for a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances
submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be
worked out when my other tasks are done.
There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling
snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid I get. The case is so
hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that
I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The
despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I blunder
on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable
lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries
to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant, Miss
Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says
in a deep warning voice:
‘Clara!’
My mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes out
of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it,
and turns me out of the room by the shoulders.
Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape
of an appalling sum. This is invented for me, and delivered to me orally
by Mr. Murdstone, and begins, ‘If I go into a cheesemonger’s shop, and
buy five thousand double-Gloucester cheeses at fourpence-halfpenny each,
present payment’--at which I see Miss Murdstone secretly overjoyed.
I pore over these cheeses without any result or enlightenment until
dinner-time, when, having made a Mulatto of myself by getting the dirt
of the slate into the pores of my skin, I have a slice of bread to help
me out with the cheeses, and am considered in disgrace for the rest of
the evening.
It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies
generally took this course. I could have done very well if I had been
without the Murdstones; but the influence of the Murdstones upon me was
like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. Even when
I did get through the morning with tolerable credit, there was not
much gained but dinner; for Miss Murdstone never could endure to see me
untasked, and if I rashly made any show of being unemployed, called her
brother’s attention to me by saying, ‘Clara, my dear, there’s nothing
like work--give your boy an exercise’; which caused me to be clapped
down to some new labour, there and then. As to any recreation with other
children of my age, I had very little of that; for the gloomy theology
of the Murdstones made all children out to be a swarm of little vipers
(though there WAS a child once set in the midst of the Disciples), and
held that they contaminated one another.
The natural result of this treatment, continued, I suppose, for some six
months or more, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. I was not
made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and
alienated from my mother. I believe I should have been almost stupefied
but for one circumstance.
It was this. My father had left a small collection of books in a little
room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which
nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room,
Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the
Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came
out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and
my hope of something beyond that place and time,--they, and the Arabian
Nights, and the Tales of the Genii,--and did me no harm; for whatever
harm was in some of them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it. It
is astonishing to me now, how I found time, in the midst of my porings
and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as I did. It
is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my
small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my
favourite characters in them--as I did--and by putting Mr. and Miss
Murdstone into all the bad ones--which I did too. I have been Tom Jones
(a child’s Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have
sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I
verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and
Travels--I forget what, now--that were on those shelves; and for days
and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house,
armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees--the perfect
realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of
being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price.
The Captain never lost dignity, from having his ears boxed with the
Latin Grammar. I did; but the Captain was a Captain and a hero, in
despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or
alive.
This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the
picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play
in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life.
Every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every
foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind,
connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in
them. I have seen Tom Pipes go climbing up the church-steeple; I have
watched Strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself
upon the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore Trunnion held that club
with Mr. Pickle, in the parlour of our little village alehouse.
The reader now understands, as well as I do, what I was when I came to
that point of my youthful history to which I am now coming again.
One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my
mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone
binding something round the bottom of a cane--a lithe and limber cane,
which he left off binding when I came in, and poised and switched in the
air.
‘I tell you, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘I have been often flogged
myself.’
‘To be sure; of course,’ said Miss Murdstone.
‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ faltered my mother, meekly. ‘But--but do you
think it did Edward good?’
‘Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?’ asked Mr. Murdstone, gravely.
‘That’s the point,’ said his sister.
To this my mother returned, ‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ and said no more.
I felt apprehensive that I was personally interested in this dialogue,
and sought Mr. Murdstone’s eye as it lighted on mine.
‘Now, David,’ he said--and I saw that cast again as he said it--‘you
must be far more careful today than usual.’ He gave the cane another
poise, and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it,
laid it down beside him, with an impressive look, and took up his book.
This was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. I felt
the words of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line,
but by the entire page; I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed,
if I may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me
with a smoothness there was no checking.
We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of
distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that I was very well prepared;
but it turned out to be quite a mistake. Book after book was added to
the heap of failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the
time. And when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (canes he
made it that day, I remember), my mother burst out crying.
‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice.
‘I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think,’ said my mother.
I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up
the cane:
‘Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect firmness,
the worry and torment that David has occasioned her today. That would be
stoical. Clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly
expect so much from her. David, you and I will go upstairs, boy.’
As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss Murdstone
said, ‘Clara! are you a perfect fool?’ and interfered. I saw my mother
stop her ears then, and I heard her crying.
He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely--I am certain he had a
delight in that formal parade of executing justice--and when we got
there, suddenly twisted my head under his arm.
‘Mr. Murdstone! Sir!’ I cried to him. ‘Don’t! Pray don’t beat me! I have
tried to learn, sir, but I can’t learn while you and Miss Murdstone are
by. I can’t indeed!’
‘Can’t you, indeed, David?’ he said. ‘We’ll try that.’
He had my head as in a vice, but I twined round him somehow, and stopped
him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was only a moment
that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in
the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth,
between my teeth, and bit it through. It sets my teeth on edge to think
of it.
He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all the
noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying out--I
heard my mother crying out--and Peggotty. Then he was gone; and the
door was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and
sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor.
How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness
seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I remember, when my
smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel!
I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled
up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and
ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and
made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they were nothing to the guilt I
felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most atrocious
criminal, I dare say.
It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying,
for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing,
and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone
came in with some bread and meat, and milk. These she put down upon the
table without a word, glaring at me the while with exemplary firmness,
and then retired, locking the door after her.
Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else would
come. When this appeared improbable for that night, I undressed, and
went to bed; and, there, I began to wonder fearfully what would be done
to me. Whether it was a criminal act that I had committed? Whether I
should be taken into custody, and sent to prison? Whether I was at all
in danger of being hanged?
I never shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and
fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale
and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone reappeared before
I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk in
the garden for half an hour and no longer; and retired, leaving the door
open, that I might avail myself of that permission.
I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five
days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone down on
my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but I saw no one, Miss
Murdstone excepted, during the whole time--except at evening prayers in
the parlour; to which I was escorted by Miss Murdstone after everybody
else was placed; where I was stationed, a young outlaw, all alone by
myself near the door; and whence I was solemnly conducted by my jailer,
before any one arose from the devotional posture. I only observed that
my mother was as far off from me as she could be, and kept her face
another way so that I never saw it; and that Mr. Murdstone’s hand was
bound up in a large linen wrapper.
The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to any one. They
occupy the place of years in my remembrance. The way in which I listened
to all the incidents of the house that made themselves audible to me;
the ringing of bells, the opening and shutting of doors, the murmuring
of voices, the footsteps on the stairs; to any laughing, whistling, or
singing, outside, which seemed more dismal than anything else to me in
my solitude and disgrace--the uncertain pace of the hours, especially
at night, when I would wake thinking it was morning, and find that the
family were not yet gone to bed, and that all the length of night had
yet to come--the depressed dreams and nightmares I had--the return of
day, noon, afternoon, evening, when the boys played in the churchyard,
and I watched them from a distance within the room, being ashamed to
show myself at the window lest they should know I was a prisoner--the
strange sensation of never hearing myself speak--the fleeting intervals
of something like cheerfulness, which came with eating and drinking,
and went away with it--the setting in of rain one evening, with a fresh
smell, and its coming down faster and faster between me and the church,
until it and gathering night seemed to quench me in gloom, and fear, and
remorse--all this appears to have gone round and round for years instead
of days, it is so vividly and strongly stamped on my remembrance. On the
last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own name spoken
in a whisper. I started up in bed, and putting out my arms in the dark,
said:
‘Is that you, Peggotty?’
There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, in a
tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have gone into
a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the
keyhole.
I groped my way to the door, and putting my own lips to the keyhole,
whispered: ‘Is that you, Peggotty dear?’
‘Yes, my own precious Davy,’ she replied. ‘Be as soft as a mouse, or the
Cat’ll hear us.’
I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and was sensible of the
urgency of the case; her room being close by.
‘How’s mama, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me?’
I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was
doing on mine, before she answered. ‘No. Not very.’
‘What is going to be done with me, Peggotty dear? Do you know?’
‘School. Near London,’ was Peggotty’s answer. I was obliged to get her
to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat,
in consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the
keyhole and put my ear there; and though her words tickled me a good
deal, I didn’t hear them.
‘When, Peggotty?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my
drawers?’ which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention it.
‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. ‘Box.’
‘Shan’t I see mama?’
‘Yes,’ said Peggotty. ‘Morning.’
Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and delivered these
words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole
has ever been the medium of communicating, I will venture to assert:
shooting in each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of
its own.
‘Davy, dear. If I ain’t been azackly as intimate with you. Lately, as I
used to be. It ain’t because I don’t love you. Just as well and more, my
pretty poppet. It’s because I thought it better for you. And for someone
else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you hear?’
‘Ye-ye-ye-yes, Peggotty!’ I sobbed.
‘My own!’ said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. ‘What I want to say,
is. That you must never forget me. For I’ll never forget you. And I’ll
take as much care of your mama, Davy. As ever I took of you. And I won’t
leave her. The day may come when she’ll be glad to lay her poor head.
On her stupid, cross old Peggotty’s arm again. And I’ll write to you,
my dear. Though I ain’t no scholar. And I’ll--I’ll--’ Peggotty fell to
kissing the keyhole, as she couldn’t kiss me.
‘Thank you, dear Peggotty!’ said I. ‘Oh, thank you! Thank you! Will you
promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. Peggotty and
little Em’ly, and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham, that I am not so bad as they
might suppose, and that I sent ‘em all my love--especially to little
Em’ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?’
The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the
greatest affection--I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had
been her honest face--and parted. From that night there grew up in my
breast a feeling for Peggotty which I cannot very well define. She did
not replace my mother; no one could do that; but she came into a vacancy
in my heart, which closed upon her, and I felt towards her something
I have never felt for any other human being. It was a sort of comical
affection, too; and yet if she had died, I cannot think what I should
have done, or how I should have acted out the tragedy it would have been
to me.
In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was going
to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. She
also informed me that when I was dressed, I was to come downstairs into
the parlour, and have my breakfast. There, I found my mother, very pale
and with red eyes: into whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my
suffering soul.
‘Oh, Davy!’ she said. ‘That you could hurt anyone I love! Try to be
better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved, Davy,
that you should have such bad passions in your heart.’
They had persuaded her that I was a wicked fellow, and she was more
sorry for that than for my going away. I felt it sorely. I tried to eat
my parting breakfast, but my tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter,
and trickled into my tea. I saw my mother look at me sometimes, and then
glance at the watchful Miss Murdstone, and than look down, or look away.
‘Master Copperfield’s box there!’ said Miss Murdstone, when wheels were
heard at the gate.
I looked for Peggotty, but it was not she; neither she nor Mr. Murdstone
appeared. My former acquaintance, the carrier, was at the door. The box
was taken out to his cart, and lifted in.
‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, in her warning note.
‘Ready, my dear Jane,’ returned my mother. ‘Good-bye, Davy. You are
going for your own good. Good-bye, my child. You will come home in the
holidays, and be a better boy.’
‘Clara!’ Miss Murdstone repeated.
‘Certainly, my dear Jane,’ replied my mother, who was holding me. ‘I
forgive you, my dear boy. God bless you!’
‘Clara!’ Miss Murdstone repeated.
Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on
the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a bad end; and
then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it.
CHAPTER 5. I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME
We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief was
quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. Looking out to
ascertain for what, I saw, to My amazement, Peggotty burst from a hedge
and climb into the cart. She took me in both her arms, and squeezed me
to her stays until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful, though
I never thought of that till afterwards when I found it very tender. Not
a single word did Peggotty speak. Releasing one of her arms, she put
it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought out some paper bags of
cakes which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse which she put into
my hand, but not one word did she say. After another and a final squeeze
with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran away; and, my belief
is, and has always been, without a solitary button on her gown. I
picked up one, of several that were rolling about, and treasured it as a
keepsake for a long time.
The carrier looked at me, as if to inquire if she were coming back. I
shook my head, and said I thought not. ‘Then come up,’ said the carrier
to the lazy horse; who came up accordingly.
Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think
it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither Roderick Random,
nor that Captain in the Royal British Navy, had ever cried, that I
could remember, in trying situations. The carrier, seeing me in this
resolution, proposed that my pocket-handkerchief should be spread upon
the horse’s back to dry. I thanked him, and assented; and particularly
small it looked, under those circumstances.
I had now leisure to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather purse,
with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty had
evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. But its
most precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit
of paper, on which was written, in my mother’s hand, ‘For Davy. With my
love.’ I was so overcome by this, that I asked the carrier to be so good
as to reach me my pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I
had better do without it, and I thought I really had, so I wiped my eyes
on my sleeve and stopped myself.
For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I was
still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for
some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way.
‘All the way where?’ inquired the carrier.
‘There,’ I said.
‘Where’s there?’ inquired the carrier.
‘Near London,’ I said.
‘Why that horse,’ said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out,
‘would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.’
‘Are you only going to Yarmouth then?’ I asked.
‘That’s about it,’ said the carrier. ‘And there I shall take you to the
stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that’ll take you to--wherever it is.’
As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis)
to say--he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic
temperament, and not at all conversational--I offered him a cake as a
mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant,
and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have
done on an elephant’s.
‘Did SHE make ‘em, now?’ said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, in his
slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each knee.
‘Peggotty, do you mean, sir?’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Her.’
‘Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking.’
‘Do she though?’ said Mr. Barkis. He made up his mouth as if to whistle,
but he didn’t whistle. He sat looking at the horse’s ears, as if he saw
something new there; and sat so, for a considerable time. By and by, he
said:
‘No sweethearts, I b’lieve?’
‘Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?’ For I thought he wanted
something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of
refreshment.
‘Hearts,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Sweet hearts; no person walks with her!’
‘With Peggotty?’
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Her.’
‘Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.’
‘Didn’t she, though!’ said Mr. Barkis.
Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn’t whistle, but
sat looking at the horse’s ears.
‘So she makes,’ said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection,
‘all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she?’
I replied that such was the fact.
‘Well. I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘P’raps you might be
writin’ to her?’
‘I shall certainly write to her,’ I rejoined.
‘Ah!’ he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. ‘Well! If you was
writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that Barkis was willin’;
would you?’
‘That Barkis is willing,’ I repeated, innocently. ‘Is that all the
message?’
‘Ye-es,’ he said, considering. ‘Ye-es. Barkis is willin’.’
‘But you will be at Blunderstone again tomorrow, Mr. Barkis,’ I said,
faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, and
could give your own message so much better.’
As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head,
and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound
gravity, ‘Barkis is willin’. That’s the message,’ I readily undertook
its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel
at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and
an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus: ‘My dear
Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama.
Yours affectionately. P.S. He says he particularly wants you to
know--BARKIS IS WILLING.’
When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. Barkis
relapsed into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out by all that
had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep. I
slept soundly until we got to Yarmouth; which was so entirely new
and strange to me in the inn-yard to which we drove, that I at once
abandoned a latent hope I had had of meeting with some of Mr. Peggotty’s
family there, perhaps even with little Em’ly herself.
The coach was in the yard, shining very much all over, but without any
horses to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing was
more unlikely than its ever going to London. I was thinking this, and
wondering what would ultimately become of my box, which Mr. Barkis had
put down on the yard-pavement by the pole (he having driven up the yard
to turn his cart), and also what would ultimately become of me, when a
lady looked out of a bow-window where some fowls and joints of meat were
hanging up, and said:
‘Is that the little gentleman from Blunderstone?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said.
‘What name?’ inquired the lady.
‘Copperfield, ma’am,’ I said.
‘That won’t do,’ returned the lady. ‘Nobody’s dinner is paid for here,
in that name.’
‘Is it Murdstone, ma’am?’ I said.
‘If you’re Master Murdstone,’ said the lady, ‘why do you go and give
another name, first?’
I explained to the lady how it was, who than rang a bell, and called
out, ‘William! show the coffee-room!’ upon which a waiter came running
out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the yard to show it, and seemed
a good deal surprised when he was only to show it to me.
It was a large long room with some large maps in it. I doubt if I could
have felt much stranger if the maps had been real foreign countries, and
I cast away in the middle of them. I felt it was taking a liberty to
sit down, with my cap in my hand, on the corner of the chair nearest the
door; and when the waiter laid a cloth on purpose for me, and put a set
of castors on it, I think I must have turned red all over with modesty.
He brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off in
such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some
offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at
the table, and saying, very affably, ‘Now, six-foot! come on!’
I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely
difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity,
or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing
opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful
manner every time I caught his eye. After watching me into the second
chop, he said:
‘There’s half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?’
I thanked him and said, ‘Yes.’ Upon which he poured it out of a jug
into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look
beautiful.
‘My eye!’ he said. ‘It seems a good deal, don’t it?’
‘It does seem a good deal,’ I answered with a smile. For it was quite
delightful to me, to find him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed,
pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and
as he stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the light with
the other hand, he looked quite friendly.
‘There was a gentleman here, yesterday,’ he said--‘a stout gentleman, by
the name of Topsawyer--perhaps you know him?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think--’
‘In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, grey coat, speckled
choker,’ said the waiter.
‘No,’ I said bashfully, ‘I haven’t the pleasure--’
‘He came in here,’ said the waiter, looking at the light through the
tumbler, ‘ordered a glass of this ale--WOULD order it--I told him
not--drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It oughtn’t to be
drawn; that’s the fact.’
I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and said I
thought I had better have some water.
‘Why you see,’ said the waiter, still looking at the light through the
tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, ‘our people don’t like things
being ordered and left. It offends ‘em. But I’ll drink it, if you like.
I’m used to it, and use is everything. I don’t think it’ll hurt me, if I
throw my head back, and take it off quick. Shall I?’
I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he thought
he could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he did throw his
head back, and take it off quick, I had a horrible fear, I confess,
of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall
lifeless on the carpet. But it didn’t hurt him. On the contrary, I
thought he seemed the fresher for it.
‘What have we got here?’ he said, putting a fork into my dish. ‘Not
chops?’
‘Chops,’ I said.
‘Lord bless my soul!’ he exclaimed, ‘I didn’t know they were chops. Why,
a chop’s the very thing to take off the bad effects of that beer! Ain’t
it lucky?’
So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the other,
and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction.
He afterwards took another chop, and another potato; and after that,
another chop and another potato. When we had done, he brought me a
pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become
absent in his mind for some moments.
‘How’s the pie?’ he said, rousing himself.
‘It’s a pudding,’ I made answer.
‘Pudding!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, bless me, so it is! What!’ looking at it
nearer. ‘You don’t mean to say it’s a batter-pudding!’
‘Yes, it is indeed.’
‘Why, a batter-pudding,’ he said, taking up a table-spoon, ‘is my
favourite pudding! Ain’t that lucky? Come on, little ‘un, and let’s see
who’ll get most.’
The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to come in
and win, but what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his dispatch to
my dispatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was left far behind at
the first mouthful, and had no chance with him. I never saw anyone enjoy
a pudding so much, I think; and he laughed, when it was all gone, as if
his enjoyment of it lasted still.
Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I asked
for the pen and ink and paper, to write to Peggotty. He not only brought
it immediately, but was good enough to look over me while I wrote the
letter. When I had finished it, he asked me where I was going to school.
I said, ‘Near London,’ which was all I knew.
‘Oh! my eye!’ he said, looking very low-spirited, ‘I am sorry for that.’
‘Why?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, Lord!’ he said, shaking his head, ‘that’s the school where they
broke the boy’s ribs--two ribs--a little boy he was. I should say he
was--let me see--how old are you, about?’
I told him between eight and nine.
‘That’s just his age,’ he said. ‘He was eight years and six months old
when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old when
they broke his second, and did for him.’
I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an
uncomfortable coincidence, and inquired how it was done. His answer was
not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words, ‘With
whopping.’
The blowing of the coach-horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion,
which made me get up and hesitatingly inquire, in the mingled pride and
diffidence of having a purse (which I took out of my pocket), if there
were anything to pay.
‘There’s a sheet of letter-paper,’ he returned. ‘Did you ever buy a
sheet of letter-paper?’
I could not remember that I ever had.
‘It’s dear,’ he said, ‘on account of the duty. Threepence. That’s
the way we’re taxed in this country. There’s nothing else, except the
waiter. Never mind the ink. I lose by that.’
‘What should you--what should I--how much ought I to--what would it be
right to pay the waiter, if you please?’ I stammered, blushing.
‘If I hadn’t a family, and that family hadn’t the cowpock,’ said the
waiter, ‘I wouldn’t take a sixpence. If I didn’t support a aged pairint,
and a lovely sister,’--here the waiter was greatly agitated--‘I wouldn’t
take a farthing. If I had a good place, and was treated well here, I
should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of taking of it. But I live
on broken wittles--and I sleep on the coals’--here the waiter burst into
tears.
I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any
recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of
heart. Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he
received with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb,
directly afterwards, to try the goodness of.
It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being helped
up behind the coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner
without any assistance. I discovered this, from overhearing the lady in
the bow-window say to the guard, ‘Take care of that child, George, or
he’ll burst!’ and from observing that the women-servants who were about
the place came out to look and giggle at me as a young phenomenon. My
unfortunate friend the waiter, who had quite recovered his spirits, did
not appear to be disturbed by this, but joined in the general admiration
without being at all confused. If I had any doubt of him, I suppose
this half awakened it; but I am inclined to believe that with the simple
confidence of a child, and the natural reliance of a child upon superior
years (qualities I am very sorry any children should prematurely change
for worldly wisdom), I had no serious mistrust of him on the whole, even
then.
I felt it rather hard, I must own, to be made, without deserving it, the
subject of jokes between the coachman and guard as to the coach drawing
heavy behind, on account of my sitting there, and as to the greater
expediency of my travelling by waggon. The story of my supposed appetite
getting wind among the outside passengers, they were merry upon it
likewise; and asked me whether I was going to be paid for, at school,
as two brothers or three, and whether I was contracted for, or went upon
the regular terms; with other pleasant questions. But the worst of
it was, that I knew I should be ashamed to eat anything, when an
opportunity offered, and that, after a rather light dinner, I should
remain hungry all night--for I had left my cakes behind, at the hotel,
in my hurry. My apprehensions were realized. When we stopped for supper
I couldn’t muster courage to take any, though I should have liked it
very much, but sat by the fire and said I didn’t want anything. This did
not save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced gentleman with
a rough face, who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the
way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle, said I was like
a boa-constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time;
after which, he actually brought a rash out upon himself with boiled
beef.
We had started from Yarmouth at three o’clock in the afternoon, and we
were due in London about eight next morning. It was Mid-summer weather,
and the evening was very pleasant. When we passed through a village, I
pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were like, and what
the inhabitants were about; and when boys came running after us, and
got up behind and swung there for a little way, I wondered whether their
fathers were alive, and whether they were happy at home. I had plenty to
think of, therefore, besides my mind running continually on the kind
of place I was going to--which was an awful speculation. Sometimes, I
remember, I resigned myself to thoughts of home and Peggotty; and to
endeavouring, in a confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and
what sort of boy I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone: which I
couldn’t satisfy myself about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him
in such a remote antiquity.
The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly; and
being put between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and another) to
prevent my tumbling off the coach, I was nearly smothered by their
falling asleep, and completely blocking me up. They squeezed me so hard
sometimes, that I could not help crying out, ‘Oh! If you please!’--which
they didn’t like at all, because it woke them. Opposite me was an
elderly lady in a great fur cloak, who looked in the dark more like a
haystack than a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree. This lady had
a basket with her, and she hadn’t known what to do with it, for a long
time, until she found that on account of my legs being short, it could
go underneath me. It cramped and hurt me so, that it made me perfectly
miserable; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass that was in the
basket rattle against something else (as it was sure to do), she gave
me the cruellest poke with her foot, and said, ‘Come, don’t YOU fidget.
YOUR bones are young enough, I’m sure!’
At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep easier.
The difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had
found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be
conceived. As the sun got higher, their sleep became lighter, and so
they gradually one by one awoke. I recollect being very much surprised
by the feint everybody made, then, of not having been to sleep at all,
and by the uncommon indignation with which everyone repelled the
charge. I labour under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having
invariably observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to which our
common nature is the least disposed to confess (I cannot imagine why) is
the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach.
What an amazing place London was to me when I saw it in the distance,
and how I believed all the adventures of all my favourite heroes to be
constantly enacting and re-enacting there, and how I vaguely made it
out in my own mind to be fuller of wonders and wickedness than all the
cities of the earth, I need not stop here to relate. We approached it by
degrees, and got, in due time, to the inn in the Whitechapel district,
for which we were bound. I forget whether it was the Blue Bull, or the
Blue Boar; but I know it was the Blue Something, and that its likeness
was painted up on the back of the coach.
The guard’s eye lighted on me as he was getting down, and he said at the
booking-office door:
‘Is there anybody here for a yoongster booked in the name of Murdstone,
from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, to be left till called for?’
Nobody answered.
‘Try Copperfield, if you please, sir,’ said I, looking helplessly down.
‘Is there anybody here for a yoongster, booked in the name of Murdstone,
from Bloonderstone, Sooffolk, but owning to the name of Copperfield, to
be left till called for?’ said the guard. ‘Come! IS there anybody?’
No. There was nobody. I looked anxiously around; but the inquiry made no
impression on any of the bystanders, if I except a man in gaiters, with
one eye, who suggested that they had better put a brass collar round my
neck, and tie me up in the stable.
A ladder was brought, and I got down after the lady, who was like a
haystack: not daring to stir, until her basket was removed. The coach
was clear of passengers by that time, the luggage was very soon cleared
out, the horses had been taken out before the luggage, and now the coach
itself was wheeled and backed off by some hostlers, out of the way.
Still, nobody appeared, to claim the dusty youngster from Blunderstone,
Suffolk.
More solitary than Robinson Crusoe, who had nobody to look at him
and see that he was solitary, I went into the booking-office, and, by
invitation of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and sat down
on the scale at which they weighed the luggage. Here, as I sat looking
at the parcels, packages, and books, and inhaling the smell of stables
(ever since associated with that morning), a procession of most
tremendous considerations began to march through my mind. Supposing
nobody should ever fetch me, how long would they consent to keep me
there? Would they keep me long enough to spend seven shillings? Should I
sleep at night in one of those wooden bins, with the other luggage,
and wash myself at the pump in the yard in the morning; or should I
be turned out every night, and expected to come again to be left till
called for, when the office opened next day? Supposing there was no
mistake in the case, and Mr. Murdstone had devised this plan to get rid
of me, what should I do? If they allowed me to remain there until my
seven shillings were spent, I couldn’t hope to remain there when I began
to starve. That would obviously be inconvenient and unpleasant to the
customers, besides entailing on the Blue Whatever-it-was, the risk of
funeral expenses. If I started off at once, and tried to walk back home,
how could I ever find my way, how could I ever hope to walk so far, how
could I make sure of anyone but Peggotty, even if I got back? If I
found out the nearest proper authorities, and offered myself to go for a
soldier, or a sailor, I was such a little fellow that it was most likely
they wouldn’t take me in. These thoughts, and a hundred other such
thoughts, turned me burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and
dismay. I was in the height of my fever when a man entered and whispered
to the clerk, who presently slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over
to him, as if I were weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for.
As I went out of the office, hand in hand with this new acquaintance,
I stole a look at him. He was a gaunt, sallow young man, with hollow
cheeks, and a chin almost as black as Mr. Murdstone’s; but there the
likeness ended, for his whiskers were shaved off, and his hair, instead
of being glossy, was rusty and dry. He was dressed in a suit of black
clothes which were rather rusty and dry too, and rather short in the
sleeves and legs; and he had a white neck-kerchief on, that was not
over-clean. I did not, and do not, suppose that this neck-kerchief was
all the linen he wore, but it was all he showed or gave any hint of.
‘You’re the new boy?’ he said. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
I supposed I was. I didn’t know.
‘I’m one of the masters at Salem House,’ he said.
I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. I was so ashamed to allude
to a commonplace thing like my box, to a scholar and a master at Salem
House, that we had gone some little distance from the yard before I had
the hardihood to mention it. We turned back, on my humbly insinuating
that it might be useful to me hereafter; and he told the clerk that the
carrier had instructions to call for it at noon.
‘If you please, sir,’ I said, when we had accomplished about the same
distance as before, ‘is it far?’
‘It’s down by Blackheath,’ he said.
‘Is that far, sir?’ I diffidently asked.
‘It’s a good step,’ he said. ‘We shall go by the stage-coach. It’s about
six miles.’
I was so faint and tired, that the idea of holding out for six miles
more, was too much for me. I took heart to tell him that I had had
nothing all night, and that if he would allow me to buy something to
eat, I should be very much obliged to him. He appeared surprised at
this--I see him stop and look at me now--and after considering for a few
moments, said he wanted to call on an old person who lived not far off,
and that the best way would be for me to buy some bread, or whatever I
liked best that was wholesome, and make my breakfast at her house, where
we could get some milk.
Accordingly we looked in at a baker’s window, and after I had made a
series of proposals to buy everything that was bilious in the shop, and
he had rejected them one by one, we decided in favour of a nice little
loaf of brown bread, which cost me threepence. Then, at a grocer’s shop,
we bought an egg and a slice of streaky bacon; which still left what
I thought a good deal of change, out of the second of the bright
shillings, and made me consider London a very cheap place. These
provisions laid in, we went on through a great noise and uproar that
confused my weary head beyond description, and over a bridge which, no
doubt, was London Bridge (indeed I think he told me so, but I was half
asleep), until we came to the poor person’s house, which was a part of
some alms-houses, as I knew by their look, and by an inscription on a
stone over the gate which said they were established for twenty-five
poor women.
The Master at Salem House lifted the latch of one of a number of little
black doors that were all alike, and had each a little diamond-paned
window on one side, and another little diamond--paned window above; and
we went into the little house of one of these poor old women, who was
blowing a fire to make a little saucepan boil. On seeing the master
enter, the old woman stopped with the bellows on her knee, and said
something that I thought sounded like ‘My Charley!’ but on seeing me
come in too, she got up, and rubbing her hands made a confused sort of
half curtsey.
‘Can you cook this young gentleman’s breakfast for him, if you please?’
said the Master at Salem House.
‘Can I?’ said the old woman. ‘Yes can I, sure!’
‘How’s Mrs. Fibbitson today?’ said the Master, looking at another old
woman in a large chair by the fire, who was such a bundle of clothes
that I feel grateful to this hour for not having sat upon her by
mistake.
‘Ah, she’s poorly,’ said the first old woman. ‘It’s one of her bad days.
If the fire was to go out, through any accident, I verily believe she’d
go out too, and never come to life again.’
As they looked at her, I looked at her also. Although it was a warm day,
she seemed to think of nothing but the fire. I fancied she was jealous
even of the saucepan on it; and I have reason to know that she took its
impressment into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon, in
dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own discomfited eyes, shake her fist at
me once, when those culinary operations were going on, and no one else
was looking. The sun streamed in at the little window, but she sat with
her own back and the back of the large chair towards it, screening the
fire as if she were sedulously keeping IT warm, instead of it keeping
her warm, and watching it in a most distrustful manner. The completion
of the preparations for my breakfast, by relieving the fire, gave her
such extreme joy that she laughed aloud--and a very unmelodious laugh
she had, I must say.
I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with a
basin of milk besides, and made a most delicious meal. While I was yet
in the full enjoyment of it, the old woman of the house said to the
Master:
‘Have you got your flute with you?’
‘Yes,’ he returned.
‘Have a blow at it,’ said the old woman, coaxingly. ‘Do!’
The Master, upon this, put his hand underneath the skirts of his coat,
and brought out his flute in three pieces, which he screwed together,
and began immediately to play. My impression is, after many years of
consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who
played worse. He made the most dismal sounds I have ever heard produced
by any means, natural or artificial. I don’t know what the tunes
were--if there were such things in the performance at all, which I
doubt--but the influence of the strain upon me was, first, to make me
think of all my sorrows until I could hardly keep my tears back; then to
take away my appetite; and lastly, to make me so sleepy that I couldn’t
keep my eyes open. They begin to close again, and I begin to nod, as the
recollection rises fresh upon me. Once more the little room, with its
open corner cupboard, and its square-backed chairs, and its angular
little staircase leading to the room above, and its three peacock’s
feathers displayed over the mantelpiece--I remember wondering when I
first went in, what that peacock would have thought if he had known what
his finery was doomed to come to--fades from before me, and I nod, and
sleep. The flute becomes inaudible, the wheels of the coach are heard
instead, and I am on my journey. The coach jolts, I wake with a start,
and the flute has come back again, and the Master at Salem House is
sitting with his legs crossed, playing it dolefully, while the old woman
of the house looks on delighted. She fades in her turn, and he fades,
and all fades, and there is no flute, no Master, no Salem House, no
David Copperfield, no anything but heavy sleep.
I dreamed, I thought, that once while he was blowing into this dismal
flute, the old woman of the house, who had gone nearer and nearer to him
in her ecstatic admiration, leaned over the back of his chair and gave
him an affectionate squeeze round the neck, which stopped his playing
for a moment. I was in the middle state between sleeping and waking,
either then or immediately afterwards; for, as he resumed--it was a real
fact that he had stopped playing--I saw and heard the same old woman ask
Mrs. Fibbitson if it wasn’t delicious (meaning the flute), to which Mrs.
Fibbitson replied, ‘Ay, ay! yes!’ and nodded at the fire: to which, I am
persuaded, she gave the credit of the whole performance.
When I seemed to have been dozing a long while, the Master at Salem
House unscrewed his flute into the three pieces, put them up as before,
and took me away. We found the coach very near at hand, and got upon the
roof; but I was so dead sleepy, that when we stopped on the road to take
up somebody else, they put me inside where there were no passengers, and
where I slept profoundly, until I found the coach going at a footpace up
a steep hill among green leaves. Presently, it stopped, and had come to
its destination.
A short walk brought us--I mean the Master and me--to Salem House, which
was enclosed with a high brick wall, and looked very dull. Over a door
in this wall was a board with SALEM HOUSE upon it; and through a grating
in this door we were surveyed when we rang the bell by a surly face,
which I found, on the door being opened, belonged to a stout man with a
bull-neck, a wooden leg, overhanging temples, and his hair cut close all
round his head.
‘The new boy,’ said the Master.
The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over--it didn’t take long, for
there was not much of me--and locked the gate behind us, and took out
the key. We were going up to the house, among some dark heavy trees,
when he called after my conductor. ‘Hallo!’
We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little lodge, where
he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand.
‘Here! The cobbler’s been,’ he said, ‘since you’ve been out, Mr. Mell,
and he says he can’t mend ‘em any more. He says there ain’t a bit of the
original boot left, and he wonders you expect it.’
With these words he threw the boots towards Mr. Mell, who went back a
few paces to pick them up, and looked at them (very disconsolately,
I was afraid), as we went on together. I observed then, for the first
time, that the boots he had on were a good deal the worse for wear, and
that his stocking was just breaking out in one place, like a bud.
Salem House was a square brick building with wings; of a bare and
unfurnished appearance. All about it was so very quiet, that I said to
Mr. Mell I supposed the boys were out; but he seemed surprised at my
not knowing that it was holiday-time. That all the boys were at their
several homes. That Mr. Creakle, the proprietor, was down by the
sea-side with Mrs. and Miss Creakle; and that I was sent in holiday-time
as a punishment for my misdoing, all of which he explained to me as we
went along.
I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn
and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long room with three
long rows of desks, and six of forms, and bristling all round with pegs
for hats and slates. Scraps of old copy-books and exercises litter the
dirty floor. Some silkworms’ houses, made of the same materials, are
scattered over the desks. Two miserable little white mice, left behind
by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made of
pasteboard and wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes
for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage very little bigger than himself,
makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches
high, or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps. There is a
strange unwholesome smell upon the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet
apples wanting air, and rotten books. There could not well be more ink
splashed about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction,
and the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through the
varying seasons of the year.
Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots upstairs, I
went softly to the upper end of the room, observing all this as I crept
along. Suddenly I came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written,
which was lying on the desk, and bore these words: ‘TAKE CARE OF HIM. HE
BITES.’
I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great dog
underneath. But, though I looked all round with anxious eyes, I could
see nothing of him. I was still engaged in peering about, when Mr. Mell
came back, and asked me what I did up there?
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ says I, ‘if you please, I’m looking for the
dog.’
‘Dog?’ he says. ‘What dog?’
‘Isn’t it a dog, sir?’
‘Isn’t what a dog?’
‘That’s to be taken care of, sir; that bites.’
‘No, Copperfield,’ says he, gravely, ‘that’s not a dog. That’s a boy.
My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your back. I am
sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do it.’ With that he
took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly constructed for
the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and wherever I went,
afterwards, I had the consolation of carrying it.
What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. Whether it was
possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that somebody was
reading it. It was no relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever
my back was, there I imagined somebody always to be. That cruel man with
the wooden leg aggravated my sufferings. He was in authority; and if he
ever saw me leaning against a tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared
out from his lodge door in a stupendous voice, ‘Hallo, you sir! You
Copperfield! Show that badge conspicuous, or I’ll report you!’ The
playground was a bare gravelled yard, open to all the back of the house
and the offices; and I knew that the servants read it, and the butcher
read it, and the baker read it; that everybody, in a word, who came
backwards and forwards to the house, of a morning when I was ordered to
walk there, read that I was to be taken care of, for I bit, I recollect
that I positively began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy
who did bite.
There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a
custom of carving their names. It was completely covered with such
inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the vacation and their coming
back, I could not read a boy’s name, without inquiring in what tone and
with what emphasis HE would read, ‘Take care of him. He bites.’ There
was one boy--a certain J. Steerforth--who cut his name very deep and
very often, who, I conceived, would read it in a rather strong voice,
and afterwards pull my hair. There was another boy, one Tommy Traddles,
who I dreaded would make game of it, and pretend to be dreadfully
frightened of me. There was a third, George Demple, who I fancied would
sing it. I have looked, a little shrinking creature, at that door, until
the owners of all the names--there were five-and-forty of them in the
school then, Mr. Mell said--seemed to send me to Coventry by general
acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, ‘Take care of him. He
bites!’
It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the same
with the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way to, and
when I was in, my own bed. I remember dreaming night after night, of
being with my mother as she used to be, or of going to a party at Mr.
Peggotty’s, or of travelling outside the stage-coach, or of dining again
with my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances
making people scream and stare, by the unhappy disclosure that I had
nothing on but my little night-shirt, and that placard.
In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the
re-opening of the school, it was such an insupportable affliction! I had
long tasks every day to do with Mr. Mell; but I did them, there being
no Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them without disgrace.
Before, and after them, I walked about--supervised, as I have mentioned,
by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp
about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky
water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which
seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have
blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end
of a long bare dining-room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat.
Then, we had more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out of a blue
teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven or eight
in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the schoolroom,
worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing-paper, making out
the bills (as I found) for last half-year. When he had put up his things
for the night he took out his flute, and blew at it, until I almost
thought he would gradually blow his whole being into the large hole at
the top, and ooze away at the keys.
I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting with my
head upon my hand, listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell,
and conning tomorrow’s lessons. I picture myself with my books shut up,
still listening to the doleful performance of Mr. Mell, and listening
through it to what used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind
on Yarmouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary. I picture myself
going up to bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on my bed-side
crying for a comfortable word from Peggotty. I picture myself coming
downstairs in the morning, and looking through a long ghastly gash of a
staircase window at the school-bell hanging on the top of an out-house
with a weathercock above it; and dreading the time when it shall ring J.
Steerforth and the rest to work: which is only second, in my foreboding
apprehensions, to the time when the man with the wooden leg shall unlock
the rusty gate to give admission to the awful Mr. Creakle. I cannot
think I was a very dangerous character in any of these aspects, but in
all of them I carried the same warning on my back.
Mr. Mell never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose
we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that
he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and
grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. But he
had these peculiarities: and at first they frightened me, though I soon
got used to them.
CHAPTER 6. I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE
I HAD led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg
began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which I
inferred that preparations were making to receive Mr. Creakle and the
boys. I was not mistaken; for the mop came into the schoolroom before
long, and turned out Mr. Mell and me, who lived where we could, and got
on how we could, for some days, during which we were always in the way
of two or three young women, who had rarely shown themselves before, and
were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezed almost as much
as if Salem House had been a great snuff-box.
One day I was informed by Mr. Mell that Mr. Creakle would be home that
evening. In the evening, after tea, I heard that he was come. Before
bedtime, I was fetched by the man with the wooden leg to appear before
him.
Mr. Creakle’s part of the house was a good deal more comfortable than
ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked pleasant after the
dusty playground, which was such a desert in miniature, that I thought
no one but a camel, or a dromedary, could have felt at home in it. It
seemed to me a bold thing even to take notice that the passage looked
comfortable, as I went on my way, trembling, to Mr. Creakle’s presence:
which so abashed me, when I was ushered into it, that I hardly saw
Mrs. Creakle or Miss Creakle (who were both there, in the parlour), or
anything but Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain
and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler and bottle beside him.
‘So!’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘This is the young gentleman whose teeth are to
be filed! Turn him round.’
The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard; and
having afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about again,
with my face to Mr. Creakle, and posted himself at Mr. Creakle’s side.
Mr. Creakle’s face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his
head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large
chin. He was bald on the top of his head; and had some thin wet-looking
hair that was just turning grey, brushed across each temple, so that
the two sides interlaced on his forehead. But the circumstance about
him which impressed me most, was, that he had no voice, but spoke in a
whisper. The exertion this cost him, or the consciousness of talking in
that feeble way, made his angry face so much more angry, and his thick
veins so much thicker, when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on
looking back, at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. ‘Now,’
said Mr. Creakle. ‘What’s the report of this boy?’
‘There’s nothing against him yet,’ returned the man with the wooden leg.
‘There has been no opportunity.’
I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought Mrs. and Miss Creakle
(at whom I now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, thin and
quiet) were not disappointed.
‘Come here, sir!’ said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me.
‘Come here!’ said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the gesture.
‘I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law,’ whispered Mr.
Creakle, taking me by the ear; ‘and a worthy man he is, and a man of
a strong character. He knows me, and I know him. Do YOU know me? Hey?’
said Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness.
‘Not yet, sir,’ I said, flinching with the pain.
‘Not yet? Hey?’ repeated Mr. Creakle. ‘But you will soon. Hey?’
‘You will soon. Hey?’ repeated the man with the wooden leg. I afterwards
found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as Mr. Creakle’s
interpreter to the boys.
I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he pleased. I felt,
all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard.
‘I’ll tell you what I am,’ whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it go at last,
with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. ‘I’m a
Tartar.’
‘A Tartar,’ said the man with the wooden leg.
‘When I say I’ll do a thing, I do it,’ said Mr. Creakle; ‘and when I say
I will have a thing done, I will have it done.’
‘--Will have a thing done, I will have it done,’ repeated the man with
the wooden leg.
‘I am a determined character,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘That’s what I am. I
do my duty. That’s what I do. My flesh and blood’--he looked at Mrs.
Creakle as he said this--‘when it rises against me, is not my flesh
and blood. I discard it. Has that fellow’--to the man with the wooden
leg--‘been here again?’
‘No,’ was the answer.
‘No,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘He knows better. He knows me. Let him keep
away. I say let him keep away,’ said Mr. Creakle, striking his hand upon
the table, and looking at Mrs. Creakle, ‘for he knows me. Now you have
begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may go. Take him away.’
I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss Creakle were both
wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncomfortable for them as I did for
myself. But I had a petition on my mind which concerned me so nearly,
that I couldn’t help saying, though I wondered at my own courage:
‘If you please, sir--’
Mr. Creakle whispered, ‘Hah! What’s this?’ and bent his eyes upon me, as
if he would have burnt me up with them.
‘If you please, sir,’ I faltered, ‘if I might be allowed (I am very
sorry indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, before the
boys come back--’
Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to
frighten me, I don’t know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before
which I precipitately retreated, without waiting for the escort of the
man with the wooden leg, and never once stopped until I reached my own
bedroom, where, finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, as it was
time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours.
Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the first master, and
superior to Mr. Mell. Mr. Mell took his meals with the boys, but
Mr. Sharp dined and supped at Mr. Creakle’s table. He was a limp,
delicate-looking gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a
way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy
for him. His hair was very smooth and wavy; but I was informed by the
very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand one HE
said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every Saturday afternoon to get it
curled.
It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this piece of
intelligence. He was the first boy who returned. He introduced himself
by informing me that I should find his name on the right-hand corner of
the gate, over the top-bolt; upon that I said, ‘Traddles?’ to which he
replied, ‘The same,’ and then he asked me for a full account of myself
and family.
It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back first. He
enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from the embarrassment of
either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy
who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form
of introduction, ‘Look here! Here’s a game!’ Happily, too, the greater
part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at
my expense as I had expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me
like wild Indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation
of pretending that I was a dog, and patting and soothing me, lest I
should bite, and saying, ‘Lie down, sir!’ and calling me Towzer. This
was naturally confusing, among so many strangers, and cost me some
tears, but on the whole it was much better than I had anticipated.
I was not considered as being formally received into the school,
however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was
reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least
half-a-dozen years my senior, I was carried as before a magistrate. He
inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my
punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was ‘a jolly
shame’; for which I became bound to him ever afterwards.
‘What money have you got, Copperfield?’ he said, walking aside with
me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. I told him seven
shillings.
‘You had better give it to me to take care of,’ he said. ‘At least, you
can if you like. You needn’t if you don’t like.’
I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and opening
Peggotty’s purse, turned it upside down into his hand.
‘Do you want to spend anything now?’ he asked me.
‘No thank you,’ I replied.
‘You can, if you like, you know,’ said Steerforth. ‘Say the word.’
‘No, thank you, sir,’ I repeated.
‘Perhaps you’d like to spend a couple of shillings or so, in a bottle of
currant wine by and by, up in the bedroom?’ said Steerforth. ‘You belong
to my bedroom, I find.’
It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I should
like that.
‘Very good,’ said Steerforth. ‘You’ll be glad to spend another shilling
or so, in almond cakes, I dare say?’
I said, Yes, I should like that, too.
‘And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?’ said
Steerforth. ‘I say, young Copperfield, you’re going it!’
I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in my mind, too.
‘Well!’ said Steerforth. ‘We must make it stretch as far as we can;
that’s all. I’ll do the best in my power for you. I can go out when I
like, and I’ll smuggle the prog in.’ With these words he put the money
in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy; he would
take care it should be all right. He was as good as his word, if that
were all right which I had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong--for
I feared it was a waste of my mother’s two half-crowns--though I had
preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in: which was a precious
saving. When we went upstairs to bed, he produced the whole seven
shillings’ worth, and laid it out on my bed in the moonlight, saying:
‘There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you’ve got.’
I couldn’t think of doing the honours of the feast, at my time of life,
while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. I begged him
to do me the favour of presiding; and my request being seconded by the
other boys who were in that room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my
pillow, handing round the viands--with perfect fairness, I must say--and
dispensing the currant wine in a little glass without a foot, which was
his own property. As to me, I sat on his left hand, and the rest were
grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor.
How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or their
talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to say; the
moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the window,
painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in
shadow, except when Steerforth dipped a match into a phosphorus-box,
when he wanted to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare
over us that was gone directly! A certain mysterious feeling, consequent
on the darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which
everything was said, steals over me again, and I listen to all they tell
me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that
they are all so near, and frightens me (though I feign to laugh) when
Traddles pretends to see a ghost in the corner.
I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it.
I heard that Mr. Creakle had not preferred his claim to being a Tartar
without reason; that he was the sternest and most severe of masters;
that he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging
in among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully. That
he knew nothing himself, but the art of slashing, being more ignorant
(J. Steerforth said) than the lowest boy in the school; that he had
been, a good many years ago, a small hop-dealer in the Borough, and had
taken to the schooling business after being bankrupt in hops, and making
away with Mrs. Creakle’s money. With a good deal more of that sort,
which I wondered how they knew.
I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was Tungay, was an
obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted in the hop business, but
had come into the scholastic line with Mr. Creakle, in consequence,
as was supposed among the boys, of his having broken his leg in Mr.
Creakle’s service, and having done a deal of dishonest work for him,
and knowing his secrets. I heard that with the single exception of Mr.
Creakle, Tungay considered the whole establishment, masters and boys,
as his natural enemies, and that the only delight of his life was to be
sour and malicious. I heard that Mr. Creakle had a son, who had not been
Tungay’s friend, and who, assisting in the school, had once held some
remonstrance with his father on an occasion when its discipline was very
cruelly exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have protested against
his father’s usage of his mother. I heard that Mr. Creakle had turned
him out of doors, in consequence; and that Mrs. and Miss Creakle had
been in a sad way, ever since.
But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was, there being one
boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand, and that
boy being J. Steerforth. Steerforth himself confirmed this when it was
stated, and said that he should like to begin to see him do it. On being
asked by a mild boy (not me) how he would proceed if he did begin to see
him do it, he dipped a match into his phosphorus-box on purpose to shed
a glare over his reply, and said he would commence by knocking him down
with a blow on the forehead from the seven-and-sixpenny ink-bottle
that was always on the mantelpiece. We sat in the dark for some time,
breathless.
I heard that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both supposed to be wretchedly
paid; and that when there was hot and cold meat for dinner at Mr.
Creakle’s table, Mr. Sharp was always expected to say he preferred cold;
which was again corroborated by J. Steerforth, the only parlour-boarder.
I heard that Mr. Sharp’s wig didn’t fit him; and that he needn’t be so
‘bounceable’--somebody else said ‘bumptious’--about it, because his own
red hair was very plainly to be seen behind.
I heard that one boy, who was a coal-merchant’s son, came as a set-off
against the coal-bill, and was called, on that account, ‘Exchange or
Barter’--a name selected from the arithmetic book as expressing this
arrangement. I heard that the table beer was a robbery of parents, and
the pudding an imposition. I heard that Miss Creakle was regarded by the
school in general as being in love with Steerforth; and I am sure, as I
sat in the dark, thinking of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his
easy manner, and his curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard
that Mr. Mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn’t a sixpence to
bless himself with; and that there was no doubt that old Mrs. Mell, his
mother, was as poor as job. I thought of my breakfast then, and what had
sounded like ‘My Charley!’ but I was, I am glad to remember, as mute as
a mouse about it.
The hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted the banquet
some time. The greater part of the guests had gone to bed as soon as the
eating and drinking were over; and we, who had remained whispering and
listening half-undressed, at last betook ourselves to bed, too.
‘Good night, young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth. ‘I’ll take care of
you.’ ‘You’re very kind,’ I gratefully returned. ‘I am very much obliged
to you.’
‘You haven’t got a sister, have you?’ said Steerforth, yawning.
‘No,’ I answered.
‘That’s a pity,’ said Steerforth. ‘If you had had one, I should think
she would have been a pretty, timid, little, bright-eyed sort of girl. I
should have liked to know her. Good night, young Copperfield.’
‘Good night, sir,’ I replied.
I thought of him very much after I went to bed, and raised myself,
I recollect, to look at him where he lay in the moonlight, with his
handsome face turned up, and his head reclining easily on his arm. He
was a person of great power in my eyes; that was, of course, the reason
of my mind running on him. No veiled future dimly glanced upon him in
the moonbeams. There was no shadowy picture of his footsteps, in the
garden that I dreamed of walking in all night.
CHAPTER 7. MY ‘FIRST HALF’ AT SALEM HOUSE
School began in earnest next day. A profound impression was made
upon me, I remember, by the roar of voices in the schoolroom suddenly
becoming hushed as death when Mr. Creakle entered after breakfast, and
stood in the doorway looking round upon us like a giant in a story-book
surveying his captives.
Tungay stood at Mr. Creakle’s elbow. He had no occasion, I thought,
to cry out ‘Silence!’ so ferociously, for the boys were all struck
speechless and motionless.
Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay was heard, to this effect.
‘Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you’re about, in this new
half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, for I come fresh up
to the punishment. I won’t flinch. It will be of no use your rubbing
yourselves; you won’t rub the marks out that I shall give you. Now get
to work, every boy!’
When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had stumped out again,
Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and told me that if I were famous for
biting, he was famous for biting, too. He then showed me the cane, and
asked me what I thought of THAT, for a tooth? Was it a sharp tooth, hey?
Was it a double tooth, hey? Had it a deep prong, hey? Did it bite, hey?
Did it bite? At every question he gave me a fleshy cut with it that made
me writhe; so I was very soon made free of Salem House (as Steerforth
said), and was very soon in tears also.
Not that I mean to say these were special marks of distinction,
which only I received. On the contrary, a large majority of the boys
(especially the smaller ones) were visited with similar instances
of notice, as Mr. Creakle made the round of the schoolroom. Half the
establishment was writhing and crying, before the day’s work began; and
how much of it had writhed and cried before the day’s work was over, I
am really afraid to recollect, lest I should seem to exaggerate.
I should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed his
profession more than Mr. Creakle did. He had a delight in cutting at
the boys, which was like the satisfaction of a craving appetite. I am
confident that he couldn’t resist a chubby boy, especially; that there
was a fascination in such a subject, which made him restless in his
mind, until he had scored and marked him for the day. I was chubby
myself, and ought to know. I am sure when I think of the fellow now, my
blood rises against him with the disinterested indignation I should
feel if I could have known all about him without having ever been in his
power; but it rises hotly, because I know him to have been an incapable
brute, who had no more right to be possessed of the great trust he held,
than to be Lord High Admiral, or Commander-in-Chief--in either of
which capacities it is probable that he would have done infinitely less
mischief.
Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how abject we were
to him! What a launch in life I think it now, on looking back, to be so
mean and servile to a man of such parts and pretensions!
Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye--humbly watching his eye,
as he rules a ciphering-book for another victim whose hands have just
been flattened by that identical ruler, and who is trying to wipe the
sting out with a pocket-handkerchief. I have plenty to do. I don’t watch
his eye in idleness, but because I am morbidly attracted to it, in a
dread desire to know what he will do next, and whether it will be my
turn to suffer, or somebody else’s. A lane of small boys beyond me, with
the same interest in his eye, watch it too. I think he knows it,
though he pretends he don’t. He makes dreadful mouths as he rules the
ciphering-book; and now he throws his eye sideways down our lane, and we
all droop over our books and tremble. A moment afterwards we are again
eyeing him. An unhappy culprit, found guilty of imperfect exercise,
approaches at his command. The culprit falters excuses, and professes a
determination to do better tomorrow. Mr. Creakle cuts a joke before he
beats him, and we laugh at it,--miserable little dogs, we laugh, with
our visages as white as ashes, and our hearts sinking into our boots.
Here I sit at the desk again, on a drowsy summer afternoon. A buzz and
hum go up around me, as if the boys were so many bluebottles. A cloggy
sensation of the lukewarm fat of meat is upon me (we dined an hour or
two ago), and my head is as heavy as so much lead. I would give the
world to go to sleep. I sit with my eye on Mr. Creakle, blinking at him
like a young owl; when sleep overpowers me for a minute, he still looms
through my slumber, ruling those ciphering-books, until he softly comes
behind me and wakes me to plainer perception of him, with a red ridge
across my back.
Here I am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated by him, though
I can’t see him. The window at a little distance from which I know he is
having his dinner, stands for him, and I eye that instead. If he shows
his face near it, mine assumes an imploring and submissive expression.
If he looks out through the glass, the boldest boy (Steerforth excepted)
stops in the middle of a shout or yell, and becomes contemplative. One
day, Traddles (the most unfortunate boy in the world) breaks that window
accidentally, with a ball. I shudder at this moment with the tremendous
sensation of seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has bounded on to
Mr. Creakle’s sacred head.
Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like
German sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and most
miserable of all the boys. He was always being caned--I think he was
caned every day that half-year, except one holiday Monday when he was
only ruler’d on both hands--and was always going to write to his uncle
about it, and never did. After laying his head on the desk for a little
while, he would cheer up, somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw
skeletons all over his slate, before his eyes were dry. I used at first
to wonder what comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some
time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded himself by those
symbols of mortality that caning couldn’t last for ever. But I believe
he only did it because they were easy, and didn’t want any features.
He was very honourable, Traddles was, and held it as a solemn duty
in the boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this on several
occasions; and particularly once, when Steerforth laughed in church,
and the Beadle thought it was Traddles, and took him out. I see him now,
going away in custody, despised by the congregation. He never said
who was the real offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was
imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyard-full
of skeletons swarming all over his Latin Dictionary. But he had his
reward. Steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and
we all felt that to be the highest praise. For my part, I could have
gone through a good deal (though I was much less brave than Traddles,
and nothing like so old) to have won such a recompense.
To see Steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with Miss
Creakle, was one of the great sights of my life. I didn’t think Miss
Creakle equal to little Em’ly in point of beauty, and I didn’t love
her (I didn’t dare); but I thought her a young lady of extraordinary
attractions, and in point of gentility not to be surpassed. When
Steerforth, in white trousers, carried her parasol for her, I felt proud
to know him; and believed that she could not choose but adore him with
all her heart. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both notable personages in my
eyes; but Steerforth was to them what the sun was to two stars.
Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very useful
friend; since nobody dared to annoy one whom he honoured with his
countenance. He couldn’t--or at all events he didn’t--defend me from Mr.
Creakle, who was very severe with me; but whenever I had been treated
worse than usual, he always told me that I wanted a little of his pluck,
and that he wouldn’t have stood it himself; which I felt he intended
for encouragement, and considered to be very kind of him. There was one
advantage, and only one that I know of, in Mr. Creakle’s severity. He
found my placard in his way when he came up or down behind the form on
which I sat, and wanted to make a cut at me in passing; for this reason
it was soon taken off, and I saw it no more.
An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth
and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction,
though it sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion,
when he was doing me the honour of talking to me in the playground, that
I hazarded the observation that something or somebody--I forget what
now--was like something or somebody in Peregrine Pickle. He said nothing
at the time; but when I was going to bed at night, asked me if I had got
that book?
I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read it, and all
those other books of which I have made mention.
‘And do you recollect them?’ Steerforth said.
‘Oh yes,’ I replied; I had a good memory, and I believed I recollected
them very well.
‘Then I tell you what, young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, ‘you
shall tell ‘em to me. I can’t get to sleep very early at night, and I
generally wake rather early in the morning. We’ll go over ‘em one after
another. We’ll make some regular Arabian Nights of it.’
I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced
carrying it into execution that very evening. What ravages I committed
on my favourite authors in the course of my interpretation of them, I am
not in a condition to say, and should be very unwilling to know; but
I had a profound faith in them, and I had, to the best of my belief,
a simple, earnest manner of narrating what I did narrate; and these
qualities went a long way.
The drawback was, that I was often sleepy at night, or out of spirits
and indisposed to resume the story; and then it was rather hard work,
and it must be done; for to disappoint or to displease Steerforth was of
course out of the question. In the morning, too, when I felt weary, and
should have enjoyed another hour’s repose very much, it was a tiresome
thing to be roused, like the Sultana Scheherazade, and forced into a
long story before the getting-up bell rang; but Steerforth was resolute;
and as he explained to me, in return, my sums and exercises, and
anything in my tasks that was too hard for me, I was no loser by the
transaction. Let me do myself justice, however. I was moved by no
interested or selfish motive, nor was I moved by fear of him. I admired
and loved him, and his approval was return enough. It was so precious to
me that I look back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart.
Steerforth was considerate, too; and showed his consideration, in
one particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little
tantalizing, I suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest. Peggotty’s
promised letter--what a comfortable letter it was!--arrived before
‘the half’ was many weeks old; and with it a cake in a perfect nest
of oranges, and two bottles of cowslip wine. This treasure, as in duty
bound, I laid at the feet of Steerforth, and begged him to dispense.
‘Now, I’ll tell you what, young Copperfield,’ said he: ‘the wine shall
be kept to wet your whistle when you are story-telling.’
I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of
it. But he said he had observed I was sometimes hoarse--a little roopy
was his exact expression--and it should be, every drop, devoted to the
purpose he had mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and
drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through a
piece of quill in the cork, when I was supposed to be in want of a
restorative. Sometimes, to make it a more sovereign specific, he was so
kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger,
or dissolve a peppermint drop in it; and although I cannot assert that
the flavour was improved by these experiments, or that it was exactly
the compound one would have chosen for a stomachic, the last thing at
night and the first thing in the morning, I drank it gratefully and was
very sensible of his attention.
We seem, to me, to have been months over Peregrine, and months more over
the other stories. The institution never flagged for want of a story, I
am certain; and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matter. Poor
Traddles--I never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to
laugh, and with tears in my eyes--was a sort of chorus, in general;
and affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to be
overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character
in the narrative. This rather put me out, very often. It was a great
jest of his, I recollect, to pretend that he couldn’t keep his teeth
from chattering, whenever mention was made of an Alguazill in connexion
with the adventures of Gil Blas; and I remember that when Gil Blas met
the captain of the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited
such an ague of terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who
was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly
conduct in the bedroom. Whatever I had within me that was romantic and
dreamy, was encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and in that
respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable to me. But the
being cherished as a kind of plaything in my room, and the consciousness
that this accomplishment of mine was bruited about among the boys, and
attracted a good deal of notice to me though I was the youngest there,
stimulated me to exertion. In a school carried on by sheer cruelty,
whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely to
be much learnt. I believe our boys were, generally, as ignorant a set
as any schoolboys in existence; they were too much troubled and knocked
about to learn; they could no more do that to advantage, than any one
can do anything to advantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment,
and worry. But my little vanity, and Steerforth’s help, urged me on
somehow; and without saving me from much, if anything, in the way of
punishment, made me, for the time I was there, an exception to the
general body, insomuch that I did steadily pick up some crumbs of
knowledge.
In this I was much assisted by Mr. Mell, who had a liking for me that
I am grateful to remember. It always gave me pain to observe that
Steerforth treated him with systematic disparagement, and seldom lost
an occasion of wounding his feelings, or inducing others to do so.
This troubled me the more for a long time, because I had soon told
Steerforth, from whom I could no more keep such a secret, than I could
keep a cake or any other tangible possession, about the two old women
Mr. Mell had taken me to see; and I was always afraid that Steerforth
would let it out, and twit him with it.
We little thought, any one of us, I dare say, when I ate my breakfast
that first morning, and went to sleep under the shadow of the peacock’s
feathers to the sound of the flute, what consequences would come of the
introduction into those alms-houses of my insignificant person. But the
visit had its unforeseen consequences; and of a serious sort, too, in
their way.
One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indisposition, which
naturally diffused a lively joy through the school, there was a good
deal of noise in the course of the morning’s work. The great relief and
satisfaction experienced by the boys made them difficult to manage; and
though the dreaded Tungay brought his wooden leg in twice or thrice, and
took notes of the principal offenders’ names, no great impression was
made by it, as they were pretty sure of getting into trouble tomorrow,
do what they would, and thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy themselves
today.
It was, properly, a half-holiday; being Saturday. But as the noise in
the playground would have disturbed Mr. Creakle, and the weather was
not favourable for going out walking, we were ordered into school in the
afternoon, and set some lighter tasks than usual, which were made for
the occasion. It was the day of the week on which Mr. Sharp went out to
get his wig curled; so Mr. Mell, who always did the drudgery, whatever
it was, kept school by himself. If I could associate the idea of a bull
or a bear with anyone so mild as Mr. Mell, I should think of him, in
connexion with that afternoon when the uproar was at its height, as of
one of those animals, baited by a thousand dogs. I recall him bending
his aching head, supported on his bony hand, over the book on his desk,
and wretchedly endeavouring to get on with his tiresome work, amidst an
uproar that might have made the Speaker of the House of Commons giddy.
Boys started in and out of their places, playing at puss in the corner
with other boys; there were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys,
dancing boys, howling boys; boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled
about him, grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back and
before his eyes; mimicking his poverty, his boots, his coat, his mother,
everything belonging to him that they should have had consideration for.
‘Silence!’ cried Mr. Mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his desk
with the book. ‘What does this mean! It’s impossible to bear it. It’s
maddening. How can you do it to me, boys?’
It was my book that he struck his desk with; and as I stood beside him,
following his eye as it glanced round the room, I saw the boys all stop,
some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps.
Steerforth’s place was at the bottom of the school, at the opposite end
of the long room. He was lounging with his back against the wall, and
his hands in his pockets, and looked at Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up
as if he were whistling, when Mr. Mell looked at him.
‘Silence, Mr. Steerforth!’ said Mr. Mell.
‘Silence yourself,’ said Steerforth, turning red. ‘Whom are you talking
to?’
‘Sit down,’ said Mr. Mell.
‘Sit down yourself,’ said Steerforth, ‘and mind your business.’
There was a titter, and some applause; but Mr. Mell was so white, that
silence immediately succeeded; and one boy, who had darted out behind
him to imitate his mother again, changed his mind, and pretended to want
a pen mended.
‘If you think, Steerforth,’ said Mr. Mell, ‘that I am not acquainted
with the power you can establish over any mind here’--he laid his hand,
without considering what he did (as I supposed), upon my head--‘or that
I have not observed you, within a few minutes, urging your juniors on to
every sort of outrage against me, you are mistaken.’
‘I don’t give myself the trouble of thinking at all about you,’ said
Steerforth, coolly; ‘so I’m not mistaken, as it happens.’
‘And when you make use of your position of favouritism here, sir,’
pursued Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very much, ‘to insult a
gentleman--’
‘A what?--where is he?’ said Steerforth.
Here somebody cried out, ‘Shame, J. Steerforth! Too bad!’ It was
Traddles; whom Mr. Mell instantly discomfited by bidding him hold his
tongue. --‘To insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who
never gave you the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting
whom you are old enough and wise enough to understand,’ said Mr. Mell,
with his lips trembling more and more, ‘you commit a mean and base
action. You can sit down or stand up as you please, sir. Copperfield, go
on.’
‘Young Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, coming forward up the room,
‘stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for all. When you take the
liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that sort, you are
an impudent beggar. You are always a beggar, you know; but when you do
that, you are an impudent beggar.’
I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell, or Mr. Mell was
going to strike him, or there was any such intention on either side.
I saw a rigidity come upon the whole school as if they had been turned
into stone, and found Mr. Creakle in the midst of us, with Tungay at his
side, and Mrs. and Miss Creakle looking in at the door as if they were
frightened. Mr. Mell, with his elbows on his desk and his face in his
hands, sat, for some moments, quite still.
‘Mr. Mell,’ said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm; and his whisper
was so audible now, that Tungay felt it unnecessary to repeat his words;
‘you have not forgotten yourself, I hope?’
‘No, sir, no,’ returned the Master, showing his face, and shaking his
head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation. ‘No, sir. No. I have
remembered myself, I--no, Mr. Creakle, I have not forgotten myself, I--I
have remembered myself, sir. I--I--could wish you had remembered me a
little sooner, Mr. Creakle. It--it--would have been more kind, sir, more
just, sir. It would have saved me something, sir.’
Mr. Creakle, looking hard at Mr. Mell, put his hand on Tungay’s
shoulder, and got his feet upon the form close by, and sat upon the
desk. After still looking hard at Mr. Mell from his throne, as he
shook his head, and rubbed his hands, and remained in the same state of
agitation, Mr. Creakle turned to Steerforth, and said:
‘Now, sir, as he don’t condescend to tell me, what is this?’
Steerforth evaded the question for a little while; looking in scorn and
anger on his opponent, and remaining silent. I could not help thinking
even in that interval, I remember, what a noble fellow he was in
appearance, and how homely and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed to him.
‘What did he mean by talking about favourites, then?’ said Steerforth at
length.
‘Favourites?’ repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in his forehead
swelling quickly. ‘Who talked about favourites?’
‘He did,’ said Steerforth.
‘And pray, what did you mean by that, sir?’ demanded Mr. Creakle,
turning angrily on his assistant.
‘I meant, Mr. Creakle,’ he returned in a low voice, ‘as I said; that
no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position of favouritism to
degrade me.’
‘To degrade YOU?’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘My stars! But give me leave to ask
you, Mr. What’s-your-name’; and here Mr. Creakle folded his arms, cane
and all, upon his chest, and made such a knot of his brows that his
little eyes were hardly visible below them; ‘whether, when you talk
about favourites, you showed proper respect to me? To me, sir,’ said Mr.
Creakle, darting his head at him suddenly, and drawing it back again,
‘the principal of this establishment, and your employer.’
‘It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to admit,’ said Mr. Mell. ‘I
should not have done so, if I had been cool.’
Here Steerforth struck in.
‘Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base, and then I called
him a beggar. If I had been cool, perhaps I shouldn’t have called him a
beggar. But I did, and I am ready to take the consequences of it.’
Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any consequences to
be taken, I felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. It made an
impression on the boys too, for there was a low stir among them, though
no one spoke a word.
‘I am surprised, Steerforth--although your candour does you honour,’
said Mr. Creakle, ‘does you honour, certainly--I am surprised,
Steerforth, I must say, that you should attach such an epithet to any
person employed and paid in Salem House, sir.’
Steerforth gave a short laugh.
‘That’s not an answer, sir,’ said Mr. Creakle, ‘to my remark. I expect
more than that from you, Steerforth.’
If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome boy, it would
be quite impossible to say how homely Mr. Creakle looked. ‘Let him deny
it,’ said Steerforth.
‘Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth?’ cried Mr. Creakle. ‘Why, where
does he go a-begging?’
‘If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation’s one,’ said
Steerforth. ‘It’s all the same.’
He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell’s hand gently patted me upon the
shoulder. I looked up with a flush upon my face and remorse in my heart,
but Mr. Mell’s eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued to pat me
kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him.
‘Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,’ said Steerforth,
‘and to say what I mean,--what I have to say is, that his mother lives
on charity in an alms-house.’
Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the
shoulder, and said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right: ‘Yes, I
thought so.’
Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and laboured
politeness:
‘Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if
you please, to set him right before the assembled school.’
‘He is right, sir, without correction,’ returned Mr. Mell, in the midst
of a dead silence; ‘what he has said is true.’
‘Be so good then as declare publicly, will you,’ said Mr. Creakle,
putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school,
‘whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?’
‘I believe not directly,’ he returned.
‘Why, you know not,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘Don’t you, man?’
‘I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very
good,’ replied the assistant. ‘You know what my position is, and always
has been, here.’
‘I apprehend, if you come to that,’ said Mr. Creakle, with his veins
swelling again bigger than ever, ‘that you’ve been in a wrong position
altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. Mell, we’ll part,
if you please. The sooner the better.’
‘There is no time,’ answered Mr. Mell, rising, ‘like the present.’
‘Sir, to you!’ said Mr. Creakle.
‘I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and all of you,’ said Mr. Mell,
glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the shoulders.
‘James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is that you may come to
be ashamed of what you have done today. At present I would prefer to see
you anything rather than a friend, to me, or to anyone in whom I feel an
interest.’
Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and then taking his
flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for his
successor, he went out of the school, with his property under his arm.
Mr. Creakle then made a speech, through Tungay, in which he thanked
Steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence
and respectability of Salem House; and which he wound up by shaking
hands with Steerforth, while we gave three cheers--I did not quite know
what for, but I supposed for Steerforth, and so joined in them ardently,
though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned Tommy Traddles for
being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, on account of Mr. Mell’s
departure; and went back to his sofa, or his bed, or wherever he had
come from.
We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I recollect, on
one another. For myself, I felt so much self-reproach and contrition for
my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep
back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I
saw, might think it unfriendly--or, I should rather say, considering our
relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful--if
I showed the emotion which distressed me. He was very angry with
Traddles, and said he was glad he had caught it.
Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the
desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said
he didn’t care. Mr. Mell was ill-used.
‘Who has ill-used him, you girl?’ said Steerforth.
‘Why, you have,’ returned Traddles.
‘What have I done?’ said Steerforth.
‘What have you done?’ retorted Traddles. ‘Hurt his feelings, and lost
him his situation.’
‘His feelings?’ repeated Steerforth disdainfully. ‘His feelings will
soon get the better of it, I’ll be bound. His feelings are not like
yours, Miss Traddles. As to his situation--which was a precious one,
wasn’t it?--do you suppose I am not going to write home, and take care
that he gets some money? Polly?’
We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother was
a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, it was said, that he
asked her. We were all extremely glad to see Traddles so put down,
and exalted Steerforth to the skies: especially when he told us, as he
condescended to do, that what he had done had been done expressly for
us, and for our cause; and that he had conferred a great boon upon us
by unselfishly doing it. But I must say that when I was going on with a
story in the dark that night, Mr. Mell’s old flute seemed more than once
to sound mournfully in my ears; and that when at last Steerforth was
tired, and I lay down in my bed, I fancied it playing so sorrowfully
somewhere, that I was quite wretched.
I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in an easy
amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by
heart), took some of his classes until a new master was found. The new
master came from a grammar school; and before he entered on his duties,
dined in the parlour one day, to be introduced to Steerforth. Steerforth
approved of him highly, and told us he was a Brick. Without exactly
understanding what learned distinction was meant by this, I respected
him greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of his superior knowledge:
though he never took the pains with me--not that I was anybody--that Mr.
Mell had taken.
There was only one other event in this half-year, out of the daily
school-life, that made an impression upon me which still survives. It
survives for many reasons.
One afternoon, when we were all harassed into a state of dire confusion,
and Mr. Creakle was laying about him dreadfully, Tungay came in, and
called out in his usual strong way: ‘Visitors for Copperfield!’
A few words were interchanged between him and Mr. Creakle, as, who the
visitors were, and what room they were to be shown into; and then I, who
had, according to custom, stood up on the announcement being made, and
felt quite faint with astonishment, was told to go by the back stairs
and get a clean frill on, before I repaired to the dining-room. These
orders I obeyed, in such a flutter and hurry of my young spirits as
I had never known before; and when I got to the parlour door, and the
thought came into my head that it might be my mother--I had only thought
of Mr. or Miss Murdstone until then--I drew back my hand from the lock,
and stopped to have a sob before I went in.
At first I saw nobody; but feeling a pressure against the door, I looked
round it, and there, to my amazement, were Mr. Peggotty and Ham, ducking
at me with their hats, and squeezing one another against the wall. I
could not help laughing; but it was much more in the pleasure of seeing
them, than at the appearance they made. We shook hands in a very
cordial way; and I laughed and laughed, until I pulled out my
pocket-handkerchief and wiped my eyes.
Mr. Peggotty (who never shut his mouth once, I remember, during the
visit) showed great concern when he saw me do this, and nudged Ham to
say something.
‘Cheer up, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ said Ham, in his simpering way. ‘Why, how
you have growed!’
‘Am I grown?’ I said, drying my eyes. I was not crying at anything
in particular that I know of; but somehow it made me cry, to see old
friends.
‘Growed, Mas’r Davy bor’? Ain’t he growed!’ said Ham.
‘Ain’t he growed!’ said Mr. Peggotty.
They made me laugh again by laughing at each other, and then we all
three laughed until I was in danger of crying again.
‘Do you know how mama is, Mr. Peggotty?’ I said. ‘And how my dear, dear,
old Peggotty is?’
‘Oncommon,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘And little Em’ly, and Mrs. Gummidge?’
‘On--common,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took two prodigious
lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, out
of his pockets, and piled them up in Ham’s arms.
‘You see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘knowing as you was partial to a little
relish with your wittles when you was along with us, we took the
liberty. The old Mawther biled ‘em, she did. Mrs. Gummidge biled ‘em.
Yes,’ said Mr. Peggotty, slowly, who I thought appeared to stick to the
subject on account of having no other subject ready, ‘Mrs. Gummidge, I
do assure you, she biled ‘em.’
I expressed my thanks; and Mr. Peggotty, after looking at Ham, who stood
smiling sheepishly over the shellfish, without making any attempt to
help him, said:
‘We come, you see, the wind and tide making in our favour, in one of our
Yarmouth lugs to Gravesen’. My sister she wrote to me the name of this
here place, and wrote to me as if ever I chanced to come to Gravesen’,
I was to come over and inquire for Mas’r Davy and give her dooty,
humbly wishing him well and reporting of the fam’ly as they was oncommon
toe-be-sure. Little Em’ly, you see, she’ll write to my sister when I go
back, as I see you and as you was similarly oncommon, and so we make it
quite a merry-go-rounder.’
I was obliged to consider a little before I understood what Mr. Peggotty
meant by this figure, expressive of a complete circle of intelligence. I
then thanked him heartily; and said, with a consciousness of reddening,
that I supposed little Em’ly was altered too, since we used to pick up
shells and pebbles on the beach?
‘She’s getting to be a woman, that’s wot she’s getting to be,’ said Mr.
Peggotty. ‘Ask HIM.’ He meant Ham, who beamed with delight and assent
over the bag of shrimps.
‘Her pretty face!’ said Mr. Peggotty, with his own shining like a light.
‘Her learning!’ said Ham.
‘Her writing!’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Why it’s as black as jet! And so
large it is, you might see it anywheres.’
It was perfectly delightful to behold with what enthusiasm Mr. Peggotty
became inspired when he thought of his little favourite. He stands
before me again, his bluff hairy face irradiating with a joyful love and
pride, for which I can find no description. His honest eyes fire up, and
sparkle, as if their depths were stirred by something bright. His broad
chest heaves with pleasure. His strong loose hands clench themselves,
in his earnestness; and he emphasizes what he says with a right arm that
shows, in my pigmy view, like a sledge-hammer.
Ham was quite as earnest as he. I dare say they would have said much
more about her, if they had not been abashed by the unexpected coming in
of Steerforth, who, seeing me in a corner speaking with two strangers,
stopped in a song he was singing, and said: ‘I didn’t know you were
here, young Copperfield!’ (for it was not the usual visiting room) and
crossed by us on his way out.
I am not sure whether it was in the pride of having such a friend as
Steerforth, or in the desire to explain to him how I came to have such a
friend as Mr. Peggotty, that I called to him as he was going away. But I
said, modestly--Good Heaven, how it all comes back to me this long time
afterwards--!
‘Don’t go, Steerforth, if you please. These are two Yarmouth
boatmen--very kind, good people--who are relations of my nurse, and have
come from Gravesend to see me.’
‘Aye, aye?’ said Steerforth, returning. ‘I am glad to see them. How are
you both?’
There was an ease in his manner--a gay and light manner it was, but not
swaggering--which I still believe to have borne a kind of enchantment
with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal
spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for
aught I know, of some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think
a few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was
a natural weakness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand.
I could not but see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed
to open their hearts to him in a moment.
‘You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty,’ I said,
‘when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind to me, and
that I don’t know what I should ever do here without him.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Steerforth, laughing. ‘You mustn’t tell them anything
of the sort.’
‘And if Mr. Steerforth ever comes into Norfolk or Suffolk, Mr.
Peggotty,’ I said, ‘while I am there, you may depend upon it I shall
bring him to Yarmouth, if he will let me, to see your house. You never
saw such a good house, Steerforth. It’s made out of a boat!’
‘Made out of a boat, is it?’ said Steerforth. ‘It’s the right sort of a
house for such a thorough-built boatman.’
‘So ‘tis, sir, so ‘tis, sir,’ said Ham, grinning. ‘You’re right, young
gen’l’m’n! Mas’r Davy bor’, gen’l’m’n’s right. A thorough-built boatman!
Hor, hor! That’s what he is, too!’
Mr. Peggotty was no less pleased than his nephew, though his modesty
forbade him to claim a personal compliment so vociferously.
‘Well, sir,’ he said, bowing and chuckling, and tucking in the ends
of his neckerchief at his breast: ‘I thankee, sir, I thankee! I do my
endeavours in my line of life, sir.’
‘The best of men can do no more, Mr. Peggotty,’ said Steerforth. He had
got his name already.
‘I’ll pound it, it’s wot you do yourself, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty,
shaking his head, ‘and wot you do well--right well! I thankee, sir. I’m
obleeged to you, sir, for your welcoming manner of me. I’m rough, sir,
but I’m ready--least ways, I hope I’m ready, you unnerstand. My house
ain’t much for to see, sir, but it’s hearty at your service if ever you
should come along with Mas’r Davy to see it. I’m a reg’lar Dodman,
I am,’ said Mr. Peggotty, by which he meant snail, and this was in
allusion to his being slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every
sentence, and had somehow or other come back again; ‘but I wish you both
well, and I wish you happy!’
Ham echoed this sentiment, and we parted with them in the heartiest
manner. I was almost tempted that evening to tell Steerforth about
pretty little Em’ly, but I was too timid of mentioning her name, and
too much afraid of his laughing at me. I remember that I thought a good
deal, and in an uneasy sort of way, about Mr. Peggotty having said that
she was getting on to be a woman; but I decided that was nonsense.
We transported the shellfish, or the ‘relish’ as Mr. Peggotty had
modestly called it, up into our room unobserved, and made a great supper
that evening. But Traddles couldn’t get happily out of it. He was too
unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. He was
taken ill in the night--quite prostrate he was--in consequence of Crab;
and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent
which Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine
a horse’s constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek
Testament for refusing to confess.
The rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection of the daily
strife and struggle of our lives; of the waning summer and the changing
season; of the frosty mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the
cold, cold smell of the dark nights when we were rung into bed again; of
the evening schoolroom dimly lighted and indifferently warmed, and the
morning schoolroom which was nothing but a great shivering-machine; of
the alternation of boiled beef with roast beef, and boiled mutton with
roast mutton; of clods of bread-and-butter, dog’s-eared lesson-books,
cracked slates, tear-blotted copy-books, canings, rulerings,
hair-cuttings, rainy Sundays, suet-puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of
ink, surrounding all.
I well remember though, how the distant idea of the holidays, after
seeming for an immense time to be a stationary speck, began to come
towards us, and to grow and grow. How from counting months, we came to
weeks, and then to days; and how I then began to be afraid that I should
not be sent for and when I learnt from Steerforth that I had been sent
for, and was certainly to go home, had dim forebodings that I might
break my leg first. How the breaking-up day changed its place fast, at
last, from the week after next to next week, this week, the day after
tomorrow, tomorrow, today, tonight--when I was inside the Yarmouth mail,
and going home.
I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an
incoherent dream of all these things. But when I awoke at intervals, the
ground outside the window was not the playground of Salem House, and the
sound in my ears was not the sound of Mr. Creakle giving it to Traddles,
but the sound of the coachman touching up the horses.
CHAPTER 8. MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON
When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which was
not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to a nice
little bedroom, with DOLPHIN painted on the door. Very cold I was, I
know, notwithstanding the hot tea they had given me before a large fire
downstairs; and very glad I was to turn into the Dolphin’s bed, pull the
Dolphin’s blankets round my head, and go to sleep.
Mr. Barkis the carrier was to call for me in the morning at nine
o’clock. I got up at eight, a little giddy from the shortness of my
night’s rest, and was ready for him before the appointed time. He
received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we were
last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get change for
sixpence, or something of that sort.
As soon as I and my box were in the cart, and the carrier seated, the
lazy horse walked away with us all at his accustomed pace.
‘You look very well, Mr. Barkis,’ I said, thinking he would like to know
it.
Mr. Barkis rubbed his cheek with his cuff, and then looked at his cuff
as if he expected to find some of the bloom upon it; but made no other
acknowledgement of the compliment.
‘I gave your message, Mr. Barkis,’ I said: ‘I wrote to Peggotty.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis.
Mr. Barkis seemed gruff, and answered drily.
‘Wasn’t it right, Mr. Barkis?’ I asked, after a little hesitation.
‘Why, no,’ said Mr. Barkis.
‘Not the message?’
‘The message was right enough, perhaps,’ said Mr. Barkis; ‘but it come
to an end there.’
Not understanding what he meant, I repeated inquisitively: ‘Came to an
end, Mr. Barkis?’
‘Nothing come of it,’ he explained, looking at me sideways. ‘No answer.’
‘There was an answer expected, was there, Mr. Barkis?’ said I, opening
my eyes. For this was a new light to me.
‘When a man says he’s willin’,’ said Mr. Barkis, turning his glance
slowly on me again, ‘it’s as much as to say, that man’s a-waitin’ for a
answer.’
‘Well, Mr. Barkis?’
‘Well,’ said Mr. Barkis, carrying his eyes back to his horse’s ears;
‘that man’s been a-waitin’ for a answer ever since.’
‘Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?’
‘No--no,’ growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. ‘I ain’t got no call
to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her myself, I ain’t
a-goin’ to tell her so.’
‘Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?’ said I, doubtfully. ‘You might
tell her, if you would,’ said Mr. Barkis, with another slow look at me,
‘that Barkis was a-waitin’ for a answer. Says you--what name is it?’
‘Her name?’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head.
‘Peggotty.’
‘Chrisen name? Or nat’ral name?’ said Mr. Barkis.
‘Oh, it’s not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara.’
‘Is it though?’ said Mr. Barkis.
He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance,
and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time.
‘Well!’ he resumed at length. ‘Says you, “Peggotty! Barkis is waitin’
for a answer.” Says she, perhaps, “Answer to what?” Says you, “To what I
told you.” “What is that?” says she. “Barkis is willin’,” says you.’
This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge
of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he
slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference
to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk
from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, ‘Clara
Peggotty’--apparently as a private memorandum.
Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home,
and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy old
home, which was like a dream I could never dream again! The days when my
mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one another, and there was
no one to come between us, rose up before me so sorrowfully on the road,
that I am not sure I was glad to be there--not sure but that I would
rather have remained away, and forgotten it in Steerforth’s company. But
there I was; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees
wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old
rooks’-nests drifted away upon the wind.
The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I walked
along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and fearing
at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone lowering out of
one of them. No face appeared, however; and being come to the house, and
knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knocking, I went in
with a quiet, timid step.
God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened
within me by the sound of my mother’s voice in the old parlour, when I
set foot in the hall. She was singing in a low tone. I think I must have
lain in her arms, and heard her singing so to me when I was but a baby.
The strain was new to me, and yet it was so old that it filled my heart
brim-full; like a friend come back from a long absence.
I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother
murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room.
She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she
held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she
sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion.
I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she
called me her dear Davy, her own boy! and coming half across the room
to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head
down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and
put its hand to my lips.
I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my
heart! I should have been more fit for Heaven than I ever have been
since.
‘He is your brother,’ said my mother, fondling me. ‘Davy, my pretty boy!
My poor child!’ Then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round
the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came running in, and bounced
down on the ground beside us, and went mad about us both for a quarter
of an hour.
It seemed that I had not been expected so soon, the carrier being much
before his usual time. It seemed, too, that Mr. and Miss Murdstone had
gone out upon a visit in the neighbourhood, and would not return before
night. I had never hoped for this. I had never thought it possible that
we three could be together undisturbed, once more; and I felt, for the
time, as if the old days were come back.
We dined together by the fireside. Peggotty was in attendance to wait
upon us, but my mother wouldn’t let her do it, and made her dine with
us. I had my own old plate, with a brown view of a man-of-war in full
sail upon it, which Peggotty had hoarded somewhere all the time I
had been away, and would not have had broken, she said, for a hundred
pounds. I had my own old mug with David on it, and my own old little
knife and fork that wouldn’t cut.
While we were at table, I thought it a favourable occasion to tell
Peggotty about Mr. Barkis, who, before I had finished what I had to tell
her, began to laugh, and throw her apron over her face.
‘Peggotty,’ said my mother. ‘What’s the matter?’
Peggotty only laughed the more, and held her apron tight over her face
when my mother tried to pull it away, and sat as if her head were in a
bag.
‘What are you doing, you stupid creature?’ said my mother, laughing.
‘Oh, drat the man!’ cried Peggotty. ‘He wants to marry me.’
‘It would be a very good match for you; wouldn’t it?’ said my mother.
‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said Peggotty. ‘Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t have him if
he was made of gold. Nor I wouldn’t have anybody.’
‘Then, why don’t you tell him so, you ridiculous thing?’ said my mother.
‘Tell him so,’ retorted Peggotty, looking out of her apron. ‘He has
never said a word to me about it. He knows better. If he was to make so
bold as say a word to me, I should slap his face.’
Her own was as red as ever I saw it, or any other face, I think; but she
only covered it again, for a few moments at a time, when she was taken
with a violent fit of laughter; and after two or three of those attacks,
went on with her dinner.
I remarked that my mother, though she smiled when Peggotty looked at
her, became more serious and thoughtful. I had seen at first that she
was changed. Her face was very pretty still, but it looked careworn, and
too delicate; and her hand was so thin and white that it seemed to me
to be almost transparent. But the change to which I now refer was
superadded to this: it was in her manner, which became anxious and
fluttered. At last she said, putting out her hand, and laying it
affectionately on the hand of her old servant,
‘Peggotty, dear, you are not going to be married?’
‘Me, ma’am?’ returned Peggotty, staring. ‘Lord bless you, no!’
‘Not just yet?’ said my mother, tenderly.
‘Never!’ cried Peggotty.
My mother took her hand, and said:
‘Don’t leave me, Peggotty. Stay with me. It will not be for long,
perhaps. What should I ever do without you!’
‘Me leave you, my precious!’ cried Peggotty. ‘Not for all the world and
his wife. Why, what’s put that in your silly little head?’--For Peggotty
had been used of old to talk to my mother sometimes like a child.
But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty went
running on in her own fashion.
‘Me leave you? I think I see myself. Peggotty go away from you? I should
like to catch her at it! No, no, no,’ said Peggotty, shaking her head,
and folding her arms; ‘not she, my dear. It isn’t that there ain’t some
Cats that would be well enough pleased if she did, but they sha’n’t be
pleased. They shall be aggravated. I’ll stay with you till I am a cross
cranky old woman. And when I’m too deaf, and too lame, and too blind,
and too mumbly for want of teeth, to be of any use at all, even to be
found fault with, than I shall go to my Davy, and ask him to take me
in.’
‘And, Peggotty,’ says I, ‘I shall be glad to see you, and I’ll make you
as welcome as a queen.’
‘Bless your dear heart!’ cried Peggotty. ‘I know you will!’ And she
kissed me beforehand, in grateful acknowledgement of my hospitality.
After that, she covered her head up with her apron again and had another
laugh about Mr. Barkis. After that, she took the baby out of its little
cradle, and nursed it. After that, she cleared the dinner table;
after that, came in with another cap on, and her work-box, and the
yard-measure, and the bit of wax-candle, all just the same as ever.
We sat round the fire, and talked delightfully. I told them what a hard
master Mr. Creakle was, and they pitied me very much. I told them what a
fine fellow Steerforth was, and what a patron of mine, and Peggotty said
she would walk a score of miles to see him. I took the little baby in
my arms when it was awake, and nursed it lovingly. When it was asleep
again, I crept close to my mother’s side according to my old custom,
broken now a long time, and sat with my arms embracing her waist, and my
little red cheek on her shoulder, and once more felt her beautiful
hair drooping over me--like an angel’s wing as I used to think, I
recollect--and was very happy indeed.
While I sat thus, looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the
red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that Mr.
and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire
got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save
my mother, Peggotty, and I.
Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then
sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her
right, ready to take another stitch whenever there was a blaze. I cannot
conceive whose stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always
darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in want of
darning can have come from. From my earliest infancy she seems to have
been always employed in that class of needlework, and never by any
chance in any other.
‘I wonder,’ said Peggotty, who was sometimes seized with a fit of
wondering on some most unexpected topic, ‘what’s become of Davy’s
great-aunt?’ ‘Lor, Peggotty!’ observed my mother, rousing herself from a
reverie, ‘what nonsense you talk!’
‘Well, but I really do wonder, ma’am,’ said Peggotty.
‘What can have put such a person in your head?’ inquired my mother. ‘Is
there nobody else in the world to come there?’
‘I don’t know how it is,’ said Peggotty, ‘unless it’s on account of
being stupid, but my head never can pick and choose its people. They
come and they go, and they don’t come and they don’t go, just as they
like. I wonder what’s become of her?’
‘How absurd you are, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘One would suppose
you wanted a second visit from her.’
‘Lord forbid!’ cried Peggotty.
‘Well then, don’t talk about such uncomfortable things, there’s a good
soul,’ said my mother. ‘Miss Betsey is shut up in her cottage by the
sea, no doubt, and will remain there. At all events, she is not likely
ever to trouble us again.’
‘No!’ mused Peggotty. ‘No, that ain’t likely at all.---I wonder, if she
was to die, whether she’d leave Davy anything?’
‘Good gracious me, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, ‘what a nonsensical
woman you are! when you know that she took offence at the poor dear
boy’s ever being born at all.’
‘I suppose she wouldn’t be inclined to forgive him now,’ hinted
Peggotty.
‘Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?’ said my mother, rather
sharply.
‘Now that he’s got a brother, I mean,’ said Peggotty.
My mother immediately began to cry, and wondered how Peggotty dared to
say such a thing.
‘As if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to
you or anybody else, you jealous thing!’ said she. ‘You had much better
go and marry Mr. Barkis, the carrier. Why don’t you?’
‘I should make Miss Murdstone happy, if I was to,’ said Peggotty.
‘What a bad disposition you have, Peggotty!’ returned my mother. ‘You
are as jealous of Miss Murdstone as it is possible for a ridiculous
creature to be. You want to keep the keys yourself, and give out all the
things, I suppose? I shouldn’t be surprised if you did. When you know
that she only does it out of kindness and the best intentions! You know
she does, Peggotty--you know it well.’
Peggotty muttered something to the effect of ‘Bother the best
intentions!’ and something else to the effect that there was a little
too much of the best intentions going on.
‘I know what you mean, you cross thing,’ said my mother. ‘I understand
you, Peggotty, perfectly. You know I do, and I wonder you don’t colour
up like fire. But one point at a time. Miss Murdstone is the point now,
Peggotty, and you sha’n’t escape from it. Haven’t you heard her
say, over and over again, that she thinks I am too thoughtless and
too--a--a--’
‘Pretty,’ suggested Peggotty.
‘Well,’ returned my mother, half laughing, ‘and if she is so silly as to
say so, can I be blamed for it?’
‘No one says you can,’ said Peggotty.
‘No, I should hope not, indeed!’ returned my mother. ‘Haven’t you heard
her say, over and over again, that on this account she wished to spare
me a great deal of trouble, which she thinks I am not suited for, and
which I really don’t know myself that I AM suited for; and isn’t she up
early and late, and going to and fro continually--and doesn’t she do
all sorts of things, and grope into all sorts of places, coal-holes and
pantries and I don’t know where, that can’t be very agreeable--and do
you mean to insinuate that there is not a sort of devotion in that?’
‘I don’t insinuate at all,’ said Peggotty.
‘You do, Peggotty,’ returned my mother. ‘You never do anything else,
except your work. You are always insinuating. You revel in it. And when
you talk of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions--’
‘I never talked of ‘em,’ said Peggotty.
‘No, Peggotty,’ returned my mother, ‘but you insinuated. That’s what I
told you just now. That’s the worst of you. You WILL insinuate. I said,
at the moment, that I understood you, and you see I did. When you talk
of Mr. Murdstone’s good intentions, and pretend to slight them (for I
don’t believe you really do, in your heart, Peggotty), you must be as
well convinced as I am how good they are, and how they actuate him in
everything. If he seems to have been at all stern with a certain person,
Peggotty--you understand, and so I am sure does Davy, that I am not
alluding to anybody present--it is solely because he is satisfied that
it is for a certain person’s benefit. He naturally loves a certain
person, on my account; and acts solely for a certain person’s good. He
is better able to judge of it than I am; for I very well know that I am
a weak, light, girlish creature, and that he is a firm, grave, serious
man. And he takes,’ said my mother, with the tears which were engendered
in her affectionate nature, stealing down her face, ‘he takes great
pains with me; and I ought to be very thankful to him, and very
submissive to him even in my thoughts; and when I am not, Peggotty, I
worry and condemn myself, and feel doubtful of my own heart, and don’t
know what to do.’
Peggotty sat with her chin on the foot of the stocking, looking silently
at the fire.
‘There, Peggotty,’ said my mother, changing her tone, ‘don’t let us fall
out with one another, for I couldn’t bear it. You are my true friend, I
know, if I have any in the world. When I call you a ridiculous creature,
or a vexatious thing, or anything of that sort, Peggotty, I only mean
that you are my true friend, and always have been, ever since the night
when Mr. Copperfield first brought me home here, and you came out to the
gate to meet me.’
Peggotty was not slow to respond, and ratify the treaty of friendship by
giving me one of her best hugs. I think I had some glimpses of the real
character of this conversation at the time; but I am sure, now, that
the good creature originated it, and took her part in it, merely that
my mother might comfort herself with the little contradictory summary in
which she had indulged. The design was efficacious; for I remember that
my mother seemed more at ease during the rest of the evening, and that
Peggotty observed her less.
When we had had our tea, and the ashes were thrown up, and the candles
snuffed, I read Peggotty a chapter out of the Crocodile Book, in
remembrance of old times--she took it out of her pocket: I don’t know
whether she had kept it there ever since--and then we talked about Salem
House, which brought me round again to Steerforth, who was my great
subject. We were very happy; and that evening, as the last of its race,
and destined evermore to close that volume of my life, will never pass
out of my memory.
It was almost ten o’clock before we heard the sound of wheels. We all
got up then; and my mother said hurriedly that, as it was so late, and
Mr. and Miss Murdstone approved of early hours for young people, perhaps
I had better go to bed. I kissed her, and went upstairs with my candle
directly, before they came in. It appeared to my childish fancy, as I
ascended to the bedroom where I had been imprisoned, that they brought
a cold blast of air into the house which blew away the old familiar
feeling like a feather.
I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in the morning, as
I had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I committed my
memorable offence. However, as it must be done, I went down, after two
or three false starts half-way, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my
own room, and presented myself in the parlour.
He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss
Murdstone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but made
no sign of recognition whatever. I went up to him, after a moment of
confusion, and said: ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I
did, and I hope you will forgive me.’
‘I am glad to hear you are sorry, David,’ he replied.
The hand he gave me was the hand I had bitten. I could not restrain my
eye from resting for an instant on a red spot upon it; but it was not so
red as I turned, when I met that sinister expression in his face.
‘How do you do, ma’am?’ I said to Miss Murdstone.
‘Ah, dear me!’ sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop
instead of her fingers. ‘How long are the holidays?’
‘A month, ma’am.’
‘Counting from when?’
‘From today, ma’am.’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Murdstone. ‘Then here’s one day off.’
She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning
checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily until
she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more
hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular.
It was on this very first day that I had the misfortune to throw her,
though she was not subject to such weakness in general, into a state of
violent consternation. I came into the room where she and my mother
were sitting; and the baby (who was only a few weeks old) being on
my mother’s lap, I took it very carefully in my arms. Suddenly Miss
Murdstone gave such a scream that I all but dropped it.
‘My dear Jane!’ cried my mother.
‘Good heavens, Clara, do you see?’ exclaimed Miss Murdstone.
‘See what, my dear Jane?’ said my mother; ‘where?’
‘He’s got it!’ cried Miss Murdstone. ‘The boy has got the baby!’
She was limp with horror; but stiffened herself to make a dart at me,
and take it out of my arms. Then, she turned faint; and was so very
ill that they were obliged to give her cherry brandy. I was solemnly
interdicted by her, on her recovery, from touching my brother any more
on any pretence whatever; and my poor mother, who, I could see, wished
otherwise, meekly confirmed the interdict, by saying: ‘No doubt you are
right, my dear Jane.’
On another occasion, when we three were together, this same dear
baby--it was truly dear to me, for our mother’s sake--was the innocent
occasion of Miss Murdstone’s going into a passion. My mother, who had
been looking at its eyes as it lay upon her lap, said:
‘Davy! come here!’ and looked at mine.
I saw Miss Murdstone lay her beads down.
‘I declare,’ said my mother, gently, ‘they are exactly alike. I suppose
they are mine. I think they are the colour of mine. But they are
wonderfully alike.’
‘What are you talking about, Clara?’ said Miss Murdstone.
‘My dear Jane,’ faltered my mother, a little abashed by the harsh tone
of this inquiry, ‘I find that the baby’s eyes and Davy’s are exactly
alike.’
‘Clara!’ said Miss Murdstone, rising angrily, ‘you are a positive fool
sometimes.’
‘My dear Jane,’ remonstrated my mother.
‘A positive fool,’ said Miss Murdstone. ‘Who else could compare my
brother’s baby with your boy? They are not at all alike. They are
exactly unlike. They are utterly dissimilar in all respects. I hope
they will ever remain so. I will not sit here, and hear such comparisons
made.’ With that she stalked out, and made the door bang after her.
In short, I was not a favourite with Miss Murdstone. In short, I was not
a favourite there with anybody, not even with myself; for those who did
like me could not show it, and those who did not, showed it so plainly
that I had a sensitive consciousness of always appearing constrained,
boorish, and dull.
I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I came into
the room where they were, and they were talking together and my mother
seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from the
moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best humour, I
checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her worst, I intensified it. I
had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always; that
she was afraid to speak to me or to be kind to me, lest she should
give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a
lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own
offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I
only moved. Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way
as I could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church clock strike,
when I was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little
great-coat, poring over a book.
In the evening, sometimes, I went and sat with Peggotty in the kitchen.
There I was comfortable, and not afraid of being myself. But neither of
these resources was approved of in the parlour. The tormenting humour
which was dominant there stopped them both. I was still held to be
necessary to my poor mother’s training, and, as one of her trials, could
not be suffered to absent myself.
‘David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, one day after dinner when I was going to
leave the room as usual; ‘I am sorry to observe that you are of a sullen
disposition.’
‘As sulky as a bear!’ said Miss Murdstone.
I stood still, and hung my head.
‘Now, David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘a sullen obdurate disposition is, of
all tempers, the worst.’
‘And the boy’s is, of all such dispositions that ever I have seen,’
remarked his sister, ‘the most confirmed and stubborn. I think, my dear
Clara, even you must observe it?’
‘I beg your pardon, my dear Jane,’ said my mother, ‘but are you quite
sure--I am certain you’ll excuse me, my dear Jane--that you understand
Davy?’
‘I should be somewhat ashamed of myself, Clara,’ returned Miss
Murdstone, ‘if I could not understand the boy, or any boy. I don’t
profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.’
‘No doubt, my dear Jane,’ returned my mother, ‘your understanding is
very vigorous--’
‘Oh dear, no! Pray don’t say that, Clara,’ interposed Miss Murdstone,
angrily.
‘But I am sure it is,’ resumed my mother; ‘and everybody knows it is. I
profit so much by it myself, in many ways--at least I ought to--that no
one can be more convinced of it than myself; and therefore I speak with
great diffidence, my dear Jane, I assure you.’
‘We’ll say I don’t understand the boy, Clara,’ returned Miss Murdstone,
arranging the little fetters on her wrists. ‘We’ll agree, if you please,
that I don’t understand him at all. He is much too deep for me. But
perhaps my brother’s penetration may enable him to have some insight
into his character. And I believe my brother was speaking on the subject
when we--not very decently--interrupted him.’
‘I think, Clara,’ said Mr. Murdstone, in a low grave voice, ‘that there
may be better and more dispassionate judges of such a question than
you.’
‘Edward,’ replied my mother, timidly, ‘you are a far better judge of all
questions than I pretend to be. Both you and Jane are. I only said--’
‘You only said something weak and inconsiderate,’ he replied. ‘Try not
to do it again, my dear Clara, and keep a watch upon yourself.’
My mother’s lips moved, as if she answered ‘Yes, my dear Edward,’ but
she said nothing aloud.
‘I was sorry, David, I remarked,’ said Mr. Murdstone, turning his head
and his eyes stiffly towards me, ‘to observe that you are of a sullen
disposition. This is not a character that I can suffer to develop itself
beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. You must endeavour,
sir, to change it. We must endeavour to change it for you.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ I faltered. ‘I have never meant to be sullen
since I came back.’
‘Don’t take refuge in a lie, sir!’ he returned so fiercely, that I saw
my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose
between us. ‘You have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your own
room. You have kept your own room when you ought to have been here. You
know now, once for all, that I require you to be here, and not there.
Further, that I require you to bring obedience here. You know me, David.
I will have it done.’
Miss Murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle.
‘I will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing towards myself,’ he
continued, ‘and towards Jane Murdstone, and towards your mother. I will
not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a
child. Sit down.’
He ordered me like a dog, and I obeyed like a dog.
‘One thing more,’ he said. ‘I observe that you have an attachment to low
and common company. You are not to associate with servants. The
kitchen will not improve you, in the many respects in which you need
improvement. Of the woman who abets you, I say nothing--since you,
Clara,’ addressing my mother in a lower voice, ‘from old associations
and long-established fancies, have a weakness respecting her which is
not yet overcome.’
‘A most unaccountable delusion it is!’ cried Miss Murdstone.
‘I only say,’ he resumed, addressing me, ‘that I disapprove of your
preferring such company as Mistress Peggotty, and that it is to be
abandoned. Now, David, you understand me, and you know what will be the
consequence if you fail to obey me to the letter.’
I knew well--better perhaps than he thought, as far as my poor mother
was concerned--and I obeyed him to the letter. I retreated to my own
room no more; I took refuge with Peggotty no more; but sat wearily in
the parlour day after day, looking forward to night, and bedtime.
What irksome constraint I underwent, sitting in the same attitude hours
upon hours, afraid to move an arm or a leg lest Miss Murdstone should
complain (as she did on the least pretence) of my restlessness, and
afraid to move an eye lest she should light on some look of dislike
or scrutiny that would find new cause for complaint in mine! What
intolerable dulness to sit listening to the ticking of the clock; and
watching Miss Murdstone’s little shiny steel beads as she strung them;
and wondering whether she would ever be married, and if so, to what
sort of unhappy man; and counting the divisions in the moulding of the
chimney-piece; and wandering away, with my eyes, to the ceiling, among
the curls and corkscrews in the paper on the wall!
What walks I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather,
carrying that parlour, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere: a
monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was
no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits, and
blunted them!
What meals I had in silence and embarrassment, always feeling that there
were a knife and fork too many, and that mine; an appetite too many, and
that mine; a plate and chair too many, and those mine; a somebody too
many, and that I!
What evenings, when the candles came, and I was expected to employ
myself, but, not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some
hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of
weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as ‘Rule Britannia’, or
‘Away with Melancholy’; when they wouldn’t stand still to be learnt, but
would go threading my grandmother’s needle through my unfortunate head,
in at one ear and out at the other! What yawns and dozes I lapsed into,
in spite of all my care; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps
with; what answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely
made; what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and
yet was in everybody’s way; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss
Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed!
Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss
Murdstone said: ‘Here’s the last day off!’ and gave me the closing cup
of tea of the vacation.
I was not sorry to go. I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was
recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr.
Creakle loomed behind him. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and
again Miss Murdstone in her warning voice, said: ‘Clara!’ when my mother
bent over me, to bid me farewell.
I kissed her, and my baby brother, and was very sorry then; but not
sorry to go away, for the gulf between us was there, and the parting was
there, every day. And it is not so much the embrace she gave me, that
lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what followed
the embrace.
I was in the carrier’s cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked
out, and she stood at the garden-gate alone, holding her baby up in her
arms for me to see. It was cold still weather; and not a hair of her
head, nor a fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at
me, holding up her child.
So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school--a silent
presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face--holding
up her baby in her arms.
CHAPTER 9. I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY
I PASS over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my
birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be
admired than ever, I remember nothing. He was going away at the end of
the half-year, if not sooner, and was more spirited and independent than
before in my eyes, and therefore more engaging than before; but beyond
this I remember nothing. The great remembrance by which that time is
marked in my mind, seems to have swallowed up all lesser recollections,
and to exist alone.
It is even difficult for me to believe that there was a gap of full
two months between my return to Salem House and the arrival of that
birthday. I can only understand that the fact was so, because I know it
must have been so; otherwise I should feel convinced that there was no
interval, and that the one occasion trod upon the other’s heels.
How well I recollect the kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hung
about the place; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I feel my
rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of
the schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and there to light up the
foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the
raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the
floor. It was after breakfast, and we had been summoned in from the
playground, when Mr. Sharp entered and said:
‘David Copperfield is to go into the parlour.’
I expected a hamper from Peggotty, and brightened at the order. Some
of the boys about me put in their claim not to be forgotten in the
distribution of the good things, as I got out of my seat with great
alacrity.
‘Don’t hurry, David,’ said Mr. Sharp. ‘There’s time enough, my boy,
don’t hurry.’
I might have been surprised by the feeling tone in which he spoke, if I
had given it a thought; but I gave it none until afterwards. I hurried
away to the parlour; and there I found Mr. Creakle, sitting at his
breakfast with the cane and a newspaper before him, and Mrs. Creakle
with an opened letter in her hand. But no hamper.
‘David Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Creakle, leading me to a sofa, and
sitting down beside me. ‘I want to speak to you very particularly. I
have something to tell you, my child.’
Mr. Creakle, at whom of course I looked, shook his head without looking
at me, and stopped up a sigh with a very large piece of buttered toast.
‘You are too young to know how the world changes every day,’ said Mrs.
Creakle, ‘and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn
it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old,
some of us at all times of our lives.’
I looked at her earnestly.
‘When you came away from home at the end of the vacation,’ said Mrs.
Creakle, after a pause, ‘were they all well?’ After another pause, ‘Was
your mama well?’
I trembled without distinctly knowing why, and still looked at her
earnestly, making no attempt to answer.
‘Because,’ said she, ‘I grieve to tell you that I hear this morning your
mama is very ill.’
A mist rose between Mrs. Creakle and me, and her figure seemed to move
in it for an instant. Then I felt the burning tears run down my face,
and it was steady again.
‘She is very dangerously ill,’ she added.
I knew all now.
‘She is dead.’
There was no need to tell me so. I had already broken out into a
desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world.
She was very kind to me. She kept me there all day, and left me alone
sometimes; and I cried, and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and
cried again. When I could cry no more, I began to think; and then the
oppression on my breast was heaviest, and my grief a dull pain that
there was no ease for.
And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed
upon my heart, but idly loitering near it. I thought of our house shut
up and hushed. I thought of the little baby, who, Mrs. Creakle said, had
been pining away for some time, and who, they believed, would die too. I
thought of my father’s grave in the churchyard, by our house, and of my
mother lying there beneath the tree I knew so well. I stood upon a chair
when I was left alone, and looked into the glass to see how red my eyes
were, and how sorrowful my face. I considered, after some hours were
gone, if my tears were really hard to flow now, as they seemed to be,
what, in connexion with my loss, it would affect me most to think
of when I drew near home--for I was going home to the funeral. I am
sensible of having felt that a dignity attached to me among the rest of
the boys, and that I was important in my affliction.
If ever child were stricken with sincere grief, I was. But I remember
that this importance was a kind of satisfaction to me, when I walked in
the playground that afternoon while the boys were in school. When I
saw them glancing at me out of the windows, as they went up to their
classes, I felt distinguished, and looked more melancholy, and walked
slower. When school was over, and they came out and spoke to me, I felt
it rather good in myself not to be proud to any of them, and to take
exactly the same notice of them all, as before.
I was to go home next night; not by the mail, but by the heavy
night-coach, which was called the Farmer, and was principally used by
country-people travelling short intermediate distances upon the road. We
had no story-telling that evening, and Traddles insisted on lending me
his pillow. I don’t know what good he thought it would do me, for I
had one of my own: but it was all he had to lend, poor fellow, except a
sheet of letter-paper full of skeletons; and that he gave me at parting,
as a soother of my sorrows and a contribution to my peace of mind.
I left Salem House upon the morrow afternoon. I little thought then that
I left it, never to return. We travelled very slowly all night, and
did not get into Yarmouth before nine or ten o’clock in the morning. I
looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him a
fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty
little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings,
and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said:
‘Master Copperfield?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Will you come with me, young sir, if you please,’ he said, opening the
door, ‘and I shall have the pleasure of taking you home.’
I put my hand in his, wondering who he was, and we walked away to a
shop in a narrow street, on which was written OMER, DRAPER, TAILOR,
HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER, &c. It was a close and stifling little
shop; full of all sorts of clothing, made and unmade, including
one window full of beaver-hats and bonnets. We went into a little
back-parlour behind the shop, where we found three young women at work
on a quantity of black materials, which were heaped upon the table,
and little bits and cuttings of which were littered all over the floor.
There was a good fire in the room, and a breathless smell of warm black
crape--I did not know what the smell was then, but I know now.
The three young women, who appeared to be very industrious and
comfortable, raised their heads to look at me, and then went on with
their work. Stitch, stitch, stitch. At the same time there came from
a workshop across a little yard outside the window, a regular sound
of hammering that kept a kind of tune: RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat,
RAT--tat-tat, without any variation.
‘Well,’ said my conductor to one of the three young women. ‘How do you
get on, Minnie?’
‘We shall be ready by the trying-on time,’ she replied gaily, without
looking up. ‘Don’t you be afraid, father.’
Mr. Omer took off his broad-brimmed hat, and sat down and panted. He was
so fat that he was obliged to pant some time before he could say:
‘That’s right.’
‘Father!’ said Minnie, playfully. ‘What a porpoise you do grow!’
‘Well, I don’t know how it is, my dear,’ he replied, considering about
it. ‘I am rather so.’
‘You are such a comfortable man, you see,’ said Minnie. ‘You take things
so easy.’
‘No use taking ‘em otherwise, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer.
‘No, indeed,’ returned his daughter. ‘We are all pretty gay here, thank
Heaven! Ain’t we, father?’
‘I hope so, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘As I have got my breath now, I
think I’ll measure this young scholar. Would you walk into the shop,
Master Copperfield?’
I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request; and after showing
me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourning
for anything short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and put
them down in a book. While he was recording them he called my attention
to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had ‘just
come up’, and to certain other fashions which he said had ‘just gone
out’.
‘And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money,’
said Mr. Omer. ‘But fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobody
knows when, why, or how; and they go out, nobody knows when, why, or
how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that
point of view.’
I was too sorrowful to discuss the question, which would possibly have
been beyond me under any circumstances; and Mr. Omer took me back into
the parlour, breathing with some difficulty on the way.
He then called down a little break-neck range of steps behind a door:
‘Bring up that tea and bread-and-butter!’ which, after some time,
during which I sat looking about me and thinking, and listening to the
stitching in the room and the tune that was being hammered across the
yard, appeared on a tray, and turned out to be for me.
‘I have been acquainted with you,’ said Mr. Omer, after watching me
for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on the
breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite, ‘I have been
acquainted with you a long time, my young friend.’
‘Have you, sir?’
‘All your life,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘I may say before it. I knew your
father before you. He was five foot nine and a half, and he lays in
five-and-twen-ty foot of ground.’
‘RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat,’ across the yard.
‘He lays in five and twen-ty foot of ground, if he lays in a fraction,’
said Mr. Omer, pleasantly. ‘It was either his request or her direction,
I forget which.’
‘Do you know how my little brother is, sir?’ I inquired.
Mr. Omer shook his head.
‘RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat, RAT--tat-tat.’
‘He is in his mother’s arms,’ said he.
‘Oh, poor little fellow! Is he dead?’
‘Don’t mind it more than you can help,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Yes. The baby’s
dead.’
My wounds broke out afresh at this intelligence. I left the
scarcely-tasted breakfast, and went and rested my head on another table,
in a corner of the little room, which Minnie hastily cleared, lest I
should spot the mourning that was lying there with my tears. She was
a pretty, good-natured girl, and put my hair away from my eyes with a
soft, kind touch; but she was very cheerful at having nearly finished
her work and being in good time, and was so different from me!
Presently the tune left off, and a good-looking young fellow came across
the yard into the room. He had a hammer in his hand, and his mouth was
full of little nails, which he was obliged to take out before he could
speak.
‘Well, Joram!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘How do you get on?’
‘All right,’ said Joram. ‘Done, sir.’
Minnie coloured a little, and the other two girls smiled at one another.
‘What! you were at it by candle-light last night, when I was at the
club, then? Were you?’ said Mr. Omer, shutting up one eye.
‘Yes,’ said Joram. ‘As you said we could make a little trip of it, and
go over together, if it was done, Minnie and me--and you.’
‘Oh! I thought you were going to leave me out altogether,’ said Mr.
Omer, laughing till he coughed.
‘--As you was so good as to say that,’ resumed the young man, ‘why I
turned to with a will, you see. Will you give me your opinion of it?’
‘I will,’ said Mr. Omer, rising. ‘My dear’; and he stopped and turned to
me: ‘would you like to see your--’
‘No, father,’ Minnie interposed.
‘I thought it might be agreeable, my dear,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘But perhaps
you’re right.’
I can’t say how I knew it was my dear, dear mother’s coffin that they
went to look at. I had never heard one making; I had never seen one that
I know of.--but it came into my mind what the noise was, while it was
going on; and when the young man entered, I am sure I knew what he had
been doing.
The work being now finished, the two girls, whose names I had not heard,
brushed the shreds and threads from their dresses, and went into the
shop to put that to rights, and wait for customers. Minnie stayed behind
to fold up what they had made, and pack it in two baskets. This she did
upon her knees, humming a lively little tune the while. Joram, who I had
no doubt was her lover, came in and stole a kiss from her while she was
busy (he didn’t appear to mind me, at all), and said her father was gone
for the chaise, and he must make haste and get himself ready. Then he
went out again; and then she put her thimble and scissors in her pocket,
and stuck a needle threaded with black thread neatly in the bosom of her
gown, and put on her outer clothing smartly, at a little glass behind
the door, in which I saw the reflection of her pleased face.
All this I observed, sitting at the table in the corner with my head
leaning on my hand, and my thoughts running on very different things.
The chaise soon came round to the front of the shop, and the baskets
being put in first, I was put in next, and those three followed. I
remember it as a kind of half chaise-cart, half pianoforte-van, painted
of a sombre colour, and drawn by a black horse with a long tail. There
was plenty of room for us all.
I do not think I have ever experienced so strange a feeling in my life
(I am wiser now, perhaps) as that of being with them, remembering how
they had been employed, and seeing them enjoy the ride. I was not angry
with them; I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among
creatures with whom I had no community of nature. They were very
cheerful. The old man sat in front to drive, and the two young people
sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one on
one side of his chubby face and the other on the other, and made a great
deal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I held back, and
moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though
it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgement came
upon them for their hardness of heart.
So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and enjoyed
themselves, I could touch nothing that they touched, but kept my fast
unbroken. So, when we reached home, I dropped out of the chaise behind,
as quickly as possible, that I might not be in their company before
those solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed eyes once
bright. And oh, how little need I had had to think what would move me to
tears when I came back--seeing the window of my mother’s room, and next
it that which, in the better time, was mine!
I was in Peggotty’s arms before I got to the door, and she took me into
the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she controlled
it soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead could
be disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time. She
sat up at night still, and watched. As long as her poor dear pretty was
above the ground, she said, she would never desert her.
Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlour where he
was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his
elbow-chair. Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which
was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and
asked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my mourning.
I said: ‘Yes.’
‘And your shirts,’ said Miss Murdstone; ‘have you brought ‘em home?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I have brought home all my clothes.’
This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. I do
not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called
her self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind, and
her common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable
qualities, on such an occasion. She was particularly proud of her turn
for business; and she showed it now in reducing everything to pen and
ink, and being moved by nothing. All the rest of that day, and from
morning to night afterwards, she sat at that desk, scratching composedly
with a hard pen, speaking in the same imperturbable whisper to
everybody; never relaxing a muscle of her face, or softening a tone of
her voice, or appearing with an atom of her dress astray.
Her brother took a book sometimes, but never read it that I saw. He
would open it and look at it as if he were reading, but would remain for
a whole hour without turning the leaf, and then put it down and walk to
and fro in the room. I used to sit with folded hands watching him, and
counting his footsteps, hour after hour. He very seldom spoke to her,
and never to me. He seemed to be the only restless thing, except the
clocks, in the whole motionless house.
In these days before the funeral, I saw but little of Peggotty, except
that, in passing up or down stairs, I always found her close to the room
where my mother and her baby lay, and except that she came to me every
night, and sat by my bed’s head while I went to sleep. A day or
two before the burial--I think it was a day or two before, but I am
conscious of confusion in my mind about that heavy time, with nothing
to mark its progress--she took me into the room. I only recollect that
underneath some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful cleanliness
and freshness all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied the
solemn stillness that was in the house; and that when she would have
turned the cover gently back, I cried: ‘Oh no! oh no!’ and held her
hand.
If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. The
very air of the best parlour, when I went in at the door, the bright
condition of the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, the
patterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the
odour of Miss Murdstone’s dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is
in the room, and comes to speak to me.
‘And how is Master David?’ he says, kindly.
I cannot tell him very well. I give him my hand, which he holds in his.
‘Dear me!’ says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with something shining in
his eye. ‘Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out of our
knowledge, ma’am?’ This is to Miss Murdstone, who makes no reply.
‘There is a great improvement here, ma’am?’ says Mr. Chillip.
Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend: Mr.
Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and opens
his mouth no more.
I remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not because
I care about myself, or have done since I came home. And now the bell
begins to sound, and Mr. Omer and another come to make us ready. As
Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to
the same grave were made ready in the same room.
There are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper, Mr. Chillip, and
I. When we go out to the door, the Bearers and their load are in the
garden; and they move before us down the path, and past the elms, and
through the gate, and into the churchyard, where I have so often heard
the birds sing on a summer morning.
We stand around the grave. The day seems different to me from every
other day, and the light not of the same colour--of a sadder colour.
Now there is a solemn hush, which we have brought from home with what is
resting in the mould; and while we stand bareheaded, I hear the voice
of the clergyman, sounding remote in the open air, and yet distinct and
plain, saying: ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord!’
Then I hear sobs; and, standing apart among the lookers-on, I see that
good and faithful servant, whom of all the people upon earth I love the
best, and unto whom my childish heart is certain that the Lord will one
day say: ‘Well done.’
There are many faces that I know, among the little crowd; faces that I
knew in church, when mine was always wondering there; faces that first
saw my mother, when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. I do
not mind them--I mind nothing but my grief--and yet I see and know them
all; and even in the background, far away, see Minnie looking on, and
her eye glancing on her sweetheart, who is near me.
It is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. Before
us stands our house, so pretty and unchanged, so linked in my mind with
the young idea of what is gone, that all my sorrow has been nothing to
the sorrow it calls forth. But they take me on; and Mr. Chillip talks to
me; and when we get home, puts some water to my lips; and when I ask his
leave to go up to my room, dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman.
All this, I say, is yesterday’s event. Events of later date have floated
from me to the shore where all forgotten things will reappear, but this
stands like a high rock in the ocean.
I knew that Peggotty would come to me in my room. The Sabbath stillness
of the time (the day was so like Sunday! I have forgotten that) was
suited to us both. She sat down by my side upon my little bed; and
holding my hand, and sometimes putting it to her lips, and sometimes
smoothing it with hers, as she might have comforted my little brother,
told me, in her way, all that she had to tell concerning what had
happened.
‘She was never well,’ said Peggotty, ‘for a long time. She was uncertain
in her mind, and not happy. When her baby was born, I thought at first
she would get better, but she was more delicate, and sunk a little every
day. She used to like to sit alone before her baby came, and then she
cried; but afterwards she used to sing to it--so soft, that I once
thought, when I heard her, it was like a voice up in the air, that was
rising away.
‘I think she got to be more timid, and more frightened-like, of late;
and that a hard word was like a blow to her. But she was always the same
to me. She never changed to her foolish Peggotty, didn’t my sweet girl.’
Here Peggotty stopped, and softly beat upon my hand a little while.
‘The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was the night when
you came home, my dear. The day you went away, she said to me, “I never
shall see my pretty darling again. Something tells me so, that tells the
truth, I know.”
‘She tried to hold up after that; and many a time, when they told her
she was thoughtless and light-hearted, made believe to be so; but it was
all a bygone then. She never told her husband what she had told me--she
was afraid of saying it to anybody else--till one night, a little more
than a week before it happened, when she said to him: “My dear, I think
I am dying.”
‘“It’s off my mind now, Peggotty,” she told me, when I laid her in her
bed that night. “He will believe it more and more, poor fellow, every
day for a few days to come; and then it will be past. I am very tired.
If this is sleep, sit by me while I sleep: don’t leave me. God bless
both my children! God protect and keep my fatherless boy!”
‘I never left her afterwards,’ said Peggotty. ‘She often talked to them
two downstairs--for she loved them; she couldn’t bear not to love anyone
who was about her--but when they went away from her bed-side, she always
turned to me, as if there was rest where Peggotty was, and never fell
asleep in any other way.
‘On the last night, in the evening, she kissed me, and said: “If my baby
should die too, Peggotty, please let them lay him in my arms, and bury
us together.” (It was done; for the poor lamb lived but a day beyond
her.) “Let my dearest boy go with us to our resting-place,” she said,
“and tell him that his mother, when she lay here, blessed him not once,
but a thousand times.”’
Another silence followed this, and another gentle beating on my hand.
‘It was pretty far in the night,’ said Peggotty, ‘when she asked me for
some drink; and when she had taken it, gave me such a patient smile, the
dear!--so beautiful!
‘Daybreak had come, and the sun was rising, when she said to me, how
kind and considerate Mr. Copperfield had always been to her, and how
he had borne with her, and told her, when she doubted herself, that
a loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom, and that he was a
happy man in hers. “Peggotty, my dear,” she said then, “put me nearer to
you,” for she was very weak. “Lay your good arm underneath my neck,” she
said, “and turn me to you, for your face is going far off, and I want it
to be near.” I put it as she asked; and oh Davy! the time had come when
my first parting words to you were true--when she was glad to lay her
poor head on her stupid cross old Peggotty’s arm--and she died like a
child that had gone to sleep!’
Thus ended Peggotty’s narration. From the moment of my knowing of the
death of my mother, the idea of her as she had been of late had vanished
from me. I remembered her, from that instant, only as the young mother
of my earliest impressions, who had been used to wind her bright curls
round and round her finger, and to dance with me at twilight in the
parlour. What Peggotty had told me now, was so far from bringing me back
to the later period, that it rooted the earlier image in my mind. It may
be curious, but it is true. In her death she winged her way back to her
calm untroubled youth, and cancelled all the rest.
The mother who lay in the grave, was the mother of my infancy; the
little creature in her arms, was myself, as I had once been, hushed for
ever on her bosom.
CHAPTER 10. I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR
The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed when the day of the
solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the house, was
to give Peggotty a month’s warning. Much as Peggotty would have disliked
such a service, I believe she would have retained it, for my sake, in
preference to the best upon earth. She told me we must part, and told me
why; and we condoled with one another, in all sincerity.
As to me or my future, not a word was said, or a step taken. Happy
they would have been, I dare say, if they could have dismissed me at a
month’s warning too. I mustered courage once, to ask Miss Murdstone when
I was going back to school; and she answered dryly, she believed I was
not going back at all. I was told nothing more. I was very anxious to
know what was going to be done with me, and so was Peggotty; but neither
she nor I could pick up any information on the subject.
There was one change in my condition, which, while it relieved me of
a great deal of present uneasiness, might have made me, if I had been
capable of considering it closely, yet more uncomfortable about the
future. It was this. The constraint that had been put upon me, was quite
abandoned. I was so far from being required to keep my dull post in
the parlour, that on several occasions, when I took my seat there, Miss
Murdstone frowned to me to go away. I was so far from being warned off
from Peggotty’s society, that, provided I was not in Mr. Murdstone’s, I
was never sought out or inquired for. At first I was in daily dread of
his taking my education in hand again, or of Miss Murdstone’s
devoting herself to it; but I soon began to think that such fears were
groundless, and that all I had to anticipate was neglect.
I do not conceive that this discovery gave me much pain then. I was
still giddy with the shock of my mother’s death, and in a kind of
stunned state as to all tributary things. I can recollect, indeed, to
have speculated, at odd times, on the possibility of my not being taught
any more, or cared for any more; and growing up to be a shabby, moody
man, lounging an idle life away, about the village; as well as on the
feasibility of my getting rid of this picture by going away somewhere,
like the hero in a story, to seek my fortune: but these were transient
visions, daydreams I sat looking at sometimes, as if they were faintly
painted or written on the wall of my room, and which, as they melted
away, left the wall blank again.
‘Peggotty,’ I said in a thoughtful whisper, one evening, when I was
warming my hands at the kitchen fire, ‘Mr. Murdstone likes me less than
he used to. He never liked me much, Peggotty; but he would rather not
even see me now, if he can help it.’
‘Perhaps it’s his sorrow,’ said Peggotty, stroking my hair.
‘I am sure, Peggotty, I am sorry too. If I believed it was his sorrow,
I should not think of it at all. But it’s not that; oh, no, it’s not
that.’
‘How do you know it’s not that?’ said Peggotty, after a silence.
‘Oh, his sorrow is another and quite a different thing. He is sorry at
this moment, sitting by the fireside with Miss Murdstone; but if I was
to go in, Peggotty, he would be something besides.’
‘What would he be?’ said Peggotty.
‘Angry,’ I answered, with an involuntary imitation of his dark frown.
‘If he was only sorry, he wouldn’t look at me as he does. I am only
sorry, and it makes me feel kinder.’
Peggotty said nothing for a little while; and I warmed my hands, as
silent as she.
‘Davy,’ she said at length.
‘Yes, Peggotty?’ ‘I have tried, my dear, all ways I could think of--all
the ways there are, and all the ways there ain’t, in short--to get a
suitable service here, in Blunderstone; but there’s no such a thing, my
love.’
‘And what do you mean to do, Peggotty,’ says I, wistfully. ‘Do you mean
to go and seek your fortune?’
‘I expect I shall be forced to go to Yarmouth,’ replied Peggotty, ‘and
live there.’
‘You might have gone farther off,’ I said, brightening a little, ‘and
been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Peggotty,
there. You won’t be quite at the other end of the world, will you?’
‘Contrary ways, please God!’ cried Peggotty, with great animation. ‘As
long as you are here, my pet, I shall come over every week of my life to
see you. One day, every week of my life!’
I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise: but even this
was not all, for Peggotty went on to say:
‘I’m a-going, Davy, you see, to my brother’s, first, for another
fortnight’s visit--just till I have had time to look about me, and
get to be something like myself again. Now, I have been thinking that
perhaps, as they don’t want you here at present, you might be let to go
along with me.’
If anything, short of being in a different relation to every one about
me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me a sense of pleasure at that
time, it would have been this project of all others. The idea of being
again surrounded by those honest faces, shining welcome on me; of
renewing the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning, when the bells
were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and the shadowy ships
breaking through the mist; of roaming up and down with little Em’ly,
telling her my troubles, and finding charms against them in the shells
and pebbles on the beach; made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next
moment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone’s giving her consent;
but even that was set at rest soon, for she came out to take an evening
grope in the store-closet while we were yet in conversation, and
Peggotty, with a boldness that amazed me, broached the topic on the
spot.
‘The boy will be idle there,’ said Miss Murdstone, looking into a
pickle-jar, ‘and idleness is the root of all evil. But, to be sure, he
would be idle here--or anywhere, in my opinion.’
Peggotty had an angry answer ready, I could see; but she swallowed it
for my sake, and remained silent.
‘Humph!’ said Miss Murdstone, still keeping her eye on the pickles;
‘it is of more importance than anything else--it is of paramount
importance--that my brother should not be disturbed or made
uncomfortable. I suppose I had better say yes.’
I thanked her, without making any demonstration of joy, lest it should
induce her to withdraw her assent. Nor could I help thinking this a
prudent course, since she looked at me out of the pickle-jar, with
as great an access of sourness as if her black eyes had absorbed its
contents. However, the permission was given, and was never retracted;
for when the month was out, Peggotty and I were ready to depart.
Mr. Barkis came into the house for Peggotty’s boxes. I had never known
him to pass the garden-gate before, but on this occasion he came into
the house. And he gave me a look as he shouldered the largest box and
went out, which I thought had meaning in it, if meaning could ever be
said to find its way into Mr. Barkis’s visage.
Peggotty was naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home
so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life--for
my mother and myself--had been formed. She had been walking in the
churchyard, too, very early; and she got into the cart, and sat in it
with her handkerchief at her eyes.
So long as she remained in this condition, Mr. Barkis gave no sign
of life whatever. He sat in his usual place and attitude like a great
stuffed figure. But when she began to look about her, and to speak to
me, he nodded his head and grinned several times. I have not the least
notion at whom, or what he meant by it.
‘It’s a beautiful day, Mr. Barkis!’ I said, as an act of politeness.
‘It ain’t bad,’ said Mr. Barkis, who generally qualified his speech, and
rarely committed himself.
‘Peggotty is quite comfortable now, Mr. Barkis,’ I remarked, for his
satisfaction.
‘Is she, though?’ said Mr. Barkis.
After reflecting about it, with a sagacious air, Mr. Barkis eyed her,
and said:
‘ARE you pretty comfortable?’
Peggotty laughed, and answered in the affirmative.
‘But really and truly, you know. Are you?’ growled Mr. Barkis, sliding
nearer to her on the seat, and nudging her with his elbow. ‘Are you?
Really and truly pretty comfortable? Are you? Eh?’
At each of these inquiries Mr. Barkis shuffled nearer to her, and gave
her another nudge; so that at last we were all crowded together in the
left-hand corner of the cart, and I was so squeezed that I could hardly
bear it.
Peggotty calling his attention to my sufferings, Mr. Barkis gave me a
little more room at once, and got away by degrees. But I could not help
observing that he seemed to think he had hit upon a wonderful expedient
for expressing himself in a neat, agreeable, and pointed manner, without
the inconvenience of inventing conversation. He manifestly chuckled over
it for some time. By and by he turned to Peggotty again, and repeating,
‘Are you pretty comfortable though?’ bore down upon us as before, until
the breath was nearly edged out of my body. By and by he made another
descent upon us with the same inquiry, and the same result. At length,
I got up whenever I saw him coming, and standing on the foot-board,
pretended to look at the prospect; after which I did very well.
He was so polite as to stop at a public-house, expressly on our account,
and entertain us with broiled mutton and beer. Even when Peggotty was
in the act of drinking, he was seized with one of those approaches, and
almost choked her. But as we drew nearer to the end of our journey, he
had more to do and less time for gallantry; and when we got on Yarmouth
pavement, we were all too much shaken and jolted, I apprehend, to have
any leisure for anything else.
Mr. Peggotty and Ham waited for us at the old place. They received me
and Peggotty in an affectionate manner, and shook hands with Mr. Barkis,
who, with his hat on the very back of his head, and a shame-faced leer
upon his countenance, and pervading his very legs, presented but a
vacant appearance, I thought. They each took one of Peggotty’s trunks,
and we were going away, when Mr. Barkis solemnly made a sign to me with
his forefinger to come under an archway.
‘I say,’ growled Mr. Barkis, ‘it was all right.’
I looked up into his face, and answered, with an attempt to be very
profound: ‘Oh!’
‘It didn’t come to a end there,’ said Mr. Barkis, nodding
confidentially. ‘It was all right.’
Again I answered, ‘Oh!’
‘You know who was willin’,’ said my friend. ‘It was Barkis, and Barkis
only.’
I nodded assent.
‘It’s all right,’ said Mr. Barkis, shaking hands; ‘I’m a friend of
your’n. You made it all right, first. It’s all right.’
In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely
mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and
most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out
of the face of a clock that had stopped, but for Peggotty’s calling me
away. As we were going along, she asked me what he had said; and I told
her he had said it was all right.
‘Like his impudence,’ said Peggotty, ‘but I don’t mind that! Davy dear,
what should you think if I was to think of being married?’
‘Why--I suppose you would like me as much then, Peggotty, as you do
now?’ I returned, after a little consideration.
Greatly to the astonishment of the passengers in the street, as well as
of her relations going on before, the good soul was obliged to stop and
embrace me on the spot, with many protestations of her unalterable love.
‘Tell me what should you say, darling?’ she asked again, when this was
over, and we were walking on.
‘If you were thinking of being married--to Mr. Barkis, Peggotty?’
‘Yes,’ said Peggotty.
‘I should think it would be a very good thing. For then you know,
Peggotty, you would always have the horse and cart to bring you over to
see me, and could come for nothing, and be sure of coming.’
‘The sense of the dear!’ cried Peggotty. ‘What I have been thinking
of, this month back! Yes, my precious; and I think I should be more
independent altogether, you see; let alone my working with a better
heart in my own house, than I could in anybody else’s now. I don’t know
what I might be fit for, now, as a servant to a stranger. And I shall be
always near my pretty’s resting-place,’ said Peggotty, musing, ‘and be
able to see it when I like; and when I lie down to rest, I may be laid
not far off from my darling girl!’
We neither of us said anything for a little while.
‘But I wouldn’t so much as give it another thought,’ said Peggotty,
cheerily ‘if my Davy was anyways against it--not if I had been asked in
church thirty times three times over, and was wearing out the ring in my
pocket.’
‘Look at me, Peggotty,’ I replied; ‘and see if I am not really glad, and
don’t truly wish it!’ As indeed I did, with all my heart.
‘Well, my life,’ said Peggotty, giving me a squeeze, ‘I have thought of
it night and day, every way I can, and I hope the right way; but I’ll
think of it again, and speak to my brother about it, and in the meantime
we’ll keep it to ourselves, Davy, you and me. Barkis is a good plain
creature,’ said Peggotty, ‘and if I tried to do my duty by him, I think
it would be my fault if I wasn’t--if I wasn’t pretty comfortable,’
said Peggotty, laughing heartily. This quotation from Mr. Barkis was
so appropriate, and tickled us both so much, that we laughed again and
again, and were quite in a pleasant humour when we came within view of
Mr. Peggotty’s cottage.
It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a
little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she
had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed
in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about
me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the
same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same
state of conglomeration in the same old corner.
But there was no little Em’ly to be seen, so I asked Mr. Peggotty where
she was.
‘She’s at school, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent
on the porterage of Peggotty’s box from his forehead; ‘she’ll be home,’
looking at the Dutch clock, ‘in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour’s
time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!’
Mrs. Gummidge moaned.
‘Cheer up, Mawther!’ cried Mr. Peggotty.
‘I feel it more than anybody else,’ said Mrs. Gummidge; ‘I’m a lone
lorn creetur’, and she used to be a’most the only thing that didn’t go
contrary with me.’
Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head, applied herself to
blowing the fire. Mr. Peggotty, looking round upon us while she was so
engaged, said in a low voice, which he shaded with his hand: ‘The old
‘un!’ From this I rightly conjectured that no improvement had taken
place since my last visit in the state of Mrs. Gummidge’s spirits.
Now, the whole place was, or it should have been, quite as delightful
a place as ever; and yet it did not impress me in the same way. I felt
rather disappointed with it. Perhaps it was because little Em’ly was
not at home. I knew the way by which she would come, and presently found
myself strolling along the path to meet her.
A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be
Em’ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown.
But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her
dimpled face looking brighter, and her whole self prettier and gayer, a
curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and
pass by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done
such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken.
Little Em’ly didn’t care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead of
turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me
to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage
before I caught her.
‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said little Em’ly.
‘Why, you knew who it was, Em’ly,’ said I.
‘And didn’t YOU know who it was?’ said Em’ly. I was going to kiss her,
but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn’t a
baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house.
She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I
wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker
was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she
went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge: and on
Mr. Peggotty’s inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide
it, and could do nothing but laugh.
‘A little puss, it is!’ said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great
hand.
‘So sh’ is! so sh’ is!’ cried Ham. ‘Mas’r Davy bor’, so sh’ is!’ and he
sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration
and delight, that made his face a burning red.
Little Em’ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than
Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by
only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my
opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be
thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured,
and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that
she captivated me more than ever.
She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after
tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss
I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so
kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to her.
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his
hand like water, ‘here’s another orphan, you see, sir. And here,’ said
Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the chest, ‘is another of
‘em, though he don’t look much like it.’
‘If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, shaking my head,
‘I don’t think I should FEEL much like it.’
‘Well said, Mas’r Davy bor’!’ cried Ham, in an ecstasy. ‘Hoorah! Well
said! Nor more you wouldn’t! Hor! Hor!’--Here he returned Mr. Peggotty’s
back-hander, and little Em’ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. ‘And how’s
your friend, sir?’ said Mr. Peggotty to me.
‘Steerforth?’ said I.
‘That’s the name!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. ‘I knowed it was
something in our way.’
‘You said it was Rudderford,’ observed Ham, laughing.
‘Well!’ retorted Mr. Peggotty. ‘And ye steer with a rudder, don’t ye? It
ain’t fur off. How is he, sir?’
‘He was very well indeed when I came away, Mr. Peggotty.’
‘There’s a friend!’ said Mr. Peggotty, stretching out his pipe. ‘There’s
a friend, if you talk of friends! Why, Lord love my heart alive, if it
ain’t a treat to look at him!’
‘He is very handsome, is he not?’ said I, my heart warming with this
praise.
‘Handsome!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘He stands up to you like--like a--why I
don’t know what he don’t stand up to you like. He’s so bold!’
‘Yes! That’s just his character,’ said I. ‘He’s as brave as a lion, and
you can’t think how frank he is, Mr. Peggotty.’
‘And I do suppose, now,’ said Mr. Peggotty, looking at me through the
smoke of his pipe, ‘that in the way of book-larning he’d take the wind
out of a’most anything.’
‘Yes,’ said I, delighted; ‘he knows everything. He is astonishingly
clever.’
‘There’s a friend!’ murmured Mr. Peggotty, with a grave toss of his
head.
‘Nothing seems to cost him any trouble,’ said I. ‘He knows a task if he
only looks at it. He is the best cricketer you ever saw. He will give
you almost as many men as you like at draughts, and beat you easily.’
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘Of course
he will.’
‘He is such a speaker,’ I pursued, ‘that he can win anybody over; and I
don’t know what you’d say if you were to hear him sing, Mr. Peggotty.’
Mr. Peggotty gave his head another toss, as much as to say: ‘I have no
doubt of it.’
‘Then, he’s such a generous, fine, noble fellow,’ said I, quite carried
away by my favourite theme, ‘that it’s hardly possible to give him as
much praise as he deserves. I am sure I can never feel thankful enough
for the generosity with which he has protected me, so much younger and
lower in the school than himself.’
I was running on, very fast indeed, when my eyes rested on little
Em’ly’s face, which was bent forward over the table, listening with the
deepest attention, her breath held, her blue eyes sparkling like jewels,
and the colour mantling in her cheeks. She looked so extraordinarily
earnest and pretty, that I stopped in a sort of wonder; and they all
observed her at the same time, for as I stopped, they laughed and looked
at her.
‘Em’ly is like me,’ said Peggotty, ‘and would like to see him.’
Em’ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head,
and her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her
stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure
I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept
away till it was nearly bedtime.
I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind
came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not
help fancying, now, that it moaned of those who were gone; and instead
of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat
away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those
sounds, and drowned my happy home. I recollect, as the wind and water
began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my
prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Em’ly, and so
dropping lovingly asleep.
The days passed pretty much as they had passed before, except--it was
a great exception--that little Em’ly and I seldom wandered on the beach
now. She had tasks to learn, and needle-work to do; and was absent
during a great part of each day. But I felt that we should not have had
those old wanderings, even if it had been otherwise. Wild and full of
childish whims as Em’ly was, she was more of a little woman than I
had supposed. She seemed to have got a great distance away from me,
in little more than a year. She liked me, but she laughed at me, and
tormented me; and when I went to meet her, stole home another way, and
was laughing at the door when I came back, disappointed. The best times
were when she sat quietly at work in the doorway, and I sat on the
wooden step at her feet, reading to her. It seems to me, at this
hour, that I have never seen such sunlight as on those bright April
afternoons; that I have never seen such a sunny little figure as I used
to see, sitting in the doorway of the old boat; that I have never beheld
such sky, such water, such glorified ships sailing away into golden air.
On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in an
exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges
tied up in a handkerchief. As he made no allusion of any kind to this
property, he was supposed to have left it behind him by accident when
he went away; until Ham, running after him to restore it, came back with
the information that it was intended for Peggotty. After that occasion
he appeared every evening at exactly the same hour, and always with a
little bundle, to which he never alluded, and which he regularly put
behind the door and left there. These offerings of affection were of a
most various and eccentric description. Among them I remember a double
set of pigs’ trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of
apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes,
a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork.
Mr. Barkis’s wooing, as I remember it, was altogether of a peculiar
kind. He very seldom said anything; but would sit by the fire in much
the same attitude as he sat in his cart, and stare heavily at Peggotty,
who was opposite. One night, being, as I suppose, inspired by love, he
made a dart at the bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread, and put
it in his waistcoat-pocket and carried it off. After that, his great
delight was to produce it when it was wanted, sticking to the lining of
his pocket, in a partially melted state, and pocket it again when it was
done with. He seemed to enjoy himself very much, and not to feel at all
called upon to talk. Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the
flats, he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe; contenting himself
with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I
remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty would throw her
apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour. Indeed, we were
all more or less amused, except that miserable Mrs. Gummidge, whose
courtship would appear to have been of an exactly parallel nature, she
was so continually reminded by these transactions of the old one.
At length, when the term of my visit was nearly expired, it was given
out that Peggotty and Mr. Barkis were going to make a day’s holiday
together, and that little Em’ly and I were to accompany them. I had but
a broken sleep the night before, in anticipation of the pleasure of
a whole day with Em’ly. We were all astir betimes in the morning; and
while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Barkis appeared in the distance,
driving a chaise-cart towards the object of his affections.
Peggotty was dressed as usual, in her neat and quiet mourning; but Mr.
Barkis bloomed in a new blue coat, of which the tailor had given him
such good measure, that the cuffs would have rendered gloves unnecessary
in the coldest weather, while the collar was so high that it pushed his
hair up on end on the top of his head. His bright buttons, too, were
of the largest size. Rendered complete by drab pantaloons and a buff
waistcoat, I thought Mr. Barkis a phenomenon of respectability.
When we were all in a bustle outside the door, I found that Mr. Peggotty
was prepared with an old shoe, which was to be thrown after us for luck,
and which he offered to Mrs. Gummidge for that purpose.
‘No. It had better be done by somebody else, Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge.
‘I’m a lone lorn creetur’ myself, and everythink that reminds me of
creetur’s that ain’t lone and lorn, goes contrary with me.’
‘Come, old gal!’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘Take and heave it.’
‘No, Dan’l,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head.
‘If I felt less, I could do more. You don’t feel like me, Dan’l; thinks
don’t go contrary with you, nor you with them; you had better do it
yourself.’
But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a
hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we
all were by this time (Em’ly and I on two little chairs, side by side),
that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. Gummidge did it; and, I am sorry
to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by
immediately bursting into tears, and sinking subdued into the arms of
Ham, with the declaration that she knowed she was a burden, and had
better be carried to the House at once. Which I really thought was a
sensible idea, that Ham might have acted on.
Away we went, however, on our holiday excursion; and the first thing
we did was to stop at a church, where Mr. Barkis tied the horse to some
rails, and went in with Peggotty, leaving little Em’ly and me alone in
the chaise. I took that occasion to put my arm round Em’ly’s waist, and
propose that as I was going away so very soon now, we should determine
to be very affectionate to one another, and very happy, all day. Little
Em’ly consenting, and allowing me to kiss her, I became desperate;
informing her, I recollect, that I never could love another, and that
I was prepared to shed the blood of anybody who should aspire to her
affections.
How merry little Em’ly made herself about it! With what a demure
assumption of being immensely older and wiser than I, the fairy little
woman said I was ‘a silly boy’; and then laughed so charmingly that
I forgot the pain of being called by that disparaging name, in the
pleasure of looking at her.
Mr. Barkis and Peggotty were a good while in the church, but came out at
last, and then we drove away into the country. As we were going along,
Mr. Barkis turned to me, and said, with a wink,--by the by, I should
hardly have thought, before, that he could wink:
‘What name was it as I wrote up in the cart?’
‘Clara Peggotty,’ I answered.
‘What name would it be as I should write up now, if there was a tilt
here?’
‘Clara Peggotty, again?’ I suggested.
‘Clara Peggotty BARKIS!’ he returned, and burst into a roar of laughter
that shook the chaise.
In a word, they were married, and had gone into the church for no other
purpose. Peggotty was resolved that it should be quietly done; and
the clerk had given her away, and there had been no witnesses of the
ceremony. She was a little confused when Mr. Barkis made this abrupt
announcement of their union, and could not hug me enough in token of her
unimpaired affection; but she soon became herself again, and said she
was very glad it was over.
We drove to a little inn in a by-road, where we were expected, and
where we had a very comfortable dinner, and passed the day with great
satisfaction. If Peggotty had been married every day for the last ten
years, she could hardly have been more at her ease about it; it made no
sort of difference in her: she was just the same as ever, and went
out for a stroll with little Em’ly and me before tea, while Mr. Barkis
philosophically smoked his pipe, and enjoyed himself, I suppose, with
the contemplation of his happiness. If so, it sharpened his appetite;
for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of
pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he
was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large
quantity without any emotion.
I have often thought, since, what an odd, innocent, out-of-the-way kind
of wedding it must have been! We got into the chaise again soon after
dark, and drove cosily back, looking up at the stars, and talking about
them. I was their chief exponent, and opened Mr. Barkis’s mind to
an amazing extent. I told him all I knew, but he would have believed
anything I might have taken it into my head to impart to him; for he
had a profound veneration for my abilities, and informed his wife in my
hearing, on that very occasion, that I was ‘a young Roeshus’--by which I
think he meant prodigy.
When we had exhausted the subject of the stars, or rather when I had
exhausted the mental faculties of Mr. Barkis, little Em’ly and I made a
cloak of an old wrapper, and sat under it for the rest of the journey.
Ah, how I loved her! What happiness (I thought) if we were married,
and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields,
never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand
in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our
heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried
by the birds when we were dead! Some such picture, with no real world in
it, bright with the light of our innocence, and vague as the stars afar
off, was in my mind all the way. I am glad to think there were two such
guileless hearts at Peggotty’s marriage as little Em’ly’s and mine. I
am glad to think the Loves and Graces took such airy forms in its homely
procession.
Well, we came to the old boat again in good time at night; and there
Mr. and Mrs. Barkis bade us good-bye, and drove away snugly to their
own home. I felt then, for the first time, that I had lost Peggotty. I
should have gone to bed with a sore heart indeed under any other roof
but that which sheltered little Em’ly’s head.
Mr. Peggotty and Ham knew what was in my thoughts as well as I did, and
were ready with some supper and their hospitable faces to drive it away.
Little Em’ly came and sat beside me on the locker for the only time in
all that visit; and it was altogether a wonderful close to a wonderful
day.
It was a night tide; and soon after we went to bed, Mr. Peggotty and Ham
went out to fish. I felt very brave at being left alone in the solitary
house, the protector of Em’ly and Mrs. Gummidge, and only wished that
a lion or a serpent, or any ill-disposed monster, would make an attack
upon us, that I might destroy him, and cover myself with glory. But as
nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that
night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons
until morning.
With morning came Peggotty; who called to me, as usual, under my window
as if Mr. Barkis the carrier had been from first to last a dream too.
After breakfast she took me to her own home, and a beautiful little
home it was. Of all the moveables in it, I must have been impressed by
a certain old bureau of some dark wood in the parlour (the tile-floored
kitchen was the general sitting-room), with a retreating top which
opened, let down, and became a desk, within which was a large quarto
edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. This precious volume, of which I do
not recollect one word, I immediately discovered and immediately applied
myself to; and I never visited the house afterwards, but I kneeled on
a chair, opened the casket where this gem was enshrined, spread my arms
over the desk, and fell to devouring the book afresh. I was chiefly
edified, I am afraid, by the pictures, which were numerous, and
represented all kinds of dismal horrors; but the Martyrs and Peggotty’s
house have been inseparable in my mind ever since, and are now.
I took leave of Mr. Peggotty, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge, and little
Em’ly, that day; and passed the night at Peggotty’s, in a little room
in the roof (with the Crocodile Book on a shelf by the bed’s head) which
was to be always mine, Peggotty said, and should always be kept for me
in exactly the same state.
‘Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over
my head,’ said Peggotty, ‘you shall find it as if I expected you here
directly minute. I shall keep it every day, as I used to keep your old
little room, my darling; and if you was to go to China, you might think
of it as being kept just the same, all the time you were away.’
I felt the truth and constancy of my dear old nurse, with all my heart,
and thanked her as well as I could. That was not very well, for she
spoke to me thus, with her arms round my neck, in the morning, and I was
going home in the morning, and I went home in the morning, with herself
and Mr. Barkis in the cart. They left me at the gate, not easily or
lightly; and it was a strange sight to me to see the cart go on, taking
Peggotty away, and leaving me under the old elm-trees looking at the
house, in which there was no face to look on mine with love or liking
any more.
And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I cannot look back upon
without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition,--apart
from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of
my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless
thoughts,--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write.
What would I have given, to have been sent to the hardest school that
ever was kept!--to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No
such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me; and they sullenly, sternly,
steadily, overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone’s means were straitened
at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear
me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the
notion that I had any claim upon him--and succeeded.
I was not actively ill-used. I was not beaten, or starved; but the wrong
that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a
systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month
after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think
of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness;
whether I should have lain down in my lonely room, and languished
through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have
helped me out.
When Mr. and Miss Murdstone were at home, I took my meals with them; in
their absence, I ate and drank by myself. At all times I lounged about
the house and neighbourhood quite disregarded, except that they were
jealous of my making any friends: thinking, perhaps, that if I did, I
might complain to someone. For this reason, though Mr. Chillip often
asked me to go and see him (he was a widower, having, some years before
that, lost a little small light-haired wife, whom I can just remember
connecting in my own thoughts with a pale tortoise-shell cat), it was
but seldom that I enjoyed the happiness of passing an afternoon in his
closet of a surgery; reading some book that was new to me, with
the smell of the whole Pharmacopoeia coming up my nose, or pounding
something in a mortar under his mild directions.
For the same reason, added no doubt to the old dislike of her, I was
seldom allowed to visit Peggotty. Faithful to her promise, she either
came to see me, or met me somewhere near, once every week, and never
empty-handed; but many and bitter were the disappointments I had, in
being refused permission to pay a visit to her at her house. Some few
times, however, at long intervals, I was allowed to go there; and then
I found out that Mr. Barkis was something of a miser, or as Peggotty
dutifully expressed it, was ‘a little near’, and kept a heap of money
in a box under his bed, which he pretended was only full of coats
and trousers. In this coffer, his riches hid themselves with such a
tenacious modesty, that the smallest instalments could only be tempted
out by artifice; so that Peggotty had to prepare a long and elaborate
scheme, a very Gunpowder Plot, for every Saturday’s expenses.
All this time I was so conscious of the waste of any promise I had
given, and of my being utterly neglected, that I should have been
perfectly miserable, I have no doubt, but for the old books. They were
my only comfort; and I was as true to them as they were to me, and read
them over and over I don’t know how many times more.
I now approach a period of my life, which I can never lose the
remembrance of, while I remember anything: and the recollection of
which has often, without my invocation, come before me like a ghost, and
haunted happier times.
I had been out, one day, loitering somewhere, in the listless,
meditative manner that my way of life engendered, when, turning the
corner of a lane near our house, I came upon Mr. Murdstone walking with
a gentleman. I was confused, and was going by them, when the gentleman
cried:
‘What! Brooks!’
‘No, sir, David Copperfield,’ I said.
‘Don’t tell me. You are Brooks,’ said the gentleman. ‘You are Brooks of
Sheffield. That’s your name.’
At these words, I observed the gentleman more attentively. His laugh
coming to my remembrance too, I knew him to be Mr. Quinion, whom I
had gone over to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to see, before--it is no
matter--I need not recall when.
‘And how do you get on, and where are you being educated, Brooks?’ said
Mr. Quinion.
He had put his hand upon my shoulder, and turned me about, to walk
with them. I did not know what to reply, and glanced dubiously at Mr.
Murdstone.
‘He is at home at present,’ said the latter. ‘He is not being educated
anywhere. I don’t know what to do with him. He is a difficult subject.’
That old, double look was on me for a moment; and then his eyes darkened
with a frown, as it turned, in its aversion, elsewhere.
‘Humph!’ said Mr. Quinion, looking at us both, I thought. ‘Fine
weather!’
Silence ensued, and I was considering how I could best disengage my
shoulder from his hand, and go away, when he said:
‘I suppose you are a pretty sharp fellow still? Eh, Brooks?’
‘Aye! He is sharp enough,’ said Mr. Murdstone, impatiently. ‘You had
better let him go. He will not thank you for troubling him.’
On this hint, Mr. Quinion released me, and I made the best of my
way home. Looking back as I turned into the front garden, I saw Mr.
Murdstone leaning against the wicket of the churchyard, and Mr. Quinion
talking to him. They were both looking after me, and I felt that they
were speaking of me.
Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. After breakfast, the next
morning, I had put my chair away, and was going out of the room, when
Mr. Murdstone called me back. He then gravely repaired to another table,
where his sister sat herself at her desk. Mr. Quinion, with his hands
in his pockets, stood looking out of window; and I stood looking at them
all.
‘David,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘to the young this is a world for action;
not for moping and droning in.’ --‘As you do,’ added his sister.
‘Jane Murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. I say, David, to the
young this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. It
is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a
great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done
than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to
bend it and break it.’
‘For stubbornness won’t do here,’ said his sister ‘What it wants is, to
be crushed. And crushed it must be. Shall be, too!’
He gave her a look, half in remonstrance, half in approval, and went on:
‘I suppose you know, David, that I am not rich. At any rate, you know it
now. You have received some considerable education already. Education is
costly; and even if it were not, and I could afford it, I am of opinion
that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at school.
What is before you, is a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin
it, the better.’
I think it occurred to me that I had already begun it, in my poor way:
but it occurs to me now, whether or no.
‘You have heard the “counting-house” mentioned sometimes,’ said Mr.
Murdstone.
‘The counting-house, sir?’ I repeated. ‘Of Murdstone and Grinby, in the
wine trade,’ he replied.
I suppose I looked uncertain, for he went on hastily:
‘You have heard the “counting-house” mentioned, or the business, or the
cellars, or the wharf, or something about it.’
‘I think I have heard the business mentioned, sir,’ I said, remembering
what I vaguely knew of his and his sister’s resources. ‘But I don’t know
when.’
‘It does not matter when,’ he returned. ‘Mr. Quinion manages that
business.’
I glanced at the latter deferentially as he stood looking out of window.
‘Mr. Quinion suggests that it gives employment to some other boys,
and that he sees no reason why it shouldn’t, on the same terms, give
employment to you.’
‘He having,’ Mr. Quinion observed in a low voice, and half turning
round, ‘no other prospect, Murdstone.’
Mr. Murdstone, with an impatient, even an angry gesture, resumed,
without noticing what he had said:
‘Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for
your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have
arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--’
‘--Which will be kept down to my estimate,’ said his sister.
‘Your clothes will be looked after for you, too,’ said Mr. Murdstone;
‘as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you
are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on
your own account.’
‘In short, you are provided for,’ observed his sister; ‘and will please
to do your duty.’
Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was
to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased
or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion
about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor
had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to
go upon the morrow.
Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black
crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard, stiff
corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for
the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off. Behold
me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small
trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said),
in the post-chaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at
Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance;
how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects;
how the spire points upwards from my old playground no more, and the sky
is empty!
CHAPTER 11. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON’T LIKE IT
I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of
being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to
me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age.
A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation,
quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems
wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But
none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind
in the service of Murdstone and Grinby.
Murdstone and Grinby’s warehouse was at the waterside. It was down in
Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the
last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the
river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a
crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the
tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun
with rats. Its panelled rooms, discoloured with the dirt and smoke of
a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the
squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and
the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago,
in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as
they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time,
with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion’s.
Murdstone and Grinby’s trade was among a good many kinds of people, but
an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain
packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there
were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies.
I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of
this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine
them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse
and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be
pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put
upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work
was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one.
There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was
established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see
me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the
counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither,
on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own
account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my
business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a
paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in
a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor’s Show. He also informed me
that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by
the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however,
that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had
been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion,
which was pale or mealy. Mealy’s father was a waterman, who had the
additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at
one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy’s--I think
his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes.
No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this
companionship; compared these henceforth everyday associates with those
of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the
rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned
and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the
sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in
my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day
by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my
fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little,
never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick
Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with
the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there
were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting.
The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was
general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the
counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and
found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black
tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large
one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very
extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby,
but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a
stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass
hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very
seldom looked through it, and couldn’t see anything when he did.
‘This,’ said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, ‘is he.’
‘This,’ said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his
voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which
impressed me very much, ‘is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well,
sir?’
I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at
ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that
time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was.
‘I am,’ said the stranger, ‘thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a
letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire
me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at
present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short,’
said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, ‘as a
bedroom--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--’ and the
stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt-collar.
‘This is Mr. Micawber,’ said Mr. Quinion to me.
‘Ahem!’ said the stranger, ‘that is my name.’
‘Mr. Micawber,’ said Mr. Quinion, ‘is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes
orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to
by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive
you as a lodger.’
‘My address,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in
short,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another
burst of confidence--‘I live there.’
I made him a bow.
‘Under the impression,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘that your peregrinations in
this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have
some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the
direction of the City Road,--in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in another
burst of confidence, ‘that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to
call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.’
I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to
take that trouble.
‘At what hour,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘shall I--’
‘At about eight,’ said Mr. Quinion.
‘At about eight,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘I beg to wish you good day, Mr.
Quinion. I will intrude no longer.’
So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very
upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house.
Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in
the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six
shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am
inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six
at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own
pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my
trunk carried to Windsor Terrace that night: it being too heavy for my
strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was
a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which
was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets.
At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed
my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we
walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr.
Micawber impressing the name of streets, and the shapes of corner houses
upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the
morning.
Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby
like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he
presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all
young, who was sitting in the parlour (the first floor was altogether
unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbours),
with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of twins; and I may remark
here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of the family, saw both
the twins detached from Mrs. Micawber at the same time. One of them was
always taking refreshment.
There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four, and
Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a dark-complexioned young
woman, with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, and
informed me, before half an hour had expired, that she was ‘a Orfling’,
and came from St. Luke’s workhouse, in the neighbourhood, completed the
establishment. My room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close
chamber; stencilled all over with an ornament which my young imagination
represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished.
‘I never thought,’ said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and all,
to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, ‘before I was
married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever find it
necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all
considerations of private feeling must give way.’
I said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Mr. Micawber’s difficulties are almost overwhelming just at present,’
said Mrs. Micawber; ‘and whether it is possible to bring him through
them, I don’t know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, I really
should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which
I now employ it, but experientia does it,--as papa used to say.’
I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had been
an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I only know
that I believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines once upon a time,
without knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller for a number
of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little or nothing of it, I am
afraid.
‘If Mr. Micawber’s creditors will not give him time,’ said Mrs.
Micawber, ‘they must take the consequences; and the sooner they bring it
to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither
can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law
expenses) from Mr. Micawber.’
I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence
confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so
full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very
twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was
the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time
I knew her.
Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself, and so,
I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street door was perfectly
covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved ‘Mrs. Micawber’s
Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies’: but I never found that any
young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever
came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made
to receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw, or heard of,
were creditors. THEY used to come at all hours, and some of them were
quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a boot-maker,
used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o’clock in the
morning, and call up the stairs to Mr. Micawber--‘Come! You ain’t out
yet, you know. Pay us, will you? Don’t hide, you know; that’s mean. I
wouldn’t be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, d’ye
hear? Come!’ Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in
his wrath to the words ‘swindlers’ and ‘robbers’; and these being
ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the
street, and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he knew
Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. Micawber would be transported with
grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once made aware by
a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor;
but within half-an-hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with
extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of
gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known
her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king’s taxes at three
o’clock, and to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for
with two tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker’s) at four. On one
occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home through
some chance as early as six o’clock, I saw her lying (of course with a
twin) under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face;
but I never knew her more cheerful than she was, that very same night,
over a veal cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her
papa and mama, and the company they used to keep.
In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time. My own
exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I provided
myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a
particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my supper on when I
came back at night. This made a hole in the six or seven shillings, I
know well; and I was out at the warehouse all day, and had to support
myself on that money all the week. From Monday morning until Saturday
night, I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation,
no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to
mind, as I hope to go to heaven!
I was so young and childish, and so little qualified--how could I be
otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that
often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby’s, of a morning, I could
not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at the
pastrycooks’ doors, and spent in that the money I should have kept for
my dinner. Then, I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice
of pudding. I remember two pudding shops, between which I was divided,
according to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin’s
Church--at the back of the church,--which is now removed altogether.
The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special
pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth
of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the
Strand--somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a
stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it,
stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time
every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and
handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a fourpenny plate of
red beef from a cook’s shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and a
glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of
business, called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have
forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which I had brought
from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper,
like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane,
and ordering a ‘small plate’ of that delicacy to eat with it. What the
waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone,
I don’t know; but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner,
and bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for
himself, and I wish he hadn’t taken it.
We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used
to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter.
When I had none, I used to look at a venison shop in Fleet Street; or
I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent Garden Market, and
stared at the pineapples. I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi,
because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself
emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house
close to the river, with an open space before it, where some
coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom I sat down upon a bench. I
wonder what they thought of me!
I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the
bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten
what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember
one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the
landlord: ‘What is your best--your very best--ale a glass?’ For it was a
special occasion. I don’t know what. It may have been my birthday.
‘Twopence-halfpenny,’ says the landlord, ‘is the price of the Genuine
Stunning ale.’
‘Then,’ says I, producing the money, ‘just draw me a glass of the
Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.’
The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot,
with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer,
looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She came out
from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying
me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord in his
shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife looking
over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them
from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions; as,
what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed,
and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I
invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers. They served me with the ale,
though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord’s
wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave
me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half
compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.
I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the
scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know that
if a shilling were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I spent it in
a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked, from morning until night, with
common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the
streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for
the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken
of me, a little robber or a little vagabond.
Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby’s too. Besides that Mr.
Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so
anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from the
rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it was that I came to be there,
or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was there. That I
suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew
but I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly
beyond my power to tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work.
I knew from the first, that, if I could not do my work as well as any
of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon
became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the other
boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manner were
different enough from theirs to place a space between us. They and
the men generally spoke of me as ‘the little gent’, or ‘the young
Suffolker.’ A certain man named Gregory, who was foreman of the packers,
and another named Tipp, who was the carman, and wore a red jacket, used
to address me sometimes as ‘David’: but I think it was mostly when we
were very confidential, and when I had made some efforts to entertain
them, over our work, with some results of the old readings; which were
fast perishing out of my remembrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and
rebelled against my being so distinguished; but Mick Walker settled him
in no time.
My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and
abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that I never for
one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy;
but I bore it; and even to Peggotty, partly for the love of her and
partly for shame, never in any letter (though many passed between us)
revealed the truth.
Mr. Micawber’s difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of
my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and
used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber’s calculations of ways and
means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber’s debts. On a Saturday
night, which was my grand treat,--partly because it was a great thing
to walk home with six or seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the
shops and thinking what such a sum would buy, and partly because I went
home early,--Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences
to me; also on a Sunday morning, when I mixed the portion of tea or
coffee I had bought over-night, in a little shaving-pot, and sat late
at my breakfast. It was nothing at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to sob
violently at the beginning of one of these Saturday night conversations,
and sing about Jack’s delight being his lovely Nan, towards the end of
it. I have known him come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a
declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed making a
calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, ‘in
case anything turned up’, which was his favourite expression. And Mrs.
Micawber was just the same.
A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our
respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people,
notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never
allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat and
drink with them out of their stock (knowing that they got on badly with
the butcher and baker, and had often not too much for themselves),
until Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire confidence. This she did one
evening as follows:
‘Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I make no stranger of you,
and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber’s difficulties
are coming to a crisis.’
It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. Micawber’s
red eyes with the utmost sympathy.
‘With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese--which is not adapted
to the wants of a young family’--said Mrs. Micawber, ‘there is really
not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was accustomed to speak of
the larder when I lived with papa and mama, and I use the word almost
unconsciously. What I mean to express is, that there is nothing to eat
in the house.’
‘Dear me!’ I said, in great concern.
I had two or three shillings of my week’s money in my pocket--from which
I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we held this
conversation--and I hastily produced them, and with heartfelt emotion
begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan. But that lady, kissing
me, and making me put them back in my pocket, replied that she couldn’t
think of it.
‘No, my dear Master Copperfield,’ said she, ‘far be it from my thoughts!
But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render me another
kind of service, if you will; and a service I will thankfully accept
of.’
I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it.
‘I have parted with the plate myself,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘Six tea, two
salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times borrowed money on,
in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great tie; and to me,
with my recollections, of papa and mama, these transactions are very
painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part with. Mr.
Micawber’s feelings would never allow him to dispose of them; and
Clickett’--this was the girl from the workhouse--‘being of a vulgar
mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence was reposed in
her. Master Copperfield, if I might ask you--’
I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to any
extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles of property
that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition almost every
morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby’s.
Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he called the
library; and those went first. I carried them, one after another, to
a bookstall in the City Road--one part of which, near our house, was
almost all bookstalls and bird shops then--and sold them for whatever
they would bring. The keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little
house behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be violently
scolded by his wife every morning. More than once, when I went there
early, I had audience of him in a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his
forehead or a black eye, bearing witness to his excesses over-night (I
am afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink), and he, with a shaking
hand, endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the
pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife, with a
baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off rating him.
Sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask me to call again;
but his wife had always got some--had taken his, I dare say, while he
was drunk--and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went
down together. At the pawnbroker’s shop, too, I began to be very well
known. The principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took
a good deal of notice of me; and often got me, I recollect, to decline a
Latin noun or adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb, in his ear, while
he transacted my business. After all these occasions Mrs. Micawber made
a little treat, which was generally a supper; and there was a peculiar
relish in these meals which I well remember.
At last Mr. Micawber’s difficulties came to a crisis, and he was
arrested early one morning, and carried over to the King’s Bench Prison
in the Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house, that the God
of day had now gone down upon him--and I really thought his heart was
broken and mine too. But I heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a
lively game at skittles, before noon.
On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and see him,
and have dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a place, and just
short of that place I should see such another place, and just short of
that I should see a yard, which I was to cross, and keep straight on
until I saw a turnkey. All this I did; and when at last I did see a
turnkey (poor little fellow that I was!), and thought how, when Roderick
Random was in a debtors’ prison, there was a man there with nothing
on him but an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my
beating heart.
Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his
room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly conjured me,
I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man
had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds
nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he
spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After which he borrowed a
shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for
the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up.
We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted
grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until
another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came in from the
bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our joint-stock repast.
Then I was sent up to ‘Captain Hopkins’ in the room overhead, with Mr.
Micawber’s compliments, and I was his young friend, and would Captain
Hopkins lend me a knife and fork.
Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to Mr.
Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two wan
girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought it was better
to borrow Captain Hopkins’s knife and fork, than Captain Hopkins’s comb.
The Captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with large
whiskers, and an old, old brown great-coat with no other coat below it.
I saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots
he had, on a shelf; and I divined (God knows how) that though the two
girls with the shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins’s children, the
dirty lady was not married to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his
threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; but
I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as the knife
and fork were in my hand.
There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after all.
I took back Captain Hopkins’s knife and fork early in the afternoon,
and went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account of my visit.
She fainted when she saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot
afterwards to console us while we talked it over.
I don’t know how the household furniture came to be sold for the family
benefit, or who sold it, except that I did not. Sold it was, however,
and carried away in a van; except the bed, a few chairs, and the kitchen
table. With these possessions we encamped, as it were, in the two
parlours of the emptied house in Windsor Terrace; Mrs. Micawber, the
children, the Orfling, and myself; and lived in those rooms night and
day. I have no idea for how long, though it seems to me for a long
time. At last Mrs. Micawber resolved to move into the prison, where Mr.
Micawber had now secured a room to himself. So I took the key of the
house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the beds were
sent over to the King’s Bench, except mine, for which a little room was
hired outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that Institution, very
much to my satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too used
to one another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was likewise
accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same neighbourhood.
Mine was a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant
prospect of a timberyard; and when I took possession of it, with the
reflection that Mr. Micawber’s troubles had come to a crisis at last, I
thought it quite a paradise.
All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby’s in the same common
way, and with the same common companions, and with the same sense of
unmerited degradation as at first. But I never, happily for me no doubt,
made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the many boys whom I
saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming from it, and in prowling
about the streets at meal-times. I led the same secretly unhappy life;
but I led it in the same lonely, self-reliant manner. The only changes
I am conscious of are, firstly, that I had grown more shabby, and
secondly, that I was now relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber’s cares; for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them
at their present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison
than they had lived for a long while out of it. I used to breakfast with
them now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have forgotten
the details. I forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the
morning, admitting of my going in; but I know that I was often up at six
o’clock, and that my favourite lounging-place in the interval was old
London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses,
watching the people going by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun
shining in the water, and lighting up the golden flame on the top of the
Monument. The Orfling met me here sometimes, to be told some astonishing
fictions respecting the wharves and the Tower; of which I can say no
more than that I hope I believed them myself. In the evening I used
to go back to the prison, and walk up and down the parade with Mr.
Micawber; or play casino with Mrs. Micawber, and hear reminiscences of
her papa and mama. Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I am unable
to say. I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby’s.
Mr. Micawber’s affairs, although past their crisis, were very much
involved by reason of a certain ‘Deed’, of which I used to hear a great
deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former composition
with his creditors, though I was so far from being clear about it
then, that I am conscious of having confounded it with those demoniacal
parchments which are held to have, once upon a time, obtained to a great
extent in Germany. At last this document appeared to be got out of the
way, somehow; at all events it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been;
and Mrs. Micawber informed me that ‘her family’ had decided that Mr.
Micawber should apply for his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act,
which would set him free, she expected, in about six weeks.
‘And then,’ said Mr. Micawber, who was present, ‘I have no doubt I
shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to live
in a perfectly new manner, if--in short, if anything turns up.’
By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I call to
mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the
House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment
for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to
myself of the manner in which I fitted my old books to my altered life,
and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and out of men and
women; and how some main points in the character I shall unconsciously
develop, I suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all this
while.
There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a gentleman,
was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea of this petition
to the club, and the club had strongly approved of the same. Wherefore
Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a
creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never
so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any
profit to him) set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it
on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a
time for all the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come
up to his room and sign it.
When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see them
all come in, one after another, though I knew the greater part of
them already, and they me, that I got an hour’s leave of absence from
Murdstone and Grinby’s, and established myself in a corner for that
purpose. As many of the principal members of the club as could be got
into the small room without filling it, supported Mr. Micawber in front
of the petition, while my old friend Captain Hopkins (who had washed
himself, to do honour to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close
to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. The
door was then thrown open, and the general population began to come in,
in a long file: several waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his
signature, and went out. To everybody in succession, Captain Hopkins
said: ‘Have you read it?’--‘No.’---‘Would you like to hear it read?’ If
he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain Hopkins, in
a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain would
have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have
heard him, one by one. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to
such phrases as ‘The people’s representatives in Parliament assembled,’
‘Your petitioners therefore humbly approach your honourable house,’ ‘His
gracious Majesty’s unfortunate subjects,’ as if the words were something
real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; Mr. Micawber, meanwhile,
listening with a little of an author’s vanity, and contemplating (not
severely) the spikes on the opposite wall.
As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars, and
lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which
may, for anything I know, be worn at this moment by my childish feet, I
wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used to
come filing before me in review again, to the echo of Captain Hopkins’s
voice! When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, I
wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a
mist of fancy over well-remembered facts! When I tread the old ground,
I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an
innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange
experiences and sordid things!
CHAPTER 12. LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION
In due time, Mr. Micawber’s petition was ripe for hearing; and that
gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great joy.
His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that
even the revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court that he bore
him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid.
He said he thought it was human nature.
Mr. Micawber returned to the King’s Bench when his case was over, as
some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he
could be actually released. The club received him with transport, and
held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honour; while Mrs. Micawber
and I had a lamb’s fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family.
‘On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs.
Micawber, ‘in a little more flip,’ for we had been having some already,
‘the memory of my papa and mama.’
‘Are they dead, ma’am?’ I inquired, after drinking the toast in a
wine-glass.
‘My mama departed this life,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘before Mr. Micawber’s
difficulties commenced, or at least before they became pressing. My papa
lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and then expired, regretted by
a numerous circle.’
Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who
happened to be in hand.
As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a
question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber:
‘May I ask, ma’am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that Mr.
Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you settled
yet?’
‘My family,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words with an
air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, ‘my
family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert
his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent,
Master Copperfield.’
I said I was sure of that.
‘Of great talent,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber. ‘My family are of opinion,
that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his
ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it
is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think
it indispensable that he should be upon the spot.’
‘That he may be ready?’ I suggested.
‘Exactly,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘That he may be ready--in case of
anything turning up.’
‘And do you go too, ma’am?’
The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the
flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she
replied:
‘I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed his
difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper may
have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl necklace
and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been disposed of for
less than half their value; and the set of coral, which was the wedding
gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. But I never
will desert Mr. Micawber. No!’ cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than
before, ‘I never will do it! It’s of no use asking me!’
I felt quite uncomfortable--as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked her
to do anything of the sort!--and sat looking at her in alarm.
‘Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. I
do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his
liabilities both,’ she went on, looking at the wall; ‘but I never will
desert Mr. Micawber!’
Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I
was so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed Mr.
Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading the chorus
of
Gee up, Dobbin,
Gee ho, Dobbin,
Gee up, Dobbin,
Gee up, and gee ho--o--o!
with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon
which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with his
waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he had been
partaking.
‘Emma, my angel!’ cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; ‘what is
the matter?’
‘I never will desert you, Micawber!’ she exclaimed.
‘My life!’ said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. ‘I am perfectly
aware of it.’
‘He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins! He is
the husband of my affections,’ cried Mrs. Micawber, struggling; ‘and I
ne--ver--will--desert Mr. Micawber!’
Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion (as
to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a passionate
manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But the more he asked
Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing;
and the more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn’t.
Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome, that he mingled his
tears with hers and mine; until he begged me to do him the favour of
taking a chair on the staircase, while he got her into bed. I would have
taken my leave for the night, but he would not hear of my doing that
until the strangers’ bell should ring. So I sat at the staircase window,
until he came out with another chair and joined me.
‘How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?’ I said.
‘Very low,’ said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; ‘reaction. Ah, this has
been a dreadful day! We stand alone now--everything is gone from us!’
Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed tears.
I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had expected that we
should be quite gay on this happy and long-looked-for occasion. But Mr.
and Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that
they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were
released from them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw
them half so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell
rang, and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me
there with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he
was so profoundly miserable.
But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we had
been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that Mr. and
Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London, and that a
parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk home that night,
and in the sleepless hours which followed when I lay in bed, that the
thought first occurred to me--though I don’t know how it came into my
head--which afterwards shaped itself into a settled resolution.
I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so
intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendless
without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for
a lodging, and going once more among unknown people, was like being that
moment turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of it
ready made as experience had given me. All the sensitive feelings it
wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within my
breast, became more poignant as I thought of this; and I determined that
the life was unendurable.
That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my own
act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone, and never
from Mr. Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or mended clothes
had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there was
a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D. C. was applying
himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to his duties--not the
least hint of my ever being anything else than the common drudge into
which I was fast settling down.
The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agitation of
what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not spoken of their going
away without warrant. They took a lodging in the house where I lived,
for a week; at the expiration of which time they were to start for
Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting-house, in the
afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish me on the day
of his departure, and to give me a high character, which I am sure I
deserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in Tipp the carman, who was a married
man, and had a room to let, quartered me prospectively on him--by our
mutual consent, as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing,
though my resolution was now taken.
I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the remaining
term of our residence under the same roof; and I think we became fonder
of one another as the time went on. On the last Sunday, they invited me
to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce, and a pudding. I
had bought a spotted wooden horse over-night as a parting gift to little
Wilkins Micawber--that was the boy--and a doll for little Emma. I had
also bestowed a shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded.
We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about
our approaching separation.
‘I shall never, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘revert to the
period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking of
you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging
description. You have never been a lodger. You have been a friend.’
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber; ‘Copperfield,’ for so he had been
accustomed to call me, of late, ‘has a heart to feel for the distresses
of his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud, and a head to
plan, and a hand to--in short, a general ability to dispose of such
available property as could be made away with.’
I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very sorry we
were going to lose one another.
‘My dear young friend,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I am older than you; a man
of some experience in life, and--and of some experience, in short, in
difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns
up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow
but advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that--in short, that
I have never taken it myself, and am the’--here Mr. Micawber, who had
been beaming and smiling, all over his head and face, up to the present
moment, checked himself and frowned--‘the miserable wretch you behold.’
‘My dear Micawber!’ urged his wife.
‘I say,’ returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling
again, ‘the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do tomorrow
what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar
him!’
‘My poor papa’s maxim,’ Mrs. Micawber observed.
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘your papa was very well in his way, and
Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in all, we
ne’er shall--in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else
possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to
read the same description of print, without spectacles. But he applied
that maxim to our marriage, my dear; and that was so far prematurely
entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense.’ Mr.
Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added: ‘Not that I am sorry
for it. Quite the contrary, my love.’ After which, he was grave for a
minute or so.
‘My other piece of advice, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you know.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and
six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure
twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted,
the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene,
and--and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!’
To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of
punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the
College Hornpipe.
I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my
mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time, they
affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach
office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside,
at the back.
‘Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘God bless you! I never can
forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.’
‘Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘farewell! Every happiness and
prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade
myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel
that I had not occupied another man’s place in existence altogether in
vain. In case of anything turning up (of which I am rather confident),
I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your
prospects.’
I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the
children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist
cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really was.
I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with quite a new and
motherly expression in her face, and put her arm round my neck, and gave
me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I had barely
time to get down again before the coach started, and I could hardly see
the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute.
The Orfling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle
of the road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back,
I suppose, to St. Luke’s workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day at
Murdstone and Grinby’s.
But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No. I had
resolved to run away.---To go, by some means or other, down into the
country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell my story to
my aunt, Miss Betsey. I have already observed that I don’t know how this
desperate idea came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there;
and hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more
determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed there
was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made up that it
must be carried into execution.
Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when the
thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone over
that old story of my poor mother’s about my birth, which it had been one
of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew
by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread
and awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviour
which I liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of
encouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that she
felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though it
might have been altogether my mother’s fancy, and might have had no
foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of my
terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so
well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very
possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually
engendered my determination.
As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letter
to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretending
that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at
random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course
of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for
half a guinea; and that if she could lend me that sum until I could
repay it, I should be very much obliged to her, and would tell her
afterwards what I had wanted it for.
Peggotty’s answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate
devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have had
a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis’s box), and told me that
Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe,
Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say. One of our men, however,
informing me on my asking him about these places, that they were all
close together, I deemed this enough for my object, and resolved to set
out at the end of that week.
Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the
memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby’s, I
considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I had
been paid a week’s wages in advance when I first came there, not to
present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my
stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, that
I might not be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. Accordingly,
when the Saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehouse
to be paid, and Tipp the carman, who always took precedence, went in
first to draw his money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him,
when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had
gone to move my box to Tipp’s; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy
Potatoes, ran away.
My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a
direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed
on the casks: ‘Master David, to be left till called for, at the Coach
Office, Dover.’ This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I
should have got it out of the house; and as I went towards my lodging,
I looked about me for someone who would help me to carry it to the
booking-office.
There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart,
standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road, whose eye I caught
as I was going by, and who, addressing me as ‘Sixpenn’orth of bad
ha’pence,’ hoped ‘I should know him agin to swear to’--in allusion, I
have no doubt, to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him that I had
not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might or might not
like a job.
‘Wot job?’ said the long-legged young man.
‘To move a box,’ I answered.
‘Wot box?’ said the long-legged young man.
I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I wanted
him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence.
‘Done with you for a tanner!’ said the long-legged young man, and
directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden tray on
wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as much as I could
do to keep pace with the donkey.
There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about
the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I did not much
like; as the bargain was made, however, I took him upstairs to the room
I was leaving, and we brought the box down, and put it on his cart.
Now, I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of my
landlord’s family should fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so
I said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for a
minute, when he came to the dead-wall of the King’s Bench prison. The
words were no sooner out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my
box, the cart, and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite out
of breath with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the
place appointed.
Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my
pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety, and
though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very
much to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked under the
chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea fly out of my
mouth into his hand.
‘Wot!’ said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a
frightful grin. ‘This is a pollis case, is it? You’re a-going to bolt,
are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis!’
‘You give me my money back, if you please,’ said I, very much
frightened; ‘and leave me alone.’
‘Come to the pollis!’ said the young man. ‘You shall prove it yourn to
the pollis.’
‘Give me my box and money, will you,’ I cried, bursting into tears.
The young man still replied: ‘Come to the pollis!’ and was dragging me
against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity
between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped
into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to
the pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever.
I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out
with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowly
escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now I
lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip,
now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into
somebody’s arms, now running headlong at a post. At length, confused by
fright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this time
be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where
he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never
stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on
the Dover Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the
retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the
night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage.
CHAPTER 13. THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION
For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all the
way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with the
donkey-cart, and started for Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon
collected as to that point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent
Road, at a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish
image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on a doorstep,
quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had already made, and with
hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box and half-guinea.
It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I sat
resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine weather. When
I had recovered my breath, and had got rid of a stifling sensation in
my throat, I rose up and went on. In the midst of my distress, I had no
notion of going back. I doubt if I should have had any, though there had
been a Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road.
But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in the world (and I
am sure I wonder how they came to be left in my pocket on a Saturday
night!) troubled me none the less because I went on. I began to picture
to myself, as a scrap of newspaper intelligence, my being found dead in
a day or two, under some hedge; and I trudged on miserably, though as
fast as I could, until I happened to pass a little shop, where it was
written up that ladies’ and gentlemen’s wardrobes were bought, and that
the best price was given for rags, bones, and kitchen-stuff. The master
of this shop was sitting at the door in his shirt-sleeves, smoking; and
as there were a great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling from
the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show
what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful
disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself.
My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that here
might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. I went up
the next by-street, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my
arm, and came back to the shop door.
‘If you please, sir,’ I said, ‘I am to sell this for a fair price.’
Mr. Dolloby--Dolloby was the name over the shop door, at least--took the
waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head, against the door-post, went into
the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers,
spread the waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up
against the light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said:
‘What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit?’
‘Oh! you know best, sir,’ I returned modestly.
‘I can’t be buyer and seller too,’ said Mr. Dolloby. ‘Put a price on
this here little weskit.’
‘Would eighteenpence be?’--I hinted, after some hesitation.
Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. ‘I should rob my
family,’ he said, ‘if I was to offer ninepence for it.’
This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it imposed
upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking Mr. Dolloby to
rob his family on my account. My circumstances being so very pressing,
however, I said I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr.
Dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. I wished him good
night, and walked out of the shop the richer by that sum, and the
poorer by a waistcoat. But when I buttoned my jacket, that was not much.
Indeed, I foresaw pretty clearly that my jacket would go next, and that
I should have to make the best of my way to Dover in a shirt and a pair
of trousers, and might deem myself lucky if I got there even in that
trim. But my mind did not run so much on this as might be supposed.
Beyond a general impression of the distance before me, and of the young
man with the donkey-cart having used me cruelly, I think I had no
very urgent sense of my difficulties when I once again set off with my
ninepence in my pocket.
A plan had occurred to me for passing the night, which I was going to
carry into execution. This was, to lie behind the wall at the back of my
old school, in a corner where there used to be a haystack. I imagined
it would be a kind of company to have the boys, and the bedroom where
I used to tell the stories, so near me: although the boys would know
nothing of my being there, and the bedroom would yield me no shelter.
I had had a hard day’s work, and was pretty well jaded when I came
climbing out, at last, upon the level of Blackheath. It cost me some
trouble to find out Salem House; but I found it, and I found a haystack
in the corner, and I lay down by it; having first walked round the wall,
and looked up at the windows, and seen that all was dark and silent
within. Never shall I forget the lonely sensation of first lying down,
without a roof above my head!
Sleep came upon me as it came on many other outcasts, against whom
house-doors were locked, and house-dogs barked, that night--and I
dreamed of lying on my old school-bed, talking to the boys in my room;
and found myself sitting upright, with Steerforth’s name upon my lips,
looking wildly at the stars that were glistening and glimmering above
me. When I remembered where I was at that untimely hour, a feeling
stole upon me that made me get up, afraid of I don’t know what, and walk
about. But the fainter glimmering of the stars, and the pale light in
the sky where the day was coming, reassured me: and my eyes being very
heavy, I lay down again and slept--though with a knowledge in my sleep
that it was cold--until the warm beams of the sun, and the ringing of
the getting-up bell at Salem House, awoke me. If I could have hoped that
Steerforth was there, I would have lurked about until he came out
alone; but I knew he must have left long since. Traddles still remained,
perhaps, but it was very doubtful; and I had not sufficient confidence
in his discretion or good luck, however strong my reliance was on his
good nature, to wish to trust him with my situation. So I crept away
from the wall as Mr. Creakle’s boys were getting up, and struck into the
long dusty track which I had first known to be the Dover Road when I was
one of them, and when I little expected that any eyes would ever see me
the wayfarer I was now, upon it.
What a different Sunday morning from the old Sunday morning at Yarmouth!
In due time I heard the church-bells ringing, as I plodded on; and I met
people who were going to church; and I passed a church or two where the
congregation were inside, and the sound of singing came out into the
sunshine, while the beadle sat and cooled himself in the shade of the
porch, or stood beneath the yew-tree, with his hand to his forehead,
glowering at me going by. But the peace and rest of the old Sunday
morning were on everything, except me. That was the difference. I felt
quite wicked in my dirt and dust, with my tangled hair. But for the
quiet picture I had conjured up, of my mother in her youth and beauty,
weeping by the fire, and my aunt relenting to her, I hardly think I
should have had the courage to go on until next day. But it always went
before me, and I followed.
I got, that Sunday, through three-and-twenty miles on the straight
road, though not very easily, for I was new to that kind of toil. I
see myself, as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at Rochester,
footsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought for supper.
One or two little houses, with the notice, ‘Lodgings for Travellers’,
hanging out, had tempted me; but I was afraid of spending the few pence
I had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers I
had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and
toiling into Chatham,--which, in that night’s aspect, is a mere dream of
chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed
like Noah’s arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery
overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. Here I
lay down, near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry’s
footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys
at Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until
morning.
Very stiff and sore of foot I was in the morning, and quite dazed by the
beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me in on
every side when I went down towards the long narrow street. Feeling
that I could go but a very little way that day, if I were to reserve any
strength for getting to my journey’s end, I resolved to make the sale
of my jacket its principal business. Accordingly, I took the jacket off,
that I might learn to do without it; and carrying it under my arm, began
a tour of inspection of the various slop-shops.
It was a likely place to sell a jacket in; for the dealers in
second-hand clothes were numerous, and were, generally speaking, on the
look-out for customers at their shop doors. But as most of them had,
hanging up among their stock, an officer’s coat or two, epaulettes and
all, I was rendered timid by the costly nature of their dealings, and
walked about for a long time without offering my merchandise to anyone.
This modesty of mine directed my attention to the marine-store shops,
and such shops as Mr. Dolloby’s, in preference to the regular dealers.
At last I found one that I thought looked promising, at the corner of a
dirty lane, ending in an enclosure full of stinging-nettles, against the
palings of which some second-hand sailors’ clothes, that seemed to have
overflowed the shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns,
and oilskin hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so
many sizes that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the
world.
Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened
rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was
descended into by some steps, I went with a palpitating heart; which was
not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all
covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it,
and seized me by the hair of my head. He was a dreadful old man to look
at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum. His
bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece of patchwork, was in
the den he had come from, where another little window showed a prospect
of more stinging-nettles, and a lame donkey.
‘Oh, what do you want?’ grinned this old man, in a fierce, monotonous
whine. ‘Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver,
what do you want? Oh, goroo, goroo!’
I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the
repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his
throat, that I could make no answer; hereupon the old man, still holding
me by the hair, repeated:
‘Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my
lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo!’--which he screwed out of
himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his head.
‘I wanted to know,’ I said, trembling, ‘if you would buy a jacket.’
‘Oh, let’s see the jacket!’ cried the old man. ‘Oh, my heart on fire,
show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out!’
With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a
great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all
ornamental to his inflamed eyes.
‘Oh, how much for the jacket?’ cried the old man, after examining it.
‘Oh--goroo!--how much for the jacket?’
‘Half-a-crown,’ I answered, recovering myself.
‘Oh, my lungs and liver,’ cried the old man, ‘no! Oh, my eyes, no! Oh,
my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo!’
Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger
of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort
of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which
begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I
can find for it.
‘Well,’ said I, glad to have closed the bargain, ‘I’ll take
eighteenpence.’
‘Oh, my liver!’ cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. ‘Get
out of the shop! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! Oh, my eyes and
limbs--goroo!--don’t ask for money; make it an exchange.’ I never was
so frightened in my life, before or since; but I told him humbly that
I wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, but that I
would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry
him. So I went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. And I sat
there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight
became shade again, and still I sat there waiting for the money.
There never was such another drunken madman in that line of business,
I hope. That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the
reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon understood from
the visits he received from the boys, who continually came skirmishing
about the shop, shouting that legend, and calling to him to bring out
his gold. ‘You ain’t poor, you know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out
your gold. Bring out some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil
for. Come! It’s in the lining of the mattress, Charley. Rip it open
and let’s have some!’ This, and many offers to lend him a knife for
the purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a
succession of rushes on his part, and flights on the part of the boys.
Sometimes in his rage he would take me for one of them, and come at me,
mouthing as if he were going to tear me in pieces; then, remembering
me, just in time, would dive into the shop, and lie upon his bed, as I
thought from the sound of his voice, yelling in a frantic way, to his
own windy tune, the ‘Death of Nelson’; with an Oh! before every line,
and innumerable Goroos interspersed. As if this were not bad enough for
me, the boys, connecting me with the establishment, on account of the
patience and perseverance with which I sat outside, half-dressed, pelted
me, and used me very ill all day.
He made many attempts to induce me to consent to an exchange; at one
time coming out with a fishing-rod, at another with a fiddle, at another
with a cocked hat, at another with a flute. But I resisted all these
overtures, and sat there in desperation; each time asking him, with
tears in my eyes, for my money or my jacket. At last he began to pay me
in halfpence at a time; and was full two hours getting by easy stages to
a shilling.
‘Oh, my eyes and limbs!’ he then cried, peeping hideously out of the
shop, after a long pause, ‘will you go for twopence more?’
‘I can’t,’ I said; ‘I shall be starved.’
‘Oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence?’
‘I would go for nothing, if I could,’ I said, ‘but I want the money
badly.’
‘Oh, go-roo!’ (it is really impossible to express how he twisted this
ejaculation out of himself, as he peeped round the door-post at me,
showing nothing but his crafty old head); ‘will you go for fourpence?’
I was so faint and weary that I closed with this offer; and taking the
money out of his claw, not without trembling, went away more hungry and
thirsty than I had ever been, a little before sunset. But at an expense
of threepence I soon refreshed myself completely; and, being in better
spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road.
My bed at night was under another haystack, where I rested comfortably,
after having washed my blistered feet in a stream, and dressed them as
well as I was able, with some cool leaves. When I took the road again
next morning, I found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds
and orchards. It was sufficiently late in the year for the orchards
to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in a few places the hop-pickers were
already at work. I thought it all extremely beautiful, and made up
my mind to sleep among the hops that night: imagining some cheerful
companionship in the long perspectives of poles, with the graceful
leaves twining round them.
The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a
dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most
ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped,
perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them, and when I
took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow--a tinker, I
suppose, from his wallet and brazier--who had a woman with him, and
who faced about and stared at me thus; and then roared to me in such a
tremendous voice to come back, that I halted and looked round.
‘Come here, when you’re called,’ said the tinker, ‘or I’ll rip your
young body open.’
I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to
propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black
eye.
‘Where are you going?’ said the tinker, gripping the bosom of my shirt
with his blackened hand.
‘I am going to Dover,’ I said.
‘Where do you come from?’ asked the tinker, giving his hand another turn
in my shirt, to hold me more securely.
‘I come from London,’ I said.
‘What lay are you upon?’ asked the tinker. ‘Are you a prig?’
‘N-no,’ I said.
‘Ain’t you, by G--? If you make a brag of your honesty to me,’ said the
tinker, ‘I’ll knock your brains out.’
With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then
looked at me from head to foot.
‘Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?’ said the tinker.
‘If you have, out with it, afore I take it away!’
I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman’s look,
and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form ‘No!’ with her lips.
‘I am very poor,’ I said, attempting to smile, ‘and have got no money.’
‘Why, what do you mean?’ said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, that
I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket.
‘Sir!’ I stammered.
‘What do you mean,’ said the tinker, ‘by wearing my brother’s silk
handkerchief! Give it over here!’ And he had mine off my neck in a
moment, and tossed it to the woman.
The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke,
and tossed it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made
the word ‘Go!’ with her lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker
seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me
away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned
upon the woman with an oath, and knocked her down. I never shall forget
seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet
tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked
back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a
bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of
her shawl, while he went on ahead.
This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of
these people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place,
where I remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so
often, that I was very seriously delayed. But under this difficulty, as
under all the other difficulties of my journey, I seemed to be sustained
and led on by my fanciful picture of my mother in her youth, before I
came into the world. It always kept me company. It was there, among
the hops, when I lay down to sleep; it was with me on my waking in the
morning; it went before me all day. I have associated it, ever since,
with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light;
and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately,
grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers. When I came,
at last, upon the bare, wide downs near Dover, it relieved the solitary
aspect of the scene with hope; and not until I reached that first great
aim of my journey, and actually set foot in the town itself, on the
sixth day of my flight, did it desert me. But then, strange to say,
when I stood with my ragged shoes, and my dusty, sunburnt, half-clothed
figure, in the place so long desired, it seemed to vanish like a dream,
and to leave me helpless and dispirited.
I inquired about my aunt among the boatmen first, and received various
answers. One said she lived in the South Foreland Light, and had singed
her whiskers by doing so; another, that she was made fast to the great
buoy outside the harbour, and could only be visited at half-tide; a
third, that she was locked up in Maidstone jail for child-stealing; a
fourth, that she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind, and
make direct for Calais. The fly-drivers, among whom I inquired next,
were equally jocose and equally disrespectful; and the shopkeepers, not
liking my appearance, generally replied, without hearing what I had
to say, that they had got nothing for me. I felt more miserable and
destitute than I had done at any period of my running away. My money was
all gone, I had nothing left to dispose of; I was hungry, thirsty, and
worn out; and seemed as distant from my end as if I had remained in
London.
The morning had worn away in these inquiries, and I was sitting on
the step of an empty shop at a street corner, near the market-place,
deliberating upon wandering towards those other places which had been
mentioned, when a fly-driver, coming by with his carriage, dropped a
horsecloth. Something good-natured in the man’s face, as I handed it up,
encouraged me to ask him if he could tell me where Miss Trotwood lived;
though I had asked the question so often, that it almost died upon my
lips.
‘Trotwood,’ said he. ‘Let me see. I know the name, too. Old lady?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘rather.’
‘Pretty stiff in the back?’ said he, making himself upright.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I should think it very likely.’
‘Carries a bag?’ said he--‘bag with a good deal of room in it--is
gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp?’
My heart sank within me as I acknowledged the undoubted accuracy of this
description.
‘Why then, I tell you what,’ said he. ‘If you go up there,’ pointing
with his whip towards the heights, ‘and keep right on till you come to
some houses facing the sea, I think you’ll hear of her. My opinion is
she won’t stand anything, so here’s a penny for you.’
I accepted the gift thankfully, and bought a loaf with it. Dispatching
this refreshment by the way, I went in the direction my friend had
indicated, and walked on a good distance without coming to the houses
he had mentioned. At length I saw some before me; and approaching them,
went into a little shop (it was what we used to call a general shop,
at home), and inquired if they could have the goodness to tell me where
Miss Trotwood lived. I addressed myself to a man behind the counter,
who was weighing some rice for a young woman; but the latter, taking the
inquiry to herself, turned round quickly.
‘My mistress?’ she said. ‘What do you want with her, boy?’
‘I want,’ I replied, ‘to speak to her, if you please.’
‘To beg of her, you mean,’ retorted the damsel.
‘No,’ I said, ‘indeed.’ But suddenly remembering that in truth I came
for no other purpose, I held my peace in confusion, and felt my face
burn.
My aunt’s handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, put
her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling me that
I could follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood lived. I
needed no second permission; though I was by this time in such a state
of consternation and agitation, that my legs shook under me. I followed
the young woman, and we soon came to a very neat little cottage with
cheerful bow-windows: in front of it, a small square gravelled court or
garden full of flowers, carefully tended, and smelling deliciously.
‘This is Miss Trotwood’s,’ said the young woman. ‘Now you know; and
that’s all I have got to say.’ With which words she hurried into the
house, as if to shake off the responsibility of my appearance; and left
me standing at the garden-gate, looking disconsolately over the top of
it towards the parlour window, where a muslin curtain partly undrawn
in the middle, a large round green screen or fan fastened on to the
windowsill, a small table, and a great chair, suggested to me that my
aunt might be at that moment seated in awful state.
My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. The soles had shed
themselves bit by bit, and the upper leathers had broken and burst until
the very shape and form of shoes had departed from them. My hat (which
had served me for a night-cap, too) was so crushed and bent, that no old
battered handleless saucepan on a dunghill need have been ashamed to vie
with it. My shirt and trousers, stained with heat, dew, grass, and
the Kentish soil on which I had slept--and torn besides--might have
frightened the birds from my aunt’s garden, as I stood at the gate. My
hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. My face, neck, and
hands, from unaccustomed exposure to the air and sun, were burnt to a
berry-brown. From head to foot I was powdered almost as white with chalk
and dust, as if I had come out of a lime-kiln. In this plight, and with
a strong consciousness of it, I waited to introduce myself to, and make
my first impression on, my formidable aunt.
The unbroken stillness of the parlour window leading me to infer, after
a while, that she was not there, I lifted up my eyes to the window above
it, where I saw a florid, pleasant-looking gentleman, with a grey head,
who shut up one eye in a grotesque manner, nodded his head at me several
times, shook it at me as often, laughed, and went away.
I had been discomposed enough before; but I was so much the more
discomposed by this unexpected behaviour, that I was on the point of
slinking off, to think how I had best proceed, when there came out of
the house a lady with her handkerchief tied over her cap, and a pair
of gardening gloves on her hands, wearing a gardening pocket like a
toll-man’s apron, and carrying a great knife. I knew her immediately
to be Miss Betsey, for she came stalking out of the house exactly as
my poor mother had so often described her stalking up our garden at
Blunderstone Rookery.
‘Go away!’ said Miss Betsey, shaking her head, and making a distant chop
in the air with her knife. ‘Go along! No boys here!’
I watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she marched to a corner of
her garden, and stooped to dig up some little root there. Then, without
a scrap of courage, but with a great deal of desperation, I went softly
in and stood beside her, touching her with my finger.
‘If you please, ma’am,’ I began.
She started and looked up.
‘If you please, aunt.’
‘EH?’ exclaimed Miss Betsey, in a tone of amazement I have never heard
approached.
‘If you please, aunt, I am your nephew.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ said my aunt. And sat flat down in the garden-path.
‘I am David Copperfield, of Blunderstone, in Suffolk--where you came,
on the night when I was born, and saw my dear mama. I have been very
unhappy since she died. I have been slighted, and taught nothing, and
thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away
to you. I was robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the
way, and have never slept in a bed since I began the journey.’ Here
my self-support gave way all at once; and with a movement of my hands,
intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to witness that I had
suffered something, I broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose
had been pent up within me all the week.
My aunt, with every sort of expression but wonder discharged from her
countenance, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry;
when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the
parlour. Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring
out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my
mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure
I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. When she had
administered these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and
unable to control my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under
my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I
should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green
fan or screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her
face, ejaculated at intervals, ‘Mercy on us!’ letting those exclamations
off like minute guns.
After a time she rang the bell. ‘Janet,’ said my aunt, when her servant
came in. ‘Go upstairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish
to speak to him.’
Janet looked a little surprised to see me lying stiffly on the sofa (I
was afraid to move lest it should be displeasing to my aunt), but went
on her errand. My aunt, with her hands behind her, walked up and down
the room, until the gentleman who had squinted at me from the upper
window came in laughing.
‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘don’t be a fool, because nobody can be more
discreet than you can, when you choose. We all know that. So don’t be a
fool, whatever you are.’
The gentleman was serious immediately, and looked at me, I thought, as
if he would entreat me to say nothing about the window.
‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘you have heard me mention David Copperfield?
Now don’t pretend not to have a memory, because you and I know better.’
‘David Copperfield?’ said Mr. Dick, who did not appear to me to
remember much about it. ‘David Copperfield? Oh yes, to be sure. David,
certainly.’
‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘this is his boy--his son. He would be as like his
father as it’s possible to be, if he was not so like his mother, too.’
‘His son?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘David’s son? Indeed!’
‘Yes,’ pursued my aunt, ‘and he has done a pretty piece of business.
He has run away. Ah! His sister, Betsey Trotwood, never would have run
away.’ My aunt shook her head firmly, confident in the character and
behaviour of the girl who never was born.
‘Oh! you think she wouldn’t have run away?’ said Mr. Dick.
‘Bless and save the man,’ exclaimed my aunt, sharply, ‘how he talks!
Don’t I know she wouldn’t? She would have lived with her god-mother,
and we should have been devoted to one another. Where, in the name of
wonder, should his sister, Betsey Trotwood, have run from, or to?’
‘Nowhere,’ said Mr. Dick.
‘Well then,’ returned my aunt, softened by the reply, ‘how can you
pretend to be wool-gathering, Dick, when you are as sharp as a surgeon’s
lancet? Now, here you see young David Copperfield, and the question I
put to you is, what shall I do with him?’
‘What shall you do with him?’ said Mr. Dick, feebly, scratching his
head. ‘Oh! do with him?’
‘Yes,’ said my aunt, with a grave look, and her forefinger held up.
‘Come! I want some very sound advice.’
‘Why, if I was you,’ said Mr. Dick, considering, and looking vacantly
at me, ‘I should--’ The contemplation of me seemed to inspire him with a
sudden idea, and he added, briskly, ‘I should wash him!’
‘Janet,’ said my aunt, turning round with a quiet triumph, which I did
not then understand, ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. Heat the bath!’
Although I was deeply interested in this dialogue, I could not help
observing my aunt, Mr. Dick, and Janet, while it was in progress, and
completing a survey I had already been engaged in making of the room.
My aunt was a tall, hard-featured lady, but by no means ill-looking.
There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and
carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon
a gentle creature like my mother; but her features were rather handsome
than otherwise, though unbending and austere. I particularly noticed
that she had a very quick, bright eye. Her hair, which was grey, was
arranged in two plain divisions, under what I believe would be called a
mob-cap; I mean a cap, much more common then than now, with side-pieces
fastening under the chin. Her dress was of a lavender colour, and
perfectly neat; but scantily made, as if she desired to be as little
encumbered as possible. I remember that I thought it, in form, more like
a riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else.
She wore at her side a gentleman’s gold watch, if I might judge from its
size and make, with an appropriate chain and seals; she had some linen
at her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like
little shirt-wristbands.
Mr. Dick, as I have already said, was grey-headed, and florid: I should
have said all about him, in saying so, had not his head been curiously
bowed--not by age; it reminded me of one of Mr. Creakle’s boys’ heads
after a beating--and his grey eyes prominent and large, with a strange
kind of watery brightness in them that made me, in combination with his
vacant manner, his submission to my aunt, and his childish delight when
she praised him, suspect him of being a little mad; though, if he were
mad, how he came to be there puzzled me extremely. He was dressed
like any other ordinary gentleman, in a loose grey morning coat and
waistcoat, and white trousers; and had his watch in his fob, and his
money in his pockets: which he rattled as if he were very proud of it.
Janet was a pretty blooming girl, of about nineteen or twenty, and a
perfect picture of neatness. Though I made no further observation of
her at the moment, I may mention here what I did not discover until
afterwards, namely, that she was one of a series of protegees whom my
aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement
of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying
the baker.
The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt. As I laid down my pen, a
moment since, to think of it, the air from the sea came blowing
in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers; and I saw the
old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished, my aunt’s
inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the
drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries,
the old china, the punchbowl full of dried rose-leaves, the tall press
guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and, wonderfully out of keeping
with the rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything.
Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great
alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation, and had hardly voice
to cry out, ‘Janet! Donkeys!’
Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in
flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off
two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden, that had presumed to set hoof upon it;
while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third
animal laden with a bestriding child, turned him, led him forth from
those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in
attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground.
To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way
over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that
she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her
life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey
over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged,
however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking
part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was
upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret
places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid
in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and
incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the
donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding
how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming
that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was
ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all,
I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen,
and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to
comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more
ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon
at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually
starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small
quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she
would put it back into the basin, cry ‘Janet! Donkeys!’ and go out to
the assault.
The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute pains
in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low
that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I
had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a
pair of trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three
great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don’t know, but I
felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down
on the sofa again and fell asleep.
It might have been a dream, originating in the fancy which had occupied
my mind so long, but I awoke with the impression that my aunt had come
and bent over me, and had put my hair away from my face, and laid my
head more comfortably, and had then stood looking at me. The words,
‘Pretty fellow,’ or ‘Poor fellow,’ seemed to be in my ears, too; but
certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke, to lead me to believe
that they had been uttered by my aunt, who sat in the bow-window gazing
at the sea from behind the green fan, which was mounted on a kind of
swivel, and turned any way.
We dined soon after I awoke, off a roast fowl and a pudding; I sitting
at table, not unlike a trussed bird myself, and moving my arms with
considerable difficulty. But as my aunt had swathed me up, I made no
complaint of being inconvenienced. All this time I was deeply anxious
to know what she was going to do with me; but she took her dinner in
profound silence, except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me
sitting opposite, and said, ‘Mercy upon us!’ which did not by any means
relieve my anxiety.
The cloth being drawn, and some sherry put upon the table (of which I
had a glass), my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us, and
looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story,
which she elicited from me, gradually, by a course of questions. During
my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have gone
to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was
checked by a frown from my aunt.
‘Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby, that she must go and be
married again,’ said my aunt, when I had finished, ‘I can’t conceive.’
‘Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,’ Mr. Dick suggested.
‘Fell in love!’ repeated my aunt. ‘What do you mean? What business had
she to do it?’
‘Perhaps,’ Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little, ‘she did it for
pleasure.’
‘Pleasure, indeed!’ replied my aunt. ‘A mighty pleasure for the poor
Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to
ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself,
I should like to know! She had had one husband. She had seen David
Copperfield out of the world, who was always running after wax dolls
from his cradle. She had got a baby--oh, there were a pair of babies
when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night!--and
what more did she want?’
Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me, as if he thought there was no
getting over this.
‘She couldn’t even have a baby like anybody else,’ said my aunt. ‘Where
was this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood? Not forthcoming. Don’t tell
me!’
Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.
‘That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,’ said my aunt,
‘Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All he could do,
was to say to me, like a robin redbreast--as he is--“It’s a boy.” A boy!
Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of ‘em!’
The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr. Dick exceedingly; and me,
too, if I am to tell the truth.
‘And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently
in the light of this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt,
‘she marries a second time--goes and marries a Murderer--or a man with
a name like it--and stands in THIS child’s light! And the natural
consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he
prowls and wanders. He’s as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can
be.’
Mr. Dick looked hard at me, as if to identify me in this character.
‘And then there’s that woman with the Pagan name,’ said my aunt, ‘that
Peggotty, she goes and gets married next. Because she has not seen
enough of the evil attending such things, she goes and gets married
next, as the child relates. I only hope,’ said my aunt, shaking her
head, ‘that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the
newspapers, and will beat her well with one.’
I could not bear to hear my old nurse so decried, and made the subject
of such a wish. I told my aunt that indeed she was mistaken. That
Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and
most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved
me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother’s
dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last
grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down
as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had
was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her
humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on
her--I broke down, I say, as I was trying to say so, and laid my face in
my hands upon the table.
‘Well, well!’ said my aunt, ‘the child is right to stand by those who
have stood by him--Janet! Donkeys!’
I thoroughly believe that but for those unfortunate donkeys, we should
have come to a good understanding; for my aunt had laid her hand on my
shoulder, and the impulse was upon me, thus emboldened, to embrace her
and beseech her protection. But the interruption, and the disorder she
was thrown into by the struggle outside, put an end to all softer ideas
for the present, and kept my aunt indignantly declaiming to Mr. Dick
about her determination to appeal for redress to the laws of her
country, and to bring actions for trespass against the whole donkey
proprietorship of Dover, until tea-time.
After tea, we sat at the window--on the look-out, as I imagined, from
my aunt’s sharp expression of face, for more invaders--until dusk, when
Janet set candles, and a backgammon-board, on the table, and pulled down
the blinds.
‘Now, Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, with her grave look, and her forefinger
up as before, ‘I am going to ask you another question. Look at this
child.’
‘David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick, with an attentive, puzzled face.
‘Exactly so,’ returned my aunt. ‘What would you do with him, now?’
‘Do with David’s son?’ said Mr. Dick.
‘Ay,’ replied my aunt, ‘with David’s son.’
‘Oh!’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Yes. Do with--I should put him to bed.’
‘Janet!’ cried my aunt, with the same complacent triumph that I had
remarked before. ‘Mr. Dick sets us all right. If the bed is ready, we’ll
take him up to it.’
Janet reporting it to be quite ready, I was taken up to it; kindly, but
in some sort like a prisoner; my aunt going in front and Janet bringing
up the rear. The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my
aunt’s stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was
prevalent there; and janet’s replying that she had been making tinder
down in the kitchen, of my old shirt. But there were no other clothes in
my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there,
with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five
minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside. Turning these things
over in my mind I deemed it possible that my aunt, who could know
nothing of me, might suspect I had a habit of running away, and took
precautions, on that account, to have me in safe keeping.
The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the
sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my
prayers, and the candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat
looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my
fortune in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child,
coming from Heaven, along that shining path, to look upon me as she had
looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling
with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of
gratitude and rest which the sight of the white-curtained bed--and how
much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white
sheets!--inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places
under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never
might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I
remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that
track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.
CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME
On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly over
the breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of
the urn had overflowed the teapot and were laying the whole table-cloth
under water, when my entrance put her meditations to flight. I felt sure
that I had been the subject of her reflections, and was more than ever
anxious to know her intentions towards me. Yet I dared not express my
anxiety, lest it should give her offence.
My eyes, however, not being so much under control as my tongue, were
attracted towards my aunt very often during breakfast. I never could
look at her for a few moments together but I found her looking at me--in
an odd thoughtful manner, as if I were an immense way off, instead of
being on the other side of the small round table. When she had finished
her breakfast, my aunt very deliberately leaned back in her chair,
knitted her brows, folded her arms, and contemplated me at her leisure,
with such a fixedness of attention that I was quite overpowered by
embarrassment. Not having as yet finished my own breakfast, I attempted
to hide my confusion by proceeding with it; but my knife tumbled over my
fork, my fork tripped up my knife, I chipped bits of bacon a surprising
height into the air instead of cutting them for my own eating, and
choked myself with my tea, which persisted in going the wrong way
instead of the right one, until I gave in altogether, and sat blushing
under my aunt’s close scrutiny.
‘Hallo!’ said my aunt, after a long time.
I looked up, and met her sharp bright glance respectfully.
‘I have written to him,’ said my aunt.
‘To--?’
‘To your father-in-law,’ said my aunt. ‘I have sent him a letter that
I’ll trouble him to attend to, or he and I will fall out, I can tell
him!’
‘Does he know where I am, aunt?’ I inquired, alarmed.
‘I have told him,’ said my aunt, with a nod.
‘Shall I--be--given up to him?’ I faltered.
‘I don’t know,’ said my aunt. ‘We shall see.’
‘Oh! I can’t think what I shall do,’ I exclaimed, ‘if I have to go back
to Mr. Murdstone!’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said my aunt, shaking her head. ‘I
can’t say, I am sure. We shall see.’
My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and heavy
of heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of me, put on a
coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the press; washed up the
teacups with her own hands; and, when everything was washed and set in
the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top of the whole,
rang for Janet to remove it. She next swept up the crumbs with a little
broom (putting on a pair of gloves first), until there did not appear
to be one microscopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged
the room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair’s breadth already.
When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she took off
the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the particular corner
of the press from which they had been taken, brought out her work-box
to her own table in the open window, and sat down, with the green fan
between her and the light, to work.
‘I wish you’d go upstairs,’ said my aunt, as she threaded her needle,
‘and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I’ll be glad to know how he
gets on with his Memorial.’
I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission.
‘I suppose,’ said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed the
needle in threading it, ‘you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh?’
‘I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday,’ I confessed.
‘You are not to suppose that he hasn’t got a longer name, if he chose
to use it,’ said my aunt, with a loftier air. ‘Babley--Mr. Richard
Babley--that’s the gentleman’s true name.’
I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the
familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had better give him the
full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say:
‘But don’t you call him by it, whatever you do. He can’t bear his name.
That’s a peculiarity of his. Though I don’t know that it’s much of a
peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by some that bear
it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is his
name here, and everywhere else, now--if he ever went anywhere else,
which he don’t. So take care, child, you don’t call him anything BUT Mr.
Dick.’
I promised to obey, and went upstairs with my message; thinking, as I
went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at the
same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open door, when
I came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him
still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the
paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample leisure to observe the
large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript,
the number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed
to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my
being present.
‘Ha! Phoebus!’ said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. ‘How does the world
go? I’ll tell you what,’ he added, in a lower tone, ‘I shouldn’t wish it
to be mentioned, but it’s a--’ here he beckoned to me, and put his lips
close to my ear--‘it’s a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!’ said Mr. Dick,
taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily.
Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered my
message.
‘Well,’ said Mr. Dick, in answer, ‘my compliments to her, and I--I
believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start,’ said Mr.
Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a
confident look at his manuscript. ‘You have been to school?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I answered; ‘for a short time.’
‘Do you recollect the date,’ said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and
taking up his pen to note it down, ‘when King Charles the First had his
head cut off?’ I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred
and forty-nine.
‘Well,’ returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking
dubiously at me. ‘So the books say; but I don’t see how that can be.
Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made
that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it
was taken off, into mine?’
I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no information
on this point.
‘It’s very strange,’ said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his
papers, and with his hand among his hair again, ‘that I never can get
that quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But no matter,
no matter!’ he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, ‘there’s time
enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well
indeed.’
I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite.
‘What do you think of that for a kite?’ he said.
I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must have been
as much as seven feet high.
‘I made it. We’ll go and fly it, you and I,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Do you see
this?’
He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and
laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines,
I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First’s head again, in
one or two places.
‘There’s plenty of string,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and when it flies high, it
takes the facts a long way. That’s my manner of diffusing ‘em. I don’t
know where they may come down. It’s according to circumstances, and the
wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of that.’
His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in
it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was
having a good-humoured jest with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, and
we parted the best friends possible.
‘Well, child,’ said my aunt, when I went downstairs. ‘And what of Mr.
Dick, this morning?’
I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on very
well indeed.
‘What do you think of him?’ said my aunt.
I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by
replying that I thought him a very nice gentleman; but my aunt was
not to be so put off, for she laid her work down in her lap, and said,
folding her hands upon it:
‘Come! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told me what she thought
of anyone, directly. Be as like your sister as you can, and speak out!’
‘Is he--is Mr. Dick--I ask because I don’t know, aunt--is he at all out
of his mind, then?’ I stammered; for I felt I was on dangerous ground.
‘Not a morsel,’ said my aunt.
‘Oh, indeed!’ I observed faintly.
‘If there is anything in the world,’ said my aunt, with great decision
and force of manner, ‘that Mr. Dick is not, it’s that.’
I had nothing better to offer, than another timid, ‘Oh, indeed!’
‘He has been CALLED mad,’ said my aunt. ‘I have a selfish pleasure in
saying he has been called mad, or I should not have had the benefit of
his society and advice for these last ten years and upwards--in fact,
ever since your sister, Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me.’
‘So long as that?’ I said.
‘And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad,’
pursued my aunt. ‘Mr. Dick is a sort of distant connexion of mine--it
doesn’t matter how; I needn’t enter into that. If it hadn’t been for me,
his own brother would have shut him up for life. That’s all.’
I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt
strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt strongly too.
‘A proud fool!’ said my aunt. ‘Because his brother was a little
eccentric--though he is not half so eccentric as a good many people--he
didn’t like to have him visible about his house, and sent him away to
some private asylum-place: though he had been left to his particular
care by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. And a
wise man he must have been to think so! Mad himself, no doubt.’
Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured to look quite
convinced also.
‘So I stepped in,’ said my aunt, ‘and made him an offer. I said, “Your
brother’s sane--a great deal more sane than you are, or ever will be, it
is to be hoped. Let him have his little income, and come and live with
me. I am not afraid of him, I am not proud, I am ready to take care
of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides the
asylum-folks) have done.” After a good deal of squabbling,’ said my
aunt, ‘I got him; and he has been here ever since. He is the most
friendly and amenable creature in existence; and as for advice!--But
nobody knows what that man’s mind is, except myself.’
My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed
defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the
other.
‘He had a favourite sister,’ said my aunt, ‘a good creature, and very
kind to him. But she did what they all do--took a husband. And HE did
what they all do--made her wretched. It had such an effect upon the mind
of Mr. Dick (that’s not madness, I hope!) that, combined with his fear
of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into a
fever. That was before he came to me, but the recollection of it is
oppressive to him even now. Did he say anything to you about King
Charles the First, child?’
‘Yes, aunt.’
‘Ah!’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed.
‘That’s his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his illness
with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that’s the figure,
or the simile, or whatever it’s called, which he chooses to use. And why
shouldn’t he, if he thinks proper!’
I said: ‘Certainly, aunt.’
‘It’s not a business-like way of speaking,’ said my aunt, ‘nor a worldly
way. I am aware of that; and that’s the reason why I insist upon it,
that there shan’t be a word about it in his Memorial.’
‘Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?’
‘Yes, child,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. ‘He is memorializing
the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other--one of those people,
at all events, who are paid to be memorialized--about his affairs. I
suppose it will go in, one of these days. He hasn’t been able to draw
it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing himself; but it
don’t signify; it keeps him employed.’
In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards
of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the
Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now.
‘I say again,’ said my aunt, ‘nobody knows what that man’s mind is
except myself; and he’s the most amenable and friendly creature in
existence. If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that! Franklin
used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, if I
am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous
object than anybody else.’
If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these particulars
for my especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in me, I should
have felt very much distinguished, and should have augured favourably
from such a mark of her good opinion. But I could hardly help observing
that she had launched into them, chiefly because the question was raised
in her own mind, and with very little reference to me, though she had
addressed herself to me in the absence of anybody else.
At the same time, I must say that the generosity of her championship
of poor harmless Mr. Dick, not only inspired my young breast with
some selfish hope for myself, but warmed it unselfishly towards her.
I believe that I began to know that there was something about my aunt,
notwithstanding her many eccentricities and odd humours, to be honoured
and trusted in. Though she was just as sharp that day as on the day
before, and was in and out about the donkeys just as often, and was
thrown into a tremendous state of indignation, when a young man, going
by, ogled Janet at a window (which was one of the gravest misdemeanours
that could be committed against my aunt’s dignity), she seemed to me to
command more of my respect, if not less of my fear.
The anxiety I underwent, in the interval which necessarily elapsed
before a reply could be received to her letter to Mr. Murdstone, was
extreme; but I made an endeavour to suppress it, and to be as agreeable
as I could in a quiet way, both to my aunt and Mr. Dick. The latter and
I would have gone out to fly the great kite; but that I had still no
other clothes than the anything but ornamental garments with which I
had been decorated on the first day, and which confined me to the house,
except for an hour after dark, when my aunt, for my health’s sake,
paraded me up and down on the cliff outside, before going to bed. At
length the reply from Mr. Murdstone came, and my aunt informed me, to my
infinite terror, that he was coming to speak to her herself on the next
day. On the next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, I sat
counting the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes
and rising fears within me; and waiting to be startled by the sight of
the gloomy face, whose non-arrival startled me every minute.
My aunt was a little more imperious and stern than usual, but I observed
no other token of her preparing herself to receive the visitor so much
dreaded by me. She sat at work in the window, and I sat by, with my
thoughts running astray on all possible and impossible results of Mr.
Murdstone’s visit, until pretty late in the afternoon. Our dinner had
been indefinitely postponed; but it was growing so late, that my aunt
had ordered it to be got ready, when she gave a sudden alarm of donkeys,
and to my consternation and amazement, I beheld Miss Murdstone, on a
side-saddle, ride deliberately over the sacred piece of green, and stop
in front of the house, looking about her.
‘Go along with you!’ cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist at the
window. ‘You have no business there. How dare you trespass? Go along!
Oh! you bold-faced thing!’
My aunt was so exasperated by the coolness with which Miss Murdstone
looked about her, that I really believe she was motionless, and unable
for the moment to dart out according to custom. I seized the opportunity
to inform her who it was; and that the gentleman now coming near the
offender (for the way up was very steep, and he had dropped behind), was
Mr. Murdstone himself.
‘I don’t care who it is!’ cried my aunt, still shaking her head and
gesticulating anything but welcome from the bow-window. ‘I won’t be
trespassed upon. I won’t allow it. Go away! Janet, turn him round.
Lead him off!’ and I saw, from behind my aunt, a sort of hurried
battle-piece, in which the donkey stood resisting everybody, with all
his four legs planted different ways, while Janet tried to pull him
round by the bridle, Mr. Murdstone tried to lead him on, Miss Murdstone
struck at Janet with a parasol, and several boys, who had come to see
the engagement, shouted vigorously. But my aunt, suddenly descrying
among them the young malefactor who was the donkey’s guardian, and who
was one of the most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in
his teens, rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured
him, dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding
the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the
constables and justices, that he might be taken, tried, and executed on
the spot, held him at bay there. This part of the business, however, did
not last long; for the young rascal, being expert at a variety of feints
and dodges, of which my aunt had no conception, soon went whooping away,
leaving some deep impressions of his nailed boots in the flower-beds,
and taking his donkey in triumph with him.
Miss Murdstone, during the latter portion of the contest, had
dismounted, and was now waiting with her brother at the bottom of the
steps, until my aunt should be at leisure to receive them. My aunt, a
little ruffled by the combat, marched past them into the house, with
great dignity, and took no notice of their presence, until they were
announced by Janet.
‘Shall I go away, aunt?’ I asked, trembling.
‘No, sir,’ said my aunt. ‘Certainly not!’ With which she pushed me into
a corner near her, and fenced Me in with a chair, as if it were a prison
or a bar of justice. This position I continued to occupy during the
whole interview, and from it I now saw Mr. and Miss Murdstone enter the
room.
‘Oh!’ said my aunt, ‘I was not aware at first to whom I had the pleasure
of objecting. But I don’t allow anybody to ride over that turf. I make
no exceptions. I don’t allow anybody to do it.’
‘Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers,’ said Miss Murdstone.
‘Is it!’ said my aunt.
Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and interposing
began:
‘Miss Trotwood!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ observed my aunt with a keen look. ‘You are the Mr.
Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, David Copperfield, of
Blunderstone Rookery!--Though why Rookery, I don’t know!’
‘I am,’ said Mr. Murdstone.
‘You’ll excuse my saying, sir,’ returned my aunt, ‘that I think it would
have been a much better and happier thing if you had left that poor
child alone.’
‘I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked,’ observed Miss
Murdstone, bridling, ‘that I consider our lamented Clara to have been,
in all essential respects, a mere child.’
‘It is a comfort to you and me, ma’am,’ said my aunt, ‘who are getting
on in life, and are not likely to be made unhappy by our personal
attractions, that nobody can say the same of us.’
‘No doubt!’ returned Miss Murdstone, though, I thought, not with a very
ready or gracious assent. ‘And it certainly might have been, as you say,
a better and happier thing for my brother if he had never entered into
such a marriage. I have always been of that opinion.’
‘I have no doubt you have,’ said my aunt. ‘Janet,’ ringing the bell, ‘my
compliments to Mr. Dick, and beg him to come down.’
Until he came, my aunt sat perfectly upright and stiff, frowning at the
wall. When he came, my aunt performed the ceremony of introduction.
‘Mr. Dick. An old and intimate friend. On whose judgement,’ said my
aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to Mr. Dick, who was biting his
forefinger and looking rather foolish, ‘I rely.’
Mr. Dick took his finger out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood among
the group, with a grave and attentive expression of face.
My aunt inclined her head to Mr. Murdstone, who went on:
‘Miss Trotwood: on the receipt of your letter, I considered it an act of
greater justice to myself, and perhaps of more respect to you--’
‘Thank you,’ said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. ‘You needn’t mind
me.’
‘To answer it in person, however inconvenient the journey,’ pursued Mr.
Murdstone, ‘rather than by letter. This unhappy boy who has run away
from his friends and his occupation--’
‘And whose appearance,’ interposed his sister, directing general
attention to me in my indefinable costume, ‘is perfectly scandalous and
disgraceful.’
‘Jane Murdstone,’ said her brother, ‘have the goodness not to interrupt
me. This unhappy boy, Miss Trotwood, has been the occasion of much
domestic trouble and uneasiness; both during the lifetime of my late
dear wife, and since. He has a sullen, rebellious spirit; a violent
temper; and an untoward, intractable disposition. Both my sister and
myself have endeavoured to correct his vices, but ineffectually. And
I have felt--we both have felt, I may say; my sister being fully in
my confidence--that it is right you should receive this grave and
dispassionate assurance from our lips.’
‘It can hardly be necessary for me to confirm anything stated by my
brother,’ said Miss Murdstone; ‘but I beg to observe, that, of all the
boys in the world, I believe this is the worst boy.’
‘Strong!’ said my aunt, shortly.
‘But not at all too strong for the facts,’ returned Miss Murdstone.
‘Ha!’ said my aunt. ‘Well, sir?’
‘I have my own opinions,’ resumed Mr. Murdstone, whose face darkened
more and more, the more he and my aunt observed each other, which they
did very narrowly, ‘as to the best mode of bringing him up; they are
founded, in part, on my knowledge of him, and in part on my knowledge of
my own means and resources. I am responsible for them to myself, I act
upon them, and I say no more about them. It is enough that I place this
boy under the eye of a friend of my own, in a respectable business;
that it does not please him; that he runs away from it; makes himself a
common vagabond about the country; and comes here, in rags, to appeal
to you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, honourably, the exact
consequences--so far as they are within my knowledge--of your abetting
him in this appeal.’
‘But about the respectable business first,’ said my aunt. ‘If he had
been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I
suppose?’
‘If he had been my brother’s own boy,’ returned Miss Murdstone, striking
in, ‘his character, I trust, would have been altogether different.’
‘Or if the poor child, his mother, had been alive, he would still have
gone into the respectable business, would he?’ said my aunt.
‘I believe,’ said Mr. Murdstone, with an inclination of his head,
‘that Clara would have disputed nothing which myself and my sister Jane
Murdstone were agreed was for the best.’
Miss Murdstone confirmed this with an audible murmur.
‘Humph!’ said my aunt. ‘Unfortunate baby!’
Mr. Dick, who had been rattling his money all this time, was rattling it
so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessary to check him with a look,
before saying:
‘The poor child’s annuity died with her?’
‘Died with her,’ replied Mr. Murdstone.
‘And there was no settlement of the little property--the house and
garden--the what’s-its-name Rookery without any rooks in it--upon her
boy?’
‘It had been left to her, unconditionally, by her first husband,’
Mr. Murdstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the greatest
irascibility and impatience.
‘Good Lord, man, there’s no occasion to say that. Left to her
unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward to any
condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the
face! Of course it was left to her unconditionally. But when she married
again--when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in
short,’ said my aunt, ‘to be plain--did no one put in a word for the boy
at that time?’
‘My late wife loved her second husband, ma’am,’ said Mr. Murdstone, ‘and
trusted implicitly in him.’
‘Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most
unfortunate baby,’ returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. ‘That’s
what she was. And now, what have you got to say next?’
‘Merely this, Miss Trotwood,’ he returned. ‘I am here to take David
back--to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as I think
proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not here to make any
promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may possibly have some
idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his
complaints to you. Your manner, which I must say does not seem intended
to propitiate, induces me to think it possible. Now I must caution you
that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all; if you step
in between him and me, now, you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever.
I cannot trifle, or be trifled with. I am here, for the first and last
time, to take him away. Is he ready to go? If he is not--and you tell me
he is not; on any pretence; it is indifferent to me what--my doors are
shut against him henceforth, and yours, I take it for granted, are open
to him.’
To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention,
sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and
looking grimly on the speaker. When he had finished, she turned her
eyes so as to command Miss Murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her
attitude, and said:
‘Well, ma’am, have YOU got anything to remark?’
‘Indeed, Miss Trotwood,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘all that I could say has
been so well said by my brother, and all that I know to be the fact
has been so plainly stated by him, that I have nothing to add except my
thanks for your politeness. For your very great politeness, I am sure,’
said Miss Murdstone; with an irony which no more affected my aunt, than
it discomposed the cannon I had slept by at Chatham.
‘And what does the boy say?’ said my aunt. ‘Are you ready to go, David?’
I answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. I said that neither
Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever liked me, or had ever been kind to me.
That they had made my mama, who always loved me dearly, unhappy about
me, and that I knew it well, and that Peggotty knew it. I said that I
had been more miserable than I thought anybody could believe, who only
knew how young I was. And I begged and prayed my aunt--I forget in
what terms now, but I remember that they affected me very much then--to
befriend and protect me, for my father’s sake.
‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘what shall I do with this child?’
Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, ‘Have him
measured for a suit of clothes directly.’
‘Mr. Dick,’ said my aunt triumphantly, ‘give me your hand, for your
common sense is invaluable.’ Having shaken it with great cordiality, she
pulled me towards her and said to Mr. Murdstone:
‘You can go when you like; I’ll take my chance with the boy. If he’s all
you say he is, at least I can do as much for him then, as you have done.
But I don’t believe a word of it.’
‘Miss Trotwood,’ rejoined Mr. Murdstone, shrugging his shoulders, as he
rose, ‘if you were a gentleman--’
‘Bah! Stuff and nonsense!’ said my aunt. ‘Don’t talk to me!’
‘How exquisitely polite!’ exclaimed Miss Murdstone, rising.
‘Overpowering, really!’
‘Do you think I don’t know,’ said my aunt, turning a deaf ear to the
sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her head at
him with infinite expression, ‘what kind of life you must have led that
poor, unhappy, misdirected baby? Do you think I don’t know what a woeful
day it was for the soft little creature when you first came in her
way--smirking and making great eyes at her, I’ll be bound, as if you
couldn’t say boh! to a goose!’
‘I never heard anything so elegant!’ said Miss Murdstone.
‘Do you think I can’t understand you as well as if I had seen you,’
pursued my aunt, ‘now that I DO see and hear you--which, I tell you
candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me? Oh yes, bless us! who so
smooth and silky as Mr. Murdstone at first! The poor, benighted innocent
had never seen such a man. He was made of sweetness. He worshipped her.
He doted on her boy--tenderly doted on him! He was to be another father
to him, and they were all to live together in a garden of roses, weren’t
they? Ugh! Get along with you, do!’ said my aunt.
‘I never heard anything like this person in my life!’ exclaimed Miss
Murdstone.
‘And when you had made sure of the poor little fool,’ said my aunt--‘God
forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where YOU won’t go in
a hurry--because you had not done wrong enough to her and hers, you
must begin to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a poor
caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to sing YOUR
notes?’
‘This is either insanity or intoxication,’ said Miss Murdstone, in a
perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt’s address
towards herself; ‘and my suspicion is that it’s intoxication.’
Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption,
continued to address herself to Mr. Murdstone as if there had been no
such thing.
‘Mr. Murdstone,’ she said, shaking her finger at him, ‘you were a tyrant
to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a loving baby--I
know that; I knew it, years before you ever saw her--and through the
best part of her weakness you gave her the wounds she died of. There
is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. And you and your
instruments may make the most of it.’
‘Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood,’ interposed Miss Murdstone,
‘whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which I am not
experienced, my brother’s instruments?’
‘It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before YOU ever saw
her--and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you ever
did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend--it was clear enough
that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or
other; but I did hope it wouldn’t have been as bad as it has turned out.
That was the time, Mr. Murdstone, when she gave birth to her boy here,’
said my aunt; ‘to the poor child you sometimes tormented her through
afterwards, which is a disagreeable remembrance and makes the sight of
him odious now. Aye, aye! you needn’t wince!’ said my aunt. ‘I know it’s
true without that.’
He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her with a smile
upon his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily contracted. I
remarked now, that, though the smile was on his face still, his colour
had gone in a moment, and he seemed to breathe as if he had been
running.
‘Good day, sir,’ said my aunt, ‘and good-bye! Good day to you, too,
ma’am,’ said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. ‘Let me see you
ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon
your shoulders, I’ll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!’
It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my
aunt’s face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment,
and Miss Murdstone’s face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech,
no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a
word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother’s, and walked
haughtily out of the cottage; my aunt remaining in the window looking
after them; prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey’s
reappearance, to carry her threat into instant execution.
No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed,
and became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and thank her;
which I did with great heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round
her neck. I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook hands with me a
great many times, and hailed this happy close of the proceedings with
repeated bursts of laughter.
‘You’ll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, Mr.
Dick,’ said my aunt.
‘I shall be delighted,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘to be the guardian of David’s
son.’
‘Very good,’ returned my aunt, ‘that’s settled. I have been thinking, do
you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood?’
‘Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly,’ said Mr. Dick.
‘David’s son’s Trotwood.’
‘Trotwood Copperfield, you mean,’ returned my aunt.
‘Yes, to be sure. Yes. Trotwood Copperfield,’ said Mr. Dick, a little
abashed.
My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes,
which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked ‘Trotwood
Copperfield’, in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink,
before I put them on; and it was settled that all the other clothes
which were ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that
afternoon) should be marked in the same way.
Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about
me. Now that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many days,
like one in a dream. I never thought that I had a curious couple of
guardians, in my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of anything about
myself, distinctly. The two things clearest in my mind were, that a
remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone life--which seemed to lie
in the haze of an immeasurable distance; and that a curtain had for ever
fallen on my life at Murdstone and Grinby’s. No one has ever raised that
curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even in this narrative,
with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. The remembrance of that
life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering
and want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to examine how
long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or more, or
less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased to be; and that
I have written, and there I leave it.
CHAPTER 15. I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING
Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, when his
day’s work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every day
of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the
least progress, however hard he laboured, for King Charles the First
always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside,
and another one begun. The patience and hope with which he bore these
perpetual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was
something wrong about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made
to keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled
the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me. What Mr.
Dick supposed would come of the Memorial, if it were completed; where he
thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do; he knew no more
than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he should
trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain under
the sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would be finished. It
was quite an affecting sight, I used to think, to see him with the kite
when it was up a great height in the air. What he had told me, in his
room, about his belief in its disseminating the statements pasted on it,
which were nothing but old leaves of abortive Memorials, might have been
a fancy with him sometimes; but not when he was out, looking up at
the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and tug at his hand. He never
looked so serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as I sat by him of an
evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet
air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it (such was
my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the string in and it came
lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, until it fluttered to
the ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually
out of a dream; and I remember to have seen him take it up, and look
about him in a lost way, as if they had both come down together, so that
I pitied him with all my heart.
While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr. Dick, I did not
go backward in the favour of his staunch friend, my aunt. She took
so kindly to me, that, in the course of a few weeks, she shortened my
adopted name of Trotwood into Trot; and even encouraged me to hope, that
if I went on as I had begun, I might take equal rank in her affections
with my sister Betsey Trotwood.
‘Trot,’ said my aunt one evening, when the backgammon-board was placed
as usual for herself and Mr. Dick, ‘we must not forget your education.’
This was my only subject of anxiety, and I felt quite delighted by her
referring to it.
‘Should you like to go to school at Canterbury?’ said my aunt.
I replied that I should like it very much, as it was so near her.
‘Good,’ said my aunt. ‘Should you like to go tomorrow?’
Being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my aunt’s
evolutions, I was not surprised by the suddenness of the proposal, and
said: ‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ said my aunt again. ‘Janet, hire the grey pony and chaise
tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, and pack up Master Trotwood’s clothes
tonight.’
I was greatly elated by these orders; but my heart smote me for my
selfishness, when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so
low-spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill in
consequence, that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory raps on
the knuckles with her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play
with him any more. But, on hearing from my aunt that I should sometimes
come over on a Saturday, and that he could sometimes come and see me
on a Wednesday, he revived; and vowed to make another kite for those
occasions, of proportions greatly surpassing the present one. In the
morning he was downhearted again, and would have sustained himself by
giving me all the money he had in his possession, gold and silver too,
if my aunt had not interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings,
which, at his earnest petition, were afterwards increased to ten. We
parted at the garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick
did not go into the house until my aunt had driven me out of sight of
it.
My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the grey
pony through Dover in a masterly manner; sitting high and stiff like
a state coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever he went, and
making a point of not letting him have his own way in any respect. When
we came into the country road, she permitted him to relax a little,
however; and looking at me down in a valley of cushion by her side,
asked me whether I was happy?
‘Very happy indeed, thank you, aunt,’ I said.
She was much gratified; and both her hands being occupied, patted me on
the head with her whip.
‘Is it a large school, aunt?’ I asked.
‘Why, I don’t know,’ said my aunt. ‘We are going to Mr. Wickfield’s
first.’
‘Does he keep a school?’ I asked.
‘No, Trot,’ said my aunt. ‘He keeps an office.’
I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered
none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to Canterbury,
where, as it was market-day, my aunt had a great opportunity of
insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and
huckster’s goods. The hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down
upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which
were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect
indifference, and I dare say would have taken her own way with as much
coolness through an enemy’s country.
At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road;
a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and
beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied
the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on
the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness.
The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with
carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two
stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been
covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and carvings
and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little
windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever
fell upon the hills.
When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon
the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the
ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the
house), and quickly disappear. The low arched door then opened, and
the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the
window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is
sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged
to a red-haired person--a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but
looking much older--whose hair was cropped as close as the closest
stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a
red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he
went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black,
with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a
long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as
he stood at the pony’s head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at
us in the chaise.
‘Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep?’ said my aunt.
‘Mr. Wickfield’s at home, ma’am,’ said Uriah Heep, ‘if you’ll please to
walk in there’--pointing with his long hand to the room he meant.
We got out; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low
parlour looking towards the street, from the window of which I caught a
glimpse, as I went in, of Uriah Heep breathing into the pony’s nostrils,
and immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting
some spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece were two
portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means
an old man) and black eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied
together with red tape; the other, of a lady, with a very placid and
sweet expression of face, who was looking at me.
I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah’s picture, when, a door
at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, at sight of
whom I turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to make quite sure
that it had not come out of its frame. But it was stationary; and as the
gentleman advanced into the light, I saw that he was some years older
than when he had had his picture painted.
‘Miss Betsey Trotwood,’ said the gentleman, ‘pray walk in. I was engaged
for a moment, but you’ll excuse my being busy. You know my motive. I
have but one in life.’
Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was furnished
as an office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so forth. It looked
into a garden, and had an iron safe let into the wall; so immediately
over the mantelshelf, that I wondered, as I sat down, how the sweeps got
round it when they swept the chimney.
‘Well, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield; for I soon found that it
was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a rich
gentleman of the county; ‘what wind blows you here? Not an ill wind, I
hope?’
‘No,’ replied my aunt. ‘I have not come for any law.’
‘That’s right, ma’am,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘You had better come for
anything else.’ His hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were
still black. He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought, was handsome.
There was a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been long
accustomed, under Peggotty’s tuition, to connect with port wine; and I
fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency
to the same cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped
waistcoat, and nankeen trousers; and his fine frilled shirt and cambric
neckcloth looked unusually soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy
(I call to mind) of the plumage on the breast of a swan.
‘This is my nephew,’ said my aunt.
‘Wasn’t aware you had one, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield.
‘My grand-nephew, that is to say,’ observed my aunt.
‘Wasn’t aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my word,’ said Mr.
Wickfield.
‘I have adopted him,’ said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, importing
that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, ‘and I have
brought him here, to put to a school where he may be thoroughly well
taught, and well treated. Now tell me where that school is, and what it
is, and all about it.’
‘Before I can advise you properly,’ said Mr. Wickfield--‘the old
question, you know. What’s your motive in this?’
‘Deuce take the man!’ exclaimed my aunt. ‘Always fishing for motives,
when they’re on the surface! Why, to make the child happy and useful.’
‘It must be a mixed motive, I think,’ said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his
head and smiling incredulously.
‘A mixed fiddlestick,’ returned my aunt. ‘You claim to have one plain
motive in all you do yourself. You don’t suppose, I hope, that you are
the only plain dealer in the world?’
‘Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood,’ he rejoined,
smiling. ‘Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. I have only one.
There’s the difference. However, that’s beside the question. The best
school? Whatever the motive, you want the best?’
My aunt nodded assent.
‘At the best we have,’ said Mr. Wickfield, considering, ‘your nephew
couldn’t board just now.’
‘But he could board somewhere else, I suppose?’ suggested my aunt.
Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he proposed to
take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself;
also, to take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he
thought I could be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we were all
three going out together, when he stopped and said:
‘Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting
to the arrangements. I think we had better leave him behind?’
My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point; but to facilitate matters
I said I would gladly remain behind, if they pleased; and returned into
Mr. Wickfield’s office, where I sat down again, in the chair I had first
occupied, to await their return.
It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which
ended in the little circular room where I had seen Uriah Heep’s pale
face looking out of the window. Uriah, having taken the pony to a
neighbouring stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which had a
brass frame on the top to hang paper upon, and on which the writing he
was making a copy of was then hanging. Though his face was towards me, I
thought, for some time, the writing being between us, that he could not
see me; but looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable
to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below
the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare
say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended
to go, as cleverly as ever. I made several attempts to get out of their
way--such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of
the room, and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper--but they
always attracted me back again; and whenever I looked towards those two
red suns, I was sure to find them, either just rising or just setting.
At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield came back,
after a pretty long absence. They were not so successful as I could have
wished; for though the advantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt
had not approved of any of the boarding-houses proposed for me.
‘It’s very unfortunate,’ said my aunt. ‘I don’t know what to do, Trot.’
‘It does happen unfortunately,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘But I’ll tell you
what you can do, Miss Trotwood.’
‘What’s that?’ inquired my aunt.
‘Leave your nephew here, for the present. He’s a quiet fellow. He
won’t disturb me at all. It’s a capital house for study. As quiet as a
monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here.’
My aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate of accepting
it. So did I. ‘Come, Miss Trotwood,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘This is the
way out of the difficulty. It’s only a temporary arrangement, you know.
If it don’t act well, or don’t quite accord with our mutual convenience,
he can easily go to the right-about. There will be time to find some
better place for him in the meanwhile. You had better determine to leave
him here for the present!’
‘I am very much obliged to you,’ said my aunt; ‘and so is he, I see;
but--’
‘Come! I know what you mean,’ cried Mr. Wickfield. ‘You shall not be
oppressed by the receipt of favours, Miss Trotwood. You may pay for
him, if you like. We won’t be hard about terms, but you shall pay if you
will.’
‘On that understanding,’ said my aunt, ‘though it doesn’t lessen the
real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him.’
‘Then come and see my little housekeeper,’ said Mr. Wickfield.
We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase; with a balustrade
so broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily; and into
a shady old drawing-room, lighted by some three or four of the quaint
windows I had looked up at from the street: which had old oak seats
in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as the shining oak
floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It was a prettily furnished
room, with a piano and some lively furniture in red and green, and some
flowers. It seemed to be all old nooks and corners; and in every nook
and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or bookcase,
or seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such
another good corner in the room; until I looked at the next one, and
found it equal to it, if not better. On everything there was the same
air of retirement and cleanliness that marked the house outside.
Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, and a
girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her face,
I saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of the lady whose
picture had looked at me downstairs. It seemed to my imagination as
if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original remained a child.
Although her face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity
about it, and about her--a quiet, good, calm spirit--that I never have
forgotten; that I shall never forget. This was his little housekeeper,
his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield said. When I heard how he said it, and
saw how he held her hand, I guessed what the one motive of his life was.
She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in it; and
she looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the old house
could have. She listened to her father as he told her about me, with a
pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we
should go upstairs and see my room. We all went together, she before us:
and a glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes;
and the broad balustrade going all the way up to it.
I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a
stained glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But
I know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old
staircase, and wait for us, above, I thought of that window; and I
associated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield
ever afterwards.
My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me; and we
went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified. As she
would not hear of staying to dinner, lest she should by any chance fail
to arrive at home with the grey pony before dark; and as I apprehend Mr.
Wickfield knew her too well to argue any point with her; some lunch was
provided for her there, and Agnes went back to her governess, and Mr.
Wickfield to his office. So we were left to take leave of one another
without any restraint.
She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wickfield,
and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and
the best advice.
‘Trot,’ said my aunt in conclusion, ‘be a credit to yourself, to me, and
Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!’
I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again and again, and
send my love to Mr. Dick.
‘Never,’ said my aunt, ‘be mean in anything; never be false; never be
cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of
you.’
I promised, as well as I could, that I would not abuse her kindness or
forget her admonition.
‘The pony’s at the door,’ said my aunt, ‘and I am off! Stay here.’ With
these words she embraced me hastily, and went out of the room, shutting
the door after her. At first I was startled by so abrupt a departure,
and almost feared I had displeased her; but when I looked into the
street, and saw how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and drove away
without looking up, I understood her better and did not do her that
injustice.
By five o’clock, which was Mr. Wickfield’s dinner-hour, I had mustered
up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. The cloth was
only laid for us two; but Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before
dinner, went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I
doubted whether he could have dined without her.
We did not stay there, after dinner, but came upstairs into the
drawing-room again: in one snug corner of which, Agnes set glasses for
her father, and a decanter of port wine. I thought he would have missed
its usual flavour, if it had been put there for him by any other hands.
There he sat, taking his wine, and taking a good deal of it, for two
hours; while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and
me. He was, for the most part, gay and cheerful with us; but sometimes
his eyes rested on her, and he fell into a brooding state, and was
silent. She always observed this quickly, I thought, and always roused
him with a question or caress. Then he came out of his meditation, and
drank more wine.
Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after
it, as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her
in his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his
office. Then I went to bed too.
But in the course of the evening I had rambled down to the door, and a
little way along the street, that I might have another peep at the old
houses, and the grey Cathedral; and might think of my coming through
that old city on my journey, and of my passing the very house I lived
in, without knowing it. As I came back, I saw Uriah Heep shutting up
the office; and feeling friendly towards everybody, went in and spoke
to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his
was! as ghostly to the touch as to the sight! I rubbed mine afterwards,
to warm it, AND TO RUB HIS OFF.
It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went to my room, it was
still cold and wet upon my memory. Leaning out of the window, and seeing
one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied it
was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry.
CHAPTER 16. I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE
Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went,
accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies--a grave
building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very
well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the
Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot--and
was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong.
Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron
rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the
great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of
the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like
sublimated skittles, for Time to play at. He was in his library (I mean
Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and
his hair not particularly well combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his
long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on
the hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of
a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and
tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad
to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which I didn’t know what to do
with, as it did nothing for itself.
But, sitting at work, not far from Doctor Strong, was a very pretty
young lady--whom he called Annie, and who was his daughter, I
supposed--who got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to put Doctor
Strong’s shoes on, and button his gaiters, which she did with great
cheerfulness and quickness. When she had finished, and we were going
out to the schoolroom, I was much surprised to hear Mr. Wickfield,
in bidding her good morning, address her as ‘Mrs. Strong’; and I was
wondering could she be Doctor Strong’s son’s wife, or could she be Mrs.
Doctor Strong, when Doctor Strong himself unconsciously enlightened me.
‘By the by, Wickfield,’ he said, stopping in a passage with his hand on
my shoulder; ‘you have not found any suitable provision for my wife’s
cousin yet?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘No. Not yet.’
‘I could wish it done as soon as it can be done, Wickfield,’ said
Doctor Strong, ‘for Jack Maldon is needy, and idle; and of those two
bad things, worse things sometimes come. What does Doctor Watts say,’ he
added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation,
‘“Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.”’
‘Egad, Doctor,’ returned Mr. Wickfield, ‘if Doctor Watts knew mankind,
he might have written, with as much truth, “Satan finds some mischief
still, for busy hands to do.” The busy people achieve their full share
of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the people
been about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in getting
power, this century or two? No mischief?’
‘Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect,’ said
Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
‘Perhaps not,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘and you bring me back to the
question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able
to dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe,’ he said this with some
hesitation, ‘I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more
difficult.’
‘My motive,’ returned Doctor Strong, ‘is to make some suitable provision
for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of Annie’s.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘at home or abroad.’
‘Aye!’ replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasized those
words so much. ‘At home or abroad.’
‘Your own expression, you know,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Or abroad.’
‘Surely,’ the Doctor answered. ‘Surely. One or other.’
‘One or other? Have you no choice?’ asked Mr. Wickfield.
‘No,’ returned the Doctor.
‘No?’ with astonishment.
‘Not the least.’
‘No motive,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘for meaning abroad, and not at home?’
‘No,’ returned the Doctor.
‘I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you,’ said Mr.
Wickfield. ‘It might have simplified my office very much, if I had known
it before. But I confess I entertained another impression.’
Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look,
which almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great
encouragement; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and there
was a simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when the
studious, pondering frost upon it was got through, very attractive and
hopeful to a young scholar like me. Repeating ‘no’, and ‘not the least’,
and other short assurances to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged
on before us, at a queer, uneven pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield,
looking grave, I observed, and shaking his head to himself, without
knowing that I saw him.
The schoolroom was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the
house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great
urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the
Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There
were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the
broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of
painted tin) have ever since, by association, been symbolical to me
of silence and retirement. About five-and-twenty boys were studiously
engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor
good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me.
‘A new boy, young gentlemen,’ said the Doctor; ‘Trotwood Copperfield.’
One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and
welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but
he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and
presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me
at my ease, if anything could.
It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys,
or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy
Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in my life. I was
so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have
no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age,
appearance, and condition as one of them, that I half believed it was an
imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy. I had become,
in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short or long it may have
been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew I was
awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them.
Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares
of my life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what
I knew, I knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school.
But, troubled as I was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning
too, I was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration,
that, in what I did know, I was much farther removed from my companions
than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they would think, if they
knew of my familiar acquaintance with the King’s Bench Prison? Was there
anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with
the Micawber family--all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers--in
spite of myself? Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through
Canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? What would they
say, who made so light of money, if they could know how I had scraped my
halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, or
my slices of pudding? How would it affect them, who were so innocent of
London life, and London streets, to discover how knowing I was (and was
ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases of both? All this ran in
my head so much, on that first day at Doctor Strong’s, that I felt
distrustful of my slightest look and gesture; shrunk within myself
whensoever I was approached by one of my new schoolfellows; and hurried
off the minute school was over, afraid of committing myself in my
response to any friendly notice or advance.
But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield’s old house, that when
I knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, I began to feel
my uneasiness softening away. As I went up to my airy old room, the
grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears,
and to make the past more indistinct. I sat there, sturdily conning my
books, until dinner-time (we were out of school for good at three); and
went down, hopeful of becoming a passable sort of boy yet.
Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father, who was detained
by someone in his office. She met me with her pleasant smile, and asked
me how I liked the school. I told her I should like it very much, I
hoped; but I was a little strange to it at first.
‘You have never been to school,’ I said, ‘have you?’ ‘Oh yes! Every
day.’
‘Ah, but you mean here, at your own home?’
‘Papa couldn’t spare me to go anywhere else,’ she answered, smiling and
shaking her head. ‘His housekeeper must be in his house, you know.’
‘He is very fond of you, I am sure,’ I said.
She nodded ‘Yes,’ and went to the door to listen for his coming up, that
she might meet him on the stairs. But, as he was not there, she came
back again.
‘Mama has been dead ever since I was born,’ she said, in her quiet way.
‘I only know her picture, downstairs. I saw you looking at it yesterday.
Did you think whose it was?’
I told her yes, because it was so like herself.
‘Papa says so, too,’ said Agnes, pleased. ‘Hark! That’s papa now!’
Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him,
and as they came in, hand in hand. He greeted me cordially; and told
me I should certainly be happy under Doctor Strong, who was one of the
gentlest of men.
‘There may be some, perhaps--I don’t know that there are--who abuse
his kindness,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Never be one of those, Trotwood, in
anything. He is the least suspicious of mankind; and whether that’s
a merit, or whether it’s a blemish, it deserves consideration in all
dealings with the Doctor, great or small.’
He spoke, I thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied with
something; but I did not pursue the question in my mind, for dinner was
just then announced, and we went down and took the same seats as before.
We had scarcely done so, when Uriah Heep put in his red head and his
lank hand at the door, and said:
‘Here’s Mr. Maldon begs the favour of a word, sir.’
‘I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon,’ said his master.
‘Yes, sir,’ returned Uriah; ‘but Mr. Maldon has come back, and he begs
the favour of a word.’
As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked at me, and looked
at Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the plates, and looked
at every object in the room, I thought,--yet seemed to look at nothing;
he made such an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes
dutifully on his master. ‘I beg your pardon. It’s only to say, on
reflection,’ observed a voice behind Uriah, as Uriah’s head was
pushed away, and the speaker’s substituted--‘pray excuse me for this
intrusion--that as it seems I have no choice in the matter, the sooner
I go abroad the better. My cousin Annie did say, when we talked of it,
that she liked to have her friends within reach rather than to have them
banished, and the old Doctor--’
‘Doctor Strong, was that?’ Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely.
‘Doctor Strong, of course,’ returned the other; ‘I call him the old
Doctor; it’s all the same, you know.’
‘I don’t know,’ returned Mr. Wickfield.
‘Well, Doctor Strong,’ said the other--‘Doctor Strong was of the same
mind, I believed. But as it appears from the course you take with me he
has changed his mind, why there’s no more to be said, except that the
sooner I am off, the better. Therefore, I thought I’d come back and say,
that the sooner I am off the better. When a plunge is to be made into
the water, it’s of no use lingering on the bank.’
‘There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, Mr.
Maldon, you may depend upon it,’ said Mr. Wickfield.
‘Thank’ee,’ said the other. ‘Much obliged. I don’t want to look a
gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious thing to do; otherwise,
I dare say, my cousin Annie could easily arrange it in her own way. I
suppose Annie would only have to say to the old Doctor--’
‘Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to her husband--do I
follow you?’ said Mr. Wickfield.
‘Quite so,’ returned the other, ‘--would only have to say, that she
wanted such and such a thing to be so and so; and it would be so and so,
as a matter of course.’
‘And why as a matter of course, Mr. Maldon?’ asked Mr. Wickfield,
sedately eating his dinner.
‘Why, because Annie’s a charming young girl, and the old Doctor--Doctor
Strong, I mean--is not quite a charming young boy,’ said Mr. Jack
Maldon, laughing. ‘No offence to anybody, Mr. Wickfield. I only mean
that I suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable in that sort of
marriage.’
‘Compensation to the lady, sir?’ asked Mr. Wickfield gravely.
‘To the lady, sir,’ Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But appearing
to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in the same sedate,
immovable manner, and that there was no hope of making him relax a
muscle of his face, he added: ‘However, I have said what I came to say,
and, with another apology for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of
course I shall observe your directions, in considering the matter as one
to be arranged between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up
at the Doctor’s.’
‘Have you dined?’ asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion of his hand towards
the table.
‘Thank’ee. I am going to dine,’ said Mr. Maldon, ‘with my cousin Annie.
Good-bye!’
Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he went
out. He was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, I thought, with
a handsome face, a rapid utterance, and a confident, bold air. And this
was the first I ever saw of Mr. Jack Maldon; whom I had not expected to
see so soon, when I heard the Doctor speak of him that morning.
When we had dined, we went upstairs again, where everything went on
exactly as on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and decanters in
the same corner, and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a good
deal. Agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked,
and played some games at dominoes with me. In good time she made tea;
and afterwards, when I brought down my books, looked into them, and
showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she
said it was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them.
I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and I hear her
beautiful calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all
good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins
already to descend upon my breast. I love little Em’ly, and I don’t love
Agnes--no, not at all in that way--but I feel that there are goodness,
peace, and truth, wherever Agnes is; and that the soft light of the
coloured window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and
on me when I am near her, and on everything around.
The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having
left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself.
But he checked me and said: ‘Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood,
or to go elsewhere?’
‘To stay,’ I answered, quickly.
‘You are sure?’
‘If you please. If I may!’
‘Why, it’s but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am afraid,’ he
said.
‘Not more dull for me than Agnes, sir. Not dull at all!’
‘Than Agnes,’ he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece,
and leaning against it. ‘Than Agnes!’
He had drank wine that evening (or I fancied it), until his eyes were
bloodshot. Not that I could see them now, for they were cast down, and
shaded by his hand; but I had noticed them a little while before.
‘Now I wonder,’ he muttered, ‘whether my Agnes tires of me. When should
I ever tire of her! But that’s different, that’s quite different.’
He was musing, not speaking to me; so I remained quiet.
‘A dull old house,’ he said, ‘and a monotonous life; but I must have
her near me. I must keep her near me. If the thought that I may die and
leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave me, comes like a
spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned in--’
He did not supply the word; but pacing slowly to the place where he had
sat, and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine from the
empty decanter, set it down and paced back again.
‘If it is miserable to bear, when she is here,’ he said, ‘what would it
be, and she away? No, no, no. I cannot try that.’
He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that I could not
decide whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or to remain
quietly where I was, until he should come out of his reverie. At length
he aroused himself, and looked about the room until his eyes encountered
mine.
‘Stay with us, Trotwood, eh?’ he said in his usual manner, and as if
he were answering something I had just said. ‘I am glad of it. You are
company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me,
wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us.’
‘I am sure it is for me, sir,’ I said. ‘I am so glad to be here.’
‘That’s a fine fellow!’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘As long as you are glad
to be here, you shall stay here.’ He shook hands with me upon it, and
clapped me on the back; and told me that when I had anything to do
at night after Agnes had left us, or when I wished to read for my own
pleasure, I was free to come down to his room, if he were there and if
I desired it for company’s sake, and to sit with him. I thanked him for
his consideration; and, as he went down soon afterwards, and I was
not tired, went down too, with a book in my hand, to avail myself, for
half-an-hour, of his permission.
But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling
myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for
me, I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book,
with such demonstrative attention, that his lank forefinger followed up
every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I
fully believed) like a snail.
‘You are working late tonight, Uriah,’ says I.
‘Yes, Master Copperfield,’ says Uriah.
As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more
conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about
him, and that he could only widen his mouth and make two hard creases
down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one.
‘I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah.
‘What work, then?’ I asked.
‘I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘I
am going through Tidd’s Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master
Copperfield!’
My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading
on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines
with his forefinger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and
pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable
way of expanding and contracting themselves--that they seemed to twinkle
instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all.
‘I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?’ I said, after looking at him
for some time.
‘Me, Master Copperfield?’ said Uriah. ‘Oh, no! I’m a very umble person.’
It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently
ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and
warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his
pocket-handkerchief.
‘I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,’ said Uriah Heep,
modestly; ‘let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very
umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have
much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble. He was a
sexton.’
‘What is he now?’ I asked.
‘He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah
Heep. ‘But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be
thankful for in living with Mr. Wickfield!’
I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long?
‘I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield,’ said
Uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he
had left off. ‘Since a year after my father’s death. How much have I
to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr.
Wickfield’s kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise
not lay within the umble means of mother and self!’
‘Then, when your articled time is over, you’ll be a regular lawyer, I
suppose?’ said I.
‘With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah.
‘Perhaps you’ll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield’s business, one of these
days,’ I said, to make myself agreeable; ‘and it will be Wickfield and
Heep, or Heep late Wickfield.’
‘Oh no, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, shaking his head, ‘I am
much too umble for that!’
He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam
outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with
his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks.
‘Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah.
‘If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much better than I
can inform you.’
I replied that I was certain he was; but that I had not known him long
myself, though he was a friend of my aunt’s.
‘Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘Your aunt is a sweet
lady, Master Copperfield!’
He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was
very ugly; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had
paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body.
‘A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah Heep. ‘She has a great
admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?’
I said, ‘Yes,’ boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven forgive
me!
‘I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘But I am sure
you must have.’
‘Everybody must have,’ I returned.
‘Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah Heep, ‘for that remark!
It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you,
Master Copperfield!’ He writhed himself quite off his stool in the
excitement of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements
for going home.
‘Mother will be expecting me,’ he said, referring to a pale,
inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, ‘and getting uneasy; for though
we are very umble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached to one
another. If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of
tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I
should be.’
I said I should be glad to come.
‘Thank you, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, putting his book
away upon the shelf--‘I suppose you stop here, some time, Master
Copperfield?’
I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as I
remained at school.
‘Oh, indeed!’ exclaimed Uriah. ‘I should think YOU would come into the
business at last, Master Copperfield!’
I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme
was entertained in my behalf by anybody; but Uriah insisted on blandly
replying to all my assurances, ‘Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should
think you would, indeed!’ and, ‘Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should
think you would, certainly!’ over and over again. Being, at last, ready
to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my
convenience to have the light put out; and on my answering ‘Yes,’
instantly extinguished it. After shaking hands with me--his hand felt
like a fish, in the dark--he opened the door into the street a very
little, and crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into
the house: which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool. This
was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what
appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things,
that he had launched Mr. Peggotty’s house on a piratical expedition,
with a black flag at the masthead, bearing the inscription ‘Tidd’s
Practice’, under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little
Em’ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned.
I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school
next day, and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by
degrees, that in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy,
among my new companions. I was awkward enough in their games, and
backward enough in their studies; but custom would improve me in the
first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the second. Accordingly, I
went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained great
commendation. And, in a very little while, the Murdstone and Grinby life
became so strange to me that I hardly believed in it, while my present
life grew so familiar, that I seemed to have been leading it a long
time.
Doctor Strong’s was an excellent school; as different from Mr. Creakle’s
as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and
on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good
faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession
of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which
worked wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of
the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, we soon
became warmly attached to it--I am sure I did for one, and I never knew,
in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise--and learnt with a good
will, desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and
plenty of liberty; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of
in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner,
to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong’s boys.
Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor’s house, and through
them I learned, at second hand, some particulars of the Doctor’s
history--as, how he had not yet been married twelve months to the
beautiful young lady I had seen in the study, whom he had married for
love; for she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations (so
our fellows said) ready to swarm the Doctor out of house and home. Also,
how the Doctor’s cogitating manner was attributable to his being always
engaged in looking out for Greek roots; which, in my innocence and
ignorance, I supposed to be a botanical furor on the Doctor’s part,
especially as he always looked at the ground when he walked about,
until I understood that they were roots of words, with a view to a new
Dictionary which he had in contemplation. Adams, our head-boy, who had
a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, I was informed, of the
time this Dictionary would take in completing, on the Doctor’s plan, and
at the Doctor’s rate of going. He considered that it might be done
in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the
Doctor’s last, or sixty-second, birthday.
But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school: and it must
have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for
he was the kindest of men; with a simple faith in him that might have
touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall. As he walked up
and down that part of the courtyard which was at the side of the house,
with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their heads
cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in worldly
affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to
his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale
of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days. It was so
notorious in the house, that the masters and head-boys took pains to cut
these marauders off at angles, and to get out of windows, and turn them
out of the courtyard, before they could make the Doctor aware of their
presence; which was sometimes happily effected within a few yards of
him, without his knowing anything of the matter, as he jogged to and
fro. Outside his own domain, and unprotected, he was a very sheep for
the shearers. He would have taken his gaiters off his legs, to give
away. In fact, there was a story current among us (I have no idea, and
never had, on what authority, but I have believed it for so many
years that I feel quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one
winter-time, he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who
occasioned some scandal in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant
from door to door, wrapped in those garments, which were universally
recognized, being as well known in the vicinity as the Cathedral. The
legend added that the only person who did not identify them was the
Doctor himself, who, when they were shortly afterwards displayed at the
door of a little second-hand shop of no very good repute, where such
things were taken in exchange for gin, was more than once observed to
handle them approvingly, as if admiring some curious novelty in the
pattern, and considering them an improvement on his own.
It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty young wife. He
had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which
seemed in itself to express a good man. I often saw them walking in the
garden where the peaches were, and I sometimes had a nearer observation
of them in the study or the parlour. She appeared to me to take great
care of the Doctor, and to like him very much, though I never thought
her vitally interested in the Dictionary: some cumbrous fragments of
which work the Doctor always carried in his pockets, and in the lining
of his hat, and generally seemed to be expounding to her as they walked
about.
I saw a good deal of Mrs. Strong, both because she had taken a liking
for me on the morning of my introduction to the Doctor, and was always
afterwards kind to me, and interested in me; and because she was very
fond of Agnes, and was often backwards and forwards at our house. There
was a curious constraint between her and Mr. Wickfield, I thought (of
whom she seemed to be afraid), that never wore off. When she came there
of an evening, she always shrunk from accepting his escort home, and ran
away with me instead. And sometimes, as we were running gaily across
the Cathedral yard together, expecting to meet nobody, we would meet Mr.
Jack Maldon, who was always surprised to see us.
Mrs. Strong’s mama was a lady I took great delight in. Her name was Mrs.
Markleham; but our boys used to call her the Old Soldier, on account of
her generalship, and the skill with which she marshalled great forces
of relations against the Doctor. She was a little, sharp-eyed woman,
who used to wear, when she was dressed, one unchangeable cap, ornamented
with some artificial flowers, and two artificial butterflies supposed
to be hovering above the flowers. There was a superstition among us
that this cap had come from France, and could only originate in the
workmanship of that ingenious nation: but all I certainly know about it,
is, that it always made its appearance of an evening, wheresoever Mrs.
Markleham made HER appearance; that it was carried about to friendly
meetings in a Hindoo basket; that the butterflies had the gift of
trembling constantly; and that they improved the shining hours at Doctor
Strong’s expense, like busy bees.
I observed the Old Soldier--not to adopt the name disrespectfully--to
pretty good advantage, on a night which is made memorable to me by
something else I shall relate. It was the night of a little party at the
Doctor’s, which was given on the occasion of Mr. Jack Maldon’s departure
for India, whither he was going as a cadet, or something of that kind:
Mr. Wickfield having at length arranged the business. It happened to be
the Doctor’s birthday, too. We had had a holiday, had made presents to
him in the morning, had made a speech to him through the head-boy, and
had cheered him until we were hoarse, and until he had shed tears. And
now, in the evening, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I, went to have tea with
him in his private capacity.
Mr. Jack Maldon was there, before us. Mrs. Strong, dressed in white,
with cherry-coloured ribbons, was playing the piano, when we went in;
and he was leaning over her to turn the leaves. The clear red and
white of her complexion was not so blooming and flower-like as usual, I
thought, when she turned round; but she looked very pretty, Wonderfully
pretty.
‘I have forgotten, Doctor,’ said Mrs. Strong’s mama, when we were
seated, ‘to pay you the compliments of the day--though they are, as you
may suppose, very far from being mere compliments in my case. Allow me
to wish you many happy returns.’
‘I thank you, ma’am,’ replied the Doctor.
‘Many, many, many, happy returns,’ said the Old Soldier. ‘Not only
for your own sake, but for Annie’s, and John Maldon’s, and many other
people’s. It seems but yesterday to me, John, when you were a little
creature, a head shorter than Master Copperfield, making baby love to
Annie behind the gooseberry bushes in the back-garden.’
‘My dear mama,’ said Mrs. Strong, ‘never mind that now.’
‘Annie, don’t be absurd,’ returned her mother. ‘If you are to blush to
hear of such things now you are an old married woman, when are you not
to blush to hear of them?’
‘Old?’ exclaimed Mr. Jack Maldon. ‘Annie? Come!’
‘Yes, John,’ returned the Soldier. ‘Virtually, an old married woman.
Although not old by years--for when did you ever hear me say, or who has
ever heard me say, that a girl of twenty was old by years!--your cousin
is the wife of the Doctor, and, as such, what I have described her. It
is well for you, John, that your cousin is the wife of the Doctor. You
have found in him an influential and kind friend, who will be kinder
yet, I venture to predict, if you deserve it. I have no false pride.
I never hesitate to admit, frankly, that there are some members of our
family who want a friend. You were one yourself, before your cousin’s
influence raised up one for you.’
The Doctor, in the goodness of his heart, waved his hand as if to make
light of it, and save Mr. Jack Maldon from any further reminder. But
Mrs. Markleham changed her chair for one next the Doctor’s, and putting
her fan on his coat-sleeve, said:
‘No, really, my dear Doctor, you must excuse me if I appear to dwell
on this rather, because I feel so very strongly. I call it quite my
monomania, it is such a subject of mine. You are a blessing to us. You
really are a Boon, you know.’
‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ said the Doctor.
‘No, no, I beg your pardon,’ retorted the Old Soldier. ‘With nobody
present, but our dear and confidential friend Mr. Wickfield, I cannot
consent to be put down. I shall begin to assert the privileges of a
mother-in-law, if you go on like that, and scold you. I am perfectly
honest and outspoken. What I am saying, is what I said when you first
overpowered me with surprise--you remember how surprised I was?--by
proposing for Annie. Not that there was anything so very much out of
the way, in the mere fact of the proposal--it would be ridiculous to say
that!--but because, you having known her poor father, and having known
her from a baby six months old, I hadn’t thought of you in such a light
at all, or indeed as a marrying man in any way,--simply that, you know.’
‘Aye, aye,’ returned the Doctor, good-humouredly. ‘Never mind.’
‘But I DO mind,’ said the Old Soldier, laying her fan upon his lips. ‘I
mind very much. I recall these things that I may be contradicted if I am
wrong. Well! Then I spoke to Annie, and I told her what had happened.
I said, “My dear, here’s Doctor Strong has positively been and made you
the subject of a handsome declaration and an offer.” Did I press it in
the least? No. I said, “Now, Annie, tell me the truth this moment; is
your heart free?” “Mama,” she said crying, “I am extremely young”--which
was perfectly true--“and I hardly know if I have a heart at all.” “Then,
my dear,” I said, “you may rely upon it, it’s free. At all events, my
love,” said I, “Doctor Strong is in an agitated state of mind, and
must be answered. He cannot be kept in his present state of suspense.”
“Mama,” said Annie, still crying, “would he be unhappy without me? If he
would, I honour and respect him so much, that I think I will have him.”
So it was settled. And then, and not till then, I said to Annie, “Annie,
Doctor Strong will not only be your husband, but he will represent your
late father: he will represent the head of our family, he will represent
the wisdom and station, and I may say the means, of our family; and will
be, in short, a Boon to it.” I used the word at the time, and I have
used it again, today. If I have any merit it is consistency.’
The daughter had sat quite silent and still during this speech, with her
eyes fixed on the ground; her cousin standing near her, and looking on
the ground too. She now said very softly, in a trembling voice:
‘Mama, I hope you have finished?’ ‘No, my dear Annie,’ returned the Old
Soldier, ‘I have not quite finished. Since you ask me, my love, I reply
that I have not. I complain that you really are a little unnatural
towards your own family; and, as it is of no use complaining to you. I
mean to complain to your husband. Now, my dear Doctor, do look at that
silly wife of yours.’
As the Doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of simplicity and
gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head more. I noticed that Mr.
Wickfield looked at her steadily.
‘When I happened to say to that naughty thing, the other day,’ pursued
her mother, shaking her head and her fan at her, playfully, ‘that there
was a family circumstance she might mention to you--indeed, I think, was
bound to mention--she said, that to mention it was to ask a favour;
and that, as you were too generous, and as for her to ask was always to
have, she wouldn’t.’
‘Annie, my dear,’ said the Doctor. ‘That was wrong. It robbed me of a
pleasure.’
‘Almost the very words I said to her!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘Now
really, another time, when I know what she would tell you but for this
reason, and won’t, I have a great mind, my dear Doctor, to tell you
myself.’
‘I shall be glad if you will,’ returned the Doctor.
‘Shall I?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Well, then, I will!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘That’s a bargain.’ And
having, I suppose, carried her point, she tapped the Doctor’s hand
several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and returned
triumphantly to her former station.
Some more company coming in, among whom were the two masters and Adams,
the talk became general; and it naturally turned on Mr. Jack Maldon, and
his voyage, and the country he was going to, and his various plans and
prospects. He was to leave that night, after supper, in a post-chaise,
for Gravesend; where the ship, in which he was to make the voyage, lay;
and was to be gone--unless he came home on leave, or for his health--I
don’t know how many years. I recollect it was settled by general
consent that India was quite a misrepresented country, and had nothing
objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a little heat in the warm
part of the day. For my own part, I looked on Mr. Jack Maldon as a
modern Sindbad, and pictured him the bosom friend of all the Rajahs in
the East, sitting under canopies, smoking curly golden pipes--a mile
long, if they could be straightened out.
Mrs. Strong was a very pretty singer: as I knew, who often heard her
singing by herself. But, whether she was afraid of singing before
people, or was out of voice that evening, it was certain that she
couldn’t sing at all. She tried a duet, once, with her cousin Maldon,
but could not so much as begin; and afterwards, when she tried to sing
by herself, although she began sweetly, her voice died away on a sudden,
and left her quite distressed, with her head hanging down over the keys.
The good Doctor said she was nervous, and, to relieve her, proposed a
round game at cards; of which he knew as much as of the art of playing
the trombone. But I remarked that the Old Soldier took him into custody
directly, for her partner; and instructed him, as the first preliminary
of initiation, to give her all the silver he had in his pocket.
We had a merry game, not made the less merry by the Doctor’s mistakes,
of which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite of the
watchfulness of the butterflies, and to their great aggravation. Mrs.
Strong had declined to play, on the ground of not feeling very well; and
her cousin Maldon had excused himself because he had some packing to
do. When he had done it, however, he returned, and they sat together,
talking, on the sofa. From time to time she came and looked over the
Doctor’s hand, and told him what to play. She was very pale, as she
bent over him, and I thought her finger trembled as she pointed out
the cards; but the Doctor was quite happy in her attention, and took no
notice of this, if it were so.
At supper, we were hardly so gay. Everyone appeared to feel that a
parting of that sort was an awkward thing, and that the nearer it
approached, the more awkward it was. Mr. Jack Maldon tried to be very
talkative, but was not at his ease, and made matters worse. And they
were not improved, as it appeared to me, by the Old Soldier: who
continually recalled passages of Mr. Jack Maldon’s youth.
The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was making everybody
happy, was well pleased, and had no suspicion but that we were all at
the utmost height of enjoyment.
‘Annie, my dear,’ said he, looking at his watch, and filling his glass,
‘it is past your cousin Jack’s time, and we must not detain him, since
time and tide--both concerned in this case--wait for no man. Mr. Jack
Maldon, you have a long voyage, and a strange country, before you; but
many men have had both, and many men will have both, to the end of time.
The winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thousands upon thousands
to fortune, and brought thousands upon thousands happily back.’
‘It’s an affecting thing,’ said Mrs. Markleham--‘however it’s viewed,
it’s affecting, to see a fine young man one has known from an infant,
going away to the other end of the world, leaving all he knows behind,
and not knowing what’s before him. A young man really well deserves
constant support and patronage,’ looking at the Doctor, ‘who makes such
sacrifices.’
‘Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon,’ pursued the Doctor,
‘and fast with all of us. Some of us can hardly expect, perhaps, in the
natural course of things, to greet you on your return. The next best
thing is to hope to do it, and that’s my case. I shall not weary you
with good advice. You have long had a good model before you, in your
cousin Annie. Imitate her virtues as nearly as you can.’
Mrs. Markleham fanned herself, and shook her head.
‘Farewell, Mr. Jack,’ said the Doctor, standing up; on which we all
stood up. ‘A prosperous voyage out, a thriving career abroad, and a
happy return home!’
We all drank the toast, and all shook hands with Mr. Jack Maldon; after
which he hastily took leave of the ladies who were there, and hurried
to the door, where he was received, as he got into the chaise, with a
tremendous broadside of cheers discharged by our boys, who had assembled
on the lawn for the purpose. Running in among them to swell the ranks,
I was very near the chaise when it rolled away; and I had a lively
impression made upon me, in the midst of the noise and dust, of having
seen Mr. Jack Maldon rattle past with an agitated face, and something
cherry-coloured in his hand.
After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for the Doctor’s
wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into the house, where I found
the guests all standing in a group about the Doctor, discussing how Mr.
Jack Maldon had gone away, and how he had borne it, and how he had
felt it, and all the rest of it. In the midst of these remarks, Mrs.
Markleham cried: ‘Where’s Annie?’
No Annie was there; and when they called to her, no Annie replied. But
all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, we
found her lying on the hall floor. There was great alarm at first, until
it was found that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was yielding
to the usual means of recovery; when the Doctor, who had lifted her
head upon his knee, put her curls aside with his hand, and said, looking
around:
‘Poor Annie! She’s so faithful and tender-hearted! It’s the parting from
her old playfellow and friend--her favourite cousin--that has done this.
Ah! It’s a pity! I am very sorry!’
When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we were all
standing about her, she arose with assistance: turning her head, as she
did so, to lay it on the Doctor’s shoulder--or to hide it, I don’t know
which. We went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the Doctor and
her mother; but she said, it seemed, that she was better than she had
been since morning, and that she would rather be brought among us; so
they brought her in, looking very white and weak, I thought, and sat her
on a sofa.
‘Annie, my dear,’ said her mother, doing something to her dress. ‘See
here! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find a ribbon; a
cherry-coloured ribbon?’
It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We all looked for it; I myself
looked everywhere, I am certain--but nobody could find it.
‘Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie?’ said her mother.
I wondered how I could have thought she looked white, or anything but
burning red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a little while
ago, she thought, but it was not worth looking for.
Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. She
entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still sought
for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took
their departure.
We walked very slowly home, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I--Agnes and I
admiring the moonlight, and Mr. Wickfield scarcely raising his eyes from
the ground. When we, at last, reached our own door, Agnes discovered
that she had left her little reticule behind. Delighted to be of any
service to her, I ran back to fetch it.
I went into the supper-room where it had been left, which was deserted
and dark. But a door of communication between that and the Doctor’s
study, where there was a light, being open, I passed on there, to say
what I wanted, and to get a candle.
The Doctor was sitting in his easy-chair by the fireside, and his young
wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a complacent smile,
was reading aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory
out of that interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him. But
with such a face as I never saw. It was so beautiful in its form, it was
so ashy pale, it was so fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a
wild, sleep-walking, dreamy horror of I don’t know what. The eyes
were wide open, and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her
shoulders, and on her white dress, disordered by the want of the lost
ribbon. Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was
expressive, I cannot even say of what it is expressive to me now, rising
again before my older judgement. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride,
love, and trustfulness--I see them all; and in them all, I see that
horror of I don’t know what.
My entrance, and my saying what I wanted, roused her. It disturbed the
Doctor too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had taken from
the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying he
was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into reading on; and he would
have her go to bed.
But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay--to let
her feel assured (I heard her murmur some broken words to this effect)
that she was in his confidence that night. And, as she turned again
towards him, after glancing at me as I left the room and went out at the
door, I saw her cross her hands upon his knee, and look up at him with
the same face, something quieted, as he resumed his reading.
It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it a long time
afterwards; as I shall have occasion to narrate when the time comes.
CHAPTER 17. SOMEBODY TURNS UP
It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since I ran away; but, of
course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed at Dover,
and another, and a longer letter, containing all particulars fully
related, when my aunt took me formally under her protection. On my being
settled at Doctor Strong’s I wrote to her again, detailing my happy
condition and prospects. I never could have derived anything like the
pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick had given me, that I felt in
sending a gold half-guinea to Peggotty, per post, enclosed in this last
letter, to discharge the sum I had borrowed of her: in which epistle,
not before, I mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart.
To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly, if not as
concisely, as a merchant’s clerk. Her utmost powers of expression (which
were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write
what she felt on the subject of my journey. Four sides of incoherent and
interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots,
were inadequate to afford her any relief. But the blots were more
expressive to me than the best composition; for they showed me that
Peggotty had been crying all over the paper, and what could I have
desired more?
I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite
kindly to my aunt yet. The notice was too short after so long a
prepossession the other way. We never knew a person, she wrote; but to
think that Miss Betsey should seem to be so different from what she had
been thought to be, was a Moral!--that was her word. She was evidently
still afraid of Miss Betsey, for she sent her grateful duty to her but
timidly; and she was evidently afraid of me, too, and entertained the
probability of my running away again soon: if I might judge from the
repeated hints she threw out, that the coach-fare to Yarmouth was always
to be had of her for the asking.
She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much,
namely, that there had been a sale of the furniture at our old home, and
that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were gone away, and the house was shut up,
to be let or sold. God knows I had no part in it while they remained
there, but it pained me to think of the dear old place as altogether
abandoned; of the weeds growing tall in the garden, and the fallen
leaves lying thick and wet upon the paths. I imagined how the winds
of winter would howl round it, how the cold rain would beat upon the
window-glass, how the moon would make ghosts on the walls of the empty
rooms, watching their solitude all night. I thought afresh of the grave
in the churchyard, underneath the tree: and it seemed as if the house
were dead too, now, and all connected with my father and mother were
faded away.
There was no other news in Peggotty’s letters. Mr. Barkis was an
excellent husband, she said, though still a little near; but we all had
our faults, and she had plenty (though I am sure I don’t know what they
were); and he sent his duty, and my little bedroom was always ready for
me. Mr. Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs. Gummidge was but
poorly, and little Em’ly wouldn’t send her love, but said that Peggotty
might send it, if she liked.
All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only reserving
to myself the mention of little Em’ly, to whom I instinctively felt
that she would not very tenderly incline. While I was yet new at Doctor
Strong’s, she made several excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and
always at unseasonable hours: with the view, I suppose, of taking me by
surprise. But, finding me well employed, and bearing a good character,
and hearing on all hands that I rose fast in the school, she soon
discontinued these visits. I saw her on a Saturday, every third or
fourth week, when I went over to Dover for a treat; and I saw Mr. Dick
every alternate Wednesday, when he arrived by stage-coach at noon, to
stay until next morning.
On these occasions Mr. Dick never travelled without a leathern
writing-desk, containing a supply of stationery and the Memorial; in
relation to which document he had a notion that time was beginning to
press now, and that it really must be got out of hand.
Mr. Dick was very partial to gingerbread. To render his visits the more
agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake
shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be
served with more than one shilling’s-worth in the course of any one day.
This, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn where
he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid, induced me to suspect that
he was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it. I found
on further investigation that this was so, or at least there was an
agreement between him and my aunt that he should account to her for
all his disbursements. As he had no idea of deceiving her, and always
desired to please her, he was thus made chary of launching into expense.
On this point, as well as on all other possible points, Mr. Dick was
convinced that my aunt was the wisest and most wonderful of women; as he
repeatedly told me with infinite secrecy, and always in a whisper.
‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, with an air of mystery, after imparting this
confidence to me, one Wednesday; ‘who’s the man that hides near our
house and frightens her?’
‘Frightens my aunt, sir?’
Mr. Dick nodded. ‘I thought nothing would have frightened her,’ he said,
‘for she’s--’ here he whispered softly, ‘don’t mention it--the wisest
and most wonderful of women.’ Having said which, he drew back, to
observe the effect which this description of her made upon me.
‘The first time he came,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘was--let me see--sixteen
hundred and forty-nine was the date of King Charles’s execution. I think
you said sixteen hundred and forty-nine?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I don’t know how it can be,’ said Mr. Dick, sorely puzzled and shaking
his head. ‘I don’t think I am as old as that.’
‘Was it in that year that the man appeared, sir?’ I asked.
‘Why, really’ said Mr. Dick, ‘I don’t see how it can have been in that
year, Trotwood. Did you get that date out of history?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I suppose history never lies, does it?’ said Mr. Dick, with a gleam of
hope.
‘Oh dear, no, sir!’ I replied, most decisively. I was ingenuous and
young, and I thought so.
‘I can’t make it out,’ said Mr. Dick, shaking his head. ‘There’s
something wrong, somewhere. However, it was very soon after the mistake
was made of putting some of the trouble out of King Charles’s head into
my head, that the man first came. I was walking out with Miss Trotwood
after tea, just at dark, and there he was, close to our house.’
‘Walking about?’ I inquired.
‘Walking about?’ repeated Mr. Dick. ‘Let me see, I must recollect a bit.
N-no, no; he was not walking about.’
I asked, as the shortest way to get at it, what he WAS doing.
‘Well, he wasn’t there at all,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘until he came up behind
her, and whispered. Then she turned round and fainted, and I stood still
and looked at him, and he walked away; but that he should have
been hiding ever since (in the ground or somewhere), is the most
extraordinary thing!’
‘HAS he been hiding ever since?’ I asked.
‘To be sure he has,’ retorted Mr. Dick, nodding his head gravely. ‘Never
came out, till last night! We were walking last night, and he came up
behind her again, and I knew him again.’
‘And did he frighten my aunt again?’
‘All of a shiver,’ said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and
making his teeth chatter. ‘Held by the palings. Cried. But, Trotwood,
come here,’ getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly;
‘why did she give him money, boy, in the moonlight?’
‘He was a beggar, perhaps.’
Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the suggestion; and
having replied a great many times, and with great confidence, ‘No
beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir!’ went on to say, that from his window
he had afterwards, and late at night, seen my aunt give this person
money outside the garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk
away--into the ground again, as he thought probable--and was seen no
more: while my aunt came hurriedly and secretly back into the house, and
had, even that morning, been quite different from her usual self; which
preyed on Mr. Dick’s mind.
I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that the
unknown was anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick’s, and one of the line
of that ill-fated Prince who occasioned him so much difficulty; but
after some reflection I began to entertain the question whether an
attempt, or threat of an attempt, might have been twice made to take
poor Mr. Dick himself from under my aunt’s protection, and whether
my aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling towards him I knew from
herself, might have been induced to pay a price for his peace and quiet.
As I was already much attached to Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his
welfare, my fears favoured this supposition; and for a long time his
Wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving
that he would not be on the coach-box as usual. There he always
appeared, however, grey-headed, laughing, and happy; and he never had
anything more to tell of the man who could frighten my aunt.
These Wednesdays were the happiest days of Mr. Dick’s life; they were
far from being the least happy of mine. He soon became known to every
boy in the school; and though he never took an active part in any game
but kite-flying, was as deeply interested in all our sports as anyone
among us. How often have I seen him, intent upon a match at marbles
or pegtop, looking on with a face of unutterable interest, and hardly
breathing at the critical times! How often, at hare and hounds, have
I seen him mounted on a little knoll, cheering the whole field on
to action, and waving his hat above his grey head, oblivious of King
Charles the Martyr’s head, and all belonging to it! How many a
summer hour have I known to be but blissful minutes to him in
the cricket-field! How many winter days have I seen him, standing
blue-nosed, in the snow and east wind, looking at the boys going down
the long slide, and clapping his worsted gloves in rapture!
He was an universal favourite, and his ingenuity in little things was
transcendent. He could cut oranges into such devices as none of us had
an idea of. He could make a boat out of anything, from a skewer upwards.
He could turn cramp-bones into chessmen; fashion Roman chariots from old
court cards; make spoked wheels out of cotton reels, and bird-cages of
old wire. But he was greatest of all, perhaps, in the articles of string
and straw; with which we were all persuaded he could do anything that
could be done by hands.
Mr. Dick’s renown was not long confined to us. After a few Wednesdays,
Doctor Strong himself made some inquiries of me about him, and I told
him all my aunt had told me; which interested the Doctor so much that
he requested, on the occasion of his next visit, to be presented to him.
This ceremony I performed; and the Doctor begging Mr. Dick, whensoever
he should not find me at the coach office, to come on there, and rest
himself until our morning’s work was over, it soon passed into a custom
for Mr. Dick to come on as a matter of course, and, if we were a little
late, as often happened on a Wednesday, to walk about the courtyard,
waiting for me. Here he made the acquaintance of the Doctor’s beautiful
young wife (paler than formerly, all this time; more rarely seen by
me or anyone, I think; and not so gay, but not less beautiful), and so
became more and more familiar by degrees, until, at last, he would come
into the school and wait. He always sat in a particular corner, on a
particular stool, which was called ‘Dick’, after him; here he would sit,
with his grey head bent forward, attentively listening to whatever might
be going on, with a profound veneration for the learning he had never
been able to acquire.
This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought the
most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was long before
Mr. Dick ever spoke to him otherwise than bareheaded; and even when he
and the Doctor had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk together
by the hour, on that side of the courtyard which was known among us as
The Doctor’s Walk, Mr. Dick would pull off his hat at intervals to show
his respect for wisdom and knowledge. How it ever came about that the
Doctor began to read out scraps of the famous Dictionary, in these
walks, I never knew; perhaps he felt it all the same, at first, as
reading to himself. However, it passed into a custom too; and Mr. Dick,
listening with a face shining with pride and pleasure, in his heart of
hearts believed the Dictionary to be the most delightful book in the
world.
As I think of them going up and down before those schoolroom
windows--the Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional
flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head; and Mr. Dick
listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering
God knows where, upon the wings of hard words--I think of it as one of
the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that I have ever seen. I feel
as if they might go walking to and fro for ever, and the world might
somehow be the better for it--as if a thousand things it makes a noise
about, were not one half so good for it, or me.
Agnes was one of Mr. Dick’s friends, very soon; and in often coming
to the house, he made acquaintance with Uriah. The friendship between
himself and me increased continually, and it was maintained on this odd
footing: that, while Mr. Dick came professedly to look after me as my
guardian, he always consulted me in any little matter of doubt that
arose, and invariably guided himself by my advice; not only having a
high respect for my native sagacity, but considering that I inherited a
good deal from my aunt.
One Thursday morning, when I was about to walk with Mr. Dick from the
hotel to the coach office before going back to school (for we had an
hour’s school before breakfast), I met Uriah in the street, who reminded
me of the promise I had made to take tea with himself and his mother:
adding, with a writhe, ‘But I didn’t expect you to keep it, Master
Copperfield, we’re so very umble.’
I really had not yet been able to make up my mind whether I liked Uriah
or detested him; and I was very doubtful about it still, as I stood
looking him in the face in the street. But I felt it quite an affront to
be supposed proud, and said I only wanted to be asked.
‘Oh, if that’s all, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘and it really
isn’t our umbleness that prevents you, will you come this evening?
But if it is our umbleness, I hope you won’t mind owning to it, Master
Copperfield; for we are well aware of our condition.’
I said I would mention it to Mr. Wickfield, and if he approved, as I had
no doubt he would, I would come with pleasure. So, at six o’clock that
evening, which was one of the early office evenings, I announced myself
as ready, to Uriah.
‘Mother will be proud, indeed,’ he said, as we walked away together. ‘Or
she would be proud, if it wasn’t sinful, Master Copperfield.’
‘Yet you didn’t mind supposing I was proud this morning,’ I returned.
‘Oh dear, no, Master Copperfield!’ returned Uriah. ‘Oh, believe me, no!
Such a thought never came into my head! I shouldn’t have deemed it at
all proud if you had thought US too umble for you. Because we are so
very umble.’
‘Have you been studying much law lately?’ I asked, to change the
subject.
‘Oh, Master Copperfield,’ he said, with an air of self-denial, ‘my
reading is hardly to be called study. I have passed an hour or two in
the evening, sometimes, with Mr. Tidd.’
‘Rather hard, I suppose?’ said I. ‘He is hard to me sometimes,’ returned
Uriah. ‘But I don’t know what he might be to a gifted person.’
After beating a little tune on his chin as he walked on, with the two
forefingers of his skeleton right hand, he added:
‘There are expressions, you see, Master Copperfield--Latin words
and terms--in Mr. Tidd, that are trying to a reader of my umble
attainments.’
‘Would you like to be taught Latin?’ I said briskly. ‘I will teach it
you with pleasure, as I learn it.’
‘Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,’ he answered, shaking his head. ‘I
am sure it’s very kind of you to make the offer, but I am much too umble
to accept it.’
‘What nonsense, Uriah!’
‘Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield! I am greatly
obliged, and I should like it of all things, I assure you; but I am far
too umble. There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state,
without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning.
Learning ain’t for me. A person like myself had better not aspire. If he
is to get on in life, he must get on umbly, Master Copperfield!’
I never saw his mouth so wide, or the creases in his cheeks so deep, as
when he delivered himself of these sentiments: shaking his head all the
time, and writhing modestly.
‘I think you are wrong, Uriah,’ I said. ‘I dare say there are several
things that I could teach you, if you would like to learn them.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt that, Master Copperfield,’ he answered; ‘not in the
least. But not being umble yourself, you don’t judge well, perhaps, for
them that are. I won’t provoke my betters with knowledge, thank you. I’m
much too umble. Here is my umble dwelling, Master Copperfield!’
We entered a low, old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the
street, and found there Mrs. Heep, who was the dead image of Uriah, only
short. She received me with the utmost humility, and apologized to me
for giving her son a kiss, observing that, lowly as they were, they
had their natural affections, which they hoped would give no offence to
anyone. It was a perfectly decent room, half parlour and half kitchen,
but not at all a snug room. The tea-things were set upon the table, and
the kettle was boiling on the hob. There was a chest of drawers with an
escritoire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an evening; there was
Uriah’s blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of
Uriah’s books commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner cupboard: and
there were the usual articles of furniture. I don’t remember that any
individual object had a bare, pinched, spare look; but I do remember
that the whole place had.
It was perhaps a part of Mrs. Heep’s humility, that she still wore
weeds. Notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since Mr.
Heep’s decease, she still wore weeds. I think there was some compromise
in the cap; but otherwise she was as weedy as in the early days of her
mourning.
‘This is a day to be remembered, my Uriah, I am sure,’ said Mrs. Heep,
making the tea, ‘when Master Copperfield pays us a visit.’
‘I said you’d think so, mother,’ said Uriah.
‘If I could have wished father to remain among us for any reason,’ said
Mrs. Heep, ‘it would have been, that he might have known his company
this afternoon.’
I felt embarrassed by these compliments; but I was sensible, too, of
being entertained as an honoured guest, and I thought Mrs. Heep an
agreeable woman.
‘My Uriah,’ said Mrs. Heep, ‘has looked forward to this, sir, a long
while. He had his fears that our umbleness stood in the way, and I
joined in them myself. Umble we are, umble we have been, umble we shall
ever be,’ said Mrs. Heep.
‘I am sure you have no occasion to be so, ma’am,’ I said, ‘unless you
like.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ retorted Mrs. Heep. ‘We know our station and are
thankful in it.’
I found that Mrs. Heep gradually got nearer to me, and that Uriah
gradually got opposite to me, and that they respectfully plied me
with the choicest of the eatables on the table. There was nothing
particularly choice there, to be sure; but I took the will for the deed,
and felt that they were very attentive. Presently they began to talk
about aunts, and then I told them about mine; and about fathers and
mothers, and then I told them about mine; and then Mrs. Heep began to
talk about fathers-in-law, and then I began to tell her about mine--but
stopped, because my aunt had advised me to observe a silence on that
subject. A tender young cork, however, would have had no more chance
against a pair of corkscrews, or a tender young tooth against a pair of
dentists, or a little shuttlecock against two battledores, than I had
against Uriah and Mrs. Heep. They did just what they liked with me; and
wormed things out of me that I had no desire to tell, with a certainty
I blush to think of, the more especially, as in my juvenile frankness, I
took some credit to myself for being so confidential and felt that I was
quite the patron of my two respectful entertainers.
They were very fond of one another: that was certain. I take it, that
had its effect upon me, as a touch of nature; but the skill with which
the one followed up whatever the other said, was a touch of art which I
was still less proof against. When there was nothing more to be got
out of me about myself (for on the Murdstone and Grinby life, and on my
journey, I was dumb), they began about Mr. Wickfield and Agnes. Uriah
threw the ball to Mrs. Heep, Mrs. Heep caught it and threw it back to
Uriah, Uriah kept it up a little while, then sent it back to Mrs. Heep,
and so they went on tossing it about until I had no idea who had got it,
and was quite bewildered. The ball itself was always changing too. Now
it was Mr. Wickfield, now Agnes, now the excellence of Mr. Wickfield,
now my admiration of Agnes; now the extent of Mr. Wickfield’s business
and resources, now our domestic life after dinner; now, the wine that
Mr. Wickfield took, the reason why he took it, and the pity that it was
he took so much; now one thing, now another, then everything at once;
and all the time, without appearing to speak very often, or to do
anything but sometimes encourage them a little, for fear they should be
overcome by their humility and the honour of my company, I found myself
perpetually letting out something or other that I had no business to
let out and seeing the effect of it in the twinkling of Uriah’s dinted
nostrils.
I had begun to be a little uncomfortable, and to wish myself well out
of the visit, when a figure coming down the street passed the door--it
stood open to air the room, which was warm, the weather being close for
the time of year--came back again, looked in, and walked in, exclaiming
loudly, ‘Copperfield! Is it possible?’
It was Mr. Micawber! It was Mr. Micawber, with his eye-glass, and
his walking-stick, and his shirt-collar, and his genteel air, and the
condescending roll in his voice, all complete!
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, putting out his hand, ‘this is
indeed a meeting which is calculated to impress the mind with a sense
of the instability and uncertainty of all human--in short, it is a most
extraordinary meeting. Walking along the street, reflecting upon the
probability of something turning up (of which I am at present rather
sanguine), I find a young but valued friend turn up, who is connected
with the most eventful period of my life; I may say, with the
turning-point of my existence. Copperfield, my dear fellow, how do you
do?’
I cannot say--I really cannot say--that I was glad to see Mr. Micawber
there; but I was glad to see him too, and shook hands with him,
heartily, inquiring how Mrs. Micawber was.
‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Micawber, waving his hand as of old, and settling
his chin in his shirt-collar. ‘She is tolerably convalescent. The twins
no longer derive their sustenance from Nature’s founts--in short,’ said
Mr. Micawber, in one of his bursts of confidence, ‘they are weaned--and
Mrs. Micawber is, at present, my travelling companion. She will be
rejoiced, Copperfield, to renew her acquaintance with one who has
proved himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of
friendship.’
I said I should be delighted to see her.
‘You are very good,’ said Mr. Micawber.
Mr. Micawber then smiled, settled his chin again, and looked about him.
‘I have discovered my friend Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber genteelly,
and without addressing himself particularly to anyone, ‘not in solitude,
but partaking of a social meal in company with a widow lady, and one who
is apparently her offspring--in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, in another
of his bursts of confidence, ‘her son. I shall esteem it an honour to be
presented.’
I could do no less, under these circumstances, than make Mr. Micawber
known to Uriah Heep and his mother; which I accordingly did. As they
abased themselves before him, Mr. Micawber took a seat, and waved his
hand in his most courtly manner.
‘Any friend of my friend Copperfield’s,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘has a
personal claim upon myself.’
‘We are too umble, sir,’ said Mrs. Heep, ‘my son and me, to be the
friends of Master Copperfield. He has been so good as take his tea with
us, and we are thankful to him for his company, also to you, sir, for
your notice.’
‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, ‘you are very obliging: and
what are you doing, Copperfield? Still in the wine trade?’
I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away; and replied, with my
hat in my hand, and a very red face, I have no doubt, that I was a pupil
at Doctor Strong’s.
‘A pupil?’ said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows. ‘I am extremely
happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend Copperfield’s’--to
Uriah and Mrs. Heep--‘does not require that cultivation which, without
his knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is a rich
soil teeming with latent vegetation--in short,’ said Mr. Micawber,
smiling, in another burst of confidence, ‘it is an intellect capable of
getting up the classics to any extent.’
Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a
ghastly writhe from the waist upwards, to express his concurrence in
this estimation of me.
‘Shall we go and see Mrs. Micawber, sir?’ I said, to get Mr. Micawber
away.
‘If you will do her that favour, Copperfield,’ replied Mr. Micawber,
rising. ‘I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends
here, that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the
pressure of pecuniary difficulties.’ I knew he was certain to say
something of this kind; he always would be so boastful about his
difficulties. ‘Sometimes I have risen superior to my difficulties.
Sometimes my difficulties have--in short, have floored me. There have
been times when I have administered a succession of facers to them;
there have been times when they have been too many for me, and I have
given in, and said to Mrs. Micawber, in the words of Cato, “Plato, thou
reasonest well. It’s all up now. I can show fight no more.” But at no
time of my life,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘have I enjoyed a higher degree of
satisfaction than in pouring my griefs (if I may describe difficulties,
chiefly arising out of warrants of attorney and promissory notes at two
and four months, by that word) into the bosom of my friend Copperfield.’
Mr. Micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying, ‘Mr. Heep! Good
evening. Mrs. Heep! Your servant,’ and then walking out with me in his
most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on the pavement
with his shoes, and humming a tune as we went.
It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a little
room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly
flavoured with tobacco-smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, because
a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor,
and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it was near the
bar, on account of the smell of spirits and jingling of glasses. Here,
recumbent on a small sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with
her head close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the
dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr.
Micawber entered first, saying, ‘My dear, allow me to introduce to you a
pupil of Doctor Strong’s.’
I noticed, by the by, that although Mr. Micawber was just as much
confused as ever about my age and standing, he always remembered, as a
genteel thing, that I was a pupil of Doctor Strong’s.
Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. I was very glad to
see her too, and, after an affectionate greeting on both sides, sat down
on the small sofa near her.
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if you will mention to Copperfield what
our present position is, which I have no doubt he will like to know, I
will go and look at the paper the while, and see whether anything turns
up among the advertisements.’
‘I thought you were at Plymouth, ma’am,’ I said to Mrs. Micawber, as he
went out.
‘My dear Master Copperfield,’ she replied, ‘we went to Plymouth.’
‘To be on the spot,’ I hinted.
‘Just so,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘To be on the spot. But, the truth is,
talent is not wanted in the Custom House. The local influence of my
family was quite unavailing to obtain any employment in that department,
for a man of Mr. Micawber’s abilities. They would rather NOT have a man
of Mr. Micawber’s abilities. He would only show the deficiency of the
others. Apart from which,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I will not disguise
from you, my dear Master Copperfield, that when that branch of my
family which is settled in Plymouth, became aware that Mr. Micawber was
accompanied by myself, and by little Wilkins and his sister, and by the
twins, they did not receive him with that ardour which he might have
expected, being so newly released from captivity. In fact,’ said Mrs.
Micawber, lowering her voice,--‘this is between ourselves--our reception
was cool.’
‘Dear me!’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘It is truly painful to contemplate mankind
in such an aspect, Master Copperfield, but our reception was, decidedly,
cool. There is no doubt about it. In fact, that branch of my family
which is settled in Plymouth became quite personal to Mr. Micawber,
before we had been there a week.’
I said, and thought, that they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
‘Still, so it was,’ continued Mrs. Micawber. ‘Under such circumstances,
what could a man of Mr. Micawber’s spirit do? But one obvious course
was left. To borrow, of that branch of my family, the money to return to
London, and to return at any sacrifice.’
‘Then you all came back again, ma’am?’ I said.
‘We all came back again,’ replied Mrs. Micawber. ‘Since then, I have
consulted other branches of my family on the course which it is most
expedient for Mr. Micawber to take--for I maintain that he must take
some course, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, argumentatively.
‘It is clear that a family of six, not including a domestic, cannot live
upon air.’
‘Certainly, ma’am,’ said I.
‘The opinion of those other branches of my family,’ pursued Mrs.
Micawber, ‘is, that Mr. Micawber should immediately turn his attention
to coals.’
‘To what, ma’am?’
‘To coals,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘To the coal trade. Mr. Micawber was
induced to think, on inquiry, that there might be an opening for a
man of his talent in the Medway Coal Trade. Then, as Mr. Micawber very
properly said, the first step to be taken clearly was, to come and see
the Medway. Which we came and saw. I say “we”, Master Copperfield; for
I never will,’ said Mrs. Micawber with emotion, ‘I never will desert Mr.
Micawber.’
I murmured my admiration and approbation.
‘We came,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber, ‘and saw the Medway. My opinion of
the coal trade on that river is, that it may require talent, but that
it certainly requires capital. Talent, Mr. Micawber has; capital, Mr.
Micawber has not. We saw, I think, the greater part of the Medway; and
that is my individual conclusion. Being so near here, Mr. Micawber was
of opinion that it would be rash not to come on, and see the Cathedral.
Firstly, on account of its being so well worth seeing, and our never
having seen it; and secondly, on account of the great probability of
something turning up in a cathedral town. We have been here,’ said Mrs.
Micawber, ‘three days. Nothing has, as yet, turned up; and it may
not surprise you, my dear Master Copperfield, so much as it would a
stranger, to know that we are at present waiting for a remittance from
London, to discharge our pecuniary obligations at this hotel. Until the
arrival of that remittance,’ said Mrs. Micawber with much feeling, ‘I am
cut off from my home (I allude to lodgings in Pentonville), from my boy
and girl, and from my twins.’
I felt the utmost sympathy for Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in this anxious
extremity, and said as much to Mr. Micawber, who now returned: adding
that I only wished I had money enough, to lend them the amount they
needed. Mr. Micawber’s answer expressed the disturbance of his mind. He
said, shaking hands with me, ‘Copperfield, you are a true friend; but
when the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend who is
possessed of shaving materials.’ At this dreadful hint Mrs. Micawber
threw her arms round Mr. Micawber’s neck and entreated him to be calm.
He wept; but so far recovered, almost immediately, as to ring the bell
for the waiter, and bespeak a hot kidney pudding and a plate of shrimps
for breakfast in the morning.
When I took my leave of them, they both pressed me so much to come and
dine before they went away, that I could not refuse. But, as I knew I
could not come next day, when I should have a good deal to prepare in
the evening, Mr. Micawber arranged that he would call at Doctor Strong’s
in the course of the morning (having a presentiment that the remittance
would arrive by that post), and propose the day after, if it would suit
me better. Accordingly I was called out of school next forenoon, and
found Mr. Micawber in the parlour; who had called to say that the dinner
would take place as proposed. When I asked him if the remittance had
come, he pressed my hand and departed.
As I was looking out of window that same evening, it surprised me, and
made me rather uneasy, to see Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep walk past, arm
in arm: Uriah humbly sensible of the honour that was done him, and Mr.
Micawber taking a bland delight in extending his patronage to Uriah. But
I was still more surprised, when I went to the little hotel next day at
the appointed dinner-hour, which was four o’clock, to find, from what
Mr. Micawber said, that he had gone home with Uriah, and had drunk
brandy-and-water at Mrs. Heep’s.
‘And I’ll tell you what, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘your
friend Heep is a young fellow who might be attorney-general. If I had
known that young man, at the period when my difficulties came to a
crisis, all I can say is, that I believe my creditors would have been a
great deal better managed than they were.’
I hardly understood how this could have been, seeing that Mr. Micawber
had paid them nothing at all as it was; but I did not like to
ask. Neither did I like to say, that I hoped he had not been too
communicative to Uriah; or to inquire if they had talked much about me.
I was afraid of hurting Mr. Micawber’s feelings, or, at all events, Mrs.
Micawber’s, she being very sensitive; but I was uncomfortable about it,
too, and often thought about it afterwards.
We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the
kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge,
and a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong ale; and after
dinner Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands.
Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good
company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if
it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about
the town, and proposed success to it; observing that Mrs. Micawber and
himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable there and that he
never should forget the agreeable hours they had passed in Canterbury.
He proposed me afterwards; and he, and Mrs. Micawber, and I, took a
review of our past acquaintance, in the course of which we sold the
property all over again. Then I proposed Mrs. Micawber: or, at least,
said, modestly, ‘If you’ll allow me, Mrs. Micawber, I shall now have
the pleasure of drinking your health, ma’am.’ On which Mr. Micawber
delivered an eulogium on Mrs. Micawber’s character, and said she
had ever been his guide, philosopher, and friend, and that he would
recommend me, when I came to a marrying time of life, to marry such
another woman, if such another woman could be found.
As the punch disappeared, Mr. Micawber became still more friendly and
convivial. Mrs. Micawber’s spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang ‘Auld
Lang Syne’. When we came to ‘Here’s a hand, my trusty frere’, we all
joined hands round the table; and when we declared we would ‘take a
right gude Willie Waught’, and hadn’t the least idea what it meant, we
were really affected.
In a word, I never saw anybody so thoroughly jovial as Mr. Micawber
was, down to the very last moment of the evening, when I took a hearty
farewell of himself and his amiable wife. Consequently, I was not
prepared, at seven o’clock next morning, to receive the following
communication, dated half past nine in the evening; a quarter of an hour
after I had left him:--
‘My DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,
‘The die is cast--all is over. Hiding the ravages of care with a sickly
mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this evening, that there is no
hope of the remittance! Under these circumstances, alike humiliating to
endure, humiliating to contemplate, and humiliating to relate, I have
discharged the pecuniary liability contracted at this establishment,
by giving a note of hand, made payable fourteen days after date, at
my residence, Pentonville, London. When it becomes due, it will not be
taken up. The result is destruction. The bolt is impending, and the tree
must fall.
‘Let the wretched man who now addresses you, my dear Copperfield, be a
beacon to you through life. He writes with that intention, and in that
hope. If he could think himself of so much use, one gleam of day might,
by possibility, penetrate into the cheerless dungeon of his remaining
existence--though his longevity is, at present (to say the least of it),
extremely problematical.
‘This is the last communication, my dear Copperfield, you will ever
receive
‘From
‘The
‘Beggared Outcast,
‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’
I was so shocked by the contents of this heart-rending letter, that I
ran off directly towards the little hotel with the intention of taking
it on my way to Doctor Strong’s, and trying to soothe Mr. Micawber with
a word of comfort. But, half-way there, I met the London coach with Mr.
and Mrs. Micawber up behind; Mr. Micawber, the very picture of tranquil
enjoyment, smiling at Mrs. Micawber’s conversation, eating walnuts out
of a paper bag, with a bottle sticking out of his breast pocket. As they
did not see me, I thought it best, all things considered, not to
see them. So, with a great weight taken off my mind, I turned into a
by-street that was the nearest way to school, and felt, upon the whole,
relieved that they were gone; though I still liked them very much,
nevertheless.
CHAPTER 18. A RETROSPECT
My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence--the unseen,
unfelt progress of my life--from childhood up to youth! Let me think,
as I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with
leaves, whether there are any marks along its course, by which I can
remember how it ran.
A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went
together, every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that
purpose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world
being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white
arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back, and hold me
hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream.
I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen in a few months, over
several heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty creature, dwelling
afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable. Agnes says ‘No,’ but I say
‘Yes,’ and tell her that she little thinks what stores of knowledge have
been mastered by the wonderful Being, at whose place she thinks I, even
I, weak aspirant, may arrive in time. He is not my private friend
and public patron, as Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential
respect. I chiefly wonder what he’ll be, when he leaves Doctor Strong’s,
and what mankind will do to maintain any place against him.
But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom I love.
Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls’ establishment. I
adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round
face and curly flaxen hair. The Misses Nettingalls’ young ladies come to
the Cathedral too. I cannot look upon my book, for I must look upon
Miss Shepherd. When the choristers chaunt, I hear Miss Shepherd. In the
service I mentally insert Miss Shepherd’s name--I put her in among the
Royal Family. At home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out,
‘Oh, Miss Shepherd!’ in a transport of love.
For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd’s feelings, but, at
length, Fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. I have
Miss Shepherd for my partner. I touch Miss Shepherd’s glove, and feel a
thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. I say
nothing to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each other. Miss Shepherd
and myself live but to be united.
Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a present, I
wonder? They are not expressive of affection, they are difficult to pack
into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard to crack, even in
room doors, and they are oily when cracked; yet I feel that they are
appropriate to Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon
Miss Shepherd; and oranges innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in
the cloak-room. Ecstasy! What are my agony and indignation next day,
when I hear a flying rumour that the Misses Nettingall have stood Miss
Shepherd in the stocks for turning in her toes!
Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, how
do I ever come to break with her? I can’t conceive. And yet a coolness
grows between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach me of Miss
Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn’t stare so, and having avowed a
preference for Master Jones--for Jones! a boy of no merit whatever! The
gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens. At last, one day, I meet the
Misses Nettingalls’ establishment out walking. Miss Shepherd makes
a face as she goes by, and laughs to her companion. All is over. The
devotion of a life--it seems a life, it is all the same--is at an end;
Miss Shepherd comes out of the morning service, and the Royal Family
know her no more.
I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at all
polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls’ young ladies, and shouldn’t
dote on any of them, if they were twice as many and twenty times as
beautiful. I think the dancing-school a tiresome affair, and wonder why
the girls can’t dance by themselves and leave us alone. I am growing
great in Latin verses, and neglect the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong
refers to me in public as a promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild
with joy, and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post.
The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head
in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of the youth
of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with
which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is
a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked, young butcher, with
rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue.
His main use of this tongue, is, to disparage Doctor Strong’s young
gentlemen. He says, publicly, that if they want anything he’ll give it
‘em. He names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could
undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He
waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls
challenges after me in the open streets. For these sufficient reasons I
resolve to fight the butcher.
It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a wall.
I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select body of our
boys; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep.
The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to
face. In a moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left
eyebrow. In another moment, I don’t know where the wall is, or where
I am, or where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the
butcher, we are always in such a tangle and tussle, knocking about upon
the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident;
sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second’s knee; sometimes
I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face,
without appearing to discompose him at all. At last I awake, very queer
about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walking off,
congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican, and
putting on his coat as he goes; from which I augur, justly, that the
victory is his.
I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my eyes,
and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great puffy place
bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. For three or
four days I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, with a green
shade over my eyes; and I should be very dull, but that Agnes is a
sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to me, and makes the time
light and happy. Agnes has my confidence completely, always; I tell her
all about the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me; she thinks
I couldn’t have done otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks
and trembles at my having fought him.
Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the days
that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. Adams has
left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to Doctor
Strong, there are not many there, besides myself, who know him. Adams is
going to be called to the bar almost directly, and is to be an advocate,
and to wear a wig. I am surprised to find him a meeker man than I had
thought, and less imposing in appearance. He has not staggered the world
yet, either; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) pretty much the
same as if he had never joined it.
A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on in
stately hosts that seem to have no end--and what comes next! I am
the head-boy, now! I look down on the line of boys below me, with a
condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was
myself, when I first came there. That little fellow seems to be no part
of me; I remember him as something left behind upon the road of life--as
something I have passed, rather than have actually been--and almost
think of him as of someone else.
And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wickfield’s, where
is she? Gone also. In her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture,
a child likeness no more, moves about the house; and Agnes--my sweet
sister, as I call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the
better angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good,
self-denying influence--is quite a woman.
What other changes have come upon me, besides the changes in my growth
and looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this while? I wear
a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed
coat; and I use a great deal of bear’s grease--which, taken in
conjunction with the ring, looks bad. Am I in love again? I am. I
worship the eldest Miss Larkins.
The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark,
black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a
chicken; for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must
be three or four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be
about thirty. My passion for her is beyond all bounds.
The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful thing to bear. I
see them speaking to her in the street. I see them cross the way to meet
her, when her bonnet (she has a bright taste in bonnets) is seen coming
down the pavement, accompanied by her sister’s bonnet. She laughs and
talks, and seems to like it. I spend a good deal of my own spare time in
walking up and down to meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I
know her to bow to, knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow
now and then. The raging agonies I suffer on the night of the Race Ball,
where I know the eldest Miss Larkins will be dancing with the military,
ought to have some compensation, if there be even-handed justice in the
world.
My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest silk
neckerchief continually. I have no relief but in putting on my best
clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over again. I seem, then,
to be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything that belongs to
her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff
old gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immovable in his
head) is fraught with interest to me. When I can’t meet his daughter,
I go where I am likely to meet him. To say ‘How do you do, Mr. Larkins?
Are the young ladies and all the family quite well?’ seems so pointed,
that I blush.
I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that
seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that? Besides,
I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly take walks
outside Mr. Larkins’s house in the evening, though it cuts me to the
heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room,
where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. I even walk, on two or
three occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner, round and round the house
after the family are gone to bed, wondering which is the eldest Miss
Larkins’s chamber (and pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins’s
instead); wishing that a fire would burst out; that the assembled crowd
would stand appalled; that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might
rear it against her window, save her in my arms, go back for something
she had left behind, and perish in the flames. For I am generally
disinterested in my love, and think I could be content to make a figure
before Miss Larkins, and expire.
Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before me.
When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball given at
the Larkins’s (the anticipation of three weeks), I indulge my fancy with
pleasing images. I picture myself taking courage to make a declaration
to Miss Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking her head upon my
shoulder, and saying, ‘Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I believe my ears!’ I
picture Mr. Larkins waiting on me next morning, and saying, ‘My dear
Copperfield, my daughter has told me all. Youth is no objection. Here
are twenty thousand pounds. Be happy!’ I picture my aunt relenting,
and blessing us; and Mr. Dick and Doctor Strong being present at the
marriage ceremony. I am a sensible fellow, I believe--I believe,
on looking back, I mean--and modest I am sure; but all this goes on
notwithstanding. I repair to the enchanted house, where there are
lights, chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and
the eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue, with
blue flowers in her hair--forget-me-nots--as if SHE had any need to wear
forget-me-nots. It is the first really grown-up party that I have ever
been invited to, and I am a little uncomfortable; for I appear not to
belong to anybody, and nobody appears to have anything to say to me,
except Mr. Larkins, who asks me how my schoolfellows are, which he
needn’t do, as I have not come there to be insulted.
But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and feasted my eyes
upon the goddess of my heart, she approaches me--she, the eldest Miss
Larkins!--and asks me pleasantly, if I dance?
I stammer, with a bow, ‘With you, Miss Larkins.’
‘With no one else?’ inquires Miss Larkins.
‘I should have no pleasure in dancing with anyone else.’
Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes), and says,
‘Next time but one, I shall be very glad.’
The time arrives. ‘It is a waltz, I think,’ Miss Larkins doubtfully
observes, when I present myself. ‘Do you waltz? If not, Captain
Bailey--’
But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss
Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. He
is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have been
wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don’t know where,
among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space, with a
blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until I find myself alone
with her in a little room, resting on a sofa. She admires a flower (pink
camellia japonica, price half-a-crown), in my button-hole. I give it
her, and say:
‘I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.’
‘Indeed! What is that?’ returns Miss Larkins.
‘A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold.’
‘You’re a bold boy,’ says Miss Larkins. ‘There.’
She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then into
my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my arm, and
says, ‘Now take me back to Captain Bailey.’
I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the
waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman who
has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says:
‘Oh! here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr.
Copperfield.’
I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified.
‘I admire your taste, sir,’ says Mr. Chestle. ‘It does you credit. I
suppose you don’t take much interest in hops; but I am a pretty
large grower myself; and if you ever like to come over to our
neighbourhood--neighbourhood of Ashford--and take a run about our
place,--we shall be glad for you to stop as long as you like.’
I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think I am in a happy
dream. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again. She says I
waltz so well! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in
imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear
divinity. For some days afterwards, I am lost in rapturous reflections;
but I neither see her in the street, nor when I call. I am imperfectly
consoled for this disappointment by the sacred pledge, the perished
flower.
‘Trotwood,’ says Agnes, one day after dinner. ‘Who do you think is going
to be married tomorrow? Someone you admire.’
‘Not you, I suppose, Agnes?’
‘Not me!’ raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying. ‘Do
you hear him, Papa?--The eldest Miss Larkins.’
‘To--to Captain Bailey?’ I have just enough power to ask.
‘No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower.’
I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take off my ring, I
wear my worst clothes, I use no bear’s grease, and I frequently lament
over the late Miss Larkins’s faded flower. Being, by that time, rather
tired of this kind of life, and having received new provocation from
the butcher, I throw the flower away, go out with the butcher, and
gloriously defeat him.
This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear’s grease
in moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my progress to
seventeen.
CHAPTER 19. I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY
I am doubtful whether I was at heart glad or sorry, when my school-days
drew to an end, and the time came for my leaving Doctor Strong’s. I had
been very happy there, I had a great attachment for the Doctor, and I
was eminent and distinguished in that little world. For these reasons
I was sorry to go; but for other reasons, unsubstantial enough, I
was glad. Misty ideas of being a young man at my own disposal, of
the importance attaching to a young man at his own disposal, of the
wonderful things to be seen and done by that magnificent animal, and the
wonderful effects he could not fail to make upon society, lured me away.
So powerful were these visionary considerations in my boyish mind, that
I seem, according to my present way of thinking, to have left school
without natural regret. The separation has not made the impression on
me, that other separations have. I try in vain to recall how I felt
about it, and what its circumstances were; but it is not momentous in my
recollection. I suppose the opening prospect confused me. I know that my
juvenile experiences went for little or nothing then; and that life was
more like a great fairy story, which I was just about to begin to read,
than anything else.
My aunt and I had held many grave deliberations on the calling to which
I should be devoted. For a year or more I had endeavoured to find a
satisfactory answer to her often-repeated question, ‘What I would like
to be?’ But I had no particular liking, that I could discover, for
anything. If I could have been inspired with a knowledge of the science
of navigation, taken the command of a fast-sailing expedition, and gone
round the world on a triumphant voyage of discovery, I think I might
have considered myself completely suited. But, in the absence of any
such miraculous provision, my desire was to apply myself to some pursuit
that would not lie too heavily upon her purse; and to do my duty in it,
whatever it might be.
Mr. Dick had regularly assisted at our councils, with a meditative
and sage demeanour. He never made a suggestion but once; and on that
occasion (I don’t know what put it in his head), he suddenly proposed
that I should be ‘a Brazier’. My aunt received this proposal so very
ungraciously, that he never ventured on a second; but ever afterwards
confined himself to looking watchfully at her for her suggestions, and
rattling his money.
‘Trot, I tell you what, my dear,’ said my aunt, one morning in the
Christmas season when I left school: ‘as this knotty point is still
unsettled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can
help it, I think we had better take a little breathing-time. In the
meanwhile, you must try to look at it from a new point of view, and not
as a schoolboy.’
‘I will, aunt.’
‘It has occurred to me,’ pursued my aunt, ‘that a little change, and a
glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful in helping you to know your
own mind, and form a cooler judgement. Suppose you were to go down into
the old part of the country again, for instance, and see that--that
out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of names,’ said my aunt, rubbing
her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so
called.
‘Of all things in the world, aunt, I should like it best!’
‘Well,’ said my aunt, ‘that’s lucky, for I should like it too. But
it’s natural and rational that you should like it. And I am very
well persuaded that whatever you do, Trot, will always be natural and
rational.’
‘I hope so, aunt.’
‘Your sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt, ‘would have been as
natural and rational a girl as ever breathed. You’ll be worthy of her,
won’t you?’
‘I hope I shall be worthy of YOU, aunt. That will be enough for me.’
‘It’s a mercy that poor dear baby of a mother of yours didn’t live,’
said my aunt, looking at me approvingly, ‘or she’d have been so vain
of her boy by this time, that her soft little head would have been
completely turned, if there was anything of it left to turn.’ (My aunt
always excused any weakness of her own in my behalf, by transferring it
in this way to my poor mother.) ‘Bless me, Trotwood, how you do remind
me of her!’
‘Pleasantly, I hope, aunt?’ said I.
‘He’s as like her, Dick,’ said my aunt, emphatically, ‘he’s as like her,
as she was that afternoon before she began to fret--bless my heart, he’s
as like her, as he can look at me out of his two eyes!’
‘Is he indeed?’ said Mr. Dick.
‘And he’s like David, too,’ said my aunt, decisively.
‘He is very like David!’ said Mr. Dick.
‘But what I want you to be, Trot,’ resumed my aunt, ‘--I don’t mean
physically, but morally; you are very well physically--is, a firm
fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution,’
said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand. ‘With
determination. With character, Trot--with strength of character that is
not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything.
That’s what I want you to be. That’s what your father and mother might
both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it.’
I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described.
‘That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself,
and to act for yourself,’ said my aunt, ‘I shall send you upon your
trip, alone. I did think, once, of Mr. Dick’s going with you; but, on
second thoughts, I shall keep him to take care of me.’
Mr. Dick, for a moment, looked a little disappointed; until the honour
and dignity of having to take care of the most wonderful woman in the
world, restored the sunshine to his face.
‘Besides,’ said my aunt, ‘there’s the Memorial--’
‘Oh, certainly,’ said Mr. Dick, in a hurry, ‘I intend, Trotwood, to get
that done immediately--it really must be done immediately! And then it
will go in, you know--and then--’ said Mr. Dick, after checking himself,
and pausing a long time, ‘there’ll be a pretty kettle of fish!’
In pursuance of my aunt’s kind scheme, I was shortly afterwards fitted
out with a handsome purse of money, and a portmanteau, and tenderly
dismissed upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me some good
advice, and a good many kisses; and said that as her object was that I
should look about me, and should think a little, she would recommend me
to stay a few days in London, if I liked it, either on my way down into
Suffolk, or in coming back. In a word, I was at liberty to do what I
would, for three weeks or a month; and no other conditions were imposed
upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me,
and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully report myself.
I went to Canterbury first, that I might take leave of Agnes and Mr.
Wickfield (my old room in whose house I had not yet relinquished), and
also of the good Doctor. Agnes was very glad to see me, and told me that
the house had not been like itself since I had left it.
‘I am sure I am not like myself when I am away,’ said I. ‘I seem to
want my right hand, when I miss you. Though that’s not saying much; for
there’s no head in my right hand, and no heart. Everyone who knows you,
consults with you, and is guided by you, Agnes.’
‘Everyone who knows me, spoils me, I believe,’ she answered, smiling.
‘No. It’s because you are like no one else. You are so good, and so
sweet-tempered. You have such a gentle nature, and you are always
right.’
‘You talk,’ said Agnes, breaking into a pleasant laugh, as she sat at
work, ‘as if I were the late Miss Larkins.’
‘Come! It’s not fair to abuse my confidence,’ I answered, reddening at
the recollection of my blue enslaver. ‘But I shall confide in you, just
the same, Agnes. I can never grow out of that. Whenever I fall into
trouble, or fall in love, I shall always tell you, if you’ll let
me--even when I come to fall in love in earnest.’
‘Why, you have always been in earnest!’ said Agnes, laughing again.
‘Oh! that was as a child, or a schoolboy,’ said I, laughing in my turn,
not without being a little shame-faced. ‘Times are altering now, and I
suppose I shall be in a terrible state of earnestness one day or other.
My wonder is, that you are not in earnest yourself, by this time,
Agnes.’
Agnes laughed again, and shook her head.
‘Oh, I know you are not!’ said I, ‘because if you had been you would
have told me. Or at least’--for I saw a faint blush in her face, ‘you
would have let me find it out for myself. But there is no one that I
know of, who deserves to love you, Agnes. Someone of a nobler character,
and more worthy altogether than anyone I have ever seen here, must rise
up, before I give my consent. In the time to come, I shall have a wary
eye on all admirers; and shall exact a great deal from the successful
one, I assure you.’
We had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest and earnest,
that had long grown naturally out of our familiar relations, begun as
mere children. But Agnes, now suddenly lifting up her eyes to mine, and
speaking in a different manner, said:
‘Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you, and that I may not
have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps--something
I would ask, I think, of no one else. Have you observed any gradual
alteration in Papa?’
I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. I must
have shown as much, now, in my face; for her eyes were in a moment cast
down, and I saw tears in them.
‘Tell me what it is,’ she said, in a low voice.
‘I think--shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased upon
him since I first came here. He is often very nervous--or I fancy so.’
‘It is not fancy,’ said Agnes, shaking her head.
‘His hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look wild. I
have remarked that at those times, and when he is least like himself, he
is most certain to be wanted on some business.’
‘By Uriah,’ said Agnes.
‘Yes; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having understood
it, or of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make
him so uneasy, that next day he is worse, and next day worse, and so he
becomes jaded and haggard. Do not be alarmed by what I say, Agnes, but
in this state I saw him, only the other evening, lay down his head upon
his desk, and shed tears like a child.’
Her hand passed softly before my lips while I was yet speaking, and in
a moment she had met her father at the door of the room, and was hanging
on his shoulder. The expression of her face, as they both looked towards
me, I felt to be very touching. There was such deep fondness for him,
and gratitude to him for all his love and care, in her beautiful look;
and there was such a fervent appeal to me to deal tenderly by him, even
in my inmost thoughts, and to let no harsh construction find any place
against him; she was, at once, so proud of him and devoted to him, yet
so compassionate and sorry, and so reliant upon me to be so, too; that
nothing she could have said would have expressed more to me, or moved me
more.
We were to drink tea at the Doctor’s. We went there at the usual hour;
and round the study fireside found the Doctor, and his young wife, and
her mother. The Doctor, who made as much of my going away as if I were
going to China, received me as an honoured guest; and called for a log
of wood to be thrown on the fire, that he might see the face of his old
pupil reddening in the blaze.
‘I shall not see many more new faces in Trotwood’s stead, Wickfield,’
said the Doctor, warming his hands; ‘I am getting lazy, and want ease.
I shall relinquish all my young people in another six months, and lead a
quieter life.’
‘You have said so, any time these ten years, Doctor,’ Mr. Wickfield
answered.
‘But now I mean to do it,’ returned the Doctor. ‘My first master will
succeed me--I am in earnest at last--so you’ll soon have to arrange our
contracts, and to bind us firmly to them, like a couple of knaves.’
‘And to take care,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘that you’re not imposed on, eh?
As you certainly would be, in any contract you should make for yourself.
Well! I am ready. There are worse tasks than that, in my calling.’
‘I shall have nothing to think of then,’ said the Doctor, with a smile,
‘but my Dictionary; and this other contract-bargain--Annie.’
As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea table by Agnes,
she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and
timidity, that his attention became fixed upon her, as if something were
suggested to his thoughts.
‘There is a post come in from India, I observe,’ he said, after a short
silence.
‘By the by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!’ said the Doctor.
‘Indeed!’ ‘Poor dear Jack!’ said Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head. ‘That
trying climate!--like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, underneath
a burning-glass! He looked strong, but he wasn’t. My dear Doctor, it was
his spirit, not his constitution, that he ventured on so boldly. Annie,
my dear, I am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin
never was strong--not what can be called ROBUST, you know,’ said Mrs.
Markleham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us generally, ‘--from
the time when my daughter and himself were children together, and
walking about, arm-in-arm, the livelong day.’
Annie, thus addressed, made no reply.
‘Do I gather from what you say, ma’am, that Mr. Maldon is ill?’ asked
Mr. Wickfield.
‘Ill!’ replied the Old Soldier. ‘My dear sir, he’s all sorts of things.’
‘Except well?’ said Mr. Wickfield.
‘Except well, indeed!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘He has had dreadful
strokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle fevers and agues, and every
kind of thing you can mention. As to his liver,’ said the Old Soldier
resignedly, ‘that, of course, he gave up altogether, when he first went
out!’
‘Does he say all this?’ asked Mr. Wickfield.
‘Say? My dear sir,’ returned Mrs. Markleham, shaking her head and her
fan, ‘you little know my poor Jack Maldon when you ask that question.
Say? Not he. You might drag him at the heels of four wild horses first.’
‘Mama!’ said Mrs. Strong.
‘Annie, my dear,’ returned her mother, ‘once for all, I must really beg
that you will not interfere with me, unless it is to confirm what I say.
You know as well as I do that your cousin Maldon would be dragged at the
heels of any number of wild horses--why should I confine myself to four!
I WON’T confine myself to four--eight, sixteen, two-and-thirty, rather
than say anything calculated to overturn the Doctor’s plans.’
‘Wickfield’s plans,’ said the Doctor, stroking his face, and looking
penitently at his adviser. ‘That is to say, our joint plans for him. I
said myself, abroad or at home.’
‘And I said’ added Mr. Wickfield gravely, ‘abroad. I was the means of
sending him abroad. It’s my responsibility.’
‘Oh! Responsibility!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘Everything was done for
the best, my dear Mr. Wickfield; everything was done for the kindest and
best, we know. But if the dear fellow can’t live there, he can’t live
there. And if he can’t live there, he’ll die there, sooner than he’ll
overturn the Doctor’s plans. I know him,’ said the Old Soldier, fanning
herself, in a sort of calm prophetic agony, ‘and I know he’ll die there,
sooner than he’ll overturn the Doctor’s plans.’
‘Well, well, ma’am,’ said the Doctor cheerfully, ‘I am not bigoted to
my plans, and I can overturn them myself. I can substitute some other
plans. If Mr. Jack Maldon comes home on account of ill health, he must
not be allowed to go back, and we must endeavour to make some more
suitable and fortunate provision for him in this country.’
Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech--which, I need
not say, she had not at all expected or led up to--that she could only
tell the Doctor it was like himself, and go several times through that
operation of kissing the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand
with it. After which she gently chid her daughter Annie, for not being
more demonstrative when such kindnesses were showered, for her sake, on
her old playfellow; and entertained us with some particulars concerning
other deserving members of her family, whom it was desirable to set on
their deserving legs.
All this time, her daughter Annie never once spoke, or lifted up her
eyes. All this time, Mr. Wickfield had his glance upon her as she sat
by his own daughter’s side. It appeared to me that he never thought of
being observed by anyone; but was so intent upon her, and upon his own
thoughts in connexion with her, as to be quite absorbed. He now asked
what Mr. Jack Maldon had actually written in reference to himself, and
to whom he had written?
‘Why, here,’ said Mrs. Markleham, taking a letter from the chimney-piece
above the Doctor’s head, ‘the dear fellow says to the Doctor
himself--where is it? Oh!--“I am sorry to inform you that my health is
suffering severely, and that I fear I may be reduced to the necessity
of returning home for a time, as the only hope of restoration.” That’s
pretty plain, poor fellow! His only hope of restoration! But Annie’s
letter is plainer still. Annie, show me that letter again.’
‘Not now, mama,’ she pleaded in a low tone.
‘My dear, you absolutely are, on some subjects, one of the most
ridiculous persons in the world,’ returned her mother, ‘and perhaps the
most unnatural to the claims of your own family. We never should have
heard of the letter at all, I believe, unless I had asked for it myself.
Do you call that confidence, my love, towards Doctor Strong? I am
surprised. You ought to know better.’
The letter was reluctantly produced; and as I handed it to the old lady,
I saw how the unwilling hand from which I took it, trembled.
‘Now let us see,’ said Mrs. Markleham, putting her glass to her eye,
‘where the passage is. “The remembrance of old times, my dearest
Annie”--and so forth--it’s not there. “The amiable old Proctor”--who’s
he? Dear me, Annie, how illegibly your cousin Maldon writes, and how
stupid I am! “Doctor,” of course. Ah! amiable indeed!’ Here she left
off, to kiss her fan again, and shake it at the Doctor, who was looking
at us in a state of placid satisfaction. ‘Now I have found it. “You may
not be surprised to hear, Annie,”--no, to be sure, knowing that he never
was really strong; what did I say just now?--“that I have undergone
so much in this distant place, as to have decided to leave it at all
hazards; on sick leave, if I can; on total resignation, if that is
not to be obtained. What I have endured, and do endure here, is
insupportable.” And but for the promptitude of that best of creatures,’
said Mrs. Markleham, telegraphing the Doctor as before, and refolding
the letter, ‘it would be insupportable to me to think of.’
Mr. Wickfield said not one word, though the old lady looked to him as if
for his commentary on this intelligence; but sat severely silent, with
his eyes fixed on the ground. Long after the subject was dismissed,
and other topics occupied us, he remained so; seldom raising his eyes,
unless to rest them for a moment, with a thoughtful frown, upon the
Doctor, or his wife, or both.
The Doctor was very fond of music. Agnes sang with great sweetness and
expression, and so did Mrs. Strong. They sang together, and played duets
together, and we had quite a little concert. But I remarked two things:
first, that though Annie soon recovered her composure, and was quite
herself, there was a blank between her and Mr. Wickfield which separated
them wholly from each other; secondly, that Mr. Wickfield seemed
to dislike the intimacy between her and Agnes, and to watch it with
uneasiness. And now, I must confess, the recollection of what I had seen
on that night when Mr. Maldon went away, first began to return upon me
with a meaning it had never had, and to trouble me. The innocent beauty
of her face was not as innocent to me as it had been; I mistrusted the
natural grace and charm of her manner; and when I looked at Agnes by her
side, and thought how good and true Agnes was, suspicions arose within
me that it was an ill-assorted friendship.
She was so happy in it herself, however, and the other was so happy too,
that they made the evening fly away as if it were but an hour. It closed
in an incident which I well remember. They were taking leave of each
other, and Agnes was going to embrace her and kiss her, when Mr.
Wickfield stepped between them, as if by accident, and drew Agnes
quickly away. Then I saw, as though all the intervening time had been
cancelled, and I were still standing in the doorway on the night of the
departure, the expression of that night in the face of Mrs. Strong, as
it confronted his.
I cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or how impossible I
found it, when I thought of her afterwards, to separate her from this
look, and remember her face in its innocent loveliness again. It haunted
me when I got home. I seemed to have left the Doctor’s roof with a dark
cloud lowering on it. The reverence that I had for his grey head, was
mingled with commiseration for his faith in those who were treacherous
to him, and with resentment against those who injured him. The impending
shadow of a great affliction, and a great disgrace that had no distinct
form in it yet, fell like a stain upon the quiet place where I had
worked and played as a boy, and did it a cruel wrong. I had no pleasure
in thinking, any more, of the grave old broad-leaved aloe-trees, which
remained shut up in themselves a hundred years together, and of the trim
smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the Doctor’s walk, and the
congenial sound of the Cathedral bell hovering above them all. It was as
if the tranquil sanctuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face,
and its peace and honour given to the winds.
But morning brought with it my parting from the old house, which Agnes
had filled with her influence; and that occupied my mind sufficiently.
I should be there again soon, no doubt; I might sleep again--perhaps
often--in my old room; but the days of my inhabiting there were gone,
and the old time was past. I was heavier at heart when I packed up such
of my books and clothes as still remained there to be sent to Dover,
than I cared to show to Uriah Heep; who was so officious to help me,
that I uncharitably thought him mighty glad that I was going.
I got away from Agnes and her father, somehow, with an indifferent show
of being very manly, and took my seat upon the box of the London coach.
I was so softened and forgiving, going through the town, that I had half
a mind to nod to my old enemy the butcher, and throw him five shillings
to drink. But he looked such a very obdurate butcher as he stood
scraping the great block in the shop, and moreover, his appearance was
so little improved by the loss of a front tooth which I had knocked out,
that I thought it best to make no advances.
The main object on my mind, I remember, when we got fairly on the road,
was to appear as old as possible to the coachman, and to speak extremely
gruff. The latter point I achieved at great personal inconvenience; but
I stuck to it, because I felt it was a grown-up sort of thing.
‘You are going through, sir?’ said the coachman.
‘Yes, William,’ I said, condescendingly (I knew him); ‘I am going to
London. I shall go down into Suffolk afterwards.’
‘Shooting, sir?’ said the coachman.
He knew as well as I did that it was just as likely, at that time of
year, I was going down there whaling; but I felt complimented, too.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, pretending to be undecided, ‘whether I shall
take a shot or not.’ ‘Birds is got wery shy, I’m told,’ said William.
‘So I understand,’ said I.
‘Is Suffolk your county, sir?’ asked William.
‘Yes,’ I said, with some importance. ‘Suffolk’s my county.’
‘I’m told the dumplings is uncommon fine down there,’ said William.
I was not aware of it myself, but I felt it necessary to uphold the
institutions of my county, and to evince a familiarity with them; so I
shook my head, as much as to say, ‘I believe you!’
‘And the Punches,’ said William. ‘There’s cattle! A Suffolk Punch, when
he’s a good un, is worth his weight in gold. Did you ever breed any
Suffolk Punches yourself, sir?’
‘N-no,’ I said, ‘not exactly.’
‘Here’s a gen’lm’n behind me, I’ll pound it,’ said William, ‘as has bred
‘em by wholesale.’
The gentleman spoken of was a gentleman with a very unpromising squint,
and a prominent chin, who had a tall white hat on with a narrow flat
brim, and whose close-fitting drab trousers seemed to button all the way
up outside his legs from his boots to his hips. His chin was cocked over
the coachman’s shoulder, so near to me, that his breath quite tickled
the back of my head; and as I looked at him, he leered at the leaders
with the eye with which he didn’t squint, in a very knowing manner.
‘Ain’t you?’ asked William.
‘Ain’t I what?’ said the gentleman behind.
‘Bred them Suffolk Punches by wholesale?’
‘I should think so,’ said the gentleman. ‘There ain’t no sort of orse
that I ain’t bred, and no sort of dorg. Orses and dorgs is some
men’s fancy. They’re wittles and drink to me--lodging, wife, and
children--reading, writing, and Arithmetic--snuff, tobacker, and sleep.’
‘That ain’t a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it
though?’ said William in my ear, as he handled the reins.
I construed this remark into an indication of a wish that he should have
my place, so I blushingly offered to resign it.
‘Well, if you don’t mind, sir,’ said William, ‘I think it would be more
correct.’
I have always considered this as the first fall I had in life. When I
booked my place at the coach office I had had ‘Box Seat’ written against
the entry, and had given the book-keeper half-a-crown. I was got up in
a special great-coat and shawl, expressly to do honour to that
distinguished eminence; had glorified myself upon it a good deal; and
had felt that I was a credit to the coach. And here, in the very first
stage, I was supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other
merit than smelling like a livery-stables, and being able to walk across
me, more like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a
canter!
A distrust of myself, which has often beset me in life on small
occasions, when it would have been better away, was assuredly not
stopped in its growth by this little incident outside the Canterbury
coach. It was in vain to take refuge in gruffness of speech. I spoke
from the pit of my stomach for the rest of the journey, but I felt
completely extinguished, and dreadfully young.
It was curious and interesting, nevertheless, to be sitting up there
behind four horses: well educated, well dressed, and with plenty of
money in my pocket; and to look out for the places where I had slept on
my weary journey. I had abundant occupation for my thoughts, in every
conspicuous landmark on the road. When I looked down at the trampers
whom we passed, and saw that well-remembered style of face turned up,
I felt as if the tinker’s blackened hand were in the bosom of my shirt
again. When we clattered through the narrow street of Chatham, and I
caught a glimpse, in passing, of the lane where the old monster lived
who had bought my jacket, I stretched my neck eagerly to look for the
place where I had sat, in the sun and in the shade, waiting for my
money. When we came, at last, within a stage of London, and passed the
veritable Salem House where Mr. Creakle had laid about him with a heavy
hand, I would have given all I had, for lawful permission to get down
and thrash him, and let all the boys out like so many caged sparrows.
We went to the Golden Cross at Charing Cross, then a mouldy sort of
establishment in a close neighbourhood. A waiter showed me into the
coffee-room; and a chambermaid introduced me to my small bedchamber,
which smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family vault.
I was still painfully conscious of my youth, for nobody stood in any awe
of me at all: the chambermaid being utterly indifferent to my opinions
on any subject, and the waiter being familiar with me, and offering
advice to my inexperience.
‘Well now,’ said the waiter, in a tone of confidence, ‘what would you
like for dinner? Young gentlemen likes poultry in general: have a fowl!’
I told him, as majestically as I could, that I wasn’t in the humour for
a fowl.
‘Ain’t you?’ said the waiter. ‘Young gentlemen is generally tired of
beef and mutton: have a weal cutlet!’
I assented to this proposal, in default of being able to suggest
anything else.
‘Do you care for taters?’ said the waiter, with an insinuating smile,
and his head on one side. ‘Young gentlemen generally has been overdosed
with taters.’
I commanded him, in my deepest voice, to order a veal cutlet and
potatoes, and all things fitting; and to inquire at the bar if there
were any letters for Trotwood Copperfield, Esquire--which I knew there
were not, and couldn’t be, but thought it manly to appear to expect.
He soon came back to say that there were none (at which I was much
surprised) and began to lay the cloth for my dinner in a box by the
fire. While he was so engaged, he asked me what I would take with it;
and on my replying ‘Half a pint of sherry,’ thought it a favourable
opportunity, I am afraid, to extract that measure of wine from the
stale leavings at the bottoms of several small decanters. I am of this
opinion, because, while I was reading the newspaper, I observed him
behind a low wooden partition, which was his private apartment, very
busy pouring out of a number of those vessels into one, like a chemist
and druggist making up a prescription. When the wine came, too, I
thought it flat; and it certainly had more English crumbs in it, than
were to be expected in a foreign wine in anything like a pure state, but
I was bashful enough to drink it, and say nothing.
Being then in a pleasant frame of mind (from which I infer that
poisoning is not always disagreeable in some stages of the process), I
resolved to go to the play. It was Covent Garden Theatre that I chose;
and there, from the back of a centre box, I saw Julius Caesar and the
new Pantomime. To have all those noble Romans alive before me, and
walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern
taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful
effect. But the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, the
influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the
smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, were so
dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I
came out into the rainy street, at twelve o’clock at night, I felt as if
I had come from the clouds, where I had been leading a romantic life
for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling,
hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world.
I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little
while, as if I really were a stranger upon earth: but the unceremonious
pushing and hustling that I received, soon recalled me to myself, and
put me in the road back to the hotel; whither I went, revolving the
glorious vision all the way; and where, after some porter and oysters,
I sat revolving it still, at past one o’clock, with my eyes on the
coffee-room fire.
I was so filled with the play, and with the past--for it was, in a
manner, like a shining transparency, through which I saw my earlier
life moving along--that I don’t know when the figure of a handsome
well-formed young man dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I
have reason to remember very well, became a real presence to me. But
I recollect being conscious of his company without having noticed his
coming in--and my still sitting, musing, over the coffee-room fire.
At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy waiter,
who had got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, and hitting
them, and putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small
pantry. In going towards the door, I passed the person who had come in,
and saw him plainly. I turned directly, came back, and looked again. He
did not know me, but I knew him in a moment.
At another time I might have wanted the confidence or the decision to
speak to him, and might have put it off until next day, and might have
lost him. But, in the then condition of my mind, where the play was
still running high, his former protection of me appeared so deserving
of my gratitude, and my old love for him overflowed my breast so freshly
and spontaneously, that I went up to him at once, with a fast-beating
heart, and said:
‘Steerforth! won’t you speak to me?’
He looked at me--just as he used to look, sometimes--but I saw no
recognition in his face.
‘You don’t remember me, I am afraid,’ said I.
‘My God!’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘It’s little Copperfield!’
I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But for very
shame, and the fear that it might displease him, I could have held him
round the neck and cried.
‘I never, never, never was so glad! My dear Steerforth, I am so
overjoyed to see you!’
‘And I am rejoiced to see you, too!’ he said, shaking my hands heartily.
‘Why, Copperfield, old boy, don’t be overpowered!’ And yet he was glad,
too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in meeting him affected me.
I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been able to
keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down together,
side by side.
‘Why, how do you come to be here?’ said Steerforth, clapping me on the
shoulder.
‘I came here by the Canterbury coach, today. I have been adopted by
an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my
education there. How do YOU come to be here, Steerforth?’
‘Well, I am what they call an Oxford man,’ he returned; ‘that is to say,
I get bored to death down there, periodically--and I am on my way now to
my mother’s. You’re a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Copperfield. Just
what you used to be, now I look at you! Not altered in the least!’
‘I knew you immediately,’ I said; ‘but you are more easily remembered.’
He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his hair,
and said gaily:
‘Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives a little way out of
town; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our house tedious
enough, I remained here tonight instead of going on. I have not been in
town half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been dozing and grumbling away
at the play.’
‘I have been at the play, too,’ said I. ‘At Covent Garden. What a
delightful and magnificent entertainment, Steerforth!’
Steerforth laughed heartily.
‘My dear young Davy,’ he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, ‘you
are a very Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not fresher
than you are. I have been at Covent Garden, too, and there never was a
more miserable business. Holloa, you sir!’
This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to our
recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially.
‘Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield?’ said Steerforth.
‘Beg your pardon, sir?’
‘Where does he sleep? What’s his number? You know what I mean,’ said
Steerforth.
‘Well, sir,’ said the waiter, with an apologetic air. ‘Mr. Copperfield
is at present in forty-four, sir.’
‘And what the devil do you mean,’ retorted Steerforth, ‘by putting Mr.
Copperfield into a little loft over a stable?’
‘Why, you see we wasn’t aware, sir,’ returned the waiter, still
apologetically, ‘as Mr. Copperfield was anyways particular. We can give
Mr. Copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. Next you,
sir.’
‘Of course it would be preferred,’ said Steerforth. ‘And do it at once.’
The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. Steerforth, very
much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed again, and
clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to breakfast with him
next morning at ten o’clock--an invitation I was only too proud and
happy to accept. It being now pretty late, we took our candles and went
upstairs, where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door, and
where I found my new room a great improvement on my old one, it not
being at all musty, and having an immense four-post bedstead in it,
which was quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for
six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient
Rome, Steerforth, and friendship, until the early morning coaches,
rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of thunder and the
gods.
CHAPTER 20. STEERFORTH’S HOME
When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o’clock, and informed
me that my shaving-water was outside, I felt severely the having no
occasion for it, and blushed in my bed. The suspicion that she laughed
too, when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the time I was dressing;
and gave me, I was conscious, a sneaking and guilty air when I passed
her on the staircase, as I was going down to breakfast. I was so
sensitively aware, indeed, of being younger than I could have wished,
that for some time I could not make up my mind to pass her at all, under
the ignoble circumstances of the case; but, hearing her there with
a broom, stood peeping out of window at King Charles on horseback,
surrounded by a maze of hackney-coaches, and looking anything but regal
in a drizzling rain and a dark-brown fog, until I was admonished by the
waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me.
It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me, but
in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted, where
the fire burnt bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table
covered with a clean cloth; and a cheerful miniature of the room, the
fire, the breakfast, Steerforth, and all, was shining in the little
round mirror over the sideboard. I was rather bashful at first,
Steerforth being so self-possessed, and elegant, and superior to me in
all respects (age included); but his easy patronage soon put that to
rights, and made me quite at home. I could not enough admire the change
he had wrought in the Golden Cross; or compare the dull forlorn state
I had held yesterday, with this morning’s comfort and this morning’s
entertainment. As to the waiter’s familiarity, it was quenched as if it
had never been. He attended on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes.
‘Now, Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, when we were alone, ‘I should like
to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all about you.
I feel as if you were my property.’ Glowing with pleasure to find that
he had still this interest in me, I told him how my aunt had proposed
the little expedition that I had before me, and whither it tended.
‘As you are in no hurry, then,’ said Steerforth, ‘come home with me to
Highgate, and stay a day or two. You will be pleased with my mother--she
is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can forgive her--and
she will be pleased with you.’
‘I should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind enough to say you
are,’ I answered, smiling.
‘Oh!’ said Steerforth, ‘everyone who likes me, has a claim on her that
is sure to be acknowledged.’
‘Then I think I shall be a favourite,’ said I.
‘Good!’ said Steerforth. ‘Come and prove it. We will go and see the
lions for an hour or two--it’s something to have a fresh fellow like you
to show them to, Copperfield--and then we’ll journey out to Highgate by
the coach.’
I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and that I should wake
presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the coffee-room
and the familiar waiter again. After I had written to my aunt and told
her of my fortunate meeting with my admired old schoolfellow, and my
acceptance of his invitation, we went out in a hackney-chariot, and saw
a Panorama and some other sights, and took a walk through the Museum,
where I could not help observing how much Steerforth knew, on an
infinite variety of subjects, and of how little account he seemed to
make his knowledge.
‘You’ll take a high degree at college, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘if you have
not done so already; and they will have good reason to be proud of you.’
‘I take a degree!’ cried Steerforth. ‘Not I! my dear Daisy--will you
mind my calling you Daisy?’
‘Not at all!’ said I.
‘That’s a good fellow! My dear Daisy,’ said Steerforth, laughing. ‘I
have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself in that
way. I have done quite sufficient for my purpose. I find that I am heavy
company enough for myself as I am.’
‘But the fame--’ I was beginning.
‘You romantic Daisy!’ said Steerforth, laughing still more heartily:
‘why should I trouble myself, that a parcel of heavy-headed fellows may
gape and hold up their hands? Let them do it at some other man. There’s
fame for him, and he’s welcome to it.’
I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to change
the subject. Fortunately it was not difficult to do, for Steerforth
could always pass from one subject to another with a carelessness and
lightness that were his own.
Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore away
so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us at an
old brick house at Highgate on the summit of the hill. An elderly lady,
though not very far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and
a handsome face, was in the doorway as we alighted; and greeting
Steerforth as ‘My dearest James,’ folded him in her arms. To this lady
he presented me as his mother, and she gave me a stately welcome.
It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. From the
windows of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like a great
vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through it. I had only
time, in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces
of work (done, I supposed, by Steerforth’s mother when she was a girl),
and some pictures in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and bodices,
coming and going on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and
sputtered, when I was called to dinner.
There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure,
dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good
looks too, who attracted my attention: perhaps because I had not
expected to see her; perhaps because I found myself sitting opposite
to her; perhaps because of something really remarkable in her. She had
black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her
lip. It was an old scar--I should rather call it seam, for it was not
discoloured, and had healed years ago--which had once cut through her
mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across
the table, except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had
altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years
of age, and that she wished to be married. She was a little
dilapidated--like a house--with having been so long to let; yet had, as
I have said, an appearance of good looks. Her thinness seemed to be the
effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt
eyes.
She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his mother
called her Rosa. I found that she lived there, and had been for a long
time Mrs. Steerforth’s companion. It appeared to me that she never said
anything she wanted to say, outright; but hinted it, and made a great
deal more of it by this practice. For example, when Mrs. Steerforth
observed, more in jest than earnest, that she feared her son led but a
wild life at college, Miss Dartle put in thus:
‘Oh, really? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for
information, but isn’t it always so? I thought that kind of life was
on all hands understood to be--eh?’ ‘It is education for a very grave
profession, if you mean that, Rosa,’ Mrs. Steerforth answered with some
coldness.
‘Oh! Yes! That’s very true,’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘But isn’t it,
though?--I want to be put right, if I am wrong--isn’t it, really?’
‘Really what?’ said Mrs. Steerforth.
‘Oh! You mean it’s not!’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I’m very glad to
hear it! Now, I know what to do! That’s the advantage of asking. I shall
never allow people to talk before me about wastefulness and profligacy,
and so forth, in connexion with that life, any more.’
‘And you will be right,’ said Mrs. Steerforth. ‘My son’s tutor is a
conscientious gentleman; and if I had not implicit reliance on my son, I
should have reliance on him.’
‘Should you?’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Dear me! Conscientious, is he? Really
conscientious, now?’
‘Yes, I am convinced of it,’ said Mrs. Steerforth.
‘How very nice!’ exclaimed Miss Dartle. ‘What a comfort! Really
conscientious? Then he’s not--but of course he can’t be, if he’s really
conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from
this time. You can’t think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know
for certain that he’s really conscientious!’
Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything that
was said to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in the same
way: sometimes, I could not conceal from myself, with great power,
though in contradiction even of Steerforth. An instance happened before
dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking to me about my intention
of going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard how glad I should be, if
Steerforth would only go there with me; and explaining to him that I was
going to see my old nurse, and Mr. Peggotty’s family, I reminded him of
the boatman whom he had seen at school.
‘Oh! That bluff fellow!’ said Steerforth. ‘He had a son with him, hadn’t
he?’
‘No. That was his nephew,’ I replied; ‘whom he adopted, though, as
a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a
daughter. In short, his house--or rather his boat, for he lives in one,
on dry land--is full of people who are objects of his generosity and
kindness. You would be delighted to see that household.’
‘Should I?’ said Steerforth. ‘Well, I think I should. I must see what
can be done. It would be worth a journey (not to mention the pleasure of
a journey with you, Daisy), to see that sort of people together, and to
make one of ‘em.’
My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in reference
to the tone in which he had spoken of ‘that sort of people’, that Miss
Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in
again.
‘Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?’ she said.
‘Are they what? And are who what?’ said Steerforth.
‘That sort of people.---Are they really animals and clods, and beings of
another order? I want to know SO much.’
‘Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,’ said
Steerforth, with indifference. ‘They are not to be expected to be
as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt
easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say--some people contend
for that, at least; and I am sure I don’t want to contradict them--but
they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like
their coarse rough skins, they are not easily wounded.’
‘Really!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I don’t know, now, when I have been
better pleased than to hear that. It’s so consoling! It’s such a delight
to know that, when they suffer, they don’t feel! Sometimes I have been
quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now I shall just dismiss the
idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my doubts, I confess,
but now they’re cleared up. I didn’t know, and now I do know, and that
shows the advantage of asking--don’t it?’
I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw
Miss Dartle out; and I expected him to say as much when she was gone,
and we two were sitting before the fire. But he merely asked me what I
thought of her.
‘She is very clever, is she not?’ I asked.
‘Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone,’ said Steerforth, and
sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years
past. She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all
edge.’
‘What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!’ I said.
Steerforth’s face fell, and he paused a moment.
‘Why, the fact is,’ he returned, ‘I did that.’
‘By an unfortunate accident!’
‘No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a hammer at
her. A promising young angel I must have been!’ I was deeply sorry to
have touched on such a painful theme, but that was useless now.
‘She has borne the mark ever since, as you see,’ said Steerforth; ‘and
she’ll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one--though I can
hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the motherless child
of a sort of cousin of my father’s. He died one day. My mother, who was
then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She has a couple of
thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, to
add to the principal. There’s the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for you.’
‘And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?’ said I.
‘Humph!’ retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. ‘Some brothers are
not loved over much; and some love--but help yourself, Copperfield!
We’ll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the
lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment
to me--the more shame for me!’ A moody smile that had overspread his
features cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank,
winning self again.
I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we
went in to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was the most
susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark
altered first, and became a dull, lead-coloured streak, lengthening out
to its full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the fire.
There was a little altercation between her and Steerforth about a cast
of the dice at backgammon--when I thought her, for one moment, in a
storm of rage; and then I saw it start forth like the old writing on the
wall.
It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth devoted to her
son. She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else. She
showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his
baby-hair in it; she showed me his picture as he had been when I first
knew him; and she wore at her breast his picture as he was now. All the
letters he had ever written to her, she kept in a cabinet near her own
chair by the fire; and she would have read me some of them, and I should
have been very glad to hear them too, if he had not interposed, and
coaxed her out of the design.
‘It was at Mr. Creakle’s, my son tells me, that you first became
acquainted,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one
table, while they played backgammon at another. ‘Indeed, I recollect his
speaking, at that time, of a pupil younger than himself who had taken
his fancy there; but your name, as you may suppose, has not lived in my
memory.’
‘He was very generous and noble to me in those days, I assure you,
ma’am,’ said I, ‘and I stood in need of such a friend. I should have
been quite crushed without him.’
‘He is always generous and noble,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly.
I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She knew I did; for
the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except when she
spoke in praise of him, and then her air was always lofty.
‘It was not a fit school generally for my son,’ said she; ‘far from it;
but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of
more importance even than that selection. My son’s high spirit made
it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its
superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found
such a man there.’
I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not despise him the more
for it, but thought it a redeeming quality in him if he could be allowed
any grace for not resisting one so irresistible as Steerforth.
‘My son’s great capacity was tempted on, there, by a feeling of
voluntary emulation and conscious pride,’ the fond lady went on to say.
‘He would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the
monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his
station. It was like himself.’
I echoed, with all my heart and soul, that it was like himself.
‘So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the course
in which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip every
competitor,’ she pursued. ‘My son informs me, Mr. Copperfield, that
you were quite devoted to him, and that when you met yesterday you made
yourself known to him with tears of joy. I should be an affected woman
if I made any pretence of being surprised by my son’s inspiring such
emotions; but I cannot be indifferent to anyone who is so sensible of
his merit, and I am very glad to see you here, and can assure you that
he feels an unusual friendship for you, and that you may rely on his
protection.’
Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else.
If I had seen her, first, at the board, I should have fancied that her
figure had got thin, and her eyes had got large, over that pursuit, and
no other in the world. But I am very much mistaken if she missed a
word of this, or lost a look of mine as I received it with the utmost
pleasure, and honoured by Mrs. Steerforth’s confidence, felt older than
I had done since I left Canterbury.
When the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of glasses and
decanters came in, Steerforth promised, over the fire, that he would
seriously think of going down into the country with me. There was no
hurry, he said; a week hence would do; and his mother hospitably said
the same. While we were talking, he more than once called me Daisy;
which brought Miss Dartle out again.
‘But really, Mr. Copperfield,’ she asked, ‘is it a nickname? And
why does he give it you? Is it--eh?--because he thinks you young and
innocent? I am so stupid in these things.’
I coloured in replying that I believed it was.
‘Oh!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Now I am glad to know that! I ask for
information, and I am glad to know it. He thinks you young and innocent;
and so you are his friend. Well, that’s quite delightful!’
She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs. Steerforth retired too.
Steerforth and I, after lingering for half-an-hour over the fire,
talking about Traddles and all the rest of them at old Salem House, went
upstairs together. Steerforth’s room was next to mine, and I went in to
look at it. It was a picture of comfort, full of easy-chairs, cushions
and footstools, worked by his mother’s hand, and with no sort of thing
omitted that could help to render it complete. Finally, her handsome
features looked down on her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if
it were even something to her that her likeness should watch him while
he slept.
I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time, and the
curtains drawn before the windows and round the bed, giving it a very
snug appearance. I sat down in a great chair upon the hearth to meditate
on my happiness; and had enjoyed the contemplation of it for some time,
when I found a likeness of Miss Dartle looking eagerly at me from above
the chimney-piece.
It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look. The
painter hadn’t made the scar, but I made it; and there it was, coming
and going; now confined to the upper lip as I had seen it at dinner, and
now showing the whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer, as I
had seen it when she was passionate.
I wondered peevishly why they couldn’t put her anywhere else instead
of quartering her on me. To get rid of her, I undressed quickly,
extinguished my light, and went to bed. But, as I fell asleep, I could
not forget that she was still there looking, ‘Is it really, though?
I want to know’; and when I awoke in the night, I found that I was
uneasily asking all sorts of people in my dreams whether it really was
or not--without knowing what I meant.
CHAPTER 21. LITTLE EM’LY
There was a servant in that house, a man who, I understood, was usually
with Steerforth, and had come into his service at the University, who
was in appearance a pattern of respectability. I believe there never
existed in his station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn,
soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at
hand when wanted, and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to
consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had
rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging
to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of
whispering the letter S so distinctly, that he seemed to use it
oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he had he made
respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, he would have made that
respectable. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability,
and walked secure in it. It would have been next to impossible to
suspect him of anything wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable.
Nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery, he was so highly
respectable. To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have
been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable
man. And of this, I noticed--the women-servants in the household were
so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and
generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire.
Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in every
other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. Even the
fact that no one knew his Christian name, seemed to form a part of his
respectability. Nothing could be objected against his surname, Littimer,
by which he was known. Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported;
but Littimer was perfectly respectable.
It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability
in the abstract, but I felt particularly young in this man’s presence.
How old he was himself, I could not guess--and that again went to his
credit on the same score; for in the calmness of respectability he might
have numbered fifty years as well as thirty.
Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me that
reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I undrew the
curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature
of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not
even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first
dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it
down like a baby.
I gave him good morning, and asked him what o’clock it was. He took
out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and
preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the
face as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and
said, if I pleased, it was half past eight.
‘Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir.’
‘Thank you,’ said I, ‘very well indeed. Is Mr. Steerforth quite well?’
‘Thank you, sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well.’ Another of his
characteristics--no use of superlatives. A cool calm medium always.
‘Is there anything more I can have the honour of doing for you, sir? The
warning-bell will ring at nine; the family take breakfast at half past
nine.’
‘Nothing, I thank you.’
‘I thank YOU, sir, if you please’; and with that, and with a little
inclination of his head when he passed the bed-side, as an apology for
correcting me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as if I had
just fallen into a sweet sleep on which my life depended.
Every morning we held exactly this conversation: never any more, and
never any less: and yet, invariably, however far I might have been
lifted out of myself over-night, and advanced towards maturer years,
by Steerforth’s companionship, or Mrs. Steerforth’s confidence, or Miss
Dartle’s conversation, in the presence of this most respectable man I
became, as our smaller poets sing, ‘a boy again’.
He got horses for us; and Steerforth, who knew everything, gave me
lessons in riding. He provided foils for us, and Steerforth gave me
lessons in fencing--gloves, and I began, of the same master, to improve
in boxing. It gave me no manner of concern that Steerforth should find
me a novice in these sciences, but I never could bear to show my want of
skill before the respectable Littimer. I had no reason to believe
that Littimer understood such arts himself; he never led me to suppose
anything of the kind, by so much as the vibration of one of his
respectable eyelashes; yet whenever he was by, while we were practising,
I felt myself the greenest and most inexperienced of mortals.
I am particular about this man, because he made a particular effect on
me at that time, and because of what took place thereafter.
The week passed away in a most delightful manner. It passed rapidly, as
may be supposed, to one entranced as I was; and yet it gave me so many
occasions for knowing Steerforth better, and admiring him more in a
thousand respects, that at its close I seemed to have been with him
for a much longer time. A dashing way he had of treating me like a
plaything, was more agreeable to me than any behaviour he could have
adopted. It reminded me of our old acquaintance; it seemed the natural
sequel of it; it showed me that he was unchanged; it relieved me of
any uneasiness I might have felt, in comparing my merits with his, and
measuring my claims upon his friendship by any equal standard; above
all, it was a familiar, unrestrained, affectionate demeanour that he
used towards no one else. As he had treated me at school differently
from all the rest, I joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike
any other friend he had. I believed that I was nearer to his heart than
any other friend, and my own heart warmed with attachment to him. He
made up his mind to go with me into the country, and the day arrived for
our departure. He had been doubtful at first whether to take Littimer
or not, but decided to leave him at home. The respectable creature,
satisfied with his lot whatever it was, arranged our portmanteaux on
the little carriage that was to take us into London, as if they were
intended to defy the shocks of ages, and received my modestly proffered
donation with perfect tranquillity.
We bade adieu to Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, with many thanks on
my part, and much kindness on the devoted mother’s. The last thing I
saw was Littimer’s unruffled eye; fraught, as I fancied, with the silent
conviction that I was very young indeed.
What I felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old familiar places,
I shall not endeavour to describe. We went down by the Mail. I was
so concerned, I recollect, even for the honour of Yarmouth, that when
Steerforth said, as we drove through its dark streets to the inn, that,
as well as he could make out, it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way kind
of hole, I was highly pleased. We went to bed on our arrival (I observed
a pair of dirty shoes and gaiters in connexion with my old friend the
Dolphin as we passed that door), and breakfasted late in the morning.
Steerforth, who was in great spirits, had been strolling about the
beach before I was up, and had made acquaintance, he said, with half the
boatmen in the place. Moreover, he had seen, in the distance, what he
was sure must be the identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming
out of the chimney; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk in and
swear he was myself grown out of knowledge.
‘When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy?’ he said. ‘I am at
your disposal. Make your own arrangements.’
‘Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a good time, Steerforth,
when they are all sitting round the fire. I should like you to see it
when it’s snug, it’s such a curious place.’
‘So be it!’ returned Steerforth. ‘This evening.’
‘I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know,’ said I,
delighted. ‘We must take them by surprise.’
‘Oh, of course! It’s no fun,’ said Steerforth, ‘unless we take them by
surprise. Let us see the natives in their aboriginal condition.’
‘Though they ARE that sort of people that you mentioned,’ I returned.
‘Aha! What! you recollect my skirmishes with Rosa, do you?’ he exclaimed
with a quick look. ‘Confound the girl, I am half afraid of her. She’s
like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what are you going to do?
You are going to see your nurse, I suppose?’
‘Why, yes,’ I said, ‘I must see Peggotty first of all.’
‘Well,’ replied Steerforth, looking at his watch. ‘Suppose I deliver you
up to be cried over for a couple of hours. Is that long enough?’
I answered, laughing, that I thought we might get through it in that
time, but that he must come also; for he would find that his renown had
preceded him, and that he was almost as great a personage as I was.
‘I’ll come anywhere you like,’ said Steerforth, ‘or do anything you
like. Tell me where to come to; and in two hours I’ll produce myself in
any state you please, sentimental or comical.’
I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. Barkis,
carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere; and, on this understanding, went
out alone. There was a sharp bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea
was crisp and clear; the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not
much warmth; and everything was fresh and lively. I was so fresh and
lively myself, in the pleasure of being there, that I could have stopped
the people in the streets and shaken hands with them.
The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen
as children always do, I believe, when we go back to them. But I had
forgotten nothing in them, and found nothing changed, until I came to
Mr. Omer’s shop. OMER AND Joram was now written up, where OMER used to
be; but the inscription, DRAPER, TAILOR, HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER,
&c., remained as it was.
My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop door, after I had
read these words from over the way, that I went across the road and
looked in. There was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, dancing
a little child in her arms, while another little fellow clung to her
apron. I had no difficulty in recognizing either Minnie or Minnie’s
children. The glass door of the parlour was not open; but in the
workshop across the yard I could faintly hear the old tune playing, as
if it had never left off.
‘Is Mr. Omer at home?’ said I, entering. ‘I should like to see him, for
a moment, if he is.’
‘Oh yes, sir, he is at home,’ said Minnie; ‘the weather don’t suit his
asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grandfather!’
The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty shout,
that the sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his face in her
skirts, to her great admiration. I heard a heavy puffing and blowing
coming towards us, and soon Mr. Omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but
not much older-looking, stood before me.
‘Servant, sir,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’ ‘You can
shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you please,’ said I, putting out my
own. ‘You were very good-natured to me once, when I am afraid I didn’t
show that I thought so.’
‘Was I though?’ returned the old man. ‘I’m glad to hear it, but I don’t
remember when. Are you sure it was me?’
‘Quite.’
‘I think my memory has got as short as my breath,’ said Mr. Omer,
looking at me and shaking his head; ‘for I don’t remember you.’
‘Don’t you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my having
breakfast here, and our riding out to Blunderstone together: you, and I,
and Mrs. Joram, and Mr. Joram too--who wasn’t her husband then?’
‘Why, Lord bless my soul!’ exclaimed Mr. Omer, after being thrown by his
surprise into a fit of coughing, ‘you don’t say so! Minnie, my dear, you
recollect? Dear me, yes; the party was a lady, I think?’
‘My mother,’ I rejoined.
‘To--be--sure,’ said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat with his
forefinger, ‘and there was a little child too! There was two parties.
The little party was laid along with the other party. Over at
Blunderstone it was, of course. Dear me! And how have you been since?’
Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too.
‘Oh! nothing to grumble at, you know,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘I find my breath
gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as
it comes, and make the most of it. That’s the best way, ain’t it?’
Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was assisted out
of his fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside us, dancing her
smallest child on the counter.
‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Yes, to be sure. Two parties! Why, in that
very ride, if you’ll believe me, the day was named for my Minnie to
marry Joram. “Do name it, sir,” says Joram. “Yes, do, father,” says
Minnie. And now he’s come into the business. And look here! The
youngest!’
Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as her
father put one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child she was
dancing on the counter.
‘Two parties, of course!’ said Mr. Omer, nodding his head
retrospectively. ‘Ex-actly so! And Joram’s at work, at this minute, on
a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement’--the measurement of
the dancing child upon the counter--‘by a good two inches.---Will you
take something?’
I thanked him, but declined.
‘Let me see,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Barkis’s the carrier’s wife--Peggotty’s
the boatman’s sister--she had something to do with your family? She was
in service there, sure?’
My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction.
‘I believe my breath will get long next, my memory’s getting so much
so,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir, we’ve got a young relation of hers here,
under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the dress-making
business--I assure you I don’t believe there’s a Duchess in England can
touch her.’
‘Not little Em’ly?’ said I, involuntarily.
‘Em’ly’s her name,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘and she’s little too. But if you’ll
believe me, she has such a face of her own that half the women in this
town are mad against her.’
‘Nonsense, father!’ cried Minnie.
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘I don’t say it’s the case with you,’ winking
at me, ‘but I say that half the women in Yarmouth--ah! and in five mile
round--are mad against that girl.’
‘Then she should have kept to her own station in life, father,’ said
Minnie, ‘and not have given them any hold to talk about her, and then
they couldn’t have done it.’
‘Couldn’t have done it, my dear!’ retorted Mr. Omer. ‘Couldn’t have
done it! Is that YOUR knowledge of life? What is there that any woman
couldn’t do, that she shouldn’t do--especially on the subject of another
woman’s good looks?’
I really thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had uttered
this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and his breath
eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully
expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little
black breeches, with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees,
come quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle. At length, however,
he got better, though he still panted hard, and was so exhausted that he
was obliged to sit on the stool of the shop-desk.
‘You see,’ he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, ‘she
hasn’t taken much to any companions here; she hasn’t taken kindly to
any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention sweethearts. In
consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that Em’ly wanted to be a
lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally on
account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was a lady
she would like to do so-and-so for her uncle--don’t you see?--and buy
him such-and-such fine things.’
‘I assure you, Mr. Omer, she has said so to me,’ I returned eagerly,
‘when we were both children.’
Mr. Omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. ‘Just so. Then out of a
very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than most others
could out of a deal, and that made things unpleasant. Moreover, she was
rather what might be called wayward--I’ll go so far as to say what I
should call wayward myself,’ said Mr. Omer; ‘--didn’t know her own mind
quite--a little spoiled--and couldn’t, at first, exactly bind herself
down. No more than that was ever said against her, Minnie?’
‘No, father,’ said Mrs. Joram. ‘That’s the worst, I believe.’
‘So when she got a situation,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘to keep a fractious old
lady company, they didn’t very well agree, and she didn’t stop. At last
she came here, apprenticed for three years. Nearly two of ‘em are over,
and she has been as good a girl as ever was. Worth any six! Minnie, is
she worth any six, now?’
‘Yes, father,’ replied Minnie. ‘Never say I detracted from her!’
‘Very good,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘That’s right. And so, young gentleman,’ he
added, after a few moments’ further rubbing of his chin, ‘that you may
not consider me long-winded as well as short-breathed, I believe that’s
all about it.’
As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of Em’ly, I had no
doubt that she was near. On my asking now, if that were not so, Mr.
Omer nodded yes, and nodded towards the door of the parlour. My hurried
inquiry if I might peep in, was answered with a free permission; and,
looking through the glass, I saw her sitting at her work. I saw her, a
most beautiful little creature, with the cloudless blue eyes, that had
looked into my childish heart, turned laughingly upon another child
of Minnie’s who was playing near her; with enough of wilfulness in her
bright face to justify what I had heard; with much of the old capricious
coyness lurking in it; but with nothing in her pretty looks, I am sure,
but what was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what was on a
good and happy course.
The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off--alas!
it was the tune that never DOES leave off--was beating, softly, all the
while.
‘Wouldn’t you like to step in,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘and speak to her? Walk
in and speak to her, sir! Make yourself at home!’
I was too bashful to do so then--I was afraid of confusing her, and I
was no less afraid of confusing myself.--but I informed myself of the
hour at which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might
be timed accordingly; and taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty
daughter, and her little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty’s.
Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! The moment I knocked
at the door she opened it, and asked me what I pleased to want. I looked
at her with a smile, but she gave me no smile in return. I had never
ceased to write to her, but it must have been seven years since we had
met.
‘Is Mr. Barkis at home, ma’am?’ I said, feigning to speak roughly to
her.
‘He’s at home, sir,’ returned Peggotty, ‘but he’s bad abed with the
rheumatics.’
‘Don’t he go over to Blunderstone now?’ I asked.
‘When he’s well he do,’ she answered.
‘Do YOU ever go there, Mrs. Barkis?’
She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement of her
hands towards each other.
‘Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they call
the--what is it?--the Rookery,’ said I.
She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided
frightened way, as if to keep me off.
‘Peggotty!’ I cried to her.
She cried, ‘My darling boy!’ and we both burst into tears, and were
locked in one another’s arms.
What extravagances she committed; what laughing and crying over me; what
pride she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride and joy I
might have been, could never hold me in a fond embrace; I have not the
heart to tell. I was troubled with no misgiving that it was young in
me to respond to her emotions. I had never laughed and cried in all my
life, I dare say--not even to her--more freely than I did that morning.
‘Barkis will be so glad,’ said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her apron,
‘that it’ll do him more good than pints of liniment. May I go and tell
him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my dear?’
Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as easily
as she meant to, for as often as she got to the door and looked round
at me, she came back again to have another laugh and another cry upon my
shoulder. At last, to make the matter easier, I went upstairs with
her; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of
preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself before that invalid.
He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be
shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of
his nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side
of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he
was driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face
upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be
nothing but a face--like a conventional cherubim--he looked the queerest
object I ever beheld.
‘What name was it, as I wrote up in the cart, sir?’ said Mr. Barkis,
with a slow rheumatic smile.
‘Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn’t we?’
‘I was willin’ a long time, sir?’ said Mr. Barkis.
‘A long time,’ said I.
‘And I don’t regret it,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Do you remember what you
told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing all the
cooking?’
‘Yes, very well,’ I returned.
‘It was as true,’ said Mr. Barkis, ‘as turnips is. It was as true,’ said
Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis,
‘as taxes is. And nothing’s truer than them.’
Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result
of his reflections in bed; and I gave it.
‘Nothing’s truer than them,’ repeated Mr. Barkis; ‘a man as poor as I
am, finds that out in his mind when he’s laid up. I’m a very poor man,
sir!’
‘I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis.’
‘A very poor man, indeed I am,’ said Mr. Barkis.
Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes,
and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was
loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some poking about with
this instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of
distracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an end
of which had been visible to me all the time. Then his face became
composed.
‘Old clothes,’ said Mr. Barkis.
‘Oh!’ said I.
‘I wish it was Money, sir,’ said Mr. Barkis.
‘I wish it was, indeed,’ said I.
‘But it AIN’T,’ said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as he
possibly could.
I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis, turning his eyes
more gently to his wife, said:
‘She’s the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis. All the praise
that anyone can give to C. P. Barkis, she deserves, and more! My dear,
you’ll get a dinner today, for company; something good to eat and drink,
will you?’
I should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in
my honour, but that I saw Peggotty, on the opposite side of the bed,
extremely anxious I should not. So I held my peace.
‘I have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear,’ said Mr.
Barkis, ‘but I’m a little tired. If you and Mr. David will leave me for
a short nap, I’ll try and find it when I wake.’
We left the room, in compliance with this request. When we got outside
the door, Peggotty informed me that Mr. Barkis, being now ‘a little
nearer’ than he used to be, always resorted to this same device before
producing a single coin from his store; and that he endured unheard-of
agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky
box. In effect, we presently heard him uttering suppressed groans of the
most dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint;
but while Peggotty’s eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his
generous impulse would do him good, and it was better not to check it.
So he groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering, I have no
doubt, a martyrdom; and then called us in, pretending to have just
woke up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his
pillow. His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in
having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a
sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures.
I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth’s arrival and it was not long before
he came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a
personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she would
have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case.
But his easy, spirited good humour; his genial manner, his handsome
looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased,
and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest
in anybody’s heart; bound her to him wholly in five minutes. His
manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, through all these causes
combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind of adoration for him before
he left the house that night.
He stayed there with me to dinner--if I were to say willingly, I should
not half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. Barkis’s room
like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy
weather. There was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything
he did; but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seeming
impossibility of doing anything else, or doing anything better, which
was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even
now, in the remembrance.
We made merry in the little parlour, where the Book of Martyrs,
unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where
I now turned over its terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations
they had awakened, but not feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what
she called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of her
hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much as look at Steerforth,
hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’ll sleep here, while we stay, and I shall
sleep at the hotel.’
‘But to bring you so far,’ I returned, ‘and to separate, seems bad
companionship, Steerforth.’
‘Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally belong?’ he said.
‘What is “seems”, compared to that?’ It was settled at once.
He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we started
forth, at eight o’clock, for Mr. Peggotty’s boat. Indeed, they were more
and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on; for I thought even
then, and I have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his
determination to please, inspired him with a new delicacy of perception,
and made it, subtle as it was, more easy to him. If anyone had told me,
then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of
the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love
of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was
worthless to him, and next minute thrown away--I say, if anyone had told
me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my
indignation would have found a vent! Probably only in an increase, had
that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship
with which I walked beside him, over the dark wintry sands towards the
old boat; the wind sighing around us even more mournfully, than it had
sighed and moaned upon the night when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty’s
door.
‘This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not?’
‘Dismal enough in the dark,’ he said: ‘and the sea roars as if it were
hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder?’ ‘That’s
the boat,’ said I.
‘And it’s the same I saw this morning,’ he returned. ‘I came straight to
it, by instinct, I suppose.’
We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the
door. I laid my hand upon the latch; and whispering Steerforth to keep
close to me, went in.
A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the
moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands: which latter noise, I
was surprised to see, proceeded from the generally disconsolate Mrs.
Gummidge. But Mrs. Gummidge was not the only person there who was
unusually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon
satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his rough arms
wide open, as if for little Em’ly to run into them; Ham, with a mixed
expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort
of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held little Em’ly by
the hand, as if he were presenting her to Mr. Peggotty; little Em’ly
herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with Mr. Peggotty’s delight, as
her joyous eyes expressed, was stopped by our entrance (for she saw us
first) in the very act of springing from Ham to nestle in Mr. Peggotty’s
embrace. In the first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of
our passing from the dark cold night into the warm light room, this
was the way in which they were all employed: Mrs. Gummidge in the
background, clapping her hands like a madwoman.
The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going in,
that one might have doubted whether it had ever been. I was in the midst
of the astonished family, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding
out my hand to him, when Ham shouted:
‘Mas’r Davy! It’s Mas’r Davy!’
In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking one
another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to meet,
and all talking at once. Mr. Peggotty was so proud and overjoyed to see
us, that he did not know what to say or do, but kept over and over again
shaking hands with me, and then with Steerforth, and then with me, and
then ruffling his shaggy hair all over his head, and laughing with such
glee and triumph, that it was a treat to see him.
‘Why, that you two gent’lmen--gent’lmen growed--should come to this here
roof tonight, of all nights in my life,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘is such a
thing as never happened afore, I do rightly believe! Em’ly, my darling,
come here! Come here, my little witch! There’s Mas’r Davy’s friend, my
dear! There’s the gent’lman as you’ve heerd on, Em’ly. He comes to see
you, along with Mas’r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle’s life
as ever was or will be, Gorm the t’other one, and horroar for it!’
After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with extraordinary
animation and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one of his large hands
rapturously on each side of his niece’s face, and kissing it a dozen
times, laid it with a gentle pride and love upon his broad chest, and
patted it as if his hand had been a lady’s. Then he let her go; and as
she ran into the little chamber where I used to sleep, looked round upon
us, quite hot and out of breath with his uncommon satisfaction.
‘If you two gent’lmen--gent’lmen growed now, and such gent’lmen--’ said
Mr. Peggotty.
‘So th’ are, so th’ are!’ cried Ham. ‘Well said! So th’ are. Mas’r Davy
bor’--gent’lmen growed--so th’ are!’
‘If you two gent’lmen, gent’lmen growed,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘don’t
ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand matters,
I’ll arks your pardon. Em’ly, my dear!--She knows I’m a going to tell,’
here his delight broke out again, ‘and has made off. Would you be so
good as look arter her, Mawther, for a minute?’
Mrs. Gummidge nodded and disappeared.
‘If this ain’t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among us by the fire,
‘the brightest night o’ my life, I’m a shellfish--biled too--and more I
can’t say. This here little Em’ly, sir,’ in a low voice to Steerforth,
‘--her as you see a blushing here just now--’
Steerforth only nodded; but with such a pleased expression of interest,
and of participation in Mr. Peggotty’s feelings, that the latter
answered him as if he had spoken.
‘To be sure,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘That’s her, and so she is. Thankee,
sir.’
Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too.
‘This here little Em’ly of ours,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘has been, in our
house, what I suppose (I’m a ignorant man, but that’s my belief) no one
but a little bright-eyed creetur can be in a house. She ain’t my
child; I never had one; but I couldn’t love her more. You understand! I
couldn’t do it!’
‘I quite understand,’ said Steerforth.
‘I know you do, sir,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘and thankee again. Mas’r
Davy, he can remember what she was; you may judge for your own self what
she is; but neither of you can’t fully know what she has been, is, and
will be, to my loving art. I am rough, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I am as
rough as a Sea Porkypine; but no one, unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can
know, I think, what our little Em’ly is to me. And betwixt ourselves,’
sinking his voice lower yet, ‘that woman’s name ain’t Missis Gummidge
neither, though she has a world of merits.’ Mr. Peggotty ruffled his
hair again, with both hands, as a further preparation for what he was
going to say, and went on, with a hand upon each of his knees:
‘There was a certain person as had know’d our Em’ly, from the time when
her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a babby, when
a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to look at, he warn’t,’
said Mr. Peggotty, ‘something o’ my own build--rough--a good deal o’
the sou’-wester in him--wery salt--but, on the whole, a honest sort of a
chap, with his art in the right place.’
I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to which
he sat grinning at us now.
‘What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do,’ said Mr. Peggotty,
with his face one high noon of enjoyment, ‘but he loses that there art
of his to our little Em’ly. He follers her about, he makes hisself a
sort o’ servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his
wittles, and in the long-run he makes it clear to me wot’s amiss. Now I
could wish myself, you see, that our little Em’ly was in a fair way of
being married. I could wish to see her, at all ewents, under articles to
a honest man as had a right to defend her. I don’t know how long I may
live, or how soon I may die; but I know that if I was capsized, any
night, in a gale of wind in Yarmouth Roads here, and was to see the
town-lights shining for the last time over the rollers as I couldn’t
make no head against, I could go down quieter for thinking “There’s a
man ashore there, iron-true to my little Em’ly, God bless her, and no
wrong can touch my Em’ly while so be as that man lives.”’
Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he were
waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging a
nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as before.
‘Well! I counsels him to speak to Em’ly. He’s big enough, but he’s
bashfuller than a little un, and he don’t like. So I speak. “What! Him!”
says Em’ly. “Him that I’ve know’d so intimate so many years, and like so
much. Oh, Uncle! I never can have him. He’s such a good fellow!” I gives
her a kiss, and I says no more to her than, “My dear, you’re right to
speak out, you’re to choose for yourself, you’re as free as a little
bird.” Then I aways to him, and I says, “I wish it could have been so,
but it can’t. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is,
Be as you was with her, like a man.” He says to me, a-shaking of my
hand, “I will!” he says. And he was--honourable and manful--for two year
going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore.’
Mr. Peggotty’s face, which had varied in its expression with the various
stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight,
as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth’s (previously
wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided
the following speech between us:
‘All of a sudden, one evening--as it might be tonight--comes little
Em’ly from her work, and him with her! There ain’t so much in that,
you’ll say. No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter
dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap,
he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, “Look here!
This is to be my little wife!” And she says, half bold and half shy, and
half a laughing and half a crying, “Yes, Uncle! If you please.”--If I
please!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstasy at the idea;
‘Lord, as if I should do anythink else!--“If you please, I am steadier
now, and I have thought better of it, and I’ll be as good a little wife
as I can to him, for he’s a dear, good fellow!” Then Missis Gummidge,
she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. Theer! the murder’s
out!’ said Mr. Peggotty--‘You come in! It took place this here present
hour; and here’s the man that’ll marry her, the minute she’s out of her
time.’
Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt
him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but
feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering
and great difficulty:
‘She warn’t no higher than you was, Mas’r Davy--when you first
come--when I thought what she’d grow up to be. I see her grown
up--gent’lmen--like a flower. I’d lay down my life for
her--Mas’r Davy--Oh! most content and cheerful! She’s more to
me--gent’lmen--than--she’s all to me that ever I can want, and more
than ever I--than ever I could say. I--I love her true. There ain’t a
gent’lman in all the land--nor yet sailing upon all the sea--that
can love his lady more than I love her, though there’s many a common
man--would say better--what he meant.’
I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham was now,
trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature
who had won his heart. I thought the simple confidence reposed in us by
Mr. Peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected
by the story altogether. How far my emotions were influenced by the
recollections of my childhood, I don’t know. Whether I had come there
with any lingering fancy that I was still to love little Em’ly, I don’t
know. I know that I was filled with pleasure by all this; but, at first,
with an indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have
changed to pain.
Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord
among them with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. But it
depended upon Steerforth; and he did it with such address, that in a few
minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be.
‘Mr. Peggotty,’ he said, ‘you are a thoroughly good fellow, and deserve
to be as happy as you are tonight. My hand upon it! Ham, I give you
joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Daisy, stir the fire, and make it a
brisk one! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your gentle niece to
come back (for whom I vacate this seat in the corner), I shall go.
Any gap at your fireside on such a night--such a gap least of all--I
wouldn’t make, for the wealth of the Indies!’
So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch little Em’ly. At first
little Em’ly didn’t like to come, and then Ham went. Presently they
brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy,--but
she soon became more assured when she found how gently and respectfully
Steerforth spoke to her; how skilfully he avoided anything that would
embarrass her; how he talked to Mr. Peggotty of boats, and ships, and
tides, and fish; how he referred to me about the time when he had seen
Mr. Peggotty at Salem House; how delighted he was with the boat and all
belonging to it; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought
us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we were all talking away
without any reserve.
Em’ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked, and
listened, and her face got animated, and she was charming. Steerforth
told a story of a dismal shipwreck (which arose out of his talk with Mr.
Peggotty), as if he saw it all before him--and little Em’ly’s eyes were
fastened on him all the time, as if she saw it too. He told us a merry
adventure of his own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the
narrative were as fresh to him as it was to us--and little Em’ly
laughed until the boat rang with the musical sounds, and we all laughed
(Steerforth too), in irresistible sympathy with what was so pleasant and
light-hearted. He got Mr. Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, ‘When
the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow’; and he sang a sailor’s
song himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that I could have almost
fancied that the real wind creeping sorrowfully round the house, and
murmuring low through our unbroken silence, was there to listen.
As to Mrs. Gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a success
never attained by anyone else (so Mr. Peggotty informed me), since
the decease of the old one. He left her so little leisure for being
miserable, that she said next day she thought she must have been
bewitched.
But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversation.
When little Em’ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still bashfully)
across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up
shells and pebbles; and when I asked her if she recollected how I used
to be devoted to her; and when we both laughed and reddened, casting
these looks back on the pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now; he
was silent and attentive, and observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at this
time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner
by the fire--Ham beside her, where I used to sit. I could not satisfy
myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly
reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from
him; but I observed that she did so, all the evening.
As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We had had
some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had produced from
his pocket a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say we men,
now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted merrily; and as they all
stood crowded round the door to light us as far as they could upon our
road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of little Em’ly peeping after us, from
behind Ham, and heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful how we
went.
‘A most engaging little Beauty!’ said Steerforth, taking my arm. ‘Well!
It’s a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it’s quite a new
sensation to mix with them.’
‘How fortunate we are, too,’ I returned, ‘to have arrived to witness
their happiness in that intended marriage! I never saw people so happy.
How delightful to see it, and to be made the sharers in their honest
joy, as we have been!’
‘That’s rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn’t he?’ said
Steerforth.
He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that I felt a shock
in this unexpected and cold reply. But turning quickly upon him, and
seeing a laugh in his eyes, I answered, much relieved:
‘Ah, Steerforth! It’s well for you to joke about the poor! You may
skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from
me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them, how
exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman’s,
or humour a love like my old nurse’s, I know that there is not a joy or
sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent to you.
And I admire and love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more!’
He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, ‘Daisy, I believe you are
in earnest, and are good. I wish we all were!’ Next moment he was
gaily singing Mr. Peggotty’s song, as we walked at a round pace back to
Yarmouth.
CHAPTER 22. SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE
Steerforth and I stayed for more than a fortnight in that part of the
country. We were very much together, I need not say; but occasionally we
were asunder for some hours at a time. He was a good sailor, and I was
but an indifferent one; and when he went out boating with Mr. Peggotty,
which was a favourite amusement of his, I generally remained ashore. My
occupation of Peggotty’s spare-room put a constraint upon me, from which
he was free: for, knowing how assiduously she attended on Mr. Barkis
all day, I did not like to remain out late at night; whereas Steerforth,
lying at the Inn, had nothing to consult but his own humour. Thus it
came about, that I heard of his making little treats for the fishermen
at Mr. Peggotty’s house of call, ‘The Willing Mind’, after I was in bed,
and of his being afloat, wrapped in fishermen’s clothes, whole moonlight
nights, and coming back when the morning tide was at flood. By this
time, however, I knew that his restless nature and bold spirits
delighted to find a vent in rough toil and hard weather, as in any other
means of excitement that presented itself freshly to him; so none of his
proceedings surprised me.
Another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that I had naturally an
interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar
scenes of my childhood; while Steerforth, after being there once, had
naturally no great interest in going there again. Hence, on three or
four days that I can at once recall, we went our several ways after an
early breakfast, and met again at a late dinner. I had no idea how he
employed his time in the interval, beyond a general knowledge that
he was very popular in the place, and had twenty means of actively
diverting himself where another man might not have found one.
For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recall
every yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt the old
spots, of which I never tired. I haunted them, as my memory had often
done, and lingered among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I
was far away. The grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay--on
which I had looked out, when it was my father’s only, with such curious
feelings of compassion, and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it
was opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby--the grave which
Peggotty’s own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden
of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a little off the churchyard path,
in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I could read the names
upon the stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the
church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to
me. My reflections at these times were always associated with the figure
I was to make in life, and the distinguished things I was to do. My
echoing footsteps went to no other tune, but were as constant to that as
if I had come home to build my castles in the air at a living mother’s
side.
There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long
deserted by the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and topped
out of their remembered shapes. The garden had run wild, and half the
windows of the house were shut up. It was occupied, but only by a poor
lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care of him. He was always
sitting at my little window, looking out into the churchyard; and I
wondered whether his rambling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies
that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I peeped out of
that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly
feeding in the light of the rising sun.
Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South America,
and the rain had made its way through the roof of their empty house,
and stained the outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married again to a tall,
raw-boned, high-nosed wife; and they had a weazen little baby, with a
heavy head that it couldn’t hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with
which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born.
It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used to
linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun admonished
me that it was time to start on my returning walk. But, when the place
was left behind, and especially when Steerforth and I were happily
seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was delicious to think of
having been there. So it was, though in a softened degree, when I
went to my neat room at night; and, turning over the leaves of the
crocodile-book (which was always there, upon a little table), remembered
with a grateful heart how blest I was in having such a friend as
Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty, and such a substitute for what I
had lost as my excellent and generous aunt.
MY nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, was by
a ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the sea, which I
could make straight across, and so save myself a considerable circuit by
the high road. Mr. Peggotty’s house being on that waste-place, and not
a hundred yards out of my track, I always looked in as I went by.
Steerforth was pretty sure to be there expecting me, and we went on
together through the frosty air and gathering fog towards the twinkling
lights of the town.
One dark evening, when I was later than usual--for I had, that day, been
making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now about to return
home--I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty’s house, sitting thoughtfully
before the fire. He was so intent upon his own reflections that he was
quite unconscious of my approach. This, indeed, he might easily have
been if he had been less absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the
sandy ground outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was
standing close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he
was lost in his meditations.
He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he made
me start too.
‘You come upon me,’ he said, almost angrily, ‘like a reproachful ghost!’
‘I was obliged to announce myself, somehow,’ I replied. ‘Have I called
you down from the stars?’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘No.’
‘Up from anywhere, then?’ said I, taking my seat near him.
‘I was looking at the pictures in the fire,’ he returned.
‘But you are spoiling them for me,’ said I, as he stirred it quickly
with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot
sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into
the air.
‘You would not have seen them,’ he returned. ‘I detest this mongrel
time, neither day nor night. How late you are! Where have you been?’
‘I have been taking leave of my usual walk,’ said I.
‘And I have been sitting here,’ said Steerforth, glancing round the
room, ‘thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of
our coming down, might--to judge from the present wasted air of the
place--be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don’t know what harm. David,
I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years!’
‘My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?’
‘I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!’ he exclaimed. ‘I
wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!’
There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He
was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible.
‘It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew,’
he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney-piece, with
his face towards the fire, ‘than to be myself, twenty times richer and
twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have been, in
this Devil’s bark of a boat, within the last half-hour!’
I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could only
observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his hand, and
looking gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged him, with all
the earnestness I felt, to tell me what had occurred to cross him so
unusually, and to let me sympathize with him, if I could not hope to
advise him. Before I had well concluded, he began to laugh--fretfully at
first, but soon with returning gaiety.
‘Tut, it’s nothing, Daisy! nothing!’ he replied. ‘I told you at the
inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have been a
nightmare to myself, just now--must have had one, I think. At odd dull
times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognized for what
they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who
“didn’t care”, and became food for lions--a grander kind of going to
the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been creeping
over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself.’
‘You are afraid of nothing else, I think,’ said I.
‘Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too,’ he answered.
‘Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped again, David; but I
tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me
(and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and judicious father!’
His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express such
a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance
bent on the fire.
‘So much for that!’ he said, making as if he tossed something light
into the air, with his hand. “‘Why, being gone, I am a man again,” like
Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like) broken up the
feast with most admired disorder, Daisy.’
‘But where are they all, I wonder!’ said I.
‘God knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘After strolling to the ferry looking
for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. That set me
thinking, and you found me thinking.’
The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house had
happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something that was
needed, against Mr. Peggotty’s return with the tide; and had left the
door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em’ly, with whom it was
an early night, should come home while she was gone. Steerforth, after
very much improving Mrs. Gummidge’s spirits by a cheerful salutation and
a jocose embrace, took my arm, and hurried me away.
He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge’s, for
they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious
conversation as we went along.
‘And so,’ he said, gaily, ‘we abandon this buccaneer life tomorrow, do
we?’
‘So we agreed,’ I returned. ‘And our places by the coach are taken, you
know.’
‘Ay! there’s no help for it, I suppose,’ said Steerforth. ‘I have
almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out
tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not.’
‘As long as the novelty should last,’ said I, laughing.
‘Like enough,’ he returned; ‘though there’s a sarcastic meaning in that
observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend.
Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know I am; but
while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass
a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, I
think.’
‘Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder,’ I returned.
‘A nautical phenomenon, eh?’ laughed Steerforth.
‘Indeed he does, and you know how truly; I know how ardent you are
in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And that
amazes me most in you, Steerforth--that you should be contented with
such fitful uses of your powers.’
‘Contented?’ he answered, merrily. ‘I am never contented, except with
your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never learnt
the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of
these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad
apprenticeship, and now don’t care about it.---You know I have bought a
boat down here?’
‘What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!’ I exclaimed,
stopping--for this was the first I had heard of it. ‘When you may never
care to come near the place again!’
‘I don’t know that,’ he returned. ‘I have taken a fancy to the place. At
all events,’ walking me briskly on, ‘I have bought a boat that was for
sale--a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she is--and Mr. Peggotty will
be master of her in my absence.’
‘Now I understand you, Steerforth!’ said I, exultingly. ‘You pretend
to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer
a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you.
My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your
generosity?’
‘Tush!’ he answered, turning red. ‘The less said, the better.’
‘Didn’t I know?’ cried I, ‘didn’t I say that there was not a joy, or
sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to
you?’
‘Aye, aye,’ he answered, ‘you told me all that. There let it rest. We
have said enough!’
Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light
of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker
pace than before.
‘She must be newly rigged,’ said Steerforth, ‘and I shall leave Littimer
behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. Did I tell
you Littimer had come down?’
‘No.’
‘Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother.’
As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though
he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him
and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which
I had found him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so.
‘Oh no!’ he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. ‘Nothing
of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine.’
‘The same as ever?’ said I.
‘The same as ever,’ said Steerforth. ‘Distant and quiet as the North
Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She’s the “Stormy
Petrel” now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels! I’ll have
her christened again.’
‘By what name?’ I asked.
‘The “Little Em’ly”.’
As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that
he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help
showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he
resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved.
‘But see here,’ he said, looking before us, ‘where the original little
Em’ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, he’s a true
knight. He never leaves her!’
Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural
ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He
was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal,
and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his
side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an
undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were,
to me, the best of good looks. I thought, as they came towards us, that
they were well matched even in that particular.
She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to
them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they
passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to
replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked
by herself. I thought all this very pretty and engaging, and Steerforth
seemed to think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light
of a young moon.
Suddenly there passed us--evidently following them--a young woman whose
approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she went by, and
thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked
bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to
have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing
in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing
their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the
sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer
to them than before.
‘That is a black shadow to be following the girl,’ said Steerforth,
standing still; ‘what does it mean?’
He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to Me.
‘She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,’ said I.
‘A beggar would be no novelty,’ said Steerforth; ‘but it is a strange
thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking,’ he said,
after a pause, ‘of something like it, when it came by. Where the Devil
did it come from, I wonder!’
‘From the shadow of this wall, I think,’ said I, as we emerged upon a
road on which a wall abutted.
‘It’s gone!’ he returned, looking over his shoulder. ‘And all ill go
with it. Now for our dinner!’
But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering
afar off, and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken
expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk; and only
seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us,
seated warm and merry, at table.
Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to
him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered
respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well,
he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he
seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: ‘You are very young,
sir; you are exceedingly young.’
We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the
table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me,
as I felt, he said to his master:
‘I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here.’
‘Who?’ cried Steerforth, much astonished.
‘Miss Mowcher, sir.’
‘Why, what on earth does she do here?’ said Steerforth.
‘It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me
that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir.
I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she
might have the honour of waiting on you after dinner, sir.’
‘Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth.
I was obliged to confess--I felt ashamed, even of being at this
disadvantage before Littimer--that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly
unacquainted.
‘Then you shall know her,’ said Steerforth, ‘for she is one of the seven
wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in.’
I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as
Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and
positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the
subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation
until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting
over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and
Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced:
‘Miss Mowcher!’
I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at
the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her
appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round
a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty
or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey
eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a
finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled Steerforth, she was
obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it.
Her chin, which was what is called a double chin, was so fat that it
entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she
had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for
though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have
been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings
generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a
common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat.
This lady--dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and her
forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described; standing with
her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut
up, making an uncommonly knowing face--after ogling Steerforth for a few
moments, broke into a torrent of words.
‘What! My flower!’ she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him.
‘You’re there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you
do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I’ll be bound. Oh, you’re a
downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I’m another, ain’t I? Ha, ha,
ha! You’d have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn’t
have seen me here, wouldn’t you? Bless you, man alive, I’m everywhere.
I’m here and there, and where not, like the conjurer’s half-crown in the
lady’s handkercher. Talking of handkerchers--and talking of ladies--what
a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain’t you, my dear boy, over
one of my shoulders, and I don’t say which!’
Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw
back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of
the fire--making a kind of arbour of the dining table, which spread its
mahogany shelter above her head.
‘Oh my stars and what’s-their-names!’ she went on, clapping a hand on
each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, ‘I’m of too full
a habit, that’s the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives
me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket of
water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you’d think I was a
fine woman, wouldn’t you?’
‘I should think that, wherever I saw you,’ replied Steerforth.
‘Go along, you dog, do!’ cried the little creature, making a whisk at
him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, ‘and don’t
be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at Lady Mithers’s
last week--THERE’S a woman! How SHE wears!--and Mithers himself came
into the room where I was waiting for her--THERE’S a man! How HE wears!
and his wig too, for he’s had it these ten years--and he went on at
that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be
obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He’s a pleasant wretch, but he
wants principle.’
‘What were you doing for Lady Mithers?’ asked Steerforth.
‘That’s tellings, my blessed infant,’ she retorted, tapping her nose
again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of
supernatural intelligence. ‘Never YOU mind! You’d like to know whether
I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her
complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn’t you? And so you shall, my
darling--when I tell you! Do you know what my great grandfather’s name
was?’
‘No,’ said Steerforth.
‘It was Walker, my sweet pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher, ‘and he came of a
long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates from.’
I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher’s wink except Miss
Mowcher’s self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening
to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had
said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one
eye turned up like a magpie’s. Altogether I was lost in amazement,
and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of
politeness.
She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged
in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at
every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of
flannel, little pairs of curling-irons, and other instruments, which
she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this employment she suddenly
desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion:
‘Who’s your friend?’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Steerforth; ‘he wants to know you.’
‘Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!’ returned Miss
Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came.
‘Face like a peach!’ standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I
sat. ‘Quite tempting! I’m very fond of peaches. Happy to make your
acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I’m sure.’
I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour to make hers,
and that the happiness was mutual.
‘Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher, making a
preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand.
‘What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain’t it!’
This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a
hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag
again.
‘What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?’ said Steerforth.
‘Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, ain’t
we, my sweet child?’ replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag
with her head on one side and her eye in the air. ‘Look here!’ taking
something out. ‘Scraps of the Russian Prince’s nails. Prince Alphabet
turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his name’s got all the letters in
it, higgledy-piggledy.’
‘The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?’ said Steerforth.
‘I believe you, my pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher. ‘I keep his nails in
order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes.’
‘He pays well, I hope?’ said Steerforth.
‘Pays, as he speaks, my dear child--through the nose,’ replied Miss
Mowcher. ‘None of your close shavers the Prince ain’t. You’d say so, if
you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art.’
‘By your art, of course,’ said Steerforth.
Miss Mowcher winked assent. ‘Forced to send for me. Couldn’t help it.
The climate affected his dye; it did very well in Russia, but it was no
go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born days as he
was. Like old iron!’ ‘Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?’
inquired Steerforth.
‘Oh, you’re a broth of a boy, ain’t you?’ returned Miss Mowcher, shaking
her head violently. ‘I said, what a set of humbugs we were in general,
and I showed you the scraps of the Prince’s nails to prove it. The
Prince’s nails do more for me in private families of the genteel sort,
than all my talents put together. I always carry ‘em about. They’re the
best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince’s nails, she must be
all right. I give ‘em away to the young ladies. They put ‘em in albums,
I believe. Ha! ha! ha! Upon my life, “the whole social system” (as
the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of
Prince’s nails!’ said this least of women, trying to fold her short
arms, and nodding her large head.
Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher continuing
all the time to shake her head (which was very much on one side), and to
look into the air with one eye, and to wink with the other.
‘Well, well!’ she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, ‘this is
not business. Come, Steerforth, let’s explore the polar regions, and
have it over.’
She then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a
little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. On
Steerforth’s replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair against it,
and begging the assistance of my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the
top, as if it were a stage.
‘If either of you saw my ankles,’ she said, when she was safely
elevated, ‘say so, and I’ll go home and destroy myself!’
‘I did not,’ said Steerforth.
‘I did not,’ said I.
‘Well then,’ cried Miss Mowcher, ‘I’ll consent to live. Now, ducky,
ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed.’
This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself under her hands;
who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the table, and
his laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to her inspection,
evidently for no other purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss
Mowcher standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown
hair through a large round magnifying glass, which she took out of her
pocket, was a most amazing spectacle.
‘You’re a pretty fellow!’ said Miss Mowcher, after a brief inspection.
‘You’d be as bald as a friar on the top of your head in twelve months,
but for me. Just half a minute, my young friend, and we’ll give you a
polishing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years!’
With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to
one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the
virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing
and scraping away with both on the crown of Steerforth’s head in the
busiest manner I ever witnessed, talking all the time.
‘There’s Charley Pyegrave, the duke’s son,’ she said. ‘You know
Charley?’ peeping round into his face.
‘A little,’ said Steerforth.
‘What a man HE is! THERE’S a whisker! As to Charley’s legs, if they
were only a pair (which they ain’t), they’d defy competition. Would you
believe he tried to do without me--in the Life-Guards, too?’
‘Mad!’ said Steerforth.
‘It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried,’ returned Miss
Mowcher. ‘What does he do, but, lo and behold you, he goes into a
perfumer’s shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the Madagascar Liquid.’
‘Charley does?’ said Steerforth.
‘Charley does. But they haven’t got any of the Madagascar Liquid.’
‘What is it? Something to drink?’ asked Steerforth.
‘To drink?’ returned Miss Mowcher, stopping to slap his cheek. ‘To
doctor his own moustachios with, you know. There was a woman in the
shop--elderly female--quite a Griffin--who had never even heard of it
by name. “Begging pardon, sir,” said the Griffin to Charley, “it’s
not--not--not ROUGE, is it?” “Rouge,” said Charley to the Griffin. “What
the unmentionable to ears polite, do you think I want with rouge?” “No
offence, sir,” said the Griffin; “we have it asked for by so many names,
I thought it might be.” Now that, my child,’ continued Miss Mowcher,
rubbing all the time as busily as ever, ‘is another instance of
the refreshing humbug I was speaking of. I do something in that way
myself--perhaps a good deal--perhaps a little--sharp’s the word, my dear
boy--never mind!’
‘In what way do you mean? In the rouge way?’ said Steerforth.
‘Put this and that together, my tender pupil,’ returned the wary
Mowcher, touching her nose, ‘work it by the rule of Secrets in all
trades, and the product will give you the desired result. I say I do a
little in that way myself. One Dowager, SHE calls it lip-salve. Another,
SHE calls it gloves. Another, SHE calls it tucker-edging. Another, SHE
calls it a fan. I call it whatever THEY call it. I supply it for ‘em,
but we keep up the trick so, to one another, and make believe with
such a face, that they’d as soon think of laying it on, before a whole
drawing-room, as before me. And when I wait upon ‘em, they’ll say to
me sometimes--WITH IT ON--thick, and no mistake--“How am I looking,
Mowcher? Am I pale?” Ha! ha! ha! ha! Isn’t THAT refreshing, my young
friend!’
I never did in my days behold anything like Mowcher as she stood upon
the dining table, intensely enjoying this refreshment, rubbing busily at
Steerforth’s head, and winking at me over it.
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘Such things are not much in demand hereabouts. That
sets me off again! I haven’t seen a pretty woman since I’ve been here,
jemmy.’
‘No?’ said Steerforth.
‘Not the ghost of one,’ replied Miss Mowcher.
‘We could show her the substance of one, I think?’ said Steerforth,
addressing his eyes to mine. ‘Eh, Daisy?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said I.
‘Aha?’ cried the little creature, glancing sharply at my face, and then
peeping round at Steerforth’s. ‘Umph?’
The first exclamation sounded like a question put to both of us, and the
second like a question put to Steerforth only. She seemed to have found
no answer to either, but continued to rub, with her head on one side and
her eye turned up, as if she were looking for an answer in the air and
were confident of its appearing presently.
‘A sister of yours, Mr. Copperfield?’ she cried, after a pause, and
still keeping the same look-out. ‘Aye, aye?’
‘No,’ said Steerforth, before I could reply. ‘Nothing of the sort. On
the contrary, Mr. Copperfield used--or I am much mistaken--to have a
great admiration for her.’
‘Why, hasn’t he now?’ returned Miss Mowcher. ‘Is he fickle? Oh, for
shame! Did he sip every flower, and change every hour, until Polly his
passion requited?--Is her name Polly?’
The Elfin suddenness with which she pounced upon me with this question,
and a searching look, quite disconcerted me for a moment.
‘No, Miss Mowcher,’ I replied. ‘Her name is Emily.’
‘Aha?’ she cried exactly as before. ‘Umph? What a rattle I am! Mr.
Copperfield, ain’t I volatile?’
Her tone and look implied something that was not agreeable to me in
connexion with the subject. So I said, in a graver manner than any of us
had yet assumed: ‘She is as virtuous as she is pretty. She is engaged
to be married to a most worthy and deserving man in her own station of
life. I esteem her for her good sense, as much as I admire her for her
good looks.’
‘Well said!’ cried Steerforth. ‘Hear, hear, hear! Now I’ll quench the
curiosity of this little Fatima, my dear Daisy, by leaving her nothing
to guess at. She is at present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, or articled,
or whatever it may be, to Omer and Joram, Haberdashers, Milliners, and
so forth, in this town. Do you observe? Omer and Joram. The promise of
which my friend has spoken, is made and entered into with her cousin;
Christian name, Ham; surname, Peggotty; occupation, boat-builder;
also of this town. She lives with a relative; Christian name, unknown;
surname, Peggotty; occupation, seafaring; also of this town. She is the
prettiest and most engaging little fairy in the world. I admire her--as
my friend does--exceedingly. If it were not that I might appear to
disparage her Intended, which I know my friend would not like, I would
add, that to me she seems to be throwing herself away; that I am sure
she might do better; and that I swear she was born to be a lady.’
Miss Mowcher listened to these words, which were very slowly and
distinctly spoken, with her head on one side, and her eye in the air
as if she were still looking for that answer. When he ceased she became
brisk again in an instant, and rattled away with surprising volubility.
‘Oh! And that’s all about it, is it?’ she exclaimed, trimming his
whiskers with a little restless pair of scissors, that went glancing
round his head in all directions. ‘Very well: very well! Quite a long
story. Ought to end “and they lived happy ever afterwards”; oughtn’t
it? Ah! What’s that game at forfeits? I love my love with an E, because
she’s enticing; I hate her with an E, because she’s engaged. I took her
to the sign of the exquisite, and treated her with an elopement, her
name’s Emily, and she lives in the east? Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Copperfield,
ain’t I volatile?’
Merely looking at me with extravagant slyness, and not waiting for any
reply, she continued, without drawing breath:
‘There! If ever any scapegrace was trimmed and touched up to perfection,
you are, Steerforth. If I understand any noddle in the world, I
understand yours. Do you hear me when I tell you that, my darling? I
understand yours,’ peeping down into his face. ‘Now you may mizzle,
jemmy (as we say at Court), and if Mr. Copperfield will take the chair
I’ll operate on him.’
‘What do you say, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth, laughing, and resigning
his seat. ‘Will you be improved?’
‘Thank you, Miss Mowcher, not this evening.’
‘Don’t say no,’ returned the little woman, looking at me with the aspect
of a connoisseur; ‘a little bit more eyebrow?’
‘Thank you,’ I returned, ‘some other time.’
‘Have it carried half a quarter of an inch towards the temple,’ said
Miss Mowcher. ‘We can do it in a fortnight.’
‘No, I thank you. Not at present.’
‘Go in for a tip,’ she urged. ‘No? Let’s get the scaffolding up, then,
for a pair of whiskers. Come!’
I could not help blushing as I declined, for I felt we were on my weak
point, now. But Miss Mowcher, finding that I was not at present disposed
for any decoration within the range of her art, and that I was, for the
time being, proof against the blandishments of the small bottle which
she held up before one eye to enforce her persuasions, said we would
make a beginning on an early day, and requested the aid of my hand to
descend from her elevated station. Thus assisted, she skipped down with
much agility, and began to tie her double chin into her bonnet.
‘The fee,’ said Steerforth, ‘is--’
‘Five bob,’ replied Miss Mowcher, ‘and dirt cheap, my chicken. Ain’t I
volatile, Mr. Copperfield?’
I replied politely: ‘Not at all.’ But I thought she was rather so, when
she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught them,
dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap.
‘That’s the Till!’ observed Miss Mowcher, standing at the chair again,
and replacing in the bag a miscellaneous collection of little objects
she had emptied out of it. ‘Have I got all my traps? It seems so. It
won’t do to be like long Ned Beadwood, when they took him to church “to
marry him to somebody”, as he says, and left the bride behind. Ha! ha!
ha! A wicked rascal, Ned, but droll! Now, I know I’m going to break
your hearts, but I am forced to leave you. You must call up all your
fortitude, and try to bear it. Good-bye, Mr. Copperfield! Take care of
yourself, jockey of Norfolk! How I have been rattling on! It’s all
the fault of you two wretches. I forgive you! “Bob swore!”--as the
Englishman said for “Good night”, when he first learnt French, and
thought it so like English. “Bob swore,” my ducks!’
With the bag slung over her arm, and rattling as she waddled away, she
waddled to the door, where she stopped to inquire if she should leave
us a lock of her hair. ‘Ain’t I volatile?’ she added, as a commentary on
this offer, and, with her finger on her nose, departed.
Steerforth laughed to that degree, that it was impossible for me to help
laughing too; though I am not sure I should have done so, but for this
inducement. When we had had our laugh quite out, which was after some
time, he told me that Miss Mowcher had quite an extensive connexion, and
made herself useful to a variety of people in a variety of ways. Some
people trifled with her as a mere oddity, he said; but she was as
shrewdly and sharply observant as anyone he knew, and as long-headed as
she was short-armed. He told me that what she had said of being here,
and there, and everywhere, was true enough; for she made little darts
into the provinces, and seemed to pick up customers everywhere, and to
know everybody. I asked him what her disposition was: whether it was at
all mischievous, and if her sympathies were generally on the right side
of things: but, not succeeding in attracting his attention to these
questions after two or three attempts, I forbore or forgot to repeat
them. He told me instead, with much rapidity, a good deal about her
skill, and her profits; and about her being a scientific cupper, if I
should ever have occasion for her service in that capacity.
She was the principal theme of our conversation during the evening:
and when we parted for the night Steerforth called after me over the
banisters, ‘Bob swore!’ as I went downstairs.
I was surprised, when I came to Mr. Barkis’s house, to find Ham walking
up and down in front of it, and still more surprised to learn from him
that little Em’ly was inside. I naturally inquired why he was not there
too, instead of pacing the streets by himself?
‘Why, you see, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined, in a hesitating manner, ‘Em’ly,
she’s talking to some ‘un in here.’
‘I should have thought,’ said I, smiling, ‘that that was a reason for
your being in here too, Ham.’
‘Well, Mas’r Davy, in a general way, so ‘t would be,’ he returned;
‘but look’ee here, Mas’r Davy,’ lowering his voice, and speaking very
gravely. ‘It’s a young woman, sir--a young woman, that Em’ly knowed
once, and doen’t ought to know no more.’
When I heard these words, a light began to fall upon the figure I had
seen following them, some hours ago.
‘It’s a poor wurem, Mas’r Davy,’ said Ham, ‘as is trod under foot by all
the town. Up street and down street. The mowld o’ the churchyard don’t
hold any that the folk shrink away from, more.’
‘Did I see her tonight, Ham, on the sand, after we met you?’
‘Keeping us in sight?’ said Ham. ‘It’s like you did, Mas’r Davy. Not
that I know’d then, she was theer, sir, but along of her creeping soon
arterwards under Em’ly’s little winder, when she see the light come,
and whispering “Em’ly, Em’ly, for Christ’s sake, have a woman’s heart
towards me. I was once like you!” Those was solemn words, Mas’r Davy,
fur to hear!’
‘They were indeed, Ham. What did Em’ly do?’ ‘Says Em’ly, “Martha, is
it you? Oh, Martha, can it be you?”--for they had sat at work together,
many a day, at Mr. Omer’s.’
‘I recollect her now!’ cried I, recalling one of the two girls I had
seen when I first went there. ‘I recollect her quite well!’
‘Martha Endell,’ said Ham. ‘Two or three year older than Em’ly, but was
at the school with her.’
‘I never heard her name,’ said I. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt you.’
‘For the matter o’ that, Mas’r Davy,’ replied Ham, ‘all’s told a’most
in them words, “Em’ly, Em’ly, for Christ’s sake, have a woman’s heart
towards me. I was once like you!” She wanted to speak to Em’ly. Em’ly
couldn’t speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come home, and
he wouldn’t--no, Mas’r Davy,’ said Ham, with great earnestness, ‘he
couldn’t, kind-natur’d, tender-hearted as he is, see them two together,
side by side, for all the treasures that’s wrecked in the sea.’
I felt how true this was. I knew it, on the instant, quite as well as
Ham.
‘So Em’ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper,’ he pursued, ‘and gives it
to her out o’ winder to bring here. “Show that,” she says, “to my aunt,
Mrs. Barkis, and she’ll set you down by her fire, for the love of me,
till uncle is gone out, and I can come.” By and by she tells me what
I tell you, Mas’r Davy, and asks me to bring her. What can I do? She
doen’t ought to know any such, but I can’t deny her, when the tears is
on her face.’
He put his hand into the breast of his shaggy jacket, and took out with
great care a pretty little purse.
‘And if I could deny her when the tears was on her face, Mas’r Davy,’
said Ham, tenderly adjusting it on the rough palm of his hand, ‘how
could I deny her when she give me this to carry for her--knowing what
she brought it for? Such a toy as it is!’ said Ham, thoughtfully looking
on it. ‘With such a little money in it, Em’ly my dear.’
I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again--for that
was more satisfactory to me than saying anything--and we walked up
and down, for a minute or two, in silence. The door opened then, and
Peggotty appeared, beckoning to Ham to come in. I would have kept away,
but she came after me, entreating me to come in too. Even then, I
would have avoided the room where they all were, but for its being the
neat-tiled kitchen I have mentioned more than once. The door opening
immediately into it, I found myself among them before I considered
whither I was going.
The girl--the same I had seen upon the sands--was near the fire. She
was sitting on the ground, with her head and one arm lying on a chair.
I fancied, from the disposition of her figure, that Em’ly had but newly
risen from the chair, and that the forlorn head might perhaps have been
lying on her lap. I saw but little of the girl’s face, over which her
hair fell loose and scattered, as if she had been disordering it with
her own hands; but I saw that she was young, and of a fair complexion.
Peggotty had been crying. So had little Em’ly. Not a word was spoken
when we first went in; and the Dutch clock by the dresser seemed, in the
silence, to tick twice as loud as usual. Em’ly spoke first.
‘Martha wants,’ she said to Ham, ‘to go to London.’
‘Why to London?’ returned Ham.
He stood between them, looking on the prostrate girl with a mixture of
compassion for her, and of jealousy of her holding any companionship
with her whom he loved so well, which I have always remembered
distinctly. They both spoke as if she were ill; in a soft, suppressed
tone that was plainly heard, although it hardly rose above a whisper.
‘Better there than here,’ said a third voice aloud--Martha’s, though she
did not move. ‘No one knows me there. Everybody knows me here.’
‘What will she do there?’ inquired Ham.
She lifted up her head, and looked darkly round at him for a moment;
then laid it down again, and curved her right arm about her neck, as
a woman in a fever, or in an agony of pain from a shot, might twist
herself.
‘She will try to do well,’ said little Em’ly. ‘You don’t know what she
has said to us. Does he--do they--aunt?’
Peggotty shook her head compassionately.
‘I’ll try,’ said Martha, ‘if you’ll help me away. I never can do worse
than I have done here. I may do better. Oh!’ with a dreadful shiver,
‘take me out of these streets, where the whole town knows me from a
child!’
As Em’ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little canvas
bag. She took it, as if she thought it were her purse, and made a step
or two forward; but finding her mistake, came back to where he had
retired near me, and showed it to him.
‘It’s all yourn, Em’ly,’ I could hear him say. ‘I haven’t nowt in all
the wureld that ain’t yourn, my dear. It ain’t of no delight to me,
except for you!’
The tears rose freshly in her eyes, but she turned away and went to
Martha. What she gave her, I don’t know. I saw her stooping over her,
and putting money in her bosom. She whispered something, as she asked
was that enough? ‘More than enough,’ the other said, and took her hand
and kissed it.
Then Martha arose, and gathering her shawl about her, covering her
face with it, and weeping aloud, went slowly to the door. She stopped
a moment before going out, as if she would have uttered something or
turned back; but no word passed her lips. Making the same low, dreary,
wretched moaning in her shawl, she went away.
As the door closed, little Em’ly looked at us three in a hurried manner
and then hid her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing.
‘Doen’t, Em’ly!’ said Ham, tapping her gently on the shoulder. ‘Doen’t,
my dear! You doen’t ought to cry so, pretty!’
‘Oh, Ham!’ she exclaimed, still weeping pitifully, ‘I am not so good a
girl as I ought to be! I know I have not the thankful heart, sometimes,
I ought to have!’
‘Yes, yes, you have, I’m sure,’ said Ham.
‘No! no! no!’ cried little Em’ly, sobbing, and shaking her head. ‘I am
not as good a girl as I ought to be. Not near! not near!’ And still she
cried, as if her heart would break.
‘I try your love too much. I know I do!’ she sobbed. ‘I’m often cross to
you, and changeable with you, when I ought to be far different. You are
never so to me. Why am I ever so to you, when I should think of nothing
but how to be grateful, and to make you happy!’
‘You always make me so,’ said Ham, ‘my dear! I am happy in the sight of
you. I am happy, all day long, in the thoughts of you.’
‘Ah! that’s not enough!’ she cried. ‘That is because you are good; not
because I am! Oh, my dear, it might have been a better fortune for
you, if you had been fond of someone else--of someone steadier and
much worthier than me, who was all bound up in you, and never vain and
changeable like me!’
‘Poor little tender-heart,’ said Ham, in a low voice. ‘Martha has
overset her, altogether.’
‘Please, aunt,’ sobbed Em’ly, ‘come here, and let me lay my head upon
you. Oh, I am very miserable tonight, aunt! Oh, I am not as good a girl
as I ought to be. I am not, I know!’
Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em’ly, with her
arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly into her
face.
‘Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to help me! Mr. David,
for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me! I want to be a
better girl than I am. I want to feel a hundred times more thankful than
I do. I want to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife of
a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. Oh me, oh me! Oh my heart, my
heart!’
She dropped her face on my old nurse’s breast, and, ceasing this
supplication, which in its agony and grief was half a woman’s, half a
child’s, as all her manner was (being, in that, more natural, and better
suited to her beauty, as I thought, than any other manner could have
been), wept silently, while my old nurse hushed her like an infant.
She got calmer by degrees, and then we soothed her; now talking
encouragingly, and now jesting a little with her, until she began to
raise her head and speak to us. So we got on, until she was able to
smile, and then to laugh, and then to sit up, half ashamed; while
Peggotty recalled her stray ringlets, dried her eyes, and made her neat
again, lest her uncle should wonder, when she got home, why his darling
had been crying.
I saw her do, that night, what I had never seen her do before. I saw her
innocently kiss her chosen husband on the cheek, and creep close to his
bluff form as if it were her best support. When they went away together,
in the waning moonlight, and I looked after them, comparing their
departure in my mind with Martha’s, I saw that she held his arm with
both her hands, and still kept close to him.
CHAPTER 23. I CORROBORATE Mr. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION
When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em’ly, and her
emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I had come into
the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred
confidence, and that to disclose them, even to Steerforth, would be
wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards anyone than towards the
pretty creature who had been my playmate, and whom I have always been
persuaded, and shall always be persuaded, to my dying day, I then
devotedly loved. The repetition to any ears--even to Steerforth’s--of
what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an
accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself, unworthy of
the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw encircling her head.
I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own breast; and there
it gave her image a new grace.
While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt.
As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could advise me
as well as anyone, and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult
him, I resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home.
For the present we had enough to do, in taking leave of all our friends.
Mr. Barkis was far from being the last among them, in his regret at
our departure; and I believe would even have opened the box again, and
sacrificed another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty
hours in Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of grief at our
going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us good-bye;
and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on Steerforth,
when our portmanteaux went to the coach, that if we had had the baggage
of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters to carry it.
In a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned,
and left a great many people very sorry behind US.
‘Do you stay long here, Littimer?’ said I, as he stood waiting to see the
coach start.
‘No, sir,’ he replied; ‘probably not very long, sir.’
‘He can hardly say, just now,’ observed Steerforth, carelessly. ‘He
knows what he has to do, and he’ll do it.’
‘That I am sure he will,’ said I.
Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgement of my good opinion, and I
felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us a good
journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a
mystery as any pyramid in Egypt.
For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being unusually
silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering, within myself,
when I should see the old places again, and what new changes might
happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length Steerforth, becoming
gay and talkative in a moment, as he could become anything he liked at
any moment, pulled me by the arm:
‘Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of at
breakfast?’
‘Oh!’ said I, taking it out of my pocket. ‘It’s from my aunt.’
‘And what does she say, requiring consideration?’
‘Why, she reminds me, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘that I came out on this
expedition to look about me, and to think a little.’
‘Which, of course, you have done?’
‘Indeed I can’t say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth, I am
afraid I have forgotten it.’
‘Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,’ said
Steerforth. ‘Look to the right, and you’ll see a flat country, with a
good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you’ll see the same.
Look to the front, and you’ll find no difference; look to the rear,
and there it is still.’ I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable
profession in the whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to
its flatness.
‘What says our aunt on the subject?’ inquired Steerforth, glancing at
the letter in my hand. ‘Does she suggest anything?’
‘Why, yes,’ said I. ‘She asks me, here, if I think I should like to be a
proctor? What do you think of it?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ replied Steerforth, coolly. ‘You may as well do
that as anything else, I suppose?’
I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and
professions so equally; and I told him so.
‘What is a proctor, Steerforth?’ said I.
‘Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,’ replied Steerforth. ‘He is, to
some faded courts held in Doctors’ Commons,--a lazy old nook near St.
Paul’s Churchyard--what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity.
He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things,
would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best
what he is, by telling you what Doctors’ Commons is. It’s a
little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called
ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old
monsters of acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know
nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in
a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It’s a place that has an
ancient monopoly in suits about people’s wills and people’s marriages,
and disputes among ships and boats.’
‘Nonsense, Steerforth!’ I exclaimed. ‘You don’t mean to say that there
is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters?’
‘I don’t, indeed, my dear boy,’ he returned; ‘but I mean to say that
they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that
same Doctors’ Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them
blundering through half the nautical terms in Young’s Dictionary,
apropos of the “Nancy” having run down the “Sarah Jane”, or Mr. Peggotty
and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor
and cable to the “Nelson” Indiaman in distress; and you shall go there
another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting
a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge
in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman’s case, or
contrariwise. They are like actors: now a man’s a judge, and now he is
not a judge; now he’s one thing, now he’s another; now he’s something
else, change and change about; but it’s always a very pleasant,
profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an
uncommonly select audience.’
‘But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?’ said I, a little
puzzled. ‘Are they?’
‘No,’ returned Steerforth, ‘the advocates are civilians--men who have
taken a doctor’s degree at college--which is the first reason of my
knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the advocates. Both get
very comfortable fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little
party. On the whole, I would recommend you to take to Doctors’ Commons
kindly, David. They plume themselves on their gentility there, I can
tell you, if that’s any satisfaction.’
I made allowance for Steerforth’s light way of treating the subject,
and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and
antiquity which I associated with that ‘lazy old nook near St. Paul’s
Churchyard’, did not feel indisposed towards my aunt’s suggestion; which
she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it
had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors’
Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour.
‘That’s a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all events,’
said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; ‘and one deserving of all
encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to Doctors’
Commons.’
I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my aunt
was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that she had
taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at Lincoln’s Inn
Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in
the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was
going to be burnt down every night.
We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring to
Doctors’ Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I should be a
proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and
whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we came to our journey’s
end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one; and I
drove to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up, and waiting
supper.
If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been
better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she embraced me;
and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive,
that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt.
‘So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?’ said I. ‘I am sorry for that.
Ah, Janet, how do you do?’
As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt’s visage
lengthen very much.
‘I am sorry for it, too,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose. ‘I have had
no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.’ Before I could ask why,
she told me.
‘I am convinced,’ said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy firmness
on the table, ‘that Dick’s character is not a character to keep the
donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought to
have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have
been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green,’ said
my aunt, with emphasis, ‘there was one this afternoon at four o’clock.
A cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I know it was a
donkey!’
I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation.
‘It was a donkey,’ said my aunt; ‘and it was the one with the stumpy
tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came to my
house.’ This had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew for Miss
Murdstone. ‘If there is any Donkey in Dover, whose audacity it is harder
to me to bear than another’s, that,’ said my aunt, striking the table,
‘is the animal!’
Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself
unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then
engaged in the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not available
for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn’t hear of it.
Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt’s rooms were very
high up--whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or
might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don’t know--and consisted of
a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample
justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas
concerning London provision, and ate but little.
‘I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar,’
said my aunt, ‘and never took the air except on a hackney coach-stand. I
hope the steak may be beef, but I don’t believe it. Nothing’s genuine in
the place, in my opinion, but the dirt.’
‘Don’t you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?’ I
hinted.
‘Certainly not,’ returned my aunt. ‘It would be no pleasure to a London
tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was.’
I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper,
which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared,
Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which
was of a smarter construction than usual [‘in case of fire’, my aunt
said), and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual
preparations for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her,
according to certain established regulations from which no deviation,
however slight, could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and
water, and a slice of toast cut into long thin strips. With these
accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting
opposite to me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast
in it, one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me,
from among the borders of her nightcap.
‘Well, Trot,’ she began, ‘what do you think of the proctor plan? Or have
you not begun to think about it yet?’
‘I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked a
good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much indeed. I like
it exceedingly.’
‘Come!’ said my aunt. ‘That’s cheering!’
‘I have only one difficulty, aunt.’
‘Say what it is, Trot,’ she returned.
‘Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, to
be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very
expensive?’
‘It will cost,’ returned my aunt, ‘to article you, just a thousand
pounds.’
‘Now, my dear aunt,’ said I, drawing my chair nearer, ‘I am uneasy in
my mind about that. It’s a large sum of money. You have expended a
great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in all
things as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity.
Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any
outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and
exertion. Are you sure that it would not be better to try that course?
Are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money, and that
it is right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second
mother, to consider. Are you certain?’
My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then
engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then setting
her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded
skirts, replied as follows:
‘Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for
your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it--so is
Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick’s conversation
on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the
resources of that man’s intellect, except myself!’
She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on:
‘It’s in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence
upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your
poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor
child your mother, even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed
me. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn,
perhaps I thought so. From that time until now, Trot, you have ever been
a credit to me and a pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon
my means; at least’--here to my surprise she hesitated, and was
confused--‘no, I have no other claim upon my means--and you are my
adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my
whims and fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of
life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever
that old woman did for you.’
It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history.
There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing
it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if
anything could.
‘All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,’ said my aunt,
‘and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we’ll go to the
Commons after breakfast tomorrow.’
We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a room
on the same floor with my aunt’s, and was a little disturbed in the
course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as she was
agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and
inquiring, ‘if I heard the engines?’ But towards morning she slept
better, and suffered me to do so too.
At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and
Jorkins, in Doctors’ Commons. My aunt, who had this other general
opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket,
gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some
silver.
We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants of
Saint Dunstan’s strike upon the bells--we had timed our going, so as to
catch them at it, at twelve o’clock--and then went on towards Ludgate
Hill, and St. Paul’s Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place,
when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked
frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed
man who had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was
coming so close after us as to brush against her.
‘Trot! My dear Trot!’ cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and
pressing my arm. ‘I don’t know what I am to do.’
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said I. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. Step into
a shop, and I’ll soon get rid of this fellow.’
‘No, no, child!’ she returned. ‘Don’t speak to him for the world. I
entreat, I order you!’
‘Good Heaven, aunt!’ said I. ‘He is nothing but a sturdy beggar.’
‘You don’t know what he is!’ replied my aunt. ‘You don’t know who he is!
You don’t know what you say!’
We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he had
stopped too.
‘Don’t look at him!’ said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly, ‘but
get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul’s Churchyard.’
‘Wait for you?’ I replied.
‘Yes,’ rejoined my aunt. ‘I must go alone. I must go with him.’
‘With him, aunt? This man?’
‘I am in my senses,’ she replied, ‘and I tell you I must. Get me a
coach!’
However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right
to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a
few paces, and called a hackney-chariot which was passing empty. Almost
before I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don’t know how,
and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to go away, so earnestly,
that, all confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In doing so,
I heard her say to the coachman, ‘Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!’
and presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill.
What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion of
his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was the
person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what the
nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable
to imagine. After half an hour’s cooling in the churchyard, I saw the
chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was
sitting in it alone.
She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite
prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the
chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little
while. She said no more, except, ‘My dear child, never ask me what
it was, and don’t refer to it,’ until she had perfectly regained her
composure, when she told me she was quite herself now, and we might get
out. On her giving me her purse to pay the driver, I found that all the
guineas were gone, and only the loose silver remained.
Doctors’ Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we had
taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city seemed
to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts
and narrow ways brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spenlow and
Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims
without the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as
copyists. One of these, a little dry man, sitting by himself, who wore
a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to
receive my aunt, and show us into Mr. Spenlow’s room.
‘Mr. Spenlow’s in Court, ma’am,’ said the dry man; ‘it’s an Arches day;
but it’s close by, and I’ll send for him directly.’
As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I
availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was
old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the
writing-table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale as
an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it, some
endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, and some
as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches Court, and some
in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty Court, and some in
the Delegates’ Court; giving me occasion to wonder much, how many Courts
there might be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand
them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript Books
of Evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in
massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in
ten or twenty volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought,
and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor’s business. I was casting
my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects,
when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and Mr. Spenlow,
in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his
hat as he came.
He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the
stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty
trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his
whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so
massive, that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy
golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the
goldbeaters’ shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that
he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some
papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole
body, from the bottom of his spine, like Punch.
I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously
received. He now said:
‘And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession?
I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the pleasure of an
interview with her the other day,’--with another inclination of his
body--Punch again--‘that there was a vacancy here. Miss Trotwood was
good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar care,
and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That
nephew, I believe, I have now the pleasure of’--Punch again. I bowed my
acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that there was
that opening, and that I believed I should like it very much. That I was
strongly inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the proposal.
That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until I knew
something more about it. That although it was little else than a matter
of form, I presumed I should have an opportunity of trying how I liked
it, before I bound myself to it irrevocably.
‘Oh surely! surely!’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘We always, in this house,
propose a month--an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, to
propose two months--three--an indefinite period, in fact--but I have a
partner. Mr. Jorkins.’
‘And the premium, sir,’ I returned, ‘is a thousand pounds?’
‘And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,’ said Mr.
Spenlow. ‘As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by no
mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but Mr.
Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect
Mr. Jorkins’s opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little,
in short.’
‘I suppose, sir,’ said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, ‘that it is
not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly useful,
and made himself a perfect master of his profession’--I could not help
blushing, this looked so like praising myself--‘I suppose it is not the
custom, in the later years of his time, to allow him any--’
Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of
his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word ‘salary’:
‘No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point
myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is
immovable.’
I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found
out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, whose
place in the business was to keep himself in the background, and be
constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men.
If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn’t listen to such
a proposition. If a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mr.
Jorkins was resolved to have it paid; and however painful these things
might be (and always were) to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins
would have his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would
have been always open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have
grown older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing
business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins!
It was settled that I should begin my month’s probation as soon as I
pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at
its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to be the
subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When
we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then and
there, and show me what sort of place it was. As I was willing enough
to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind; who would
trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who, I think, regarded
all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any
time.
Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick
houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors’ names upon the doors, to be
the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth
had told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my
thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off
from the rest; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the
horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were
sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the
Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in
the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen
him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who, I
learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe,
lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were
sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow’s rank, and dressed like him in
black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table.
Their cravats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty;
but in this last respect I presently conceived I had done them an
injustice, for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a
question of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish.
The public, represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel
man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself
at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid stillness of the
place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of
one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library
of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little
roadside inns of argument on the journey. Altogether, I have never,
on any occasion, made one at such a cosey, dosey, old-fashioned,
time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family-party in all my life; and
I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any
character--except perhaps as a suitor.
Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I informed
Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined
my aunt; in company with whom I presently departed from the Commons,
feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins’s, on account
of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out.
We arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields without any new adventures, except
encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger’s cart, who suggested
painful associations to my aunt. We had another long talk about my
plans, when we were safely housed; and as I knew she was anxious to
get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets, could never be
considered at her ease for half-an-hour in London, I urged her not to be
uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me to take care of myself.
‘I have not been here a week tomorrow, without considering that too, my
dear,’ she returned. ‘There is a furnished little set of chambers to be
let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel.’
With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an
advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in
Buckingham Street in the Adelphi there was to be let furnished, with a
view of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set of chambers,
forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one
of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate possession. Terms
moderate, and could be taken for a month only, if required.
‘Why, this is the very thing, aunt!’ said I, flushed with the possible
dignity of living in chambers.
‘Then come,’ replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she had a
minute before laid aside. ‘We’ll go and look at ‘em.’
Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp
on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to
communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or four
times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but
at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel
petticoat below a nankeen gown.
‘Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma’am,’ said my
aunt.
‘For this gentleman?’ said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for her
keys.
‘Yes, for my nephew,’ said my aunt.
‘And a sweet set they is for sich!’ said Mrs. Crupp.
So we went upstairs.
They were on the top of the house--a great point with my aunt, being
near the fire-escape--and consisted of a little half-blind entry where
you could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind pantry where you
could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a bedroom. The furniture
was rather faded, but quite good enough for me; and, sure enough, the
river was outside the windows.
As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew into
the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the sitting-room
sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could be destined to
live in such a noble residence. After a single combat of some duration
they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both in Mrs. Crupp’s countenance
and in my aunt’s, that the deed was done.
‘Is it the last occupant’s furniture?’ inquired my aunt.
‘Yes, it is, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Crupp.
‘What’s become of him?’ asked my aunt.
Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which
she articulated with much difficulty. ‘He was took ill here, ma’am,
and--ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me!--and he died!’
‘Hey! What did he die of?’ asked my aunt.
‘Well, ma’am, he died of drink,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in confidence. ‘And
smoke.’
‘Smoke? You don’t mean chimneys?’ said my aunt.
‘No, ma’am,’ returned Mrs. Crupp. ‘Cigars and pipes.’
‘That’s not catching, Trot, at any rate,’ remarked my aunt, turning to
me.
‘No, indeed,’ said I.
In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, took
them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when that
time was out. Mrs. Crupp was to find linen, and to cook; every other
necessary was already provided; and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that
she should always yearn towards me as a son. I was to take possession
the day after tomorrow, and Mrs. Crupp said, thank Heaven she had now
found summun she could care for!
On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that
the life I was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant, which
was all I wanted. She repeated this several times next day, in the
intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books
from Mr. Wickfield’s; relative to which, and to all my late holiday, I
wrote a long letter to Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was
to leave on the succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I
need only add, that she made a handsome provision for all my
possible wants during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great
disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went
away; that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, exulting in the
coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with Janet at her side; and
that when the coach was gone, I turned my face to the Adelphi, pondering
on the old days when I used to roam about its subterranean arches, and
on the happy changes which had brought me to the surface.
CHAPTER 24. MY FIRST DISSIPATION
It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and
to feel, when I shut my outer door, like Robinson Crusoe, when he had
got into his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. It was a
wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my
pocket, and to know that I could ask any fellow to come home, and make
quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me.
It was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to come
and go without a word to anyone, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping,
from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her--and when she was
disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully fine; but I must say,
too, that there were times when it was very dreary.
It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It looked
a very fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and more free, by
sunlight. But as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. I
don’t know how it was; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted
somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. I found a tremendous blank,
in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp
appeared to be a long way off. I thought about my predecessor, who had
died of drink and smoke; and I could have wished he had been so good as
to live, and not bother me with his decease.
After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year,
and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my
own youthfulness as ever.
Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he must
be ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to
Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had
gone away with one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived near
St. Albans, but that she expected him to return tomorrow. I was so fond
of him, that I felt quite jealous of his Oxford friends.
As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we talked
about nothing but him all day. I told her how much the people liked him
at Yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle
was full of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great interest
in all our proceedings there, and said, ‘Was it really though?’ and so
forth, so often, that she got everything out of me she wanted to know.
Her appearance was exactly what I have described it, when I first saw
her; but the society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so
natural to me, that I felt myself falling a little in love with her. I
could not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening, and
particularly when I walked home at night, what delightful company she
would be in Buckingham Street.
I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the
Commons--and I may observe in this place that it is surprising how
much coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and how weak it was, considering--when
Steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy.
‘My dear Steerforth,’ cried I, ‘I began to think I should never see you
again!’
‘I was carried off, by force of arms,’ said Steerforth, ‘the very next
morning after I got home. Why, Daisy, what a rare old bachelor you are
here!’
I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with no
little pride, and he commended it highly. ‘I tell you what, old boy,’ he
added, ‘I shall make quite a town-house of this place, unless you give
me notice to quit.’
This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited for that, he
would have to wait till doomsday.
‘But you shall have some breakfast!’ said I, with my hand on the
bell-rope, ‘and Mrs. Crupp shall make you some fresh coffee, and I’ll
toast you some bacon in a bachelor’s Dutch-oven, that I have got here.’
‘No, no!’ said Steerforth. ‘Don’t ring! I can’t! I am going to breakfast
with one of these fellows who is at the Piazza Hotel, in Covent Garden.’
‘But you’ll come back to dinner?’ said I.
‘I can’t, upon my life. There’s nothing I should like better, but I must
remain with these two fellows. We are all three off together tomorrow
morning.’
‘Then bring them here to dinner,’ I returned. ‘Do you think they would
come?’
‘Oh! they would come fast enough,’ said Steerforth; ‘but we should
inconvenience you. You had better come and dine with us somewhere.’
I would not by any means consent to this, for it occurred to me that I
really ought to have a little house-warming, and that there never
could be a better opportunity. I had a new pride in my rooms after
his approval of them, and burned with a desire to develop their utmost
resources. I therefore made him promise positively in the names of his
two friends, and we appointed six o’clock as the dinner-hour.
When he was gone, I rang for Mrs. Crupp, and acquainted her with my
desperate design. Mrs. Crupp said, in the first place, of course it was
well known she couldn’t be expected to wait, but she knew a handy young
man, who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it, and whose terms
would be five shillings, and what I pleased. I said, certainly we would
have him. Next Mrs. Crupp said it was clear she couldn’t be in two
places at once (which I felt to be reasonable), and that ‘a young gal’
stationed in the pantry with a bedroom candle, there never to desist
from washing plates, would be indispensable. I said, what would be
the expense of this young female? and Mrs. Crupp said she supposed
eighteenpence would neither make me nor break me. I said I supposed not;
and THAT was settled. Then Mrs. Crupp said, Now about the dinner.
It was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of the
ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp’s kitchen fireplace, that it was
capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. As to a
fish-kittle, Mrs. Crupp said, well! would I only come and look at the
range? She couldn’t say fairer than that. Would I come and look at
it? As I should not have been much the wiser if I HAD looked at it, I
declined, and said, ‘Never mind fish.’ But Mrs. Crupp said, Don’t say
that; oysters was in, why not them? So THAT was settled. Mrs. Crupp
then said what she would recommend would be this. A pair of hot
roast fowls--from the pastry-cook’s; a dish of stewed beef, with
vegetables--from the pastry-cook’s; two little corner things, as a
raised pie and a dish of kidneys--from the pastrycook’s; a tart, and (if
I liked) a shape of jelly--from the pastrycook’s. This, Mrs. Crupp said,
would leave her at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes,
and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done.
I acted on Mrs. Crupp’s opinion, and gave the order at the pastry-cook’s
myself. Walking along the Strand, afterwards, and observing a hard
mottled substance in the window of a ham and beef shop, which resembled
marble, but was labelled ‘Mock Turtle’, I went in and bought a slab of
it, which I have since seen reason to believe would have sufficed for
fifteen people. This preparation, Mrs. Crupp, after some difficulty,
consented to warm up; and it shrunk so much in a liquid state, that we
found it what Steerforth called ‘rather a tight fit’ for four.
These preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in
Covent Garden Market, and gave a rather extensive order at a retail
wine-merchant’s in that vicinity. When I came home in the afternoon, and
saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry floor, they looked
so numerous (though there were two missing, which made Mrs. Crupp very
uncomfortable), that I was absolutely frightened at them.
One of Steerforth’s friends was named Grainger, and the other Markham.
They were both very gay and lively fellows; Grainger, something older
than Steerforth; Markham, youthful-looking, and I should say not
more than twenty. I observed that the latter always spoke of himself
indefinitely, as ‘a man’, and seldom or never in the first person
singular.
‘A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperfield,’ said
Markham--meaning himself.
‘It’s not a bad situation,’ said I, ‘and the rooms are really
commodious.’
‘I hope you have both brought appetites with you?’ said Steerforth.
‘Upon my honour,’ returned Markham, ‘town seems to sharpen a man’s
appetite. A man is hungry all day long. A man is perpetually eating.’
Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to
preside, I made Steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was
announced, and seated myself opposite to him. Everything was very good;
we did not spare the wine; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make
the thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity. I was
not quite such good company during dinner as I could have wished to be,
for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention was distracted by
observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, and
that his shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the
wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth. The ‘young gal’ likewise
occasioned me some uneasiness: not so much by neglecting to wash the
plates, as by breaking them. For being of an inquisitive disposition,
and unable to confine herself (as her positive instructions were) to the
pantry, she was constantly peering in at us, and constantly imagining
herself detected; in which belief, she several times retired upon the
plates (with which she had carefully paved the floor), and did a great
deal of destruction.
These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the
cloth was cleared, and the dessert put on the table; at which period of
the entertainment the handy young man was discovered to be speechless.
Giving him private directions to seek the society of Mrs. Crupp, and
to remove the ‘young gal’ to the basement also, I abandoned myself to
enjoyment.
I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts of
half-forgotten things to talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made
me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I laughed heartily at my own
jokes, and everybody else’s; called Steerforth to order for not passing
the wine; made several engagements to go to Oxford; announced that
I meant to have a dinner-party exactly like that, once a week, until
further notice; and madly took so much snuff out of Grainger’s box, that
I was obliged to go into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing
ten minutes long.
I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually
starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was
needed. I proposed Steerforth’s health. I said he was my dearest friend,
the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime. I said I was
delighted to propose his health. I said I owed him more obligations than
I could ever repay, and held him in a higher admiration than I could
ever express. I finished by saying, ‘I’ll give you Steerforth! God bless
him! Hurrah!’ We gave him three times three, and another, and a good one
to finish with. I broke my glass in going round the table to shake
hands with him, and I said (in two words)
‘Steerforth--you’retheguidingstarofmyexistence.’
I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a
song. Markham was the singer, and he sang ‘When the heart of a man is
depressed with care’. He said, when he had sung it, he would give us
‘Woman!’ I took objection to that, and I couldn’t allow it. I said
it was not a respectful way of proposing the toast, and I would never
permit that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than as ‘The
Ladies!’ I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw
Steerforth and Grainger laughing at me--or at him--or at both of us. He
said a man was not to be dictated to. I said a man was. He said a man
was not to be insulted, then. I said he was right there--never under
my roof, where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality
paramount. He said it was no derogation from a man’s dignity to confess
that I was a devilish good fellow. I instantly proposed his health.
Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. I was smoking, and trying
to suppress a rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had made a speech
about me, in the course of which I had been affected almost to tears.
I returned thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with me
tomorrow, and the day after--each day at five o’clock, that we might
enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening.
I felt called upon to propose an individual. I would give them my aunt.
Miss Betsey Trotwood, the best of her sex!
Somebody was leaning out of my bedroom window, refreshing his forehead
against the cool stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his
face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as ‘Copperfield’, and
saying, ‘Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you couldn’t
do it.’ Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the
looking-glass. That was I too. I was very pale in the looking-glass;
my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair--only my hair, nothing
else--looked drunk.
Somebody said to me, ‘Let us go to the theatre, Copperfield!’ There was
no bedroom before me, but again the jingling table covered with glasses;
the lamp; Grainger on my right hand, Markham on my left, and Steerforth
opposite--all sitting in a mist, and a long way off. The theatre? To
be sure. The very thing. Come along! But they must excuse me if I saw
everybody out first, and turned the lamp off--in case of fire.
Owing to some confusion in the dark, the door was gone. I was feeling
for it in the window-curtains, when Steerforth, laughing, took me by
the arm and led me out. We went downstairs, one behind another. Near
the bottom, somebody fell, and rolled down. Somebody else said it was
Copperfield. I was angry at that false report, until, finding myself on
my back in the passage, I began to think there might be some foundation
for it.
A very foggy night, with great rings round the lamps in the streets!
There was an indistinct talk of its being wet. I considered it frosty.
Steerforth dusted me under a lamp-post, and put my hat into shape, which
somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner, for
I hadn’t had it on before. Steerforth then said, ‘You are all right,
Copperfield, are you not?’ and I told him, ‘Neverberrer.’
A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took
money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for,
and appearing rather doubtful (as I remember in the glimpse I had of
him) whether to take the money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we
were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit,
that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so
indistinct. There was a great stage, too, looking very clean and
smooth after the streets; and there were people upon it, talking about
something or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an abundance
of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the
boxes, and I don’t know what more. The whole building looked to me as if
it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable
manner, when I tried to steady it.
On somebody’s motion, we resolved to go downstairs to the dress-boxes,
where the ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full dressed, on a sofa,
with an opera-glass in his hand, passed before my view, and also my own
figure at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one of
these boxes, and found myself saying something as I sat down, and people
about me crying ‘Silence!’ to somebody, and ladies casting indignant
glances at me, and--what! yes!--Agnes, sitting on the seat before me, in
the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn’t
know. I see her face now, better than I did then, I dare say, with its
indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me.
‘Agnes!’ I said, thickly, ‘Lorblessmer! Agnes!’
‘Hush! Pray!’ she answered, I could not conceive why. ‘You disturb the
company. Look at the stage!’
I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was
going on there, but quite in vain. I looked at her again by and by, and
saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved hand to her forehead.
‘Agnes!’ I said. ‘I’mafraidyou’renorwell.’
‘Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood,’ she returned. ‘Listen! Are you
going away soon?’
‘Amigoarawaysoo?’ I repeated.
‘Yes.’
I had a stupid intention of replying that I was going to wait, to hand
her downstairs. I suppose I expressed it, somehow; for after she had
looked at me attentively for a little while, she appeared to understand,
and replied in a low tone:
‘I know you will do as I ask you, if I tell you I am very earnest in
it. Go away now, Trotwood, for my sake, and ask your friends to take you
home.’
She had so far improved me, for the time, that though I was angry with
her, I felt ashamed, and with a short ‘Goori!’ (which I intended for
‘Good night!’) got up and went away. They followed, and I stepped at
once out of the box-door into my bedroom, where only Steerforth was with
me, helping me to undress, and where I was by turns telling him that
Agnes was my sister, and adjuring him to bring the corkscrew, that I
might open another bottle of wine.
How somebody, lying in my bed, lay saying and doing all this over again,
at cross purposes, in a feverish dream all night--the bed a rocking sea
that was never still! How, as that somebody slowly settled down into
myself, did I begin to parch, and feel as if my outer covering of skin
were a hard board; my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle, furred with
long service, and burning up over a slow fire; the palms of my hands,
hot plates of metal which no ice could cool!
But the agony of mind, the remorse, and shame I felt when I became
conscious next day! My horror of having committed a thousand offences I
had forgotten, and which nothing could ever expiate--my recollection
of that indelible look which Agnes had given me--the torturing
impossibility of communicating with her, not knowing, Beast that I was,
how she came to be in London, or where she stayed--my disgust of
the very sight of the room where the revel had been held--my racking
head--the smell of smoke, the sight of glasses, the impossibility of
going out, or even getting up! Oh, what a day it was!
Oh, what an evening, when I sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton
broth, dimpled all over with fat, and thought I was going the way of my
predecessor, and should succeed to his dismal story as well as to his
chambers, and had half a mind to rush express to Dover and reveal
all! What an evening, when Mrs. Crupp, coming in to take away the
broth-basin, produced one kidney on a cheese-plate as the entire remains
of yesterday’s feast, and I was really inclined to fall upon her nankeen
breast and say, in heartfelt penitence, ‘Oh, Mrs. Crupp, Mrs. Crupp,
never mind the broken meats! I am very miserable!’--only that I doubted,
even at that pass, if Mrs. Crupp were quite the sort of woman to confide
in!
CHAPTER 25. GOOD AND BAD ANGELS
I was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day of
headache, sickness, and repentance, with an odd confusion in my mind
relative to the date of my dinner-party, as if a body of Titans had
taken an enormous lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months
back, when I saw a ticket-porter coming upstairs, with a letter in his
hand. He was taking his time about his errand, then; but when he saw me
on the top of the staircase, looking at him over the banisters, he swung
into a trot, and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state
of exhaustion.
‘T. Copperfield, Esquire,’ said the ticket-porter, touching his hat with
his little cane.
I could scarcely lay claim to the name: I was so disturbed by the
conviction that the letter came from Agnes. However, I told him I was T.
Copperfield, Esquire, and he believed it, and gave me the letter, which
he said required an answer. I shut him out on the landing to wait for
the answer, and went into my chambers again, in such a nervous state
that I was fain to lay the letter down on my breakfast table, and
familiarize myself with the outside of it a little, before I could
resolve to break the seal.
I found, when I did open it, that it was a very kind note, containing
no reference to my condition at the theatre. All it said was, ‘My dear
Trotwood. I am staying at the house of papa’s agent, Mr. Waterbrook, in
Ely Place, Holborn. Will you come and see me today, at any time you like
to appoint? Ever yours affectionately, AGNES.’
It took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my
satisfaction, that I don’t know what the ticket-porter can have
thought, unless he thought I was learning to write. I must have written
half-a-dozen answers at least. I began one, ‘How can I ever hope,
my dear Agnes, to efface from your remembrance the disgusting
impression’--there I didn’t like it, and then I tore it up. I began
another, ‘Shakespeare has observed, my dear Agnes, how strange it is
that a man should put an enemy into his mouth’--that reminded me of
Markham, and it got no farther. I even tried poetry. I began one note,
in a six-syllable line, ‘Oh, do not remember’--but that associated
itself with the fifth of November, and became an absurdity. After many
attempts, I wrote, ‘My dear Agnes. Your letter is like you, and what
could I say of it that would be higher praise than that? I will come at
four o’clock. Affectionately and sorrowfully, T.C.’ With this missive
(which I was in twenty minds at once about recalling, as soon as it was
out of my hands), the ticket-porter at last departed.
If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman
in Doctors’ Commons as it was to me, I sincerely believe he made some
expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese.
Although I left the office at half past three, and was prowling about
the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed
time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour, according to the
clock of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient
desperation to pull the private bell-handle let into the left-hand
door-post of Mr. Waterbrook’s house.
The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook’s establishment was done on
the ground-floor, and the genteel business (of which there was a good
deal) in the upper part of the building. I was shown into a pretty but
rather close drawing-room, and there sat Agnes, netting a purse.
She looked so quiet and good, and reminded me so strongly of my airy
fresh school days at Canterbury, and the sodden, smoky, stupid wretch
I had been the other night, that, nobody being by, I yielded to my
self-reproach and shame, and--in short, made a fool of myself. I cannot
deny that I shed tears. To this hour I am undecided whether it was upon
the whole the wisest thing I could have done, or the most ridiculous.
‘If it had been anyone but you, Agnes,’ said I, turning away my head, ‘I
should not have minded it half so much. But that it should have been you
who saw me! I almost wish I had been dead, first.’
She put her hand--its touch was like no other hand--upon my arm for a
moment; and I felt so befriended and comforted, that I could not help
moving it to my lips, and gratefully kissing it.
‘Sit down,’ said Agnes, cheerfully. ‘Don’t be unhappy, Trotwood. If you
cannot confidently trust me, whom will you trust?’
‘Ah, Agnes!’ I returned. ‘You are my good Angel!’
She smiled rather sadly, I thought, and shook her head.
‘Yes, Agnes, my good Angel! Always my good Angel!’
‘If I were, indeed, Trotwood,’ she returned, ‘there is one thing that I
should set my heart on very much.’
I looked at her inquiringly; but already with a foreknowledge of her
meaning.
‘On warning you,’ said Agnes, with a steady glance, ‘against your bad
Angel.’
‘My dear Agnes,’ I began, ‘if you mean Steerforth--’
‘I do, Trotwood,’ she returned. ‘Then, Agnes, you wrong him very much.
He my bad Angel, or anyone’s! He, anything but a guide, a support, and
a friend to me! My dear Agnes! Now, is it not unjust, and unlike you, to
judge him from what you saw of me the other night?’
‘I do not judge him from what I saw of you the other night,’ she quietly
replied.
‘From what, then?’
‘From many things--trifles in themselves, but they do not seem to me to
be so, when they are put together. I judge him, partly from your account
of him, Trotwood, and your character, and the influence he has over
you.’
There was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch a
chord within me, answering to that sound alone. It was always earnest;
but when it was very earnest, as it was now, there was a thrill in it
that quite subdued me. I sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on
her work; I sat seeming still to listen to her; and Steerforth, in spite
of all my attachment to him, darkened in that tone.
‘It is very bold in me,’ said Agnes, looking up again, ‘who have lived
in such seclusion, and can know so little of the world, to give you my
advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion. But I know
in what it is engendered, Trotwood,--in how true a remembrance of our
having grown up together, and in how true an interest in all relating
to you. It is that which makes me bold. I am certain that what I say is
right. I am quite sure it is. I feel as if it were someone else speaking
to you, and not I, when I caution you that you have made a dangerous
friend.’
Again I looked at her, again I listened to her after she was silent, and
again his image, though it was still fixed in my heart, darkened.
‘I am not so unreasonable as to expect,’ said Agnes, resuming her usual
tone, after a little while, ‘that you will, or that you can, at once,
change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you; least of all
a sentiment that is rooted in your trusting disposition. You ought not
hastily to do that. I only ask you, Trotwood, if you ever think of me--I
mean,’ with a quiet smile, for I was going to interrupt her, and she
knew why, ‘as often as you think of me--to think of what I have said. Do
you forgive me for all this?’
‘I will forgive you, Agnes,’ I replied, ‘when you come to do Steerforth
justice, and to like him as well as I do.’
‘Not until then?’ said Agnes.
I saw a passing shadow on her face when I made this mention of him, but
she returned my smile, and we were again as unreserved in our mutual
confidence as of old.
‘And when, Agnes,’ said I, ‘will you forgive me the other night?’
‘When I recall it,’ said Agnes.
She would have dismissed the subject so, but I was too full of it to
allow that, and insisted on telling her how it happened that I had
disgraced myself, and what chain of accidental circumstances had had the
theatre for its final link. It was a great relief to me to do this, and
to enlarge on the obligation that I owed to Steerforth for his care of
me when I was unable to take care of myself.
‘You must not forget,’ said Agnes, calmly changing the conversation as
soon as I had concluded, ‘that you are always to tell me, not only when
you fall into trouble, but when you fall in love. Who has succeeded to
Miss Larkins, Trotwood?’
‘No one, Agnes.’
‘Someone, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, laughing, and holding up her finger.
‘No, Agnes, upon my word! There is a lady, certainly, at Mrs.
Steerforth’s house, who is very clever, and whom I like to talk to--Miss
Dartle--but I don’t adore her.’
Agnes laughed again at her own penetration, and told me that if I were
faithful to her in my confidence she thought she should keep a little
register of my violent attachments, with the date, duration, and
termination of each, like the table of the reigns of the kings and
queens, in the History of England. Then she asked me if I had seen
Uriah.
‘Uriah Heep?’ said I. ‘No. Is he in London?’
‘He comes to the office downstairs, every day,’ returned Agnes. ‘He
was in London a week before me. I am afraid on disagreeable business,
Trotwood.’
‘On some business that makes you uneasy, Agnes, I see,’ said I. ‘What
can that be?’
Agnes laid aside her work, and replied, folding her hands upon one
another, and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes of
hers:
‘I believe he is going to enter into partnership with papa.’
‘What? Uriah? That mean, fawning fellow, worm himself into such
promotion!’ I cried, indignantly. ‘Have you made no remonstrance about
it, Agnes? Consider what a connexion it is likely to be. You must speak
out. You must not allow your father to take such a mad step. You must
prevent it, Agnes, while there’s time.’
Still looking at me, Agnes shook her head while I was speaking, with a
faint smile at my warmth: and then replied:
‘You remember our last conversation about papa? It was not long after
that--not more than two or three days--when he gave me the first
intimation of what I tell you. It was sad to see him struggling between
his desire to represent it to me as a matter of choice on his part,
and his inability to conceal that it was forced upon him. I felt very
sorry.’
‘Forced upon him, Agnes! Who forces it upon him?’
‘Uriah,’ she replied, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘has made himself
indispensable to papa. He is subtle and watchful. He has mastered papa’s
weaknesses, fostered them, and taken advantage of them, until--to say
all that I mean in a word, Trotwood,--until papa is afraid of him.’
There was more that she might have said; more that she knew, or that she
suspected; I clearly saw. I could not give her pain by asking what it
was, for I knew that she withheld it from me, to spare her father. It
had long been going on to this, I was sensible: yes, I could not but
feel, on the least reflection, that it had been going on to this for a
long time. I remained silent.
‘His ascendancy over papa,’ said Agnes, ‘is very great. He professes
humility and gratitude--with truth, perhaps: I hope so--but his position
is really one of power, and I fear he makes a hard use of his power.’
I said he was a hound, which, at the moment, was a great satisfaction to
me.
‘At the time I speak of, as the time when papa spoke to me,’ pursued
Agnes, ‘he had told papa that he was going away; that he was very sorry,
and unwilling to leave, but that he had better prospects. Papa was very
much depressed then, and more bowed down by care than ever you or I have
seen him; but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the partnership,
though at the same time he seemed hurt by it and ashamed of it.’
‘And how did you receive it, Agnes?’
‘I did, Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘what I hope was right. Feeling sure
that it was necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice should be
made, I entreated him to make it. I said it would lighten the load
of his life--I hope it will!--and that it would give me increased
opportunities of being his companion. Oh, Trotwood!’ cried Agnes,
putting her hands before her face, as her tears started on it, ‘I almost
feel as if I had been papa’s enemy, instead of his loving child. For
I know how he has altered, in his devotion to me. I know how he has
narrowed the circle of his sympathies and duties, in the concentration
of his whole mind upon me. I know what a multitude of things he has shut
out for my sake, and how his anxious thoughts of me have shadowed his
life, and weakened his strength and energy, by turning them always upon
one idea. If I could ever set this right! If I could ever work out his
restoration, as I have so innocently been the cause of his decline!’
I had never before seen Agnes cry. I had seen tears in her eyes when I
had brought new honours home from school, and I had seen them there when
we last spoke about her father, and I had seen her turn her gentle head
aside when we took leave of one another; but I had never seen her grieve
like this. It made me so sorry that I could only say, in a foolish,
helpless manner, ‘Pray, Agnes, don’t! Don’t, my dear sister!’
But Agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose, as I know
well now, whatever I might know or not know then, to be long in need of
my entreaties. The beautiful, calm manner, which makes her so different
in my remembrance from everybody else, came back again, as if a cloud
had passed from a serene sky.
‘We are not likely to remain alone much longer,’ said Agnes, ‘and while
I have an opportunity, let me earnestly entreat you, Trotwood, to be
friendly to Uriah. Don’t repel him. Don’t resent (as I think you have a
general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him. He may
not deserve it, for we know no certain ill of him. In any case, think
first of papa and me!’
Agnes had no time to say more, for the room door opened, and Mrs.
Waterbrook, who was a large lady--or who wore a large dress: I don’t
exactly know which, for I don’t know which was dress and which was
lady--came sailing in. I had a dim recollection of having seen her
at the theatre, as if I had seen her in a pale magic lantern; but she
appeared to remember me perfectly, and still to suspect me of being in a
state of intoxication.
Finding by degrees, however, that I was sober, and (I hope) that I was
a modest young gentleman, Mrs. Waterbrook softened towards me
considerably, and inquired, firstly, if I went much into the parks,
and secondly, if I went much into society. On my replying to both these
questions in the negative, it occurred to me that I fell again in her
good opinion; but she concealed the fact gracefully, and invited me to
dinner next day. I accepted the invitation, and took my leave, making a
call on Uriah in the office as I went out, and leaving a card for him in
his absence.
When I went to dinner next day, and on the street door being opened,
plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, I divined that I was
not the only guest, for I immediately identified the ticket-porter in
disguise, assisting the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the
stairs to carry up my name. He looked, to the best of his ability, when
he asked me for it confidentially, as if he had never seen me before;
but well did I know him, and well did he know me. Conscience made
cowards of us both.
I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short
throat, and a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black nose to
be the portrait of a pug-dog. He told me he was happy to have the
honour of making my acquaintance; and when I had paid my homage to Mrs.
Waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a very awful lady in
a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom I remember as
looking like a near relation of Hamlet’s--say his aunt.
Mrs. Henry Spiker was this lady’s name; and her husband was there
too: so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to
be sprinkled with hoar-frost. Immense deference was shown to the Henry
Spikers, male and female; which Agnes told me was on account of Mr.
Henry Spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody, I forget what
or which, remotely connected with the Treasury.
I found Uriah Heep among the company, in a suit of black, and in deep
humility. He told me, when I shook hands with him, that he was proud
to be noticed by me, and that he really felt obliged to me for my
condescension. I could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for
he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening; and
whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with his shadowless eyes and
cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind.
There were other guests--all iced for the occasion, as it struck me,
like the wine. But there was one who attracted my attention before he
came in, on account of my hearing him announced as Mr. Traddles! My mind
flew back to Salem House; and could it be Tommy, I thought, who used to
draw the skeletons!
I looked for Mr. Traddles with unusual interest. He was a sober,
steady-looking young man of retiring manners, with a comic head of hair,
and eyes that were rather wide open; and he got into an obscure corner
so soon, that I had some difficulty in making him out. At length I had
a good view of him, and either my vision deceived me, or it was the old
unfortunate Tommy.
I made my way to Mr. Waterbrook, and said, that I believed I had the
pleasure of seeing an old schoolfellow there.
‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Waterbrook, surprised. ‘You are too young to have
been at school with Mr. Henry Spiker?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean him!’ I returned. ‘I mean the gentleman named
Traddles.’
‘Oh! Aye, aye! Indeed!’ said my host, with much diminished interest.
‘Possibly.’
‘If it’s really the same person,’ said I, glancing towards him, ‘it
was at a place called Salem House where we were together, and he was an
excellent fellow.’
‘Oh yes. Traddles is a good fellow,’ returned my host nodding his head
with an air of toleration. ‘Traddles is quite a good fellow.’
‘It’s a curious coincidence,’ said I.
‘It is really,’ returned my host, ‘quite a coincidence, that Traddles
should be here at all: as Traddles was only invited this morning, when
the place at table, intended to be occupied by Mrs. Henry Spiker’s
brother, became vacant, in consequence of his indisposition. A very
gentlemanly man, Mrs. Henry Spiker’s brother, Mr. Copperfield.’
I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that I
knew nothing at all about him; and I inquired what Mr. Traddles was by
profession.
‘Traddles,’ returned Mr. Waterbrook, ‘is a young man reading for the
bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow--nobody’s enemy but his own.’
‘Is he his own enemy?’ said I, sorry to hear this.
‘Well,’ returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing with
his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. ‘I should say
he was one of those men who stand in their own light. Yes, I should say
he would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound. Traddles was
recommended to me by a professional friend. Oh yes. Yes. He has a kind
of talent for drawing briefs, and stating a case in writing, plainly. I
am able to throw something in Traddles’s way, in the course of the year;
something--for him--considerable. Oh yes. Yes.’
I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied manner
in which Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself of this little word ‘Yes’,
every now and then. There was wonderful expression in it. It completely
conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver
spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting all the
heights of life one after another, until now he looked, from the top of
the fortifications, with the eye of a philosopher and a patron, on the
people down in the trenches.
My reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was
announced. Mr. Waterbrook went down with Hamlet’s aunt. Mr. Henry Spiker
took Mrs. Waterbrook. Agnes, whom I should have liked to take myself,
was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs. Uriah, Traddles, and I,
as the junior part of the company, went down last, how we could. I was
not so vexed at losing Agnes as I might have been, since it gave me
an opportunity of making myself known to Traddles on the stairs, who
greeted me with great fervour; while Uriah writhed with such obtrusive
satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could gladly have pitched
him over the banisters. Traddles and I were separated at table, being
billeted in two remote corners: he in the glare of a red velvet lady;
I, in the gloom of Hamlet’s aunt. The dinner was very long, and the
conversation was about the Aristocracy--and Blood. Mrs. Waterbrook
repeatedly told us, that if she had a weakness, it was Blood.
It occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, if we
had not been quite so genteel. We were so exceedingly genteel, that our
scope was very limited. A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge were of the party, who
had something to do at second-hand (at least, Mr. Gulpidge had) with
the law business of the Bank; and what with the Bank, and what with
the Treasury, we were as exclusive as the Court Circular. To mend the
matter, Hamlet’s aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy,
and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that
was introduced. These were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell
back upon Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her
nephew himself.
We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such a
sanguine complexion.
‘I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook’s opinion,’ said Mr. Waterbrook, with
his wine-glass at his eye. ‘Other things are all very well in their way,
but give me Blood!’
‘Oh! There is nothing,’ observed Hamlet’s aunt, ‘so satisfactory to one!
There is nothing that is so much one’s beau-ideal of--of all that sort
of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am
happy to believe, but there are some) that would prefer to do what I
should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols! Before service,
intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so.
We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and
we say, “There it is! That’s Blood!” It is an actual matter of fact. We
point it out. It admits of no doubt.’
The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down,
stated the question more decisively yet, I thought.
‘Oh, you know, deuce take it,’ said this gentleman, looking round the
board with an imbecile smile, ‘we can’t forego Blood, you know. We must
have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be a little
behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and
may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people
into a variety of fixes--and all that--but deuce take it, it’s
delightful to reflect that they’ve got Blood in ‘em! Myself, I’d rather
at any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I’d
be picked up by a man who hadn’t!’
This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell,
gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great
notice until the ladies retired. After that, I observed that Mr.
Gulpidge and Mr. Henry Spiker, who had hitherto been very distant,
entered into a defensive alliance against us, the common enemy, and
exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for our defeat and
overthrow.
‘That affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds has
not taken the course that was expected, Spiker,’ said Mr. Gulpidge.
‘Do you mean the D. of A.’s?’ said Mr. Spiker.
‘The C. of B.’s!’ said Mr. Gulpidge.
Mr. Spiker raised his eyebrows, and looked much concerned.
‘When the question was referred to Lord--I needn’t name him,’ said Mr.
Gulpidge, checking himself--
‘I understand,’ said Mr. Spiker, ‘N.’
Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded--‘was referred to him, his answer was,
“Money, or no release.”’
‘Lord bless my soul!’ cried Mr. Spiker.
“‘Money, or no release,”’ repeated Mr. Gulpidge, firmly. ‘The next in
reversion--you understand me?’
‘K.,’ said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look.
‘--K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended at Newmarket for
that purpose, and he point-blank refused to do it.’
Mr. Spiker was so interested, that he became quite stony.
‘So the matter rests at this hour,’ said Mr. Gulpidge, throwing himself
back in his chair. ‘Our friend Waterbrook will excuse me if I forbear to
explain myself generally, on account of the magnitude of the interests
involved.’
Mr. Waterbrook was only too happy, as it appeared to me, to have such
interests, and such names, even hinted at, across his table. He assumed
an expression of gloomy intelligence (though I am persuaded he knew
no more about the discussion than I did), and highly approved of the
discretion that had been observed. Mr. Spiker, after the receipt of such
a confidence, naturally desired to favour his friend with a confidence
of his own; therefore the foregoing dialogue was succeeded by another,
in which it was Mr. Gulpidge’s turn to be surprised, and that by another
in which the surprise came round to Mr. Spiker’s turn again, and so on,
turn and turn about. All this time we, the outsiders, remained oppressed
by the tremendous interests involved in the conversation; and our
host regarded us with pride, as the victims of a salutary awe and
astonishment. I was very glad indeed to get upstairs to Agnes, and to
talk with her in a corner, and to introduce Traddles to her, who was
shy, but agreeable, and the same good-natured creature still. As he
was obliged to leave early, on account of going away next morning for
a month, I had not nearly so much conversation with him as I could have
wished; but we exchanged addresses, and promised ourselves the pleasure
of another meeting when he should come back to town. He was greatly
interested to hear that I knew Steerforth, and spoke of him with such
warmth that I made him tell Agnes what he thought of him. But Agnes only
looked at me the while, and very slightly shook her head when only I
observed her.
As she was not among people with whom I believed she could be very much
at home, I was almost glad to hear that she was going away within a few
days, though I was sorry at the prospect of parting from her again
so soon. This caused me to remain until all the company were gone.
Conversing with her, and hearing her sing, was such a delightful
reminder to me of my happy life in the grave old house she had made so
beautiful, that I could have remained there half the night; but, having
no excuse for staying any longer, when the lights of Mr. Waterbrook’s
society were all snuffed out, I took my leave very much against my
inclination. I felt then, more than ever, that she was my better Angel;
and if I thought of her sweet face and placid smile, as though they had
shone on me from some removed being, like an Angel, I hope I thought no
harm.
I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have excepted
Uriah, whom I don’t include in that denomination, and who had never
ceased to hover near us. He was close behind me when I went downstairs.
He was close beside me, when I walked away from the house, slowly
fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers of a
great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves.
It was in no disposition for Uriah’s company, but in remembrance of the
entreaty Agnes had made to me, that I asked him if he would come home to
my rooms, and have some coffee.
‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,’ he rejoined--‘I beg your pardon,
Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural, I don’t like that
you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like me
to your ouse.’
‘There is no constraint in the case,’ said I. ‘Will you come?’
‘I should like to, very much,’ replied Uriah, with a writhe.
‘Well, then, come along!’ said I.
I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to
mind it. We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the road;
and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he
was still putting them on, and seemed to have made no advance in that
labour, when we got to my place.
I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against
anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine,
that I was tempted to drop it and run away. Agnes and hospitality
prevailed, however, and I conducted him to my fireside. When I lighted
my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed
to him; and when I heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel
in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because
it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because
there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the
pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have
scalded him.
‘Oh, really, Master Copperfield,--I mean Mister Copperfield,’ said
Uriah, ‘to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have expected!
But, one way and another, so many things happen to me which I never
could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it seems
to rain blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I des-say, of a
change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister
Copperfield?’
As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup,
his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly
round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had
scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the
disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and
going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from
his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him
intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I
was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt.
‘You have heard something, I des-say, of a change in my expectations,
Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister Copperfield?’ observed Uriah.
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘something.’
‘Ah! I thought Miss Agnes would know of it!’ he quietly returned. ‘I’m
glad to find Miss Agnes knows of it. Oh, thank you, Master--Mister
Copperfield!’
I could have thrown my bootjack at him (it lay ready on the rug), for
having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning Agnes,
however immaterial. But I only drank my coffee.
‘What a prophet you have shown yourself, Mister Copperfield!’ pursued
Uriah. ‘Dear me, what a prophet you have proved yourself to be! Don’t
you remember saying to me once, that perhaps I should be a partner in
Mr. Wickfield’s business, and perhaps it might be Wickfield and
Heep? You may not recollect it; but when a person is umble, Master
Copperfield, a person treasures such things up!’
‘I recollect talking about it,’ said I, ‘though I certainly did not
think it very likely then.’ ‘Oh! who would have thought it likely,
Mister Copperfield!’ returned Uriah, enthusiastically. ‘I am sure I
didn’t myself. I recollect saying with my own lips that I was much too
umble. So I considered myself really and truly.’
He sat, with that carved grin on his face, looking at the fire, as I
looked at him.
‘But the umblest persons, Master Copperfield,’ he presently resumed,
‘may be the instruments of good. I am glad to think I have been the
instrument of good to Mr. Wickfield, and that I may be more so. Oh what
a worthy man he is, Mister Copperfield, but how imprudent he has been!’
‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said I. I could not help adding, rather
pointedly, ‘on all accounts.’
‘Decidedly so, Mister Copperfield,’ replied Uriah. ‘On all accounts.
Miss Agnes’s above all! You don’t remember your own eloquent
expressions, Master Copperfield; but I remember how you said one day
that everybody must admire her, and how I thanked you for it! You have
forgot that, I have no doubt, Master Copperfield?’
‘No,’ said I, drily.
‘Oh how glad I am you have not!’ exclaimed Uriah. ‘To think that you
should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble breast,
and that you’ve not forgot it! Oh!--Would you excuse me asking for a cup
more coffee?’
Something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks,
and something in the glance he directed at me as he said it, had made me
start as if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. Recalled by
his request, preferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honours
of the shaving-pot; but I did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a
sudden sense of being no match for him, and a perplexed suspicious
anxiety as to what he might be going to say next, which I felt could not
escape his observation.
He said nothing at all. He stirred his coffee round and round, he sipped
it, he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand, he looked at the fire,
he looked about the room, he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed
and undulated about, in his deferential servility, he stirred and sipped
again, but he left the renewal of the conversation to me.
‘So, Mr. Wickfield,’ said I, at last, ‘who is worth five hundred of
you--or me’; for my life, I think, I could not have helped dividing that
part of the sentence with an awkward jerk; ‘has been imprudent, has he,
Mr. Heep?’
‘Oh, very imprudent indeed, Master Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, sighing
modestly. ‘Oh, very much so! But I wish you’d call me Uriah, if you
please. It’s like old times.’
‘Well! Uriah,’ said I, bolting it out with some difficulty.
‘Thank you,’ he returned, with fervour. ‘Thank you, Master Copperfield!
It’s like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of old bellses to
hear YOU say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I making any observation?’
‘About Mr. Wickfield,’ I suggested.
‘Oh! Yes, truly,’ said Uriah. ‘Ah! Great imprudence, Master Copperfield.
It’s a topic that I wouldn’t touch upon, to any soul but you. Even to
you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If anyone else had been in
my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had Mr.
Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, Master Copperfield, too!) under
his thumb. Un--der--his thumb,’ said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched
out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own thumb
upon it, until it shook, and shook the room.
If I had been obliged to look at him with him splay foot on Mr.
Wickfield’s head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more.
‘Oh, dear, yes, Master Copperfield,’ he proceeded, in a soft voice,
most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb, which did not
diminish its hard pressure in the least degree, ‘there’s no doubt of
it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I don’t know what at all. Mr.
Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instrument of umbly serving him,
and he puts me on an eminence I hardly could have hoped to reach. How
thankful should I be!’ With his face turned towards me, as he finished,
but without looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot where
he had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with
it, as if he were shaving himself.
I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his crafty
face, with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it, preparing
for something else.
‘Master Copperfield,’ he began--‘but am I keeping you up?’
‘You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late.’
‘Thank you, Master Copperfield! I have risen from my umble station since
first you used to address me, it is true; but I am umble still. I hope I
never shall be otherwise than umble. You will not think the worse of
my umbleness, if I make a little confidence to you, Master Copperfield?
Will you?’
‘Oh no,’ said I, with an effort.
‘Thank you!’ He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began wiping the
palms of his hands. ‘Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield--’ ‘Well, Uriah?’
‘Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously!’ he cried; and gave
himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. ‘You thought her looking very
beautiful tonight, Master Copperfield?’
‘I thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all respects, to
everyone around her,’ I returned.
‘Oh, thank you! It’s so true!’ he cried. ‘Oh, thank you very much for
that!’
‘Not at all,’ I said, loftily. ‘There is no reason why you should thank
me.’
‘Why that, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘is, in fact, the confidence
that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble as I am,’ he
wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the fire by turns,
‘umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but honest roof has ever
been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don’t mind trusting you with my secret,
Master Copperfield, for I have always overflowed towards you since the
first moment I had the pleasure of beholding you in a pony-shay) has
been in my breast for years. Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure
affection do I love the ground my Agnes walks on!’
I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out of
the fire, and running him through with it. It went from me with a shock,
like a ball fired from a rifle: but the image of Agnes, outraged by so
much as a thought of this red-headed animal’s, remained in my mind when
I looked at him, sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body,
and made me giddy. He seemed to swell and grow before my eyes; the room
seemed full of the echoes of his voice; and the strange feeling (to
which, perhaps, no one is quite a stranger) that all this had occurred
before, at some indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to
say next, took possession of me.
A timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face,
did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of Agnes, in
its full force, than any effort I could have made. I asked him, with
a better appearance of composure than I could have thought possible a
minute before, whether he had made his feelings known to Agnes.
‘Oh no, Master Copperfield!’ he returned; ‘oh dear, no! Not to anyone
but you. You see I am only just emerging from my lowly station. I rest a
good deal of hope on her observing how useful I am to her father (for
I trust to be very useful to him indeed, Master Copperfield), and how I
smooth the way for him, and keep him straight. She’s so much attached
to her father, Master Copperfield (oh, what a lovely thing it is in a
daughter!), that I think she may come, on his account, to be kind to
me.’
I fathomed the depth of the rascal’s whole scheme, and understood why he
laid it bare.
‘If you’ll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master Copperfield,’ he
pursued, ‘and not, in general, to go against me, I shall take it as a
particular favour. You wouldn’t wish to make unpleasantness. I know
what a friendly heart you’ve got; but having only known me on my umble
footing (on my umblest I should say, for I am very umble still), you
might, unbeknown, go against me rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine,
you see, Master Copperfield. There’s a song that says, “I’d crowns
resign, to call her mine!” I hope to do it, one of these days.’
Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for anyone that I could
think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a
wretch as this!
‘There’s no hurry at present, you know, Master Copperfield,’ Uriah
proceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this thought
in my mind. ‘My Agnes is very young still; and mother and me will have
to work our way upwards, and make a good many new arrangements, before
it would be quite convenient. So I shall have time gradually to make her
familiar with my hopes, as opportunities offer. Oh, I’m so much obliged
to you for this confidence! Oh, it’s such a relief, you can’t think, to
know that you understand our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn’t
wish to make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!’
He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having given it a damp
squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch.
‘Dear me!’ he said, ‘it’s past one. The moments slip away so, in the
confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it’s almost half past
one!’
I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really
thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually
scattered.
‘Dear me!’ he said, considering. ‘The ouse that I am stopping at--a sort
of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near the New
River ed--will have gone to bed these two hours.’
‘I am sorry,’ I returned, ‘that there is only one bed here, and that
I--’
‘Oh, don’t think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!’ he rejoined
ecstatically, drawing up one leg. ‘But would you have any objections to
my laying down before the fire?’
‘If it comes to that,’ I said, ‘pray take my bed, and I’ll lie down
before the fire.’
His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of
its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp,
then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the
level of low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an
incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any
little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less
than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right
in the morning by the best authorities. As no arguments I could urge,
in my bewildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty
in inducing him to accept my bedroom, I was obliged to make the best
arrangements I could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of
the sofa (which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the
sofa pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and
a great-coat, made him a bed and covering, for which he was more than
thankful. Having lent him a night-cap, which he put on at once, and in
which he made such an awful figure, that I have never worn one since, I
left him to his rest.
I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned
and tumbled; how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and this
creature; how I considered what could I do, and what ought I to do; how
I could come to no other conclusion than that the best course for her
peace was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard. If
I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes with her tender
eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as I had so often seen
him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with vague
terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next
room, sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare; and oppressed me with a
leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger.
The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn’t come out. I
thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I
had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so
haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that
I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his
back, with his legs extending to I don’t know where, gurglings taking
place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like
a post-office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered
fancy, that afterwards I was attracted to him in very repulsion, and
could not help wandering in and out every half-hour or so, and taking
another look at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and
hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky.
When I saw him going downstairs early in the morning (for, thank Heaven!
he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was
going away in his person. When I went out to the Commons, I charged
Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, that my
sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence.
CHAPTER 26. I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY
I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes left town. I was
at the coach office to take leave of her and see her go; and there was
he, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small
satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered,
mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with an umbrella
like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while
Agnes was, of course, inside; but what I underwent in my efforts to be
friendly with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little
recompense. At the coach window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered
about us without a moment’s intermission, like a great vulture: gorging
himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes, or Agnes said to me.
In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown
me, I had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in reference to
the partnership. ‘I did what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it
was necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice should be made, I
entreated him to make it.’ A miserable foreboding that she would
yield to, and sustain herself by, the same feeling in reference to any
sacrifice for his sake, had oppressed me ever since. I knew how she
loved him. I knew what the devotion of her nature was. I knew from her
own lips that she regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors,
and as owing him a great debt she ardently desired to pay. I had no
consolation in seeing how different she was from this detestable Rufus
with the mulberry-coloured great-coat, for I felt that in the very
difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and the
sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay. All this, doubtless, he
knew thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered well.
Yet I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off,
must destroy the happiness of Agnes; and I was so sure, from her manner,
of its being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet;
that I could as soon have injured her, as given her any warning of what
impended. Thus it was that we parted without explanation: she waving
her hand and smiling farewell from the coach window; her evil genius
writhing on the roof, as if he had her in his clutches and triumphed.
I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. When
Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable as when
I saw her going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this
subject was sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be
redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. It became a
part of my life, and as inseparable from my life as my own head.
I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness: for Steerforth was at
Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the Commons, I was
very much alone. I believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of
Steerforth. I wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his, but I
think I was glad, upon the whole, that he could not come to London just
then. I suspect the truth to be, that the influence of Agnes was upon
me, undisturbed by the sight of him; and that it was the more powerful
with me, because she had so large a share in my thoughts and interest.
In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was articled to Spenlow
and Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my house-rent
and sundry collateral matters) from my aunt. My rooms were engaged
for twelve months certain: and though I still found them dreary of an
evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of
equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee; which I seem, on
looking back, to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my
existence. At about this time, too, I made three discoveries: first,
that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called ‘the
spazzums’, which was generally accompanied with inflammation of the
nose, and required to be constantly treated with peppermint; secondly,
that something peculiar in the temperature of my pantry, made the
brandy-bottles burst; thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much
given to record that circumstance in fragments of English versification.
On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my
having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and going
alone to the theatre at night. I went to see The Stranger, as a Doctors’
Commons sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up, that I hardly knew
myself in my own glass when I got home. Mr. Spenlow remarked, on this
occasion, when we concluded our business, that he should have been
happy to have seen me at his house at Norwood to celebrate our becoming
connected, but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder,
on account of the expected return of his daughter from finishing her
education at Paris. But, he intimated that when she came home he should
hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that he was a
widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgements.
Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week or two, he referred to
this engagement, and said, that if I would do him the favour to come
down next Saturday, and stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy.
Of course I said I would do him the favour; and he was to drive me down
in his phaeton, and to bring me back.
When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of veneration
to the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at Norwood was a sacred
mystery. One of them informed me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow
ate entirely off plate and china; and another hinted at champagne being
constantly on draught, after the usual custom of table-beer. The old
clerk with the wig, whose name was Mr. Tiffey, had been down on business
several times in the course of his career, and had on each occasion
penetrated to the breakfast-parlour. He described it as an apartment of
the most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown East India
sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. We had
an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day--about excommunicating a
baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate--and as the
evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a
calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we finished.
However, we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in
no end of costs; and then the baker’s proctor, and the judge, and the
advocates on both sides (who were all nearly related), went out of town
together, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton.
The phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses arched their necks
and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to Doctors’
Commons. There was a good deal of competition in the Commons on all
points of display, and it turned out some very choice equipages then;
though I always have considered, and always shall consider, that in my
time the great article of competition there was starch: which I think
was worn among the proctors to as great an extent as it is in the nature
of man to bear.
We were very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some hints in
reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest profession in
the world, and must on no account be confounded with the profession of a
solicitor: being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more exclusive,
less mechanical, and more profitable. We took things much more easily
in the Commons than they could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and
that set us, as a privileged class, apart. He said it was impossible
to conceal the disagreeable fact, that we were chiefly employed by
solicitors; but he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race
of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretensions.
I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional
business? He replied, that a good case of a disputed will, where there
was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was,
perhaps, the best of all. In such a case, he said, not only were there
very pretty pickings, in the way of arguments at every stage of the
proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory
and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to
the Delegates, and then to the Lords), but, the costs being pretty sure
to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively
and spirited manner, and expense was no consideration. Then, he launched
into a general eulogium on the Commons. What was to be particularly
admired (he said) in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the most
conveniently organized place in the world. It was the complete idea of
snugness. It lay in a nutshell. For example: You brought a divorce case,
or a restitution case, into the Consistory. Very good. You tried it in
the Consistory. You made a quiet little round game of it, among a family
group, and you played it out at leisure. Suppose you were not satisfied
with the Consistory, what did you do then? Why, you went into the
Arches. What was the Arches? The same court, in the same room, with the
same bar, and the same practitioners, but another judge, for there the
Consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. Well, you
played your round game out again. Still you were not satisfied. Very
good. What did you do then? Why, you went to the Delegates. Who were the
Delegates? Why, the Ecclesiastical Delegates were the advocates without
any business, who had looked on at the round game when it was playing in
both courts, and had seen the cards shuffled, and cut, and played, and
had talked to all the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges,
to settle the matter to the satisfaction of everybody! Discontented
people might talk of corruption in the Commons, closeness in the
Commons, and the necessity of reforming the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow
solemnly, in conclusion; but when the price of wheat per bushel had been
highest, the Commons had been busiest; and a man might lay his hand upon
his heart, and say this to the whole world,--‘Touch the Commons, and
down comes the country!’
I listened to all this with attention; and though, I must say, I had my
doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the Commons as
Mr. Spenlow made out, I respectfully deferred to his opinion. That
about the price of wheat per bushel, I modestly felt was too much for
my strength, and quite settled the question. I have never, to this hour,
got the better of that bushel of wheat. It has reappeared to annihilate
me, all through my life, in connexion with all kinds of subjects. I
don’t know now, exactly, what it has to do with me, or what right it has
to crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions; but whenever I see my
old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders (as he always
is, I observe), I give up a subject for lost.
This is a digression. I was not the man to touch the Commons, and
bring down the country. I submissively expressed, by my silence, my
acquiescence in all I had heard from my superior in years and knowledge;
and we talked about The Stranger and the Drama, and the pairs of horses,
until we came to Mr. Spenlow’s gate.
There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow’s house; and though that was
not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully
kept, that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were
clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just
distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs
and flowers grew in the growing season. ‘Here Miss Spenlow walks by
herself,’ I thought. ‘Dear me!’
We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall
where there were all sorts of hats, caps, great-coats, plaids, gloves,
whips, and walking-sticks. ‘Where is Miss Dora?’ said Mr. Spenlow to the
servant. ‘Dora!’ I thought. ‘What a beautiful name!’
We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical
breakfast-room, made memorable by the brown East Indian sherry), and I
heard a voice say, ‘Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my daughter
Dora’s confidential friend!’ It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow’s voice,
but I didn’t know it, and I didn’t care whose it was. All was over in a
moment. I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved
Dora Spenlow to distraction!
She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t
know what she was--anything that no one ever saw, and everything that
everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an
instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking
back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.
‘I,’ observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and murmured
something, ‘have seen Mr. Copperfield before.’
The speaker was not Dora. No; the confidential friend, Miss Murdstone!
I don’t think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgement,
no capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing worth
mentioning in the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be astonished
about. I said, ‘How do you do, Miss Murdstone? I hope you are well.’ She
answered, ‘Very well.’ I said, ‘How is Mr. Murdstone?’ She replied, ‘My
brother is robust, I am obliged to you.’
Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognize each
other, then put in his word.
‘I am glad to find,’ he said, ‘Copperfield, that you and Miss Murdstone
are already acquainted.’
‘Mr. Copperfield and myself,’ said Miss Murdstone, with severe
composure, ‘are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted. It was in
his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. I should not
have known him.’
I replied that I should have known her, anywhere. Which was true enough.
‘Miss Murdstone has had the goodness,’ said Mr. Spenlow to me, ‘to
accept the office--if I may so describe it--of my daughter Dora’s
confidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss
Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector.’
A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket
instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for
purposes of protection as of assault. But as I had none but passing
thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly
afterwards, and was thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner,
that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to
her companion and protector, when a bell rang, which Mr. Spenlow said
was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to dress.
The idea of dressing one’s self, or doing anything in the way of action,
in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. I could only sit
down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the
captivating, girlish, bright-eyed lovely Dora. What a form she had, what
a face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner!
The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dressing,
instead of the careful operation I could have wished under the
circumstances, and went downstairs. There was some company. Dora was
talking to an old gentleman with a grey head. Grey as he was--and a
great-grandfather into the bargain, for he said so--I was madly jealous
of him.
What a state of mind I was in! I was jealous of everybody. I couldn’t
bear the idea of anybody knowing Mr. Spenlow better than I did. It was
torturing to me to hear them talk of occurrences in which I had had no
share. When a most amiable person, with a highly polished bald head,
asked me across the dinner table, if that were the first occasion of my
seeing the grounds, I could have done anything to him that was savage
and revengeful.
I don’t remember who was there, except Dora. I have not the least idea
what we had for dinner, besides Dora. My impression is, that I dined off
Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched. I sat next
to her. I talked to her. She had the most delightful little voice, the
gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little
ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. She was rather
diminutive altogether. So much the more precious, I thought.
When she went out of the room with Miss Murdstone (no other ladies
were of the party), I fell into a reverie, only disturbed by the cruel
apprehension that Miss Murdstone would disparage me to her. The amiable
creature with the polished head told me a long story, which I think was
about gardening. I think I heard him say, ‘my gardener’, several times.
I seemed to pay the deepest attention to him, but I was wandering in a
garden of Eden all the while, with Dora.
My apprehensions of being disparaged to the object of my engrossing
affection were revived when we went into the drawing-room, by the grim
and distant aspect of Miss Murdstone. But I was relieved of them in an
unexpected manner.
‘David Copperfield,’ said Miss Murdstone, beckoning me aside into a
window. ‘A word.’
I confronted Miss Murdstone alone.
‘David Copperfield,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘I need not enlarge upon
family circumstances. They are not a tempting subject.’ ‘Far from it,
ma’am,’ I returned.
‘Far from it,’ assented Miss Murdstone. ‘I do not wish to revive
the memory of past differences, or of past outrages. I have received
outrages from a person--a female I am sorry to say, for the credit of my
sex--who is not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust; and therefore
I would rather not mention her.’
I felt very fiery on my aunt’s account; but I said it would certainly be
better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, not to mention her. I could not hear
her disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without expressing my opinion in
a decided tone.
Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head; then,
slowly opening her eyes, resumed:
‘David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that I
formed an unfavourable opinion of you in your childhood. It may have
been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. That is not
in question between us now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe,
for some firmness; and I am not the creature of circumstance or change.
I may have my opinion of you. You may have your opinion of me.’
I inclined my head, in my turn.
‘But it is not necessary,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘that these opinions
should come into collision here. Under existing circumstances, it is as
well on all accounts that they should not. As the chances of life have
brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions,
I would say, let us meet here as distant acquaintances. Family
circumstances are a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that
footing, and it is quite unnecessary that either of us should make the
other the subject of remark. Do you approve of this?’
‘Miss Murdstone,’ I returned, ‘I think you and Mr. Murdstone used me
very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall
always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you
propose.’
Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. Then, just
touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers,
she walked away, arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round
her neck; which seemed to be the same set, in exactly the same state,
as when I had seen her last. These reminded me, in reference to Miss
Murdstone’s nature, of the fetters over a jail door; suggesting on the
outside, to all beholders, what was to be expected within.
All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of
my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the
effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra
la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling
a guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium. That I refused
refreshment. That my soul recoiled from punch particularly. That when
Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and
gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror,
looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most
maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation.
It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take a
stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by
dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall, I encountered her
little dog, who was called Jip--short for Gipsy. I approached him
tenderly, for I loved even him; but he showed his whole set of teeth,
got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn’t hear of the least
familiarity.
The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what my
feelings of happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged to this
dear wonder. As to marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was
almost as innocently undesigning then, as when I loved little Em’ly. To
be allowed to call her ‘Dora’, to write to her, to dote upon and worship
her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was
yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition--I am
sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was
a lackadaisical young spooney; but there was a purity of heart in all
this, that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it,
let me laugh as I may.
I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner, and met her. I
tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and
my pen shakes in my hand.
‘You--are--out early, Miss Spenlow,’ said I.
‘It’s so stupid at home,’ she replied, ‘and Miss Murdstone is so absurd!
She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the day to be
aired, before I come out. Aired!’ (She laughed, here, in the most
melodious manner.) ‘On a Sunday morning, when I don’t practise, I must
do something. So I told papa last night I must come out. Besides, it’s
the brightest time of the whole day. Don’t you think so?’
I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it
was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute
before.
‘Do you mean a compliment?’ said Dora, ‘or that the weather has really
changed?’
I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment,
but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken
place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added
bashfully: to clench the explanation.
I never saw such curls--how could I, for there never were such
curls!--as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat
and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have
hung it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession
it would have been!
‘You have just come home from Paris,’ said I.
‘Yes,’ said she. ‘Have you ever been there?’
‘No.’
‘Oh! I hope you’ll go soon! You would like it so much!’
Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she
should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I could go,
was insupportable. I depreciated Paris; I depreciated France. I said I
wouldn’t leave England, under existing circumstances, for any earthly
consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, she was shaking the
curls again, when the little dog came running along the walk to our
relief.
He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She took
him up in her arms--oh my goodness!--and caressed him, but he persisted
upon barking still. He wouldn’t let me touch him, when I tried; and then
she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she
gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked
his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a
little double-bass. At length he was quiet--well he might be with her
dimpled chin upon his head!--and we walked away to look at a greenhouse.
‘You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you?’ said Dora.
--‘My pet.’
(The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to me!)
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Not at all so.’
‘She is a tiresome creature,’ said Dora, pouting. ‘I can’t think what
papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my
companion. Who wants a protector? I am sure I don’t want a protector.
Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone,--can’t you,
Jip, dear?’
He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head.
‘Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such
thing--is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross
people, Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like,
and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for
us--don’t we, Jip?’
Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when
it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, riveted above
the last.
‘It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to have,
instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following
us about--isn’t it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won’t be confidential, and
we’ll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and we’ll tease
her, and not please her--won’t we, Jip?’
If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my knees
on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of
being presently ejected from the premises besides. But, by good fortune
the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to it.
It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in
front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one,
and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog
up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if we were not all three in
Fairyland, certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at this day,
strikes me with a half comical half serious wonder as to what change has
come over me in a moment; and then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons,
and a quantity of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two
slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves.
Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here; and presented
her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair
powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora’s arm in hers, and
marched us into breakfast as if it were a soldier’s funeral.
How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I don’t know. But,
I perfectly remember that I sat swilling tea until my whole nervous
system, if I had had any in those days, must have gone by the board. By
and by we went to church. Miss Murdstone was between Dora and me in the
pew; but I heard her sing, and the congregation vanished. A sermon was
delivered--about Dora, of course--and I am afraid that is all I know of
the service.
We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four, and an
evening of looking over books and pictures; Miss Murdstone with a homily
before her, and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. Ah! little
did Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after dinner that
day, with his pocket-handkerchief over his head, how fervently I was
embracing him, in my fancy, as his son-in-law! Little did he think, when
I took leave of him at night, that he had just given his full consent to
my being engaged to Dora, and that I was invoking blessings on his head!
We departed early in the morning, for we had a Salvage case coming on in
the Admiralty Court, requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole
science of navigation, in which (as we couldn’t be expected to know
much about those matters in the Commons) the judge had entreated two old
Trinity Masters, for charity’s sake, to come and help him out. Dora was
at the breakfast-table to make the tea again, however; and I had the
melancholy pleasure of taking off my hat to her in the phaeton, as she
stood on the door-step with Jip in her arms.
What the Admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense I made of our case
in my mind, as I listened to it; how I saw ‘DORA’ engraved upon the
blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem
of that high jurisdiction; and how I felt when Mr. Spenlow went home
without me (I had had an insane hope that he might take me back again),
as if I were a mariner myself, and the ship to which I belonged had
sailed away and left me on a desert island; I shall make no fruitless
effort to describe. If that sleepy old court could rouse itself, and
present in any visible form the daydreams I have had in it about Dora,
it would reveal my truth.
I don’t mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day after
day, from week to week, and term to term. I went there, not to attend to
what was going on, but to think about Dora. If ever I bestowed a thought
upon the cases, as they dragged their slow length before me, it was only
to wonder, in the matrimonial cases (remembering Dora), how it was
that married people could ever be otherwise than happy; and, in the
Prerogative cases, to consider, if the money in question had been left
to me, what were the foremost steps I should immediately have taken
in regard to Dora. Within the first week of my passion, I bought four
sumptuous waistcoats--not for myself; I had no pride in them; for
Dora--and took to wearing straw-coloured kid gloves in the streets, and
laid the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the boots I
wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the natural
size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart was, in a
most affecting manner.
And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to
Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. Not
only was I soon as well known on the Norwood Road as the postmen on that
beat, but I pervaded London likewise. I walked about the streets where
the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet
spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was
quite knocked up. Sometimes, at long intervals and on rare occasions, I
saw her. Perhaps I saw her glove waved in a carriage window; perhaps I
met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little way, and spoke to
her. In the latter case I was always very miserable afterwards, to think
that I had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no idea of the
extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was always
looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to Mr. Spenlow’s
house. I was always being disappointed, for I got none.
Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this
attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage
to write more explicitly even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr.
Spenlow’s house, ‘whose family,’ I added, ‘consists of one daughter’;--I
say Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that
early stage, she found it out. She came up to me one evening, when I
was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have
mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums
mixed with rhubarb, and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of
cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint;--or, if I had not
such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It
was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As
I had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in
the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that I might
have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to
take in my presence.
‘Cheer up, sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp. ‘I can’t abear to see you so, sir: I’m
a mother myself.’
I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I
smiled on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power.
‘Come, sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp. ‘Excuse me. I know what it is, sir.
There’s a lady in the case.’
‘Mrs. Crupp?’ I returned, reddening.
‘Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir!’ said Mrs. Crupp, nodding
encouragement. ‘Never say die, sir! If She don’t smile upon you,
there’s a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr.
Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir.’
Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull: firstly, no doubt, because
it was not my name; and secondly, I am inclined to think, in some
indistinct association with a washing-day.
‘What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs.
Crupp?’ said I.
‘Mr. Copperfull,’ said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, ‘I’m a
mother myself.’
For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom,
and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At
length she spoke again.
‘When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr.
Copperfull,’ said Mrs. Crupp, ‘my remark were, I had now found summun
I could care for. “Thank Ev’in!” were the expression, “I have now found
summun I can care for!”--You don’t eat enough, sir, nor yet drink.’
‘Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp?’ said I.
‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, ‘I’ve
laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman
may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself.
He may brush his hair too regular, or too un-regular. He may wear his
boots much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as
the young gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to
which extreme he may, sir, there’s a young lady in both of ‘em.’
Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had not an
inch of vantage-ground left.
‘It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself,’ said Mrs.
Crupp, ‘that fell in love--with a barmaid--and had his waistcoats took
in directly, though much swelled by drinking.’
‘Mrs. Crupp,’ said I, ‘I must beg you not to connect the young lady in
my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you please.’
‘Mr. Copperfull,’ returned Mrs. Crupp, ‘I’m a mother myself, and not
likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to
intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr.
Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good
heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something,
sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp, ‘if you was to take to skittles, now, which is
healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and do you good.’
With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the
brandy--which was all gone--thanked me with a majestic curtsey, and
retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, this
counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight
liberty on Mrs. Crupp’s part; but, at the same time, I was content
to receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a
warning in future to keep my secret better.
CHAPTER 27. TOMMY TRADDLES
It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp’s advice, and, perhaps,
for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the
sound of the word skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, next
day, to go and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was more
than out, and he lived in a little street near the Veterinary College
at Camden Town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who
lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought
live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private
apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the academic
grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old
schoolfellow.
I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have
wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to
have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of,
into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too,
on account of the cabbage-leaves. The refuse was not wholly vegetable
either, for I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet,
and an umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as I was looking
out for the number I wanted.
The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when I
lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded
gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike
all the other houses in the street--though they were all built on one
monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy
who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped
brick-and-mortar pothooks--reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the
afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly
yet.
‘Now,’ said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. ‘Has that there
little bill of mine been heerd on?’
‘Oh, master says he’ll attend to it immediate,’ was the reply.
‘Because,’ said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer,
and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of
somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant--an
impression which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the
passage--‘because that there little bill has been running so long, that
I begin to believe it’s run away altogether, and never won’t be heerd
of. Now, I’m not a going to stand it, you know!’ said the milkman, still
throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage.
As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by the by, there never
was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a
butcher or a brandy-merchant.
The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me,
from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended
to immediate.
‘I tell you what,’ said the milkman, looking hard at her for the first
time, and taking her by the chin, ‘are you fond of milk?’
‘Yes, I likes it,’ she replied. ‘Good,’ said the milkman. ‘Then you
won’t have none tomorrow. D’ye hear? Not a fragment of milk you won’t
have tomorrow.’
I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved by the prospect of having
any today. The milkman, after shaking his head at her darkly, released
her chin, and with anything rather than good-will opened his can, and
deposited the usual quantity in the family jug. This done, he went away,
muttering, and uttered the cry of his trade next door, in a vindictive
shriek.
‘Does Mr. Traddles live here?’ I then inquired.
A mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied ‘Yes.’ Upon which
the youthful servant replied ‘Yes.’
‘Is he at home?’ said I.
Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again the
servant echoed it. Upon this, I walked in, and in pursuance of the
servant’s directions walked upstairs; conscious, as I passed the
back parlour-door, that I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably
belonging to the mysterious voice.
When I got to the top of the stairs--the house was only a story high
above the ground floor--Traddles was on the landing to meet me. He was
delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to
his little room. It was in the front of the house, and extremely neat,
though sparely furnished. It was his only room, I saw; for there was a
sofa-bedstead in it, and his blacking-brushes and blacking were among
his books--on the top shelf, behind a dictionary. His table was covered
with papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat. I looked at
nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything, even to the prospect of
a church upon his china inkstand, as I sat down--and this, too, was a
faculty confirmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various ingenious
arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers,
and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth,
particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of the same
Traddles who used to make models of elephants’ dens in writing-paper to
put flies in; and to comfort himself under ill usage, with the memorable
works of art I have so often mentioned.
In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a large
white cloth. I could not make out what that was.
‘Traddles,’ said I, shaking hands with him again, after I had sat down,
‘I am delighted to see you.’
‘I am delighted to see YOU, Copperfield,’ he returned. ‘I am very glad
indeed to see you. It was because I was thoroughly glad to see you when
we met in Ely Place, and was sure you were thoroughly glad to see me,
that I gave you this address instead of my address at chambers.’ ‘Oh!
You have chambers?’ said I.
‘Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of a
clerk,’ returned Traddles. ‘Three others and myself unite to have a
set of chambers--to look business-like--and we quarter the clerk too.
Half-a-crown a week he costs me.’
His old simple character and good temper, and something of his old
unlucky fortune also, I thought, smiled at me in the smile with which he
made this explanation.
‘It’s not because I have the least pride, Copperfield, you understand,’
said Traddles, ‘that I don’t usually give my address here. It’s only on
account of those who come to me, who might not like to come here. For
myself, I am fighting my way on in the world against difficulties, and
it would be ridiculous if I made a pretence of doing anything else.’
‘You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed me?’ said I.
‘Why, yes,’ said Traddles, rubbing his hands slowly over one another. ‘I
am reading for the bar. The fact is, I have just begun to keep my terms,
after rather a long delay. It’s some time since I was articled, but the
payment of that hundred pounds was a great pull. A great pull!’ said
Traddles, with a wince, as if he had had a tooth out.
‘Do you know what I can’t help thinking of, Traddles, as I sit here
looking at you?’ I asked him.
‘No,’ said he.
‘That sky-blue suit you used to wear.’
‘Lord, to be sure!’ cried Traddles, laughing. ‘Tight in the arms and
legs, you know? Dear me! Well! Those were happy times, weren’t they?’
‘I think our schoolmaster might have made them happier, without doing
any harm to any of us, I acknowledge,’ I returned.
‘Perhaps he might,’ said Traddles. ‘But dear me, there was a good deal
of fun going on. Do you remember the nights in the bedroom? When we used
to have the suppers? And when you used to tell the stories? Ha, ha,
ha! And do you remember when I got caned for crying about Mr. Mell? Old
Creakle! I should like to see him again, too!’
‘He was a brute to you, Traddles,’ said I, indignantly; for his good
humour made me feel as if I had seen him beaten but yesterday.
‘Do you think so?’ returned Traddles. ‘Really? Perhaps he was rather.
But it’s all over, a long while. Old Creakle!’
‘You were brought up by an uncle, then?’ said I.
‘Of course I was!’ said Traddles. ‘The one I was always going to write
to. And always didn’t, eh! Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I had an uncle then. He died
soon after I left school.’
‘Indeed!’
‘Yes. He was a retired--what do you call
it!--draper--cloth-merchant--and had made me his heir. But he didn’t
like me when I grew up.’
‘Do you really mean that?’ said I. He was so composed, that I fancied he
must have some other meaning.
‘Oh dear, yes, Copperfield! I mean it,’ replied Traddles. ‘It was an
unfortunate thing, but he didn’t like me at all. He said I wasn’t at all
what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper.’
‘And what did you do?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t do anything in particular,’ said Traddles. ‘I lived with them,
waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout unfortunately flew
to his stomach--and so he died, and so she married a young man, and so I
wasn’t provided for.’
‘Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all?’
‘Oh dear, yes!’ said Traddles. ‘I got fifty pounds. I had never been
brought up to any profession, and at first I was at a loss what to
do for myself. However, I began, with the assistance of the son of a
professional man, who had been to Salem House--Yawler, with his nose on
one side. Do you recollect him?’
No. He had not been there with me; all the noses were straight in my
day.
‘It don’t matter,’ said Traddles. ‘I began, by means of his assistance,
to copy law writings. That didn’t answer very well; and then I began to
state cases for them, and make abstracts, and that sort of work. For
I am a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt the way of
doing such things pithily. Well! That put it in my head to enter myself
as a law student; and that ran away with all that was left of the fifty
pounds. Yawler recommended me to one or two other offices, however--Mr.
Waterbrook’s for one--and I got a good many jobs. I was fortunate
enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the publishing way,
who was getting up an Encyclopaedia, and he set me to work; and, indeed’
(glancing at his table), ‘I am at work for him at this minute. I am not
a bad compiler, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, preserving the same air of
cheerful confidence in all he said, ‘but I have no invention at all; not
a particle. I suppose there never was a young man with less originality
than I have.’
As Traddles seemed to expect that I should assent to this as a matter
of course, I nodded; and he went on, with the same sprightly patience--I
can find no better expression--as before.
‘So, by little and little, and not living high, I managed to scrape up
the hundred pounds at last,’ said Traddles; ‘and thank Heaven that’s
paid--though it was--though it certainly was,’ said Traddles, wincing
again as if he had had another tooth out, ‘a pull. I am living by the
sort of work I have mentioned, still, and I hope, one of these days, to
get connected with some newspaper: which would almost be the making of
my fortune. Now, Copperfield, you are so exactly what you used to
be, with that agreeable face, and it’s so pleasant to see you, that I
sha’n’t conceal anything. Therefore you must know that I am engaged.’
Engaged! Oh, Dora!
‘She is a curate’s daughter,’ said Traddles; ‘one of ten, down in
Devonshire. Yes!’ For he saw me glance, involuntarily, at the prospect
on the inkstand. ‘That’s the church! You come round here to the left,
out of this gate,’ tracing his finger along the inkstand, ‘and exactly
where I hold this pen, there stands the house--facing, you understand,
towards the church.’
The delight with which he entered into these particulars, did not fully
present itself to me until afterwards; for my selfish thoughts were
making a ground-plan of Mr. Spenlow’s house and garden at the same
moment.
‘She is such a dear girl!’ said Traddles; ‘a little older than me, but
the dearest girl! I told you I was going out of town? I have been down
there. I walked there, and I walked back, and I had the most delightful
time! I dare say ours is likely to be a rather long engagement, but our
motto is “Wait and hope!” We always say that. “Wait and hope,” we always
say. And she would wait, Copperfield, till she was sixty--any age you
can mention--for me!’
Traddles rose from his chair, and, with a triumphant smile, put his hand
upon the white cloth I had observed.
‘However,’ he said, ‘it’s not that we haven’t made a beginning towards
housekeeping. No, no; we have begun. We must get on by degrees, but we
have begun. Here,’ drawing the cloth off with great pride and care, ‘are
two pieces of furniture to commence with. This flower-pot and stand,
she bought herself. You put that in a parlour window,’ said Traddles,
falling a little back from it to survey it with the greater admiration,
‘with a plant in it, and--and there you are! This little round table
with the marble top (it’s two feet ten in circumference), I bought. You
want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody comes to see you or your
wife, and wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, and--and there you
are again!’ said Traddles. ‘It’s an admirable piece of workmanship--firm
as a rock!’ I praised them both, highly, and Traddles replaced the
covering as carefully as he had removed it.
‘It’s not a great deal towards the furnishing,’ said Traddles, ‘but
it’s something. The table-cloths, and pillow-cases, and articles of
that kind, are what discourage me most, Copperfield. So does
the ironmongery--candle-boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of
necessaries--because those things tell, and mount up. However, “wait and
hope!” And I assure you she’s the dearest girl!’
‘I am quite certain of it,’ said I.
‘In the meantime,’ said Traddles, coming back to his chair; ‘and this is
the end of my prosing about myself, I get on as well as I can. I don’t
make much, but I don’t spend much. In general, I board with the people
downstairs, who are very agreeable people indeed. Both Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber have seen a good deal of life, and are excellent company.’
‘My dear Traddles!’ I quickly exclaimed. ‘What are you talking about?’
Traddles looked at me, as if he wondered what I was talking about.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!’ I repeated. ‘Why, I am intimately acquainted
with them!’
An opportune double knock at the door, which I knew well from old
experience in Windsor Terrace, and which nobody but Mr. Micawber could
ever have knocked at that door, resolved any doubt in my mind as to
their being my old friends. I begged Traddles to ask his landlord
to walk up. Traddles accordingly did so, over the banister; and Mr.
Micawber, not a bit changed--his tights, his stick, his shirt-collar,
and his eye-glass, all the same as ever--came into the room with a
genteel and youthful air.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Traddles,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll
in his voice, as he checked himself in humming a soft tune. ‘I was not
aware that there was any individual, alien to this tenement, in your
sanctum.’
Mr. Micawber slightly bowed to me, and pulled up his shirt-collar.
‘How do you do, Mr. Micawber?’ said I.
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you are exceedingly obliging. I am in statu
quo.’
‘And Mrs. Micawber?’ I pursued.
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘she is also, thank God, in statu quo.’
‘And the children, Mr. Micawber?’
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I rejoice to reply that they are, likewise,
in the enjoyment of salubrity.’
All this time, Mr. Micawber had not known me in the least, though he
had stood face to face with me. But now, seeing me smile, he examined my
features with more attention, fell back, cried, ‘Is it possible! Have I
the pleasure of again beholding Copperfield!’ and shook me by both hands
with the utmost fervour.
‘Good Heaven, Mr. Traddles!’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘to think that I should
find you acquainted with the friend of my youth, the companion of
earlier days! My dear!’ calling over the banisters to Mrs. Micawber,
while Traddles looked (with reason) not a little amazed at this
description of me. ‘Here is a gentleman in Mr. Traddles’s apartment,
whom he wishes to have the pleasure of presenting to you, my love!’
Mr. Micawber immediately reappeared, and shook hands with me again.
‘And how is our good friend the Doctor, Copperfield?’ said Mr. Micawber,
‘and all the circle at Canterbury?’
‘I have none but good accounts of them,’ said I.
‘I am most delighted to hear it,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘It was at
Canterbury where we last met. Within the shadow, I may figuratively say,
of that religious edifice immortalized by Chaucer, which was anciently
the resort of Pilgrims from the remotest corners of--in short,’ said Mr.
Micawber, ‘in the immediate neighbourhood of the Cathedral.’
I replied that it was. Mr. Micawber continued talking as volubly as he
could; but not, I thought, without showing, by some marks of concern in
his countenance, that he was sensible of sounds in the next room, as
of Mrs. Micawber washing her hands, and hurriedly opening and shutting
drawers that were uneasy in their action.
‘You find us, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, with one eye on Traddles,
‘at present established, on what may be designated as a small and
unassuming scale; but, you are aware that I have, in the course of my
career, surmounted difficulties, and conquered obstacles. You are no
stranger to the fact, that there have been periods of my life, when it
has been requisite that I should pause, until certain expected events
should turn up; when it has been necessary that I should fall back,
before making what I trust I shall not be accused of presumption in
terming--a spring. The present is one of those momentous stages in the
life of man. You find me, fallen back, FOR a spring; and I have every
reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result.’
I was expressing my satisfaction, when Mrs. Micawber came in; a little
more slatternly than she used to be, or so she seemed now, to my
unaccustomed eyes, but still with some preparation of herself for
company, and with a pair of brown gloves on.
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, leading her towards me, ‘here is
a gentleman of the name of Copperfield, who wishes to renew his
acquaintance with you.’
It would have been better, as it turned out, to have led gently up
to this announcement, for Mrs. Micawber, being in a delicate state of
health, was overcome by it, and was taken so unwell, that Mr. Micawber
was obliged, in great trepidation, to run down to the water-butt in
the backyard, and draw a basinful to lave her brow with. She
presently revived, however, and was really pleased to see me. We had
half-an-hour’s talk, all together; and I asked her about the twins,
who, she said, were ‘grown great creatures’; and after Master and Miss
Micawber, whom she described as ‘absolute giants’, but they were not
produced on that occasion.
Mr. Micawber was very anxious that I should stay to dinner. I should not
have been averse to do so, but that I imagined I detected trouble, and
calculation relative to the extent of the cold meat, in Mrs. Micawber’s
eye. I therefore pleaded another engagement; and observing that Mrs.
Micawber’s spirits were immediately lightened, I resisted all persuasion
to forego it.
But I told Traddles, and Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, that before I could
think of leaving, they must appoint a day when they would come and dine
with me. The occupations to which Traddles stood pledged, rendered it
necessary to fix a somewhat distant one; but an appointment was made for
the purpose, that suited us all, and then I took my leave.
Mr. Micawber, under pretence of showing me a nearer way than that by
which I had come, accompanied me to the corner of the street; being
anxious (he explained to me) to say a few words to an old friend, in
confidence.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I need hardly tell you that
to have beneath our roof, under existing circumstances, a mind like that
which gleams--if I may be allowed the expression--which gleams--in your
friend Traddles, is an unspeakable comfort. With a washerwoman, who
exposes hard-bake for sale in her parlour-window, dwelling next door,
and a Bow-street officer residing over the way, you may imagine that his
society is a source of consolation to myself and to Mrs. Micawber. I
am at present, my dear Copperfield, engaged in the sale of corn upon
commission. It is not an avocation of a remunerative description--in
other words, it does not pay--and some temporary embarrassments of a
pecuniary nature have been the consequence. I am, however, delighted to
add that I have now an immediate prospect of something turning up (I am
not at liberty to say in what direction), which I trust will enable me
to provide, permanently, both for myself and for your friend Traddles,
in whom I have an unaffected interest. You may, perhaps, be prepared
to hear that Mrs. Micawber is in a state of health which renders it
not wholly improbable that an addition may be ultimately made to those
pledges of affection which--in short, to the infantine group. Mrs.
Micawber’s family have been so good as to express their dissatisfaction
at this state of things. I have merely to observe, that I am not aware
that it is any business of theirs, and that I repel that exhibition of
feeling with scorn, and with defiance!’
Mr. Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me.
CHAPTER 28. Mr. MICAWBER’S GAUNTLET
Until the day arrived on which I was to entertain my newly-found
old friends, I lived principally on Dora and coffee. In my love-lorn
condition, my appetite languished; and I was glad of it, for I felt
as though it would have been an act of perfidy towards Dora to have a
natural relish for my dinner. The quantity of walking exercise I took,
was not in this respect attended with its usual consequence, as the
disappointment counteracted the fresh air. I have my doubts, too,
founded on the acute experience acquired at this period of my life,
whether a sound enjoyment of animal food can develop itself freely in
any human subject who is always in torment from tight boots. I think
the extremities require to be at peace before the stomach will conduct
itself with vigour.
On the occasion of this domestic little party, I did not repeat my
former extensive preparations. I merely provided a pair of soles,
a small leg of mutton, and a pigeon-pie. Mrs. Crupp broke out into
rebellion on my first bashful hint in reference to the cooking of the
fish and joint, and said, with a dignified sense of injury, ‘No! No,
sir! You will not ask me sich a thing, for you are better acquainted
with me than to suppose me capable of doing what I cannot do with ampial
satisfaction to my own feelings!’ But, in the end, a compromise was
effected; and Mrs. Crupp consented to achieve this feat, on condition
that I dined from home for a fortnight afterwards.
And here I may remark, that what I underwent from Mrs. Crupp, in
consequence of the tyranny she established over me, was dreadful. I
never was so much afraid of anyone. We made a compromise of everything.
If I hesitated, she was taken with that wonderful disorder which was
always lying in ambush in her system, ready, at the shortest notice, to
prey upon her vitals. If I rang the bell impatiently, after half-a-dozen
unavailing modest pulls, and she appeared at last--which was not by any
means to be relied upon--she would appear with a reproachful aspect,
sink breathless on a chair near the door, lay her hand upon her nankeen
bosom, and become so ill, that I was glad, at any sacrifice of brandy or
anything else, to get rid of her. If I objected to having my bed made at
five o’clock in the afternoon--which I do still think an uncomfortable
arrangement--one motion of her hand towards the same nankeen region of
wounded sensibility was enough to make me falter an apology. In short,
I would have done anything in an honourable way rather than give Mrs.
Crupp offence; and she was the terror of my life.
I bought a second-hand dumb-waiter for this dinner-party, in preference
to re-engaging the handy young man; against whom I had conceived a
prejudice, in consequence of meeting him in the Strand, one Sunday
morning, in a waistcoat remarkably like one of mine, which had been
missing since the former occasion. The ‘young gal’ was re-engaged; but
on the stipulation that she should only bring in the dishes, and then
withdraw to the landing-place, beyond the outer door; where a habit of
sniffing she had contracted would be lost upon the guests, and where her
retiring on the plates would be a physical impossibility.
Having laid in the materials for a bowl of punch, to be compounded
by Mr. Micawber; having provided a bottle of lavender-water, two
wax-candles, a paper of mixed pins, and a pincushion, to assist Mrs.
Micawber in her toilette at my dressing-table; having also caused the
fire in my bedroom to be lighted for Mrs. Micawber’s convenience; and
having laid the cloth with my own hands, I awaited the result with
composure.
At the appointed time, my three visitors arrived together. Mr. Micawber
with more shirt-collar than usual, and a new ribbon to his eye-glass;
Mrs. Micawber with her cap in a whitey-brown paper parcel; Traddles
carrying the parcel, and supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm. They were
all delighted with my residence. When I conducted Mrs. Micawber to my
dressing-table, and she saw the scale on which it was prepared for her,
she was in such raptures, that she called Mr. Micawber to come in and
look.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘this is luxurious. This is a
way of life which reminds me of the period when I was myself in a state
of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her
faith at the Hymeneal altar.’
‘He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber,
archly. ‘He cannot answer for others.’
‘My dear,’ returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, ‘I have no
desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the
inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible
you may have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted
struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a
complicated nature. I understand your allusion, my love. I regret it,
but I can bear it.’
‘Micawber!’ exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. ‘Have I deserved this! I,
who never have deserted you; who never WILL desert you, Micawber!’ ‘My
love,’ said Mr. Micawber, much affected, ‘you will forgive, and our old
and tried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive, the momentary
laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision
with the Minion of Power--in other words, with a ribald Turncock
attached to the water-works--and will pity, not condemn, its excesses.’
Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and pressed my hand; leaving
me to infer from this broken allusion that his domestic supply of
water had been cut off that afternoon, in consequence of default in the
payment of the company’s rates.
To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr.
Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to
the lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a
moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance
of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and the steam of
boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to
see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes,
as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making,
instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity.
As to Mrs. Micawber, I don’t know whether it was the effect of the cap,
or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the fire, or the wax-candles, but
she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark
was never gayer than that excellent woman.
I suppose--I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose--that Mrs. Crupp,
after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke down at that
point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale without:
besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled over
it, as if if had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen
fireplace. But we were not in condition to judge of this fact from the
appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as the ‘young gal’ had dropped it all
upon the stairs--where it remained, by the by, in a long train, until it
was worn out. The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the
crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full
of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. In short, the
banquet was such a failure that I should have been quite unhappy--about
the failure, I mean, for I was always unhappy about Dora--if I had not
been relieved by the great good humour of my company, and by a bright
suggestion from Mr. Micawber.
‘My dear friend Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘accidents will occur
in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated by that
pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the--a--I would
say, in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of
Wife, they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with
philosophy. If you will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that
there are few comestibles better, in their way, than a Devil, and that
I believe, with a little division of labour, we could accomplish a good
one if the young person in attendance could produce a gridiron, I would
put it to you, that this little misfortune may be easily repaired.’
There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of
bacon was cooked. We had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately applied
ourselves to carrying Mr. Micawber’s idea into effect. The division of
labour to which he had referred was this:--Traddles cut the mutton into
slices; Mr. Micawber (who could do anything of this sort to perfection)
covered them with pepper, mustard, salt, and cayenne; I put them on
the gridiron, turned them with a fork, and took them off, under Mr.
Micawber’s direction; and Mrs. Micawber heated, and continually stirred,
some mushroom ketchup in a little saucepan. When we had slices enough
done to begin upon, we fell-to, with our sleeves still tucked up at the
wrist, more slices sputtering and blazing on the fire, and our attention
divided between the mutton on our plates, and the mutton then preparing.
What with the novelty of this cookery, the excellence of it, the bustle
of it, the frequent starting up to look after it, the frequent sitting
down to dispose of it as the crisp slices came off the gridiron hot and
hot, the being so busy, so flushed with the fire, so amused, and in the
midst of such a tempting noise and savour, we reduced the leg of mutton
to the bone. My own appetite came back miraculously. I am ashamed to
record it, but I really believe I forgot Dora for a little while. I am
satisfied that Mr. and Mrs. Micawber could not have enjoyed the
feast more, if they had sold a bed to provide it. Traddles laughed as
heartily, almost the whole time, as he ate and worked. Indeed we all
did, all at once; and I dare say there was never a greater success.
We were at the height of our enjoyment, and were all busily engaged, in
our several departments, endeavouring to bring the last batch of slices
to a state of perfection that should crown the feast, when I was aware
of a strange presence in the room, and my eyes encountered those of the
staid Littimer, standing hat in hand before me.
‘What’s the matter?’ I involuntarily asked.
‘I beg your pardon, sir, I was directed to come in. Is my master not
here, sir?’
‘No.’
‘Have you not seen him, sir?’
‘No; don’t you come from him?’
‘Not immediately so, sir.’
‘Did he tell you you would find him here?’
‘Not exactly so, sir. But I should think he might be here tomorrow, as
he has not been here today.’ ‘Is he coming up from Oxford?’
‘I beg, sir,’ he returned respectfully, ‘that you will be seated, and
allow me to do this.’ With which he took the fork from my unresisting
hand, and bent over the gridiron, as if his whole attention were
concentrated on it.
We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say, by the appearance
of Steerforth himself, but we became in a moment the meekest of the meek
before his respectable serving-man. Mr. Micawber, humming a tune, to
show that he was quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the handle
of a hastily concealed fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as
if he had stabbed himself. Mrs. Micawber put on her brown gloves, and
assumed a genteel languor. Traddles ran his greasy hands through
his hair, and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion on the
table-cloth. As for me, I was a mere infant at the head of my own table;
and hardly ventured to glance at the respectable phenomenon, who had
come from Heaven knows where, to put my establishment to rights.
Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron, and gravely handed it
round. We all took some, but our appreciation of it was gone, and we
merely made a show of eating it. As we severally pushed away our plates,
he noiselessly removed them, and set on the cheese. He took that off,
too, when it was done with; cleared the table; piled everything on the
dumb-waiter; gave us our wine-glasses; and, of his own accord, wheeled
the dumb-waiter into the pantry. All this was done in a perfect manner,
and he never raised his eyes from what he was about. Yet his very
elbows, when he had his back towards me, seemed to teem with the
expression of his fixed opinion that I was extremely young.
‘Can I do anything more, sir?’
I thanked him and said, No; but would he take no dinner himself?
‘None, I am obliged to you, sir.’
‘Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?’
‘I should imagine that he might be here tomorrow, sir. I rather thought
he might have been here today, sir. The mistake is mine, no doubt, sir.’
‘If you should see him first--’ said I.
‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I don’t think I shall see him first.’
‘In case you do,’ said I, ‘pray say that I am sorry he was not here
today, as an old schoolfellow of his was here.’
‘Indeed, sir!’ and he divided a bow between me and Traddles, with a
glance at the latter.
He was moving softly to the door, when, in a forlorn hope of saying
something naturally--which I never could, to this man--I said:
‘Oh! Littimer!’
‘Sir!’
‘Did you remain long at Yarmouth, that time?’
‘Not particularly so, sir.’
‘You saw the boat completed?’
‘Yes, sir. I remained behind on purpose to see the boat completed.’
‘I know!’ He raised his eyes to mine respectfully.
‘Mr. Steerforth has not seen it yet, I suppose?’
‘I really can’t say, sir. I think--but I really can’t say, sir. I wish
you good night, sir.’
He comprehended everybody present, in the respectful bow with which he
followed these words, and disappeared. My visitors seemed to breathe
more freely when he was gone; but my own relief was very great, for
besides the constraint, arising from that extraordinary sense of
being at a disadvantage which I always had in this man’s presence, my
conscience had embarrassed me with whispers that I had mistrusted his
master, and I could not repress a vague uneasy dread that he might
find it out. How was it, having so little in reality to conceal, that I
always DID feel as if this man were finding me out?
Mr. Micawber roused me from this reflection, which was blended with
a certain remorseful apprehension of seeing Steerforth himself, by
bestowing many encomiums on the absent Littimer as a most respectable
fellow, and a thoroughly admirable servant. Mr. Micawber, I may remark,
had taken his full share of the general bow, and had received it with
infinite condescension.
‘But punch, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, tasting it, ‘like
time and tide, waits for no man. Ah! it is at the present moment in high
flavour. My love, will you give me your opinion?’
Mrs. Micawber pronounced it excellent.
‘Then I will drink,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if my friend Copperfield
will permit me to take that social liberty, to the days when my friend
Copperfield and myself were younger, and fought our way in the world
side by side. I may say, of myself and Copperfield, in words we have
sung together before now, that
We twa hae run about the braes
And pu’d the gowans’ fine
--in a figurative point of view--on several occasions. I am not exactly
aware,’ said Mr. Micawber, with the old roll in his voice, and the old
indescribable air of saying something genteel, ‘what gowans may be, but
I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would frequently have taken
a pull at them, if it had been feasible.’
Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment, took a pull at his punch. So
we all did: Traddles evidently lost in wondering at what distant time
Mr. Micawber and I could have been comrades in the battle of the world.
‘Ahem!’ said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat, and warming with the
punch and with the fire. ‘My dear, another glass?’
Mrs. Micawber said it must be very little; but we couldn’t allow that,
so it was a glassful.
‘As we are quite confidential here, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs.
Micawber, sipping her punch, ‘Mr. Traddles being a part of our
domesticity, I should much like to have your opinion on Mr. Micawber’s
prospects. For corn,’ said Mrs. Micawber argumentatively, ‘as I have
repeatedly said to Mr. Micawber, may be gentlemanly, but it is not
remunerative. Commission to the extent of two and ninepence in
a fortnight cannot, however limited our ideas, be considered
remunerative.’
We were all agreed upon that.
‘Then,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who prided herself on taking a clear view of
things, and keeping Mr. Micawber straight by her woman’s wisdom, when he
might otherwise go a little crooked, ‘then I ask myself this question.
If corn is not to be relied upon, what is? Are coals to be relied upon?
Not at all. We have turned our attention to that experiment, on the
suggestion of my family, and we find it fallacious.’
Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets,
eyed us aside, and nodded his head, as much as to say that the case was
very clearly put.
‘The articles of corn and coals,’ said Mrs. Micawber, still more
argumentatively, ‘being equally out of the question, Mr. Copperfield,
I naturally look round the world, and say, “What is there in which a
person of Mr. Micawber’s talent is likely to succeed?” And I exclude
the doing anything on commission, because commission is not a certainty.
What is best suited to a person of Mr. Micawber’s peculiar temperament
is, I am convinced, a certainty.’
Traddles and I both expressed, by a feeling murmur, that this great
discovery was no doubt true of Mr. Micawber, and that it did him much
credit.
‘I will not conceal from you, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs.
Micawber, ‘that I have long felt the Brewing business to be particularly
adapted to Mr. Micawber. Look at Barclay and Perkins! Look at Truman,
Hanbury, and Buxton! It is on that extensive footing that Mr. Micawber,
I know from my own knowledge of him, is calculated to shine; and the
profits, I am told, are e-NOR-MOUS! But if Mr. Micawber cannot get into
those firms--which decline to answer his letters, when he offers his
services even in an inferior capacity--what is the use of dwelling upon
that idea? None. I may have a conviction that Mr. Micawber’s manners--’
‘Hem! Really, my dear,’ interposed Mr. Micawber.
‘My love, be silent,’ said Mrs. Micawber, laying her brown glove on his
hand. ‘I may have a conviction, Mr. Copperfield, that Mr. Micawber’s
manners peculiarly qualify him for the Banking business. I may argue
within myself, that if I had a deposit at a banking-house, the manners
of Mr. Micawber, as representing that banking-house, would inspire
confidence, and must extend the connexion. But if the various
banking-houses refuse to avail themselves of Mr. Micawber’s abilities,
or receive the offer of them with contumely, what is the use of dwelling
upon THAT idea? None. As to originating a banking-business, I may know
that there are members of my family who, if they chose to place their
money in Mr. Micawber’s hands, might found an establishment of that
description. But if they do NOT choose to place their money in Mr.
Micawber’s hands--which they don’t--what is the use of that? Again I
contend that we are no farther advanced than we were before.’
I shook my head, and said, ‘Not a bit.’ Traddles also shook his head,
and said, ‘Not a bit.’
‘What do I deduce from this?’ Mrs. Micawber went on to say, still with
the same air of putting a case lucidly. ‘What is the conclusion, my
dear Mr. Copperfield, to which I am irresistibly brought? Am I wrong in
saying, it is clear that we must live?’
I answered ‘Not at all!’ and Traddles answered ‘Not at all!’ and I found
myself afterwards sagely adding, alone, that a person must either live
or die.
‘Just so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, ‘It is precisely that. And the fact
is, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that we can not live without something
widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up. Now
I am convinced, myself, and this I have pointed out to Mr. Micawber
several times of late, that things cannot be expected to turn up of
themselves. We must, in a measure, assist to turn them up. I may be
wrong, but I have formed that opinion.’
Both Traddles and I applauded it highly.
‘Very well,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘Then what do I recommend? Here is Mr.
Micawber with a variety of qualifications--with great talent--’
‘Really, my love,’ said Mr. Micawber.
‘Pray, my dear, allow me to conclude. Here is Mr. Micawber, with a
variety of qualifications, with great talent--I should say, with genius,
but that may be the partiality of a wife--’
Traddles and I both murmured ‘No.’
‘And here is Mr. Micawber without any suitable position or employment.
Where does that responsibility rest? Clearly on society. Then I would
make a fact so disgraceful known, and boldly challenge society to set it
right. It appears to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber,
forcibly, ‘that what Mr. Micawber has to do, is to throw down the
gauntlet to society, and say, in effect, “Show me who will take that up.
Let the party immediately step forward.”’
I ventured to ask Mrs. Micawber how this was to be done.
‘By advertising,’ said Mrs. Micawber--‘in all the papers. It appears to
me, that what Mr. Micawber has to do, in justice to himself, in justice
to his family, and I will even go so far as to say in justice to
society, by which he has been hitherto overlooked, is to advertise in
all the papers; to describe himself plainly as so-and-so, with such and
such qualifications and to put it thus: “Now employ me, on remunerative
terms, and address, post-paid, to W. M., Post Office, Camden Town.”’
‘This idea of Mrs. Micawber’s, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber,
making his shirt-collar meet in front of his chin, and glancing at me
sideways, ‘is, in fact, the Leap to which I alluded, when I last had the
pleasure of seeing you.’
‘Advertising is rather expensive,’ I remarked, dubiously.
‘Exactly so!’ said Mrs. Micawber, preserving the same logical air.
‘Quite true, my dear Mr. Copperfield! I have made the identical
observation to Mr. Micawber. It is for that reason especially, that I
think Mr. Micawber ought (as I have already said, in justice to himself,
in justice to his family, and in justice to society) to raise a certain
sum of money--on a bill.’
Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass
and cast his eyes up at the ceiling; but I thought him observant of
Traddles, too, who was looking at the fire.
‘If no member of my family,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘is possessed of
sufficient natural feeling to negotiate that bill--I believe there is a
better business-term to express what I mean--’
Mr. Micawber, with his eyes still cast up at the ceiling, suggested
‘Discount.’
‘To discount that bill,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘then my opinion is, that
Mr. Micawber should go into the City, should take that bill into the
Money Market, and should dispose of it for what he can get. If the
individuals in the Money Market oblige Mr. Micawber to sustain a great
sacrifice, that is between themselves and their consciences. I view
it, steadily, as an investment. I recommend Mr. Micawber, my dear Mr.
Copperfield, to do the same; to regard it as an investment which is sure
of return, and to make up his mind to any sacrifice.’
I felt, but I am sure I don’t know why, that this was self-denying
and devoted in Mrs. Micawber, and I uttered a murmur to that effect.
Traddles, who took his tone from me, did likewise, still looking at the
fire.
‘I will not,’ said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch, and gathering her
scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her withdrawal to my bedroom:
‘I will not protract these remarks on the subject of Mr. Micawber’s
pecuniary affairs. At your fireside, my dear Mr. Copperfield, and in the
presence of Mr. Traddles, who, though not so old a friend, is quite one
of ourselves, I could not refrain from making you acquainted with the
course I advise Mr. Micawber to take. I feel that the time is arrived
when Mr. Micawber should exert himself and--I will add--assert himself,
and it appears to me that these are the means. I am aware that I am
merely a female, and that a masculine judgement is usually considered
more competent to the discussion of such questions; still I must not
forget that, when I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was in
the habit of saying, “Emma’s form is fragile, but her grasp of a subject
is inferior to none.” That my papa was too partial, I well know; but
that he was an observer of character in some degree, my duty and my
reason equally forbid me to doubt.’
With these words, and resisting our entreaties that she would grace
the remaining circulation of the punch with her presence, Mrs. Micawber
retired to my bedroom. And really I felt that she was a noble woman--the
sort of woman who might have been a Roman matron, and done all manner of
heroic things, in times of public trouble.
In the fervour of this impression, I congratulated Mr. Micawber on the
treasure he possessed. So did Traddles. Mr. Micawber extended his
hand to each of us in succession, and then covered his face with his
pocket-handkerchief, which I think had more snuff upon it than he
was aware of. He then returned to the punch, in the highest state of
exhilaration.
He was full of eloquence. He gave us to understand that in our children
we lived again, and that, under the pressure of pecuniary difficulties,
any accession to their number was doubly welcome. He said that Mrs.
Micawber had latterly had her doubts on this point, but that he had
dispelled them, and reassured her. As to her family, they were totally
unworthy of her, and their sentiments were utterly indifferent to him,
and they might--I quote his own expression--go to the Devil.
Mr. Micawber then delivered a warm eulogy on Traddles. He said
Traddles’s was a character, to the steady virtues of which he (Mr.
Micawber) could lay no claim, but which, he thanked Heaven, he could
admire. He feelingly alluded to the young lady, unknown, whom Traddles
had honoured with his affection, and who had reciprocated that affection
by honouring and blessing Traddles with her affection. Mr. Micawber
pledged her. So did I. Traddles thanked us both, by saying, with a
simplicity and honesty I had sense enough to be quite charmed with,
‘I am very much obliged to you indeed. And I do assure you, she’s the
dearest girl!--’
Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting, with the
utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the state of my affections. Nothing
but the serious assurance of his friend Copperfield to the contrary,
he observed, could deprive him of the impression that his friend
Copperfield loved and was beloved. After feeling very hot and
uncomfortable for some time, and after a good deal of blushing,
stammering, and denying, I said, having my glass in my hand, ‘Well! I
would give them D.!’ which so excited and gratified Mr. Micawber,
that he ran with a glass of punch into my bedroom, in order that Mrs.
Micawber might drink D., who drank it with enthusiasm, crying from
within, in a shrill voice, ‘Hear, hear! My dear Mr. Copperfield, I am
delighted. Hear!’ and tapping at the wall, by way of applause.
Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn; Mr. Micawber
telling us that he found Camden Town inconvenient, and that the first
thing he contemplated doing, when the advertisement should have been the
cause of something satisfactory turning up, was to move. He mentioned
a terrace at the western end of Oxford Street, fronting Hyde Park, on
which he had always had his eye, but which he did not expect to attain
immediately, as it would require a large establishment. There would
probably be an interval, he explained, in which he should content
himself with the upper part of a house, over some respectable place of
business--say in Piccadilly,--which would be a cheerful situation for
Mrs. Micawber; and where, by throwing out a bow-window, or carrying up
the roof another story, or making some little alteration of that sort,
they might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years. Whatever
was reserved for him, he expressly said, or wherever his abode might be,
we might rely on this--there would always be a room for Traddles, and a
knife and fork for me. We acknowledged his kindness; and he begged us
to forgive his having launched into these practical and business-like
details, and to excuse it as natural in one who was making entirely new
arrangements in life.
Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again to know if tea were ready,
broke up this particular phase of our friendly conversation. She made
tea for us in a most agreeable manner; and, whenever I went near her, in
handing about the tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked me, in a whisper,
whether D. was fair, or dark, or whether she was short, or tall: or
something of that kind; which I think I liked. After tea, we discussed a
variety of topics before the fire; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough
to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remembered to have
considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the
favourite ballads of ‘The Dashing White Sergeant’, and ‘Little Tafflin’.
For both of these songs Mrs. Micawber had been famous when she lived at
home with her papa and mama. Mr. Micawber told us, that when he heard
her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her beneath
the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an extraordinary
degree; but that when it came to Little Tafflin, he had resolved to win
that woman or perish in the attempt.
It was between ten and eleven o’clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to replace
her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her bonnet. Mr.
Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on his great-coat, to
slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered request that I would read
it at my leisure. I also took the opportunity of my holding a candle
over the banisters to light them down, when Mr. Micawber was going
first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and Traddles was following with the cap,
to detain Traddles for a moment on the top of the stairs.
‘Traddles,’ said I, ‘Mr. Micawber don’t mean any harm, poor fellow: but,
if I were you, I wouldn’t lend him anything.’
‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Traddles, smiling, ‘I haven’t got
anything to lend.’
‘You have got a name, you know,’ said I.
‘Oh! You call THAT something to lend?’ returned Traddles, with a
thoughtful look.
‘Certainly.’
‘Oh!’ said Traddles. ‘Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged to you,
Copperfield; but--I am afraid I have lent him that already.’
‘For the bill that is to be a certain investment?’ I inquired.
‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Not for that one. This is the first I have heard
of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely propose that
one, on the way home. Mine’s another.’
‘I hope there will be nothing wrong about it,’ said I. ‘I hope not,’
said Traddles. ‘I should think not, though, because he told me, only the
other day, that it was provided for. That was Mr. Micawber’s expression,
“Provided for.”’
Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing, I
had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and descended.
But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured manner in which
he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave Mrs. Micawber his arm,
that he would be carried into the Money Market neck and heels.
I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half
laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations between
us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs. At first, I thought
it was Traddles coming back for something Mrs. Micawber had left behind;
but as the step approached, I knew it, and felt my heart beat high, and
the blood rush to my face, for it was Steerforth’s.
I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary in my
thoughts--if I may call it so--where I had placed her from the first.
But when he entered, and stood before me with his hand out, the darkness
that had fallen on him changed to light, and I felt confounded and
ashamed of having doubted one I loved so heartily. I loved her none the
less; I thought of her as the same benignant, gentle angel in my life; I
reproached myself, not her, with having done him an injury; and I would
have made him any atonement if I had known what to make, and how to make
it.
‘Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!’ laughed Steerforth, shaking
my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. ‘Have I detected you in
another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors’ Commons fellows are the
gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all to
nothing!’ His bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took
the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber had recently
vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze.
‘I was so surprised at first,’ said I, giving him welcome with all
the cordiality I felt, ‘that I had hardly breath to greet you with,
Steerforth.’
‘Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say,’
replied Steerforth, ‘and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full bloom.
How are you, my Bacchanal?’
‘I am very well,’ said I; ‘and not at all Bacchanalian tonight, though I
confess to another party of three.’
‘All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise,’ returned
Steerforth. ‘Who’s our friend in the tights?’
I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber. He
laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and said he
was a man to know, and he must know him. ‘But who do you suppose our
other friend is?’ said I, in my turn.
‘Heaven knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘Not a bore, I hope? I thought he
looked a little like one.’
‘Traddles!’ I replied, triumphantly.
‘Who’s he?’ asked Steerforth, in his careless way.
‘Don’t you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem House?’
‘Oh! That fellow!’ said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the top
of the fire, with the poker. ‘Is he as soft as ever? And where the deuce
did you pick him up?’
I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that
Steerforth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject with
a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see
the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish, inquired if I
could give him anything to eat? During most of this short dialogue, when
he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly
beating on the lump of coal with the poker. I observed that he did the
same thing while I was getting out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so
forth.
‘Why, Daisy, here’s a supper for a king!’ he exclaimed, starting out of
his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table. ‘I shall do
it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth.’
‘I thought you came from Oxford?’ I returned.
‘Not I,’ said Steerforth. ‘I have been seafaring--better employed.’
‘Littimer was here today, to inquire for you,’ I remarked, ‘and I
understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it, he
certainly did not say so.’
‘Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been inquiring
for me at all,’ said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine,
and drinking to me. ‘As to understanding him, you are a cleverer fellow
than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that.’
‘That’s true, indeed,’ said I, moving my chair to the table. ‘So you
have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth!’ interested to know all about it.
‘Have you been there long?’
‘No,’ he returned. ‘An escapade of a week or so.’
‘And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not married yet?’
‘Not yet. Going to be, I believe--in so many weeks, or months, or
something or other. I have not seen much of ‘em. By the by’; he laid
down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great diligence,
and began feeling in his pockets; ‘I have a letter for you.’
‘From whom?’
‘Why, from your old nurse,’ he returned, taking some papers out of his
breast pocket. “‘J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to The Willing
Mind”; that’s not it. Patience, and we’ll find it presently. Old
what’s-his-name’s in a bad way, and it’s about that, I believe.’
‘Barkis, do you mean?’
‘Yes!’ still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their contents:
‘it’s all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a little apothecary
there--surgeon, or whatever he is--who brought your worship into the
world. He was mighty learned about the case, to me; but the upshot of
his opinion was, that the carrier was making his last journey rather
fast.---Put your hand into the breast pocket of my great-coat on the
chair yonder, and I think you’ll find the letter. Is it there?’
‘Here it is!’ said I.
‘That’s right!’
It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief. It
informed me of her husband’s hopeless state, and hinted at his being
‘a little nearer’ than heretofore, and consequently more difficult
to manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her weariness
and watching, and praised him highly. It was written with a plain,
unaffected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine, and ended with ‘my
duty to my ever darling’--meaning myself.
While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink.
‘It’s a bad job,’ he said, when I had done; ‘but the sun sets every day,
and people die every minute, and we mustn’t be scared by the common lot.
If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men’s doors
was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from
us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but
ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!’
‘And win what race?’ said I.
‘The race that one has started in,’ said he. ‘Ride on!’
I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with his handsome
head a little thrown back, and his glass raised in his hand, that,
though the freshness of the sea-wind was on his face, and it was ruddy,
there were traces in it, made since I last saw it, as if he had applied
himself to some habitual strain of the fervent energy which, when
roused, was so passionately roused within him. I had it in my thoughts
to remonstrate with him upon his desperate way of pursuing any fancy
that he took--such as this buffeting of rough seas, and braving of hard
weather, for example--when my mind glanced off to the immediate subject
of our conversation again, and pursued that instead.
‘I tell you what, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘if your high spirits will listen
to me--’
‘They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like,’ he answered,
moving from the table to the fireside again.
‘Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see my
old nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her any real
service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will have as much
effect on her, as if I could do both. She will take it so kindly that it
will be a comfort and support to her. It is no great effort to make,
I am sure, for such a friend as she has been to me. Wouldn’t you go a
day’s journey, if you were in my place?’
His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he
answered, in a low voice, ‘Well! Go. You can do no harm.’
‘You have just come back,’ said I, ‘and it would be in vain to ask you
to go with me?’
‘Quite,’ he returned. ‘I am for Highgate tonight. I have not seen
my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for
it’s something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son.---Bah!
Nonsense!--You mean to go tomorrow, I suppose?’ he said, holding me out
at arm’s length, with a hand on each of my shoulders.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Well, then, don’t go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay a
few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to
Yarmouth!’
‘You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are always
running wild on some unknown expedition or other!’
He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still
holding me as before, and giving me a shake:
‘Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of tomorrow as you can with
us! Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the next day! I
want you to stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder.’
‘Would you love each other too much, without me?’
‘Yes; or hate,’ laughed Steerforth; ‘no matter which. Come! Say the next
day!’
I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat and lighted his cigar,
and set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I put on my own
great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that
for one while) and walked with him as far as the open road: a dull road,
then, at night. He was in great spirits all the way; and when we parted,
and I looked after him going so gallantly and airily homeward, I thought
of his saying, ‘Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!’ and
wished, for the first time, that he had some worthy race to run.
I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber’s letter tumbled on
the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. It
was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I
have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate
crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology, which he seemed to think
equivalent to winding up his affairs.
‘SIR--for I dare not say my dear Copperfield,
‘It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is
Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of
his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has
sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed.
‘The present communication is penned within the personal range (I cannot
call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely bordering
on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual is in legal
possession of the premises, under a distress for rent. His inventory
includes, not only the chattels and effects of every description
belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this habitation, but
also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger, a member of the
Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.
‘If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is now
“commended” (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of the
undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance
granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles,
for the sum Of 23l 4s 9 1/2d is over due, and is NOT provided for. Also,
in the fact that the living responsibilities clinging to the undersigned
will, in the course of nature, be increased by the sum of one more
helpless victim; whose miserable appearance may be looked for--in round
numbers--at the expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months
from the present date.
‘After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to add,
that dust and ashes are for ever scattered
‘On
‘The
‘Head
‘Of
‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’
Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to foresee
that he might be expected to recover the blow; but my night’s rest was
sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of the curate’s daughter,
who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and who was such a dear girl,
and who would wait for Traddles (ominous praise!) until she was sixty,
or any age that could be mentioned.
CHAPTER 29. I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN
I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of
absence for a short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any salary,
and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was
no difficulty about it. I took that opportunity, with my voice sticking
in my throat, and my sight failing as I uttered the words, to express
my hope that Miss Spenlow was quite well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied,
with no more emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human
being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well.
We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors, were
treated with so much consideration, that I was almost my own master at
all times. As I did not care, however, to get to Highgate before one
or two o’clock in the day, and as we had another little excommunication
case in court that morning, which was called The office of the judge
promoted by Tipkins against Bullock for his soul’s correction, I passed
an hour or two in attendance on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably.
It arose out of a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was
alleged to have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which
pump projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a
gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence.
It was an amusing case; and sent me up to Highgate, on the box of the
stage-coach, thinking about the Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow had said
about touching the Commons and bringing down the country.
Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle. I was
agreeably surprised to find that Littimer was not there, and that we
were attended by a modest little parlour-maid, with blue ribbons in her
cap, whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much less disconcerting,
to catch by accident, than the eye of that respectable man. But what I
particularly observed, before I had been half-an-hour in the house, was
the close and attentive watch Miss Dartle kept upon me; and the lurking
manner in which she seemed to compare my face with Steerforth’s, and
Steerforth’s with mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out
between the two. So surely as I looked towards her, did I see that eager
visage, with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on mine; or
passing suddenly from mine to Steerforth’s; or comprehending both of us
at once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from faltering when
she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only fixed her piercing
look upon me with a more intent expression still. Blameless as I was,
and knew that I was, in reference to any wrong she could possibly
suspect me of, I shrunk before her strange eyes, quite unable to endure
their hungry lustre.
All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to
Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little gallery
outside. When he and I engaged in some of our old exercises on the lawn
behind the house, I saw her face pass from window to window, like a
wandering light, until it fixed itself in one, and watched us. When we
all four went out walking in the afternoon, she closed her thin hand on
my arm like a spring, to keep me back, while Steerforth and his mother
went on out of hearing: and then spoke to me.
‘You have been a long time,’ she said, ‘without coming here. Is your
profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb your whole
attention? I ask because I always want to be informed, when I am
ignorant. Is it really, though?’
I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could not
claim so much for it.
‘Oh! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right when
I am wrong,’ said Rosa Dartle. ‘You mean it is a little dry, perhaps?’
‘Well,’ I replied; ‘perhaps it was a little dry.’
‘Oh! and that’s a reason why you want relief and change--excitement and
all that?’ said she. ‘Ah! very true! But isn’t it a little--Eh?--for
him; I don’t mean you?’
A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was walking,
with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant; but beyond
that, I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt.
‘Don’t it--I don’t say that it does, mind I want to know--don’t it
rather engross him? Don’t it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss
than usual in his visits to his blindly-doting--eh?’ With another
quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my
innermost thoughts.
‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘pray do not think--’
‘I don’t!’ she said. ‘Oh dear me, don’t suppose that I think anything!
I am not suspicious. I only ask a question. I don’t state any opinion. I
want to found an opinion on what you tell me. Then, it’s not so? Well! I
am very glad to know it.’
‘It certainly is not the fact,’ said I, perplexed, ‘that I am
accountable for Steerforth’s having been away from home longer than
usual--if he has been: which I really don’t know at this moment, unless
I understand it from you. I have not seen him this long while, until
last night.’
‘No?’
‘Indeed, Miss Dartle, no!’
As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler, and the
marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through the disfigured
lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down the face. There was
something positively awful to me in this, and in the brightness of her
eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me:
‘What is he doing?’
I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed.
‘What is he doing?’ she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough to
consume her like a fire. ‘In what is that man assisting him, who never
looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes? If you are
honourable and faithful, I don’t ask you to betray your friend. I ask
you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is it pride, is it
restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love, what is it, that is
leading him?’
‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘how shall I tell you, so that you will
believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from what
there was when I first came here? I can think of nothing. I firmly
believe there is nothing. I hardly understand even what you mean.’
As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing,
from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel
mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a
pity that despised its object. She put her hand upon it hurriedly--a
hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her hold it up before
the fire to shade her face, I had compared it in my thoughts to fine
porcelain--and saying, in a quick, fierce, passionate way, ‘I swear you
to secrecy about this!’ said not a word more.
Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son’s society, and
Steerforth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and respectful
to her. It was very interesting to me to see them together, not only on
account of their mutual affection, but because of the strong personal
resemblance between them, and the manner in which what was haughty or
impetuous in him was softened by age and sex, in her, to a gracious
dignity. I thought, more than once, that it was well no serious cause of
division had ever come between them; or two such natures--I ought rather
to express it, two such shades of the same nature--might have been
harder to reconcile than the two extremest opposites in creation. The
idea did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but
in a speech of Rosa Dartle’s.
She said at dinner:
‘Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking
about it all day, and I want to know.’
‘You want to know what, Rosa?’ returned Mrs. Steerforth. ‘Pray, pray,
Rosa, do not be mysterious.’
‘Mysterious!’ she cried. ‘Oh! really? Do you consider me so?’
‘Do I constantly entreat you,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, ‘to speak plainly,
in your own natural manner?’
‘Oh! then this is not my natural manner?’ she rejoined. ‘Now you must
really bear with me, because I ask for information. We never know
ourselves.’
‘It has become a second nature,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, without any
displeasure; ‘but I remember,--and so must you, I think,--when your
manner was different, Rosa; when it was not so guarded, and was more
trustful.’
‘I am sure you are right,’ she returned; ‘and so it is that bad habits
grow upon one! Really? Less guarded and more trustful? How can I,
imperceptibly, have changed, I wonder! Well, that’s very odd! I must
study to regain my former self.’
‘I wish you would,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, with a smile.
‘Oh! I really will, you know!’ she answered. ‘I will learn frankness
from--let me see--from James.’
‘You cannot learn frankness, Rosa,’ said Mrs. Steerforth quickly--for
there was always some effect of sarcasm in what Rosa Dartle said,
though it was said, as this was, in the most unconscious manner in the
world--‘in a better school.’
‘That I am sure of,’ she answered, with uncommon fervour. ‘If I am sure
of anything, of course, you know, I am sure of that.’
Mrs. Steerforth appeared to me to regret having been a little nettled;
for she presently said, in a kind tone:
‘Well, my dear Rosa, we have not heard what it is that you want to be
satisfied about?’
‘That I want to be satisfied about?’ she replied, with provoking
coldness. ‘Oh! It was only whether people, who are like each other in
their moral constitution--is that the phrase?’
‘It’s as good a phrase as another,’ said Steerforth.
‘Thank you:--whether people, who are like each other in their moral
constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced,
supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being
divided angrily and deeply?’
‘I should say yes,’ said Steerforth.
‘Should you?’ she retorted. ‘Dear me! Supposing then, for instance--any
unlikely thing will do for a supposition--that you and your mother were
to have a serious quarrel.’
‘My dear Rosa,’ interposed Mrs. Steerforth, laughing good-naturedly,
‘suggest some other supposition! James and I know our duty to each other
better, I pray Heaven!’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Dartle, nodding her head thoughtfully. ‘To be sure. That
would prevent it? Why, of course it would. Exactly. Now, I am glad I
have been so foolish as to put the case, for it is so very good to know
that your duty to each other would prevent it! Thank you very much.’
One other little circumstance connected with Miss Dartle I must
not omit; for I had reason to remember it thereafter, when all the
irremediable past was rendered plain. During the whole of this day, but
especially from this period of it, Steerforth exerted himself with his
utmost skill, and that was with his utmost ease, to charm this singular
creature into a pleasant and pleased companion. That he should succeed,
was no matter of surprise to me. That she should struggle against the
fascinating influence of his delightful art--delightful nature I thought
it then--did not surprise me either; for I knew that she was sometimes
jaundiced and perverse. I saw her features and her manner slowly change;
I saw her look at him with growing admiration; I saw her try, more and
more faintly, but always angrily, as if she condemned a weakness in
herself, to resist the captivating power that he possessed; and finally,
I saw her sharp glance soften, and her smile become quite gentle, and I
ceased to be afraid of her as I had really been all day, and we all sat
about the fire, talking and laughing together, with as little reserve as
if we had been children.
Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because Steerforth
was resolved not to lose the advantage he had gained, I do not know; but
we did not remain in the dining-room more than five minutes after her
departure. ‘She is playing her harp,’ said Steerforth, softly, at the
drawing-room door, ‘and nobody but my mother has heard her do that, I
believe, these three years.’ He said it with a curious smile, which was
gone directly; and we went into the room and found her alone.
‘Don’t get up,’ said Steerforth (which she had already done)’ my dear
Rosa, don’t! Be kind for once, and sing us an Irish song.’
‘What do you care for an Irish song?’ she returned.
‘Much!’ said Steerforth. ‘Much more than for any other. Here is Daisy,
too, loves music from his soul. Sing us an Irish song, Rosa! and let me
sit and listen as I used to do.’
He did not touch her, or the chair from which she had risen, but sat
himself near the harp. She stood beside it for some little while, in a
curious way, going through the motion of playing it with her right hand,
but not sounding it. At length she sat down, and drew it to her with one
sudden action, and played and sang.
I don’t know what it was, in her touch or voice, that made that song the
most unearthly I have ever heard in my life, or can imagine. There was
something fearful in the reality of it. It was as if it had never been
written, or set to music, but sprung out of passion within her; which
found imperfect utterance in the low sounds of her voice, and crouched
again when all was still. I was dumb when she leaned beside the harp
again, playing it, but not sounding it, with her right hand.
A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance:--Steerforth had
left his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly about
her, and had said, ‘Come, Rosa, for the future we will love each other
very much!’ And she had struck him, and had thrown him off with the fury
of a wild cat, and had burst out of the room.
‘What is the matter with Rosa?’ said Mrs. Steerforth, coming in.
‘She has been an angel, mother,’ returned Steerforth, ‘for a little
while; and has run into the opposite extreme, since, by way of
compensation.’
‘You should be careful not to irritate her, James. Her temper has been
soured, remember, and ought not to be tried.’
Rosa did not come back; and no other mention was made of her, until I
went with Steerforth into his room to say Good night. Then he laughed
about her, and asked me if I had ever seen such a fierce little piece of
incomprehensibility.
I expressed as much of my astonishment as was then capable of
expression, and asked if he could guess what it was that she had taken
so much amiss, so suddenly.
‘Oh, Heaven knows,’ said Steerforth. ‘Anything you like--or nothing!
I told you she took everything, herself included, to a grindstone, and
sharpened it. She is an edge-tool, and requires great care in dealing
with. She is always dangerous. Good night!’
‘Good night!’ said I, ‘my dear Steerforth! I shall be gone before you
wake in the morning. Good night!’
He was unwilling to let me go; and stood, holding me out, with a hand on
each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room.
‘Daisy,’ he said, with a smile--‘for though that’s not the name your
godfathers and godmothers gave you, it’s the name I like best to call
you by--and I wish, I wish, I wish, you could give it to me!’
‘Why so I can, if I choose,’ said I.
‘Daisy, if anything should ever separate us, you must think of me at my
best, old boy. Come! Let us make that bargain. Think of me at my best,
if circumstances should ever part us!’
‘You have no best to me, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘and no worst. You are
always equally loved, and cherished in my heart.’
So much compunction for having ever wronged him, even by a shapeless
thought, did I feel within me, that the confession of having done so was
rising to my lips. But for the reluctance I had to betray the confidence
of Agnes, but for my uncertainty how to approach the subject with no
risk of doing so, it would have reached them before he said, ‘God bless
you, Daisy, and good night!’ In my doubt, it did NOT reach them; and we
shook hands, and we parted.
I was up with the dull dawn, and, having dressed as quietly as I could,
looked into his room. He was fast asleep; lying, easily, with his head
upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.
The time came in its season, and that was very soon, when I almost
wondered that nothing troubled his repose, as I looked at him. But he
slept--let me think of him so again--as I had often seen him sleep at
school; and thus, in this silent hour, I left him. --Never more, oh
God forgive you, Steerforth! to touch that passive hand in love and
friendship. Never, never more!
CHAPTER 30. A LOSS
I got down to Yarmouth in the evening, and went to the inn. I knew that
Peggotty’s spare room--my room--was likely to have occupation enough
in a little while, if that great Visitor, before whose presence all
the living must give place, were not already in the house; so I betook
myself to the inn, and dined there, and engaged my bed.
It was ten o’clock when I went out. Many of the shops were shut, and the
town was dull. When I came to Omer and Joram’s, I found the shutters up,
but the shop door standing open. As I could obtain a perspective view
of Mr. Omer inside, smoking his pipe by the parlour door, I entered, and
asked him how he was.
‘Why, bless my life and soul!’ said Mr. Omer, ‘how do you find yourself?
Take a seat.---Smoke not disagreeable, I hope?’
‘By no means,’ said I. ‘I like it--in somebody else’s pipe.’
‘What, not in your own, eh?’ Mr. Omer returned, laughing. ‘All the
better, sir. Bad habit for a young man. Take a seat. I smoke, myself,
for the asthma.’
Mr. Omer had made room for me, and placed a chair. He now sat down again
very much out of breath, gasping at his pipe as if it contained a supply
of that necessary, without which he must perish.
‘I am sorry to have heard bad news of Mr. Barkis,’ said I.
Mr. Omer looked at me, with a steady countenance, and shook his head.
‘Do you know how he is tonight?’ I asked.
‘The very question I should have put to you, sir,’ returned Mr. Omer,
‘but on account of delicacy. It’s one of the drawbacks of our line of
business. When a party’s ill, we can’t ask how the party is.’
The difficulty had not occurred to me; though I had had my apprehensions
too, when I went in, of hearing the old tune. On its being mentioned, I
recognized it, however, and said as much.
‘Yes, yes, you understand,’ said Mr. Omer, nodding his head. ‘We dursn’t
do it. Bless you, it would be a shock that the generality of parties
mightn’t recover, to say “Omer and Joram’s compliments, and how do you
find yourself this morning?”--or this afternoon--as it may be.’
Mr. Omer and I nodded at each other, and Mr. Omer recruited his wind by
the aid of his pipe.
‘It’s one of the things that cut the trade off from attentions they
could often wish to show,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Take myself. If I have known
Barkis a year, to move to as he went by, I have known him forty years.
But I can’t go and say, “how is he?”’
I felt it was rather hard on Mr. Omer, and I told him so.
‘I’m not more self-interested, I hope, than another man,’ said Mr. Omer.
‘Look at me! My wind may fail me at any moment, and it ain’t
likely that, to my own knowledge, I’d be self-interested under such
circumstances. I say it ain’t likely, in a man who knows his wind will
go, when it DOES go, as if a pair of bellows was cut open; and that man
a grandfather,’ said Mr. Omer.
I said, ‘Not at all.’
‘It ain’t that I complain of my line of business,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘It
ain’t that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all callings. What
I wish is, that parties was brought up stronger-minded.’
Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several puffs in
silence; and then said, resuming his first point:
‘Accordingly we’re obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis goes on, to
limit ourselves to Em’ly. She knows what our real objects are, and she
don’t have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we was so
many lambs. Minnie and Joram have just stepped down to the house, in
fact (she’s there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), to ask her how
he is tonight; and if you was to please to wait till they come back,
they’d give you full partic’lers. Will you take something? A glass of
srub and water, now? I smoke on srub and water, myself,’ said Mr. Omer,
taking up his glass, ‘because it’s considered softening to the passages,
by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord
bless you,’ said Mr. Omer, huskily, ‘it ain’t the passages that’s out of
order! “Give me breath enough,” said I to my daughter Minnie, “and I’ll
find passages, my dear.”’
He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see him
laugh. When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I thanked
him for the proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I had just had
dinner; and, observing that I would wait, since he was so good as to
invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came back, I inquired
how little Emily was?
‘Well, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, removing his pipe, that he might rub his
chin: ‘I tell you truly, I shall be glad when her marriage has taken
place.’
‘Why so?’ I inquired.
‘Well, she’s unsettled at present,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘It ain’t that she’s
not as pretty as ever, for she’s prettier--I do assure you, she is
prettier. It ain’t that she don’t work as well as ever, for she does.
She WAS worth any six, and she IS worth any six. But somehow she wants
heart. If you understand,’ said Mr. Omer, after rubbing his chin again,
and smoking a little, ‘what I mean in a general way by the expression,
“A long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether, my hearties,
hurrah!” I should say to you, that that was--in a general way--what I
miss in Em’ly.’
Mr. Omer’s face and manner went for so much, that I could
conscientiously nod my head, as divining his meaning. My quickness of
apprehension seemed to please him, and he went on: ‘Now I consider this
is principally on account of her being in an unsettled state, you
see. We have talked it over a good deal, her uncle and myself, and her
sweetheart and myself, after business; and I consider it is principally
on account of her being unsettled. You must always recollect of Em’ly,’
said Mr. Omer, shaking his head gently, ‘that she’s a most extraordinary
affectionate little thing. The proverb says, “You can’t make a silk
purse out of a sow’s ear.” Well, I don’t know about that. I rather think
you may, if you begin early in life. She has made a home out of that old
boat, sir, that stone and marble couldn’t beat.’
‘I am sure she has!’ said I.
‘To see the clinging of that pretty little thing to her uncle,’ said
Mr. Omer; ‘to see the way she holds on to him, tighter and tighter, and
closer and closer, every day, is to see a sight. Now, you know, there’s
a struggle going on when that’s the case. Why should it be made a longer
one than is needful?’
I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with all
my heart, in what he said.
‘Therefore, I mentioned to them,’ said Mr. Omer, in a comfortable,
easy-going tone, ‘this. I said, “Now, don’t consider Em’ly nailed down
in point of time, at all. Make it your own time. Her services have been
more valuable than was supposed; her learning has been quicker than was
supposed; Omer and Joram can run their pen through what remains; and
she’s free when you wish. If she likes to make any little arrangement,
afterwards, in the way of doing any little thing for us at home,
very well. If she don’t, very well still. We’re no losers, anyhow.”
For--don’t you see,’ said Mr. Omer, touching me with his pipe, ‘it ain’t
likely that a man so short of breath as myself, and a grandfather too,
would go and strain points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom,
like her?’
‘Not at all, I am certain,’ said I.
‘Not at all! You’re right!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir, her cousin--you
know it’s a cousin she’s going to be married to?’
‘Oh yes,’ I replied. ‘I know him well.’
‘Of course you do,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir! Her cousin being, as it
appears, in good work, and well to do, thanked me in a very manly sort
of manner for this (conducting himself altogether, I must say, in a way
that gives me a high opinion of him), and went and took as comfortable
a little house as you or I could wish to clap eyes on. That little
house is now furnished right through, as neat and complete as a doll’s
parlour; and but for Barkis’s illness having taken this bad turn, poor
fellow, they would have been man and wife--I dare say, by this time. As
it is, there’s a postponement.’
‘And Emily, Mr. Omer?’ I inquired. ‘Has she become more settled?’
‘Why that, you know,’ he returned, rubbing his double chin again, ‘can’t
naturally be expected. The prospect of the change and separation, and
all that, is, as one may say, close to her and far away from her, both
at once. Barkis’s death needn’t put it off much, but his lingering
might. Anyway, it’s an uncertain state of matters, you see.’
‘I see,’ said I.
‘Consequently,’ pursued Mr. Omer, ‘Em’ly’s still a little down, and a
little fluttered; perhaps, upon the whole, she’s more so than she was.
Every day she seems to get fonder and fonder of her uncle, and more loth
to part from all of us. A kind word from me brings the tears into her
eyes; and if you was to see her with my daughter Minnie’s little girl,
you’d never forget it. Bless my heart alive!’ said Mr. Omer, pondering,
‘how she loves that child!’
Having so favourable an opportunity, it occurred to me to ask Mr. Omer,
before our conversation should be interrupted by the return of his
daughter and her husband, whether he knew anything of Martha.
‘Ah!’ he rejoined, shaking his head, and looking very much dejected.
‘No good. A sad story, sir, however you come to know it. I never thought
there was harm in the girl. I wouldn’t wish to mention it before my
daughter Minnie--for she’d take me up directly--but I never did. None of
us ever did.’
Mr. Omer, hearing his daughter’s footstep before I heard it, touched me
with his pipe, and shut up one eye, as a caution. She and her husband
came in immediately afterwards.
Their report was, that Mr. Barkis was ‘as bad as bad could be’; that he
was quite unconscious; and that Mr. Chillip had mournfully said in the
kitchen, on going away just now, that the College of Physicians, the
College of Surgeons, and Apothecaries’ Hall, if they were all called
in together, couldn’t help him. He was past both Colleges, Mr. Chillip
said, and the Hall could only poison him.
Hearing this, and learning that Mr. Peggotty was there, I determined to
go to the house at once. I bade good night to Mr. Omer, and to Mr. and
Mrs. Joram; and directed my steps thither, with a solemn feeling, which
made Mr. Barkis quite a new and different creature.
My low tap at the door was answered by Mr. Peggotty. He was not so much
surprised to see me as I had expected. I remarked this in Peggotty,
too, when she came down; and I have seen it since; and I think, in the
expectation of that dread surprise, all other changes and surprises
dwindle into nothing.
I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while he
softly closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire, with her
hands before her face. Ham was standing near her.
We spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for any sound in the
room above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last visit,
but how strange it was to me, now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of the
kitchen!
‘This is very kind of you, Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘It’s oncommon kind,’ said Ham.
‘Em’ly, my dear,’ cried Mr. Peggotty. ‘See here! Here’s Mas’r Davy come!
What, cheer up, pretty! Not a wured to Mas’r Davy?’
There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now. The coldness of her
hand when I touched it, I can feel yet. Its only sign of animation was
to shrink from mine; and then she glided from the chair, and creeping
to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself, silently and trembling
still, upon his breast.
‘It’s such a loving art,’ said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing her rich hair
with his great hard hand, ‘that it can’t abear the sorrer of this.
It’s nat’ral in young folk, Mas’r Davy, when they’re new to these here
trials, and timid, like my little bird,--it’s nat’ral.’
She clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor spoke a
word.
‘It’s getting late, my dear,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and here’s Ham come
fur to take you home. Theer! Go along with t’other loving art! What’
Em’ly? Eh, my pretty?’
The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as if he
listened to her, and then said:
‘Let you stay with your uncle? Why, you doen’t mean to ask me that! Stay
with your uncle, Moppet? When your husband that’ll be so soon, is here
fur to take you home? Now a person wouldn’t think it, fur to see this
little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me,’ said Mr. Peggotty,
looking round at both of us, with infinite pride; ‘but the sea ain’t
more salt in it than she has fondness in her for her uncle--a foolish
little Em’ly!’
‘Em’ly’s in the right in that, Mas’r Davy!’ said Ham. ‘Lookee here! As
Em’ly wishes of it, and as she’s hurried and frightened, like, besides,
I’ll leave her till morning. Let me stay too!’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘You doen’t ought--a married man like
you--or what’s as good--to take and hull away a day’s work. And you
doen’t ought to watch and work both. That won’t do. You go home and turn
in. You ain’t afeerd of Em’ly not being took good care on, I know.’
Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. Even when he
kissed her--and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that nature
had given him the soul of a gentleman--she seemed to cling closer to
her uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband. I shut the
door after him, that it might cause no disturbance of the quiet that
prevailed; and when I turned back, I found Mr. Peggotty still talking to
her.
‘Now, I’m a going upstairs to tell your aunt as Mas’r Davy’s here, and
that’ll cheer her up a bit,’ he said. ‘Sit ye down by the fire, the
while, my dear, and warm those mortal cold hands. You doen’t need to be
so fearsome, and take on so much. What? You’ll go along with me?--Well!
come along with me--come! If her uncle was turned out of house and home,
and forced to lay down in a dyke, Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty, with
no less pride than before, ‘it’s my belief she’d go along with him, now!
But there’ll be someone else, soon,--someone else, soon, Em’ly!’
Afterwards, when I went upstairs, as I passed the door of my little
chamber, which was dark, I had an indistinct impression of her being
within it, cast down upon the floor. But, whether it was really she, or
whether it was a confusion of the shadows in the room, I don’t know now.
I had leisure to think, before the kitchen fire, of pretty little
Emily’s dread of death--which, added to what Mr. Omer had told me, I
took to be the cause of her being so unlike herself--and I had leisure,
before Peggotty came down, even to think more leniently of the weakness
of it: as I sat counting the ticking of the clock, and deepening my
sense of the solemn hush around me. Peggotty took me in her arms, and
blessed and thanked me over and over again for being such a comfort to
her (that was what she said) in her distress. She then entreated me to
come upstairs, sobbing that Mr. Barkis had always liked me and admired
me; that he had often talked of me, before he fell into a stupor; and
that she believed, in case of his coming to himself again, he would
brighten up at sight of me, if he could brighten up at any earthly
thing.
The probability of his ever doing so, appeared to me, when I saw him, to
be very small. He was lying with his head and shoulders out of bed, in
an uncomfortable attitude, half resting on the box which had cost him so
much pain and trouble. I learned, that, when he was past creeping out of
bed to open it, and past assuring himself of its safety by means of the
divining rod I had seen him use, he had required to have it placed on
the chair at the bed-side, where he had ever since embraced it, night
and day. His arm lay on it now. Time and the world were slipping from
beneath him, but the box was there; and the last words he had uttered
were (in an explanatory tone) ‘Old clothes!’
‘Barkis, my dear!’ said Peggotty, almost cheerfully: bending over him,
while her brother and I stood at the bed’s foot. ‘Here’s my dear boy--my
dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together, Barkis! That you sent
messages by, you know! Won’t you speak to Master Davy?’
He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived the
only expression it had.
‘He’s a going out with the tide,’ said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind his
hand.
My eyes were dim and so were Mr. Peggotty’s; but I repeated in a
whisper, ‘With the tide?’
‘People can’t die, along the coast,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘except when
the tide’s pretty nigh out. They can’t be born, unless it’s pretty nigh
in--not properly born, till flood. He’s a going out with the tide. It’s
ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it
turns, he’ll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next
tide.’
We remained there, watching him, a long time--hours. What mysterious
influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, I shall
not pretend to say; but when he at last began to wander feebly, it is
certain he was muttering about driving me to school.
‘He’s coming to himself,’ said Peggotty.
Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence.
‘They are both a-going out fast.’
‘Barkis, my dear!’ said Peggotty.
‘C. P. Barkis,’ he cried faintly. ‘No better woman anywhere!’
‘Look! Here’s Master Davy!’ said Peggotty. For he now opened his eyes.
I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to stretch
out his arm, and said to me, distinctly, with a pleasant smile:
‘Barkis is willin’!’
And, it being low water, he went out with the tide.
CHAPTER 31. A GREATER LOSS
It was not difficult for me, on Peggotty’s solicitation, to resolve to
stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should
have made their last journey to Blunderstone. She had long ago bought,
out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard
near the grave of ‘her sweet girl’, as she always called my mother; and
there they were to rest.
In keeping Peggotty company, and doing all I could for her (little
enough at the utmost), I was as grateful, I rejoice to think, as even
now I could wish myself to have been. But I am afraid I had a supreme
satisfaction, of a personal and professional nature, in taking charge of
Mr. Barkis’s will, and expounding its contents.
I may claim the merit of having originated the suggestion that the will
should be looked for in the box. After some search, it was found in the
box, at the bottom of a horse’s nose-bag; wherein (besides hay) there
was discovered an old gold watch, with chain and seals, which Mr. Barkis
had worn on his wedding-day, and which had never been seen before or
since; a silver tobacco-stopper, in the form of a leg; an imitation
lemon, full of minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr.
Barkis must have purchased to present to me when I was a child, and
afterwards found himself unable to part with; eighty-seven guineas and
a half, in guineas and half-guineas; two hundred and ten pounds, in
perfectly clean Bank notes; certain receipts for Bank of England
stock; an old horseshoe, a bad shilling, a piece of camphor, and an
oyster-shell. From the circumstance of the latter article having
been much polished, and displaying prismatic colours on the inside,
I conclude that Mr. Barkis had some general ideas about pearls, which
never resolved themselves into anything definite.
For years and years, Mr. Barkis had carried this box, on all his
journeys, every day. That it might the better escape notice, he had
invented a fiction that it belonged to ‘Mr. Blackboy’, and was ‘to be
left with Barkis till called for’; a fable he had elaborately written on
the lid, in characters now scarcely legible.
He had hoarded, all these years, I found, to good purpose. His property
in money amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. Of this he bequeathed
the interest of one thousand to Mr. Peggotty for his life; on his
decease, the principal to be equally divided between Peggotty, little
Emily, and me, or the survivor or survivors of us, share and share
alike. All the rest he died possessed of, he bequeathed to Peggotty;
whom he left residuary legatee, and sole executrix of that his last will
and testament.
I felt myself quite a proctor when I read this document aloud with all
possible ceremony, and set forth its provisions, any number of times,
to those whom they concerned. I began to think there was more in the
Commons than I had supposed. I examined the will with the deepest
attention, pronounced it perfectly formal in all respects, made a
pencil-mark or so in the margin, and thought it rather extraordinary
that I knew so much.
In this abstruse pursuit; in making an account for Peggotty, of all the
property into which she had come; in arranging all the affairs in an
orderly manner; and in being her referee and adviser on every point, to
our joint delight; I passed the week before the funeral. I did not see
little Emily in that interval, but they told me she was to be quietly
married in a fortnight.
I did not attend the funeral in character, if I may venture to say so.
I mean I was not dressed up in a black coat and a streamer, to frighten
the birds; but I walked over to Blunderstone early in the morning, and
was in the churchyard when it came, attended only by Peggotty and her
brother. The mad gentleman looked on, out of my little window; Mr.
Chillip’s baby wagged its heavy head, and rolled its goggle eyes, at
the clergyman, over its nurse’s shoulder; Mr. Omer breathed short in
the background; no one else was there; and it was very quiet. We walked
about the churchyard for an hour, after all was over; and pulled some
young leaves from the tree above my mother’s grave.
A dread falls on me here. A cloud is lowering on the distant town,
towards which I retraced my solitary steps. I fear to approach it. I
cannot bear to think of what did come, upon that memorable night; of
what must come again, if I go on.
It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I
stopped my most unwilling hand. It is done. Nothing can undo it; nothing
can make it otherwise than as it was.
My old nurse was to go to London with me next day, on the business of
the will. Little Emily was passing that day at Mr. Omer’s. We were all
to meet in the old boathouse that night. Ham would bring Emily at the
usual hour. I would walk back at my leisure. The brother and sister
would return as they had come, and be expecting us, when the day closed
in, at the fireside.
I parted from them at the wicket-gate, where visionary Strap had rested
with Roderick Random’s knapsack in the days of yore; and, instead of
going straight back, walked a little distance on the road to Lowestoft.
Then I turned, and walked back towards Yarmouth. I stayed to dine at
a decent alehouse, some mile or two from the Ferry I have mentioned
before; and thus the day wore away, and it was evening when I reached
it. Rain was falling heavily by that time, and it was a wild night; but
there was a moon behind the clouds, and it was not dark.
I was soon within sight of Mr. Peggotty’s house, and of the light within
it shining through the window. A little floundering across the sand,
which was heavy, brought me to the door, and I went in.
It looked very comfortable indeed. Mr. Peggotty had smoked his evening
pipe and there were preparations for some supper by and by. The fire was
bright, the ashes were thrown up, the locker was ready for little Emily
in her old place. In her own old place sat Peggotty, once more, looking
(but for her dress) as if she had never left it. She had fallen back,
already, on the society of the work-box with St. Paul’s upon the lid,
the yard-measure in the cottage, and the bit of wax-candle; and there
they all were, just as if they had never been disturbed. Mrs. Gummidge
appeared to be fretting a little, in her old corner; and consequently
looked quite natural, too.
‘You’re first of the lot, Mas’r Davy!’ said Mr. Peggotty with a happy
face. ‘Doen’t keep in that coat, sir, if it’s wet.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, giving him my outer coat to hang up.
‘It’s quite dry.’
‘So ‘tis!’ said Mr. Peggotty, feeling my shoulders. ‘As a chip! Sit ye
down, sir. It ain’t o’ no use saying welcome to you, but you’re welcome,
kind and hearty.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Peggotty, I am sure of that. Well, Peggotty!’ said I,
giving her a kiss. ‘And how are you, old woman?’
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Mr. Peggotty, sitting down beside us, and rubbing his
hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble, and in the genuine
heartiness of his nature; ‘there’s not a woman in the wureld, sir--as I
tell her--that need to feel more easy in her mind than her! She done her
dooty by the departed, and the departed know’d it; and the departed
done what was right by her, as she done what was right by the
departed;--and--and--and it’s all right!’
Mrs. Gummidge groaned.
‘Cheer up, my pritty mawther!’ said Mr. Peggotty. (But he shook his head
aside at us, evidently sensible of the tendency of the late occurrences
to recall the memory of the old one.) ‘Doen’t be down! Cheer up, for
your own self, on’y a little bit, and see if a good deal more doen’t
come nat’ral!’
‘Not to me, Dan’l,’ returned Mrs. Gummidge. ‘Nothink’s nat’ral to me but
to be lone and lorn.’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Peggotty, soothing her sorrows.
‘Yes, yes, Dan’l!’ said Mrs. Gummidge. ‘I ain’t a person to live with
them as has had money left. Things go too contrary with me. I had better
be a riddance.’
‘Why, how should I ever spend it without you?’ said Mr. Peggotty, with
an air of serious remonstrance. ‘What are you a talking on? Doen’t I
want you more now, than ever I did?’
‘I know’d I was never wanted before!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a
pitiable whimper, ‘and now I’m told so! How could I expect to be wanted,
being so lone and lorn, and so contrary!’
Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a
speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from
replying, by Peggotty’s pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After
looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he
glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the
window.
‘Theer!’ said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. ‘Theer we are, Missis Gummidge!’
Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. ‘Lighted up, accordin’ to custom! You’re
a wonderin’ what that’s fur, sir! Well, it’s fur our little Em’ly. You
see, the path ain’t over light or cheerful arter dark; and when I’m
here at the hour as she’s a comin’ home, I puts the light in the winder.
That, you see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with great glee,
‘meets two objects. She says, says Em’ly, “Theer’s home!” she says. And
likewise, says Em’ly, “My uncle’s theer!” Fur if I ain’t theer, I never
have no light showed.’
‘You’re a baby!’ said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she thought
so.
‘Well,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide apart,
and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction,
as he looked alternately at us and at the fire. ‘I doen’t know but I am.
Not, you see, to look at.’
‘Not azackly,’ observed Peggotty.
‘No,’ laughed Mr. Peggotty, ‘not to look at, but to--to consider on, you
know. I doen’t care, bless you! Now I tell you. When I go a looking and
looking about that theer pritty house of our Em’ly’s, I’m--I’m Gormed,’
said Mr. Peggotty, with sudden emphasis--‘theer! I can’t say more--if
I doen’t feel as if the littlest things was her, a’most. I takes ‘em up
and I put ‘em down, and I touches of ‘em as delicate as if they was our
Em’ly. So ‘tis with her little bonnets and that. I couldn’t see one on
‘em rough used a purpose--not fur the whole wureld. There’s a babby fur
you, in the form of a great Sea Porkypine!’ said Mr. Peggotty, relieving
his earnestness with a roar of laughter.
Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud.
‘It’s my opinion, you see,’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a delighted face,
after some further rubbing of his legs, ‘as this is along of my havin’
played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, and French,
and sharks, and every wariety of forinners--bless you, yes; and lions
and whales, and I doen’t know what all!--when she warn’t no higher than
my knee. I’ve got into the way on it, you know. Why, this here candle,
now!’ said Mr. Peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it,
‘I know wery well that arter she’s married and gone, I shall put that
candle theer, just the same as now. I know wery well that when I’m
here o’ nights (and where else should I live, bless your arts, whatever
fortun’ I come into!) and she ain’t here or I ain’t theer, I shall
put the candle in the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending I’m
expecting of her, like I’m a doing now. THERE’S a babby for you,’ said
Mr. Peggotty, with another roar, ‘in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Why,
at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I says to
myself, “She’s a looking at it! Em’ly’s a coming!” THERE’S a babby
for you, in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Right for all that,’ said Mr.
Peggotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together; ‘fur
here she is!’
It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I came in,
for he had a large sou’wester hat on, slouched over his face.
‘Wheer’s Em’ly?’ said Mr. Peggotty.
Ham made a motion with his head, as if she were outside. Mr. Peggotty
took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was
busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said:
‘Mas’r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em’ly and me has
got to show you?’
We went out. As I passed him at the door, I saw, to my astonishment and
fright, that he was deadly pale. He pushed me hastily into the open air,
and closed the door upon us. Only upon us two.
‘Ham! what’s the matter?’
‘Mas’r Davy!--’ Oh, for his broken heart, how dreadfully he wept!
I was paralysed by the sight of such grief. I don’t know what I thought,
or what I dreaded. I could only look at him.
‘Ham! Poor good fellow! For Heaven’s sake, tell me what’s the matter!’
‘My love, Mas’r Davy--the pride and hope of my art--her that I’d have
died for, and would die for now--she’s gone!’
‘Gone!’
‘Em’ly’s run away! Oh, Mas’r Davy, think HOW she’s run away, when I
pray my good and gracious God to kill her (her that is so dear above all
things) sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace!’
The face he turned up to the troubled sky, the quivering of his clasped
hands, the agony of his figure, remain associated with the lonely waste,
in my remembrance, to this hour. It is always night there, and he is the
only object in the scene.
‘You’re a scholar,’ he said, hurriedly, ‘and know what’s right and
best. What am I to say, indoors? How am I ever to break it to him, Mas’r
Davy?’
I saw the door move, and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the
outside, to gain a moment’s time. It was too late. Mr. Peggotty thrust
forth his face; and never could I forget the change that came upon it
when he saw us, if I were to live five hundred years.
I remember a great wail and cry, and the women hanging about him, and we
all standing in the room; I with a paper in my hand, which Ham had given
me; Mr. Peggotty, with his vest torn open, his hair wild, his face and
lips quite white, and blood trickling down his bosom (it had sprung from
his mouth, I think), looking fixedly at me.
‘Read it, sir,’ he said, in a low shivering voice. ‘Slow, please. I
doen’t know as I can understand.’
In the midst of the silence of death, I read thus, from a blotted
letter:
‘“When you, who love me so much better than I ever have deserved, even
when my mind was innocent, see this, I shall be far away.”’
‘I shall be fur away,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Stop! Em’ly fur away. Well!’
‘“When I leave my dear home--my dear home--oh, my dear home!--in the
morning,”’
the letter bore date on the previous night:
’”--it will be never to come back, unless he brings me back a lady. This
will be found at night, many hours after, instead of me. Oh, if you knew
how my heart is torn. If even you, that I have wronged so much, that
never can forgive me, could only know what I suffer! I am too wicked to
write about myself! Oh, take comfort in thinking that I am so bad. Oh,
for mercy’s sake, tell uncle that I never loved him half so dear as
now. Oh, don’t remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to
me--don’t remember we were ever to be married--but try to think as if I
died when I was little, and was buried somewhere. Pray Heaven that I
am going away from, have compassion on my uncle! Tell him that I never
loved him half so dear. Be his comfort. Love some good girl that will
be what I was once to uncle, and be true to you, and worthy of you, and
know no shame but me. God bless all! I’ll pray for all, often, on my
knees. If he don’t bring me back a lady, and I don’t pray for my own
self, I’ll pray for all. My parting love to uncle. My last tears, and my
last thanks, for uncle!”’
That was all.
He stood, long after I had ceased to read, still looking at me. At
length I ventured to take his hand, and to entreat him, as well as
I could, to endeavour to get some command of himself. He replied, ‘I
thankee, sir, I thankee!’ without moving.
Ham spoke to him. Mr. Peggotty was so far sensible of HIS affliction,
that he wrung his hand; but, otherwise, he remained in the same state,
and no one dared to disturb him.
Slowly, at last, he moved his eyes from my face, as if he were waking
from a vision, and cast them round the room. Then he said, in a low
voice:
‘Who’s the man? I want to know his name.’
Ham glanced at me, and suddenly I felt a shock that struck me back.
‘There’s a man suspected,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Who is it?’
‘Mas’r Davy!’ implored Ham. ‘Go out a bit, and let me tell him what I
must. You doen’t ought to hear it, sir.’
I felt the shock again. I sank down in a chair, and tried to utter some
reply; but my tongue was fettered, and my sight was weak.
‘I want to know his name!’ I heard said once more.
‘For some time past,’ Ham faltered, ‘there’s been a servant about here,
at odd times. There’s been a gen’lm’n too. Both of ‘em belonged to one
another.’
Mr. Peggotty stood fixed as before, but now looking at him.
‘The servant,’ pursued Ham, ‘was seen along with--our poor girl--last
night. He’s been in hiding about here, this week or over. He was thought
to have gone, but he was hiding. Doen’t stay, Mas’r Davy, doen’t!’
I felt Peggotty’s arm round my neck, but I could not have moved if the
house had been about to fall upon me.
‘A strange chay and hosses was outside town, this morning, on the
Norwich road, a’most afore the day broke,’ Ham went on. ‘The servant
went to it, and come from it, and went to it again. When he went to it
again, Em’ly was nigh him. The t’other was inside. He’s the man.’
‘For the Lord’s love,’ said Mr. Peggotty, falling back, and putting out
his hand, as if to keep off what he dreaded. ‘Doen’t tell me his name’s
Steerforth!’
‘Mas’r Davy,’ exclaimed Ham, in a broken voice, ‘it ain’t no fault
of yourn--and I am far from laying of it to you--but his name is
Steerforth, and he’s a damned villain!’
Mr. Peggotty uttered no cry, and shed no tear, and moved no more, until
he seemed to wake again, all at once, and pulled down his rough coat
from its peg in a corner.
‘Bear a hand with this! I’m struck of a heap, and can’t do it,’ he said,
impatiently. ‘Bear a hand and help me. Well!’ when somebody had done so.
‘Now give me that theer hat!’
Ham asked him whither he was going.
‘I’m a going to seek my niece. I’m a going to seek my Em’ly. I’m a
going, first, to stave in that theer boat, and sink it where I would
have drownded him, as I’m a living soul, if I had had one thought of
what was in him! As he sat afore me,’ he said, wildly, holding out his
clenched right hand, ‘as he sat afore me, face to face, strike me down
dead, but I’d have drownded him, and thought it right!--I’m a going to
seek my niece.’
‘Where?’ cried Ham, interposing himself before the door.
‘Anywhere! I’m a going to seek my niece through the wureld. I’m a going
to find my poor niece in her shame, and bring her back. No one stop me!
I tell you I’m a going to seek my niece!’
‘No, no!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, coming between them, in a fit of crying.
‘No, no, Dan’l, not as you are now. Seek her in a little while, my lone
lorn Dan’l, and that’ll be but right! but not as you are now. Sit ye
down, and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a worrit to you,
Dan’l--what have my contraries ever been to this!--and let us speak a
word about them times when she was first an orphan, and when Ham was
too, and when I was a poor widder woman, and you took me in. It’ll
soften your poor heart, Dan’l,’ laying her head upon his shoulder, ‘and
you’ll bear your sorrow better; for you know the promise, Dan’l, “As
you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto
me”,--and that can never fail under this roof, that’s been our shelter
for so many, many year!’
He was quite passive now; and when I heard him crying, the impulse that
had been upon me to go down upon my knees, and ask their pardon for the
desolation I had caused, and curse Steerforth, yielded to a better
feeling. My overcharged heart found the same relief, and I cried too.
CHAPTER 32. THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY
What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so
I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than
when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress
of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was
brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I
did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a
noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of
my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his
pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face
to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have
loved him so well still--though he fascinated me no longer--I should
have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that
I think I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all
but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united.
That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end
between us. What his remembrances of me were, I have never known--they
were light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed--but mine of him were
as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead.
Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! My
sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement Throne;
but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know!
The news of what had happened soon spread through the town; insomuch
that as I passed along the streets next morning, I overheard the people
speaking of it at their doors. Many were hard upon her, some few were
hard upon him, but towards her second father and her lover there was
but one sentiment. Among all kinds of people a respect for them in
their distress prevailed, which was full of gentleness and delicacy. The
seafaring men kept apart, when those two were seen early, walking with
slow steps on the beach; and stood in knots, talking compassionately
among themselves.
It was on the beach, close down by the sea, that I found them. It would
have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all last night, even
if Peggotty had failed to tell me of their still sitting just as I
left them, when it was broad day. They looked worn; and I thought Mr.
Peggotty’s head was bowed in one night more than in all the years I had
known him. But they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself,
then lying beneath a dark sky, waveless--yet with a heavy roll upon it,
as if it breathed in its rest--and touched, on the horizon, with a strip
of silvery light from the unseen sun.
‘We have had a mort of talk, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty to me, when we had
all three walked a little while in silence, ‘of what we ought and doen’t
ought to do. But we see our course now.’
I happened to glance at Ham, then looking out to sea upon the distant
light, and a frightful thought came into my mind--not that his face
was angry, for it was not; I recall nothing but an expression of stern
determination in it--that if ever he encountered Steerforth, he would
kill him.
‘My dooty here, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘is done. I’m a going to seek
my--’ he stopped, and went on in a firmer voice: ‘I’m a going to seek
her. That’s my dooty evermore.’
He shook his head when I asked him where he would seek her, and inquired
if I were going to London tomorrow? I told him I had not gone today,
fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him; but that I
was ready to go when he would.
‘I’ll go along with you, sir,’ he rejoined, ‘if you’re agreeable,
tomorrow.’
We walked again, for a while, in silence.
‘Ham,’ he presently resumed, ‘he’ll hold to his present work, and go and
live along with my sister. The old boat yonder--’
‘Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?’ I gently interposed.
‘My station, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned, ‘ain’t there no longer; and if
ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep,
that one’s gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen’t mean as it should be
deserted. Fur from that.’
We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained:
‘My wishes is, sir, as it shall look, day and night, winter and summer,
as it has always looked, since she fust know’d it. If ever she should
come a wandering back, I wouldn’t have the old place seem to cast her
off, you understand, but seem to tempt her to draw nigher to ‘t, and to
peep in, maybe, like a ghost, out of the wind and rain, through the old
winder, at the old seat by the fire. Then, maybe, Mas’r Davy, seein’
none but Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in,
trembling; and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her
weary head where it was once so gay.’
I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried.
‘Every night,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘as reg’lar as the night comes, the
candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should
see it, it may seem to say “Come back, my child, come back!” If ever
there’s a knock, Ham (partic’ler a soft knock), arter dark, at your
aunt’s door, doen’t you go nigh it. Let it be her--not you--that sees my
fallen child!’
He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes.
During this interval, I glanced at Ham again, and observing the same
expression on his face, and his eyes still directed to the distant
light, I touched his arm.
Twice I called him by his name, in the tone in which I might have tried
to rouse a sleeper, before he heeded me. When I at last inquired on what
his thoughts were so bent, he replied:
‘On what’s afore me, Mas’r Davy; and over yon.’ ‘On the life before you,
do you mean?’ He had pointed confusedly out to sea.
‘Ay, Mas’r Davy. I doen’t rightly know how ‘tis, but from over yon there
seemed to me to come--the end of it like,’ looking at me as if he were
waking, but with the same determined face.
‘What end?’ I asked, possessed by my former fear.
‘I doen’t know,’ he said, thoughtfully; ‘I was calling to mind that the
beginning of it all did take place here--and then the end come. But it’s
gone! Mas’r Davy,’ he added; answering, as I think, my look; ‘you han’t
no call to be afeerd of me: but I’m kiender muddled; I don’t fare to
feel no matters,’--which was as much as to say that he was not himself,
and quite confounded.
Mr. Peggotty stopping for us to join him: we did so, and said no more.
The remembrance of this, in connexion with my former thought, however,
haunted me at intervals, even until the inexorable end came at its
appointed time.
We insensibly approached the old boat, and entered. Mrs. Gummidge, no
longer moping in her especial corner, was busy preparing breakfast.
She took Mr. Peggotty’s hat, and placed his seat for him, and spoke so
comfortably and softly, that I hardly knew her.
‘Dan’l, my good man,’ said she, ‘you must eat and drink, and keep up
your strength, for without it you’ll do nowt. Try, that’s a dear soul!
An if I disturb you with my clicketten,’ she meant her chattering, ‘tell
me so, Dan’l, and I won’t.’
When she had served us all, she withdrew to the window, where she
sedulously employed herself in repairing some shirts and other clothes
belonging to Mr. Peggotty, and neatly folding and packing them in an old
oilskin bag, such as sailors carry. Meanwhile, she continued talking, in
the same quiet manner:
‘All times and seasons, you know, Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, ‘I shall
be allus here, and everythink will look accordin’ to your wishes. I’m a
poor scholar, but I shall write to you, odd times, when you’re away, and
send my letters to Mas’r Davy. Maybe you’ll write to me too, Dan’l, odd
times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journies.’
‘You’ll be a solitary woman heer, I’m afeerd!’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘No, no, Dan’l,’ she returned, ‘I shan’t be that. Doen’t you mind me. I
shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you’ (Mrs. Gummidge meant a
home), ‘again you come back--to keep a Beein here for any that may hap
to come back, Dan’l. In the fine time, I shall set outside the door as I
used to do. If any should come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman
true to ‘em, a long way off.’
What a change in Mrs. Gummidge in a little time! She was another woman.
She was so devoted, she had such a quick perception of what it would
be well to say, and what it would be well to leave unsaid; she was so
forgetful of herself, and so regardful of the sorrow about her, that I
held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day! There
were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the
outhouse--as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of
ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance
rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but
would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being
asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under
weights that she was quite unequal to, and fagging to and fro on all
sorts of unnecessary errands. As to deploring her misfortunes, she
appeared to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any.
She preserved an equable cheerfulness in the midst of her sympathy,
which was not the least astonishing part of the change that had come
over her. Querulousness was out of the question. I did not even observe
her voice to falter, or a tear to escape from her eyes, the whole day
through, until twilight; when she and I and Mr. Peggotty being alone
together, and he having fallen asleep in perfect exhaustion, she broke
into a half-suppressed fit of sobbing and crying, and taking me to the
door, said, ‘Ever bless you, Mas’r Davy, be a friend to him, poor dear!’
Then, she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order
that she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when
he should awake. In short I left her, when I went away at night, the
prop and staff of Mr. Peggotty’s affliction; and I could not meditate
enough upon the lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new
experience she unfolded to me.
It was between nine and ten o’clock when, strolling in a melancholy
manner through the town, I stopped at Mr. Omer’s door. Mr. Omer had
taken it so much to heart, his daughter told me, that he had been very
low and poorly all day, and had gone to bed without his pipe.
‘A deceitful, bad-hearted girl,’ said Mrs. Joram. ‘There was no good in
her, ever!’
‘Don’t say so,’ I returned. ‘You don’t think so.’
‘Yes, I do!’ cried Mrs. Joram, angrily.
‘No, no,’ said I.
Mrs. Joram tossed her head, endeavouring to be very stern and cross; but
she could not command her softer self, and began to cry. I was young,
to be sure; but I thought much the better of her for this sympathy, and
fancied it became her, as a virtuous wife and mother, very well indeed.
‘What will she ever do!’ sobbed Minnie. ‘Where will she go! What will
become of her! Oh, how could she be so cruel, to herself and him!’
I remembered the time when Minnie was a young and pretty girl; and I was
glad she remembered it too, so feelingly.
‘My little Minnie,’ said Mrs. Joram, ‘has only just now been got to
sleep. Even in her sleep she is sobbing for Em’ly. All day long, little
Minnie has cried for her, and asked me, over and over again, whether
Em’ly was wicked? What can I say to her, when Em’ly tied a ribbon off
her own neck round little Minnie’s the last night she was here, and laid
her head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep! The
ribbon’s round my little Minnie’s neck now. It ought not to be, perhaps,
but what can I do? Em’ly is very bad, but they were fond of one another.
And the child knows nothing!’
Mrs. Joram was so unhappy that her husband came out to take care of
her. Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty’s; more melancholy
myself, if possible, than I had been yet.
That good creature--I mean Peggotty--all untired by her late anxieties
and sleepless nights, was at her brother’s, where she meant to stay till
morning. An old woman, who had been employed about the house for some
weeks past, while Peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was the
house’s only other occupant besides myself. As I had no occasion for her
services, I sent her to bed, by no means against her will, and sat down
before the kitchen fire a little while, to think about all this.
I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Barkis, and was
driving out with the tide towards the distance at which Ham had looked
so singularly in the morning, when I was recalled from my wanderings by
a knock at the door. There was a knocker upon the door, but it was not
that which made the sound. The tap was from a hand, and low down upon
the door, as if it were given by a child.
It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a footman to a
person of distinction. I opened the door; and at first looked down,
to my amazement, on nothing but a great umbrella that appeared to be
walking about of itself. But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss
Mowcher.
I might not have been prepared to give the little creature a very kind
reception, if, on her removing the umbrella, which her utmost efforts
were unable to shut up, she had shown me the ‘volatile’ expression of
face which had made so great an impression on me at our first and last
meeting. But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest;
and when I relieved her of the umbrella (which would have been an
inconvenient one for the Irish Giant), she wrung her little hands in
such an afflicted manner; that I rather inclined towards her.
‘Miss Mowcher!’ said I, after glancing up and down the empty street,
without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; ‘how do you
come here? What is the matter?’ She motioned to me with her short right
arm, to shut the umbrella for her; and passing me hurriedly, went into
the kitchen. When I had closed the door, and followed, with the umbrella
in my hand, I found her sitting on the corner of the fender--it was a
low iron one, with two flat bars at top to stand plates upon--in the
shadow of the boiler, swaying herself backwards and forwards, and
chafing her hands upon her knees like a person in pain.
Quite alarmed at being the only recipient of this untimely visit, and
the only spectator of this portentous behaviour, I exclaimed again,
‘Pray tell me, Miss Mowcher, what is the matter! are you ill?’
‘My dear young soul,’ returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands upon
her heart one over the other. ‘I am ill here, I am very ill. To think
that it should come to this, when I might have known it and perhaps
prevented it, if I hadn’t been a thoughtless fool!’
Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to the figure) went
backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro;
while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall.
‘I am surprised,’ I began, ‘to see you so distressed and serious’--when
she interrupted me.
‘Yes, it’s always so!’ she said. ‘They are all surprised, these
inconsiderate young people, fairly and full grown, to see any natural
feeling in a little thing like me! They make a plaything of me, use me
for their amusement, throw me away when they are tired, and wonder that
I feel more than a toy horse or a wooden soldier! Yes, yes, that’s the
way. The old way!’
‘It may be, with others,’ I returned, ‘but I do assure you it is not
with me. Perhaps I ought not to be at all surprised to see you as you
are now: I know so little of you. I said, without consideration, what I
thought.’
‘What can I do?’ returned the little woman, standing up, and holding out
her arms to show herself. ‘See! What I am, my father was; and my sister
is; and my brother is. I have worked for sister and brother these many
years--hard, Mr. Copperfield--all day. I must live. I do no harm. If
there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make a jest of
me, what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and
everything? If I do so, for the time, whose fault is that? Mine?’
No. Not Miss Mowcher’s, I perceived.
‘If I had shown myself a sensitive dwarf to your false friend,’ pursued
the little woman, shaking her head at me, with reproachful earnestness,
‘how much of his help or good will do you think I should ever have had?
If little Mowcher (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the making of
herself) addressed herself to him, or the like of him, because of her
misfortunes, when do you suppose her small voice would have been heard?
Little Mowcher would have as much need to live, if she was the bitterest
and dullest of pigmies; but she couldn’t do it. No. She might whistle
for her bread and butter till she died of Air.’
Miss Mowcher sat down on the fender again, and took out her
handkerchief, and wiped her eyes.
‘Be thankful for me, if you have a kind heart, as I think you have,’ she
said, ‘that while I know well what I am, I can be cheerful and endure it
all. I am thankful for myself, at any rate, that I can find my tiny way
through the world, without being beholden to anyone; and that in return
for all that is thrown at me, in folly or vanity, as I go along, I can
throw bubbles back. If I don’t brood over all I want, it is the better
for me, and not the worse for anyone. If I am a plaything for you
giants, be gentle with me.’
Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me with
very intent expression all the while, and pursued:
‘I saw you in the street just now. You may suppose I am not able to
walk as fast as you, with my short legs and short breath, and I couldn’t
overtake you; but I guessed where you came, and came after you. I have
been here before, today, but the good woman wasn’t at home.’
‘Do you know her?’ I demanded.
‘I know of her, and about her,’ she replied, ‘from Omer and Joram. I
was there at seven o’clock this morning. Do you remember what Steerforth
said to me about this unfortunate girl, that time when I saw you both at
the inn?’
The great bonnet on Miss Mowcher’s head, and the greater bonnet on
the wall, began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this
question.
I remembered very well what she referred to, having had it in my
thoughts many times that day. I told her so.
‘May the Father of all Evil confound him,’ said the little woman,
holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes, ‘and ten
times more confound that wicked servant; but I believed it was YOU who
had a boyish passion for her!’
‘I?’ I repeated.
‘Child, child! In the name of blind ill-fortune,’ cried Miss Mowcher,
wringing her hands impatiently, as she went to and fro again upon the
fender, ‘why did you praise her so, and blush, and look disturbed?’
I could not conceal from myself that I had done this, though for a
reason very different from her supposition.
‘What did I know?’ said Miss Mowcher, taking out her handkerchief again,
and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever, at short intervals,
she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once. ‘He was crossing you
and wheedling you, I saw; and you were soft wax in his hands, I saw. Had
I left the room a minute, when his man told me that “Young Innocence”
(so he called you, and you may call him “Old Guilt” all the days of your
life) had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, but
his master was resolved that no harm should come of it--more for your
sake than for hers--and that that was their business here? How could I
BUT believe him? I saw Steerforth soothe and please you by his praise
of her! You were the first to mention her name. You owned to an old
admiration of her. You were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once
when I spoke to you of her. What could I think--what DID I think--but
that you were a young libertine in everything but experience, and had
fallen into hands that had experience enough, and could manage you
(having the fancy) for your own good? Oh! oh! oh! They were afraid of my
finding out the truth,’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher, getting off the
fender, and trotting up and down the kitchen with her two short arms
distressfully lifted up, ‘because I am a sharp little thing--I need be,
to get through the world at all!--and they deceived me altogether, and
I gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter, which I fully believe was
the beginning of her ever speaking to Littimer, who was left behind on
purpose!’
I stood amazed at the revelation of all this perfidy, looking at Miss
Mowcher as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of
breath: when she sat upon the fender again, and, drying her face with
her handkerchief, shook her head for a long time, without otherwise
moving, and without breaking silence.
‘My country rounds,’ she added at length, ‘brought me to Norwich, Mr.
Copperfield, the night before last. What I happened to find there,
about their secret way of coming and going, without you--which was
strange--led to my suspecting something wrong. I got into the coach
from London last night, as it came through Norwich, and was here this
morning. Oh, oh, oh! too late!’
Poor little Mowcher turned so chilly after all her crying and fretting,
that she turned round on the fender, putting her poor little wet feet in
among the ashes to warm them, and sat looking at the fire, like a large
doll. I sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth, lost in unhappy
reflections, and looking at the fire too, and sometimes at her.
‘I must go,’ she said at last, rising as she spoke. ‘It’s late. You
don’t mistrust me?’
Meeting her sharp glance, which was as sharp as ever when she asked me,
I could not on that short challenge answer no, quite frankly.
‘Come!’ said she, accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the
fender, and looking wistfully up into my face, ‘you know you wouldn’t
mistrust me, if I was a full-sized woman!’
I felt that there was much truth in this; and I felt rather ashamed of
myself.
‘You are a young man,’ she said, nodding. ‘Take a word of advice,
even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with
mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.’
She had got over the fender now, and I had got over my suspicion. I told
her that I believed she had given me a faithful account of herself,
and that we had both been hapless instruments in designing hands. She
thanked me, and said I was a good fellow.
‘Now, mind!’ she exclaimed, turning back on her way to the door, and
looking shrewdly at me, with her forefinger up again.--‘I have some
reason to suspect, from what I have heard--my ears are always open; I
can’t afford to spare what powers I have--that they are gone abroad. But
if ever they return, if ever any one of them returns, while I am alive,
I am more likely than another, going about as I do, to find it out soon.
Whatever I know, you shall know. If ever I can do anything to serve the
poor betrayed girl, I will do it faithfully, please Heaven! And Littimer
had better have a bloodhound at his back, than little Mowcher!’
I placed implicit faith in this last statement, when I marked the look
with which it was accompanied.
‘Trust me no more, but trust me no less, than you would trust a
full-sized woman,’ said the little creature, touching me appealingly
on the wrist. ‘If ever you see me again, unlike what I am now, and like
what I was when you first saw me, observe what company I am in. Call to
mind that I am a very helpless and defenceless little thing. Think of
me at home with my brother like myself and sister like myself, when my
day’s work is done. Perhaps you won’t, then, be very hard upon me, or
surprised if I can be distressed and serious. Good night!’
I gave Miss Mowcher my hand, with a very different opinion of her from
that which I had hitherto entertained, and opened the door to let her
out. It was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up, and
properly balanced in her grasp; but at last I successfully accomplished
this, and saw it go bobbing down the street through the rain, without
the least appearance of having anybody underneath it, except when a
heavier fall than usual from some over-charged water-spout sent it
toppling over, on one side, and discovered Miss Mowcher struggling
violently to get it right. After making one or two sallies to her
relief, which were rendered futile by the umbrella’s hopping on again,
like an immense bird, before I could reach it, I came in, went to bed,
and slept till morning.
In the morning I was joined by Mr. Peggotty and by my old nurse, and we
went at an early hour to the coach office, where Mrs. Gummidge and Ham
were waiting to take leave of us.
‘Mas’r Davy,’ Ham whispered, drawing me aside, while Mr. Peggotty was
stowing his bag among the luggage, ‘his life is quite broke up. He
doen’t know wheer he’s going; he doen’t know--what’s afore him; he’s
bound upon a voyage that’ll last, on and off, all the rest of his days,
take my wured for ‘t, unless he finds what he’s a seeking of. I am sure
you’ll be a friend to him, Mas’r Davy?’
‘Trust me, I will indeed,’ said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly.
‘Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I’m in good employ,
you know, Mas’r Davy, and I han’t no way now of spending what I gets.
Money’s of no use to me no more, except to live. If you can lay it out
for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Though as to that, sir,’
and he spoke very steadily and mildly, ‘you’re not to think but I shall
work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays in my power!’
I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped the
time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he
naturally contemplated now.
‘No, sir,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘all that’s past and over with me,
sir. No one can never fill the place that’s empty. But you’ll bear in
mind about the money, as theer’s at all times some laying by for him?’
Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady,
though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late
brother-in-law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of each other. I
cannot leave him even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his
modest fortitude and his great sorrow.
As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down
the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on
the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself
against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should
enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her
sitting on a baker’s door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all
remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement
at a considerable distance.
When we got to our journey’s end, our first pursuit was to look about
for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a
bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap
description, over a chandler’s shop, only two streets removed from
me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an
eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding,
I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. Crupp’s approval, but
quite the contrary. I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that
lady’s state of mind, that she was much offended by Peggotty’s tucking
up her widow’s gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and
setting to work to dust my bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the
light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, was a thing she never
allowed.
Mr. Peggotty had made a communication to me on the way to London for
which I was not unprepared. It was, that he purposed first seeing Mrs.
Steerforth. As I felt bound to assist him in this, and also to mediate
between them; with the view of sparing the mother’s feelings as much
as possible, I wrote to her that night. I told her as mildly as I could
what his wrong was, and what my own share in his injury. I said he was a
man in very common life, but of a most gentle and upright character; and
that I ventured to express a hope that she would not refuse to see him
in his heavy trouble. I mentioned two o’clock in the afternoon as the
hour of our coming, and I sent the letter myself by the first coach in
the morning.
At the appointed time, we stood at the door--the door of that house
where I had been, a few days since, so happy: where my youthful
confidence and warmth of heart had been yielded up so freely: which was
closed against me henceforth: which was now a waste, a ruin.
No Littimer appeared. The pleasanter face which had replaced his, on the
occasion of my last visit, answered to our summons, and went before
us to the drawing-room. Mrs. Steerforth was sitting there. Rosa Dartle
glided, as we went in, from another part of the room and stood behind
her chair.
I saw, directly, in his mother’s face, that she knew from himself what
he had done. It was very pale; and bore the traces of deeper emotion
than my letter alone, weakened by the doubts her fondness would have
raised upon it, would have been likely to create. I thought her more
like him than ever I had thought her; and I felt, rather than saw, that
the resemblance was not lost on my companion.
She sat upright in her arm-chair, with a stately, immovable, passionless
air, that it seemed as if nothing could disturb. She looked very
steadfastly at Mr. Peggotty when he stood before her; and he looked
quite as steadfastly at her. Rosa Dartle’s keen glance comprehended all
of us. For some moments not a word was spoken.
She motioned to Mr. Peggotty to be seated. He said, in a low voice, ‘I
shouldn’t feel it nat’ral, ma’am, to sit down in this house. I’d sooner
stand.’ And this was succeeded by another silence, which she broke thus:
‘I know, with deep regret, what has brought you here. What do you want
of me? What do you ask me to do?’
He put his hat under his arm, and feeling in his breast for Emily’s
letter, took it out, unfolded it, and gave it to her. ‘Please to read
that, ma’am. That’s my niece’s hand!’
She read it, in the same stately and impassive way,--untouched by its
contents, as far as I could see,--and returned it to him.
‘“Unless he brings me back a lady,”’ said Mr. Peggotty, tracing out that
part with his finger. ‘I come to know, ma’am, whether he will keep his
wured?’
‘No,’ she returned.
‘Why not?’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘It is impossible. He would disgrace himself. You cannot fail to know
that she is far below him.’
‘Raise her up!’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘She is uneducated and ignorant.’
‘Maybe she’s not; maybe she is,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I think not, ma’am;
but I’m no judge of them things. Teach her better!’
‘Since you oblige me to speak more plainly, which I am very unwilling
to do, her humble connexions would render such a thing impossible, if
nothing else did.’
‘Hark to this, ma’am,’ he returned, slowly and quietly. ‘You know what
it is to love your child. So do I. If she was a hundred times my child,
I couldn’t love her more. You doen’t know what it is to lose your child.
I do. All the heaps of riches in the wureld would be nowt to me (if they
was mine) to buy her back! But, save her from this disgrace, and she
shall never be disgraced by us. Not one of us that she’s growed up
among, not one of us that’s lived along with her and had her for their
all in all, these many year, will ever look upon her pritty face again.
We’ll be content to let her be; we’ll be content to think of her, far
off, as if she was underneath another sun and sky; we’ll be content to
trust her to her husband,--to her little children, p’raps,--and bide the
time when all of us shall be alike in quality afore our God!’
The rugged eloquence with which he spoke, was not devoid of all effect.
She still preserved her proud manner, but there was a touch of softness
in her voice, as she answered:
‘I justify nothing. I make no counter-accusations. But I am sorry to
repeat, it is impossible. Such a marriage would irretrievably blight my
son’s career, and ruin his prospects. Nothing is more certain than
that it never can take place, and never will. If there is any other
compensation--’
‘I am looking at the likeness of the face,’ interrupted Mr. Peggotty,
with a steady but a kindling eye, ‘that has looked at me, in my home, at
my fireside, in my boat--wheer not?---smiling and friendly, when it was
so treacherous, that I go half wild when I think of it. If the likeness
of that face don’t turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering
money to me for my child’s blight and ruin, it’s as bad. I doen’t know,
being a lady’s, but what it’s worse.’
She changed now, in a moment. An angry flush overspread her features;
and she said, in an intolerant manner, grasping the arm-chair tightly
with her hands:
‘What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit between me
and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?’
Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but
she would not hear a word.
‘No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has
been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted,
whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had
no separate existence since his birth,--to take up in a moment with a
miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic
deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched
fancy, against his mother’s claims upon his duty, love, respect,
gratitude--claims that every day and hour of his life should have
strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no
injury?’
Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her; again ineffectually.
‘I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the lightest
object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he
will, with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he think to
reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does.
Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not put
her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, while
I can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her
for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This is my
right. This is the acknowledgement I WILL HAVE. This is the separation
that there is between us! And is this,’ she added, looking at her
visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, ‘no
injury?’
While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to
hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of
an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that
I had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her
character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs,
the same.
She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it
was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an
end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room,
when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless.
‘Doen’t fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say,
ma’am,’ he remarked, as he moved towards the door. ‘I come heer with no
hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt should be done,
but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan’ning where I do.
This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right
senses and expect it.’
With this, we departed; leaving her standing by her elbow-chair, a
picture of a noble presence and a handsome face.
We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and
roof, over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green
then, and the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the
garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless
step, when we were close to them, addressed herself to me:
‘You do well,’ she said, ‘indeed, to bring this fellow here!’
Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed
in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into
that face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited
state of her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen
before, came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely lifted up her
hand, and struck it.
‘This is a fellow,’ she said, ‘to champion and bring here, is he not?
You are a true man!’
‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘you are surely not so unjust as to condemn
ME!’
‘Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?’ she
returned. ‘Don’t you know that they are both mad with their own
self-will and pride?’
‘Is it my doing?’ I returned.
‘Is it your doing!’ she retorted. ‘Why do you bring this man here?’
‘He is a deeply-injured man, Miss Dartle,’ I replied. ‘You may not know
it.’
‘I know that James Steerforth,’ she said, with her hand on her bosom, as
if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, ‘has
a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or care
about this fellow, and his common niece?’
‘Miss Dartle,’ I returned, ‘you deepen the injury. It is sufficient
already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong.’
‘I do him no wrong,’ she returned. ‘They are a depraved, worthless set.
I would have her whipped!’
Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door.
‘Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame!’ I said indignantly. ‘How can you bear
to trample on his undeserved affliction!’
‘I would trample on them all,’ she answered. ‘I would have his house
pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed in rags,
and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in
judgement on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it! I
detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I
would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would.
If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her
dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn’t part with it for Life
itself.’
The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak
impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made
itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of
being raised, was lower than usual. No description I could give of her
would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance
of herself to her anger. I have seen passion in many forms, but I have
never seen it in such a form as that.
When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down
the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having now
discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant
‘to set out on his travels’, that night. I asked him where he meant to
go? He only answered, ‘I’m a going, sir, to seek my niece.’
We went back to the little lodging over the chandler’s shop, and there
I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had said to
me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that
morning. She knew no more than I did, where he was going, but she
thought he had some project shaped out in his mind.
I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three
dined together off a beefsteak pie--which was one of the many good
things for which Peggotty was famous--and which was curiously flavoured
on this occasion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea,
coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut
ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an
hour or so near the window, without talking much; and then Mr. Peggotty
got up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them
on the table.
He accepted, from his sister’s stock of ready money, a small sum on
account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to keep him
for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything befell
him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us
both ‘Good-bye!’
‘All good attend you, dear old woman,’ he said, embracing Peggotty, ‘and
you too, Mas’r Davy!’ shaking hands with me. ‘I’m a-going to seek her,
fur and wide. If she should come home while I’m away--but ah, that ain’t
like to be!--or if I should bring her back, my meaning is, that she
and me shall live and die where no one can’t reproach her. If any hurt
should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, “My
unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!”’
He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went
down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty
evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which
that by-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of
feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at
the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost
him.
Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night,
rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain,
or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor
pilgrim, and recalled the words:
‘I’m a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to me,
remember that the last words I left for her was, “My unchanged love is
with my darling child, and I forgive her!”’
CHAPTER 33. BLISSFUL
All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than ever. Her idea was
my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to me,
even for the loss of my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied
others, the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora. The
greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the
brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora high above the world. I
don’t think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what
degree she was related to a higher order of beings; but I am quite sure
I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any
other young lady, with indignation and contempt.
If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over
head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through.
Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking,
to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me,
and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.
The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to take
a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle of
my childhood, to go ‘round and round the house, without ever
touching the house’, thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this
incomprehensible conundrum was the moon. No matter what it was, I, the
moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round and round the house and
garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the palings, getting
my chin by dint of violent exertion above the rusty nails on the top,
blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling
on the night, at intervals, to shield my Dora--I don’t exactly know what
from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great
objection.
My love was so much in my mind and it was so natural to me to confide in
Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an evening with the old
set of industrial implements, busily making the tour of my wardrobe,
that I imparted to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my great
secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, but I could not get her into
my view of the case at all. She was audaciously prejudiced in my favour,
and quite unable to understand why I should have any misgivings, or be
low-spirited about it. ‘The young lady might think herself well off,’
she observed, ‘to have such a beau. And as to her Pa,’ she said, ‘what
did the gentleman expect, for gracious sake!’
I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow’s proctorial gown and stiff cravat
took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence
for the man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my
eyes every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam
when he sat erect in Court among his papers, like a little lighthouse in
a sea of stationery. And by the by, it used to be uncommonly strange
to me to consider, I remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old
judges and doctors wouldn’t have cared for Dora, if they had known
her; how they wouldn’t have gone out of their senses with rapture, if
marriage with Dora had been proposed to them; how Dora might have sung,
and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led me to the verge of
madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his
road!
I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds
of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench
was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more
tenderness or poetry in it, than the bar of a public-house.
Taking the management of Peggotty’s affairs into my own hands, with
no little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with the
Legacy Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got everything
into an orderly train. We varied the legal character of these
proceedings by going to see some perspiring Wax-work, in Fleet Street
(melted, I should hope, these twenty years); and by visiting Miss
Linwood’s Exhibition, which I remember as a Mausoleum of needlework,
favourable to self-examination and repentance; and by inspecting the
Tower of London; and going to the top of St. Paul’s. All these wonders
afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under
existing circumstances: except, I think, St. Paul’s, which, from her
long attachment to her work-box, became a rival of the picture on the
lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that
work of art.
Peggotty’s business, which was what we used to call ‘common-form
business’ in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the common-form
business was), being settled, I took her down to the office one morning
to pay her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tiffey said, to get a
gentleman sworn for a marriage licence; but as I knew he would be
back directly, our place lying close to the Surrogate’s, and to the
Vicar-General’s office too, I told Peggotty to wait.
We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate
transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up,
when we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling
of delicacy, we were always blithe and light-hearted with the licence
clients. Therefore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow
much recovered from the shock of Mr. Barkis’s decease; and indeed he
came in like a bridegroom.
But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in company
with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His hair looked as
thick, and was certainly as black, as ever; and his glance was as little
to be trusted as of old.
‘Ah, Copperfield?’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘You know this gentleman, I
believe?’
I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognized him.
He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together; but
quickly decided what to do, and came up to me.
‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that you are doing well?’
‘It can hardly be interesting to you,’ said I. ‘Yes, if you wish to
know.’
We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty.
‘And you,’ said he. ‘I am sorry to observe that you have lost your
husband.’
‘It’s not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. Murdstone,’ replied
Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. ‘I am glad to hope that there is
nobody to blame for this one,--nobody to answer for it.’
‘Ha!’ said he; ‘that’s a comfortable reflection. You have done your
duty?’
‘I have not worn anybody’s life away,’ said Peggotty, ‘I am thankful to
think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and frightened any sweet
creetur to an early grave!’
He eyed her gloomily--remorsefully I thought--for an instant; and said,
turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my face:
‘We are not likely to encounter soon again;--a source of satisfaction to
us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. I
do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority,
exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good-will
now. There is an antipathy between us--’
‘An old one, I believe?’ said I, interrupting him.
He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark
eyes.
‘It rankled in your baby breast,’ he said. ‘It embittered the life of
your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, yet; I hope
you may correct yourself.’
Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice,
in a corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. Spenlow’s room, and
saying aloud, in his smoothest manner:
‘Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow’s profession are accustomed to family
differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always are!’
With that, he paid the money for his licence; and, receiving it neatly
folded from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite
wish for his happiness and the lady’s, went out of the office.
I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent
under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon
Peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature!) that we were
not in a place for recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her
peace. She was so unusually roused, that I was glad to compound for
an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival in her mind of our old
injuries, and to make the best I could of it, before Mr. Spenlow and the
clerks.
Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between Mr.
Murdstone and myself was; which I was glad of, for I could not bear to
acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what I did of the
history of my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if he thought
anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader of the state
party in our family, and that there was a rebel party commanded by
somebody else--so I gathered at least from what he said, while we were
waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty’s bill of costs.
‘Miss Trotwood,’ he remarked, ‘is very firm, no doubt, and not likely
to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her character, and
I may congratulate you, Copperfield, on being on the right side.
Differences between relations are much to be deplored--but they are
extremely general--and the great thing is, to be on the right side’:
meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest.
‘Rather a good marriage this, I believe?’ said Mr. Spenlow.
I explained that I knew nothing about it.
‘Indeed!’ he said. ‘Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone
dropped--as a man frequently does on these occasions--and from what Miss
Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good marriage.’
‘Do you mean that there is money, sir?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘I understand there’s money. Beauty too, I am
told.’
‘Indeed! Is his new wife young?’
‘Just of age,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘So lately, that I should think they
had been waiting for that.’
‘Lord deliver her!’ said Peggotty. So very emphatically and
unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed; until Tiffey came in
with the bill.
Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to
look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it
softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air--as if it were all
Jorkins’s doing--and handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right. Quite right. I should have been extremely
happy, Copperfield, to have limited these charges to the actual
expenditure out of pocket, but it is an irksome incident in my
professional life, that I am not at liberty to consult my own wishes. I
have a partner--Mr. Jorkins.’
As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing to
making no charge at all, I expressed my acknowledgements on Peggotty’s
behalf, and paid Tiffey in banknotes. Peggotty then retired to
her lodging, and Mr. Spenlow and I went into Court, where we had a
divorce-suit coming on, under an ingenious little statute (repealed
now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have seen several marriages
annulled), of which the merits were these. The husband, whose name was
Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his marriage licence as Thomas only;
suppressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as
comfortable as he expected. NOT finding himself as comfortable as he
expected, or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he
now came forward, by a friend, after being married a year or two, and
declared that his name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not
married at all. Which the Court confirmed, to his great satisfaction.
I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this,
and was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which
reconciles all anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He
said, Look at the world, there was good and evil in that; look at the
ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in THAT. It was all part of
a system. Very good. There you were!
I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora’s father that possibly
we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the
morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I
thought we might improve the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would
particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being
worthy of my gentlemanly character; but that he would be glad to hear
from me of what improvement I thought the Commons susceptible?
Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to us--for
our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, and
strolling past the Prerogative Office--I submitted that I thought the
Prerogative Office rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. Spenlow
inquired in what respect? I replied, with all due deference to his
experience (but with more deference, I am afraid, to his being Dora’s
father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the Registry of
that Court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects
within the immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries,
should be an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased
by the registrars for their Own private emolument, unsafe, not even
ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents
it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary
speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and
crammed the public’s wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other
object than to get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little
unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of profits amounting
to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits
of the deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to
spend a little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place for the
important documents which all classes of people were compelled to hand
over to them, whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little
unjust, that all the great offices in this great office should be
magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold
dark room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered
men, doing important services, in London. That perhaps it was a little
indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to
find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful
accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post
(and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a
staff in a cathedral, and what not),--while the public was put to the
inconvenience of which we had a specimen every afternoon when the office
was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous. That, perhaps,
in short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was
altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that
but for its being squeezed away in a corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard,
which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out,
and upside down, long ago.
Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then
argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what
was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt
that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the
office was not to be made better, who was the worse for it? Nobody. Who
was the better for it? All the Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good
predominated. It might not be a perfect system; nothing was perfect;
but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the
Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into
the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. He
considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found
them; and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I
deferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find
he was right, however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment,
but has done so in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not
too willingly) eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine
were set forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was
described as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half
more. What they have done with them since; whether they have lost many,
or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; I don’t
know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet
awhile.
I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here
it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this
conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged
into general topics. And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow
told me this day week was Dora’s birthday, and he would be glad if I
would come down and join a little picnic on the occasion. I went out of
my senses immediately; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt of
a little lace-edged sheet of note-paper, ‘Favoured by papa. To remind’;
and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage.
I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of preparation
for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought.
My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture.
I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a
delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a
declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottoes that
could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was in Covent Garden
Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired a
gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it
fresh, trotting down to Norwood.
I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to see
her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for
it, I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my
circumstances might have committed--because they came so very natural
to me. But oh! when I DID find the house, and DID dismount at the
garden-gate, and drag those stony-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora
sitting on a garden-seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was,
upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip
bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! There was a young lady with
her--comparatively stricken in years--almost twenty, I should say. Her
name was Miss Mills. And Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom friend
of Dora. Happy Miss Mills!
Jip was there, and Jip WOULD bark at me again. When I presented my
bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he had
the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might!
‘Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!’ said Dora.
I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of
words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them
so near HER. But I couldn’t manage it. She was too bewildering. To see
her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all
presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstasy. I wonder I
didn’t say, ‘Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!’
Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and
wouldn’t smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer
to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his
teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted,
and said, ‘My poor beautiful flowers!’ as compassionately, I thought, as
if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had!
‘You’ll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Dora, ‘that that
cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother’s
marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn’t that delightful?’
I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was
delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of
superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us.
‘She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw,’ said Dora. ‘You can’t
believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.’
‘Yes, I can, my dear!’ said Julia.
‘YOU can, perhaps, love,’ returned Dora, with her hand on Julia’s.
‘Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first.’
I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the course
of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I might refer that
wise benignity of manner which I had already noticed. I found, in
the course of the day, that this was the case: Miss Mills having been
unhappy in a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired
from the world on her awful stock of experience, but still to take a
calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves of youth.
But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him,
saying, ‘Look, papa, what beautiful flowers!’ And Miss Mills smiled
thoughtfully, as who should say, ‘Ye Mayflies, enjoy your brief
existence in the bright morning of life!’ And we all walked from the
lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready.
I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another.
There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the
guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was open; and
I rode behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking
towards me. She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and
wouldn’t allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should
crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself
with its fragrance. Our eyes at those times often met; and my great
astonishment is that I didn’t go over the head of my gallant grey into
the carriage.
There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe. I
have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me for riding
in it; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty
about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and asked me
what I thought of the prospect. I said it was delightful, and I dare
say it was; but it was all Dora to me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds
sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges
were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills understood me. Miss
Mills alone could enter into my feelings thoroughly.
I don’t know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as little
where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night
magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it up for ever when
we came away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft turf.
There were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye could see, a
rich landscape.
It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and my
jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own
sex--especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with a red
whisker, on which he established an amount of presumption not to be
endured--were my mortal foes.
We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting dinner
ready. Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which I don’t
believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of the young
ladies washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under his
directions. Dora was among these. I felt that fate had pitted me against
this man, and one of us must fall.
Red Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it. Nothing
should have induced ME to touch it!) and voted himself into the charge
of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious beast, in
the hollow trunk of a tree. By and by, I saw him, with the majority of a
lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of Dora!
I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this
baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, I know;
but it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to a young creature in
pink, with little eyes, and flirted with her desperately. She received
my attentions with favour; but whether on my account solely, or because
she had any designs on Red Whisker, I can’t say. Dora’s health was
drunk. When I drank it, I affected to interrupt my conversation for that
purpose, and to resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora’s eye as
I bowed to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me
over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant.
The young creature in pink had a mother in green; and I rather think the
latter separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, there was a general
breaking up of the party, while the remnants of the dinner were being
put away; and I strolled off by myself among the trees, in a raging and
remorseful state. I was debating whether I should pretend that I was not
well, and fly--I don’t know where--upon my gallant grey, when Dora and
Miss Mills met me.
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Miss Mills, ‘you are dull.’
I begged her pardon. Not at all.
‘And Dora,’ said Miss Mills, ‘YOU are dull.’
Oh dear no! Not in the least.
‘Mr. Copperfield and Dora,’ said Miss Mills, with an almost venerable
air. ‘Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither
the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be
renewed. I speak,’ said Miss Mills, ‘from experience of the past--the
remote, irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which sparkle in the
sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of
Sahara must not be plucked up idly.’
I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary
extent; but I took Dora’s little hand and kissed it--and she let me!
I kissed Miss Mills’s hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go
straight up to the seventh heaven. We did not come down again. We stayed
up there all the evening. At first we strayed to and fro among the
trees: I with Dora’s shy arm drawn through mine: and Heaven knows,
folly as it all was, it would have been a happy fate to have been struck
immortal with those foolish feelings, and have stayed among the trees
for ever!
But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and
calling ‘where’s Dora?’ So we went back, and they wanted Dora to sing.
Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage, but Dora
told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So Red Whisker was done for
in a moment; and I got it, and I unlocked it, and I took the guitar out,
and I sat by her, and I held her handkerchief and gloves, and I drank in
every note of her dear voice, and she sang to ME who loved her, and all
the others might applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing to
do with it!
I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to be real,
and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently, and hear Mrs.
Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready. But Dora sang,
and others sang, and Miss Mills sang--about the slumbering echoes in the
caverns of Memory; as if she were a hundred years old--and the evening
came on; and we had tea, with the kettle boiling gipsy-fashion; and I
was still as happy as ever.
I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other people,
defeated Red Whisker and all, went their several ways, and we went ours
through the still evening and the dying light, with sweet scents
rising up around us. Mr. Spenlow being a little drowsy after the
champagne--honour to the soil that grew the grape, to the grape that
made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, and to the merchant who
adulterated it!--and being fast asleep in a corner of the carriage, I
rode by the side and talked to Dora. She admired my horse and patted
him--oh, what a dear little hand it looked upon a horse!--and her shawl
would not keep right, and now and then I drew it round her with my arm;
and I even fancied that Jip began to see how it was, and to understand
that he must make up his mind to be friends with me.
That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up,
recluse; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had
done with the world, and mustn’t on any account have the slumbering
echoes in the caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did!
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Miss Mills, ‘come to this side of the carriage a
moment--if you can spare a moment. I want to speak to you.’
Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of Miss Mills, with
my hand upon the carriage door!
‘Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home with me the day
after tomorrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa would be
happy to see you.’ What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss
Mills’s head, and store Miss Mills’s address in the securest corner of
my memory! What could I do but tell Miss Mills, with grateful looks
and fervent words, how much I appreciated her good offices, and what an
inestimable value I set upon her friendship!
Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, ‘Go back to Dora!’ and
I went; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to me, and we talked
all the rest of the way; and I rode my gallant grey so close to the
wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against it, and ‘took the bark
off’, as his owner told me, ‘to the tune of three pun’ sivin’--which I
paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much joy. What time Miss Mills
sat looking at the moon, murmuring verses--and recalling, I suppose, the
ancient days when she and earth had anything in common.
Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours too soon;
but Mr. Spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and said,
‘You must come in, Copperfield, and rest!’ and I consenting, we had
sandwiches and wine-and-water. In the light room, Dora blushing looked
so lovely, that I could not tear myself away, but sat there staring, in
a dream, until the snoring of Mr. Spenlow inspired me with sufficient
consciousness to take my leave. So we parted; I riding all the way
to London with the farewell touch of Dora’s hand still light on mine,
recalling every incident and word ten thousand times; lying down in my
own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle as ever was carried out of
his five wits by love.
When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare my passion to Dora,
and know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the question. There was no
other question that I knew of in the world, and only Dora could give the
answer to it. I passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness, torturing
myself by putting every conceivable variety of discouraging construction
on all that ever had taken place between Dora and me. At last, arrayed
for the purpose at a vast expense, I went to Miss Mills’s, fraught with
a declaration.
How many times I went up and down the street, and round the
square--painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle
than the original one--before I could persuade myself to go up the steps
and knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had knocked, and was
waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought of asking if that
were Mr. Blackboy’s (in imitation of poor Barkis), begging pardon, and
retreating. But I kept my ground.
Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be. Nobody wanted
HIM. Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do.
I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were. Jip
was there. Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect, it was a new song,
called ‘Affection’s Dirge’), and Dora was painting flowers. What were my
feelings, when I recognized my own flowers; the identical Covent Garden
Market purchase! I cannot say that they were very like, or that
they particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my
observation; but I knew from the paper round them which was accurately
copied, what the composition was.
Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at
home: though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was
conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon
‘Affection’s Dirge’, got up, and left the room.
I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow.
‘I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night,’ said
Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. ‘It was a long way for him.’
I began to think I would do it today.
‘It was a long way for him,’ said I, ‘for he had nothing to uphold him
on the journey.’
‘Wasn’t he fed, poor thing?’ asked Dora.
I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow.
‘Ye-yes,’ I said, ‘he was well taken care of. I mean he had not the
unutterable happiness that I had in being so near you.’
Dora bent her head over her drawing and said, after a little while--I
had sat, in the interval, in a burning fever, and with my legs in a very
rigid state--
‘You didn’t seem to be sensible of that happiness yourself, at one time
of the day.’
I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot.
‘You didn’t care for that happiness in the least,’ said Dora, slightly
raising her eyebrows, and shaking her head, ‘when you were sitting by
Miss Kitt.’
Kitt, I should observe, was the name of the creature in pink, with the
little eyes.
‘Though certainly I don’t know why you should,’ said Dora, ‘or why you
should call it a happiness at all. But of course you don’t mean what you
say. And I am sure no one doubts your being at liberty to do whatever
you like. Jip, you naughty boy, come here!’
I don’t know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted Jip.
I had Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped for a
word. I told her how I loved her. I told her I should die without her.
I told her that I idolized and worshipped her. Jip barked madly all the
time.
When Dora hung her head and cried, and trembled, my eloquence increased
so much the more. If she would like me to die for her, she had but to
say the word, and I was ready. Life without Dora’s love was not a thing
to have on any terms. I couldn’t bear it, and I wouldn’t. I had loved
her every minute, day and night, since I first saw her. I loved her at
that minute to distraction. I should always love her, every minute, to
distraction. Lovers had loved before, and lovers would love again; but
no lover had loved, might, could, would, or should ever love, as I loved
Dora. The more I raved, the more Jip barked. Each of us, in his own way,
got more mad every moment.
Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by and by, quiet enough,
and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. It was off my
mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were engaged.
I suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage. We must
have had some, because Dora stipulated that we were never to be married
without her papa’s consent. But, in our youthful ecstasy, I don’t think
that we really looked before us or behind us; or had any aspiration
beyond the ignorant present. We were to keep our secret from Mr.
Spenlow; but I am sure the idea never entered my head, then, that there
was anything dishonourable in that.
Miss Mills was more than usually pensive when Dora, going to find her,
brought her back;--I apprehend, because there was a tendency in what had
passed to awaken the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory. But she
gave us her blessing, and the assurance of her lasting friendship, and
spoke to us, generally, as became a Voice from the Cloister.
What an idle time it was! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish time it
was!
When I measured Dora’s finger for a ring that was to be made of
Forget-me-nots, and when the jeweller, to whom I took the measure, found
me out, and laughed over his order-book, and charged me anything he
liked for the pretty little toy, with its blue stones--so associated
in my remembrance with Dora’s hand, that yesterday, when I saw such
another, by chance, on the finger of my own daughter, there was a
momentary stirring in my heart, like pain!
When I walked about, exalted with my secret, and full of my own
interest, and felt the dignity of loving Dora, and of being beloved, so
much, that if I had walked the air, I could not have been more above the
people not so situated, who were creeping on the earth!
When we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat within
the dingy summer-house, so happy, that I love the London sparrows to
this hour, for nothing else, and see the plumage of the tropics in their
smoky feathers! When we had our first great quarrel (within a week
of our betrothal), and when Dora sent me back the ring, enclosed in a
despairing cocked-hat note, wherein she used the terrible expression
that ‘our love had begun in folly, and ended in madness!’ which dreadful
words occasioned me to tear my hair, and cry that all was over!
When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills, whom I saw by
stealth in a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored Miss
Mills to interpose between us and avert insanity. When Miss Mills
undertook the office and returned with Dora, exhorting us, from the
pulpit of her own bitter youth, to mutual concession, and the avoidance
of the Desert of Sahara!
When we cried, and made it up, and were so blest again, that the back
kitchen, mangle and all, changed to Love’s own temple, where we arranged
a plan of correspondence through Miss Mills, always to comprehend at
least one letter on each side every day!
What an idle time! What an insubstantial, happy, foolish time! Of all
the times of mine that Time has in his grip, there is none that in one
retrospect I can smile at half so much, and think of half so tenderly.
CHAPTER 34. MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME
I wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged. I wrote her a long
letter, in which I tried to make her comprehend how blest I was, and
what a darling Dora was. I entreated Agnes not to regard this as a
thoughtless passion which could ever yield to any other, or had the
least resemblance to the boyish fancies that we used to joke about. I
assured her that its profundity was quite unfathomable, and expressed my
belief that nothing like it had ever been known.
Somehow, as I wrote to Agnes on a fine evening by my open window, and
the remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came stealing
over me, it shed such a peaceful influence upon the hurry and agitation
in which I had been living lately, and of which my very happiness
partook in some degree, that it soothed me into tears. I remember that
I sat resting my head upon my hand, when the letter was half done,
cherishing a general fancy as if Agnes were one of the elements of my
natural home. As if, in the retirement of the house made almost sacred
to me by her presence, Dora and I must be happier than anywhere. As if,
in love, joy, sorrow, hope, or disappointment; in all emotions; my heart
turned naturally there, and found its refuge and best friend.
Of Steerforth I said nothing. I only told her there had been sad grief
at Yarmouth, on account of Emily’s flight; and that on me it made a
double wound, by reason of the circumstances attending it. I knew how
quick she always was to divine the truth, and that she would never be
the first to breathe his name.
To this letter, I received an answer by return of post. As I read it, I
seemed to hear Agnes speaking to me. It was like her cordial voice in my
ears. What can I say more!
While I had been away from home lately, Traddles had called twice or
thrice. Finding Peggotty within, and being informed by Peggotty (who
always volunteered that information to whomsoever would receive
it), that she was my old nurse, he had established a good-humoured
acquaintance with her, and had stayed to have a little chat with her
about me. So Peggotty said; but I am afraid the chat was all on her
own side, and of immoderate length, as she was very difficult indeed to
stop, God bless her! when she had me for her theme.
This reminds me, not only that I expected Traddles on a certain
afternoon of his own appointing, which was now come, but that Mrs. Crupp
had resigned everything appertaining to her office (the salary excepted)
until Peggotty should cease to present herself. Mrs. Crupp, after
holding divers conversations respecting Peggotty, in a very high-pitched
voice, on the staircase--with some invisible Familiar it would appear,
for corporeally speaking she was quite alone at those times--addressed a
letter to me, developing her views. Beginning it with that statement
of universal application, which fitted every occurrence of her life,
namely, that she was a mother herself, she went on to inform me that
she had once seen very different days, but that at all periods of her
existence she had had a constitutional objection to spies, intruders,
and informers. She named no names, she said; let them the cap fitted,
wear it; but spies, intruders, and informers, especially in widders’
weeds (this clause was underlined), she had ever accustomed herself to
look down upon. If a gentleman was the victim of spies, intruders, and
informers (but still naming no names), that was his own pleasure. He
had a right to please himself; so let him do. All that she, Mrs. Crupp,
stipulated for, was, that she should not be ‘brought in contract’
with such persons. Therefore she begged to be excused from any further
attendance on the top set, until things were as they formerly was, and
as they could be wished to be; and further mentioned that her little
book would be found upon the breakfast-table every Saturday morning,
when she requested an immediate settlement of the same, with the
benevolent view of saving trouble ‘and an ill-conwenience’ to all
parties.
After this, Mrs. Crupp confined herself to making pitfalls on the
stairs, principally with pitchers, and endeavouring to delude Peggotty
into breaking her legs. I found it rather harassing to live in this
state of siege, but was too much afraid of Mrs. Crupp to see any way out
of it.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ cried Traddles, punctually appearing at my door,
in spite of all these obstacles, ‘how do you do?’
‘My dear Traddles,’ said I, ‘I am delighted to see you at last, and very
sorry I have not been at home before. But I have been so much engaged--’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Traddles, ‘of course. Yours lives in London, I
think.’
‘What did you say?’
‘She--excuse me--Miss D., you know,’ said Traddles, colouring in his
great delicacy, ‘lives in London, I believe?’
‘Oh yes. Near London.’
‘Mine, perhaps you recollect,’ said Traddles, with a serious look,
‘lives down in Devonshire--one of ten. Consequently, I am not so much
engaged as you--in that sense.’
‘I wonder you can bear,’ I returned, ‘to see her so seldom.’
‘Hah!’ said Traddles, thoughtfully. ‘It does seem a wonder. I suppose it
is, Copperfield, because there is no help for it?’
‘I suppose so,’ I replied with a smile, and not without a blush. ‘And
because you have so much constancy and patience, Traddles.’
‘Dear me!’ said Traddles, considering about it, ‘do I strike you in that
way, Copperfield? Really I didn’t know that I had. But she is such
an extraordinarily dear girl herself, that it’s possible she may
have imparted something of those virtues to me. Now you mention it,
Copperfield, I shouldn’t wonder at all. I assure you she is always
forgetting herself, and taking care of the other nine.’
‘Is she the eldest?’ I inquired.
‘Oh dear, no,’ said Traddles. ‘The eldest is a Beauty.’
He saw, I suppose, that I could not help smiling at the simplicity of
this reply; and added, with a smile upon his own ingenuous face:
‘Not, of course, but that my Sophy--pretty name, Copperfield, I always
think?’
‘Very pretty!’ said I.
‘Not, of course, but that Sophy is beautiful too in my eyes, and would
be one of the dearest girls that ever was, in anybody’s eyes (I should
think). But when I say the eldest is a Beauty, I mean she really is
a--’ he seemed to be describing clouds about himself, with both hands:
‘Splendid, you know,’ said Traddles, energetically. ‘Indeed!’ said I.
‘Oh, I assure you,’ said Traddles, ‘something very uncommon, indeed!
Then, you know, being formed for society and admiration, and not being
able to enjoy much of it in consequence of their limited means, she
naturally gets a little irritable and exacting, sometimes. Sophy puts
her in good humour!’
‘Is Sophy the youngest?’ I hazarded.
‘Oh dear, no!’ said Traddles, stroking his chin. ‘The two youngest are
only nine and ten. Sophy educates ‘em.’
‘The second daughter, perhaps?’ I hazarded.
‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Sarah’s the second. Sarah has something the matter
with her spine, poor girl. The malady will wear out by and by, the
doctors say, but in the meantime she has to lie down for a twelvemonth.
Sophy nurses her. Sophy’s the fourth.’
‘Is the mother living?’ I inquired.
‘Oh yes,’ said Traddles, ‘she is alive. She is a very superior woman
indeed, but the damp country is not adapted to her constitution, and--in
fact, she has lost the use of her limbs.’
‘Dear me!’ said I.
‘Very sad, is it not?’ returned Traddles. ‘But in a merely domestic view
it is not so bad as it might be, because Sophy takes her place. She is
quite as much a mother to her mother, as she is to the other nine.’
I felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this young lady; and,
honestly with the view of doing my best to prevent the good-nature
of Traddles from being imposed upon, to the detriment of their joint
prospects in life, inquired how Mr. Micawber was?
‘He is quite well, Copperfield, thank you,’ said Traddles. ‘I am not
living with him at present.’
‘No?’
‘No. You see the truth is,’ said Traddles, in a whisper, ‘he had changed
his name to Mortimer, in consequence of his temporary embarrassments;
and he don’t come out till after dark--and then in spectacles. There was
an execution put into our house, for rent. Mrs. Micawber was in such
a dreadful state that I really couldn’t resist giving my name to that
second bill we spoke of here. You may imagine how delightful it was to
my feelings, Copperfield, to see the matter settled with it, and Mrs.
Micawber recover her spirits.’
‘Hum!’ said I. ‘Not that her happiness was of long duration,’ pursued
Traddles, ‘for, unfortunately, within a week another execution came
in. It broke up the establishment. I have been living in a furnished
apartment since then, and the Mortimers have been very private indeed.
I hope you won’t think it selfish, Copperfield, if I mention that
the broker carried off my little round table with the marble top, and
Sophy’s flower-pot and stand?’
‘What a hard thing!’ I exclaimed indignantly.
‘It was a--it was a pull,’ said Traddles, with his usual wince at that
expression. ‘I don’t mention it reproachfully, however, but with a
motive. The fact is, Copperfield, I was unable to repurchase them at the
time of their seizure; in the first place, because the broker, having an
idea that I wanted them, ran the price up to an extravagant extent; and,
in the second place, because I--hadn’t any money. Now, I have kept
my eye since, upon the broker’s shop,’ said Traddles, with a great
enjoyment of his mystery, ‘which is up at the top of Tottenham Court
Road, and, at last, today I find them put out for sale. I have only
noticed them from over the way, because if the broker saw me, bless you,
he’d ask any price for them! What has occurred to me, having now the
money, is, that perhaps you wouldn’t object to ask that good nurse of
yours to come with me to the shop--I can show it her from round the
corner of the next street--and make the best bargain for them, as if
they were for herself, that she can!’
The delight with which Traddles propounded this plan to me, and the
sense he had of its uncommon artfulness, are among the freshest things
in my remembrance.
I told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him, and that
we would all three take the field together, but on one condition. That
condition was, that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more
loans of his name, or anything else, to Mr. Micawber.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, ‘I have already done so, because
I begin to feel that I have not only been inconsiderate, but that I have
been positively unjust to Sophy. My word being passed to myself, there
is no longer any apprehension; but I pledge it to you, too, with the
greatest readiness. That first unlucky obligation, I have paid. I have
no doubt Mr. Micawber would have paid it if he could, but he could not.
One thing I ought to mention, which I like very much in Mr. Micawber,
Copperfield. It refers to the second obligation, which is not yet due.
He don’t tell me that it is provided for, but he says it WILL BE. Now, I
think there is something very fair and honest about that!’
I was unwilling to damp my good friend’s confidence, and therefore
assented. After a little further conversation, we went round to the
chandler’s shop, to enlist Peggotty; Traddles declining to pass the
evening with me, both because he endured the liveliest apprehensions
that his property would be bought by somebody else before he could
re-purchase it, and because it was the evening he always devoted to
writing to the dearest girl in the world.
I never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in
Tottenham Court Road, while Peggotty was bargaining for the precious
articles; or his agitation when she came slowly towards us after vainly
offering a price, and was hailed by the relenting broker, and went back
again. The end of the negotiation was, that she bought the property on
tolerably easy terms, and Traddles was transported with pleasure.
‘I am very much obliged to you, indeed,’ said Traddles, on hearing it
was to be sent to where he lived, that night. ‘If I might ask one other
favour, I hope you would not think it absurd, Copperfield?’
I said beforehand, certainly not.
‘Then if you WOULD be good enough,’ said Traddles to Peggotty, ‘to
get the flower-pot now, I think I should like (it being Sophy’s,
Copperfield) to carry it home myself!’
Peggotty was glad to get it for him, and he overwhelmed her with thanks,
and went his way up Tottenham Court Road, carrying the flower-pot
affectionately in his arms, with one of the most delighted expressions
of countenance I ever saw.
We then turned back towards my chambers. As the shops had charms for
Peggotty which I never knew them possess in the same degree for anybody
else, I sauntered easily along, amused by her staring in at the windows,
and waiting for her as often as she chose. We were thus a good while in
getting to the Adelphi.
On our way upstairs, I called her attention to the sudden disappearance
of Mrs. Crupp’s pitfalls, and also to the prints of recent footsteps. We
were both very much surprised, coming higher up, to find my outer door
standing open (which I had shut) and to hear voices inside.
We looked at one another, without knowing what to make of this, and went
into the sitting-room. What was my amazement to find, of all people upon
earth, my aunt there, and Mr. Dick! My aunt sitting on a quantity of
luggage, with her two birds before her, and her cat on her knee, like a
female Robinson Crusoe, drinking tea. Mr. Dick leaning thoughtfully on
a great kite, such as we had often been out together to fly, with more
luggage piled about him!
‘My dear aunt!’ cried I. ‘Why, what an unexpected pleasure!’
We cordially embraced; and Mr. Dick and I cordially shook hands; and
Mrs. Crupp, who was busy making tea, and could not be too attentive,
cordially said she had knowed well as Mr. Copperfull would have his
heart in his mouth, when he see his dear relations.
‘Holloa!’ said my aunt to Peggotty, who quailed before her awful
presence. ‘How are YOU?’
‘You remember my aunt, Peggotty?’ said I.
‘For the love of goodness, child,’ exclaimed my aunt, ‘don’t call the
woman by that South Sea Island name! If she married and got rid of
it, which was the best thing she could do, why don’t you give her the
benefit of the change? What’s your name now,--P?’ said my aunt, as a
compromise for the obnoxious appellation.
‘Barkis, ma’am,’ said Peggotty, with a curtsey.
‘Well! That’s human,’ said my aunt. ‘It sounds less as if you wanted a
missionary. How d’ye do, Barkis? I hope you’re well?’
Encouraged by these gracious words, and by my aunt’s extending her
hand, Barkis came forward, and took the hand, and curtseyed her
acknowledgements.
‘We are older than we were, I see,’ said my aunt. ‘We have only met each
other once before, you know. A nice business we made of it then! Trot,
my dear, another cup.’
I handed it dutifully to my aunt, who was in her usual inflexible state
of figure; and ventured a remonstrance with her on the subject of her
sitting on a box.
‘Let me draw the sofa here, or the easy-chair, aunt,’ said I. ‘Why
should you be so uncomfortable?’
‘Thank you, Trot,’ replied my aunt, ‘I prefer to sit upon my property.’
Here my aunt looked hard at Mrs. Crupp, and observed, ‘We needn’t
trouble you to wait, ma’am.’
‘Shall I put a little more tea in the pot afore I go, ma’am?’ said Mrs.
Crupp.
‘No, I thank you, ma’am,’ replied my aunt.
‘Would you let me fetch another pat of butter, ma’am?’ said Mrs. Crupp.
‘Or would you be persuaded to try a new-laid hegg? or should I brile
a rasher? Ain’t there nothing I could do for your dear aunt, Mr.
Copperfull?’
‘Nothing, ma’am,’ returned my aunt. ‘I shall do very well, I thank you.’
Mrs. Crupp, who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper,
and incessantly holding her head on one side, to express a general
feebleness of constitution, and incessantly rubbing her hands, to
express a desire to be of service to all deserving objects, gradually
smiled herself, one-sided herself, and rubbed herself, out of the room.
‘Dick!’ said my aunt. ‘You know what I told you about time-servers and
wealth-worshippers?’
Mr. Dick--with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten it--returned
a hasty answer in the affirmative.
‘Mrs. Crupp is one of them,’ said my aunt. ‘Barkis, I’ll trouble you to
look after the tea, and let me have another cup, for I don’t fancy that
woman’s pouring-out!’
I knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something of
importance on her mind, and that there was far more matter in this
arrival than a stranger might have supposed. I noticed how her eye
lighted on me, when she thought my attention otherwise occupied; and
what a curious process of hesitation appeared to be going on within
her, while she preserved her outward stiffness and composure. I began
to reflect whether I had done anything to offend her; and my conscience
whispered me that I had not yet told her about Dora. Could it by any
means be that, I wondered!
As I knew she would only speak in her own good time, I sat down near
her, and spoke to the birds, and played with the cat, and was as easy
as I could be. But I was very far from being really easy; and I should
still have been so, even if Mr. Dick, leaning over the great kite behind
my aunt, had not taken every secret opportunity of shaking his head
darkly at me, and pointing at her.
‘Trot,’ said my aunt at last, when she had finished her tea, and
carefully smoothed down her dress, and wiped her lips--‘you needn’t go,
Barkis!--Trot, have you got to be firm and self-reliant?’
‘I hope so, aunt.’
‘What do you think?’ inquired Miss Betsey.
‘I think so, aunt.’
‘Then why, my love,’ said my aunt, looking earnestly at me, ‘why do you
think I prefer to sit upon this property of mine tonight?’
I shook my head, unable to guess.
‘Because,’ said my aunt, ‘it’s all I have. Because I’m ruined, my dear!’
If the house, and every one of us, had tumbled out into the river
together, I could hardly have received a greater shock.
‘Dick knows it,’ said my aunt, laying her hand calmly on my shoulder. ‘I
am ruined, my dear Trot! All I have in the world is in this room, except
the cottage; and that I have left Janet to let. Barkis, I want to get a
bed for this gentleman tonight. To save expense, perhaps you can make
up something here for myself. Anything will do. It’s only for tonight.
We’ll talk about this, more, tomorrow.’
I was roused from my amazement, and concern for her--I am sure, for
her--by her falling on my neck, for a moment, and crying that she only
grieved for me. In another moment she suppressed this emotion; and said
with an aspect more triumphant than dejected:
‘We must meet reverses boldly, and not suffer them to frighten us, my
dear. We must learn to act the play out. We must live misfortune down,
Trot!’
CHAPTER 35. DEPRESSION
As soon as I could recover my presence of mind, which quite deserted me
in the first overpowering shock of my aunt’s intelligence, I proposed
to Mr. Dick to come round to the chandler’s shop, and take possession of
the bed which Mr. Peggotty had lately vacated. The chandler’s shop being
in Hungerford Market, and Hungerford Market being a very different place
in those days, there was a low wooden colonnade before the door (not
very unlike that before the house where the little man and woman used
to live, in the old weather-glass), which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. The
glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated him, I dare
say, for many inconveniences; but, as there were really few to bear,
beyond the compound of flavours I have already mentioned, and perhaps
the want of a little more elbow-room, he was perfectly charmed with his
accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn’t
room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me,
sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, ‘You know,
Trotwood, I don’t want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat.
Therefore, what does that signify to ME!’
I tried to ascertain whether Mr. Dick had any understanding of the
causes of this sudden and great change in my aunt’s affairs. As I might
have expected, he had none at all. The only account he could give of it
was, that my aunt had said to him, the day before yesterday, ‘Now, Dick,
are you really and truly the philosopher I take you for?’ That then
he had said, Yes, he hoped so. That then my aunt had said, ‘Dick, I
am ruined.’ That then he had said, ‘Oh, indeed!’ That then my aunt had
praised him highly, which he was glad of. And that then they had come to
me, and had had bottled porter and sandwiches on the road.
Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing
his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised
smile, that I am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him
that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; but I was soon bitterly
reproved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears
course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such
unutterable woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than
mine. I took infinitely greater pains to cheer him up again than I had
taken to depress him; and I soon understood (as I ought to have known at
first) that he had been so confident, merely because of his faith in
the wisest and most wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my
intellectual resources. The latter, I believe, he considered a match for
any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal.
‘What can we do, Trotwood?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘There’s the Memorial-’
‘To be sure there is,’ said I. ‘But all we can do just now, Mr. Dick,
is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not let my aunt see that we are
thinking about it.’
He assented to this in the most earnest manner; and implored me, if I
should see him wandering an inch out of the right course, to recall him
by some of those superior methods which were always at my command. But I
regret to state that the fright I had given him proved too much for his
best attempts at concealment. All the evening his eyes wandered to my
aunt’s face, with an expression of the most dismal apprehension, as if
he saw her growing thin on the spot. He was conscious of this, and put
a constraint upon his head; but his keeping that immovable, and sitting
rolling his eyes like a piece of machinery, did not mend the matter at
all. I saw him look at the loaf at supper (which happened to be a small
one), as if nothing else stood between us and famine; and when my aunt
insisted on his making his customary repast, I detected him in the act
of pocketing fragments of his bread and cheese; I have no doubt for the
purpose of reviving us with those savings, when we should have reached
an advanced stage of attenuation.
My aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of mind, which was
a lesson to all of us--to me, I am sure. She was extremely gracious
to Peggotty, except when I inadvertently called her by that name; and,
strange as I knew she felt in London, appeared quite at home. She was
to have my bed, and I was to lie in the sitting-room, to keep guard over
her. She made a great point of being so near the river, in case of a
conflagration; and I suppose really did find some satisfaction in that
circumstance.
‘Trot, my dear,’ said my aunt, when she saw me making preparations for
compounding her usual night-draught, ‘No!’
‘Nothing, aunt?’
‘Not wine, my dear. Ale.’
‘But there is wine here, aunt. And you always have it made of wine.’
‘Keep that, in case of sickness,’ said my aunt. ‘We mustn’t use it
carelessly, Trot. Ale for me. Half a pint.’
I thought Mr. Dick would have fallen, insensible. My aunt being
resolute, I went out and got the ale myself. As it was growing late,
Peggotty and Mr. Dick took that opportunity of repairing to the
chandler’s shop together. I parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner
of the street, with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human
misery.
My aunt was walking up and down the room when I returned, crimping the
borders of her nightcap with her fingers. I warmed the ale and made the
toast on the usual infallible principles. When it was ready for her, she
was ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her gown turned
back on her knees.
‘My dear,’ said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; ‘it’s a great
deal better than wine. Not half so bilious.’
I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added:
‘Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are well
off.’
‘I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure,’ said I.
‘Well, then, why DON’T you think so?’ said my aunt.
‘Because you and I are very different people,’ I returned.
‘Stuff and nonsense, Trot!’ replied my aunt.
My aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little
affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a tea-spoon, and soaking
her strips of toast in it.
‘Trot,’ said she, ‘I don’t care for strange faces in general, but I
rather like that Barkis of yours, do you know!’
‘It’s better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so!’ said I.
‘It’s a most extraordinary world,’ observed my aunt, rubbing her nose;
‘how that woman ever got into it with that name, is unaccountable to me.
It would be much more easy to be born a Jackson, or something of that
sort, one would think.’
‘Perhaps she thinks so, too; it’s not her fault,’ said I.
‘I suppose not,’ returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission; ‘but
it’s very aggravating. However, she’s Barkis now. That’s some comfort.
Barkis is uncommonly fond of you, Trot.’
‘There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it,’ said I.
‘Nothing, I believe,’ returned my aunt. ‘Here, the poor fool has been
begging and praying about handing over some of her money--because she
has got too much of it. A simpleton!’
My aunt’s tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the warm
ale.
‘She’s the most ridiculous creature that ever was born,’ said my aunt.
‘I knew, from the first moment when I saw her with that poor dear
blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most ridiculous of
mortals. But there are good points in Barkis!’
Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to
her eyes. Having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and her
discourse together.
‘Ah! Mercy upon us!’ sighed my aunt. ‘I know all about it, Trot! Barkis
and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with Dick. I know all
about it. I don’t know where these wretched girls expect to go to, for
my part. I wonder they don’t knock out their brains against--against
mantelpieces,’ said my aunt; an idea which was probably suggested to her
by her contemplation of mine.
‘Poor Emily!’ said I.
‘Oh, don’t talk to me about poor,’ returned my aunt. ‘She should have
thought of that, before she caused so much misery! Give me a kiss, Trot.
I am sorry for your early experience.’
As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me, and
said:
‘Oh, Trot, Trot! And so you fancy yourself in love! Do you?’
‘Fancy, aunt!’ I exclaimed, as red as I could be. ‘I adore her with my
whole soul!’
‘Dora, indeed!’ returned my aunt. ‘And you mean to say the little thing
is very fascinating, I suppose?’
‘My dear aunt,’ I replied, ‘no one can form the least idea what she is!’
‘Ah! And not silly?’ said my aunt.
‘Silly, aunt!’
I seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single
moment, to consider whether she was or not. I resented the idea, of
course; but I was in a manner struck by it, as a new one altogether.
‘Not light-headed?’ said my aunt.
‘Light-headed, aunt!’ I could only repeat this daring speculation
with the same kind of feeling with which I had repeated the preceding
question.
‘Well, well!’ said my aunt. ‘I only ask. I don’t depreciate her. Poor
little couple! And so you think you were formed for one another, and are
to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, like two pretty pieces
of confectionery, do you, Trot?’
She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half playful
and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched.
‘We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know,’ I replied; ‘and I dare
say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. But we love
one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever love anybody
else, or cease to love me; or that I could ever love anybody else, or
cease to love her; I don’t know what I should do--go out of my mind, I
think!’
‘Ah, Trot!’ said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely; ‘blind,
blind, blind!’
‘Someone that I know, Trot,’ my aunt pursued, after a pause, ‘though of
a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him that
reminds me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what that Somebody must look
for, to sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faithful
earnestness.’
‘If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt!’ I cried.
‘Oh, Trot!’ she said again; ‘blind, blind!’ and without knowing why,
I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me like a
cloud.
‘However,’ said my aunt, ‘I don’t want to put two young creatures out
of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy; so, though it is a
girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very often--mind!
I don’t say always!--come to nothing, still we’ll be serious about it,
and hope for a prosperous issue one of these days. There’s time enough
for it to come to anything!’
This was not upon the whole very comforting to a rapturous lover; but
I was glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and I was mindful of
her being fatigued. So I thanked her ardently for this mark of her
affection, and for all her other kindnesses towards me; and after a
tender good night, she took her nightcap into my bedroom.
How miserable I was, when I lay down! How I thought and thought about my
being poor, in Mr. Spenlow’s eyes; about my not being what I thought I
was, when I proposed to Dora; about the chivalrous necessity of
telling Dora what my worldly condition was, and releasing her from her
engagement if she thought fit; about how I should contrive to live,
during the long term of my articles, when I was earning nothing; about
doing something to assist my aunt, and seeing no way of doing anything;
about coming down to have no money in my pocket, and to wear a shabby
coat, and to be able to carry Dora no little presents, and to ride no
gallant greys, and to show myself in no agreeable light! Sordid and
selfish as I knew it was, and as I tortured myself by knowing that it
was, to let my mind run on my own distress so much, I was so devoted
to Dora that I could not help it. I knew that it was base in me not to
think more of my aunt, and less of myself; but, so far, selfishness
was inseparable from Dora, and I could not put Dora on one side for any
mortal creature. How exceedingly miserable I was, that night!
As to sleep, I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, but I
seemed to dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. Now I
was ragged, wanting to sell Dora matches, six bundles for a halfpenny;
now I was at the office in a nightgown and boots, remonstrated with by
Mr. Spenlow on appearing before the clients in that airy attire; now
I was hungrily picking up the crumbs that fell from old Tiffey’s
daily biscuit, regularly eaten when St. Paul’s struck one; now I was
hopelessly endeavouring to get a licence to marry Dora, having nothing
but one of Uriah Heep’s gloves to offer in exchange, which the whole
Commons rejected; and still, more or less conscious of my own room, I
was always tossing about like a distressed ship in a sea of bed-clothes.
My aunt was restless, too, for I frequently heard her walking to and
fro. Two or three times in the course of the night, attired in a long
flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like
a disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which
I lay. On the first occasion I started up in alarm, to learn that she
inferred from a particular light in the sky, that Westminster Abbey
was on fire; and to be consulted in reference to the probability of its
igniting Buckingham Street, in case the wind changed. Lying still, after
that, I found that she sat down near me, whispering to herself ‘Poor
boy!’ And then it made me twenty times more wretched, to know how
unselfishly mindful she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was of
myself.
It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be short
to anybody else. This consideration set me thinking and thinking of an
imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away, until that
became a dream too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune,
and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance, without taking the least
notice of me. The man who had been playing the harp all night, was
trying in vain to cover it with an ordinary-sized nightcap, when I
awoke; or I should rather say, when I left off trying to go to sleep,
and saw the sun shining in through the window at last.
There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the
streets out of the Strand--it may be there still--in which I have had
many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quietly as I could, and leaving
Peggotty to look after my aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it,
and then went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk
treatment might freshen my wits a little; and I think it did them good,
for I soon came to the conclusion that the first step I ought to take
was, to try if my articles could be cancelled and the premium recovered.
I got some breakfast on the Heath, and walked back to Doctors’ Commons,
along the watered roads and through a pleasant smell of summer flowers,
growing in gardens and carried into town on hucksters’ heads, intent on
this first effort to meet our altered circumstances.
I arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half an hour’s
loitering about the Commons, before old Tiffey, who was always first,
appeared with his key. Then I sat down in my shady corner, looking up
at the sunlight on the opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about Dora;
until Mr. Spenlow came in, crisp and curly.
‘How are you, Copperfield?’ said he. ‘Fine morning!’
‘Beautiful morning, sir,’ said I. ‘Could I say a word to you before you
go into Court?’
‘By all means,’ said he. ‘Come into my room.’
I followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and
touching himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a
closet door.
‘I am sorry to say,’ said I, ‘that I have some rather disheartening
intelligence from my aunt.’
‘No!’ said he. ‘Dear me! Not paralysis, I hope?’
‘It has no reference to her health, sir,’ I replied. ‘She has met with
some large losses. In fact, she has very little left, indeed.’
‘You as-tound me, Copperfield!’ cried Mr. Spenlow.
I shook my head. ‘Indeed, sir,’ said I, ‘her affairs are so changed,
that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible--at a sacrifice on
our part of some portion of the premium, of course,’ I put in this, on
the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face--‘to
cancel my articles?’
What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like asking,
as a favour, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora.
‘To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?’
I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where
my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them for
myself. I had no fear for the future, I said--and I laid great emphasis
on that, as if to imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a
son-in-law one of these days--but, for the present, I was thrown upon
my own resources. ‘I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield,’ said
Mr. Spenlow. ‘Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for
any such reason. It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is
not a convenient precedent at all. Far from it. At the same time--’
‘You are very good, sir,’ I murmured, anticipating a concession.
‘Not at all. Don’t mention it,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘At the same time, I
was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands unfettered--if
I had not a partner--Mr. Jorkins--’
My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort.
‘Do you think, sir,’ said I, ‘if I were to mention it to Mr. Jorkins--’
Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. ‘Heaven forbid, Copperfield,’
he replied, ‘that I should do any man an injustice: still less, Mr.
Jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is not a man
to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is very
difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he is!’
I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been
alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu
Square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very
late of a day, and went away very early; that he never appeared to be
consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of
his own upstairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was
a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and
reported to be twenty years of age.
‘Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?’ I asked.
‘By no means,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘But I have some experience of Mr.
Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should be happy
to meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the objection to your
mentioning it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it worth while.’
Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake
of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the sunlight
stealing from the chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house,
until Mr. Jorkins came. I then went up to Mr. Jorkins’s room, and
evidently astonished Mr. Jorkins very much by making my appearance
there.
‘Come in, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Jorkins. ‘Come in!’
I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr. Jorkins pretty much
as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any means the
awful creature one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced
man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition in the
Commons that he lived principally on that stimulant, having little room
in his system for any other article of diet.
‘You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose?’ said Mr. Jorkins;
when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end.
I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced his name.
‘He said I should object?’ asked Mr. Jorkins.
I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable.
‘I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can’t advance your object,’ said
Mr. Jorkins, nervously. ‘The fact is--but I have an appointment at the
Bank, if you’ll have the goodness to excuse me.’
With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, when
I made bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of arranging
the matter?
‘No!’ said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. ‘Oh, no!
I object, you know,’ which he said very rapidly, and went out. ‘You must
be aware, Mr. Copperfield,’ he added, looking restlessly in at the door
again, ‘if Mr. Spenlow objects--’
‘Personally, he does not object, sir,’ said I.
‘Oh! Personally!’ repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. ‘I
assure you there’s an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! What you
wish to be done, can’t be done. I--I really have got an appointment
at the Bank.’ With that he fairly ran away; and to the best of my
knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the Commons
again.
Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr.
Spenlow came in, and then described what had passed; giving him to
understand that I was not hopeless of his being able to soften the
adamantine Jorkins, if he would undertake the task.
‘Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Spenlow, with a gracious smile, ‘you have
not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing is
farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr.
Jorkins. But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often
deceives people. No, Copperfield!’ shaking his head. ‘Mr. Jorkins is not
to be moved, believe me!’
I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. Jorkins, as
to which of them really was the objecting partner; but I saw with
sufficient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and
that the recovery of my aunt’s thousand pounds was out of the
question. In a state of despondency, which I remember with anything
but satisfaction, for I know it still had too much reference to myself
(though always in connexion with Dora), I left the office, and went
homeward.
I was trying to familiarize my mind with the worst, and to present to
myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their
sternest aspect, when a hackney-chariot coming after me, and stopping at
my very feet, occasioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth
to me from the window; and the face I had never seen without a feeling
of serenity and happiness, from the moment when it first turned back
on the old oak staircase with the great broad balustrade, and when I
associated its softened beauty with the stained-glass window in the
church, was smiling on me.
‘Agnes!’ I joyfully exclaimed. ‘Oh, my dear Agnes, of all people in the
world, what a pleasure to see you!’
‘Is it, indeed?’ she said, in her cordial voice.
‘I want to talk to you so much!’ said I. ‘It’s such a lightening of my
heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror’s cap, there is no
one I should have wished for but you!’
‘What?’ returned Agnes.
‘Well! perhaps Dora first,’ I admitted, with a blush.
‘Certainly, Dora first, I hope,’ said Agnes, laughing.
‘But you next!’ said I. ‘Where are you going?’
She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, she
was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it
all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the
coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on together. She was like
Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt in one short minute, having
Agnes at my side!
My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes--very little longer
than a Bank note--to which her epistolary efforts were usually limited.
She had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and was
leaving Dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was
so well that nobody need be uncomfortable about her. Agnes had come to
London to see my aunt, between whom and herself there had been a mutual
liking these many years: indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up
my residence in Mr. Wickfield’s house. She was not alone, she said. Her
papa was with her--and Uriah Heep.
‘And now they are partners,’ said I. ‘Confound him!’
‘Yes,’ said Agnes. ‘They have some business here; and I took advantage
of their coming, to come too. You must not think my visit all friendly
and disinterested, Trotwood, for--I am afraid I may be cruelly
prejudiced--I do not like to let papa go away alone, with him.’ ‘Does he
exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, Agnes?’
Agnes shook her head. ‘There is such a change at home,’ said she, ‘that
you would scarcely know the dear old house. They live with us now.’
‘They?’ said I.
‘Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room,’ said Agnes,
looking up into my face.
‘I wish I had the ordering of his dreams,’ said I. ‘He wouldn’t sleep
there long.’
‘I keep my own little room,’ said Agnes, ‘where I used to learn my
lessons. How the time goes! You remember? The little panelled room that
opens from the drawing-room?’
‘Remember, Agnes? When I saw you, for the first time, coming out at the
door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side?’
‘It is just the same,’ said Agnes, smiling. ‘I am glad you think of it
so pleasantly. We were very happy.’
‘We were, indeed,’ said I.
‘I keep that room to myself still; but I cannot always desert Mrs. Heep,
you know. And so,’ said Agnes, quietly, ‘I feel obliged to bear her
company, when I might prefer to be alone. But I have no other reason to
complain of her. If she tires me, sometimes, by her praises of her son,
it is only natural in a mother. He is a very good son to her.’
I looked at Agnes when she said these words, without detecting in her
any consciousness of Uriah’s design. Her mild but earnest eyes met
mine with their own beautiful frankness, and there was no change in her
gentle face.
‘The chief evil of their presence in the house,’ said Agnes, ‘is that I
cannot be as near papa as I could wish--Uriah Heep being so much between
us--and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a thing to say,
as closely as I would. But if any fraud or treachery is practising
against him, I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the
end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any
evil or misfortune in the world.’
A certain bright smile, which I never saw on any other face, died away,
even while I thought how good it was, and how familiar it had once been
to me; and she asked me, with a quick change of expression (we were
drawing very near my street), if I knew how the reverse in my aunt’s
circumstances had been brought about. On my replying no, she had not
told me yet, Agnes became thoughtful, and I fancied I felt her arm
tremble in mine.
We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. A difference
of opinion had arisen between herself and Mrs. Crupp, on an abstract
question (the propriety of chambers being inhabited by the gentler sex);
and my aunt, utterly indifferent to spasms on the part of Mrs. Crupp,
had cut the dispute short, by informing that lady that she smelt of
my brandy, and that she would trouble her to walk out. Both of these
expressions Mrs. Crupp considered actionable, and had expressed her
intention of bringing before a ‘British Judy’--meaning, it was supposed,
the bulwark of our national liberties.
My aunt, however, having had time to cool, while Peggotty was out
showing Mr. Dick the soldiers at the Horse Guards--and being, besides,
greatly pleased to see Agnes--rather plumed herself on the affair than
otherwise, and received us with unimpaired good humour. When Agnes laid
her bonnet on the table, and sat down beside her, I could not but think,
looking on her mild eyes and her radiant forehead, how natural it
seemed to have her there; how trustfully, although she was so young and
inexperienced, my aunt confided in her; how strong she was, indeed, in
simple love and truth.
We began to talk about my aunt’s losses, and I told them what I had
tried to do that morning.
‘Which was injudicious, Trot,’ said my aunt, ‘but well meant. You are
a generous boy--I suppose I must say, young man, now--and I am proud of
you, my dear. So far, so good. Now, Trot and Agnes, let us look the case
of Betsey Trotwood in the face, and see how it stands.’
I observed Agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively at my aunt.
My aunt, patting her cat, looked very attentively at Agnes.
‘Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt, who had always kept her money matters
to herself. ‘--I don’t mean your sister, Trot, my dear, but myself--had
a certain property. It don’t matter how much; enough to live on. More;
for she had saved a little, and added to it. Betsey funded her property
for some time, and then, by the advice of her man of business, laid
it out on landed security. That did very well, and returned very good
interest, till Betsey was paid off. I am talking of Betsey as if she
was a man-of-war. Well! Then, Betsey had to look about her, for a new
investment. She thought she was wiser, now, than her man of business,
who was not such a good man of business by this time, as he used to
be--I am alluding to your father, Agnes--and she took it into her head
to lay it out for herself. So she took her pigs,’ said my aunt, ‘to a
foreign market; and a very bad market it turned out to be. First, she
lost in the mining way, and then she lost in the diving way--fishing up
treasure, or some such Tom Tiddler nonsense,’ explained my aunt, rubbing
her nose; ‘and then she lost in the mining way again, and, last of all,
to set the thing entirely to rights, she lost in the banking way. I
don’t know what the Bank shares were worth for a little while,’ said my
aunt; ‘cent per cent was the lowest of it, I believe; but the Bank was
at the other end of the world, and tumbled into space, for what I know;
anyhow, it fell to pieces, and never will and never can pay sixpence;
and Betsey’s sixpences were all there, and there’s an end of them. Least
said, soonest mended!’
My aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing her eyes with a
kind of triumph on Agnes, whose colour was gradually returning.
‘Dear Miss Trotwood, is that all the history?’ said Agnes.
‘I hope it’s enough, child,’ said my aunt. ‘If there had been more
money to lose, it wouldn’t have been all, I dare say. Betsey would have
contrived to throw that after the rest, and make another chapter, I have
little doubt. But there was no more money, and there’s no more story.’
Agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. Her colour still came
and went, but she breathed more freely. I thought I knew why. I thought
she had had some fear that her unhappy father might be in some way to
blame for what had happened. My aunt took her hand in hers, and laughed.
‘Is that all?’ repeated my aunt. ‘Why, yes, that’s all, except, “And she
lived happy ever afterwards.” Perhaps I may add that of Betsey yet, one
of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So have you, Trot, in
some things, though I can’t compliment you always’; and here my aunt
shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to herself. ‘What’s to be
done? Here’s the cottage, taking one time with another, will produce
say seventy pounds a year. I think we may safely put it down at
that. Well!--That’s all we’ve got,’ said my aunt; with whom it was an
idiosyncrasy, as it is with some horses, to stop very short when she
appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a long while.
‘Then,’ said my aunt, after a rest, ‘there’s Dick. He’s good for a
hundred a-year, but of course that must be expended on himself. I would
sooner send him away, though I know I am the only person who appreciates
him, than have him, and not spend his money on himself. How can Trot and
I do best, upon our means? What do you say, Agnes?’
‘I say, aunt,’ I interposed, ‘that I must do something!’
‘Go for a soldier, do you mean?’ returned my aunt, alarmed; ‘or go to
sea? I won’t hear of it. You are to be a proctor. We’re not going to
have any knockings on the head in THIS family, if you please, sir.’
I was about to explain that I was not desirous of introducing that mode
of provision into the family, when Agnes inquired if my rooms were held
for any long term?
‘You come to the point, my dear,’ said my aunt. ‘They are not to be got
rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be underlet, and that
I don’t believe. The last man died here. Five people out of six would
die--of course--of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat. I
have a little ready money; and I agree with you, the best thing we can
do, is, to live the term out here, and get a bedroom hard by.’
I thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would sustain,
from living in a continual state of guerilla warfare with Mrs. Crupp;
but she disposed of that objection summarily by declaring that, on the
first demonstration of hostilities, she was prepared to astonish Mrs.
Crupp for the whole remainder of her natural life.
‘I have been thinking, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, diffidently, ‘that if you
had time--’
‘I have a good deal of time, Agnes. I am always disengaged after four
or five o’clock, and I have time early in the morning. In one way and
another,’ said I, conscious of reddening a little as I thought of the
hours and hours I had devoted to fagging about town, and to and fro upon
the Norwood Road, ‘I have abundance of time.’
‘I know you would not mind,’ said Agnes, coming to me, and speaking in
a low voice, so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that I hear it
now, ‘the duties of a secretary.’
‘Mind, my dear Agnes?’
‘Because,’ continued Agnes, ‘Doctor Strong has acted on his intention of
retiring, and has come to live in London; and he asked papa, I know,
if he could recommend him one. Don’t you think he would rather have his
favourite old pupil near him, than anybody else?’
‘Dear Agnes!’ said I. ‘What should I do without you! You are always my
good angel. I told you so. I never think of you in any other light.’
Agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good Angel (meaning
Dora) was enough; and went on to remind me that the Doctor had been
used to occupy himself in his study, early in the morning, and in the
evening--and that probably my leisure would suit his requirements very
well. I was scarcely more delighted with the prospect of earning my own
bread, than with the hope of earning it under my old master; in short,
acting on the advice of Agnes, I sat down and wrote a letter to the
Doctor, stating my object, and appointing to call on him next day at
ten in the forenoon. This I addressed to Highgate--for in that place, so
memorable to me, he lived--and went and posted, myself, without losing a
minute.
Wherever Agnes was, some agreeable token of her noiseless presence
seemed inseparable from the place. When I came back, I found my aunt’s
birds hanging, just as they had hung so long in the parlour window of
the cottage; and my easy-chair imitating my aunt’s much easier chair in
its position at the open window; and even the round green fan, which my
aunt had brought away with her, screwed on to the window-sill. I knew
who had done all this, by its seeming to have quietly done itself; and I
should have known in a moment who had arranged my neglected books in the
old order of my school days, even if I had supposed Agnes to be miles
away, instead of seeing her busy with them, and smiling at the disorder
into which they had fallen.
My aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the Thames (it really did
look very well with the sun upon it, though not like the sea before the
cottage), but she could not relent towards the London smoke, which, she
said, ‘peppered everything’. A complete revolution, in which Peggotty
bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner of my rooms,
in regard of this pepper; and I was looking on, thinking how little even
Peggotty seemed to do with a good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes did
without any bustle at all, when a knock came at the door.
‘I think,’ said Agnes, turning pale, ‘it’s papa. He promised me that he
would come.’
I opened the door, and admitted, not only Mr. Wickfield, but Uriah Heep.
I had not seen Mr. Wickfield for some time. I was prepared for a great
change in him, after what I had heard from Agnes, but his appearance
shocked me.
It was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed
with the old scrupulous cleanliness; or that there was an unwholesome
ruddiness upon his face; or that his eyes were full and bloodshot; or
that there was a nervous trembling in his hand, the cause of which I
knew, and had for some years seen at work. It was not that he had lost
his good looks, or his old bearing of a gentleman--for that he had
not--but the thing that struck me most, was, that with the evidences of
his native superiority still upon him, he should submit himself to that
crawling impersonation of meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the
two natures, in their relative positions, Uriah’s of power and Mr.
Wickfield’s of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than I can
express. If I had seen an Ape taking command of a Man, I should hardly
have thought it a more degrading spectacle.
He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came in, he
stood still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. This was
only for a moment; for Agnes softly said to him, ‘Papa! Here is Miss
Trotwood--and Trotwood, whom you have not seen for a long while!’ and
then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook
hands more cordially with me. In the moment’s pause I speak of, I saw
Uriah’s countenance form itself into a most ill-favoured smile. Agnes
saw it too, I think, for she shrank from him.
What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy
to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was
anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. Her face
might have been a dead-wall on the occasion in question, for any light
it threw upon her thoughts; until she broke silence with her usual
abruptness.
‘Well, Wickfield!’ said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the first
time. ‘I have been telling your daughter how well I have been disposing
of my money for myself, because I couldn’t trust it to you, as you were
growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking counsel together,
and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is worth the
whole firm, in my opinion.’
‘If I may umbly make the remark,’ said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, ‘I
fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too appy if
Miss Agnes was a partner.’
‘You’re a partner yourself, you know,’ returned my aunt, ‘and that’s
about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, sir?’
In acknowledgement of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary
curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried,
replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was
the same.
‘And you, Master--I should say, Mister Copperfield,’ pursued Uriah. ‘I
hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, even
under present circumstances.’ I believed that; for he seemed to relish
them very much. ‘Present circumstances is not what your friends would
wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn’t money makes the man:
it’s--I am really unequal with my umble powers to express what it is,’
said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, ‘but it isn’t money!’
Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at
a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump
handle, that he was a little afraid of.
‘And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield,--I should
say, Mister?’ fawned Uriah. ‘Don’t you find Mr. Wickfield blooming, sir?
Years don’t tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in raising
up the umble, namely, mother and self--and in developing,’ he added, as
an afterthought, ‘the beautiful, namely, Miss Agnes.’
He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable
manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all
patience.
‘Deuce take the man!’ said my aunt, sternly, ‘what’s he about? Don’t be
galvanic, sir!’
‘I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,’ returned Uriah; ‘I’m aware you’re
nervous.’
‘Go along with you, sir!’ said my aunt, anything but appeased. ‘Don’t
presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you’re an eel, sir,
conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir!
Good God!’ said my aunt, with great indignation, ‘I am not going to be
serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!’
Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this
explosion; which derived great additional force from the indignant
manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her
head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. But he said to me
aside in a meek voice:
‘I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an
excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the pleasure
of knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, Master
Copperfield), and it’s only natural, I am sure, that it should be made
quicker by present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn’t much
worse! I only called to say that if there was anything we could do, in
present circumstances, mother or self, or Wickfield and Heep,--we should
be really glad. I may go so far?’ said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his
partner.
‘Uriah Heep,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, ‘is active
in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. You know
I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite
concur in!’
‘Oh, what a reward it is,’ said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk
of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, ‘to be so
trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from the
fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!’
‘Uriah Heep is a great relief to me,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in the same
dull voice. ‘It’s a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such a partner.’
The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in the
light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. I saw the
same ill-favoured smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me.
‘You are not going, papa?’ said Agnes, anxiously. ‘Will you not walk
back with Trotwood and me?’
He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that
worthy had not anticipated him.
‘I am bespoke myself,’ said Uriah, ‘on business; otherwise I should
have been appy to have kept with my friends. But I leave my partner to
represent the firm. Miss Agnes, ever yours! I wish you good-day, Master
Copperfield, and leave my umble respects for Miss Betsey Trotwood.’
With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering at us
like a mask.
We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury days, an hour
or two. Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon became more like his former
self; though there was a settled depression upon him, which he never
shook off. For all that, he brightened; and had an evident pleasure in
hearing us recall the little incidents of our old life, many of which he
remembered very well. He said it was like those times, to be alone with
Agnes and me again; and he wished to Heaven they had never changed. I am
sure there was an influence in the placid face of Agnes, and in the very
touch of her hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him.
My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peggotty, in the inner
room) would not accompany us to the place where they were staying, but
insisted on my going; and I went. We dined together. After dinner, Agnes
sat beside him, as of old, and poured out his wine. He took what she
gave him, and no more--like a child--and we all three sat together at a
window as the evening gathered in. When it was almost dark, he lay down
on a sofa, Agnes pillowing his head and bending over him a little while;
and when she came back to the window, it was not so dark but I could see
tears glittering in her eyes.
I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl in her love and
truth, at that time of my life; for if I should, I must be drawing near
the end, and then I would desire to remember her best! She filled my
heart with such good resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her
example, so directed--I know not how, she was too modest and gentle
to advise me in many words--the wandering ardour and unsettled purpose
within me, that all the little good I have done, and all the harm I have
forborne, I solemnly believe I may refer to her.
And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark;
listened to my praises of her; praised again; and round the little
fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet
more precious and more innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood,
if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards--!
There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; and as I turned my
head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me
start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: ‘Blind! Blind!
Blind!’
CHAPTER 36. ENTHUSIASM
I began the next day with another dive into the Roman bath, and then
started for Highgate. I was not dispirited now. I was not afraid of the
shabby coat, and had no yearnings after gallant greys. My whole manner
of thinking of our late misfortune was changed. What I had to do, was,
to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had not been thrown away
on an insensible, ungrateful object. What I had to do, was, to turn the
painful discipline of my younger days to account, by going to work with
a resolute and steady heart. What I had to do, was, to take my woodman’s
axe in my hand, and clear my own way through the forest of difficulty,
by cutting down the trees until I came to Dora. And I went on at a
mighty rate, as if it could be done by walking.
When I found myself on the familiar Highgate road, pursuing such a
different errand from that old one of pleasure, with which it was
associated, it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole life.
But that did not discourage me. With the new life, came new purpose,
new intention. Great was the labour; priceless the reward. Dora was the
reward, and Dora must be won.
I got into such a transport, that I felt quite sorry my coat was not
a little shabby already. I wanted to be cutting at those trees in the
forest of difficulty, under circumstances that should prove my strength.
I had a good mind to ask an old man, in wire spectacles, who was
breaking stones upon the road, to lend me his hammer for a little while,
and let me begin to beat a path to Dora out of granite. I stimulated
myself into such a heat, and got so out of breath, that I felt as if I
had been earning I don’t know how much.
In this state, I went into a cottage that I saw was to let, and examined
it narrowly,--for I felt it necessary to be practical. It would do for
me and Dora admirably: with a little front garden for Jip to run about
in, and bark at the tradespeople through the railings, and a capital
room upstairs for my aunt. I came out again, hotter and faster than
ever, and dashed up to Highgate, at such a rate that I was there an
hour too early; and, though I had not been, should have been obliged to
stroll about to cool myself, before I was at all presentable.
My first care, after putting myself under this necessary course of
preparation, was to find the Doctor’s house. It was not in that part of
Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth lived, but quite on the opposite side
of the little town. When I had made this discovery, I went back, in
an attraction I could not resist, to a lane by Mrs. Steerforth’s, and
looked over the corner of the garden wall. His room was shut up close.
The conservatory doors were standing open, and Rosa Dartle was walking,
bareheaded, with a quick, impetuous step, up and down a gravel walk on
one side of the lawn. She gave me the idea of some fierce thing, that
was dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track, and
wearing its heart out.
I came softly away from my place of observation, and avoiding that part
of the neighbourhood, and wishing I had not gone near it, strolled about
until it was ten o’clock. The church with the slender spire, that stands
on the top of the hill now, was not there then to tell me the time. An
old red-brick mansion, used as a school, was in its place; and a fine
old house it must have been to go to school at, as I recollect it.
When I approached the Doctor’s cottage--a pretty old place, on which
he seemed to have expended some money, if I might judge from the
embellishments and repairs that had the look of being just completed--I
saw him walking in the garden at the side, gaiters and all, as if he
had never left off walking since the days of my pupilage. He had his old
companions about him, too; for there were plenty of high trees in the
neighbourhood, and two or three rooks were on the grass, looking after
him, as if they had been written to about him by the Canterbury rooks,
and were observing him closely in consequence.
Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from that
distance, I made bold to open the gate, and walk after him, so as to
meet him when he should turn round. When he did, and came towards me, he
looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, evidently without thinking
about me at all; and then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary
pleasure, and he took me by both hands.
‘Why, my dear Copperfield,’ said the Doctor, ‘you are a man! How do you
do? I am delighted to see you. My dear Copperfield, how very much you
have improved! You are quite--yes--dear me!’
I hoped he was well, and Mrs. Strong too.
‘Oh dear, yes!’ said the Doctor; ‘Annie’s quite well, and she’ll be
delighted to see you. You were always her favourite. She said so,
last night, when I showed her your letter. And--yes, to be sure--you
recollect Mr. Jack Maldon, Copperfield?’
‘Perfectly, sir.’
‘Of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘To be sure. He’s pretty well, too.’
‘Has he come home, sir?’ I inquired.
‘From India?’ said the Doctor. ‘Yes. Mr. Jack Maldon couldn’t bear
the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markleham--you have not forgotten Mrs.
Markleham?’
Forgotten the Old Soldier! And in that short time!
‘Mrs. Markleham,’ said the Doctor, ‘was quite vexed about him, poor
thing; so we have got him at home again; and we have bought him a little
Patent place, which agrees with him much better.’ I knew enough of Mr.
Jack Maldon to suspect from this account that it was a place where there
was not much to do, and which was pretty well paid. The Doctor, walking
up and down with his hand on my shoulder, and his kind face turned
encouragingly to mine, went on:
‘Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this proposal of yours. It’s
very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am sure; but don’t you think you
could do better? You achieved distinction, you know, when you were with
us. You are qualified for many good things. You have laid a foundation
that any edifice may be raised upon; and is it not a pity that you
should devote the spring-time of your life to such a poor pursuit as I
can offer?’
I became very glowing again, and, expressing myself in a rhapsodical
style, I am afraid, urged my request strongly; reminding the Doctor that
I had already a profession.
‘Well, well,’ said the Doctor, ‘that’s true. Certainly, your having
a profession, and being actually engaged in studying it, makes a
difference. But, my good young friend, what’s seventy pounds a year?’
‘It doubles our income, Doctor Strong,’ said I.
‘Dear me!’ replied the Doctor. ‘To think of that! Not that I mean to
say it’s rigidly limited to seventy pounds a-year, because I have always
contemplated making any young friend I might thus employ, a present too.
Undoubtedly,’ said the Doctor, still walking me up and down with
his hand on my shoulder. ‘I have always taken an annual present into
account.’
‘My dear tutor,’ said I (now, really, without any nonsense), ‘to whom I
owe more obligations already than I ever can acknowledge--’
‘No, no,’ interposed the Doctor. ‘Pardon me!’
‘If you will take such time as I have, and that is my mornings and
evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a year, you will do me
such a service as I cannot express.’
‘Dear me!’ said the Doctor, innocently. ‘To think that so little should
go for so much! Dear, dear! And when you can do better, you will? On
your word, now?’ said the Doctor,--which he had always made a very grave
appeal to the honour of us boys.
‘On my word, sir!’ I returned, answering in our old school manner.
‘Then be it so,’ said the Doctor, clapping me on the shoulder, and still
keeping his hand there, as we still walked up and down.
‘And I shall be twenty times happier, sir,’ said I, with a little--I
hope innocent--flattery, ‘if my employment is to be on the Dictionary.’
The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and
exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had
penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, ‘My dear young
friend, you have hit it. It IS the Dictionary!’
How could it be anything else! His pockets were as full of it as his
head. It was sticking out of him in all directions. He told me that
since his retirement from scholastic life, he had been advancing with
it wonderfully; and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed
arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his custom to walk
about in the daytime with his considering cap on. His papers were in
a little confusion, in consequence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately
proffered his occasional services as an amanuensis, and not being
accustomed to that occupation; but we should soon put right what was
amiss, and go on swimmingly. Afterwards, when we were fairly at our
work, I found Mr. Jack Maldon’s efforts more troublesome to me than
I had expected, as he had not confined himself to making numerous
mistakes, but had sketched so many soldiers, and ladies’ heads, over
the Doctor’s manuscript, that I often became involved in labyrinths of
obscurity.
The Doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work together
on that wonderful performance, and we settled to begin next morning at
seven o’clock. We were to work two hours every morning, and two or three
hours every night, except on Saturdays, when I was to rest. On Sundays,
of course, I was to rest also, and I considered these very easy terms.
Our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction, the Doctor
took me into the house to present me to Mrs. Strong, whom we found in
the Doctor’s new study, dusting his books,--a freedom which he never
permitted anybody else to take with those sacred favourites.
They had postponed their breakfast on my account, and we sat down to
table together. We had not been seated long, when I saw an approaching
arrival in Mrs. Strong’s face, before I heard any sound of it. A
gentleman on horseback came to the gate, and leading his horse into the
little court, with the bridle over his arm, as if he were quite at home,
tied him to a ring in the empty coach-house wall, and came into the
breakfast parlour, whip in hand. It was Mr. Jack Maldon; and Mr. Jack
Maldon was not at all improved by India, I thought. I was in a state
of ferocious virtue, however, as to young men who were not cutting down
trees in the forest of difficulty; and my impression must be received
with due allowance.
‘Mr. Jack!’ said the Doctor. ‘Copperfield!’
Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me; but not very warmly, I believed;
and with an air of languid patronage, at which I secretly took great
umbrage. But his languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight; except
when he addressed himself to his cousin Annie. ‘Have you breakfasted
this morning, Mr. Jack?’ said the Doctor.
‘I hardly ever take breakfast, sir,’ he replied, with his head thrown
back in an easy-chair. ‘I find it bores me.’
‘Is there any news today?’ inquired the Doctor.
‘Nothing at all, sir,’ replied Mr. Maldon. ‘There’s an account about
the people being hungry and discontented down in the North, but they are
always being hungry and discontented somewhere.’
The Doctor looked grave, and said, as though he wished to change the
subject, ‘Then there’s no news at all; and no news, they say, is good
news.’
‘There’s a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder,’ observed
Mr. Maldon. ‘But somebody is always being murdered, and I didn’t read
it.’
A display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was
not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time, I think,
as I have observed it to be considered since. I have known it very
fashionable indeed. I have seen it displayed with such success, that I
have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have
been born caterpillars. Perhaps it impressed me the more then, because
it was new to me, but it certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of,
or to strengthen my confidence in, Mr. Jack Maldon.
‘I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera
tonight,’ said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. ‘It’s the last good night
there will be, this season; and there’s a singer there, whom she really
ought to hear. She is perfectly exquisite. Besides which, she is so
charmingly ugly,’ relapsing into languor.
The Doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife,
turned to her and said:
‘You must go, Annie. You must go.’
‘I would rather not,’ she said to the Doctor. ‘I prefer to remain at
home. I would much rather remain at home.’
Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me, and asked me about
Agnes, and whether she should see her, and whether she was not likely to
come that day; and was so much disturbed, that I wondered how even the
Doctor, buttering his toast, could be blind to what was so obvious.
But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly, that she was young and
ought to be amused and entertained, and must not allow herself to be
made dull by a dull old fellow. Moreover, he said, he wanted to hear her
sing all the new singer’s songs to him; and how could she do that well,
unless she went? So the Doctor persisted in making the engagement for
her, and Mr. Jack Maldon was to come back to dinner. This concluded, he
went to his Patent place, I suppose; but at all events went away on his
horse, looking very idle.
I was curious to find out next morning, whether she had been. She had
not, but had sent into London to put her cousin off; and had gone out in
the afternoon to see Agnes, and had prevailed upon the Doctor to go with
her; and they had walked home by the fields, the Doctor told me, the
evening being delightful. I wondered then, whether she would have gone
if Agnes had not been in town, and whether Agnes had some good influence
over her too!
She did not look very happy, I thought; but it was a good face, or a
very false one. I often glanced at it, for she sat in the window all the
time we were at work; and made our breakfast, which we took by snatches
as we were employed. When I left, at nine o’clock, she was kneeling on
the ground at the Doctor’s feet, putting on his shoes and gaiters for
him. There was a softened shade upon her face, thrown from some green
leaves overhanging the open window of the low room; and I thought all
the way to Doctors’ Commons, of the night when I had seen it looking at
him as he read.
I was pretty busy now; up at five in the morning, and home at nine
or ten at night. But I had infinite satisfaction in being so
closely engaged, and never walked slowly on any account, and felt
enthusiastically that the more I tired myself, the more I was doing to
deserve Dora. I had not revealed myself in my altered character to
Dora yet, because she was coming to see Miss Mills in a few days, and
I deferred all I had to tell her until then; merely informing her in
my letters (all our communications were secretly forwarded through Miss
Mills), that I had much to tell her. In the meantime, I put myself on
a short allowance of bear’s grease, wholly abandoned scented soap and
lavender water, and sold off three waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice,
as being too luxurious for my stern career.
Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with impatience
to do something more, I went to see Traddles, now lodging up behind the
parapet of a house in Castle Street, Holborn. Mr. Dick, who had been
with me to Highgate twice already, and had resumed his companionship
with the Doctor, I took with me.
I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt’s
reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave or convict worked
as I did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and
appetite, as having nothing useful to do. In this condition, he felt
more incapable of finishing the Memorial than ever; and the harder he
worked at it, the oftener that unlucky head of King Charles the First
got into it. Seriously apprehending that his malady would increase,
unless we put some innocent deception upon him and caused him to believe
that he was useful, or unless we could put him in the way of being
really useful (which would be better), I made up my mind to try
if Traddles could help us. Before we went, I wrote Traddles a full
statement of all that had happened, and Traddles wrote me back a capital
answer, expressive of his sympathy and friendship.
We found him hard at work with his inkstand and papers, refreshed by the
sight of the flower-pot stand and the little round table in a corner of
the small apartment. He received us cordially, and made friends with
Mr. Dick in a moment. Mr. Dick professed an absolute certainty of having
seen him before, and we both said, ‘Very likely.’
The first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was this,--I had
heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life
by reporting the debates in Parliament. Traddles having mentioned
newspapers to me, as one of his hopes, I had put the two things
together, and told Traddles in my letter that I wished to know how I
could qualify myself for this pursuit. Traddles now informed me, as the
result of his inquiries, that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary,
except in rare cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say,
a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short-hand writing and
reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages;
and that it might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the
course of a few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would
settle the business; but I, only feeling that here indeed were a few
tall trees to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on to
Dora through this thicket, axe in hand.
‘I am very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles!’ said I. ‘I’ll begin
tomorrow.’
Traddles looked astonished, as he well might; but he had no notion as
yet of my rapturous condition.
‘I’ll buy a book,’ said I, ‘with a good scheme of this art in it; I’ll
work at it at the Commons, where I haven’t half enough to do; I’ll take
down the speeches in our court for practice--Traddles, my dear fellow,
I’ll master it!’
‘Dear me,’ said Traddles, opening his eyes, ‘I had no idea you were such
a determined character, Copperfield!’
I don’t know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me. I
passed that off, and brought Mr. Dick on the carpet.
‘You see,’ said Mr. Dick, wistfully, ‘if I could exert myself, Mr.
Traddles--if I could beat a drum--or blow anything!’
Poor fellow! I have little doubt he would have preferred such an
employment in his heart to all others. Traddles, who would not have
smiled for the world, replied composedly:
‘But you are a very good penman, sir. You told me so, Copperfield?’
‘Excellent!’ said I. And indeed he was. He wrote with extraordinary
neatness.
‘Don’t you think,’ said Traddles, ‘you could copy writings, sir, if I
got them for you?’
Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. ‘Eh, Trotwood?’
I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his, and sighed. ‘Tell him about the
Memorial,’ said Mr. Dick.
I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping King
Charles the First out of Mr. Dick’s manuscripts; Mr. Dick in the
meanwhile looking very deferentially and seriously at Traddles, and
sucking his thumb.
‘But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are already drawn up
and finished,’ said Traddles after a little consideration. ‘Mr. Dick has
nothing to do with them. Wouldn’t that make a difference, Copperfield?
At all events, wouldn’t it be well to try?’
This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads together apart,
while Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from his chair, we concocted a
scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day, with triumphant
success.
On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work
Traddles procured for him--which was to make, I forget how many copies
of a legal document about some right of way--and on another table
we spread the last unfinished original of the great Memorial. Our
instructions to Mr. Dick were that he should copy exactly what he had
before him, without the least departure from the original; and that when
he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to King Charles the
First, he should fly to the Memorial. We exhorted him to be resolute
in this, and left my aunt to observe him. My aunt reported to us,
afterwards, that, at first, he was like a man playing the kettle-drums,
and constantly divided his attentions between the two; but that, finding
this confuse and fatigue him, and having his copy there, plainly before
his eyes, he soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and
postponed the Memorial to a more convenient time. In a word, although we
took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him,
and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week, he earned
by the following Saturday night ten shillings and nine-pence; and never,
while I live, shall I forget his going about to all the shops in the
neighbourhood to change this treasure into sixpences, or his bringing
them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter, with
tears of joy and pride in his eyes. He was like one under the propitious
influence of a charm, from the moment of his being usefully employed;
and if there were a happy man in the world, that Saturday night, it was
the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in
existence, and me the most wonderful young man.
‘No starving now, Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, shaking hands with me in a
corner. ‘I’ll provide for her, Sir!’ and he flourished his ten fingers
in the air, as if they were ten banks.
I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or I. ‘It really,’
said Traddles, suddenly, taking a letter out of his pocket, and giving
it to me, ‘put Mr. Micawber quite out of my head!’
The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible opportunity of
writing a letter) was addressed to me, ‘By the kindness of T. Traddles,
Esquire, of the Inner Temple.’ It ran thus:--
‘MY DEAR COPPERFIELD,
‘You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that
something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former
occasion that I was in expectation of such an event.
‘I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our
favoured island (where the society may be described as a happy admixture
of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with
one of the learned professions. Mrs. Micawber and our offspring will
accompany me. Our ashes, at a future period, will probably be found
commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile, for which the
spot to which I refer has acquired a reputation, shall I say from China
to Peru?
‘In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we have undergone many
vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs. Micawber and myself cannot
disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be
for ever, with an individual linked by strong associations to the altar
of our domestic life. If, on the eve of such a departure, you will
accompany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles, to our present abode,
and there reciprocate the wishes natural to the occasion, you will
confer a Boon
‘On
‘One
‘Who
‘Is
‘Ever yours,
‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’
I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of his dust and ashes,
and that something really had turned up at last. Learning from Traddles
that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I
expressed my readiness to do honour to it; and we went off together to
the lodging which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was
situated near the top of the Gray’s Inn Road.
The resources of this lodging were so limited, that we found the twins,
now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up bedstead in
the family sitting-room, where Mr. Micawber had prepared, in a
wash-hand-stand jug, what he called ‘a Brew’ of the agreeable beverage
for which he was famous. I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of
renewing the acquaintance of Master Micawber, whom I found a promising
boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of
limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in youths of his age. I also
became once more known to his sister, Miss Micawber, in whom, as Mr.
Micawber told us, ‘her mother renewed her youth, like the Phoenix’.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘yourself and Mr. Traddles
find us on the brink of migration, and will excuse any little
discomforts incidental to that position.’
Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I observed that the family
effects were already packed, and that the amount of luggage was by no
means overwhelming. I congratulated Mrs. Micawber on the approaching
change.
‘My dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘of your friendly
interest in all our affairs, I am well assured. My family may consider
it banishment, if they please; but I am a wife and mother, and I never
will desert Mr. Micawber.’
Traddles, appealed to by Mrs. Micawber’s eye, feelingly acquiesced.
‘That,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘that, at least, is my view, my dear Mr.
Copperfield and Mr. Traddles, of the obligation which I took upon myself
when I repeated the irrevocable words, “I, Emma, take thee, Wilkins.” I
read the service over with a flat-candle on the previous night, and
the conclusion I derived from it was, that I never could desert Mr.
Micawber. And,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘though it is possible I may be
mistaken in my view of the ceremony, I never will!’
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, a little impatiently, ‘I am not conscious
that you are expected to do anything of the sort.’
‘I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ pursued Mrs. Micawber, ‘that I am
now about to cast my lot among strangers; and I am also aware that the
various members of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has written in the
most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not taken the least
notice of Mr. Micawber’s communication. Indeed I may be superstitious,’
said Mrs. Micawber, ‘but it appears to me that Mr. Micawber is destined
never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the
communications he writes. I may augur, from the silence of my family,
that they object to the resolution I have taken; but I should not allow
myself to be swerved from the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield, even by my
papa and mama, were they still living.’
I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. ‘It
may be a sacrifice,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘to immure one’s-self in a
Cathedral town; but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if it is a sacrifice in me,
it is much more a sacrifice in a man of Mr. Micawber’s abilities.’
‘Oh! You are going to a Cathedral town?’ said I.
Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the wash-hand-stand
jug, replied:
‘To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I have entered into
arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged and contracted to our
friend Heep, to assist and serve him in the capacity of--and to be--his
confidential clerk.’
I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed my surprise.
‘I am bound to state to you,’ he said, with an official air, ‘that the
business habits, and the prudent suggestions, of Mrs. Micawber, have
in a great measure conduced to this result. The gauntlet, to which Mrs.
Micawber referred upon a former occasion, being thrown down in the form
of an advertisement, was taken up by my friend Heep, and led to a mutual
recognition. Of my friend Heep,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘who is a man of
remarkable shrewdness, I desire to speak with all possible respect.
My friend Heep has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a
figure, but he has made a great deal, in the way of extrication from
the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, contingent on the value of
my services; and on the value of those services I pin my faith. Such
address and intelligence as I chance to possess,’ said Mr. Micawber,
boastfully disparaging himself, with the old genteel air, ‘will be
devoted to my friend Heep’s service. I have already some acquaintance
with the law--as a defendant on civil process--and I shall immediately
apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most eminent and
remarkable of our English jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to add
that I allude to Mr. justice Blackstone.’
These observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations
made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber’s discovering that
Master Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with
both arms as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under
the table, or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them
at distances from himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying
sideways with his hair among the wine-glasses, or developing his
restlessness of limb in some other form incompatible with the general
interests of society; and by Master Micawber’s receiving those
discoveries in a resentful spirit. I sat all the while, amazed by Mr.
Micawber’s disclosure, and wondering what it meant; until Mrs. Micawber
resumed the thread of the discourse, and claimed my attention.
‘What I particularly request Mr. Micawber to be careful of, is,’ said
Mrs. Micawber, ‘that he does not, my dear Mr. Copperfield, in applying
himself to this subordinate branch of the law, place it out of his power
to rise, ultimately, to the top of the tree. I am convinced that Mr.
Micawber, giving his mind to a profession so adapted to his fertile
resources, and his flow of language, must distinguish himself. Now, for
example, Mr. Traddles,’ said Mrs. Micawber, assuming a profound air, ‘a
judge, or even say a Chancellor. Does an individual place himself beyond
the pale of those preferments by entering on such an office as Mr.
Micawber has accepted?’
‘My dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber--but glancing inquisitively at
Traddles, too; ‘we have time enough before us, for the consideration of
those questions.’
‘Micawber,’ she returned, ‘no! Your mistake in life is, that you do not
look forward far enough. You are bound, in justice to your family, if
not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremest
point in the horizon to which your abilities may lead you.’
Mr. Micawber coughed, and drank his punch with an air of exceeding
satisfaction--still glancing at Traddles, as if he desired to have his
opinion.
‘Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Micawber,’ said Traddles, mildly
breaking the truth to her. ‘I mean the real prosaic fact, you know--’
‘Just so,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘my dear Mr. Traddles, I wish to be as
prosaic and literal as possible on a subject of so much importance.’
‘--Is,’ said Traddles, ‘that this branch of the law, even if Mr.
Micawber were a regular solicitor--’
‘Exactly so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. [‘Wilkins, you are squinting, and
will not be able to get your eyes back.’)
‘--Has nothing,’ pursued Traddles, ‘to do with that. Only a barrister
is eligible for such preferments; and Mr. Micawber could not be a
barrister, without being entered at an inn of court as a student, for
five years.’
‘Do I follow you?’ said Mrs. Micawber, with her most affable air
of business. ‘Do I understand, my dear Mr. Traddles, that, at the
expiration of that period, Mr. Micawber would be eligible as a Judge or
Chancellor?’
‘He would be ELIGIBLE,’ returned Traddles, with a strong emphasis on
that word.
‘Thank you,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘That is quite sufficient. If such is
the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no privilege by entering on these
duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I speak,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘as a
female, necessarily; but I have always been of opinion that Mr. Micawber
possesses what I have heard my papa call, when I lived at home, the
judicial mind; and I hope Mr. Micawber is now entering on a field where
that mind will develop itself, and take a commanding station.’
I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in his judicial mind’s
eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand complacently over his bald
head, and said with ostentatious resignation:
‘My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. If I am
reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared, externally,’ in allusion
to his baldness, ‘for that distinction. I do not,’ said Mr. Micawber,
‘regret my hair, and I may have been deprived of it for a specific
purpose. I cannot say. It is my intention, my dear Copperfield, to
educate my son for the Church; I will not deny that I should be happy,
on his account, to attain to eminence.’
‘For the Church?’ said I, still pondering, between whiles, on Uriah
Heep.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘He has a remarkable head-voice, and will
commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury, and our local
connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any vacancy
that may arise in the Cathedral corps.’
On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he had a certain
expression of face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows; where it
presently appeared to be, on his singing us (as an alternative between
that and bed) ‘The Wood-Pecker tapping’. After many compliments on this
performance, we fell into some general conversation; and as I was too
full of my desperate intentions to keep my altered circumstances to
myself, I made them known to Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. I cannot express how
extremely delighted they both were, by the idea of my aunt’s being in
difficulties; and how comfortable and friendly it made them.
When we were nearly come to the last round of the punch, I addressed
myself to Traddles, and reminded him that we must not separate, without
wishing our friends health, happiness, and success in their new career.
I begged Mr. Micawber to fill us bumpers, and proposed the toast in
due form: shaking hands with him across the table, and kissing Mrs.
Micawber, to commemorate that eventful occasion. Traddles imitated me
in the first particular, but did not consider himself a sufficiently old
friend to venture on the second.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, rising with one of his thumbs
in each of his waistcoat pockets, ‘the companion of my youth: if I may
be allowed the expression--and my esteemed friend Traddles: if I may be
permitted to call him so--will allow me, on the part of Mrs. Micawber,
myself, and our offspring, to thank them in the warmest and most
uncompromising terms for their good wishes. It may be expected that
on the eve of a migration which will consign us to a perfectly new
existence,’ Mr. Micawber spoke as if they were going five hundred
thousand miles, ‘I should offer a few valedictory remarks to two such
friends as I see before me. But all that I have to say in this way, I
have said. Whatever station in society I may attain, through the medium
of the learned profession of which I am about to become an unworthy
member, I shall endeavour not to disgrace, and Mrs. Micawber will be
safe to adorn. Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities,
contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation, but remaining
unliquidated through a combination of circumstances, I have been
under the necessity of assuming a garb from which my natural instincts
recoil--I allude to spectacles--and possessing myself of a cognomen, to
which I can establish no legitimate pretensions. All I have to say on
that score is, that the cloud has passed from the dreary scene, and the
God of Day is once more high upon the mountain tops. On Monday next, on
the arrival of the four o’clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot
will be on my native heath--my name, Micawber!’
Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these remarks, and
drank two glasses of punch in grave succession. He then said with much
solemnity:
‘One thing more I have to do, before this separation is complete, and
that is to perform an act of justice. My friend Mr. Thomas Traddles
has, on two several occasions, “put his name”, if I may use a common
expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. On the first
occasion Mr. Thomas Traddles was left--let me say, in short, in the
lurch. The fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived. The amount of
the first obligation,’ here Mr. Micawber carefully referred to papers,
‘was, I believe, twenty-three, four, nine and a half, of the second,
according to my entry of that transaction, eighteen, six, two. These
sums, united, make a total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to
forty-one, ten, eleven and a half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do
me the favour to check that total?’
I did so and found it correct.
‘To leave this metropolis,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘and my friend Mr.
Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this
obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. I have,
therefore, prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, and I now hold
in my hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired object. I beg
to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles my I.O.U. for forty-one, ten,
eleven and a half, and I am happy to recover my moral dignity, and to
know that I can once more walk erect before my fellow man!’
With this introduction (which greatly affected him), Mr. Micawber placed
his I.O.U. in the hands of Traddles, and said he wished him well in
every relation of life. I am persuaded, not only that this was quite
the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself
hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it. Mr.
Micawber walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength of
this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he
lighted us downstairs. We parted with great heartiness on both sides;
and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home alone,
I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon,
that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was probably indebted to some
compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for
never having been asked by him for money. I certainly should not have
had the moral courage to refuse it; and I have no doubt he knew that (to
his credit be it written), quite as well as I did.
CHAPTER 37. A LITTLE COLD WATER
My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger than
ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the crisis
required. I continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea
that I was getting on. I made it a rule to take as much out of myself
as I possibly could, in my way of doing everything to which I applied
my energies. I made a perfect victim of myself. I even entertained some
idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that, in
becoming a graminivorous animal, I should sacrifice to Dora.
As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness,
otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. But another
Saturday came, and on that Saturday evening she was to be at Miss
Mills’s; and when Mr. Mills had gone to his whist-club (telegraphed to
me in the street, by a bird-cage in the drawing-room middle window), I
was to go there to tea.
By this time, we were quite settled down in Buckingham Street, where Mr.
Dick continued his copying in a state of absolute felicity. My aunt had
obtained a signal victory over Mrs. Crupp, by paying her off, throwing
the first pitcher she planted on the stairs out of window, and
protecting in person, up and down the staircase, a supernumerary whom
she engaged from the outer world. These vigorous measures struck such
terror to the breast of Mrs. Crupp, that she subsided into her own
kitchen, under the impression that my aunt was mad. My aunt being
supremely indifferent to Mrs. Crupp’s opinion and everybody else’s, and
rather favouring than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp, of late the
bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted, that rather than
encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she would endeavour to hide her
portly form behind doors--leaving visible, however, a wide margin of
flannel petticoat--or would shrink into dark corners. This gave my aunt
such unspeakable satisfaction, that I believe she took a delight in
prowling up and down, with her bonnet insanely perched on the top of her
head, at times when Mrs. Crupp was likely to be in the way.
My aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made so many little
improvements in our domestic arrangements, that I seemed to be richer
instead of poorer. Among the rest, she converted the pantry into a
dressing-room for me; and purchased and embellished a bedstead for my
occupation, which looked as like a bookcase in the daytime as a bedstead
could. I was the object of her constant solicitude; and my poor mother
herself could not have loved me better, or studied more how to make me
happy.
Peggotty had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed to
participate in these labours; and, although she still retained something
of her old sentiment of awe in reference to my aunt, had received so
many marks of encouragement and confidence, that they were the best
friends possible. But the time had now come (I am speaking of the
Saturday when I was to take tea at Miss Mills’s) when it was necessary
for her to return home, and enter on the discharge of the duties she had
undertaken in behalf of Ham. ‘So good-bye, Barkis,’ said my aunt, ‘and
take care of yourself! I am sure I never thought I could be sorry to
lose you!’
I took Peggotty to the coach office and saw her off. She cried at
parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done. We
had heard nothing of him since he went away, that sunny afternoon.
‘And now, my own dear Davy,’ said Peggotty, ‘if, while you’re a
prentice, you should want any money to spend; or if, when you’re out of
your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up (and you must do
one or other, or both, my darling); who has such a good right to ask
leave to lend it you, as my sweet girl’s own old stupid me!’
I was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply, but that
if ever I borrowed money of anyone, I would borrow it of her. Next to
accepting a large sum on the spot, I believe this gave Peggotty more
comfort than anything I could have done.
‘And, my dear!’ whispered Peggotty, ‘tell the pretty little angel that
I should so have liked to see her, only for a minute! And tell her that
before she marries my boy, I’ll come and make your house so beautiful
for you, if you’ll let me!’
I declared that nobody else should touch it; and this gave Peggotty such
delight that she went away in good spirits.
I fatigued myself as much as I possibly could in the Commons all day, by
a variety of devices, and at the appointed time in the evening repaired
to Mr. Mills’s street. Mr. Mills, who was a terrible fellow to fall
asleep after dinner, had not yet gone out, and there was no bird-cage in
the middle window.
He kept me waiting so long, that I fervently hoped the Club would fine
him for being late. At last he came out; and then I saw my own Dora hang
up the bird-cage, and peep into the balcony to look for me, and run
in again when she saw I was there, while Jip remained behind, to bark
injuriously at an immense butcher’s dog in the street, who could have
taken him like a pill.
Dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me; and Jip came scrambling
out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression that I was a
Bandit; and we all three went in, as happy and loving as could be. I
soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys--not that I meant to
do it, but that I was so full of the subject--by asking Dora, without
the smallest preparation, if she could love a beggar?
My pretty, little, startled Dora! Her only association with the word was
a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, or
a dog with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or something of that kind; and
she stared at me with the most delightful wonder.
‘How can you ask me anything so foolish?’ pouted Dora. ‘Love a beggar!’
‘Dora, my own dearest!’ said I. ‘I am a beggar!’
‘How can you be such a silly thing,’ replied Dora, slapping my hand, ‘as
to sit there, telling such stories? I’ll make Jip bite you!’
Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but it
was necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly repeated:
‘Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David!’
‘I declare I’ll make Jip bite you!’ said Dora, shaking her curls, ‘if
you are so ridiculous.’
But I looked so serious, that Dora left off shaking her curls, and laid
her trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked scared
and anxious, then began to cry. That was dreadful. I fell upon my knees
before the sofa, caressing her, and imploring her not to rend my heart;
but, for some time, poor little Dora did nothing but exclaim Oh dear! Oh
dear! And oh, she was so frightened! And where was Julia Mills! And oh,
take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! until I was almost beside
myself.
At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, I got Dora
to look at me, with a horrified expression of face, which I gradually
soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek was lying
against mine. Then I told her, with my arms clasped round her, how I
loved her, so dearly, and so dearly; how I felt it right to offer to
release her from her engagement, because now I was poor; how I never
could bear it, or recover it, if I lost her; how I had no fears of
poverty, if she had none, my arm being nerved and my heart inspired by
her; how I was already working with a courage such as none but lovers
knew; how I had begun to be practical, and look into the future; how a
crust well earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited; and much
more to the same purpose, which I delivered in a burst of passionate
eloquence quite surprising to myself, though I had been thinking about
it, day and night, ever since my aunt had astonished me.
‘Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?’ said I, rapturously, for I knew
by her clinging to me that it was.
‘Oh, yes!’ cried Dora. ‘Oh, yes, it’s all yours. Oh, don’t be dreadful!’
I dreadful! To Dora!
‘Don’t talk about being poor, and working hard!’ said Dora, nestling
closer to me. ‘Oh, don’t, don’t!’
‘My dearest love,’ said I, ‘the crust well-earned--’
‘Oh, yes; but I don’t want to hear any more about crusts!’ said Dora.
‘And Jip must have a mutton-chop every day at twelve, or he’ll die.’
I was charmed with her childish, winning way. I fondly explained to Dora
that Jip should have his mutton-chop with his accustomed regularity.
I drew a picture of our frugal home, made independent by my
labour--sketching in the little house I had seen at Highgate, and my
aunt in her room upstairs.
‘I am not dreadful now, Dora?’ said I, tenderly.
‘Oh, no, no!’ cried Dora. ‘But I hope your aunt will keep in her own
room a good deal. And I hope she’s not a scolding old thing!’
If it were possible for me to love Dora more than ever, I am sure I did.
But I felt she was a little impracticable. It damped my new-born ardour,
to find that ardour so difficult of communication to her. I made another
trial. When she was quite herself again, and was curling Jip’s ears, as
he lay upon her lap, I became grave, and said:
‘My own! May I mention something?’
‘Oh, please don’t be practical!’ said Dora, coaxingly. ‘Because it
frightens me so!’
‘Sweetheart!’ I returned; ‘there is nothing to alarm you in all this. I
want you to think of it quite differently. I want to make it nerve you,
and inspire you, Dora!’
‘Oh, but that’s so shocking!’ cried Dora.
‘My love, no. Perseverance and strength of character will enable us to
bear much worse things.’ ‘But I haven’t got any strength at all,’
said Dora, shaking her curls. ‘Have I, Jip? Oh, do kiss Jip, and be
agreeable!’
It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held him up to me for
that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into kissing
form, as she directed the operation, which she insisted should be
performed symmetrically, on the centre of his nose. I did as she bade
me--rewarding myself afterwards for my obedience--and she charmed me out
of my graver character for I don’t know how long.
‘But, Dora, my beloved!’ said I, at last resuming it; ‘I was going to
mention something.’
The judge of the Prerogative Court might have fallen in love with her,
to see her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and praying
me not to be dreadful any more.
‘Indeed I am not going to be, my darling!’ I assured her. ‘But, Dora, my
love, if you will sometimes think,--not despondingly, you know; far from
that!--but if you will sometimes think--just to encourage yourself--that
you are engaged to a poor man--’
‘Don’t, don’t! Pray don’t!’ cried Dora. ‘It’s so very dreadful!’
‘My soul, not at all!’ said I, cheerfully. ‘If you will sometimes think
of that, and look about now and then at your papa’s housekeeping, and
endeavour to acquire a little habit--of accounts, for instance--’
Poor little Dora received this suggestion with something that was half a
sob and half a scream.
‘--It would be so useful to us afterwards,’ I went on. ‘And if you would
promise me to read a little--a little Cookery Book that I would send
you, it would be so excellent for both of us. For our path in life, my
Dora,’ said I, warming with the subject, ‘is stony and rugged now, and
it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We must be
brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush them!’
I was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand, and a most
enthusiastic countenance; but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. I had
said enough. I had done it again. Oh, she was so frightened! Oh, where
was Julia Mills! Oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please!
So that, in short, I was quite distracted, and raved about the
drawing-room.
I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water on her face.
I went down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced myself as a
remorseless brute and a ruthless beast. I implored her forgiveness.
I besought her to look up. I ravaged Miss Mills’s work-box for a
smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an ivory needle-case
instead, and dropped all the needles over Dora. I shook my fists at Jip,
who was as frantic as myself. I did every wild extravagance that could
be done, and was a long way beyond the end of my wits when Miss Mills
came into the room.
‘Who has done this?’ exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring her friend.
I replied, ‘I, Miss Mills! I have done it! Behold the destroyer!’--or
words to that effect--and hid my face from the light, in the sofa
cushion.
At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were verging
on the Desert of Sahara; but she soon found out how matters stood, for
my dear affectionate little Dora, embracing her, began exclaiming that I
was ‘a poor labourer’; and then cried for me, and embraced me, and asked
me would I let her give me all her money to keep, and then fell on Miss
Mills’s neck, sobbing as if her tender heart were broken.
Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She ascertained
from me in a few words what it was all about, comforted Dora, and
gradually convinced her that I was not a labourer--from my manner of
stating the case I believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator,
and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a
wheelbarrow--and so brought us together in peace. When we were quite
composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put some rose-water to her
eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I told Miss
Mills that she was evermore my friend, and that my heart must cease to
vibrate ere I could forget her sympathy.
I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very
unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general
principles, that the Cottage of content was better than the Palace of
cold splendour, and that where love was, all was.
I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who should know
it better than I, who loved Dora with a love that never mortal had
experienced yet? But on Miss Mills observing, with despondency, that
it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so, I explained that
I begged leave to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine
gender.
I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered that there
was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had been anxious
to make, concerning the accounts, the housekeeping, and the Cookery
Book?
Miss Mills, after some consideration, thus replied:
‘Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you. Mental suffering and trial
supply, in some natures, the place of years, and I will be as plain with
you as if I were a Lady Abbess. No. The suggestion is not appropriate
to our Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favourite child of nature. She is a
thing of light, and airiness, and joy. I am free to confess that if it
could be done, it might be well, but--’ And Miss Mills shook her head.
I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of Miss Mills to
ask her, whether, for Dora’s sake, if she had any opportunity of luring
her attention to such preparations for an earnest life, she would avail
herself of it? Miss Mills replied in the affirmative so readily, that I
further asked her if she would take charge of the Cookery Book; and, if
she ever could insinuate it upon Dora’s acceptance, without frightening
her, undertake to do me that crowning service. Miss Mills accepted this
trust, too; but was not sanguine.
And Dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature, that I really
doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary. And
she loved me so much, and was so captivating (particularly when she made
Jip stand on his hind legs for toast, and when she pretended to hold
that nose of his against the hot teapot for punishment because he
wouldn’t), that I felt like a sort of Monster who had got into a Fairy’s
bower, when I thought of having frightened her, and made her cry.
After tea we had the guitar; and Dora sang those same dear old French
songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off
dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I felt a much greater Monster than
before.
We had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little while
before I took my leave, when, Miss Mills chancing to make some allusion
to tomorrow morning, I unluckily let out that, being obliged to exert
myself now, I got up at five o’clock. Whether Dora had any idea that
I was a Private Watchman, I am unable to say; but it made a great
impression on her, and she neither played nor sang any more.
It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu; and she said to me, in
her pretty coaxing way--as if I were a doll, I used to think:
‘Now don’t get up at five o’clock, you naughty boy. It’s so
nonsensical!’
‘My love,’ said I, ‘I have work to do.’
‘But don’t do it!’ returned Dora. ‘Why should you?’
It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, otherwise
than lightly and playfully, that we must work to live.
‘Oh! How ridiculous!’ cried Dora.
‘How shall we live without, Dora?’ said I.
‘How? Any how!’ said Dora.
She seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me such
a triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that I would
hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer, for a fortune.
Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly, entirely,
and completely. But going on, too, working pretty hard, and busily
keeping red-hot all the irons I now had in the fire, I would sit
sometimes of a night, opposite my aunt, thinking how I had frightened
Dora that time, and how I could best make my way with a guitar-case
through the forest of difficulty, until I used to fancy that my head was
turning quite grey.
CHAPTER 38. A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP
I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parliamentary
Debates, to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately,
and one of the irons I kept hot, and hammered at, with a perseverance
I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and
mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence); and plunged
into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the
confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which
in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position
something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were
played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from
marks like flies’ legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong
place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in
my sleep. When I had groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties,
and had mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself,
there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary
characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known; who
insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb,
meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket, stood for
disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found
that they had driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, I
forgot them; while I was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments
of the system; in short, it was almost heart-breaking.
It might have been quite heart-breaking, but for Dora, who was the stay
and anchor of my tempest-driven bark. Every scratch in the scheme was
a gnarled oak in the forest of difficulty, and I went on cutting them
down, one after another, with such vigour, that in three or four months
I was in a condition to make an experiment on one of our crack speakers
in the Commons. Shall I ever forget how the crack speaker walked off
from me before I began, and left my imbecile pencil staggering about the
paper as if it were in a fit!
This would not do, it was quite clear. I was flying too high, and should
never get on, so. I resorted to Traddles for advice; who suggested
that he should dictate speeches to me, at a pace, and with occasional
stoppages, adapted to my weakness. Very grateful for this friendly aid,
I accepted the proposal; and night after night, almost every night, for
a long time, we had a sort of Private Parliament in Buckingham Street,
after I came home from the Doctor’s.
I should like to see such a Parliament anywhere else! My aunt and Mr.
Dick represented the Government or the Opposition (as the case might
be), and Traddles, with the assistance of Enfield’s Speakers, or a
volume of parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing invectives
against them. Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep
the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head, Traddles, as
Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord Castlereagh, Viscount
Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself into the most violent
heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy
and corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick; while I used to sit, at a little
distance, with my notebook on my knee, fagging after him with all my
might and main. The inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not
to be exceeded by any real politician. He was for any description of
policy, in the compass of a week; and nailed all sorts of colours to
every denomination of mast. My aunt, looking very like an immovable
Chancellor of the Exchequer, would occasionally throw in an interruption
or two, as ‘Hear!’ or ‘No!’ or ‘Oh!’ when the text seemed to require it:
which was always a signal to Mr. Dick (a perfect country gentleman)
to follow lustily with the same cry. But Mr. Dick got taxed with
such things in the course of his Parliamentary career, and was made
responsible for such awful consequences, that he became uncomfortable in
his mind sometimes. I believe he actually began to be afraid he really
had been doing something, tending to the annihilation of the British
constitution, and the ruin of the country.
Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to
midnight, and the candles were burning down. The result of so much good
practice was, that by and by I began to keep pace with Traddles pretty
well, and should have been quite triumphant if I had had the least idea
what my notes were about. But, as to reading them after I had got them,
I might as well have copied the Chinese inscriptions of an immense
collection of tea-chests, or the golden characters on all the great red
and green bottles in the chemists’ shops!
There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. It
was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began
laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a
snail’s pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on
all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive
characters by sight wherever I met them. I was always punctual at
the office; at the Doctor’s too: and I really did work, as the common
expression is, like a cart-horse. One day, when I went to the Commons as
usual, I found Mr. Spenlow in the doorway looking extremely grave, and
talking to himself. As he was in the habit of complaining of pains in
his head--he had naturally a short throat, and I do seriously believe
he over-starched himself--I was at first alarmed by the idea that he was
not quite right in that direction; but he soon relieved my uneasiness.
Instead of returning my ‘Good morning’ with his usual affability, he
looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly requested me
to accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which, in those days, had
a door opening into the Commons, just within the little archway in St.
Paul’s Churchyard. I complied, in a very uncomfortable state, and with a
warm shooting all over me, as if my apprehensions were breaking out into
buds. When I allowed him to go on a little before, on account of the
narrowness of the way, I observed that he carried his head with a lofty
air that was particularly unpromising; and my mind misgave me that he
had found out about my darling Dora.
If I had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house, I could
hardly have failed to know what was the matter when I followed him
into an upstairs room, and found Miss Murdstone there, supported by
a background of sideboard, on which were several inverted tumblers
sustaining lemons, and two of those extraordinary boxes, all corners and
flutings, for sticking knives and forks in, which, happily for mankind,
are now obsolete.
Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat severely rigid.
Mr. Spenlow shut the door, motioned me to a chair, and stood on the
hearth-rug in front of the fireplace.
‘Have the goodness to show Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow, what you
have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone.’
I believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of my
childhood, that shut up like a bite. Compressing her lips, in sympathy
with the snap, Miss Murdstone opened it--opening her mouth a little
at the same time--and produced my last letter to Dora, teeming with
expressions of devoted affection.
‘I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield?’ said Mr. Spenlow.
I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike mine, when I said,
‘It is, sir!’
‘If I am not mistaken,’ said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss Murdstone brought a
parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the dearest bit
of blue ribbon, ‘those are also from your pen, Mr. Copperfield?’
I took them from her with a most desolate sensation; and, glancing at
such phrases at the top, as ‘My ever dearest and own Dora,’ ‘My best
beloved angel,’ ‘My blessed one for ever,’ and the like, blushed deeply,
and inclined my head.
‘No, thank you!’ said Mr. Spenlow, coldly, as I mechanically offered
them back to him. ‘I will not deprive you of them. Miss Murdstone, be so
good as to proceed!’
That gentle creature, after a moment’s thoughtful survey of the carpet,
delivered herself with much dry unction as follows.
‘I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in
reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I observed Miss Spenlow
and David Copperfield, when they first met; and the impression made upon
me then was not agreeable. The depravity of the human heart is such--’
‘You will oblige me, ma’am,’ interrupted Mr. Spenlow, ‘by confining
yourself to facts.’
Miss Murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if protesting
against this unseemly interruption, and with frowning dignity resumed:
‘Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will state them as dryly as I
can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding.
I have already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow,
in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I have frequently
endeavoured to find decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but
without effect. I have therefore forborne to mention them to Miss
Spenlow’s father’; looking severely at him--‘knowing how little
disposition there usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the
conscientious discharge of duty.’
Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss
Murdstone’s manner, and deprecated her severity with a conciliatory
little wave of his hand.
‘On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by my
brother’s marriage,’ pursued Miss Murdstone in a disdainful voice, ‘and
on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss Mills,
I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater occasion for
suspicion than before. Therefore I watched Miss Spenlow closely.’
Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon’s eye!
‘Still,’ resumed Miss Murdstone, ‘I found no proof until last night.
It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many letters from her
friend Miss Mills; but Miss Mills being her friend with her father’s
full concurrence,’ another telling blow at Mr. Spenlow, ‘it was not
for me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude to the natural
depravity of the human heart, at least I may--I must--be permitted, so
far to refer to misplaced confidence.’
Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent.
‘Last evening after tea,’ pursued Miss Murdstone, ‘I observed the little
dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying
something. I said to Miss Spenlow, “Dora, what is that the dog has in
his mouth? It’s paper.” Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her
frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed, and said,
“Dora, my love, you must permit me.”’
Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work!
‘Miss Spenlow endeavoured,’ said Miss Murdstone, ‘to bribe me with
kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery--that, of course,
I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching
him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. Even
when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth; and on my
endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten,
he kept it between his teeth so pertinaciously as to suffer himself
to be held suspended in the air by means of the document. At length I
obtained possession of it. After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with
having many such letters in her possession; and ultimately obtained from
her the packet which is now in David Copperfield’s hand.’
Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her
mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent.
‘You have heard Miss Murdstone,’ said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. ‘I beg
to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything to say in reply?’
The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my
heart, sobbing and crying all night--of her being alone, frightened,
and wretched, then--of her having so piteously begged and prayed that
stony-hearted woman to forgive her--of her having vainly offered her
those kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets--of her being in such grievous
distress, and all for me--very much impaired the little dignity I had
been able to muster. I am afraid I was in a tremulous state for a minute
or so, though I did my best to disguise it.
‘There is nothing I can say, sir,’ I returned, ‘except that all the
blame is mine. Dora--’
‘Miss Spenlow, if you please,’ said her father, majestically.
‘--was induced and persuaded by me,’ I went on, swallowing that colder
designation, ‘to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly regret it.’
‘You are very much to blame, sir,’ said Mr. Spenlow, walking to and fro
upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his whole body
instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and
spine. ‘You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. Copperfield.
When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether he is nineteen,
twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in a spirit of confidence.
If he abuses my confidence, he commits a dishonourable action, Mr.
Copperfield.’
‘I feel it, sir, I assure you,’ I returned. ‘But I never thought so,
before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never thought so,
before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent--’
‘Pooh! nonsense!’ said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. ‘Pray don’t tell me to my
face that you love my daughter, Mr. Copperfield!’
‘Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir?’ I returned, with all
humility.
‘Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir?’ said Mr. Spenlow, stopping
short upon the hearth-rug. ‘Have you considered your years, and my
daughter’s years, Mr. Copperfield? Have you considered what it is to
undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and
myself? Have you considered my daughter’s station in life, the projects
I may contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary intentions I
may have with reference to her? Have you considered anything, Mr.
Copperfield?’
‘Very little, sir, I am afraid;’ I answered, speaking to him as
respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt; ‘but pray believe me, I have
considered my own worldly position. When I explained it to you, we were
already engaged--’
‘I BEG,’ said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen him,
as he energetically struck one hand upon the other--I could not help
noticing that even in my despair; ‘that YOU Will NOT talk to me of
engagements, Mr. Copperfield!’
The otherwise immovable Miss Murdstone laughed contemptuously in one
short syllable.
‘When I explained my altered position to you, sir,’ I began again,
substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable to
him, ‘this concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have led Miss
Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered position, I have
strained every nerve, I have exerted every energy, to improve it. I am
sure I shall improve it in time. Will you grant me time--any length of
time? We are both so young, sir,--’
‘You are right,’ interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great
many times, and frowning very much, ‘you are both very young. It’s all
nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away those letters,
and throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow’s letters to throw in
the fire; and although our future intercourse must, you are aware, be
restricted to the Commons here, we will agree to make no further mention
of the past. Come, Mr. Copperfield, you don’t want sense; and this is
the sensible course.’
No. I couldn’t think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but there
was a higher consideration than sense. Love was above all earthly
considerations, and I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I
didn’t exactly say so; I softened it down as much as I could; but I
implied it, and I was resolute upon it. I don’t think I made myself very
ridiculous, but I know I was resolute.
‘Very well, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘I must try my influence
with my daughter.’
Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, which
was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her opinion
that he should have done this at first.
‘I must try,’ said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, ‘my
influence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, Mr.
Copperfield?’ For I had laid them on the table.
Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I couldn’t
possibly take them from Miss Murdstone.
‘Nor from me?’ said Mr. Spenlow.
No, I replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him.
‘Very well!’ said Mr. Spenlow.
A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At length
I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that
perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said,
with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he
could do to get them; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a
decidedly pious air:
‘You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether
destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and
dearest relative?’
I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error into
which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not
induce him to think me mercenary too?
‘I don’t allude to the matter in that light,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘It
would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you WERE mercenary, Mr.
Copperfield--I mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by
all this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another view,
you are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my child?’
I certainly supposed so.
‘And you can hardly think,’ said Mr. Spenlow, ‘having experience of what
we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various unaccountable
and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary
arrangements--of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest
revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with--but that mine are
made?’
I inclined my head in acquiescence.
‘I should not allow,’ said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of
pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon
his toes and heels alternately, ‘my suitable provision for my child to
be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere
folly. Mere nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than
any feather. But I might--I might--if this silly business were not
completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment
to guard her from, and surround her with protections against, the
consequences of any foolish step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr.
Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to
open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of
life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long
since composed.’
There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm sunset air about him, which
quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned--clearly had his
affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up--that he
was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw
tears rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this.
But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. When he
told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how
could I say I wouldn’t take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no
amount of weeks could influence such love as mine?
‘In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with
any knowledge of life,’ said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both
hands. ‘Take a week, Mr. Copperfield.’
I submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to
make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. Miss
Murdstone’s heavy eyebrows followed me to the door--I say her eyebrows
rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her
face--and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that
hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunderstone, that I could have
fancied I had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the
dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with
oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of
spectacles.
When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest of
them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking
of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the
bitterness of my spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment
about Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to
Norwood. The idea of their frightening her, and making her cry, and of
my not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that it impelled
me to write a wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit
upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored him to spare
her gentle nature--not to crush a fragile flower--and addressed him
generally, to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her
father, he had been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley. This letter I
sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he came in,
I saw him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read
it.
He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away in the
afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make myself at
all uneasy about his daughter’s happiness. He had assured her, he said,
that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing more to say to her. He
believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and I might
spare myself any solicitude on her account.
‘You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr.
Copperfield,’ he observed, ‘for me to send my daughter abroad again,
for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser
than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone,’ for I had alluded to
her in the letter, ‘I respect that lady’s vigilance, and feel obliged to
her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr.
Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do,
Mr. Copperfield, is to forget it.’
All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this
sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget
Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss Mills to see
me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills’s sanction
and concurrence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen
where the Mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on
its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed.
I signed myself, hers distractedly; and I couldn’t help feeling, while
I read this composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was
something in the style of Mr. Micawber.
However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills’s street, and
walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills’s
maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen
reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in
at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss
Mills’s love of the romantic and mysterious.
In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose,
to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had
received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered,
and saying. ‘Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do!’ But Miss Mills,
mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had
not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the Desert of Sahara.
Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. I
could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she
had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say,
and made the most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between
Dora and me, and Love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must
suffer in this stern world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No
matter, Miss Mills remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at
last, and then Love was avenged.
This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn’t encourage fallacious
hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was before, and I felt (and
told her with the deepest gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. We
resolved that she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning,
and find some means of assuring her, either by looks or words, of my
devotion and misery. We parted, overwhelmed with grief; and I think Miss
Mills enjoyed herself completely.
I confided all to my aunt when I got home; and in spite of all she could
say to me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and went out
despairing. It was Saturday morning, and I went straight to the Commons.
I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-door, to see the
ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some half-dozen
stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I quickened my
pace, and, passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly
in.
The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. Old Tiffey, for
the first time in his life I should think, was sitting on somebody
else’s stool, and had not hung up his hat.
‘This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield,’ said he, as I entered.
‘What is?’ I exclaimed. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Don’t you know?’ cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them, coming round
me.
‘No!’ said I, looking from face to face.
‘Mr. Spenlow,’ said Tiffey.
‘What about him!’
‘Dead!’ I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of
the clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my
neck-cloth, and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this took
any time.
‘Dead?’ said I.
‘He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by himself,’
said Tiffey, ‘having sent his own groom home by the coach, as he
sometimes did, you know--’
‘Well?’
‘The phaeton went home without him. The horses stopped at the
stable-gate. The man went out with a lantern. Nobody in the carriage.’
‘Had they run away?’
‘They were not hot,’ said Tiffey, putting on his glasses; ‘no hotter, I
understand, than they would have been, going down at the usual pace. The
reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. The house
was roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. They
found him a mile off.’
‘More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey,’ interposed a junior.
‘Was it? I believe you are right,’ said Tiffey,--‘more than a mile
off--not far from the church--lying partly on the roadside, and partly
on the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a fit, or got out,
feeling ill before the fit came on--or even whether he was quite dead
then, though there is no doubt he was quite insensible--no one appears
to know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke. Medical assistance
was got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless.’
I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was thrown by this
intelligence. The shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and
happening to one with whom I had been in any respect at variance--the
appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair
and table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was
like a ghost--the indefinable impossibility of separating him from the
place, and feeling, when the door opened, as if he might come in--the
lazy hush and rest there was in the office, and the insatiable relish
with which our people talked about it, and other people came in and
out all day, and gorged themselves with the subject--this is easily
intelligible to anyone. What I cannot describe is, how, in the innermost
recesses of my own heart, I had a lurking jealousy even of Death. How
I felt as if its might would push me from my ground in Dora’s thoughts.
How I was, in a grudging way I have no words for, envious of her grief.
How it made me restless to think of her weeping to others, or being
consoled by others. How I had a grasping, avaricious wish to shut out
everybody from her but myself, and to be all in all to her, at that
unseasonable time of all times.
In the trouble of this state of mind--not exclusively my own, I hope,
but known to others--I went down to Norwood that night; and finding from
one of the servants, when I made my inquiries at the door, that Miss
Mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote.
I deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow, most sincerely, and shed
tears in doing so. I entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were in a
state to hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and
consideration; and had coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or
reproachful word, with her name. I know I did this selfishly, to have my
name brought before her; but I tried to believe it was an act of justice
to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it.
My aunt received a few lines next day in reply; addressed, outside, to
her; within, to me. Dora was overcome by grief; and when her friend had
asked her should she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was
always crying, ‘Oh, dear papa! oh, poor papa!’ But she had not said No,
and that I made the most of.
Mr. Jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to the
office a few days afterwards. He and Tiffey were closeted together for
some few moments, and then Tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned me
in.
‘Oh!’ said Mr. Jorkins. ‘Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr. Copperfield, are
about to examine the desks, the drawers, and other such repositories
of the deceased, with the view of sealing up his private papers, and
searching for a Will. There is no trace of any, elsewhere. It may be as
well for you to assist us, if you please.’
I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances
in which my Dora would be placed--as, in whose guardianship, and so
forth--and this was something towards it. We began the search at once;
Mr. Jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the
papers. The office-papers we placed on one side, and the private papers
(which were not numerous) on the other. We were very grave; and when we
came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of
that kind which we associated personally with him, we spoke very low.
We had sealed up several packets; and were still going on dustily and
quietly, when Mr. Jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to
his late partner as his late partner had applied to him:
‘Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know
what he was! I am disposed to think he had made no will.’
‘Oh, I know he had!’ said I.
They both stopped and looked at me. ‘On the very day when I last saw
him,’ said I, ‘he told me that he had, and that his affairs were long
since settled.’
Mr. Jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one accord.
‘That looks unpromising,’ said Tiffey.
‘Very unpromising,’ said Mr. Jorkins.
‘Surely you don’t doubt--’ I began.
‘My good Mr. Copperfield!’ said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my arm, and
shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: ‘if you had been in the
Commons as long as I have, you would know that there is no subject on
which men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted.’
‘Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!’ I replied persistently.
‘I should call that almost final,’ observed Tiffey. ‘My opinion is--no
will.’
It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there was
no will. He had never so much as thought of making one, so far as his
papers afforded any evidence; for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or
memorandum, of any testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely
less astonishing to me, was, that his affairs were in a most disordered
state. It was extremely difficult, I heard, to make out what he owed, or
what he had paid, or of what he died possessed. It was considered likely
that for years he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects
himself. By little and little it came out, that, in the competition on
all points of appearance and gentility then running high in the Commons,
he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a very
large one, and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been
great (which was exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed. There
was a sale of the furniture and lease, at Norwood; and Tiffey told me,
little thinking how interested I was in the story, that, paying all the
just debts of the deceased, and deducting his share of outstanding bad
and doubtful debts due to the firm, he wouldn’t give a thousand pounds
for all the assets remaining.
This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had suffered tortures
all the time; and thought I really must have laid violent hands upon
myself, when Miss Mills still reported to me, that my broken-hearted
little Dora would say nothing, when I was mentioned, but ‘Oh, poor papa!
Oh, dear papa!’ Also, that she had no other relations than two aunts,
maiden sisters of Mr. Spenlow, who lived at Putney, and who had not held
any other than chance communication with their brother for many years.
Not that they had ever quarrelled (Miss Mills informed me); but that
having been, on the occasion of Dora’s christening, invited to tea, when
they considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner, they
had expressed their opinion in writing, that it was ‘better for the
happiness of all parties’ that they should stay away. Since which they
had gone their road, and their brother had gone his.
These two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and proposed to
take Dora to live at Putney. Dora, clinging to them both, and weeping,
exclaimed, ‘O yes, aunts! Please take Julia Mills and me and Jip to
Putney!’ So they went, very soon after the funeral.
How I found time to haunt Putney, I am sure I don’t know; but I
contrived, by some means or other, to prowl about the neighbourhood
pretty often. Miss Mills, for the more exact discharge of the duties of
friendship, kept a journal; and she used to meet me sometimes, on the
Common, and read it, or (if she had not time to do that) lend it to me.
How I treasured up the entries, of which I subjoin a sample--!
‘Monday. My sweet D. still much depressed. Headache. Called attention to
J. as being beautifully sleek. D. fondled J. Associations thus awakened,
opened floodgates of sorrow. Rush of grief admitted. (Are tears the
dewdrops of the heart? J. M.)
‘Tuesday. D. weak and nervous. Beautiful in pallor. (Do we not remark
this in moon likewise? J. M.) D., J. M. and J. took airing in carriage.
J. looking out of window, and barking violently at dustman, occasioned
smile to overspread features of D. (Of such slight links is chain of
life composed! J. M.)
‘Wednesday. D. comparatively cheerful. Sang to her, as congenial melody,
“Evening Bells”. Effect not soothing, but reverse. D. inexpressibly
affected. Found sobbing afterwards, in own room. Quoted verses
respecting self and young Gazelle. Ineffectually. Also referred to
Patience on Monument. (Qy. Why on monument? J. M.)
‘Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of damask
revisiting cheek. Resolved to mention name of D. C. Introduced same,
cautiously, in course of airing. D. immediately overcome. “Oh, dear,
dear Julia! Oh, I have been a naughty and undutiful child!” Soothed
and caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. C. on verge of tomb. D. again
overcome. “Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? Oh, take me somewhere!”
Much alarmed. Fainting of D. and glass of water from public-house.
(Poetical affinity. Chequered sign on door-post; chequered human life.
Alas! J. M.)
‘Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen, with blue bag, “for
lady’s boots left out to heel”. Cook replies, “No such orders.” Man
argues point. Cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man alone with J. On
Cook’s return, man still argues point, but ultimately goes. J. missing.
D. distracted. Information sent to police. Man to be identified by
broad nose, and legs like balustrades of bridge. Search made in
every direction. No J. D. weeping bitterly, and inconsolable. Renewed
reference to young Gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards
evening, strange boy calls. Brought into parlour. Broad nose, but no
balustrades. Says he wants a pound, and knows a dog. Declines to explain
further, though much pressed. Pound being produced by D. takes Cook
to little house, where J. alone tied up to leg of table. Joy of D.
who dances round J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by this happy
change, mention D. C. upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries piteously, “Oh,
don’t, don’t, don’t! It is so wicked to think of anything but poor
papa!”--embraces J. and sobs herself to sleep. (Must not D. C. confine
himself to the broad pinions of Time? J. M.)’
Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period.
To see her, who had seen Dora but a little while before--to trace the
initial letter of Dora’s name through her sympathetic pages--to be made
more and more miserable by her--were my only comforts. I felt as if I
had been living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving
only Miss Mills and me among the ruins; I felt as if some grim enchanter
had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which
nothing indeed but those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so
many people over so much, would enable me to enter!
CHAPTER 39. WICKFIELD AND HEEP
My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my
prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should go
to Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was
let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer
term of occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong,
where I saw her every day. She had been undecided, on leaving Dover,
whether or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of
mankind in which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she
decided against that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I
believe, as because she happened not to like him.
Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather
willingly into my aunt’s pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a
few tranquil hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative
to an absence of three days; and the Doctor wishing me to take that
relaxation,--he wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear
that,--I made up my mind to go.
As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my
duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very
good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down
to but a doubtful position. The business had been indifferent under Mr.
Jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow’s time; and although it had been quickened
by the infusion of new blood, and by the display which Mr. Spenlow made,
still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear,
without being shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active
manager. It fell off very much. Mr. Jorkins, notwithstanding his
reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable sort of man, whose
reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. I was turned
over to him now, and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business
go, I regretted my aunt’s thousand pounds more than ever.
But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on and
outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors themselves,
dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who
lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil;--and there
were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted business on any
terms, we joined this noble band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on
and outsiders, to bring their business to us. Marriage licences and
small probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best;
and the competition for these ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and
inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons,
with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning,
and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice
them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested;
which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was
known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal
opponent. The conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of
a nature to irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place;
and the Commons was even scandalized by our principal inveigler (who
had formerly been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery
line) walking about for some days with a black eye. Any one of these
scouts used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in
black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for,
representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of
that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected)
to his employer’s office. Many captives were brought to me in this way.
As to marriage licences, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a
shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself
to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the
strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height
of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush
out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The
system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I
was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced
out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word ‘Marriage-licence’
in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in
his arms and lifting me into a proctor’s. From this digression, let me
proceed to Dover.
I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was
enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant
inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkeys. Having
settled the little business I had to transact there, and slept there one
night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now
winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland,
brightened up my hopes a little.
Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober
pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the old
signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It
appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered
the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I
was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was
inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where
she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and
rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence
would have done; the battered gateways, one stuck full with statues,
long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims
who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of
centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses,
the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere--on
everything--I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful,
softening spirit.
Arrived at Mr. Wickfield’s house, I found, in the little lower room on
the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit,
Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a
legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small
office.
Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too.
He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but I
declined.
‘I know the house of old, you recollect,’ said I, ‘and will find my way
upstairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber?’
‘My dear Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘To a man possessed of the higher
imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of
detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence,’
said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, ‘the mind is
not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a
great pursuit. A great pursuit!’
He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep’s old house;
and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more,
under her own roof.
‘It is humble,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘--to quote a favourite expression
of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more ambitious
domiciliary accommodation.’
I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his
friend Heep’s treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door were
close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice:
‘My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary
embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage.
That disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the
drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly
due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend Heep has responded
to appeals to which I need not more particularly refer, in a manner
calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of his
heart.’
‘I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either,’
I observed.
‘Pardon me!’ said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, ‘I speak of
my friend Heep as I have experience.’
‘I am glad your experience is so favourable,’ I returned.
‘You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber; and
hummed a tune.
‘Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield?’ I asked, to change the subject.
‘Not much,’ said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. ‘Mr. Wickfield is, I dare
say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is--in short, he is
obsolete.’
‘I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so,’ said I.
‘My dear Copperfield!’ returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy
evolutions on his stool, ‘allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in
a capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The
discussion of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the
partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity
of intellect), is, I am led to consider, incompatible with the functions
now devolving on me. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting
that in our friendly intercourse--which I trust will never be
disturbed!--we draw a line. On one side of this line,’ said Mr.
Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, ‘is the
whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on
the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs
Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I
trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this
proposition to his cooler judgement?’
Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on
him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be
offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands
with me.
‘I am charmed, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘let me assure you, with
Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very remarkable
attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour,’ said Mr. Micawber,
indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, ‘I do
Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem!’ ‘I am glad of that, at least,’ said I.
‘If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of that
agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that D.
was your favourite letter,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘I should unquestionably
have supposed that A. had been so.’
We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us
occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done
before, in a remote time--of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago,
by the same faces, objects, and circumstances--of our knowing perfectly
what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had
this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he
uttered those words.
I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my best
remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool and his
pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing
order, I clearly perceived that there was something interposed between
him and me, since he had come into his new functions, which prevented
our getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the
character of our intercourse.
There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented
tokens of Mrs. Heep’s whereabouts. I looked into the room still
belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty
old-fashioned desk she had, writing.
My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause
of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that
sweet regard and welcome!
‘Ah, Agnes!’ said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; ‘I
have missed you so much, lately!’
‘Indeed?’ she replied. ‘Again! And so soon?’
I shook my head.
‘I don’t know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind that
I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in
the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and
support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it.’
‘And what is it?’ said Agnes, cheerfully.
‘I don’t know what to call it,’ I replied. ‘I think I am earnest and
persevering?’
‘I am sure of it,’ said Agnes.
‘And patient, Agnes?’ I inquired, with a little hesitation.
‘Yes,’ returned Agnes, laughing. ‘Pretty well.’
‘And yet,’ said I, ‘I get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady
and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must
want--shall I call it--reliance, of some kind?’
‘Call it so, if you will,’ said Agnes.
‘Well!’ I returned. ‘See here! You come to London, I rely on you, and I
have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come
here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that
distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an
influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how
much for the better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes?’
Her head was bent down, looking at the fire.
‘It’s the old story,’ said I. ‘Don’t laugh, when I say it was always
the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were
nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away from
my adopted sister--’
Agnes looked up--with such a Heavenly face!--and gave me her hand, which
I kissed.
‘Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the
beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of
difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done),
I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired
traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!’
I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice
failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I
write the truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were
within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been
so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had
perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing
of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest
and peace of having Agnes near me.
In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender
voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house
that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this
weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last
meeting.
‘And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,’ said I, when I had made
an end of my confidence. ‘Now, my reliance is on you.’
‘But it must not be on me, Trotwood,’ returned Agnes, with a pleasant
smile. ‘It must be on someone else.’
‘On Dora?’ said I.
‘Assuredly.’
‘Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes,’ said I, a little embarrassed, ‘that
Dora is rather difficult to--I would not, for the world, say, to rely
upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth--but rather difficult
to--I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid
little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before
her father’s death, when I thought it right to mention to her--but I’ll
tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was.’
Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the
cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it.
‘Oh, Trotwood!’ she remonstrated, with a smile. ‘Just your old headlong
way! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the world,
without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl.
Poor Dora!’
I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice,
as she expressed in making this reply. It was as if I had seen her
admiringly and tenderly embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by
her considerate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little
heart. It was as if I had seen Dora, in all her fascinating artlessness,
caressing Agnes, and thanking her, and coaxingly appealing against me,
and loving me with all her childish innocence.
I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so! I saw those two
together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each
adorning the other so much!
‘What ought I to do then, Agnes?’ I inquired, after looking at the fire
a little while. ‘What would it be right to do?’
‘I think,’ said Agnes, ‘that the honourable course to take, would be to
write to those two ladies. Don’t you think that any secret course is an
unworthy one?’
‘Yes. If YOU think so,’ said I.
‘I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters,’ replied Agnes, with
a modest hesitation, ‘but I certainly feel--in short, I feel that your
being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself.’
‘Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am
afraid,’ said I.
‘Like yourself, in the candour of your nature,’ she returned; ‘and
therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as plainly
and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and I would ask
their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that
you are young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be
well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions they might
impose upon you. I would entreat them not to dismiss your request,
without a reference to Dora; and to discuss it with her when they should
think the time suitable. I would not be too vehement,’ said Agnes,
gently, ‘or propose too much. I would trust to my fidelity and
perseverance--and to Dora.’
‘But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to her,’
said I. ‘And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about me!’
‘Is that likely?’ inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration in
her face.
‘God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird,’ said I. ‘It might
be! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd
characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that
way!’
‘I don’t think, Trotwood,’ returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes
to mine, ‘I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to
consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it.’
I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, though
with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I devoted
the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for
which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I went
downstairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep.
I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out
in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity
of books and papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and
pretended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber; a
pretence I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr.
Wickfield’s room, which was the shadow of its former self--having been
divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the new
partner--and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his
chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged greetings.
‘You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury?’ said Mr.
Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval.
‘Is there room for me?’ said I.
‘I am sure, Master Copperfield--I should say Mister, but the other
comes so natural,’ said Uriah,--‘I would turn out of your old room with
pleasure, if it would be agreeable.’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Why should you be inconvenienced? There’s
another room. There’s another room.’ ‘Oh, but you know,’ returned Uriah,
with a grin, ‘I should really be delighted!’
To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at
all; so it was settled that I should have the other room; and, taking my
leave of the firm until dinner, I went upstairs again.
I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep had
asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in
that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for
her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the drawing-room or
dining-parlour. Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies
of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, without remorse, I
made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation.
‘I’m umbly thankful to you, sir,’ said Mrs. Heep, in acknowledgement of
my inquiries concerning her health, ‘but I’m only pretty well. I haven’t
much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I
couldn’t expect much more I think. How do you think my Ury looking,
sir?’
I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I replied that I saw no
change in him.
‘Oh, don’t you think he’s changed?’ said Mrs. Heep. ‘There I must umbly
beg leave to differ from you. Don’t you see a thinness in him?’
‘Not more than usual,’ I replied.
‘Don’t you though!’ said Mrs. Heep. ‘But you don’t take notice of him
with a mother’s eye!’
His mother’s eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as
it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her
son were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes.
‘Don’t YOU see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield?’ inquired
Mrs. Heep.
‘No,’ said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged.
‘You are too solicitous about him. He is very well.’
Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting.
She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the
day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat
there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass
might have poured out its sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat
at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat
Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, I lifted up my
eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of Agnes, saw it clear, and beam
encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, I was conscious
presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming
back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the
knitting was, I don’t know, not being learned in that art; but it looked
like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of
knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking
enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but
getting ready for a cast of her net by and by.
At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. After
dinner, her son took his turn; and when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and I
were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly
bear it. In the drawing-room, there was the mother knitting and watching
again. All the time that Agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the
piano. Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury
(who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked
round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the
music. But she hardly ever spoke--I question if she ever did--without
making some mention of him. It was evident to me that this was the duty
assigned to her.
This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like two
great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their
ugly forms, made me so uncomfortable, that I would rather have remained
downstairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep.
Next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted all day.
I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I could
barely show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out with me; but
Mrs. Heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, Agnes charitably
remained within, to bear her company. Towards the twilight I went out
by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and whether I was justified
in withholding from Agnes, any longer, what Uriah Heep had told me in
London; for that began to trouble me again, very much.
I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the
Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, through
the dust, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty
great-coat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and Uriah Heep came up.
‘Well?’ said I.
‘How fast you walk!’ said he. ‘My legs are pretty long, but you’ve given
‘em quite a job.’
‘Where are you going?’ said I.
‘I am going with you, Master Copperfield, if you’ll allow me the
pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.’ Saying this, with a jerk
of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he
fell into step beside me.
‘Uriah!’ said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence.
‘Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah.
‘To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came Out
to walk alone, because I have had so much company.’
He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, ‘You mean
mother.’
‘Why yes, I do,’ said I.
‘Ah! But you know we’re so very umble,’ he returned. ‘And having such a
knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care that we’re not
pushed to the wall by them as isn’t umble. All stratagems are fair in
love, sir.’
Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them
softly, and softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, I
thought, as anything human could look.
‘You see,’ he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way,
and shaking his head at me, ‘you’re quite a dangerous rival, Master
Copperfield. You always was, you know.’
‘Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no home,
because of me?’ said I.
‘Oh! Master Copperfield! Those are very arsh words,’ he replied.
‘Put my meaning into any words you like,’ said I. ‘You know what it is,
Uriah, as well as I do.’
‘Oh no! You must put it into words,’ he said. ‘Oh, really! I couldn’t
myself.’
‘Do you suppose,’ said I, constraining myself to be very temperate
and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, ‘that I regard Miss Wickfield
otherwise than as a very dear sister?’
‘Well, Master Copperfield,’ he replied, ‘you perceive I am not bound
to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, you see, you
may!’
Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless
eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw.
‘Come then!’ said I. ‘For the sake of Miss Wickfield--’
‘My Agnes!’ he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of himself.
‘Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master Copperfield!’
‘For the sake of Agnes Wickfield--Heaven bless her!’
‘Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield!’ he interposed.
‘I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as soon
have thought of telling to--Jack Ketch.’
‘To who, sir?’ said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his ear
with his hand.
‘To the hangman,’ I returned. ‘The most unlikely person I could think
of,’--though his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a natural
sequence. ‘I am engaged to another young lady. I hope that contents
you.’
‘Upon your soul?’ said Uriah.
I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he
required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze.
‘Oh, Master Copperfield!’ he said. ‘If you had only had the
condescension to return my confidence when I poured out the fulness of
my art, the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping before
your sitting-room fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I’m
sure I’ll take off mother directly, and only too appy. I know you’ll
excuse the precautions of affection, won’t you? What a pity, Master
Copperfield, that you didn’t condescend to return my confidence! I’m
sure I gave you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to
me, as much as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as I
have liked you!’
All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishy fingers,
while I made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I was
quite unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-coloured
great-coat, and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm-in-arm with
him.
‘Shall we turn?’ said Uriah, by and by wheeling me face about towards
the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering the distant
windows.
‘Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand,’ said I, breaking
a pretty long silence, ‘that I believe Agnes Wickfield to be as far
above you, and as far removed from all your aspirations, as that moon
herself!’
‘Peaceful! Ain’t she!’ said Uriah. ‘Very! Now confess, Master
Copperfield, that you haven’t liked me quite as I have liked you. All
along you’ve thought me too umble now, I shouldn’t wonder?’
‘I am not fond of professions of humility,’ I returned, ‘or professions
of anything else.’ ‘There now!’ said Uriah, looking flabby and
lead-coloured in the moonlight. ‘Didn’t I know it! But how little
you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master
Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school
for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of
charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness--not
much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to
this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and
to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves
before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the
monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by
being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being
such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. “Be
umble, Uriah,” says father to me, “and you’ll get on. It was what was
always being dinned into you and me at school; it’s what goes down best.
Be umble,” says father, “and you’ll do!” And really it ain’t done bad!’
It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable
cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I
had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed.
‘When I was quite a young boy,’ said Uriah, ‘I got to know what
umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I
stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, “Hold hard!” When
you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. “People like to be above
you,” says father, “keep yourself down.” I am very umble to the present
moment, Master Copperfield, but I’ve got a little power!’
And he said all this--I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight--that
I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his
power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I
fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting,
and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this
long, suppression.
His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result,
that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have
another hug of himself under the chin. Once apart from him, I was
determined to keep apart; and we walked back, side by side, saying
very little more by the way. Whether his spirits were elevated by the
communication I had made to him, or by his having indulged in this
retrospect, I don’t know; but they were raised by some influence. He
talked more at dinner than was usual with him; asked his mother (off
duty, from the moment of our re-entering the house) whether he was not
growing too old for a bachelor; and once looked at Agnes so, that I
would have given all I had, for leave to knock him down.
When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more
adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine; and I presume it was
the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the
temptation my presence furnished to its exhibition.
I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to
drink; and, interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she went
out, had limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should
follow her. I would have done so again today; but Uriah was too quick
for me.
‘We seldom see our present visitor, sir,’ he said, addressing Mr.
Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table,
‘and I should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two
of wine, if you have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and
appiness!’
I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across
to me; and then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of the
broken gentleman, his partner.
‘Come, fellow-partner,’ said Uriah, ‘if I may take the liberty,--now,
suppose you give us something or another appropriate to Copperfield!’
I pass over Mr. Wickfield’s proposing my aunt, his proposing Mr. Dick,
his proposing Doctors’ Commons, his proposing Uriah, his drinking
everything twice; his consciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual
effort that he made against it; the struggle between his shame in
Uriah’s deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the manifest
exultation with which Uriah twisted and turned, and held him up before
me. It made me sick at heart to see, and my hand recoils from writing
it.
‘Come, fellow-partner!’ said Uriah, at last, ‘I’ll give you another one,
and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend to make it the divinest of
her sex.’
Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw him set it down, look
at the picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, and shrink
back in his elbow-chair.
‘I’m an umble individual to give you her elth,’ proceeded Uriah, ‘but I
admire--adore her.’
No physical pain that her father’s grey head could have borne, I think,
could have been more terrible to me, than the mental endurance I saw
compressed now within both his hands.
‘Agnes,’ said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what the
nature of his action was, ‘Agnes Wickfield is, I am safe to say, the
divinest of her sex. May I speak out, among friends? To be her father is
a proud distinction, but to be her usband--’
Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her
father rose up from the table! ‘What’s the matter?’ said Uriah, turning
of a deadly colour. ‘You are not gone mad, after all, Mr. Wickfield, I
hope? If I say I’ve an ambition to make your Agnes my Agnes, I have as
good a right to it as another man. I have a better right to it than any
other man!’
I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that I
could think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm himself
a little. He was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his
head, trying to force me from him, and to force himself from me, not
answering a word, not looking at or seeing anyone; blindly striving
for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted--a frightful
spectacle.
I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, not
to abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. I besought him to
think of Agnes, to connect me with Agnes, to recollect how Agnes and I
had grown up together, how I honoured her and loved her, how she was his
pride and joy. I tried to bring her idea before him in any form; I even
reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of
such a scene as this. I may have effected something, or his wildness may
have spent itself; but by degrees he struggled less, and began to look
at me--strangely at first, then with recognition in his eyes. At length
he said, ‘I know, Trotwood! My darling child and you--I know! But look
at him!’
He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very much
out in his calculations, and taken by surprise.
‘Look at my torturer,’ he replied. ‘Before him I have step by step
abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home.’
‘I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and
quiet, and your house and home too,’ said Uriah, with a sulky, hurried,
defeated air of compromise. ‘Don’t be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I
have gone a little beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back, I
suppose? There’s no harm done.’
‘I looked for single motives in everyone,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘and I was
satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But see what he
is--oh, see what he is!’
‘You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can,’ cried Uriah,
with his long forefinger pointing towards me. ‘He’ll say something
presently--mind you!--he’ll be sorry to have said afterwards, and you’ll
be sorry to have heard!’
‘I’ll say anything!’ cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate air. ‘Why
should I not be in all the world’s power if I am in yours?’
‘Mind! I tell you!’ said Uriah, continuing to warn me. ‘If you don’t
stop his mouth, you’re not his friend! Why shouldn’t you be in all the
world’s power, Mr. Wickfield? Because you have got a daughter. You and
me know what we know, don’t we? Let sleeping dogs lie--who wants to
rouse ‘em? I don’t. Can’t you see I am as umble as I can be? I tell you,
if I’ve gone too far, I’m sorry. What would you have, sir?’
‘Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!’ exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his hands.
‘What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this house! I was
on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary road I have traversed
since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance, and
indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child’s mother
turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I
have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I
dearly love, I know--you know! I thought it possible that I could truly
love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it
possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the
world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the
lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid
coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my
love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see
the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!’
He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitement into which he
had been roused was leaving him. Uriah came out of his corner.
‘I don’t know all I have done, in my fatuity,’ said Mr. Wickfield,
putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. ‘He knows
best,’ meaning Uriah Heep, ‘for he has always been at my elbow,
whispering me. You see the millstone that he is about my neck. You
find him in my house, you find him in my business. You heard him, but a
little time ago. What need have I to say more!’
‘You haven’t need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at
all,’ observed Uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. ‘You wouldn’t have
took it up so, if it hadn’t been for the wine. You’ll think better of
it tomorrow, sir. If I have said too much, or more than I meant, what of
it? I haven’t stood by it!’
The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour in
her face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, ‘Papa, you are
not well. Come with me!’
He laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed with heavy
shame, and went out with her. Her eyes met mine for but an instant, yet
I saw how much she knew of what had passed.
‘I didn’t expect he’d cut up so rough, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah.
‘But it’s nothing. I’ll be friends with him tomorrow. It’s for his good.
I’m umbly anxious for his good.’
I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where Agnes
had so often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me until late
at night. I took up a book, and tried to read. I heard the clocks strike
twelve, and was still reading, without knowing what I read, when Agnes
touched me.
‘You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood! Let us say good-bye,
now!’
She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful!
‘Heaven bless you!’ she said, giving me her hand.
‘Dearest Agnes!’ I returned, ‘I see you ask me not to speak of
tonight--but is there nothing to be done?’
‘There is God to trust in!’ she replied.
‘Can I do nothing--I, who come to you with my poor sorrows?’
‘And make mine so much lighter,’ she replied. ‘Dear Trotwood, no!’
‘Dear Agnes,’ I said, ‘it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all
in which you are so rich--goodness, resolution, all noble qualities--to
doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and how much I
owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty,
Agnes?’
More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her hands
from me, and moved a step back.
‘Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister!
Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as
yours!’
Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its
momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long,
long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely
smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself--I need have
none for her--and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was gone!
It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn door.
The day was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, as
I sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, through the
mingled day and night, Uriah’s head.
‘Copperfield!’ said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the iron
on the roof, ‘I thought you’d be glad to hear before you went off, that
there are no squares broke between us. I’ve been into his room already,
and we’ve made it all smooth. Why, though I’m umble, I’m useful to him,
you know; and he understands his interest when he isn’t in liquor! What
an agreeable man he is, after all, Master Copperfield!’
I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology.
‘Oh, to be sure!’ said Uriah. ‘When a person’s umble, you know, what’s
an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose,’ with a jerk, ‘you have sometimes
plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield?’
‘I suppose I have,’ I replied.
‘I did that last night,’ said Uriah; ‘but it’ll ripen yet! It only wants
attending to. I can wait!’
Profuse in his farewells, he got down again as the coachman got up. For
anything I know, he was eating something to keep the raw morning
air out; but he made motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe
already, and he were smacking his lips over it.
CHAPTER 40. THE WANDERER
We had a very serious conversation in Buckingham Street that night,
about the domestic occurrences I have detailed in the last chapter. My
aunt was deeply interested in them, and walked up and down the room with
her arms folded, for more than two hours afterwards. Whenever she was
particularly discomposed, she always performed one of these pedestrian
feats; and the amount of her discomposure might always be estimated by
the duration of her walk. On this occasion she was so much disturbed in
mind as to find it necessary to open the bedroom door, and make a course
for herself, comprising the full extent of the bedrooms from wall to
wall; and while Mr. Dick and I sat quietly by the fire, she kept passing
in and out, along this measured track, at an unchanging pace, with the
regularity of a clock-pendulum.
When my aunt and I were left to ourselves by Mr. Dick’s going out to
bed, I sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies. By that time
she was tired of walking, and sat by the fire with her dress tucked up
as usual. But instead of sitting in her usual manner, holding her glass
upon her knee, she suffered it to stand neglected on the chimney-piece;
and, resting her left elbow on her right arm, and her chin on her left
hand, looked thoughtfully at me. As often as I raised my eyes from what
I was about, I met hers. ‘I am in the lovingest of tempers, my dear,’
she would assure me with a nod, ‘but I am fidgeted and sorry!’
I had been too busy to observe, until after she was gone to bed, that
she had left her night-mixture, as she always called it, untasted on
the chimney-piece. She came to her door, with even more than her usual
affection of manner, when I knocked to acquaint her with this discovery;
but only said, ‘I have not the heart to take it, Trot, tonight,’ and
shook her head, and went in again.
She read my letter to the two old ladies, in the morning, and approved
of it. I posted it, and had nothing to do then, but wait, as patiently
as I could, for the reply. I was still in this state of expectation, and
had been, for nearly a week; when I left the Doctor’s one snowy night,
to walk home.
It had been a bitter day, and a cutting north-east wind had blown for
some time. The wind had gone down with the light, and so the snow had
come on. It was a heavy, settled fall, I recollect, in great flakes; and
it lay thick. The noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed, as
if the streets had been strewn that depth with feathers.
My shortest way home,--and I naturally took the shortest way on such a
night--was through St. Martin’s Lane. Now, the church which gives its
name to the lane, stood in a less free situation at that time; there
being no open space before it, and the lane winding down to the Strand.
As I passed the steps of the portico, I encountered, at the corner,
a woman’s face. It looked in mine, passed across the narrow lane,
and disappeared. I knew it. I had seen it somewhere. But I could not
remember where. I had some association with it, that struck upon my
heart directly; but I was thinking of anything else when it came upon
me, and was confused.
On the steps of the church, there was the stooping figure of a man, who
had put down some burden on the smooth snow, to adjust it; my seeing the
face, and my seeing him, were simultaneous. I don’t think I had stopped
in my surprise; but, in any case, as I went on, he rose, turned, and
came down towards me. I stood face to face with Mr. Peggotty!
Then I remembered the woman. It was Martha, to whom Emily had given the
money that night in the kitchen. Martha Endell--side by side with whom,
he would not have seen his dear niece, Ham had told me, for all the
treasures wrecked in the sea.
We shook hands heartily. At first, neither of us could speak a word.
‘Mas’r Davy!’ he said, gripping me tight, ‘it do my art good to see you,
sir. Well met, well met!’
‘Well met, my dear old friend!’ said I.
‘I had my thowts o’ coming to make inquiration for you, sir, tonight,’
he said, ‘but knowing as your aunt was living along wi’ you--fur I’ve
been down yonder--Yarmouth way--I was afeerd it was too late. I should
have come early in the morning, sir, afore going away.’
‘Again?’ said I.
‘Yes, sir,’ he replied, patiently shaking his head, ‘I’m away tomorrow.’
‘Where were you going now?’ I asked.
‘Well!’ he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair, ‘I was
a-going to turn in somewheers.’
In those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-yard of the Golden
Cross, the inn so memorable to me in connexion with his misfortune,
nearly opposite to where we stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm
through his, and we went across. Two or three public-rooms opened out of
the stable-yard; and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, and
a good fire burning, I took him in there.
When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that his hair was long
and ragged, but that his face was burnt dark by the sun. He was greyer,
the lines in his face and forehead were deeper, and he had every
appearance of having toiled and wandered through all varieties
of weather; but he looked very strong, and like a man upheld by
steadfastness of purpose, whom nothing could tire out. He shook the snow
from his hat and clothes, and brushed it away from his face, while I was
inwardly making these remarks. As he sat down opposite to me at a table,
with his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out his rough
hand again, and grasped mine warmly.
‘I’ll tell you, Mas’r Davy,’ he said,--‘wheer all I’ve been, and
what-all we’ve heerd. I’ve been fur, and we’ve heerd little; but I’ll
tell you!’
I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would have nothing
stronger than ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed
at the fire, he sat thinking. There was a fine, massive gravity in his
face, I did not venture to disturb.
‘When she was a child,’ he said, lifting up his head soon after we were
left alone, ‘she used to talk to me a deal about the sea, and about
them coasts where the sea got to be dark blue, and to lay a-shining and
a-shining in the sun. I thowt, odd times, as her father being drownded
made her think on it so much. I doen’t know, you see, but maybe she
believed--or hoped--he had drifted out to them parts, where the flowers
is always a-blowing, and the country bright.’
‘It is likely to have been a childish fancy,’ I replied.
‘When she was--lost,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I know’d in my mind, as he
would take her to them countries. I know’d in my mind, as he’d have told
her wonders of ‘em, and how she was to be a lady theer, and how he got
her to listen to him fust, along o’ sech like. When we see his mother,
I know’d quite well as I was right. I went across-channel to France, and
landed theer, as if I’d fell down from the sky.’
I saw the door move, and the snow drift in. I saw it move a little more,
and a hand softly interpose to keep it open.
‘I found out an English gen’leman as was in authority,’ said Mr.
Peggotty, ‘and told him I was a-going to seek my niece. He got me them
papers as I wanted fur to carry me through--I doen’t rightly know how
they’re called--and he would have give me money, but that I was thankful
to have no need on. I thank him kind, for all he done, I’m sure! “I’ve
wrote afore you,” he says to me, “and I shall speak to many as will come
that way, and many will know you, fur distant from here, when you’re
a-travelling alone.” I told him, best as I was able, what my gratitoode
was, and went away through France.’
‘Alone, and on foot?’ said I.
‘Mostly a-foot,’ he rejoined; ‘sometimes in carts along with people
going to market; sometimes in empty coaches. Many mile a day a-foot, and
often with some poor soldier or another, travelling to see his friends.
I couldn’t talk to him,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘nor he to me; but we was
company for one another, too, along the dusty roads.’
I should have known that by his friendly tone.
‘When I come to any town,’ he pursued, ‘I found the inn, and waited
about the yard till someone turned up (someone mostly did) as know’d
English. Then I told how that I was on my way to seek my niece, and they
told me what manner of gentlefolks was in the house, and I waited to see
any as seemed like her, going in or out. When it warn’t Em’ly, I went on
agen. By little and little, when I come to a new village or that, among
the poor people, I found they know’d about me. They would set me down at
their cottage doors, and give me what-not fur to eat and drink, and show
me where to sleep; and many a woman, Mas’r Davy, as has had a daughter
of about Em’ly’s age, I’ve found a-waiting fur me, at Our Saviour’s
Cross outside the village, fur to do me sim’lar kindnesses. Some has had
daughters as was dead. And God only knows how good them mothers was to
me!’
It was Martha at the door. I saw her haggard, listening face distinctly.
My dread was lest he should turn his head, and see her too.
‘They would often put their children--particular their little girls,’
said Mr. Peggotty, ‘upon my knee; and many a time you might have seen
me sitting at their doors, when night was coming in, a’most as if they’d
been my Darling’s children. Oh, my Darling!’
Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. I laid my trembling hand
upon the hand he put before his face. ‘Thankee, sir,’ he said, ‘doen’t
take no notice.’
In a very little while he took his hand away and put it on his breast,
and went on with his story. ‘They often walked with me,’ he said, ‘in
the morning, maybe a mile or two upon my road; and when we parted, and
I said, “I’m very thankful to you! God bless you!” they always seemed to
understand, and answered pleasant. At last I come to the sea. It warn’t
hard, you may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way
over to Italy. When I got theer, I wandered on as I had done afore. The
people was just as good to me, and I should have gone from town to town,
maybe the country through, but that I got news of her being seen among
them Swiss mountains yonder. One as know’d his servant see ‘em there,
all three, and told me how they travelled, and where they was. I made
fur them mountains, Mas’r Davy, day and night. Ever so fur as I went,
ever so fur the mountains seemed to shift away from me. But I come up
with ‘em, and I crossed ‘em. When I got nigh the place as I had been
told of, I began to think within my own self, “What shall I do when I
see her?”’
The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still drooped at
the door, and the hands begged me--prayed me--not to cast it forth.
‘I never doubted her,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘No! Not a bit! On’y let her
see my face--on’y let her heer my voice--on’y let my stanning still
afore her bring to her thoughts the home she had fled away from, and the
child she had been--and if she had growed to be a royal lady, she’d have
fell down at my feet! I know’d it well! Many a time in my sleep had I
heerd her cry out, “Uncle!” and seen her fall like death afore me. Many
a time in my sleep had I raised her up, and whispered to her, “Em’ly, my
dear, I am come fur to bring forgiveness, and to take you home!”’
He stopped and shook his head, and went on with a sigh.
‘He was nowt to me now. Em’ly was all. I bought a country dress to put
upon her; and I know’d that, once found, she would walk beside me over
them stony roads, go where I would, and never, never, leave me more. To
put that dress upon her, and to cast off what she wore--to take her on
my arm again, and wander towards home--to stop sometimes upon the road,
and heal her bruised feet and her worse-bruised heart--was all that I
thowt of now. I doen’t believe I should have done so much as look at
him. But, Mas’r Davy, it warn’t to be--not yet! I was too late, and they
was gone. Wheer, I couldn’t learn. Some said heer, some said theer.
I travelled heer, and I travelled theer, but I found no Em’ly, and I
travelled home.’
‘How long ago?’ I asked.
‘A matter o’ fower days,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I sighted the old boat
arter dark, and the light a-shining in the winder. When I come nigh and
looked in through the glass, I see the faithful creetur Missis Gummidge
sittin’ by the fire, as we had fixed upon, alone. I called out, “Doen’t
be afeerd! It’s Dan’l!” and I went in. I never could have thowt the old
boat would have been so strange!’ From some pocket in his breast, he
took out, with a very careful hand a small paper bundle containing two
or three letters or little packets, which he laid upon the table.
‘This fust one come,’ he said, selecting it from the rest, ‘afore I had
been gone a week. A fifty pound Bank note, in a sheet of paper, directed
to me, and put underneath the door in the night. She tried to hide her
writing, but she couldn’t hide it from Me!’
He folded up the note again, with great patience and care, in exactly
the same form, and laid it on one side.
‘This come to Missis Gummidge,’ he said, opening another, ‘two or three
months ago.’ After looking at it for some moments, he gave it to me, and
added in a low voice, ‘Be so good as read it, sir.’
I read as follows:
‘Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from
my wicked hand! But try, try--not for my sake, but for uncle’s goodness,
try to let your heart soften to me, only for a little little time! Try,
pray do, to relent towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of
paper whether he is well, and what he said about me before you left off
ever naming me among yourselves--and whether, of a night, when it is my
old time of coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one
he used to love so dear. Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about
it! I am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not to be as
hard with me as I deserve--as I well, well, know I deserve--but to be so
gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to
me. You need not call me Little, you need not call me by the name I have
disgraced; but oh, listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to
write me some word of uncle, never, never to be seen in this world by my
eyes again!
‘Dear, if your heart is hard towards me--justly hard, I know--but,
listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most--him whose
wife I was to have been--before you quite decide against my poor poor
prayer! If he should be so compassionate as to say that you might write
something for me to read--I think he would, oh, I think he would, if you
would only ask him, for he always was so brave and so forgiving--tell
him then (but not else), that when I hear the wind blowing at night,
I feel as if it was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was
going up to God against me. Tell him that if I was to die tomorrow (and
oh, if I was fit, I would be so glad to die!) I would bless him and
uncle with my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last
breath!’
Some money was enclosed in this letter also. Five pounds. It was
untouched like the previous sum, and he refolded it in the same way.
Detailed instructions were added relative to the address of a reply,
which, although they betrayed the intervention of several hands, and
made it difficult to arrive at any very probable conclusion in reference
to her place of concealment, made it at least not unlikely that she had
written from that spot where she was stated to have been seen.
‘What answer was sent?’ I inquired of Mr. Peggotty.
‘Missis Gummidge,’ he returned, ‘not being a good scholar, sir, Ham
kindly drawed it out, and she made a copy on it. They told her I was
gone to seek her, and what my parting words was.’
‘Is that another letter in your hand?’ said I.
‘It’s money, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, unfolding it a little way. ‘Ten
pound, you see. And wrote inside, “From a true friend,” like the fust.
But the fust was put underneath the door, and this come by the post, day
afore yesterday. I’m a-going to seek her at the post-mark.’
He showed it to me. It was a town on the Upper Rhine. He had found out,
at Yarmouth, some foreign dealers who knew that country, and they had
drawn him a rude map on paper, which he could very well understand. He
laid it between us on the table; and, with his chin resting on one hand,
tracked his course upon it with the other.
I asked him how Ham was? He shook his head.
‘He works,’ he said, ‘as bold as a man can. His name’s as good, in all
that part, as any man’s is, anywheres in the wureld. Anyone’s hand is
ready to help him, you understand, and his is ready to help them. He’s
never been heerd fur to complain. But my sister’s belief is [‘twixt
ourselves) as it has cut him deep.’
‘Poor fellow, I can believe it!’
‘He ain’t no care, Mas’r Davy,’ said Mr. Peggotty in a solemn
whisper--‘kinder no care no-how for his life. When a man’s wanted for
rough sarvice in rough weather, he’s theer. When there’s hard duty to
be done with danger in it, he steps for’ard afore all his mates. And yet
he’s as gentle as any child. There ain’t a child in Yarmouth that doen’t
know him.’
He gathered up the letters thoughtfully, smoothing them with his hand;
put them into their little bundle; and placed it tenderly in his breast
again. The face was gone from the door. I still saw the snow drifting
in; but nothing else was there.
‘Well!’ he said, looking to his bag, ‘having seen you tonight, Mas’r
Davy (and that doos me good!), I shall away betimes tomorrow morning.
You have seen what I’ve got heer’; putting his hand on where the little
packet lay; ‘all that troubles me is, to think that any harm might come
to me, afore that money was give back. If I was to die, and it was lost,
or stole, or elseways made away with, and it was never know’d by him
but what I’d took it, I believe the t’other wureld wouldn’t hold me! I
believe I must come back!’
He rose, and I rose too; we grasped each other by the hand again, before
going out.
‘I’d go ten thousand mile,’ he said, ‘I’d go till I dropped dead, to lay
that money down afore him. If I do that, and find my Em’ly, I’m content.
If I doen’t find her, maybe she’ll come to hear, sometime, as her loving
uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life; and if I
know her, even that will turn her home at last!’
As he went out into the rigorous night, I saw the lonely figure flit
away before us. I turned him hastily on some pretence, and held him in
conversation until it was gone.
He spoke of a traveller’s house on the Dover Road, where he knew he
could find a clean, plain lodging for the night. I went with him over
Westminster Bridge, and parted from him on the Surrey shore. Everything
seemed, to my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as he
resumed his solitary journey through the snow.
I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the
face, looked awfully around for it. It was not there. The snow had
covered our late footprints; my new track was the only one to be seen;
and even that began to die away (it snowed so fast) as I looked back
over my shoulder.
CHAPTER 41. DORA’S AUNTS
At last, an answer came from the two old ladies. They presented their
compliments to Mr. Copperfield, and informed him that they had given his
letter their best consideration, ‘with a view to the happiness of
both parties’--which I thought rather an alarming expression, not
only because of the use they had made of it in relation to the family
difference before-mentioned, but because I had (and have all my life)
observed that conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let
off, and liable to take a great variety of shapes and colours not at
all suggested by their original form. The Misses Spenlow added that they
begged to forbear expressing, ‘through the medium of correspondence’, an
opinion on the subject of Mr. Copperfield’s communication; but that if
Mr. Copperfield would do them the favour to call, upon a certain day
(accompanied, if he thought proper, by a confidential friend), they
would be happy to hold some conversation on the subject.
To this favour, Mr. Copperfield immediately replied, with his respectful
compliments, that he would have the honour of waiting on the Misses
Spenlow, at the time appointed; accompanied, in accordance with their
kind permission, by his friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple.
Having dispatched which missive, Mr. Copperfield fell into a condition
of strong nervous agitation; and so remained until the day arrived.
It was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be bereaved, at this
eventful crisis, of the inestimable services of Miss Mills. But Mr.
Mills, who was always doing something or other to annoy me--or I felt
as if he were, which was the same thing--had brought his conduct to a
climax, by taking it into his head that he would go to India. Why should
he go to India, except to harass me? To be sure he had nothing to do
with any other part of the world, and had a good deal to do with that
part; being entirely in the India trade, whatever that was (I had
floating dreams myself concerning golden shawls and elephants’ teeth);
having been at Calcutta in his youth; and designing now to go out there
again, in the capacity of resident partner. But this was nothing to me.
However, it was so much to him that for India he was bound, and
Julia with him; and Julia went into the country to take leave of
her relations; and the house was put into a perfect suit of bills,
announcing that it was to be let or sold, and that the furniture (Mangle
and all) was to be taken at a valuation. So, here was another earthquake
of which I became the sport, before I had recovered from the shock of
its predecessor!
I was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day; being
divided between my desire to appear to advantage, and my apprehensions
of putting on anything that might impair my severely practical character
in the eyes of the Misses Spenlow. I endeavoured to hit a happy medium
between these two extremes; my aunt approved the result; and Mr. Dick
threw one of his shoes after Traddles and me, for luck, as we went
downstairs.
Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly attached to him as
I was, I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had
never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright. It
gave him a surprised look--not to say a hearth-broomy kind of
expression--which, my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us.
I took the liberty of mentioning it to Traddles, as we were walking to
Putney; and saying that if he WOULD smooth it down a little--
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, lifting off his hat, and rubbing
his hair all kinds of ways, ‘nothing would give me greater pleasure. But
it won’t.’
‘Won’t be smoothed down?’ said I.
‘No,’ said Traddles. ‘Nothing will induce it. If I was to carry a
half-hundred-weight upon it, all the way to Putney, it would be up again
the moment the weight was taken off. You have no idea what obstinate
hair mine is, Copperfield. I am quite a fretful porcupine.’
I was a little disappointed, I must confess, but thoroughly charmed by
his good-nature too. I told him how I esteemed his good-nature; and said
that his hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his character,
for he had none.
‘Oh!’ returned Traddles, laughing. ‘I assure you, it’s quite an old
story, my unfortunate hair. My uncle’s wife couldn’t bear it. She said
it exasperated her. It stood very much in my way, too, when I first fell
in love with Sophy. Very much!’
‘Did she object to it?’
‘SHE didn’t,’ rejoined Traddles; ‘but her eldest sister--the one that’s
the Beauty--quite made game of it, I understand. In fact, all the
sisters laugh at it.’
‘Agreeable!’ said I.
‘Yes,’ returned Traddles with perfect innocence, ‘it’s a joke for us.
They pretend that Sophy has a lock of it in her desk, and is obliged to
shut it in a clasped book, to keep it down. We laugh about it.’
‘By the by, my dear Traddles,’ said I, ‘your experience may suggest
something to me. When you became engaged to the young lady whom you have
just mentioned, did you make a regular proposal to her family? Was there
anything like--what we are going through today, for instance?’ I added,
nervously.
‘Why,’ replied Traddles, on whose attentive face a thoughtful shade had
stolen, ‘it was rather a painful transaction, Copperfield, in my case.
You see, Sophy being of so much use in the family, none of them could
endure the thought of her ever being married. Indeed, they had quite
settled among themselves that she never was to be married, and they
called her the old maid. Accordingly, when I mentioned it, with the
greatest precaution, to Mrs. Crewler--’
‘The mama?’ said I.
‘The mama,’ said Traddles--‘Reverend Horace Crewler--when I mentioned it
with every possible precaution to Mrs. Crewler, the effect upon her was
such that she gave a scream and became insensible. I couldn’t approach
the subject again, for months.’
‘You did at last?’ said I.
‘Well, the Reverend Horace did,’ said Traddles. ‘He is an excellent man,
most exemplary in every way; and he pointed out to her that she ought,
as a Christian, to reconcile herself to the sacrifice (especially as it
was so uncertain), and to bear no uncharitable feeling towards me. As to
myself, Copperfield, I give you my word, I felt a perfect bird of prey
towards the family.’
‘The sisters took your part, I hope, Traddles?’
‘Why, I can’t say they did,’ he returned. ‘When we had comparatively
reconciled Mrs. Crewler to it, we had to break it to Sarah. You
recollect my mentioning Sarah, as the one that has something the matter
with her spine?’
‘Perfectly!’
‘She clenched both her hands,’ said Traddles, looking at me in dismay;
‘shut her eyes; turned lead-colour; became perfectly stiff; and
took nothing for two days but toast-and-water, administered with a
tea-spoon.’
‘What a very unpleasant girl, Traddles!’ I remarked.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Copperfield!’ said Traddles. ‘She is a very
charming girl, but she has a great deal of feeling. In fact, they all
have. Sophy told me afterwards, that the self-reproach she underwent
while she was in attendance upon Sarah, no words could describe. I know
it must have been severe, by my own feelings, Copperfield; which were
like a criminal’s. After Sarah was restored, we still had to break it
to the other eight; and it produced various effects upon them of a most
pathetic nature. The two little ones, whom Sophy educates, have only
just left off de-testing me.’
‘At any rate, they are all reconciled to it now, I hope?’ said I.
‘Ye-yes, I should say they were, on the whole, resigned to it,’ said
Traddles, doubtfully. ‘The fact is, we avoid mentioning the subject;
and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances are a great
consolation to them. There will be a deplorable scene, whenever we
are married. It will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding. And
they’ll all hate me for taking her away!’
His honest face, as he looked at me with a serio-comic shake of his
head, impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality,
for I was by this time in a state of such excessive trepidation
and wandering of mind, as to be quite unable to fix my attention on
anything. On our approaching the house where the Misses Spenlow lived,
I was at such a discount in respect of my personal looks and presence of
mind, that Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant in the form of a glass
of ale. This having been administered at a neighbouring public-house, he
conducted me, with tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlow’s door.
I had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view, when the maid
opened it; and of wavering, somehow, across a hall with a weather-glass
in it, into a quiet little drawing-room on the ground-floor, commanding
a neat garden. Also of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing
Traddles’s hair start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those
obtrusive little figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious
snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off. Also of hearing an old-fashioned
clock ticking away on the chimney-piece, and trying to make it keep time
to the jerking of my heart,--which it wouldn’t. Also of looking round
the room for any sign of Dora, and seeing none. Also of thinking that
Jip once barked in the distance, and was instantly choked by somebody.
Ultimately I found myself backing Traddles into the fireplace, and
bowing in great confusion to two dry little elderly ladies, dressed in
black, and each looking wonderfully like a preparation in chip or tan of
the late Mr. Spenlow.
‘Pray,’ said one of the two little ladies, ‘be seated.’
When I had done tumbling over Traddles, and had sat upon something which
was not a cat--my first seat was--I so far recovered my sight, as to
perceive that Mr. Spenlow had evidently been the youngest of the
family; that there was a disparity of six or eight years between the
two sisters; and that the younger appeared to be the manager of the
conference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand--so familiar as
it looked to me, and yet so odd!--and was referring to it through an
eye-glass. They were dressed alike, but this sister wore her dress with
a more youthful air than the other; and perhaps had a trifle more frill,
or tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that kind,
which made her look more lively. They were both upright in their
carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. The sister who had
not my letter, had her arms crossed on her breast, and resting on each
other, like an Idol.
‘Mr. Copperfield, I believe,’ said the sister who had got my letter,
addressing herself to Traddles.
This was a frightful beginning. Traddles had to indicate that I was Mr.
Copperfield, and I had to lay claim to myself, and they had to divest
themselves of a preconceived opinion that Traddles was Mr. Copperfield,
and altogether we were in a nice condition. To improve it, we all
distinctly heard Jip give two short barks, and receive another choke.
‘Mr. Copperfield!’ said the sister with the letter.
I did something--bowed, I suppose--and was all attention, when the other
sister struck in.
‘My sister Lavinia,’ said she ‘being conversant with matters of this
nature, will state what we consider most calculated to promote the
happiness of both parties.’
I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an authority in affairs
of the heart, by reason of there having anciently existed a certain Mr.
Pidger, who played short whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured
of her. My private opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous
assumption, and that Pidger was altogether innocent of any such
sentiments--to which he had never given any sort of expression that
I could ever hear of. Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa had a
superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, if he
had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking
his constitution, and over-doing an attempt to set it right again by
swilling Bath water. They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of
secret love; though I must say there was a picture of him in the house
with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed
upon.
‘We will not,’ said Miss Lavinia, ‘enter on the past history of this
matter. Our poor brother Francis’s death has cancelled that.’
‘We had not,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘been in the habit of frequent
association with our brother Francis; but there was no decided division
or disunion between us. Francis took his road; we took ours. We
considered it conducive to the happiness of all parties that it should
be so. And it was so.’
Each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak, shook her head
after speaking, and became upright again when silent. Miss Clarissa
never moved her arms. She sometimes played tunes upon them with her
fingers--minuets and marches I should think--but never moved them.
‘Our niece’s position, or supposed position, is much changed by our
brother Francis’s death,’ said Miss Lavinia; ‘and therefore we consider
our brother’s opinions as regarded her position as being changed too. We
have no reason to doubt, Mr. Copperfield, that you are a young gentleman
possessed of good qualities and honourable character; or that you have
an affection--or are fully persuaded that you have an affection--for our
niece.’
I replied, as I usually did whenever I had a chance, that nobody had
ever loved anybody else as I loved Dora. Traddles came to my assistance
with a confirmatory murmur.
Miss Lavinia was going on to make some rejoinder, when Miss Clarissa,
who appeared to be incessantly beset by a desire to refer to her brother
Francis, struck in again:
‘If Dora’s mama,’ she said, ‘when she married our brother Francis, had
at once said that there was not room for the family at the dinner-table,
it would have been better for the happiness of all parties.’
‘Sister Clarissa,’ said Miss Lavinia. ‘Perhaps we needn’t mind that
now.’
‘Sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘it belongs to the subject. With
your branch of the subject, on which alone you are competent to speak, I
should not think of interfering. On this branch of the subject I have a
voice and an opinion. It would have been better for the happiness of
all parties, if Dora’s mama, when she married our brother Francis, had
mentioned plainly what her intentions were. We should then have known
what we had to expect. We should have said “Pray do not invite us,
at any time”; and all possibility of misunderstanding would have been
avoided.’
When Miss Clarissa had shaken her head, Miss Lavinia resumed: again
referring to my letter through her eye-glass. They both had little
bright round twinkling eyes, by the way, which were like birds’ eyes.
They were not unlike birds, altogether; having a sharp, brisk, sudden
manner, and a little short, spruce way of adjusting themselves, like
canaries.
Miss Lavinia, as I have said, resumed:
‘You ask permission of my sister Clarissa and myself, Mr. Copperfield,
to visit here, as the accepted suitor of our niece.’
‘If our brother Francis,’ said Miss Clarissa, breaking out again, if I
may call anything so calm a breaking out, ‘wished to surround himself
with an atmosphere of Doctors’ Commons, and of Doctors’ Commons only,
what right or desire had we to object? None, I am sure. We have ever
been far from wishing to obtrude ourselves on anyone. But why not say
so? Let our brother Francis and his wife have their society. Let
my sister Lavinia and myself have our society. We can find it for
ourselves, I hope.’
As this appeared to be addressed to Traddles and me, both Traddles and
I made some sort of reply. Traddles was inaudible. I think I observed,
myself, that it was highly creditable to all concerned. I don’t in the
least know what I meant.
‘Sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, having now relieved her mind, ‘you
can go on, my dear.’
Miss Lavinia proceeded:
‘Mr. Copperfield, my sister Clarissa and I have been very careful
indeed in considering this letter; and we have not considered it without
finally showing it to our niece, and discussing it with our niece. We
have no doubt that you think you like her very much.’
‘Think, ma’am,’ I rapturously began, ‘oh!--’
But Miss Clarissa giving me a look (just like a sharp canary), as
requesting that I would not interrupt the oracle, I begged pardon.
‘Affection,’ said Miss Lavinia, glancing at her sister for
corroboration, which she gave in the form of a little nod to every
clause, ‘mature affection, homage, devotion, does not easily express
itself. Its voice is low. It is modest and retiring, it lies in ambush,
waits and waits. Such is the mature fruit. Sometimes a life glides away,
and finds it still ripening in the shade.’
Of course I did not understand then that this was an allusion to her
supposed experience of the stricken Pidger; but I saw, from the gravity
with which Miss Clarissa nodded her head, that great weight was attached
to these words.
‘The light--for I call them, in comparison with such sentiments, the
light--inclinations of very young people,’ pursued Miss Lavinia, ‘are
dust, compared to rocks. It is owing to the difficulty of knowing
whether they are likely to endure or have any real foundation, that
my sister Clarissa and myself have been very undecided how to act, Mr.
Copperfield, and Mr.--’
‘Traddles,’ said my friend, finding himself looked at.
‘I beg pardon. Of the Inner Temple, I believe?’ said Miss Clarissa,
again glancing at my letter.
Traddles said ‘Exactly so,’ and became pretty red in the face.
Now, although I had not received any express encouragement as yet, I
fancied that I saw in the two little sisters, and particularly in Miss
Lavinia, an intensified enjoyment of this new and fruitful subject of
domestic interest, a settling down to make the most of it, a disposition
to pet it, in which there was a good bright ray of hope. I thought
I perceived that Miss Lavinia would have uncommon satisfaction in
superintending two young lovers, like Dora and me; and that Miss
Clarissa would have hardly less satisfaction in seeing her superintend
us, and in chiming in with her own particular department of the subject
whenever that impulse was strong upon her. This gave me courage to
protest most vehemently that I loved Dora better than I could tell, or
anyone believe; that all my friends knew how I loved her; that my aunt,
Agnes, Traddles, everyone who knew me, knew how I loved her, and how
earnest my love had made me. For the truth of this, I appealed to
Traddles. And Traddles, firing up as if he were plunging into a
Parliamentary Debate, really did come out nobly: confirming me in good
round terms, and in a plain sensible practical manner, that evidently
made a favourable impression.
‘I speak, if I may presume to say so, as one who has some little
experience of such things,’ said Traddles, ‘being myself engaged to a
young lady--one of ten, down in Devonshire--and seeing no probability,
at present, of our engagement coming to a termination.’
‘You may be able to confirm what I have said, Mr. Traddles,’ observed
Miss Lavinia, evidently taking a new interest in him, ‘of the affection
that is modest and retiring; that waits and waits?’
‘Entirely, ma’am,’ said Traddles.
Miss Clarissa looked at Miss Lavinia, and shook her head gravely. Miss
Lavinia looked consciously at Miss Clarissa, and heaved a little sigh.
‘Sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘take my smelling-bottle.’
Miss Lavinia revived herself with a few whiffs of aromatic
vinegar--Traddles and I looking on with great solicitude the while; and
then went on to say, rather faintly:
‘My sister and myself have been in great doubt, Mr. Traddles, what
course we ought to take in reference to the likings, or imaginary
likings, of such very young people as your friend Mr. Copperfield and
our niece.’
‘Our brother Francis’s child,’ remarked Miss Clarissa. ‘If our brother
Francis’s wife had found it convenient in her lifetime (though she had
an unquestionable right to act as she thought best) to invite the family
to her dinner-table, we might have known our brother Francis’s child
better at the present moment. Sister Lavinia, proceed.’
Miss Lavinia turned my letter, so as to bring the superscription towards
herself, and referred through her eye-glass to some orderly-looking
notes she had made on that part of it.
‘It seems to us,’ said she, ‘prudent, Mr. Traddles, to bring these
feelings to the test of our own observation. At present we know nothing
of them, and are not in a situation to judge how much reality there
may be in them. Therefore we are inclined so far to accede to Mr.
Copperfield’s proposal, as to admit his visits here.’
‘I shall never, dear ladies,’ I exclaimed, relieved of an immense load
of apprehension, ‘forget your kindness!’
‘But,’ pursued Miss Lavinia,--‘but, we would prefer to regard those
visits, Mr. Traddles, as made, at present, to us. We must guard
ourselves from recognizing any positive engagement between Mr.
Copperfield and our niece, until we have had an opportunity--’
‘Until YOU have had an opportunity, sister Lavinia,’ said Miss Clarissa.
‘Be it so,’ assented Miss Lavinia, with a sigh--‘until I have had an
opportunity of observing them.’
‘Copperfield,’ said Traddles, turning to me, ‘you feel, I am sure, that
nothing could be more reasonable or considerate.’
‘Nothing!’ cried I. ‘I am deeply sensible of it.’
‘In this position of affairs,’ said Miss Lavinia, again referring to
her notes, ‘and admitting his visits on this understanding only, we
must require from Mr. Copperfield a distinct assurance, on his word of
honour, that no communication of any kind shall take place between him
and our niece without our knowledge. That no project whatever shall be
entertained with regard to our niece, without being first submitted to
us--’ ‘To you, sister Lavinia,’ Miss Clarissa interposed.
‘Be it so, Clarissa!’ assented Miss Lavinia resignedly--‘to me--and
receiving our concurrence. We must make this a most express and serious
stipulation, not to be broken on any account. We wished Mr. Copperfield
to be accompanied by some confidential friend today,’ with an
inclination of her head towards Traddles, who bowed, ‘in order that
there might be no doubt or misconception on this subject. If Mr.
Copperfield, or if you, Mr. Traddles, feel the least scruple, in giving
this promise, I beg you to take time to consider it.’
I exclaimed, in a state of high ecstatic fervour, that not a moment’s
consideration could be necessary. I bound myself by the required
promise, in a most impassioned manner; called upon Traddles to witness
it; and denounced myself as the most atrocious of characters if I ever
swerved from it in the least degree.
‘Stay!’ said Miss Lavinia, holding up her hand; ‘we resolved, before we
had the pleasure of receiving you two gentlemen, to leave you alone
for a quarter of an hour, to consider this point. You will allow us to
retire.’
It was in vain for me to say that no consideration was necessary. They
persisted in withdrawing for the specified time. Accordingly, these
little birds hopped out with great dignity; leaving me to receive the
congratulations of Traddles, and to feel as if I were translated to
regions of exquisite happiness. Exactly at the expiration of the
quarter of an hour, they reappeared with no less dignity than they had
disappeared. They had gone rustling away as if their little dresses were
made of autumn-leaves: and they came rustling back, in like manner.
I then bound myself once more to the prescribed conditions.
‘Sister Clarissa,’ said Miss Lavinia, ‘the rest is with you.’
Miss Clarissa, unfolding her arms for the first time, took the notes and
glanced at them.
‘We shall be happy,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘to see Mr. Copperfield to
dinner, every Sunday, if it should suit his convenience. Our hour is
three.’
I bowed.
‘In the course of the week,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘we shall be happy to
see Mr. Copperfield to tea. Our hour is half-past six.’
I bowed again.
‘Twice in the week,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘but, as a rule, not oftener.’
I bowed again.
‘Miss Trotwood,’ said Miss Clarissa, ‘mentioned in Mr. Copperfield’s
letter, will perhaps call upon us. When visiting is better for the
happiness of all parties, we are glad to receive visits, and return
them. When it is better for the happiness of all parties that no
visiting should take place, (as in the case of our brother Francis, and
his establishment) that is quite different.’
I intimated that my aunt would be proud and delighted to make their
acquaintance; though I must say I was not quite sure of their getting
on very satisfactorily together. The conditions being now closed, I
expressed my acknowledgements in the warmest manner; and, taking the
hand, first of Miss Clarissa, and then of Miss Lavinia, pressed it, in
each case, to my lips.
Miss Lavinia then arose, and begging Mr. Traddles to excuse us for a
minute, requested me to follow her. I obeyed, all in a tremble, and was
conducted into another room. There I found my blessed darling stopping
her ears behind the door, with her dear little face against the wall;
and Jip in the plate-warmer with his head tied up in a towel.
Oh! How beautiful she was in her black frock, and how she sobbed and
cried at first, and wouldn’t come out from behind the door! How fond we
were of one another, when she did come out at last; and what a state of
bliss I was in, when we took Jip out of the plate-warmer, and restored
him to the light, sneezing very much, and were all three reunited!
‘My dearest Dora! Now, indeed, my own for ever!’
‘Oh, DON’T!’ pleaded Dora. ‘Please!’
‘Are you not my own for ever, Dora?’
‘Oh yes, of course I am!’ cried Dora, ‘but I am so frightened!’
‘Frightened, my own?’
‘Oh yes! I don’t like him,’ said Dora. ‘Why don’t he go?’
‘Who, my life?’
‘Your friend,’ said Dora. ‘It isn’t any business of his. What a stupid
he must be!’
‘My love!’ (There never was anything so coaxing as her childish ways.)
‘He is the best creature!’
‘Oh, but we don’t want any best creatures!’ pouted Dora.
‘My dear,’ I argued, ‘you will soon know him well, and like him of all
things. And here is my aunt coming soon; and you’ll like her of all
things too, when you know her.’
‘No, please don’t bring her!’ said Dora, giving me a horrified
little kiss, and folding her hands. ‘Don’t. I know she’s a naughty,
mischief-making old thing! Don’t let her come here, Doady!’ which was a
corruption of David.
Remonstrance was of no use, then; so I laughed, and admired, and was
very much in love and very happy; and she showed me Jip’s new trick of
standing on his hind legs in a corner--which he did for about the space
of a flash of lightning, and then fell down--and I don’t know how long I
should have stayed there, oblivious of Traddles, if Miss Lavinia had not
come in to take me away. Miss Lavinia was very fond of Dora (she told
me Dora was exactly like what she had been herself at her age--she must
have altered a good deal), and she treated Dora just as if she had been
a toy. I wanted to persuade Dora to come and see Traddles, but on my
proposing it she ran off to her own room and locked herself in; so I
went to Traddles without her, and walked away with him on air.
‘Nothing could be more satisfactory,’ said Traddles; ‘and they are very
agreeable old ladies, I am sure. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you
were to be married years before me, Copperfield.’
‘Does your Sophy play on any instrument, Traddles?’ I inquired, in the
pride of my heart.
‘She knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters,’ said
Traddles.
‘Does she sing at all?’ I asked.
‘Why, she sings ballads, sometimes, to freshen up the others a little
when they’re out of spirits,’ said Traddles. ‘Nothing scientific.’
‘She doesn’t sing to the guitar?’ said I.
‘Oh dear no!’ said Traddles.
‘Paint at all?’
‘Not at all,’ said Traddles.
I promised Traddles that he should hear Dora sing, and see some of her
flower-painting. He said he should like it very much, and we went home
arm in arm in great good humour and delight. I encouraged him to talk
about Sophy, on the way; which he did with a loving reliance on her
that I very much admired. I compared her in my mind with Dora, with
considerable inward satisfaction; but I candidly admitted to myself that
she seemed to be an excellent kind of girl for Traddles, too.
Of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted with the successful
issue of the conference, and with all that had been said and done in the
course of it. She was happy to see me so happy, and promised to call on
Dora’s aunts without loss of time. But she took such a long walk up and
down our rooms that night, while I was writing to Agnes, that I began to
think she meant to walk till morning.
My letter to Agnes was a fervent and grateful one, narrating all the
good effects that had resulted from my following her advice. She wrote,
by return of post, to me. Her letter was hopeful, earnest, and cheerful.
She was always cheerful from that time.
I had my hands more full than ever, now. My daily journeys to Highgate
considered, Putney was a long way off; and I naturally wanted to go
there as often as I could. The proposed tea-drinkings being quite
impracticable, I compounded with Miss Lavinia for permission to visit
every Saturday afternoon, without detriment to my privileged Sundays.
So, the close of every week was a delicious time for me; and I got
through the rest of the week by looking forward to it.
I was wonderfully relieved to find that my aunt and Dora’s aunts
rubbed on, all things considered, much more smoothly than I could have
expected. My aunt made her promised visit within a few days of the
conference; and within a few more days, Dora’s aunts called upon her,
in due state and form. Similar but more friendly exchanges took place
afterwards, usually at intervals of three or four weeks. I know that my
aunt distressed Dora’s aunts very much, by utterly setting at naught the
dignity of fly-conveyance, and walking out to Putney at extraordinary
times, as shortly after breakfast or just before tea; likewise by
wearing her bonnet in any manner that happened to be comfortable to her
head, without at all deferring to the prejudices of civilization on that
subject. But Dora’s aunts soon agreed to regard my aunt as an eccentric
and somewhat masculine lady, with a strong understanding; and although
my aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of Dora’s aunts, by expressing
heretical opinions on various points of ceremony, she loved me too
well not to sacrifice some of her little peculiarities to the general
harmony.
The only member of our small society who positively refused to adapt
himself to circumstances, was Jip. He never saw my aunt without
immediately displaying every tooth in his head, retiring under a chair,
and growling incessantly: with now and then a doleful howl, as if she
really were too much for his feelings. All kinds of treatment were tried
with him, coaxing, scolding, slapping, bringing him to Buckingham
Street (where he instantly dashed at the two cats, to the terror of all
beholders); but he never could prevail upon himself to bear my
aunt’s society. He would sometimes think he had got the better of his
objection, and be amiable for a few minutes; and then would put up his
snub nose, and howl to that extent, that there was nothing for it but
to blind him and put him in the plate-warmer. At length, Dora regularly
muffled him in a towel and shut him up there, whenever my aunt was
reported at the door.
One thing troubled me much, after we had fallen into this quiet train.
It was, that Dora seemed by one consent to be regarded like a pretty toy
or plaything. My aunt, with whom she gradually became familiar, always
called her Little Blossom; and the pleasure of Miss Lavinia’s life was
to wait upon her, curl her hair, make ornaments for her, and treat her
like a pet child. What Miss Lavinia did, her sister did as a matter of
course. It was very odd to me; but they all seemed to treat Dora, in her
degree, much as Dora treated Jip in his.
I made up my mind to speak to Dora about this; and one day when we were
out walking (for we were licensed by Miss Lavinia, after a while, to
go out walking by ourselves), I said to her that I wished she could get
them to behave towards her differently.
‘Because you know, my darling,’ I remonstrated, ‘you are not a child.’
‘There!’ said Dora. ‘Now you’re going to be cross!’
‘Cross, my love?’
‘I am sure they’re very kind to me,’ said Dora, ‘and I am very happy--’
‘Well! But my dearest life!’ said I, ‘you might be very happy, and yet
be treated rationally.’
Dora gave me a reproachful look--the prettiest look!--and then began to
sob, saying, if I didn’t like her, why had I ever wanted so much to be
engaged to her? And why didn’t I go away, now, if I couldn’t bear her?
What could I do, but kiss away her tears, and tell her how I doted on
her, after that!
‘I am sure I am very affectionate,’ said Dora; ‘you oughtn’t to be cruel
to me, Doady!’
‘Cruel, my precious love! As if I would--or could--be cruel to you, for
the world!’
‘Then don’t find fault with me,’ said Dora, making a rosebud of her
mouth; ‘and I’ll be good.’
I was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own accord, to give
her that cookery-book I had once spoken of, and to show her how to keep
accounts as I had once promised I would. I brought the volume with me on
my next visit (I got it prettily bound, first, to make it look less dry
and more inviting); and as we strolled about the Common, I showed her an
old housekeeping-book of my aunt’s, and gave her a set of tablets, and
a pretty little pencil-case and box of leads, to practise housekeeping
with.
But the cookery-book made Dora’s head ache, and the figures made her
cry. They wouldn’t add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, and drew
little nosegays and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets.
Then I playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic matters, as we
walked about on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes, for example, when we
passed a butcher’s shop, I would say:
‘Now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you were going to buy a
shoulder of mutton for dinner, would you know how to buy it?’
My pretty little Dora’s face would fall, and she would make her mouth
into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with a
kiss.
‘Would you know how to buy it, my darling?’ I would repeat, perhaps, if
I were very inflexible.
Dora would think a little, and then reply, perhaps, with great triumph:
‘Why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what need I know? Oh,
you silly boy!’
So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the cookery-book, what she
would do, if we were married, and I were to say I should like a nice
Irish stew, she replied that she would tell the servant to make it; and
then clapped her little hands together across my arm, and laughed in
such a charming manner that she was more delightful than ever.
Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was devoted,
was being put down in the corner for Jip to stand upon. But Dora was so
pleased, when she had trained him to stand upon it without offering to
come off, and at the same time to hold the pencil-case in his mouth,
that I was very glad I had bought it.
And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-painting, and the
songs about never leaving off dancing, Ta ra la! and were as happy as
the week was long. I occasionally wished I could venture to hint to Miss
Lavinia, that she treated the darling of my heart a little too much like
a plaything; and I sometimes awoke, as it were, wondering to find that
I had fallen into the general fault, and treated her like a plaything
too--but not often.
CHAPTER 42. MISCHIEF
I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript
is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous
short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of
responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have
already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a
patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me,
and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any
strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my
success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have
worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could
have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order,
and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one
object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon
its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit
of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine,
in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man
indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents
neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted
feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I
do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My
meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have
tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself
to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in
small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed
it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from
the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and
hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this
earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the
two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that
ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no
substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never
to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and
never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now,
to have been my golden rules.
How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes,
I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with a thankful
love.
She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor’s. Mr. Wickfield was
the Doctor’s old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with him, and
do him good. It had been matter of conversation with Agnes when she was
last in town, and this visit was the result. She and her father came
together. I was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged
to find a lodging in the neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic
complaint required change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in
such company. Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day, Uriah,
like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession.
‘You see, Master Copperfield,’ said he, as he forced himself upon my
company for a turn in the Doctor’s garden, ‘where a person loves, a
person is a little jealous--leastways, anxious to keep an eye on the
beloved one.’
‘Of whom are you jealous, now?’ said I.
‘Thanks to you, Master Copperfield,’ he returned, ‘of no one in
particular just at present--no male person, at least.’
‘Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?’
He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed.
‘Really, Master Copperfield,’ he said, ‘--I should say Mister, but I
know you’ll excuse the abit I’ve got into--you’re so insinuating, that
you draw me like a corkscrew! Well, I don’t mind telling you,’ putting
his fish-like hand on mine, ‘I’m not a lady’s man in general, sir, and I
never was, with Mrs. Strong.’
His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning.
‘What do you mean?’ said I.
‘Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield,’ he replied, with a dry
grin, ‘I mean, just at present, what I say.’
‘And what do you mean by your look?’ I retorted, quietly.
‘By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that’s sharp practice! What do I mean
by my look?’
‘Yes,’ said I. ‘By your look.’
He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his
nature to laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went
on to say, with his eyes cast downward--still scraping, very slowly:
‘When I was but an umble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was
for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was
for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far
beneath her, myself, to be noticed.’
‘Well?’ said I; ‘suppose you were!’
‘--And beneath him too,’ pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a
meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin.
‘Don’t you know the Doctor better,’ said I, ‘than to suppose him
conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?’
He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made
his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as
he answered:
‘Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I mean Mr.
Maldon!’
My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions on
that subject, all the Doctor’s happiness and peace, all the mingled
possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I
saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow’s twisting.
‘He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me
about,’ said Uriah. ‘One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was very meek
and umble--and I am. But I didn’t like that sort of thing--and I don’t!’
He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they
seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the
while.
‘She is one of your lovely women, she is,’ he pursued, when he had
slowly restored his face to its natural form; ‘and ready to be no friend
to such as me, I know. She’s just the person as would put my Agnes up
to higher sort of game. Now, I ain’t one of your lady’s men, Master
Copperfield; but I’ve had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We
umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking--and we look out of ‘em.’
I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in
his face, with poor success.
‘Now, I’m not a-going to let myself be run down, Copperfield,’ he
continued, raising that part of his countenance, where his red eyebrows
would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, ‘and I shall
do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I don’t approve of it.
I don’t mind acknowledging to you that I’ve got rather a grudging
disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain’t a-going, if I
know it, to run the risk of being plotted against.’
‘You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that
everybody else is doing the like, I think,’ said I.
‘Perhaps so, Master Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘But I’ve got a motive, as
my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. I mustn’t
be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can’t allow people in my
way. Really they must come out of the cart, Master Copperfield!’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said I.
‘Don’t you, though?’ he returned, with one of his jerks. ‘I’m astonished
at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick! I’ll try to be
plainer, another time.---Is that Mr. Maldon a-norseback, ringing at the
gate, sir?’
‘It looks like him,’ I replied, as carelessly as I could.
Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, and
doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. Not
a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour,
particularly by this concluding instance, that I turned away without any
ceremony; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a
scarecrow in want of support.
It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next evening
but one, which was a Sunday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. I had
arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was
expected to tea.
I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little
betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to
Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured
Dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks I knew so well; now
making up my mind that I should like her to look exactly as she looked
at such a time, and then doubting whether I should not prefer her
looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying myself
into a fever about it.
I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but
it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the
drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly
keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for her, now; and sure
enough I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old
door.
At first she wouldn’t come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes
by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken
to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never
been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she
was ten thousand times prettier yet.
Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was
‘too clever’. But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so
earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of
pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes’s neck,
and laid her innocent cheek against her face.
I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two sit
down together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking up
so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful
regard which Agnes cast upon her.
Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It was
the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut
and handed the sweet seed-cake--the little sisters had a bird-like
fondness for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked
on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and
we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another.
The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet
interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making
acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when
Dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me; her modest grace
and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence from
Dora; seemed to make our circle quite complete.
‘I am so glad,’ said Dora, after tea, ‘that you like me. I didn’t think
you would; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now Julia Mills is
gone.’
I have omitted to mention it, by the by. Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora
and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see her;
and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that
sort for lunch; and we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp-stool on
the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her arm, in which the
original reflections awakened by the contemplation of Ocean were to be
recorded under lock and key.
Agnes said she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising
character; but Dora corrected that directly.
‘Oh no!’ she said, shaking her curls at me; ‘it was all praise. He
thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of it.’
‘My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he
knows,’ said Agnes, with a smile; ‘it is not worth their having.’
‘But please let me have it,’ said Dora, in her coaxing way, ‘if you
can!’
We made merry about Dora’s wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was a
goose, and she didn’t like me at any rate, and the short evening flew
away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach was to call
for us. I was standing alone before the fire, when Dora came stealing
softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before I went.
‘Don’t you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, Doady,’
said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little right
hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my coat, ‘I might
have been more clever perhaps?’
‘My love!’ said I, ‘what nonsense!’
‘Do you think it is nonsense?’ returned Dora, without looking at me.
‘Are you sure it is?’
‘Of course I am!’ ‘I have forgotten,’ said Dora, still turning the
button round and round, ‘what relation Agnes is to you, you dear bad
boy.’
‘No blood-relation,’ I replied; ‘but we were brought up together, like
brother and sister.’
‘I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?’ said Dora, beginning on
another button of my coat.
‘Perhaps because I couldn’t see you, and not love you, Dora!’
‘Suppose you had never seen me at all,’ said Dora, going to another
button.
‘Suppose we had never been born!’ said I, gaily.
I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring silence
at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, and
at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of
her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At
length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to
give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss--once,
twice, three times--and went out of the room.
They all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and Dora’s
unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. She was laughingly resolved
to put Jip through the whole of his performances, before the coach came.
They took some time (not so much on account of their variety, as Jip’s
reluctance), and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door.
There was a hurried but affectionate parting between Agnes and herself;
and Dora was to write to Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being
foolish, she said), and Agnes was to write to Dora; and they had a
second parting at the coach door, and a third when Dora, in spite of
the remonstrances of Miss Lavinia, would come running out once more to
remind Agnes at the coach window about writing, and to shake her curls
at me on the box.
The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we were
to take another stage-coach for Highgate. I was impatient for the short
walk in the interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah! what
praise it was! How lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty
creature I had won, with all her artless graces best displayed, to my
most gentle care! How thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretence of
doing so, of the trust in which I held the orphan child!
Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as I loved her that
night. When we had again alighted, and were walking in the starlight
along the quiet road that led to the Doctor’s house, I told Agnes it was
her doing.
‘When you were sitting by her,’ said I, ‘you seemed to be no less her
guardian angel than mine; and you seem so now, Agnes.’
‘A poor angel,’ she returned, ‘but faithful.’
The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it natural
to me to say:
‘The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no one else that
ever I have seen), is so restored, I have observed today, that I have
begun to hope you are happier at home?’
‘I am happier in myself,’ she said; ‘I am quite cheerful and
light-hearted.’
I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the
stars that made it seem so noble.
‘There has been no change at home,’ said Agnes, after a few moments.
‘No fresh reference,’ said I, ‘to--I wouldn’t distress you, Agnes, but I
cannot help asking--to what we spoke of, when we parted last?’
‘No, none,’ she answered.
‘I have thought so much about it.’
‘You must think less about it. Remember that I confide in simple love
and truth at last. Have no apprehensions for me, Trotwood,’ she added,
after a moment; ‘the step you dread my taking, I shall never take.’
Although I think I had never really feared it, in any season of cool
reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me to have this assurance
from her own truthful lips. I told her so, earnestly.
‘And when this visit is over,’ said I,--‘for we may not be alone another
time,--how long is it likely to be, my dear Agnes, before you come to
London again?’
‘Probably a long time,’ she replied; ‘I think it will be best--for
papa’s sake--to remain at home. We are not likely to meet often, for
some time to come; but I shall be a good correspondent of Dora’s, and we
shall frequently hear of one another that way.’
We were now within the little courtyard of the Doctor’s cottage. It was
growing late. There was a light in the window of Mrs. Strong’s chamber,
and Agnes, pointing to it, bade me good night.
‘Do not be troubled,’ she said, giving me her hand, ‘by our misfortunes
and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in your happiness. If
you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will ask you for it. God
bless you always!’ In her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her
cheerful voice, I seemed again to see and hear my little Dora in her
company. I stood awhile, looking through the porch at the stars, with
a heart full of love and gratitude, and then walked slowly forth. I had
engaged a bed at a decent alehouse close by, and was going out at the
gate, when, happening to turn my head, I saw a light in the Doctor’s
study. A half-reproachful fancy came into my mind, that he had been
working at the Dictionary without my help. With the view of seeing if
this were so, and, in any case, of bidding him good night, if he were
yet sitting among his books, I turned back, and going softly across the
hall, and gently opening the door, looked in.
The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of the
shaded lamp, was Uriah. He was standing close beside it, with one of
his skeleton hands over his mouth, and the other resting on the Doctor’s
table. The Doctor sat in his study chair, covering his face with his
hands. Mr. Wickfield, sorely troubled and distressed, was leaning
forward, irresolutely touching the Doctor’s arm.
For an instant, I supposed that the Doctor was ill. I hastily advanced a
step under that impression, when I met Uriah’s eye, and saw what was the
matter. I would have withdrawn, but the Doctor made a gesture to detain
me, and I remained.
‘At any rate,’ observed Uriah, with a writhe of his ungainly person, ‘we
may keep the door shut. We needn’t make it known to ALL the town.’
Saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which I had left open,
and carefully closed it. He then came back, and took up his former
position. There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice
and manner, more intolerable--at least to me--than any demeanour he
could have assumed.
‘I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘to
point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked about.
You didn’t exactly understand me, though?’
I gave him a look, but no other answer; and, going to my good old
master, said a few words that I meant to be words of comfort and
encouragement. He put his hand upon my shoulder, as it had been his
custom to do when I was quite a little fellow, but did not lift his grey
head.
‘As you didn’t understand me, Master Copperfield,’ resumed Uriah in
the same officious manner, ‘I may take the liberty of umbly mentioning,
being among friends, that I have called Doctor Strong’s attention to the
goings-on of Mrs. Strong. It’s much against the grain with me, I assure
you, Copperfield, to be concerned in anything so unpleasant; but really,
as it is, we’re all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn’t to be. That
was what my meaning was, sir, when you didn’t understand me.’ I wonder
now, when I recall his leer, that I did not collar him, and try to shake
the breath out of his body.
‘I dare say I didn’t make myself very clear,’ he went on, ‘nor you
neither. Naturally, we was both of us inclined to give such a subject
a wide berth. Hows’ever, at last I have made up my mind to speak plain;
and I have mentioned to Doctor Strong that--did you speak, sir?’
This was to the Doctor, who had moaned. The sound might have touched any
heart, I thought, but it had no effect upon Uriah’s.
‘--mentioned to Doctor Strong,’ he proceeded, ‘that anyone may see that
Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Doctor Strong’s
wife, are too sweet on one another. Really the time is come (we being at
present all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn’t to be), when Doctor
Strong must be told that this was full as plain to everybody as the sun,
before Mr. Maldon went to India; that Mr. Maldon made excuses to come
back, for nothing else; and that he’s always here, for nothing else.
When you come in, sir, I was just putting it to my fellow-partner,’
towards whom he turned, ‘to say to Doctor Strong upon his word and
honour, whether he’d ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. Come,
Mr. Wickfield, sir! Would you be so good as tell us? Yes or no, sir?
Come, partner!’
‘For God’s sake, my dear Doctor,’ said Mr. Wickfield again laying his
irresolute hand upon the Doctor’s arm, ‘don’t attach too much weight to
any suspicions I may have entertained.’
‘There!’ cried Uriah, shaking his head. ‘What a melancholy confirmation:
ain’t it? Him! Such an old friend! Bless your soul, when I was nothing
but a clerk in his office, Copperfield, I’ve seen him twenty times, if
I’ve seen him once, quite in a taking about it--quite put out, you know
(and very proper in him as a father; I’m sure I can’t blame him), to
think that Miss Agnes was mixing herself up with what oughtn’t to be.’
‘My dear Strong,’ said Mr. Wickfield in a tremulous voice, ‘my good
friend, I needn’t tell you that it has been my vice to look for some one
master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one narrow test. I
may have fallen into such doubts as I have had, through this mistake.’
‘You have had doubts, Wickfield,’ said the Doctor, without lifting up
his head. ‘You have had doubts.’
‘Speak up, fellow-partner,’ urged Uriah.
‘I had, at one time, certainly,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘I--God forgive
me--I thought YOU had.’
‘No, no, no!’ returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic grief.
‘I thought, at one time,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘that you wished to send
Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation.’
‘No, no, no!’ returned the Doctor. ‘To give Annie pleasure, by making
some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing else.’
‘So I found,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘I couldn’t doubt it, when you told
me so. But I thought--I implore you to remember the narrow construction
which has been my besetting sin--that, in a case where there was so much
disparity in point of years--’
‘That’s the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield!’ observed Uriah,
with fawning and offensive pity.
‘--a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her
respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly
considerations only. I make no allowance for innumerable feelings
and circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven’s sake
remember that!’
‘How kind he puts it!’ said Uriah, shaking his head.
‘Always observing her from one point of view,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘but
by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to consider
what it was; I am forced to confess now, having no escape-’
‘No! There’s no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ observed Uriah,
‘when it’s got to this.’
‘--that I did,’ said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and distractedly
at his partner, ‘that I did doubt her, and think her wanting in her
duty to you; and that I did sometimes, if I must say all, feel averse
to Agnes being in such a familiar relation towards her, as to see what I
saw, or in my diseased theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned
this to anyone. I never meant it to be known to anyone. And though it
is terrible to you to hear,’ said Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, ‘if you
knew how terrible it is for me to tell, you would feel compassion for
me!’
The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. Mr.
Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed down.
‘I am sure,’ said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a
Conger-eel, ‘that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody.
But since we have got so far, I ought to take the liberty of mentioning
that Copperfield has noticed it too.’
I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me!
‘Oh! it’s very kind of you, Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, undulating all
over, ‘and we all know what an amiable character yours is; but you know
that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I meant.
You know you knew what I meant, Copperfield. Don’t deny it! You deny it
with the best intentions; but don’t do it, Copperfield.’
I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a moment,
and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances
was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no use
raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would, I could not unsay it.
We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and walked
twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to where his
chair stood; and, leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting
his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more
honour, to my thinking, than any disguise he could have effected, said:
‘I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to blame.
I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart, to trials and aspersions--I
call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in anybody’s inmost
mind--of which she never, but for me, could have been the object.’
Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy.
‘Of which my Annie,’ said the Doctor, ‘never, but for me, could have
been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know; I do not feel,
tonight, that I have much to live for. But my life--my Life--upon the
truth and honour of the dear lady who has been the subject of this
conversation!’
I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realization of
the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could
have said this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the
plain old Doctor did.
‘But I am not prepared,’ he went on, ‘to deny--perhaps I may have been,
without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit--that I may have
unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man
quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe that the
observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too
plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than
mine.’
I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant manner
towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness he manifested
in every reference to her on this occasion, and the almost reverential
manner in which he put away from him the lightest doubt of her
integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond description.
‘I married that lady,’ said the Doctor, ‘when she was extremely young. I
took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. So far as it
was developed, it had been my happiness to form it. I knew her father
well. I knew her well. I had taught her what I could, for the love of
all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her wrong; as I fear
I did, in taking advantage (but I never meant it) of her gratitude and
her affection; I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!’
He walked across the room, and came back to the same place; holding
the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in its
earnestness.
‘I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and
vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we were in
years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. I did not shut
out of my consideration the time when I should leave her free, and still
young and still beautiful, but with her judgement more matured--no,
gentlemen--upon my truth!’
His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and
generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could
have imparted to it.
‘My life with this lady has been very happy. Until tonight, I have
had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her great
injustice.’
His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words,
stopped for a few moments; then he went on:
‘Once awakened from my dream--I have been a poor dreamer, in one way or
other, all my life--I see how natural it is that she should have some
regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal. That she does
regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless thoughts of
what might have been, but for me, is, I fear, too true. Much that I have
seen, but not noted, has come back upon me with new meaning, during
this last trying hour. But, beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady’s name
never must be coupled with a word, a breath, of doubt.’
For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a little
while he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as before:
‘It only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness I have
occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should reproach; not
I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my
friends have not been able to avoid, becomes my duty. The more retired
we live, the better I shall discharge it. And when the time comes--may
it come soon, if it be His merciful pleasure!--when my death shall
release her from constraint, I shall close my eyes upon her honoured
face, with unbounded confidence and love; and leave her, with no sorrow
then, to happier and brighter days.’
I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness,
so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of his manner,
brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door, when he added:
‘Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect it.
What we have said tonight is never to be said more. Wickfield, give me
an old friend’s arm upstairs!’
Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they went
slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them.
‘Well, Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah, meekly turning to me. ‘The thing
hasn’t took quite the turn that might have been expected, for the old
Scholar--what an excellent man!--is as blind as a brickbat; but this
family’s out of the cart, I think!’
I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I never
was before, and never have been since.
‘You villain,’ said I, ‘what do you mean by entrapping me into your
schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we
had been in discussion together?’
As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy
exultation of his face, what I already so plainly knew; I mean that he
forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had
set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter; that I couldn’t bear
it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck
it with my open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if I had
burnt them.
He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connexion, looking at
each other. We stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see the
white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and
leave it a deeper red.
‘Copperfield,’ he said at length, in a breathless voice, ‘have you taken
leave of your senses?’
‘I have taken leave of you,’ said I, wresting my hand away. ‘You dog,
I’ll know no more of you.’
‘Won’t you?’ said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put his
hand there. ‘Perhaps you won’t be able to help it. Isn’t this ungrateful
of you, now?’
‘I have shown you often enough,’ said I, ‘that I despise you. I have
shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread your doing
your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?’
He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had
hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think
that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for
the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is no matter.
There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to
take every shade of colour that could make eyes ugly.
‘Copperfield,’ he said, removing his hand from his cheek, ‘you have
always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at Mr.
Wickfield’s.’
‘You may think what you like,’ said I, still in a towering rage. ‘If it
is not true, so much the worthier you.’
‘And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!’ he rejoined.
I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going out to
bed, when he came between me and the door.
‘Copperfield,’ he said, ‘there must be two parties to a quarrel. I won’t
be one.’
‘You may go to the devil!’ said I.
‘Don’t say that!’ he replied. ‘I know you’ll be sorry afterwards. How
can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad spirit?
But I forgive you.’
‘You forgive me!’ I repeated disdainfully.
‘I do, and you can’t help yourself,’ replied Uriah. ‘To think of your
going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you! But there
can’t be a quarrel without two parties, and I won’t be one. I will be
a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know what you’ve got to
expect.’
The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was
very slow; mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not be
disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper; though my
passion was cooling down. Merely telling him that I should expect from
him what I always had expected, and had never yet been disappointed in,
I opened the door upon him, as if he had been a great walnut put there
to be cracked, and went out of the house. But he slept out of the house
too, at his mother’s lodging; and before I had gone many hundred yards,
came up with me.
‘You know, Copperfield,’ he said, in my ear (I did not turn my head),
‘you’re in quite a wrong position’; which I felt to be true, and that
made me chafe the more; ‘you can’t make this a brave thing, and you
can’t help being forgiven. I don’t intend to mention it to mother, nor
to any living soul. I’m determined to forgive you. But I do wonder
that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so
umble!’
I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. If
he had retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief
and a justification; but he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay
tormented half the night.
In the morning, when I came out, the early church-bell was ringing,
and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if
nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck
him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events
his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat
perched on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard
that he went to a dentist’s in London on the Monday morning, and had a
tooth out. I hope it was a double one.
The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and remained alone, for
a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit.
Agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we resumed our usual
work. On the day preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his
own hands a folded note not sealed. It was addressed to myself; and laid
an injunction on me, in a few affectionate words, never to refer to the
subject of that evening. I had confided it to my aunt, but to no
one else. It was not a subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes
certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed.
Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks elapsed
before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud
when there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle
compassion with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she
should have her mother with her, to relieve the dull monotony of her
life. Often, when we were at work, and she was sitting by, I would see
her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face. Afterwards, I
sometimes observed her rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out
of the room. Gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and
deepened every day. Mrs. Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage
then; but she talked and talked, and saw nothing.
As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor’s house,
the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but the sweetness
of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent
solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were
increased. I saw him once, early on the morning of her birthday, when
she came to sit in the window while we were at work (which she had
always done, but now began to do with a timid and uncertain air that I
thought very touching), take her forehead between his hands, kiss it,
and go hurriedly away, too much moved to remain. I saw her stand where
he had left her, like a statue; and then bend down her head, and clasp
her hands, and weep, I cannot say how sorrowfully.
Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak even to me,
in intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered a word. The
Doctor always had some new project for her participating in amusements
away from home, with her mother; and Mrs. Markleham, who was very fond
of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything else, entered
into them with great good-will, and was loud in her commendations. But
Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only went whither she was led, and
seemed to have no care for anything.
I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt; who must have walked,
at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What was strangest
of all was, that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into
the secret region of this domestic unhappiness, made its way there in
the person of Mr. Dick.
What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was, I am
as unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to assist me in
the task. But, as I have recorded in the narrative of my school days,
his veneration for the Doctor was unbounded; and there is a subtlety of
perception in real attachment, even when it is borne towards man by one
of the lower animals, which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this
mind of the heart, if I may call it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of
the truth shot straight.
He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours,
of walking up and down the garden with the Doctor; as he had been
accustomed to pace up and down The Doctor’s Walk at Canterbury. But
matters were no sooner in this state, than he devoted all his spare time
(and got up earlier to make it more) to these perambulations. If he had
never been so happy as when the Doctor read that marvellous performance,
the Dictionary, to him; he was now quite miserable unless the Doctor
pulled it out of his pocket, and began. When the Doctor and I were
engaged, he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with Mrs.
Strong, and helping her to trim her favourite flowers, or weed the
beds. I dare say he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour: but his quiet
interest, and his wistful face, found immediate response in both their
breasts; each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both; and
he became what no one else could be--a link between them.
When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and
down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the
Dictionary; when I think of him carrying huge watering-pots after Annie;
kneeling down, in very paws of gloves, at patient microscopic work among
the little leaves; expressing as no philosopher could have expressed,
in everything he did, a delicate desire to be her friend; showering
sympathy, trustfulness, and affection, out of every hole in the
watering-pot; when I think of him never wandering in that better mind
of his to which unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the
unfortunate King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful
service, never diverted from his knowledge that there was something
wrong, or from his wish to set it right--I really feel almost ashamed
of having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the
utmost I have done with mine.
‘Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is!’ my aunt would proudly
remark, when we conversed about it. ‘Dick will distinguish himself yet!’
I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter. While the
visit at the Doctor’s was still in progress, I observed that the postman
brought two or three letters every morning for Uriah Heep, who remained
at Highgate until the rest went back, it being a leisure time; and that
these were always directed in a business-like manner by Mr. Micawber,
who now assumed a round legal hand. I was glad to infer, from these
slight premises, that Mr. Micawber was doing well; and consequently was
much surprised to receive, about this time, the following letter from
his amiable wife.
‘CANTERBURY, Monday Evening.
‘You will doubtless be surprised, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to receive
this communication. Still more so, by its contents. Still more so, by
the stipulation of implicit confidence which I beg to impose. But my
feelings as a wife and mother require relief; and as I do not wish to
consult my family (already obnoxious to the feelings of Mr. Micawber),
I know no one of whom I can better ask advice than my friend and former
lodger.
‘You may be aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that between myself and Mr.
Micawber (whom I will never desert), there has always been preserved a
spirit of mutual confidence. Mr. Micawber may have occasionally given
a bill without consulting me, or he may have misled me as to the period
when that obligation would become due. This has actually happened.
But, in general, Mr. Micawber has had no secrets from the bosom of
affection--I allude to his wife--and has invariably, on our retirement
to rest, recalled the events of the day.
‘You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield, what the
poignancy of my feelings must be, when I inform you that Mr. Micawber is
entirely changed. He is reserved. He is secret. His life is a mystery to
the partner of his joys and sorrows--I again allude to his wife--and if
I should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed from morning
to night at the office, I now know less of it than I do of the man in
the south, connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat
an idle tale respecting cold plum porridge, I should adopt a popular
fallacy to express an actual fact.
‘But this is not all. Mr. Micawber is morose. He is severe. He is
estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in his
twins, he looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending stranger
who last became a member of our circle. The pecuniary means of meeting
our expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing, are obtained from him
with great difficulty, and even under fearful threats that he will
Settle himself (the exact expression); and he inexorably refuses to give
any explanation whatever of this distracting policy.
‘This is hard to bear. This is heart-breaking. If you will advise me,
knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be best
to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add another friendly
obligation to the many you have already rendered me. With loves from the
children, and a smile from the happily-unconscious stranger, I remain,
dear Mr. Copperfield,
Your afflicted,
‘EMMA MICAWBER.’
I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber’s experience
any other recommendation, than that she should try to reclaim Mr.
Micawber by patience and kindness (as I knew she would in any case); but
the letter set me thinking about him very much.
CHAPTER 43. ANOTHER RETROSPECT
Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let me
stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying
the shadow of myself, in dim procession.
Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a summer
day and a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with Dora is all
in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen heather lies in
mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. In a breath, the river
that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is
ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice.
Faster than ever river ran towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and
rolls away.
Not a thread changes, in the house of the two little bird-like ladies.
The clock ticks over the fireplace, the weather-glass hangs in the hall.
Neither clock nor weather-glass is ever right; but we believe in both,
devoutly.
I have come legally to man’s estate. I have attained the dignity of
twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one.
Let me think what I have achieved.
I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable
income by it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all
pertaining to the art, and am joined with eleven others in reporting
the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I
record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never
fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in
words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a
trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound
hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know
the worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and shall
never be converted.
My dear old Traddles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it
is not in Traddles’s way. He is perfectly good-humoured respecting his
failure, and reminds me that he always did consider himself slow. He has
occasional employment on the same newspaper, in getting up the facts of
dry subjects, to be written about and embellished by more fertile minds.
He is called to the bar; and with admirable industry and self-denial
has scraped another hundred pounds together, to fee a Conveyancer whose
chambers he attends. A great deal of very hot port wine was consumed at
his call; and, considering the figure, I should think the Inner Temple
must have made a profit by it.
I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling
to authorship. I wrote a little something, in secret, and sent it to a
magazine, and it was published in the magazine. Since then, I have taken
heart to write a good many trifling pieces. Now, I am regularly paid for
them. Altogether, I am well off, when I tell my income on the fingers
of my left hand, I pass the third finger and take in the fourth to the
middle joint.
We have removed, from Buckingham Street, to a pleasant little cottage
very near the one I looked at, when my enthusiasm first came on. My
aunt, however (who has sold the house at Dover, to good advantage), is
not going to remain here, but intends removing herself to a still more
tiny cottage close at hand. What does this portend? My marriage? Yes!
Yes! I am going to be married to Dora! Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa
have given their consent; and if ever canary birds were in a flutter,
they are. Miss Lavinia, self-charged with the superintendence of my
darling’s wardrobe, is constantly cutting out brown-paper cuirasses, and
differing in opinion from a highly respectable young man, with a long
bundle, and a yard measure under his arm. A dressmaker, always stabbed
in the breast with a needle and thread, boards and lodges in the house;
and seems to me, eating, drinking, or sleeping, never to take her
thimble off. They make a lay-figure of my dear. They are always sending
for her to come and try something on. We can’t be happy together for
five minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at the
door, and says, ‘Oh, if you please, Miss Dora, would you step upstairs!’
Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find out articles of
furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy
the goods at once, without this ceremony of inspection; for, when we go
to see a kitchen fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for
Jip, with little bells on the top, and prefers that. And it takes a
long time to accustom Jip to his new residence, after we have bought it;
whenever he goes in or out, he makes all the little bells ring, and is
horribly frightened.
Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work immediately.
Her department appears to be, to clean everything over and over again.
She rubs everything that can be rubbed, until it shines, like her own
honest forehead, with perpetual friction. And now it is, that I begin to
see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night, and
looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces. I never speak to him at
such an hour. I know too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what
he seeks, and what he dreads.
Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon me this afternoon
in the Commons--where I still occasionally attend, for form’s sake, when
I have time? The realization of my boyish day-dreams is at hand. I am
going to take out the licence.
It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles contemplates it,
as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. There are the
names, in the sweet old visionary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora
Spenlow; and there, in the corner, is that Parental Institution,
the Stamp Office, which is so benignantly interested in the various
transactions of human life, looking down upon our Union; and there is
the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and
doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected.
Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I
can’t believe that it is going to be; and yet I can’t believe but that
everyone I pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that I
am to be married the day after tomorrow. The Surrogate knows me, when
I go down to be sworn; and disposes of me easily, as if there were a
Masonic understanding between us. Traddles is not at all wanted, but is
in attendance as my general backer.
‘I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow,’ I say to Traddles,
‘it will be on the same errand for yourself. And I hope it will be
soon.’
‘Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield,’ he replies. ‘I
hope so too. It’s a satisfaction to know that she’ll wait for me any
length of time, and that she really is the dearest girl--’
‘When are you to meet her at the coach?’ I ask.
‘At seven,’ says Traddles, looking at his plain old silver watch--the
very watch he once took a wheel out of, at school, to make a water-mill.
‘That is about Miss Wickfield’s time, is it not?’
‘A little earlier. Her time is half past eight.’ ‘I assure you, my dear
boy,’ says Traddles, ‘I am almost as pleased as if I were going to
be married myself, to think that this event is coming to such a happy
termination. And really the great friendship and consideration of
personally associating Sophy with the joyful occasion, and inviting
her to be a bridesmaid in conjunction with Miss Wickfield, demands my
warmest thanks. I am extremely sensible of it.’
I hear him, and shake hands with him; and we talk, and walk, and dine,
and so on; but I don’t believe it. Nothing is real.
Sophy arrives at the house of Dora’s aunts, in due course. She has the
most agreeable of faces,--not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily
pleasant,--and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging
creatures I have ever seen. Traddles presents her to us with great
pride; and rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every
individual hair upon his head standing on tiptoe, when I congratulate
him in a corner on his choice.
I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and her cheerful and
beautiful face is among us for the second time. Agnes has a great liking
for Traddles, and it is capital to see them meet, and to observe the
glory of Traddles as he commends the dearest girl in the world to her
acquaintance.
Still I don’t believe it. We have a delightful evening, and are
supremely happy; but I don’t believe it yet. I can’t collect myself. I
can’t check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel in a misty and
unsettled kind of state; as if I had got up very early in the morning a
week or two ago, and had never been to bed since. I can’t make out when
yesterday was. I seem to have been carrying the licence about, in my
pocket, many months.
Next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house--our
house--Dora’s and mine--I am quite unable to regard myself as its
master. I seem to be there, by permission of somebody else. I half
expect the real master to come home presently, and say he is glad to see
me. Such a beautiful little house as it is, with everything so bright
and new; with the flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered,
and the green leaves on the paper as if they had just come out; with the
spotless muslin curtains, and the blushing rose-coloured furniture, and
Dora’s garden hat with the blue ribbon--do I remember, now, how I loved
her in such another hat when I first knew her!--already hanging on its
little peg; the guitar-case quite at home on its heels in a corner;
and everybody tumbling over Jip’s pagoda, which is much too big for the
establishment. Another happy evening, quite as unreal as all the rest
of it, and I steal into the usual room before going away. Dora is not
there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet. Miss Lavinia peeps
in, and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long. She is rather
long, notwithstanding; but by and by I hear a rustling at the door, and
someone taps.
I say, ‘Come in!’ but someone taps again.
I go to the door, wondering who it is; there, I meet a pair of bright
eyes, and a blushing face; they are Dora’s eyes and face, and Miss
Lavinia has dressed her in tomorrow’s dress, bonnet and all, for me to
see. I take my little wife to my heart; and Miss Lavinia gives a little
scream because I tumble the bonnet, and Dora laughs and cries at once,
because I am so pleased; and I believe it less than ever.
‘Do you think it pretty, Doady?’ says Dora.
Pretty! I should rather think I did.
‘And are you sure you like me very much?’ says Dora.
The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that Miss Lavinia
gives another little scream, and begs me to understand that Dora is only
to be looked at, and on no account to be touched. So Dora stands in a
delightful state of confusion for a minute or two, to be admired; and
then takes off her bonnet--looking so natural without it!--and runs away
with it in her hand; and comes dancing down again in her own familiar
dress, and asks Jip if I have got a beautiful little wife, and whether
he’ll forgive her for being married, and kneels down to make him stand
upon the cookery-book, for the last time in her single life.
I go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that I have hard by;
and get up very early in the morning, to ride to the Highgate road and
fetch my aunt.
I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in
lavender-coloured silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. Janet
has dressed her, and is there to look at me. Peggotty is ready to go to
church, intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick,
who is to give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled.
Traddles, whom I have taken up by appointment at the turnpike, presents
a dazzling combination of cream colour and light blue; and both he and
Mr. Dick have a general effect about them of being all gloves.
No doubt I see this, because I know it is so; but I am astray, and seem
to see nothing. Nor do I believe anything whatever. Still, as we drive
along in an open carriage, this fairy marriage is real enough to fill
me with a sort of wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have
no part in it, but are sweeping out the shops, and going to their daily
occupations.
My aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. When we stop a little way
short of the church, to put down Peggotty, whom we have brought on the
box, she gives it a squeeze, and me a kiss.
‘God bless you, Trot! My own boy never could be dearer. I think of poor
dear Baby this morning.’ ‘So do I. And of all I owe to you, dear aunt.’
‘Tut, child!’ says my aunt; and gives her hand in overflowing cordiality
to Traddles, who then gives his to Mr. Dick, who then gives his to me,
who then gives mine to Traddles, and then we come to the church door.
The church is calm enough, I am sure; but it might be a steam-power loom
in full action, for any sedative effect it has on me. I am too far gone
for that.
The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream.
A dream of their coming in with Dora; of the pew-opener arranging us,
like a drill-sergeant, before the altar rails; of my wondering, even
then, why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females
procurable, and whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous
infection of good-humour which renders it indispensable to set those
vessels of vinegar upon the road to Heaven.
Of the clergyman and clerk appearing; of a few boatmen and some
other people strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, strongly
flavouring the church with rum; of the service beginning in a deep
voice, and our all being very attentive.
Of Miss Lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid, being the
first to cry, and of her doing homage (as I take it) to the memory of
Pidger, in sobs; of Miss Clarissa applying a smelling-bottle; of Agnes
taking care of Dora; of my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as
a model of sternness, with tears rolling down her face; of little Dora
trembling very much, and making her responses in faint whispers.
Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora’s trembling less
and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand; of the service being
got through, quietly and gravely; of our all looking at each other in an
April state of smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being
hysterical in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa.
Of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the register all round.
Of my going into the gallery for Peggotty to bring her to sign it; of
Peggotty’s hugging me in a corner, and telling me she saw my own dear
mother married; of its being over, and our going away.
Of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife
upon my arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, monuments,
pews, fonts, organs, and church windows, in which there flutter faint
airs of association with my childish church at home, so long ago.
Of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple we are, and what
a pretty little wife she is. Of our all being so merry and talkative in
the carriage going back. Of Sophy telling us that when she saw Traddles
(whom I had entrusted with the licence) asked for it, she almost
fainted, having been convinced that he would contrive to lose it, or to
have his pocket picked. Of Agnes laughing gaily; and of Dora being so
fond of Agnes that she will not be separated from her, but still keeps
her hand.
Of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things, pretty and
substantial, to eat and drink, whereof I partake, as I should do in any
other dream, without the least perception of their flavour; eating
and drinking, as I may say, nothing but love and marriage, and no more
believing in the viands than in anything else.
Of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion, without having an idea
of what I want to say, beyond such as may be comprehended in the full
conviction that I haven’t said it. Of our being very sociably and simply
happy (always in a dream though); and of Jip’s having wedding cake, and
its not agreeing with him afterwards.
Of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of Dora’s going away
to change her dress. Of my aunt and Miss Clarissa remaining with us; and
our walking in the garden; and my aunt, who has made quite a speech at
breakfast touching Dora’s aunts, being mightily amused with herself, but
a little proud of it too.
Of Dora’s being ready, and of Miss Lavinia’s hovering about her, loth to
lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation.
Of Dora’s making a long series of surprised discoveries that she
has forgotten all sorts of little things; and of everybody’s running
everywhere to fetch them.
Of their all closing about Dora, when at last she begins to say
good-bye, looking, with their bright colours and ribbons, like a bed
of flowers. Of my darling being almost smothered among the flowers, and
coming out, laughing and crying both together, to my jealous arms.
Of my wanting to carry Jip (who is to go along with us), and Dora’s
saying no, that she must carry him, or else he’ll think she don’t like
him any more, now she is married, and will break his heart. Of our
going, arm in arm, and Dora stopping and looking back, and saying, ‘If
I have ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don’t remember it!’ and
bursting into tears.
Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. Of her
once more stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to Agnes, and giving
Agnes, above all the others, her last kisses and farewells.
We drive away together, and I awake from the dream. I believe it at
last. It is my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom I love so well!
‘Are you happy now, you foolish boy?’ says Dora, ‘and sure you don’t
repent?’
I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are
gone, and I resume the journey of my story.
CHAPTER 44. OUR HOUSEKEEPING
It was a strange condition of things, the honeymoon being over, and the
bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my own
small house with Dora; quite thrown out of employment, as I may say, in
respect of the delicious old occupation of making love.
It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It was
so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any
occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her,
not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her.
Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up from my writing, and saw her
seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair, and think how queer it
was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course--nobody’s
business any more--all the romance of our engagement put away upon a
shelf, to rust--no one to please but one another--one another to please,
for life.
When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so
strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at home! It
was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to
talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know
for certain that she put her hair in papers. It was altogether such an
astonishing event to see her do it!
I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping
house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She
kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must have been
Mrs. Crupp’s daughter in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with
Mary Anne.
Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we engaged
her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character,
as large as a proclamation; and, according to this document, could do
everything of a domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a great many
things that I never did hear of. She was a woman in the prime of life;
of a severe countenance; and subject (particularly in the arms) to
a sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the
Life-Guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon
shadow of somebody else. His shell-jacket was as much too little for him
as he was too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it
need have been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides
which, the walls were not thick, and, whenever he passed the evening at
our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the
kitchen.
Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore willing to
believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler; and
that the deficient tea-spoons were attributable to the dustman.
But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience, and
were unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy, if she
had had any; but she was a remorseless woman, and had none. She was the
cause of our first little quarrel.
‘My dearest life,’ I said one day to Dora, ‘do you think Mary Anne has
any idea of time?’
‘Why, Doady?’ inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her drawing.
‘My love, because it’s five, and we were to have dined at four.’
Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it was
too fast.
‘On the contrary, my love,’ said I, referring to my watch, ‘it’s a few
minutes too slow.’
My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, and
drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I couldn’t
dine off that, though it was very agreeable.
‘Don’t you think, my dear,’ said I, ‘it would be better for you to
remonstrate with Mary Anne?’
‘Oh no, please! I couldn’t, Doady!’ said Dora.
‘Why not, my love?’ I gently asked.
‘Oh, because I am such a little goose,’ said Dora, ‘and she knows I am!’
I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any
system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little.
‘Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy’s forehead!’ said Dora, and still
being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it to her
rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a
quaint little mockery of being industrious, that quite delighted me in
spite of myself.
‘There’s a good child,’ said Dora, ‘it makes its face so much prettier
to laugh.’ ‘But, my love,’ said I.
‘No, no! please!’ cried Dora, with a kiss, ‘don’t be a naughty Blue
Beard! Don’t be serious!’
‘My precious wife,’ said I, ‘we must be serious sometimes. Come! Sit
down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! There! Now let
us talk sensibly. You know, dear’; what a little hand it was to hold,
and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see! ‘You know, my love, it is
not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one’s dinner. Now, is
it?’
‘N-n-no!’ replied Dora, faintly.
‘My love, how you tremble!’
‘Because I KNOW you’re going to scold me,’ exclaimed Dora, in a piteous
voice.
‘My sweet, I am only going to reason.’
‘Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!’ exclaimed Dora, in despair.
‘I didn’t marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to reason with such a
poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy!’
I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her
curls from side to side, and said, ‘You cruel, cruel boy!’ so many
times, that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a few
turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again.
‘Dora, my darling!’
‘No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married
me, or else you wouldn’t reason with me!’ returned Dora.
I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it
gave me courage to be grave.
‘Now, my own Dora,’ said I, ‘you are very childish, and are talking
nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out
yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, I was
made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry;
today, I don’t dine at all--and I am afraid to say how long we waited
for breakfast--and then the water didn’t boil. I don’t mean to reproach
you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.’
‘Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!’ cried Dora.
‘Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!’
‘You said, I wasn’t comfortable!’ cried Dora. ‘I said the housekeeping
was not comfortable!’
‘It’s exactly the same thing!’ cried Dora. And she evidently thought so,
for she wept most grievously.
I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife,
and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against
the door. I sat down again, and said:
‘I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am
only trying to show you, my dear, that you must--you really must’ (I
was resolved not to give this up)--‘accustom yourself to look after Mary
Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me.’
‘I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,’ sobbed Dora.
‘When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little
bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to
surprise you.’
‘And it was very kind of you, my own darling,’ said I. ‘I felt it so
much that I wouldn’t on any account have even mentioned that you
bought a Salmon--which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound
six--which was more than we can afford.’
‘You enjoyed it very much,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And you said I was a Mouse.’
‘And I’ll say so again, my love,’ I returned, ‘a thousand times!’
But I had wounded Dora’s soft little heart, and she was not to be
comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt
as if I had said I don’t know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry
away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as
made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted
by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.
It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my
aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.
‘Is anything the matter, aunt?’ said I, alarmed.
‘Nothing, Trot,’ she replied. ‘Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom has
been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. That’s
all.’
I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as I
sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so soon
after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I
happened to meet my aunt’s eyes, which were resting on my face. There
was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly.
‘I assure you, aunt,’ said I, ‘I have been quite unhappy myself all
night, to think of Dora’s being so. But I had no other intention than to
speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs.’
My aunt nodded encouragement.
‘You must have patience, Trot,’ said she.
‘Of course. Heaven knows I don’t mean to be unreasonable, aunt!’
‘No, no,’ said my aunt. ‘But Little Blossom is a very tender little
blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her.’
I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my wife;
and I was sure that she knew I did.
‘Don’t you think, aunt,’ said I, after some further contemplation of the
fire, ‘that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for our mutual
advantage, now and then?’
‘Trot,’ returned my aunt, with some emotion, ‘no! Don’t ask me such a
thing.’
Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise.
‘I look back on my life, child,’ said my aunt, ‘and I think of some who
are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I
judged harshly of other people’s mistakes in marriage, it may have been
because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I
have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years.
I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another
some good, Trot,--at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and
division must not come between us, at this time of day.’
‘Division between us!’ cried I.
‘Child, child!’ said my aunt, smoothing her dress, ‘how soon it might
come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I
meddled in anything, a prophet couldn’t say. I want our pet to like me,
and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home, in that second
marriage; and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at!’
I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended the
full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife.
‘These are early days, Trot,’ she pursued, ‘and Rome was not built in a
day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself’; a cloud passed
over her face for a moment, I thought; ‘and you have chosen a very
pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it
will be your pleasure too--of course I know that; I am not delivering
a lecture--to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has,
and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop
in her, if you can. And if you cannot, child,’ here my aunt rubbed her
nose, ‘you must just accustom yourself to do without ‘em. But remember,
my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are
to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless
you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!’
My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the
blessing.
‘Now,’ said she, ‘light my little lantern, and see me into my bandbox by
the garden path’; for there was a communication between our cottages in
that direction. ‘Give Betsey Trotwood’s love to Blossom, when you come
back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting Betsey up as a
scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the glass, she’s quite grim enough
and gaunt enough in her private capacity!’
With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she was
accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I escorted her
home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light
me back, I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again; but
I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much
impressed--for the first time, in reality--by the conviction that Dora
and I had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one
could assist us, to take much notice of it.
Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now that I
was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been hard-hearted
and she had been naughty; and I said much the same thing in effect, I
believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our first little difference
was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if we lived a
hundred years.
The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of Servants.
Mary Anne’s cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out, to
our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took
him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with
ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who went so mildly,
on receipt of wages, that I was surprised, until I found out about the
tea-spoons, and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my
name of the tradespeople without authority. After an interval of Mrs.
Kidgerbury--the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went
out charing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that
art--we found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of
women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the
kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour,
as into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this
unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with
intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; terminating
in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in
Dora’s bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but an average equality of
failure.
Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our appearance
in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out
immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat
turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves.
In search of the principle on which joints ought to be roasted, to be
roasted enough, and not too much, I myself referred to the Cookery Book,
and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour
to every pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always failed
us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between
redness and cinders.
I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred
a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. It
appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen’s books, as if we might
have kept the basement storey paved with butter, such was the extensive
scale of our consumption of that article. I don’t know whether the
Excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the
demand for pepper; but if our performances did not affect the market,
I should say several families must have left off using it. And the most
wonderful fact of all was, that we never had anything in the house.
As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of
penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have happened
several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine,
and perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I apprehend that we were
personally fortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials,
who swelled our running account for porter at the public-house by such
inexplicable items as ‘quartern rum shrub (Mrs. C.)’; ‘Half-quartern
gin and cloves (Mrs. C.)’; ‘Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)’--the
parentheses always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on
explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments.
One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to
Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me that
afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I would bring
him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic
happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was very full of it; and
said, that, picturing himself with such a home, and Sophy waiting and
preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete his
bliss.
I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end
of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat down, for a
little more room. I did not know how it was, but though there were only
two of us, we were at once always cramped for room, and yet had always
room enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been because
nothing had a place of its own, except Jip’s pagoda, which invariably
blocked up the main thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles
was so hemmed in by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and Dora’s
flower-painting, and my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the
possibility of his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his
own good-humour, ‘Oceans of room, Copperfield! I assure you, Oceans!’
There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had never
been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. I began to
think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even
if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the
melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced
expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked at my old friend, and
made short runs at his plate, with such undaunted pertinacity, that he
may be said to have engrossed the conversation.
However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how
sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted no
objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing
plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable appearance of the castors,
which were all at sixes and sevens, and looked drunk; or to the further
blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. I could
not help wondering in my own mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of
mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pass that
our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes--and whether our
butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world;
but I kept my reflections to myself.
‘My love,’ said I to Dora, ‘what have you got in that dish?’
I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at
me, as if she wanted to kiss me.
‘Oysters, dear,’ said Dora, timidly.
‘Was that YOUR thought?’ said I, delighted.
‘Ye-yes, Doady,’ said Dora.
‘There never was a happier one!’ I exclaimed, laying down the
carving-knife and fork. ‘There is nothing Traddles likes so much!’
‘Ye-yes, Doady,’ said Dora, ‘and so I bought a beautiful little barrel
of them, and the man said they were very good. But I--I am afraid
there’s something the matter with them. They don’t seem right.’ Here
Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes.
‘They are only opened in both shells,’ said I. ‘Take the top one off, my
love.’
‘But it won’t come off!’ said Dora, trying very hard, and looking very
much distressed.
‘Do you know, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, cheerfully examining the
dish, ‘I think it is in consequence--they are capital oysters, but I
think it is in consequence--of their never having been opened.’
They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives--and couldn’t
have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and ate the
mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with
capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have
made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat, to
express enjoyment of the repast; but I would hear of no such immolation
on the altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon instead; there
happening, by good fortune, to be cold bacon in the larder.
My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be
annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the
discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and we passed a happy
evening; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I
discussed a glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering
in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross old boy. By
and by she made tea for us; which it was so pretty to see her do, as if
she was busying herself with a set of doll’s tea-things, that I was not
particular about the quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played
a game or two at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while,
it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream
of mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet
over.
When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlour from seeing
him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat down by my
side. ‘I am very sorry,’ she said. ‘Will you try to teach me, Doady?’
‘I must teach myself first, Dora,’ said I. ‘I am as bad as you, love.’
‘Ah! But you can learn,’ she returned; ‘and you are a clever, clever
man!’
‘Nonsense, mouse!’ said I.
‘I wish,’ resumed my wife, after a long silence, ‘that I could have gone
down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes!’
Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them,
and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine.
‘Why so?’ I asked.
‘I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learned
from her,’ said Dora.
‘All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for
these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a child,
she was the Agnes whom we know,’ said I.
‘Will you call me a name I want you to call me?’ inquired Dora, without
moving.
‘What is it?’ I asked with a smile.
‘It’s a stupid name,’ she said, shaking her curls for a moment.
‘Child-wife.’
I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so
called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I twined
about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me:
‘I don’t mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name instead
of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you are
going to be angry with me, say to yourself, “it’s only my child-wife!”
When I am very disappointing, say, “I knew, a long time ago, that she
would make but a child-wife!” When you miss what I should like to be,
and I think can never be, say, “still my foolish child-wife loves me!”
For indeed I do.’
I had not been serious with her; having no idea until now, that she was
serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now
said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one
before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife indeed;
sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese House, ringing all
the little bells one after another, to punish Jip for his recent bad
behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even
too lazy to be teased.
This appeal of Dora’s made a strong impression on me. I look back on the
time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved, to
come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle
head towards me once again; and I can still declare that this one little
speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have used it to the best
account; I was young and inexperienced; but I never turned a deaf ear to
its artless pleading.
Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful
housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil,
bought an immense account-book, carefully stitched up with a needle and
thread all the leaves of the Cookery Book which Jip had torn, and made
quite a desperate little attempt ‘to be good’, as she called it. But the
figures had the old obstinate propensity--they WOULD NOT add up. When
she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip
would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her
own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink;
and I think that was the only decided result obtained.
Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work--for I wrote
a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as a
writer--I would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife trying to be
good. First of all, she would bring out the immense account-book, and
lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh. Then she would open it at
the place where Jip had made it illegible last night, and call Jip
up, to look at his misdeeds. This would occasion a diversion in Jip’s
favour, and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. Then she
would tell Jip to lie down on the table instantly, ‘like a lion’--which
was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was
striking--and, if he were in an obedient humour, he would obey. Then she
would take up a pen, and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then
she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and find that it
spluttered. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and
say in a low voice, ‘Oh, it’s a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!’
And then she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book
away, after pretending to crush the lion with it.
Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would
sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and other
documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything else, and
endeavour to get some result out of them. After severely comparing one
with another, and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them
out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again,
backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed and discouraged, and
would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to see her bright face
clouded--and for me!--and I would go softly to her, and say:
‘What’s the matter, Dora?’
Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, ‘They won’t come right. They
make my head ache so. And they won’t do anything I want!’
Then I would say, ‘Now let us try together. Let me show you, Dora.’
Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora would pay
profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she would begin to be
dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my hair,
or trying the effect of my face with my shirt-collar turned down. If
I tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so
scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that
the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her
path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me;
and I would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar.
I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the same
considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure, now,
that it was right to do this, but I did it for my child-wife’s sake. I
search my breast, and I commit its secrets, if I know them, without any
reservation to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something
had, I am conscious, some place in my heart; but not to the embitterment
of my life. When I walked alone in the fine weather, and thought of the
summer days when all the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment,
I did miss something of the realization of my dreams; but I thought it
was a softened glory of the Past, which nothing could have thrown upon
the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I
could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more character
and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with
power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but
I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that
never had been meant to be, and never could have been.
I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening influence
of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves.
If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love,
and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me
nothing to extenuate it now.
Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life,
and had no partner in them. We lived much as before, in reference to our
scrambling household arrangements; but I had got used to those, and Dora
I was pleased to see was seldom vexed now. She was bright and cheerful
in the old childish way, loved me dearly, and was happy with her old
trifles.
When the debates were heavy--I mean as to length, not quality, for in
the last respect they were not often otherwise--and I went home late,
Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would always come
downstairs to meet me. When my evenings were unoccupied by the pursuit
for which I had qualified myself with so much pains, and I was engaged
in writing at home, she would sit quietly near me, however late the
hour, and be so mute, that I would often think she had dropped asleep.
But generally, when I raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me
with the quiet attention of which I have already spoken.
‘Oh, what a weary boy!’ said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as I
was shutting up my desk.
‘What a weary girl!’ said I. ‘That’s more to the purpose. You must go to
bed another time, my love. It’s far too late for you.’
‘No, don’t send me to bed!’ pleaded Dora, coming to my side. ‘Pray,
don’t do that!’
‘Dora!’ To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. ‘Not well, my dear!
not happy!’
‘Yes! quite well, and very happy!’ said Dora. ‘But say you’ll let me
stop, and see you write.’
‘Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!’ I replied.
‘Are they bright, though?’ returned Dora, laughing. ‘I’m so glad they’re
bright.’ ‘Little Vanity!’ said I.
But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. I
knew that very well, before she told me so.
‘If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you write!’
said Dora. ‘Do you think them pretty?’
‘Very pretty.’
‘Then let me always stop and see you write.’
‘I am afraid that won’t improve their brightness, Dora.’
‘Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you’ll not forget me then, while
you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say something
very, very silly?---more than usual?’ inquired Dora, peeping over my
shoulder into my face.
‘What wonderful thing is that?’ said I.
‘Please let me hold the pens,’ said Dora. ‘I want to have something to
do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I hold the
pens?’
The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into my
eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards,
she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her
triumph in this connexion with my work, and her delight when I wanted a
new pen--which I very often feigned to do--suggested to me a new way of
pleasing my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretence of wanting a
page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The
preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the
bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she
took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if
he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless
she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it
to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round
the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear
to other men.
She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about
the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her slender
waist. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged were
locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Jip--but
Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a
good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping; and was as
merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house, for a joke.
So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me,
and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was ‘a cross old
thing’. I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone. She
courted Jip, though Jip never responded; listened, day after day, to the
guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked
the Incapables, though the temptation must have been severe; went
wonderful distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that
she found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed
her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in
a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house:
‘Where’s Little Blossom?’
CHAPTER 45. MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT’S PREDICTIONS
It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his
neighbourhood, I saw him frequently; and we all went to his house on two
or three occasions to dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in permanent
quarters under the Doctor’s roof. She was exactly the same as ever, and
the same immortal butterflies hovered over her cap.
Like some other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my life,
Mrs. Markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was.
She required a great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier,
pretended, in consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself
to her child. The Doctor’s desire that Annie should be entertained,
was therefore particularly acceptable to this excellent parent; who
expressed unqualified approval of his discretion.
I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor’s wound without
knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and
selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think she
confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his young
wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by so
strongly commending his design of lightening the load of her life.
‘My dear soul,’ she said to him one day when I was present, ‘you know
there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for Annie to be always shut
up here.’
The Doctor nodded his benevolent head. ‘When she comes to her mother’s
age,’ said Mrs. Markleham, with a flourish of her fan, ‘then it’ll be
another thing. You might put ME into a Jail, with genteel society and
a rubber, and I should never care to come out. But I am not Annie, you
know; and Annie is not her mother.’
‘Surely, surely,’ said the Doctor.
‘You are the best of creatures--no, I beg your pardon!’ for the Doctor
made a gesture of deprecation, ‘I must say before your face, as I always
say behind your back, you are the best of creatures; but of course you
don’t--now do you?---enter into the same pursuits and fancies as Annie?’
‘No,’ said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone.
‘No, of course not,’ retorted the Old Soldier. ‘Take your Dictionary,
for example. What a useful work a Dictionary is! What a necessary work!
The meanings of words! Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that sort,
we might have been at this present moment calling an Italian-iron,
a bedstead. But we can’t expect a Dictionary--especially when it’s
making--to interest Annie, can we?’
The Doctor shook his head.
‘And that’s why I so much approve,’ said Mrs. Markleham, tapping him
on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, ‘of your thoughtfulness. It shows
that you don’t expect, as many elderly people do expect, old heads on
young shoulders. You have studied Annie’s character, and you understand
it. That’s what I find so charming!’
Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some little
sense of pain, I thought, under the infliction of these compliments.
‘Therefore, my dear Doctor,’ said the Old Soldier, giving him several
affectionate taps, ‘you may command me, at all times and seasons. Now,
do understand that I am entirely at your service. I am ready to go with
Annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places; and you
shall never find that I am tired. Duty, my dear Doctor, before every
consideration in the universe!’
She was as good as her word. She was one of those people who can bear
a great deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance
in the cause. She seldom got hold of the newspaper (which she settled
herself down in the softest chair in the house to read through an
eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but she found out something that
she was certain Annie would like to see. It was in vain for Annie to
protest that she was weary of such things. Her mother’s remonstrance
always was, ‘Now, my dear Annie, I am sure you know better; and I must
tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the
kindness of Doctor Strong.’
This was usually said in the Doctor’s presence, and appeared to me to
constitute Annie’s principal inducement for withdrawing her objections
when she made any. But in general she resigned herself to her mother,
and went where the Old Soldier would.
It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Sometimes
my aunt and Dora were invited to do so, and accepted the invitation.
Sometimes Dora only was asked. The time had been, when I should have
been uneasy in her going; but reflection on what had passed that
former night in the Doctor’s study, had made a change in my mistrust. I
believed that the Doctor was right, and I had no worse suspicions.
My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with
me, and said she couldn’t make it out; she wished they were happier; she
didn’t think our military friend (so she always called the Old Soldier)
mended the matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion, ‘that
if our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give ‘em to
the chimney-sweepers for May-day, it would look like the beginning of
something sensible on her part.’
But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently an
idea in his head, she said; and if he could only once pen it up into a
corner, which was his great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in
some extraordinary manner.
Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy precisely
the same ground in reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed
neither to advance nor to recede. He appeared to have settled into his
original foundation, like a building; and I must confess that my faith
in his ever Moving, was not much greater than if he had been a building.
But one night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put his
head into the parlour, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone out
with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a
significant cough:
‘You couldn’t speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, Trotwood, I
am afraid?’
‘Certainly, Mr. Dick,’ said I; ‘come in!’
‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his nose,
after he had shaken hands with me. ‘Before I sit down, I wish to make an
observation. You know your aunt?’
‘A little,’ I replied.
‘She is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir!’
After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself
as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity
than usual, and looked at me.
‘Now, boy,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘I am going to put a question to you.’
‘As many as you please,’ said I.
‘What do you consider me, sir?’ asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms.
‘A dear old friend,’ said I. ‘Thank you, Trotwood,’ returned Mr. Dick,
laughing, and reaching across in high glee to shake hands with me. ‘But
I mean, boy,’ resuming his gravity, ‘what do you consider me in this
respect?’ touching his forehead.
I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word.
‘Weak?’ said Mr. Dick.
‘Well,’ I replied, dubiously. ‘Rather so.’
‘Exactly!’ cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. ‘That
is, Trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of you-know-who’s
head, and put it you know where, there was a--’ Mr. Dick made his two
hands revolve very fast about each other a great number of times, and
then brought them into collision, and rolled them over and over one
another, to express confusion. ‘There was that sort of thing done to me
somehow. Eh?’
I nodded at him, and he nodded back again.
‘In short, boy,’ said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, ‘I am
simple.’
I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me.
‘Yes, I am! She pretends I am not. She won’t hear of it; but I am. I
know I am. If she hadn’t stood my friend, sir, I should have been shut
up, to lead a dismal life these many years. But I’ll provide for her!
I never spend the copying money. I put it in a box. I have made a will.
I’ll leave it all to her. She shall be rich--noble!’
Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He then
folded it up with great care, pressed it smooth between his two hands,
put it in his pocket, and seemed to put my aunt away with it.
‘Now you are a scholar, Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘You are a fine
scholar. You know what a learned man, what a great man, the Doctor is.
You know what honour he has always done me. Not proud in his wisdom.
Humble, humble--condescending even to poor Dick, who is simple and knows
nothing. I have sent his name up, on a scrap of paper, to the kite,
along the string, when it has been in the sky, among the larks. The kite
has been glad to receive it, sir, and the sky has been brighter with
it.’
I delighted him by saying, most heartily, that the Doctor was deserving
of our best respect and highest esteem.
‘And his beautiful wife is a star,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘A shining star. I
have seen her shine, sir. But,’ bringing his chair nearer, and laying
one hand upon my knee--‘clouds, sir--clouds.’
I answered the solicitude which his face expressed, by conveying the
same expression into my own, and shaking my head.
‘What clouds?’ said Mr. Dick.
He looked so wistfully into my face, and was so anxious to understand,
that I took great pains to answer him slowly and distinctly, as I might
have entered on an explanation to a child.
‘There is some unfortunate division between them,’ I replied. ‘Some
unhappy cause of separation. A secret. It may be inseparable from the
discrepancy in their years. It may have grown up out of almost nothing.’
Mr. Dick, who had told off every sentence with a thoughtful nod, paused
when I had done, and sat considering, with his eyes upon my face, and
his hand upon my knee.
‘Doctor not angry with her, Trotwood?’ he said, after some time.
‘No. Devoted to her.’
‘Then, I have got it, boy!’ said Mr. Dick.
The sudden exultation with which he slapped me on the knee, and leaned
back in his chair, with his eyebrows lifted up as high as he could
possibly lift them, made me think him farther out of his wits than
ever. He became as suddenly grave again, and leaning forward as before,
said--first respectfully taking out his pocket-handkerchief, as if it
really did represent my aunt:
‘Most wonderful woman in the world, Trotwood. Why has she done nothing
to set things right?’
‘Too delicate and difficult a subject for such interference,’ I replied.
‘Fine scholar,’ said Mr. Dick, touching me with his finger. ‘Why has HE
done nothing?’
‘For the same reason,’ I returned.
‘Then, I have got it, boy!’ said Mr. Dick. And he stood up before me,
more exultingly than before, nodding his head, and striking himself
repeatedly upon the breast, until one might have supposed that he had
nearly nodded and struck all the breath out of his body.
‘A poor fellow with a craze, sir,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘a simpleton, a
weak-minded person--present company, you know!’ striking himself again,
‘may do what wonderful people may not do. I’ll bring them together, boy.
I’ll try. They’ll not blame me. They’ll not object to me. They’ll not
mind what I do, if it’s wrong. I’m only Mr. Dick. And who minds Dick?
Dick’s nobody! Whoo!’ He blew a slight, contemptuous breath, as if he
blew himself away.
It was fortunate he had proceeded so far with his mystery, for we heard
the coach stop at the little garden gate, which brought my aunt and Dora
home.
‘Not a word, boy!’ he pursued in a whisper; ‘leave all the blame with
Dick--simple Dick--mad Dick. I have been thinking, sir, for some time,
that I was getting it, and now I have got it. After what you have said
to me, I am sure I have got it. All right!’ Not another word did Mr.
Dick utter on the subject; but he made a very telegraph of himself for
the next half-hour (to the great disturbance of my aunt’s mind), to
enjoin inviolable secrecy on me.
To my surprise, I heard no more about it for some two or three weeks,
though I was sufficiently interested in the result of his endeavours;
descrying a strange gleam of good sense--I say nothing of good feeling,
for that he always exhibited--in the conclusion to which he had come. At
last I began to believe, that, in the flighty and unsettled state of his
mind, he had either forgotten his intention or abandoned it.
One fair evening, when Dora was not inclined to go out, my aunt and I
strolled up to the Doctor’s cottage. It was autumn, when there were no
debates to vex the evening air; and I remember how the leaves smelt like
our garden at Blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the old,
unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the sighing wind.
It was twilight when we reached the cottage. Mrs. Strong was just coming
out of the garden, where Mr. Dick yet lingered, busy with his knife,
helping the gardener to point some stakes. The Doctor was engaged with
someone in his study; but the visitor would be gone directly, Mrs.
Strong said, and begged us to remain and see him. We went into the
drawing-room with her, and sat down by the darkening window. There was
never any ceremony about the visits of such old friends and neighbours
as we were.
We had not sat here many minutes, when Mrs. Markleham, who usually
contrived to be in a fuss about something, came bustling in, with her
newspaper in her hand, and said, out of breath, ‘My goodness gracious,
Annie, why didn’t you tell me there was someone in the Study!’
‘My dear mama,’ she quietly returned, ‘how could I know that you desired
the information?’
‘Desired the information!’ said Mrs. Markleham, sinking on the sofa. ‘I
never had such a turn in all my life!’
‘Have you been to the Study, then, mama?’ asked Annie.
‘BEEN to the Study, my dear!’ she returned emphatically. ‘Indeed I have!
I came upon the amiable creature--if you’ll imagine my feelings, Miss
Trotwood and David--in the act of making his will.’
Her daughter looked round from the window quickly.
‘In the act, my dear Annie,’ repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the
newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it,
‘of making his last Will and Testament. The foresight and affection of
the dear! I must tell you how it was. I really must, in justice to the
darling--for he is nothing less!--tell you how it was. Perhaps you know,
Miss Trotwood, that there is never a candle lighted in this house, until
one’s eyes are literally falling out of one’s head with being stretched
to read the paper. And that there is not a chair in this house, in which
a paper can be what I call, read, except one in the Study. This took me
to the Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with
the dear Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with
the law, and they were all three standing at the table: the
darling Doctor pen in hand. “This simply expresses then,” said the
Doctor--Annie, my love, attend to the very words--“this simply expresses
then, gentlemen, the confidence I have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all
unconditionally?” One of the professional people replied, “And gives her
all unconditionally.” Upon that, with the natural feelings of a mother,
I said, “Good God, I beg your pardon!” fell over the door-step, and came
away through the little back passage where the pantry is.’
Mrs. Strong opened the window, and went out into the verandah, where she
stood leaning against a pillar.
‘But now isn’t it, Miss Trotwood, isn’t it, David, invigorating,’ said
Mrs. Markleham, mechanically following her with her eyes, ‘to find a man
at Doctor Strong’s time of life, with the strength of mind to do this
kind of thing? It only shows how right I was. I said to Annie, when
Doctor Strong paid a very flattering visit to myself, and made her the
subject of a declaration and an offer, I said, “My dear, there is no
doubt whatever, in my opinion, with reference to a suitable provision
for you, that Doctor Strong will do more than he binds himself to do.”’
Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors’ feet as they
went out.
‘It’s all over, no doubt,’ said the Old Soldier, after listening; ‘the
dear creature has signed, sealed, and delivered, and his mind’s at rest.
Well it may be! What a mind! Annie, my love, I am going to the Study
with my paper, for I am a poor creature without news. Miss Trotwood,
David, pray come and see the Doctor.’
I was conscious of Mr. Dick’s standing in the shadow of the room,
shutting up his knife, when we accompanied her to the Study; and of my
aunt’s rubbing her nose violently, by the way, as a mild vent for her
intolerance of our military friend; but who got first into the Study, or
how Mrs. Markleham settled herself in a moment in her easy-chair, or how
my aunt and I came to be left together near the door (unless her eyes
were quicker than mine, and she held me back), I have forgotten, if I
ever knew. But this I know,--that we saw the Doctor before he saw us,
sitting at his table, among the folio volumes in which he delighted,
resting his head calmly on his hand. That, in the same moment, we saw
Mrs. Strong glide in, pale and trembling. That Mr. Dick supported her on
his arm. That he laid his other hand upon the Doctor’s arm, causing him
to look up with an abstracted air. That, as the Doctor moved his head,
his wife dropped down on one knee at his feet, and, with her hands
imploringly lifted, fixed upon his face the memorable look I had never
forgotten. That at this sight Mrs. Markleham dropped the newspaper,
and stared more like a figure-head intended for a ship to be called The
Astonishment, than anything else I can think of.
The gentleness of the Doctor’s manner and surprise, the dignity that
mingled with the supplicating attitude of his wife, the amiable concern
of Mr. Dick, and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself,
‘That man mad!’ (triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she
had saved him)--I see and hear, rather than remember, as I write about
it.
‘Doctor!’ said Mr. Dick. ‘What is it that’s amiss? Look here!’
‘Annie!’ cried the Doctor. ‘Not at my feet, my dear!’
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘I beg and pray that no one will leave the room! Oh, my
husband and father, break this long silence. Let us both know what it is
that has come between us!’
Mrs. Markleham, by this time recovering the power of speech, and seeming
to swell with family pride and motherly indignation, here exclaimed,
‘Annie, get up immediately, and don’t disgrace everybody belonging to
you by humbling yourself like that, unless you wish to see me go out of
my mind on the spot!’
‘Mama!’ returned Annie. ‘Waste no words on me, for my appeal is to my
husband, and even you are nothing here.’
‘Nothing!’ exclaimed Mrs. Markleham. ‘Me, nothing! The child has taken
leave of her senses. Please to get me a glass of water!’
I was too attentive to the Doctor and his wife, to give any heed to this
request; and it made no impression on anybody else; so Mrs. Markleham
panted, stared, and fanned herself.
‘Annie!’ said the Doctor, tenderly taking her in his hands. ‘My dear!
If any unavoidable change has come, in the sequence of time, upon our
married life, you are not to blame. The fault is mine, and only mine.
There is no change in my affection, admiration, and respect. I wish to
make you happy. I truly love and honour you. Rise, Annie, pray!’
But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she sank
down closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head
upon it, said:
‘If I have any friend here, who can speak one word for me, or for my
husband in this matter; if I have any friend here, who can give a voice
to any suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to me; if I have
any friend here, who honours my husband, or has ever cared for me, and
has anything within his knowledge, no matter what it is, that may help
to mediate between us, I implore that friend to speak!’
There was a profound silence. After a few moments of painful hesitation,
I broke the silence.
‘Mrs. Strong,’ I said, ‘there is something within my knowledge, which
I have been earnestly entreated by Doctor Strong to conceal, and have
concealed until tonight. But, I believe the time has come when it would
be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer, and when your
appeal absolves me from his injunction.’
She turned her face towards me for a moment, and I knew that I was
right. I could not have resisted its entreaty, if the assurance that it
gave me had been less convincing.
‘Our future peace,’ she said, ‘may be in your hands. I trust it
confidently to your not suppressing anything. I know beforehand that
nothing you, or anyone, can tell me, will show my husband’s noble heart
in any other light than one. Howsoever it may seem to you to touch me,
disregard that. I will speak for myself, before him, and before God
afterwards.’
Thus earnestly besought, I made no reference to the Doctor for his
permission, but, without any other compromise of the truth than a little
softening of the coarseness of Uriah Heep, related plainly what had
passed in that same room that night. The staring of Mrs. Markleham
during the whole narration, and the shrill, sharp interjections with
which she occasionally interrupted it, defy description.
When I had finished, Annie remained, for some few moments, silent, with
her head bent down, as I have described. Then, she took the Doctor’s
hand (he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had entered the
room), and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick softly
raised her; and she stood, when she began to speak, leaning on him, and
looking down upon her husband--from whom she never turned her eyes.
‘All that has ever been in my mind, since I was married,’ she said in a
low, submissive, tender voice, ‘I will lay bare before you. I could not
live and have one reservation, knowing what I know now.’
‘Nay, Annie,’ said the Doctor, mildly, ‘I have never doubted you, my
child. There is no need; indeed there is no need, my dear.’
‘There is great need,’ she answered, in the same way, ‘that I should
open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, whom, year
by year, and day by day, I have loved and venerated more and more, as
Heaven knows!’
‘Really,’ interrupted Mrs. Markleham, ‘if I have any discretion at
all--’
[‘Which you haven’t, you Marplot,’ observed my aunt, in an indignant
whisper.) --‘I must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite
to enter into these details.’
‘No one but my husband can judge of that, mama,’ said Annie without
removing her eyes from his face, ‘and he will hear me. If I say anything
to give you pain, mama, forgive me. I have borne pain first, often and
long, myself.’
‘Upon my word!’ gasped Mrs. Markleham.
‘When I was very young,’ said Annie, ‘quite a little child, my first
associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient
friend and teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear
to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without remembering him. He
stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon
them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been
to me, if I had taken them from any other hands.’
‘Makes her mother nothing!’ exclaimed Mrs. Markleham.
‘Not so mama,’ said Annie; ‘but I make him what he was. I must do that.
As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was proud of his
interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked up to
him, I can hardly describe how--as a father, as a guide, as one whose
praise was different from all other praise, as one in whom I could have
trusted and confided, if I had doubted all the world. You know, mama,
how young and inexperienced I was, when you presented him before me, of
a sudden, as a lover.’
‘I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody here!’
said Mrs. Markleham.
[‘Then hold your tongue, for the Lord’s sake, and don’t mention it any
more!’ muttered my aunt.)
‘It was so great a change: so great a loss, I felt it, at first,’ said
Annie, still preserving the same look and tone, ‘that I was agitated
and distressed. I was but a girl; and when so great a change came in the
character in which I had so long looked up to him, I think I was sorry.
But nothing could have made him what he used to be again; and I was
proud that he should think me so worthy, and we were married.’ ‘--At
Saint Alphage, Canterbury,’ observed Mrs. Markleham.
[‘Confound the woman!’ said my aunt, ‘she WON’T be quiet!’)
‘I never thought,’ proceeded Annie, with a heightened colour, ‘of any
worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart had no
room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama, forgive me when
I say that it was you who first presented to my mind the thought that
anyone could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel suspicion.’
‘Me!’ cried Mrs. Markleham.
[‘Ah! You, to be sure!’ observed my aunt, ‘and you can’t fan it away, my
military friend!’)
‘It was the first unhappiness of my new life,’ said Annie. ‘It was the
first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. These moments have
been more, of late, than I can count; but not--my generous husband!--not
for the reason you suppose; for in my heart there is not a thought, a
recollection, or a hope, that any power could separate from you!’
She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful and
true, I thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her, henceforth, as
steadfastly as she on him.
‘Mama is blameless,’ she went on, ‘of having ever urged you for herself,
and she is blameless in intention every way, I am sure,--but when I saw
how many importunate claims were pressed upon you in my name; how you
were traded on in my name; how generous you were, and how Mr. Wickfield,
who had your welfare very much at heart, resented it; the first sense
of my exposure to the mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought--and
sold to you, of all men on earth--fell upon me like unmerited disgrace,
in which I forced you to participate. I cannot tell you what it
was--mama cannot imagine what it was--to have this dread and trouble
always on my mind, yet know in my own soul that on my marriage-day I
crowned the love and honour of my life!’
‘A specimen of the thanks one gets,’ cried Mrs. Markleham, in tears,
‘for taking care of one’s family! I wish I was a Turk!’
[‘I wish you were, with all my heart--and in your native country!’ said
my aunt.)
‘It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin
Maldon. I had liked him’: she spoke softly, but without any hesitation:
‘very much. We had been little lovers once. If circumstances had not
happened otherwise, I might have come to persuade myself that I really
loved him, and might have married him, and been most wretched. There can
be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’
I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to
what followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some strange
application that I could not divine. ‘There can be no disparity in
marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose’--‘no disparity in
marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’
‘There is nothing,’ said Annie, ‘that we have in common. I have long
found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband for no
more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him for having
saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my undisciplined heart.’
She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an earnestness
that thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as quiet as before.
‘When he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so freely
bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the mercenary shape
I was made to wear, I thought it would have become him better to have
worked his own way on. I thought that if I had been he, I would have
tried to do it, at the cost of almost any hardship. But I thought no
worse of him, until the night of his departure for India. That night I
knew he had a false and thankless heart. I saw a double meaning, then,
in Mr. Wickfield’s scrutiny of me. I perceived, for the first time, the
dark suspicion that shadowed my life.’
‘Suspicion, Annie!’ said the Doctor. ‘No, no, no!’
‘In your mind there was none, I know, my husband!’ she returned. ‘And
when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of shame and
grief, and knew that I had to tell that, underneath your roof, one of my
own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for the love of me, had
spoken to me words that should have found no utterance, even if I had
been the weak and mercenary wretch he thought me--my mind revolted from
the taint the very tale conveyed. It died upon my lips, and from that
hour till now has never passed them.’
Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy-chair; and
retired behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any more.
‘I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him from
that time; then, only when it has been necessary for the avoidance of
this explanation. Years have passed since he knew, from me, what his
situation here was. The kindnesses you have secretly done for his
advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my surprise and pleasure,
have been, you will believe, but aggravations of the unhappiness and
burden of my secret.’
She sunk down gently at the Doctor’s feet, though he did his utmost to
prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face:
‘Do not speak to me yet! Let me say a little more! Right or wrong, if
this were to be done again, I think I should do just the same. You never
can know what it was to be devoted to you, with those old associations;
to find that anyone could be so hard as to suppose that the truth of my
heart was bartered away, and to be surrounded by appearances confirming
that belief. I was very young, and had no adviser. Between mama and
me, in all relating to you, there was a wide division. If I shrunk into
myself, hiding the disrespect I had undergone, it was because I honoured
you so much, and so much wished that you should honour me!’
‘Annie, my pure heart!’ said the Doctor, ‘my dear girl!’
‘A little more! a very few words more! I used to think there were so
many whom you might have married, who would not have brought such charge
and trouble on you, and who would have made your home a worthier home. I
used to be afraid that I had better have remained your pupil, and almost
your child. I used to fear that I was so unsuited to your learning and
wisdom. If all this made me shrink within myself (as indeed it did),
when I had that to tell, it was still because I honoured you so much,
and hoped that you might one day honour me.’
‘That day has shone this long time, Annie,’ said the Doctor, ‘and can
have but one long night, my dear.’
‘Another word! I afterwards meant--steadfastly meant, and purposed to
myself--to bear the whole weight of knowing the unworthiness of one
to whom you had been so good. And now a last word, dearest and best of
friends! The cause of the late change in you, which I have seen with
so much pain and sorrow, and have sometimes referred to my old
apprehension--at other times to lingering suppositions nearer to the
truth--has been made clear tonight; and by an accident I have also come
to know, tonight, the full measure of your noble trust in me, even
under that mistake. I do not hope that any love and duty I may render in
return, will ever make me worthy of your priceless confidence; but with
all this knowledge fresh upon me, I can lift my eyes to this dear
face, revered as a father’s, loved as a husband’s, sacred to me in
my childhood as a friend’s, and solemnly declare that in my lightest
thought I have never wronged you; never wavered in the love and the
fidelity I owe you!’
She had her arms around the Doctor’s neck, and he leant his head down
over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses.
‘Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband! Never cast me out! Do not think
or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except in all my
many imperfections. Every succeeding year I have known this better, as I
have esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to your heart, my husband,
for my love was founded on a rock, and it endures!’
In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick,
without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss.
And it was very fortunate, with a view to his credit, that she did so;
for I am confident that I detected him at that moment in the act of
making preparations to stand on one leg, as an appropriate expression of
delight.
‘You are a very remarkable man, Dick!’ said my aunt, with an air of
unqualified approbation; ‘and never pretend to be anything else, for I
know better!’
With that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and we
three stole quietly out of the room, and came away.
‘That’s a settler for our military friend, at any rate,’ said my aunt,
on the way home. ‘I should sleep the better for that, if there was
nothing else to be glad of!’
‘She was quite overcome, I am afraid,’ said Mr. Dick, with great
commiseration.
‘What! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?’ inquired my aunt.
‘I don’t think I ever saw a crocodile,’ returned Mr. Dick, mildly.
‘There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn’t been for
that old Animal,’ said my aunt, with strong emphasis. ‘It’s very much
to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after
marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. They seem to think the
only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young
woman into the world--God bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought,
or wanted to come!--is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What
are you thinking of, Trot?’
I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running on
some of the expressions used. ‘There can be no disparity in marriage
like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ ‘The first mistaken impulse of
an undisciplined heart.’ ‘My love was founded on a rock.’ But we were at
home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind
was blowing.
CHAPTER 46. INTELLIGENCE
I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for
dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a
solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing--for my success
had steadily increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at
that time upon my first work of fiction--I came past Mrs. Steerforth’s
house. I had often passed it before, during my residence in that
neighbourhood, though never when I could choose another road. Howbeit,
it did sometimes happen that it was not easy to find another, without
making a long circuit; and so I had passed that way, upon the whole,
pretty often.
I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a
quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the best
rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned
windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very dismal,
close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. There was a covered
way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never used; and
there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the
only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look.
I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had
been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some
childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge
of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should
have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say.
As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could not
go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long
train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular evening that
I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies,
the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments
dimly seen and understood, the blending of experience and imagination,
incidental to the occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it
was more than commonly suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I walked
on, and a voice at my side made me start.
It was a woman’s voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs.
Steerforth’s little parlour-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in
her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to
the altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate
bows of sober brown.
‘If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak
to Miss Dartle?’
‘Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?’ I inquired.
‘Not tonight, sir, but it’s just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass a
night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I
saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her.’
I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how Mrs.
Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room
a good deal.
When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the
garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was
sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great
city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as
I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some
larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no
inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman.
She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I thought
her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had seen her last;
the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer.
Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last occasion;
and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to
conceal.
‘I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,’ said I, standing near
her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture
of invitation to sit down.
‘If you please,’ said she. ‘Pray has this girl been found?’
‘No.’
‘And yet she has run away!’
I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were
eager to load her with reproaches.
‘Run away?’ I repeated.
‘Yes! From him,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘If she is not found, perhaps
she never will be found. She may be dead!’
The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw expressed
in any other face that ever I have seen.
‘To wish her dead,’ said I, ‘may be the kindest wish that one of her own
sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened you so much,
Miss Dartle.’
She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another
scornful laugh, said:
‘The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends
of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish
to know what is known of her?’
‘Yes,’ said I.
She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards
a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a
kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, ‘Come here!’--as if she were
calling to some unclean beast.
‘You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this
place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?’ said she, looking over her shoulder
at me with the same expression.
I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, ‘Come
here!’ again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer,
who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his
position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which,
strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with
which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was
worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend.
‘Now,’ said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching
the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure
rather than pain. ‘Tell Mr. Copperfield about the flight.’
‘Mr. James and myself, ma’am--’
‘Don’t address yourself to me!’ she interrupted with a frown.
‘Mr. James and myself, sir--’
‘Nor to me, if you please,’ said I.
Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight
obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most
agreeable to him; and began again.
‘Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever
since she left Yarmouth under Mr. James’s protection. We have been in a
variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in
France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts.’
He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to
that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking
chords upon a dumb piano.
‘Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more
settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I have
been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and spoke the
languages; and wouldn’t have been known for the same country-person. I
noticed that she was much admired wherever we went.’
Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at her,
and slightly smile to himself.
‘Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress;
what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with
this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice.’
He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant
prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth.
Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the
other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with
his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a
little on one side:
‘The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being
occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr.
James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and
things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again.
The more restless he got, the worse she got; and I must say, for myself,
that I had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two. Still
matters were patched up here, and made good there, over and over again;
and altogether lasted, I am sure, for a longer time than anybody could
have expected.’
Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with
her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a
respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on:
‘At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and
reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of
Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to
the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in
charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all
concerned, he was’--here an interruption of the short cough--‘gone. But
Mr. James, I must say, certainly did behave extremely honourable; for
he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person,
who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as
good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular way:
her connexions being very common.’
He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that the
scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected in Miss
Dartle’s face.
‘This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do
anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore
harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone
so much on his account. Therefore I undertook the commission. The
young woman’s violence when she came to, after I broke the fact of his
departure, was beyond all expectations. She was quite mad, and had to
be held by force; or, if she couldn’t have got to a knife, or got to the
sea, she’d have beaten her head against the marble floor.’
Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in
her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered.
‘But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to me,’
said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands uneasily, ‘which anybody might
have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a kind
intention, then the young woman came out in her true colours. A more
outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct was surprisingly bad. She
had no more gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no more reason
in her, than a stock or a stone. If I hadn’t been upon my guard, I am
convinced she would have had my blood.’
‘I think the better of her for it,’ said I, indignantly.
Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, ‘Indeed, sir? But you’re
young!’ and resumed his narrative.
‘It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh
her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and
to shut her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out in the night;
forced the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up myself; dropped on
a vine that was trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to
my knowledge, since.’
‘She is dead, perhaps,’ said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she could
have spurned the body of the ruined girl.
‘She may have drowned herself, miss,’ returned Mr. Littimer, catching at
an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. ‘It’s very possible. Or,
she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen’s wives
and children. Being given to low company, she was very much in the
habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle, and sitting by their
boats. I have known her do it, when Mr. James has been away, whole days.
Mr. James was far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the
children she was a boatman’s daughter, and that in her own country, long
ago, she had roamed about the beach, like them.’
Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her sitting
on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was
innocent, listening to little voices such as might have called her
Mother had she been a poor man’s wife; and to the great voice of the
sea, with its eternal ‘Never more!’
‘When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle--’
‘Did I tell you not to speak to me?’ she said, with stern contempt.
‘You spoke to me, miss,’ he replied. ‘I beg your pardon. But it is my
service to obey.’
‘Do your service,’ she returned. ‘Finish your story, and go!’
‘When it was clear,’ he said, with infinite respectability and an
obedient bow, ‘that she was not to be found, I went to Mr. James, at the
place where it had been agreed that I should write to him, and informed
him of what had occurred. Words passed between us in consequence, and
I felt it due to my character to leave him. I could bear, and I have
borne, a great deal from Mr. James; but he insulted me too far. He hurt
me. Knowing the unfortunate difference between himself and his mother,
and what her anxiety of mind was likely to be, I took the liberty of
coming home to England, and relating--’
‘For money which I paid him,’ said Miss Dartle to me.
‘Just so, ma’am--and relating what I knew. I am not aware,’ said Mr.
Littimer, after a moment’s reflection, ‘that there is anything else.
I am at present out of employment, and should be happy to meet with a
respectable situation.’
Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there were
anything that I desired to ask. As there was something which had
occurred to my mind, I said in reply:
‘I could wish to know from this--creature,’ I could not bring myself
to utter any more conciliatory word, ‘whether they intercepted a letter
that was written to her from home, or whether he supposes that she
received it.’
He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and the
tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip
of every finger of his left.
Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him.
‘I beg your pardon, miss,’ he said, awakening from his abstraction,
‘but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a servant.
Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If Mr. Copperfield
wishes to know anything from me, I take the liberty of reminding Mr.
Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I have a character to
maintain.’
After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, and
said, ‘You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to yourself, if
you choose. What answer do you make?’
‘Sir,’ he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of those
delicate tips, ‘my answer must be qualified; because, to betray Mr.
James’s confidence to his mother, and to betray it to you, are two
different actions. It is not probable, I consider, that Mr. James would
encourage the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and
unpleasantness; but further than that, sir, I should wish to avoid
going.’
‘Is that all?’ inquired Miss Dartle of me.
I indicated that I had nothing more to say. ‘Except,’ I added, as I
saw him moving off, ‘that I understand this fellow’s part in the wicked
story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man who has been
her father from her childhood, I would recommend him to avoid going too
much into public.’
He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened with his usual
repose of manner.
‘Thank you, sir. But you’ll excuse me if I say, sir, that there are
neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that people are
not allowed to take the law into their own hands. If they do, it is
more to their own peril, I believe, than to other people’s. Consequently
speaking, I am not at all afraid of going wherever I may wish, sir.’
With that, he made a polite bow; and, with another to Miss Dartle, went
away through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had come. Miss
Dartle and I regarded each other for a little while in silence; her
manner being exactly what it was, when she had produced the man.
‘He says besides,’ she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, ‘that
his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain; and this done, is away
to gratify his seafaring tastes till he is weary. But this is of no
interest to you. Between these two proud persons, mother and son, there
is a wider breach than before, and little hope of its healing, for they
are one at heart, and time makes each more obstinate and imperious.
Neither is this of any interest to you; but it introduces what I wish to
say. This devil whom you make an angel of. I mean this low girl whom he
picked out of the tide-mud,’ with her black eyes full upon me, and her
passionate finger up, ‘may be alive,--for I believe some common things
are hard to die. If she is, you will desire to have a pearl of such
price found and taken care of. We desire that, too; that he may not
by any chance be made her prey again. So far, we are united in one
interest; and that is why I, who would do her any mischief that so
coarse a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to hear what
you have heard.’
I saw, by the change in her face, that someone was advancing behind me.
It was Mrs. Steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than of yore,
and with an augmentation of her former stateliness of manner, but still,
I perceived--and I was touched by it--with an ineffaceable remembrance
of my old love for her son. She was greatly altered. Her fine figure was
far less upright, her handsome face was deeply marked, and her hair was
almost white. But when she sat down on the seat, she was a handsome lady
still; and well I knew the bright eye with its lofty look, that had been
a light in my very dreams at school.
‘Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything, Rosa?’
‘Yes.’
‘And has he heard Littimer himself?’
‘Yes; I have told him why you wished it.’ ‘You are a good girl. I have
had some slight correspondence with your former friend, sir,’ addressing
me, ‘but it has not restored his sense of duty or natural obligation.
Therefore I have no other object in this, than what Rosa has mentioned.
If, by the course which may relieve the mind of the decent man you
brought here (for whom I am sorry--I can say no more), my son may be
saved from again falling into the snares of a designing enemy, well!’
She drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her, far away.
‘Madam,’ I said respectfully, ‘I understand. I assure you I am in no
danger of putting any strained construction on your motives. But I must
say, even to you, having known this injured family from childhood,
that if you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly
deluded, and would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of
water from your son’s hand now, you cherish a terrible mistake.’
‘Well, Rosa, well!’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other was about to
interpose, ‘it is no matter. Let it be. You are married, sir, I am
told?’
I answered that I had been some time married.
‘And are doing well? I hear little in the quiet life I lead, but I
understand you are beginning to be famous.’
‘I have been very fortunate,’ I said, ‘and find my name connected with
some praise.’
‘You have no mother?’--in a softened voice.
‘No.’
‘It is a pity,’ she returned. ‘She would have been proud of you. Good
night!’
I took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending air, and it
was as calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace. Her pride could
still its very pulses, it appeared, and draw the placid veil before
her face, through which she sat looking straight before her on the far
distance.
As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could not help observing
how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and how it thickened
and closed around them. Here and there, some early lamps were seen to
twinkle in the distant city; and in the eastern quarter of the sky
the lurid light still hovered. But, from the greater part of the broad
valley interposed, a mist was rising like a sea, which, mingling with
the darkness, made it seem as if the gathering waters would encompass
them. I have reason to remember this, and think of it with awe; for
before I looked upon those two again, a stormy sea had risen to their
feet.
Reflecting on what had been thus told me, I felt it right that it should
be communicated to Mr. Peggotty. On the following evening I went into
London in quest of him. He was always wandering about from place to
place, with his one object of recovering his niece before him; but was
more in London than elsewhere. Often and often, now, had I seen him in
the dead of night passing along the streets, searching, among the few
who loitered out of doors at those untimely hours, for what he dreaded
to find.
He kept a lodging over the little chandler’s shop in Hungerford Market,
which I have had occasion to mention more than once, and from which he
first went forth upon his errand of mercy. Hither I directed my walk. On
making inquiry for him, I learned from the people of the house that he
had not gone out yet, and I should find him in his room upstairs.
He was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants. The
room was very neat and orderly. I saw in a moment that it was always
kept prepared for her reception, and that he never went out but he
thought it possible he might bring her home. He had not heard my tap
at the door, and only raised his eyes when I laid my hand upon his
shoulder.
‘Mas’r Davy! Thankee, sir! thankee hearty, for this visit! Sit ye down.
You’re kindly welcome, sir!’
‘Mr. Peggotty,’ said I, taking the chair he handed me, ‘don’t expect
much! I have heard some news.’
‘Of Em’ly!’
He put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth, and turned pale, as
he fixed his eyes on mine.
‘It gives no clue to where she is; but she is not with him.’
He sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in profound silence
to all I had to tell. I well remember the sense of dignity, beauty even,
with which the patient gravity of his face impressed me, when, having
gradually removed his eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, leaning
his forehead on his hand. He offered no interruption, but remained
throughout perfectly still. He seemed to pursue her figure through
the narrative, and to let every other shape go by him, as if it were
nothing.
When I had done, he shaded his face, and continued silent. I looked out
of the window for a little while, and occupied myself with the plants.
‘How do you fare to feel about it, Mas’r Davy?’ he inquired at length.
‘I think that she is living,’ I replied.
‘I doen’t know. Maybe the first shock was too rough, and in the wildness
of her art--! That there blue water as she used to speak on. Could she
have thowt o’ that so many year, because it was to be her grave!’
He said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice; and walked across the
little room.
‘And yet,’ he added, ‘Mas’r Davy, I have felt so sure as she was
living--I have know’d, awake and sleeping, as it was so trew that I
should find her--I have been so led on by it, and held up by it--that I
doen’t believe I can have been deceived. No! Em’ly’s alive!’
He put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his sunburnt face into
a resolute expression.
‘My niece, Em’ly, is alive, sir!’ he said, steadfastly. ‘I doen’t know
wheer it comes from, or how ‘tis, but I am told as she’s alive!’
He looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. I waited for a
few moments, until he could give me his undivided attention; and then
proceeded to explain the precaution, that, it had occurred to me last
night, it would be wise to take.
‘Now, my dear friend--‘I began.
‘Thankee, thankee, kind sir,’ he said, grasping my hand in both of his.
‘If she should make her way to London, which is likely--for where could
she lose herself so readily as in this vast city; and what would she
wish to do, but lose and hide herself, if she does not go home?--’
‘And she won’t go home,’ he interposed, shaking his head mournfully. ‘If
she had left of her own accord, she might; not as It was, sir.’
‘If she should come here,’ said I, ‘I believe there is one person,
here, more likely to discover her than any other in the world. Do
you remember--hear what I say, with fortitude--think of your great
object!--do you remember Martha?’
‘Of our town?’
I needed no other answer than his face.
‘Do you know that she is in London?’
‘I have seen her in the streets,’ he answered, with a shiver.
‘But you don’t know,’ said I, ‘that Emily was charitable to her, with
Ham’s help, long before she fled from home. Nor, that, when we met one
night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the way, she listened
at the door.’
‘Mas’r Davy!’ he replied in astonishment. ‘That night when it snew so
hard?’
‘That night. I have never seen her since. I went back, after parting
from you, to speak to her, but she was gone. I was unwilling to mention
her to you then, and I am now; but she is the person of whom I speak,
and with whom I think we should communicate. Do you understand?’
‘Too well, sir,’ he replied. We had sunk our voices, almost to a
whisper, and continued to speak in that tone.
‘You say you have seen her. Do you think that you could find her? I
could only hope to do so by chance.’
‘I think, Mas’r Davy, I know wheer to look.’
‘It is dark. Being together, shall we go out now, and try to find her
tonight?’
He assented, and prepared to accompany me. Without appearing to observe
what he was doing, I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room,
put a candle ready and the means of lighting it, arranged the bed, and
finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses (I remember to have
seen her wear it), neatly folded with some other garments, and a bonnet,
which he placed upon a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes,
neither did I. There they had been waiting for her, many and many a
night, no doubt.
‘The time was, Mas’r Davy,’ he said, as we came downstairs, ‘when I
thowt this girl, Martha, a’most like the dirt underneath my Em’ly’s
feet. God forgive me, theer’s a difference now!’
As we went along, partly to hold him in conversation, and partly to
satisfy myself, I asked him about Ham. He said, almost in the same words
as formerly, that Ham was just the same, ‘wearing away his life with
kiender no care nohow for ‘t; but never murmuring, and liked by all’.
I asked him what he thought Ham’s state of mind was, in reference to the
cause of their misfortunes? Whether he believed it was dangerous? What
he supposed, for example, Ham would do, if he and Steerforth ever should
encounter?
‘I doen’t know, sir,’ he replied. ‘I have thowt of it oftentimes, but I
can’t awize myself of it, no matters.’
I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when we
were all three on the beach. ‘Do you recollect,’ said I, ‘a certain wild
way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about “the end of it”?’
‘Sure I do!’ said he.
‘What do you suppose he meant?’
‘Mas’r Davy,’ he replied, ‘I’ve put the question to myself a mort o’
times, and never found no answer. And theer’s one curious thing--that,
though he is so pleasant, I wouldn’t fare to feel comfortable to try and
get his mind upon ‘t. He never said a wured to me as warn’t as dootiful
as dootiful could be, and it ain’t likely as he’d begin to speak any
other ways now; but it’s fur from being fleet water in his mind, where
them thowts lays. It’s deep, sir, and I can’t see down.’
‘You are right,’ said I, ‘and that has sometimes made me anxious.’
‘And me too, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined. ‘Even more so, I do assure you,
than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the alteration in him.
I doen’t know as he’d do violence under any circumstances, but I hope as
them two may be kep asunders.’
We had come, through Temple Bar, into the city. Conversing no more now,
and walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim of his
devoted life, and went on, with that hushed concentration of his
faculties which would have made his figure solitary in a multitude.
We were not far from Blackfriars Bridge, when he turned his head and
pointed to a solitary female figure flitting along the opposite side of
the street. I knew it, readily, to be the figure that we sought.
We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred
to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman’s interest in the
lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd,
and where we should be less observed. I advised my companion, therefore,
that we should not address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this,
likewise, an indistinct desire I had, to know where she went.
He acquiescing, we followed at a distance: never losing sight of her,
but never caring to come very near, as she frequently looked about.
Once, she stopped to listen to a band of music; and then we stopped too.
She went on a long way. Still we went on. It was evident, from the
manner in which she held her course, that she was going to some fixed
destination; and this, and her keeping in the busy streets, and I
suppose the strange fascination in the secrecy and mystery of so
following anyone, made me adhere to my first purpose. At length she
turned into a dull, dark street, where the noise and crowd were lost;
and I said, ‘We may speak to her now’; and, mending our pace, we went
after her.
CHAPTER 47. MARTHA
We were now down in Westminster. We had turned back to follow her,
having encountered her coming towards us; and Westminster Abbey was
the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the leading
streets. She proceeded so quickly, when she got free of the two currents
of passengers setting towards and from the bridge, that, between this
and the advance she had of us when she struck off, we were in the narrow
water-side street by Millbank before we came up with her. At that moment
she crossed the road, as if to avoid the footsteps that she heard so
close behind; and, without looking back, passed on even more rapidly.
A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons were
housed for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. I touched my companion
without speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her, and both
followed on that opposite side of the way; keeping as quietly as we
could in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very near her.
There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying street,
a dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete old
ferry-house. Its position is just at that point where the street ceases,
and the road begins to lie between a row of houses and the river. As
soon as she came here, and saw the water, she stopped as if she had come
to her destination; and presently went slowly along by the brink of the
river, looking intently at it.
All the way here, I had supposed that she was going to some house;
indeed, I had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be in
some way associated with the lost girl. But that one dark glimpse of the
river, through the gateway, had instinctively prepared me for her going
no farther.
The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, sad, and
solitary by night, as any about London. There were neither wharves nor
houses on the melancholy waste of road near the great blank Prison. A
sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the prison walls. Coarse grass and
rank weeds straggled over all the marshy land in the vicinity. In one
part, carcases of houses, inauspiciously begun and never finished,
rotted away. In another, the ground was cumbered with rusty iron
monsters of steam-boilers, wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles,
anchors, diving-bells, windmill-sails, and I know not what strange
objects, accumulated by some speculator, and grovelling in the dust,
underneath which--having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet
weather--they had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves.
The clash and glare of sundry fiery Works upon the river-side, arose
by night to disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that
poured out of their chimneys. Slimy gaps and causeways, winding among
old wooden piles, with a sickly substance clinging to the latter, like
green hair, and the rags of last year’s handbills offering rewards for
drowned men fluttering above high-water mark, led down through the ooze
and slush to the ebb-tide. There was a story that one of the pits
dug for the dead in the time of the Great Plague was hereabout; and
a blighting influence seemed to have proceeded from it over the whole
place. Or else it looked as if it had gradually decomposed into that
nightmare condition, out of the overflowings of the polluted stream.
As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to
corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the
river’s brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and
still, looking at the water.
There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these enabled
us to come within a few yards of her without being seen. I then signed
to Mr. Peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged from their shade to
speak to her. I did not approach her solitary figure without trembling;
for this gloomy end to her determined walk, and the way in which she
stood, almost within the cavernous shadow of the iron bridge, looking
at the lights crookedly reflected in the strong tide, inspired a dread
within me.
I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although absorbed in
gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and that she
was muffling her hands in it, in an unsettled and bewildered way, more
like the action of a sleep-walker than a waking person. I know, and
never can forget, that there was that in her wild manner which gave me
no assurance but that she would sink before my eyes, until I had her arm
within my grasp.
At the same moment I said ‘Martha!’
She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such strength
that I doubt if I could have held her alone. But a stronger hand than
mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw
whose it was, she made but one more effort and dropped down between us.
We carried her away from the water to where there were some dry stones,
and there laid her down, crying and moaning. In a little while she sat
among the stones, holding her wretched head with both her hands.
‘Oh, the river!’ she cried passionately. ‘Oh, the river!’
‘Hush, hush!’ said I. ‘Calm yourself.’
But she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, ‘Oh, the
river!’ over and over again.
‘I know it’s like me!’ she exclaimed. ‘I know that I belong to it.
I know that it’s the natural company of such as I am! It comes from
country places, where there was once no harm in it--and it creeps
through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable--and it goes away,
like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled--and I feel that
I must go with it!’ I have never known what despair was, except in the
tone of those words.
‘I can’t keep away from it. I can’t forget it. It haunts me day and
night. It’s the only thing in all the world that I am fit for, or that’s
fit for me. Oh, the dreadful river!’
The thought passed through my mind that in the face of my companion,
as he looked upon her without speech or motion, I might have read his
niece’s history, if I had known nothing of it. I never saw, in any
painting or reality, horror and compassion so impressively blended. He
shook as if he would have fallen; and his hand--I touched it with my
own, for his appearance alarmed me--was deadly cold.
‘She is in a state of frenzy,’ I whispered to him. ‘She will speak
differently in a little time.’
I don’t know what he would have said in answer. He made some motion with
his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken; but he had only pointed to
her with his outstretched hand.
A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid
her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of
humiliation and ruin. Knowing that this state must pass, before we could
speak to her with any hope, I ventured to restrain him when he would
have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she became more
tranquil.
‘Martha,’ said I then, leaning down, and helping her to rise--she seemed
to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, but she was
weak, and leaned against a boat. ‘Do you know who this is, who is with
me?’
She said faintly, ‘Yes.’
‘Do you know that we have followed you a long way tonight?’
She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at me, but stood in
a humble attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand, without
appearing conscious of them, and pressing the other, clenched, against
her forehead.
‘Are you composed enough,’ said I, ‘to speak on the subject which so
interested you--I hope Heaven may remember it!--that snowy night?’
Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate thanks to
me for not having driven her away from the door.
‘I want to say nothing for myself,’ she said, after a few moments. ‘I
am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all. But tell him, sir,’ she had
shrunk away from him, ‘if you don’t feel too hard to me to do it, that
I never was in any way the cause of his misfortune.’ ‘It has never been
attributed to you,’ I returned, earnestly responding to her earnestness.
‘It was you, if I don’t deceive myself,’ she said, in a broken voice,
‘that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity on me; was so
gentle to me; didn’t shrink away from me like all the rest, and gave me
such kind help! Was it you, sir?’
‘It was,’ said I.
‘I should have been in the river long ago,’ she said, glancing at it
with a terrible expression, ‘if any wrong to her had been upon my mind.
I never could have kept out of it a single winter’s night, if I had not
been free of any share in that!’
‘The cause of her flight is too well understood,’ I said. ‘You are
innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe,--we know.’
‘Oh, I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a better
heart!’ exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; ‘for she was
always good to me! She never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant
and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what I am myself,
knowing what I am myself, so well? When I lost everything that makes
life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that I was parted for ever
from her!’
Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, and his
eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face.
‘And when I heard what had happened before that snowy night, from some
belonging to our town,’ cried Martha, ‘the bitterest thought in all my
mind was, that the people would remember she once kept company with me,
and would say I had corrupted her! When, Heaven knows, I would have died
to have brought back her good name!’
Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse and
grief was terrible.
‘To have died, would not have been much--what can I say?---I would
have lived!’ she cried. ‘I would have lived to be old, in the wretched
streets--and to wander about, avoided, in the dark--and to see the day
break on the ghastly line of houses, and remember how the same sun used
to shine into my room, and wake me once--I would have done even that, to
save her!’
Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched them
up, as if she would have ground them. She writhed into some new posture
constantly: stiffening her arms, twisting them before her face, as
though to shut out from her eyes the little light there was, and
drooping her head, as if it were heavy with insupportable recollections.
‘What shall I ever do!’ she said, fighting thus with her despair. ‘How
can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living disgrace to
everyone I come near!’ Suddenly she turned to my companion. ‘Stamp upon
me, kill me! When she was your pride, you would have thought I had
done her harm if I had brushed against her in the street. You can’t
believe--why should you?---a syllable that comes out of my lips. It
would be a burning shame upon you, even now, if she and I exchanged a
word. I don’t complain. I don’t say she and I are alike--I know there
is a long, long way between us. I only say, with all my guilt and
wretchedness upon my head, that I am grateful to her from my soul, and
love her. Oh, don’t think that all the power I had of loving anything is
quite worn out! Throw me away, as all the world does. Kill me for being
what I am, and having ever known her; but don’t think that of me!’
He looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild
distracted manner; and, when she was silent, gently raised her.
‘Martha,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘God forbid as I should judge you. Forbid
as I, of all men, should do that, my girl! You doen’t know half the
change that’s come, in course of time, upon me, when you think it
likely. Well!’ he paused a moment, then went on. ‘You doen’t understand
how ‘tis that this here gentleman and me has wished to speak to you. You
doen’t understand what ‘tis we has afore us. Listen now!’
His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly, before him,
as if she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her passionate sorrow was
quite hushed and mute.
‘If you heerd,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘owt of what passed between Mas’r
Davy and me, th’ night when it snew so hard, you know as I have
been--wheer not--fur to seek my dear niece. My dear niece,’ he repeated
steadily. ‘Fur she’s more dear to me now, Martha, than she was dear
afore.’
She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet.
‘I have heerd her tell,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘as you was early left
fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough
seafaring-way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you’d had such
a friend, you’d have got into a way of being fond of him in course of
time, and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me.’
As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about her,
taking it up from the ground for that purpose.
‘Whereby,’ said he, ‘I know, both as she would go to the wureld’s
furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she would
fly to the wureld’s furdest end to keep off seeing me. For though she
ain’t no call to doubt my love, and doen’t--and doen’t,’ he repeated,
with a quiet assurance of the truth of what he said, ‘there’s shame
steps in, and keeps betwixt us.’
I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself,
new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in every feature
it presented.
‘According to our reckoning,’ he proceeded, ‘Mas’r Davy’s here, and
mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to
London. We believe--Mas’r Davy, me, and all of us--that you are as
innocent of everything that has befell her, as the unborn child. You’ve
spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. Bless her, I knew
she was! I knew she always was, to all. You’re thankful to her, and you
love her. Help us all you can to find her, and may Heaven reward you!’
She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were
doubtful of what he had said.
‘Will you trust me?’ she asked, in a low voice of astonishment.
‘Full and free!’ said Mr. Peggotty.
‘To speak to her, if I should ever find her; shelter her, if I have any
shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge, come to
you, and bring you to her?’ she asked hurriedly.
We both replied together, ‘Yes!’
She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote
herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would never
waver in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it, while there
was any chance of hope. If she were not true to it, might the object
she now had in life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its
passing away from her, leave her more forlorn and more despairing, if
that were possible, than she had been upon the river’s brink that night;
and then might all help, human and Divine, renounce her evermore!
She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but said
this to the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at the
gloomy water.
We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which I recounted
at length. She listened with great attention, and with a face that often
changed, but had the same purpose in all its varying expressions. Her
eyes occasionally filled with tears, but those she repressed. It seemed
as if her spirit were quite altered, and she could not be too quiet.
She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated with, if
occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I wrote our two
addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore out and gave to
her, and which she put in her poor bosom. I asked her where she lived
herself. She said, after a pause, in no place long. It were better not
to know.
Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already occurred
to myself, I took out my purse; but I could not prevail upon her to
accept any money, nor could I exact any promise from her that she would
do so at another time. I represented to her that Mr. Peggotty could
not be called, for one in his condition, poor; and that the idea of her
engaging in this search, while depending on her own resources, shocked
us both. She continued steadfast. In this particular, his influence
upon her was equally powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him but
remained inexorable.
‘There may be work to be got,’ she said. ‘I’ll try.’
‘At least take some assistance,’ I returned, ‘until you have tried.’
‘I could not do what I have promised, for money,’ she replied. ‘I could
not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to take away
your trust, to take away the object that you have given me, to take away
the only certain thing that saves me from the river.’
‘In the name of the great judge,’ said I, ‘before whom you and all of us
must stand at His dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We can all do
some good, if we will.’
She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she
answered:
‘It has been put into your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched creature
for repentance. I am afraid to think so; it seems too bold. If any good
should come of me, I might begin to hope; for nothing but harm has ever
come of my deeds yet. I am to be trusted, for the first time in a long
while, with my miserable life, on account of what you have given me to
try for. I know no more, and I can say no more.’
Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting out
her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there was some
healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. She had been
ill, probably for a long time. I observed, upon that closer opportunity
of observation, that she was worn and haggard, and that her sunken eyes
expressed privation and endurance.
We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same
direction, until we came back into the lighted and populous streets. I
had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that I then put it to
Mr. Peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting
her, to follow her any farther. He being of the same mind, and equally
reliant on her, we suffered her to take her own road, and took ours,
which was towards Highgate. He accompanied me a good part of the way;
and when we parted, with a prayer for the success of this fresh effort,
there was a new and thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no loss
to interpret.
It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate, and
was standing listening for the deep bell of St. Paul’s, the sound
of which I thought had been borne towards me among the multitude of
striking clocks, when I was rather surprised to see that the door of my
aunt’s cottage was open, and that a faint light in the entry was shining
out across the road.
Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms,
and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in
the distance, I went to speak to her. It was with very great surprise
that I saw a man standing in her little garden.
He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. I
stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up now,
though obscured; and I recognized the man whom I had once supposed to be
a delusion of Mr. Dick’s, and had once encountered with my aunt in the
streets of the city.
He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry
appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it were
the first time he had seen it. After stooping to put the bottle on the
ground, he looked up at the windows, and looked about; though with a
covert and impatient air, as if he was anxious to be gone.
The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt came
out. She was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I heard it
chink.
‘What’s the use of this?’ he demanded.
‘I can spare no more,’ returned my aunt.
‘Then I can’t go,’ said he. ‘Here! You may take it back!’
‘You bad man,’ returned my aunt, with great emotion; ‘how can you use me
so? But why do I ask? It is because you know how weak I am! What have
I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but to abandon you to
your deserts?’
‘And why don’t you abandon me to my deserts?’ said he.
‘You ask me why!’ returned my aunt. ‘What a heart you must have!’
He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at
length he said:
‘Is this all you mean to give me, then?’
‘It is all I CAN give you,’ said my aunt. ‘You know I have had losses,
and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so. Having got it, why
do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment, and seeing
what you have become?’
‘I have become shabby enough, if you mean that,’ he said. ‘I lead the
life of an owl.’
‘You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had,’ said my aunt.
‘You closed my heart against the whole world, years and years. You
treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and repent of it.
Don’t add new injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done
me!’
‘Aye!’ he returned. ‘It’s all very fine--Well! I must do the best I can,
for the present, I suppose.’
In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt’s indignant tears,
and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three quick steps,
as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and went in as he came
out. We eyed one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour.
‘Aunt,’ said I, hurriedly. ‘This man alarming you again! Let me speak to
him. Who is he?’
‘Child,’ returned my aunt, taking my arm, ‘come in, and don’t speak to
me for ten minutes.’
We sat down in her little parlour. My aunt retired behind the round
green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a chair, and
occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. Then she
came out, and took a seat beside me.
‘Trot,’ said my aunt, calmly, ‘it’s my husband.’
‘Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead!’
‘Dead to me,’ returned my aunt, ‘but living.’
I sat in silent amazement.
‘Betsey Trotwood don’t look a likely subject for the tender passion,’
said my aunt, composedly, ‘but the time was, Trot, when she believed in
that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, right well. When there
was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have given
him. He repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly breaking her
heart. So she put all that sort of sentiment, once and for ever, in a
grave, and filled it up, and flattened it down.’
‘My dear, good aunt!’
‘I left him,’ my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the back of
mine, ‘generously. I may say at this distance of time, Trot, that I left
him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that I might have effected
a separation on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon made ducks
and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another
woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he
is now, you see. But he was a fine-looking man when I married him,’ said
my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; ‘and
I believed him--I was a fool!--to be the soul of honour!’
She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head.
‘He is nothing to me now, Trot--less than nothing. But, sooner than have
him punished for his offences (as he would be if he prowled about in
this country), I give him more money than I can afford, at intervals
when he reappears, to go away. I was a fool when I married him; and I am
so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what
I once believed him to be, I wouldn’t have even this shadow of my idle
fancy hardly dealt with. For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman
was.’
My aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her dress.
‘There, my dear!’ she said. ‘Now you know the beginning, middle, and
end, and all about it. We won’t mention the subject to one another any
more; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. This is
my grumpy, frumpy story, and we’ll keep it to ourselves, Trot!’
CHAPTER 48. DOMESTIC
I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the
punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very
successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears,
notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of
my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has
always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any
good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the
faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this
reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise
I got, the more I tried to deserve.
It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other essentials
it is my written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. They
express themselves, and I leave them to themselves. When I refer to
them, incidentally, it is only as a part of my progress.
Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and
accident had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with confidence.
Without such assurance I should certainly have left it alone, and
bestowed my energy on some other endeavour. I should have tried to find
out what nature and accident really had made me, and to be that, and
nothing else. I had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere, so
prosperously, that when my new success was achieved, I considered myself
reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. One joyful night,
therefore, I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the
last time, and I have never heard it since; though I still recognize the
old drone in the newspapers, without any substantial variation (except,
perhaps, that there is more of it), all the livelong session.
I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about a year
and a half. After several varieties of experiment, we had given up the
housekeeping as a bad job. The house kept itself, and we kept a page.
The principal function of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook;
in which respect he was a perfect Whittington, without his cat, or the
remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor.
He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. His whole
existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the most improper
occasions,--as when we had a little dinner-party, or a few friends in
the evening,--and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron
missiles flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very
much attached to us, and wouldn’t go. He was a tearful boy, and broke
into such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion
was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. He had no mother--no
anything in the way of a relative, that I could discover, except a
sister, who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her hands;
and he became quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. He had
a lively perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing
his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on
the extreme corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never would
take completely out of his pocket, but always economized and secreted.
This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum,
was a source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as he grew--and
he grew like scarlet beans--with painful apprehensions of the time when
he would begin to shave; even of the days when he would be bald or grey.
I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him; and, projecting myself
into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he
was an old man.
I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate’s manner of
getting me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora’s watch, which, like
everything else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own;
and, converting it into money, spent the produce (he was always a
weak-minded boy) in incessantly riding up and down between London and
Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as well as
I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey; when
four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn’t play, were
found upon his person.
The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable
to me if he had not been penitent. But he was very penitent indeed, and
in a peculiar way--not in the lump, but by instalments. For example:
the day after that on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made
certain revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed
to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and
corks. We supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew
of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a
new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every
morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had been suborned
to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three days more, I was
informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of
sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. A
little while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new direction, and
confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises,
on the part of the pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so
ashamed of being such a victim, that I would have given him any money
to hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being
permitted to run away. It was an aggravating circumstance in the case
that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making me amends
in every new discovery: not to say, heaping obligations on my head.
At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police
approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until
he was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn’t be
quiet, but was always writing us letters; and wanted so much to see Dora
before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she
found herself inside the iron bars. In short, I had no peace of my life
until he was expatriated, and made (as I afterwards heard) a shepherd
of, ‘up the country’ somewhere; I have no geographical idea where.
All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our
mistakes in a new aspect; as I could not help communicating to Dora one
evening, in spite of my tenderness for her.
‘My love,’ said I, ‘it is very painful to me to think that our want of
system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have got
used to), but other people.’
‘You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be
cross!’ said Dora.
‘No, my dear, indeed! Let me explain to you what I mean.’
‘I think I don’t want to know,’ said Dora.
‘But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down.’
Dora put his nose to mine, and said ‘Boh!’ to drive my seriousness away;
but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking at
me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of
countenance.
‘The fact is, my dear,’ I began, ‘there is contagion in us. We infect
everyone about us.’
I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora’s face had not
admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was
going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy,
for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made
my meaning plainer.
‘It is not merely, my pet,’ said I, ‘that we lose money and comfort, and
even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but that we
incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into
our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the
fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out
ill because we don’t turn out very well ourselves.’
‘Oh, what an accusation,’ exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; ‘to say
that you ever saw me take gold watches! Oh!’
‘My dearest,’ I remonstrated, ‘don’t talk preposterous nonsense! Who has
made the least allusion to gold watches?’
‘You did,’ returned Dora. ‘You know you did. You said I hadn’t turned
out well, and compared me to him.’
‘To whom?’ I asked.
‘To the page,’ sobbed Dora. ‘Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your
affectionate wife to a transported page! Why didn’t you tell me
your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn’t you say,
you hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a
transported page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh, my
goodness!’
‘Now, Dora, my love,’ I returned, gently trying to remove the
handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, ‘this is not only very ridiculous
of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it’s not true.’
‘You always said he was a story-teller,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And now you say
the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!’
‘My darling girl,’ I retorted, ‘I really must entreat you to be
reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear Dora,
unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never
learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to
people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were
as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice--which we are
not--even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so--which we
don’t--I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We
are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can’t
help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss,
and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. There, dear, that’s all. Come
now. Don’t be foolish!’
Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief.
She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I was uneasy, why had
I ever been married? Why hadn’t I said, even the day before we went to
church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not? If I
couldn’t bear her, why didn’t I send her away to her aunts at Putney, or
to Julia Mills in India? Julia would be glad to see her, and would not
call her a transported page; Julia never had called her anything of the
sort. In short, Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being
in that condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind of
effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some other course.
What other course was left to take? To ‘form her mind’? This was a
common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and I
resolved to form Dora’s mind.
I began immediately. When Dora was very childish, and I would
have infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave--and
disconcerted her, and myself too. I talked to her on the subjects which
occupied my thoughts; and I read Shakespeare to her--and fatigued her
to the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite
casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion--and she
started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers.
No matter how incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to form my little
wife’s mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive
perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest
apprehensions. In particular, it was clear to me, that she thought
Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly.
I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowledge; and whenever
he came to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the edification of
Dora at second hand. The amount of practical wisdom I bestowed upon
Traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality; but it
had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and make her
always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. I found
myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall; of always
playing spider to Dora’s fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her
infinite disturbance.
Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time
when there should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and when I
should have ‘formed her mind’ to my entire satisfaction, I persevered,
even for months. Finding at last, however, that, although I had been
all this time a very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with
determination, I had effected nothing, it began to occur to me that
perhaps Dora’s mind was already formed.
On further consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned
my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than in
action; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to
try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired
of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under
restraint; so I bought a pretty pair of ear-rings for her, and a collar
for Jip, and went home one day to make myself agreeable.
Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me joyfully; but
there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I had made up my mind
that it should not be there. If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I
would keep it for the future in my own breast.
I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears;
and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company
lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine. Which I sincerely
felt, and which indeed it was.
‘The truth is, Dora, my life,’ I said; ‘I have been trying to be wise.’
‘And to make me wise too,’ said Dora, timidly. ‘Haven’t you, Doady?’
I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and kissed
the parted lips.
‘It’s of not a bit of use,’ said Dora, shaking her head, until the
ear-rings rang again. ‘You know what a little thing I am, and what I
wanted you to call me from the first. If you can’t do so, I am afraid
you’ll never like me. Are you sure you don’t think, sometimes, it would
have been better to have--’
‘Done what, my dear?’ For she made no effort to proceed.
‘Nothing!’ said Dora.
‘Nothing?’ I repeated.
She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her
favourite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a
profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see
it.
‘Don’t I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than to
have tried to form my little wife’s mind?’ said I, laughing at myself.
‘Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do.’
‘Is that what you have been trying?’ cried Dora. ‘Oh what a shocking
boy!’
‘But I shall never try any more,’ said I. ‘For I love her dearly as she
is.’
‘Without a story--really?’ inquired Dora, creeping closer to me.
‘Why should I seek to change,’ said I, ‘what has been so precious to me
for so long! You never can show better than as your own natural self, my
sweet Dora; and we’ll try no conceited experiments, but go back to our
old way, and be happy.’
‘And be happy!’ returned Dora. ‘Yes! All day! And you won’t mind things
going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?’
‘No, no,’ said I. ‘We must do the best we can.’
‘And you won’t tell me, any more, that we make other people bad,’ coaxed
Dora; ‘will you? Because you know it’s so dreadfully cross!’
‘No, no,’ said I.
‘It’s better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn’t it?’ said
Dora.
‘Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world.’
‘In the world! Ah, Doady, it’s a large place!’
She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed
me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip’s new
collar.
So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been unhappy
in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I could not
reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife. I resolved
to do what I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself,
but I foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or I must degenerate
into the spider again, and be for ever lying in wait.
And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any more,
but was to rest wholly on my own heart? How did that fall?
The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were
changed at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like
a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife
dearly, and I was happy; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated,
once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was always something
wanting.
In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself, to reflect my mind
on this paper, I again examine it, closely, and bring its secrets to the
light. What I missed, I still regarded--I always regarded--as something
that had been a dream of my youthful fancy; that was incapable of
realization; that I was now discovering to be so, with some natural
pain, as all men did. But that it would have been better for me if my
wife could have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which I
had no partner; and that this might have been; I knew.
Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one, that what I felt
was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular to me,
and might have been different: I balanced curiously, with no distinct
sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought of the airy
dreams of youth that are incapable of realization, I thought of the
better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown; and then the
contented days with Agnes, in the dear old house, arose before me, like
spectres of the dead, that might have some renewal in another world, but
never more could be reanimated here.
Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, What might have
happened, or what would have happened, if Dora and I had never known
each other? But she was so incorporated with my existence, that it
was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and
sight, like gossamer floating in the air.
I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered, and half awoke, and
slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind. There was no evidence
of it in me; I know of no influence it had in anything I said or did. I
bore the weight of all our little cares, and all my projects; Dora held
the pens; and we both felt that our shares were adjusted as the case
required. She was truly fond of me, and proud of me; and when Agnes
wrote a few earnest words in her letters to Dora, of the pride and
interest with which my old friends heard of my growing reputation, and
read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them
out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear
old clever, famous boy.
‘The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.’ Those words of
Mrs. Strong’s were constantly recurring to me, at this time; were almost
always present to my mind. I awoke with them, often, in the night; I
remember to have even read them, in dreams, inscribed upon the walls
of houses. For I knew, now, that my own heart was undisciplined when it
first loved Dora; and that if it had been disciplined, it never
could have felt, when we were married, what it had felt in its secret
experience.
‘There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind and
purpose.’ Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to adapt
Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt
myself to Dora; to share with her what I could, and be happy; to bear
on my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still. This was the
discipline to which I tried to bring my heart, when I began to think.
It made my second year much happier than my first; and, what was better
still, made Dora’s life all sunshine.
But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that lighter
hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that a baby-smile
upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman. It was not to be.
The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison,
and, unconscious of captivity, took wing.
‘When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt,’ said Dora, ‘I shall
make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy.’
‘I suspect, my dear,’ said my aunt quietly working by her side, ‘he has
a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora.’
‘Do you think he is old?’ said Dora, astonished. ‘Oh, how strange it
seems that Jip should be old!’
‘It’s a complaint we are all liable to, Little One, as we get on in
life,’ said my aunt, cheerfully; ‘I don’t feel more free from it than I
used to be, I assure you.’
‘But Jip,’ said Dora, looking at him with compassion, ‘even little Jip!
Oh, poor fellow!’
‘I dare say he’ll last a long time yet, Blossom,’ said my aunt, patting
Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look at Jip, who
responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking himself in various
asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. ‘He must
have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn’t wonder
if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers in the spring. Bless
the little dog!’ exclaimed my aunt, ‘if he had as many lives as a cat,
and was on the point of losing ‘em all, he’d bark at me with his last
breath, I believe!’
Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my aunt
to such a furious extent, that he couldn’t keep straight, but barked
himself sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached
her; for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable
reason he considered the glasses personal.
Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion; and when
he was quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through her hand,
repeating thoughtfully, ‘Even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!’
‘His lungs are good enough,’ said my aunt, gaily, ‘and his dislikes are
not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no doubt. But if
you want a dog to race with, Little Blossom, he has lived too well for
that, and I’ll give you one.’
‘Thank you, aunt,’ said Dora, faintly. ‘But don’t, please!’
‘No?’ said my aunt, taking off her spectacles.
‘I couldn’t have any other dog but Jip,’ said Dora. ‘It would be so
unkind to Jip! Besides, I couldn’t be such friends with any other dog
but Jip; because he wouldn’t have known me before I was married,
and wouldn’t have barked at Doady when he first came to our house. I
couldn’t care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid, aunt.’
‘To be sure!’ said my aunt, patting her cheek again. ‘You are right.’
‘You are not offended,’ said Dora. ‘Are you?’
‘Why, what a sensitive pet it is!’ cried my aunt, bending over her
affectionately. ‘To think that I could be offended!’
‘No, no, I didn’t really think so,’ returned Dora; ‘but I am a little
tired, and it made me silly for a moment--I am always a silly little
thing, you know, but it made me more silly--to talk about Jip. He
has known me in all that has happened to me, haven’t you, Jip? And I
couldn’t bear to slight him, because he was a little altered--could I,
Jip?’
Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand.
‘You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you’ll leave your mistress yet?’
said Dora. ‘We may keep one another company a little longer!’
My pretty Dora! When she came down to dinner on the ensuing Sunday, and
was so glad to see old Traddles (who always dined with us on Sunday), we
thought she would be ‘running about as she used to do’, in a few days.
But they said, wait a few days more; and then, wait a few days more; and
still she neither ran nor walked. She looked very pretty, and was very
merry; but the little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced
round Jip, were dull and motionless.
I began to carry her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every night.
She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it
for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and
look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming.
My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a
moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick would not have relinquished
his post of candle-bearer to anyone alive. Traddles would be often at
the bottom of the staircase, looking on, and taking charge of sportive
messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the world. We made quite a gay
procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there.
But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in
my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching
to some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life. I avoided the
recognition of this feeling by any name, or by any communing with
myself; until one night, when it was very strong upon me, and my aunt
had left her with a parting cry of ‘Good night, Little Blossom,’ I sat
down at my desk alone, and tried to think, Oh what a fatal name it was,
and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the tree!
CHAPTER 49. I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY
I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated
Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctor’s Commons; which I read with
some surprise:
‘MY DEAR SIR,
‘Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable
lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which, in the
limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional
duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by
the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must
continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description. This
fact, my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which
your talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to
the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth, by the familiar
appellation of Copperfield! It is sufficient to know that the name to
which I do myself the honour to refer, will ever be treasured among
the muniments of our house (I allude to the archives connected with our
former lodgers, preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal
esteem amounting to affection.
‘It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a
fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark
(if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who
now takes up the pen to address you--it is not, I repeat, for one
so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of
congratulation. That he leaves to abler and to purer hands.
‘If your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing
these imperfect characters thus far--which may be, or may not be, as
circumstances arise--you will naturally inquire by what object am I
influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? Allow me to say that
I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed
to develop it; premising that it is not an object of a pecuniary nature.
‘Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may
possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing
the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted
to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever
dispelled--that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment
destroyed--that my heart is no longer in the right place--and that I no
more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower.
The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon
dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress.
‘Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the
assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber’s influence, though exercised in
the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention
to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of
eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past
enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of
mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King’s Bench Prison. In
stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of
that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow,
at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary
communication is accomplished.
‘I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr. Copperfield,
or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple, if that
gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me,
and renew (so far as may be) our past relations of the olden time. I
confine myself to throwing out the observation, that, at the hour and
place I have indicated, may be found such ruined vestiges as yet
‘Remain,
‘Of
‘A
‘Fallen Tower,
‘WILKINS MICAWBER.
‘P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement that
Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential possession of my intentions.’
I read the letter over several times. Making due allowance for Mr.
Micawber’s lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary relish
with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and
impossible occasions, I still believed that something important lay
hidden at the bottom of this roundabout communication. I put it down,
to think about it; and took it up again, to read it once more; and
was still pursuing it, when Traddles found me in the height of my
perplexity.
‘My dear fellow,’ said I, ‘I never was better pleased to see you. You
come to give me the benefit of your sober judgement at a most opportune
time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles, from Mr.
Micawber.’
‘No?’ cried Traddles. ‘You don’t say so? And I have received one from
Mrs. Micawber!’
With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, under
the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if he
saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an exchange with me.
I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber’s letter, and returned the
elevation of eyebrows with which he said “‘Wielding the thunderbolt,
or directing the devouring and avenging flame!” Bless me,
Copperfield!’--and then entered on the perusal of Mrs. Micawber’s
epistle.
It ran thus:
‘My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still remember
one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted with him,
may I beg a few moments of his leisure time? I assure Mr. T. T. that I
would not intrude upon his kindness, were I in any other position than
on the confines of distraction.
‘Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr. Micawber
(formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is the cause of my
addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and soliciting his best
indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr.
Micawber’s conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It has gradually
augmented, until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect.
Scarcely a day passes, I assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm
does not take place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings,
when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber
assert that he has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have
long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited
confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is
anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a
separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to
buy ‘lemon-stunners’--a local sweetmeat--he presented an oyster-knife at
the twins!
‘I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these details.
Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest
conception of my heart-rending situation.
‘May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter? Will
he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? Oh yes,
for I know his heart!
‘The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the female
sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously concealed his
hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the direction-card which
he attached to the little brown valise of happier days, the eagle-glance
of matrimonial anxiety detected, d, o, n, distinctly traced. The
West-End destination of the coach, is the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently
implore Mr. T. to see my misguided husband, and to reason with him?
Dare I ask Mr. T. to endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his
agonized family? Oh no, for that would be too much!
‘If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will Mr.
T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties? In
any case, he will have the benevolence to consider this communication
strictly private, and on no account whatever to be alluded to, however
distantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber. If Mr. T. should ever
reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be most improbable), a letter
addressed to M. E., Post Office, Canterbury, will be fraught with
less painful consequences than any addressed immediately to one, who
subscribes herself, in extreme distress,
‘Mr. Thomas Traddles’s respectful friend and suppliant,
‘EMMA MICAWBER.’
‘What do you think of that letter?’ said Traddles, casting his eyes upon
me, when I had read it twice.
‘What do you think of the other?’ said I. For he was still reading it
with knitted brows.
‘I think that the two together, Copperfield,’ replied Traddles,
‘mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their
correspondence--but I don’t know what. They are both written in good
faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor thing!’ he was
now alluding to Mrs. Micawber’s letter, and we were standing side by
side comparing the two; ‘it will be a charity to write to her, at all
events, and tell her that we will not fail to see Mr. Micawber.’
I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself with
having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set me thinking
a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its place; but my
absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the family, and my
hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismissing the subject.
I had often thought of the Micawbers, but chiefly to wonder what
‘pecuniary liabilities’ they were establishing in Canterbury, and to
recall how shy Mr. Micawber was of me when he became clerk to Uriah
Heep.
However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our
joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post it,
Traddles and I held a long conference, and launched into a number of
speculations, which I need not repeat. We took my aunt into our counsels
in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion was, that we would be
very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber’s appointment.
Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour before
the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was standing with his
arms folded, over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top,
with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs of
trees that had shaded him in his youth.
When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and
something less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his legal suit
of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore the old surtout
and tights, but not quite with the old air. He gradually picked up more
and more of it as we conversed with him; but, his very eye-glass seemed
to hang less easily, and his shirt-collar, though still of the old
formidable dimensions, rather drooped.
‘Gentlemen!’ said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, ‘you are
friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my inquiries with
reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. Copperfield in esse, and
Mrs. Traddles in posse,--presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr.
Traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections, for weal and
for woe.’
We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then
directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning, ‘I assure you,
gentlemen,’ when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form of
address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ he returned, pressing my hand, ‘your cordiality
overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment of the Temple once
called Man--if I may be permitted so to express myself--bespeaks a heart
that is an honour to our common nature. I was about to observe that
I again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest hours of my
existence fleeted by.’
‘Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber,’ said I. ‘I hope she is well?’
‘Thank you,’ returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this
reference, ‘she is but so-so. And this,’ said Mr. Micawber, nodding
his head sorrowfully, ‘is the Bench! Where, for the first time in many
revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was
not proclaimed, from day to day, by importune voices declining to vacate
the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor
to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and
detainees were merely lodged at the gate! Gentlemen,’ said Mr. Micawber,
‘when the shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure
has been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children
thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I
have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray weakness,
you will know how to excuse me.’
‘We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber,’ said I.
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, ‘when I was an
inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and punch
his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no longer on
those glorious terms!’
Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber accepted
my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of Traddles on the
other, and walked away between us.
‘There are some landmarks,’ observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly back
over his shoulder, ‘on the road to the tomb, which, but for the impiety
of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such is the
Bench in my chequered career.’
‘Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber,’ said Traddles.
‘I am, sir,’ interposed Mr. Micawber.
‘I hope,’ said Traddles, ‘it is not because you have conceived a dislike
to the law--for I am a lawyer myself, you know.’
Mr. Micawber answered not a word.
‘How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber?’ said I, after a silence.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state of
much excitement, and turning pale, ‘if you ask after my employer as
YOUR friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as MY friend,
I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my
employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this--that
whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to
say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private individual, to
decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of
desperation in my professional capacity.’
I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme
that roused him so much. ‘May I ask,’ said I, ‘without any hazard of
repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are?’
‘Miss Wickfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, ‘is, as she always
is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the
only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young
lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love
and truth, and goodness!--Take me,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘down a turning,
for, upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this!’
We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his
pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as
gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no
means inspiriting.
‘It is my fate,’ said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing even
that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel;
‘it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have
become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield, is a flight of
arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you please, to walk the
earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle my business in double-quick
time.’
Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his
pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any
person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a
tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned--not knowing
what might be lost if we lost sight of him yet--that it would give me
great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out to
Highgate, where a bed was at his service.
‘You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber,’ said
I, ‘and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter
reminiscences.’
‘Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve
you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber,’ said Traddles, prudently.
‘Gentlemen,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘do with me as you will! I am a
straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by
the elephants--I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements.’
We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of starting;
and arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties by the
way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do
for the best--so was Traddles, evidently. Mr. Micawber was for the most
part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten
himself, and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound
melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat
exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes.
We went to my aunt’s house rather than to mine, because of Dora’s not
being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed
Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand,
retired to the window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, had a
mental wrestle with himself.
Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of
anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such
person out, that he shook hands with Mr. Micawber, at least half-a-dozen
times in five minutes. To Mr. Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on
the part of a stranger, was so extremely touching, that he could
only say, on the occasion of each successive shake, ‘My dear sir, you
overpower me!’ Which gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went at it
again with greater vigour than before.
‘The friendliness of this gentleman,’ said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, ‘if
you will allow me, ma’am, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabulary
of our coarser national sports--floors me. To a man who is struggling
with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a reception
is trying, I assure you.’
‘My friend Mr. Dick,’ replied my aunt proudly, ‘is not a common man.’
‘That I am convinced of,’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘My dear sir!’ for Mr.
Dick was shaking hands with him again; ‘I am deeply sensible of your
cordiality!’
‘How do you find yourself?’ said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look.
‘Indifferent, my dear sir,’ returned Mr. Micawber, sighing.
‘You must keep up your spirits,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and make yourself as
comfortable as possible.’
Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by finding
Mr. Dick’s hand again within his own. ‘It has been my lot,’ he observed,
‘to meet, in the diversified panorama of human existence, with an
occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as the
present!’
At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that
we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so
anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal
something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a
perfect fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes
wide open, and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by
turns at the ground and at Mr. Micawber, without so much as attempting
to put in a word. My aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation
was concentrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her
wits than either of us; for she held him in conversation, and made it
necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or not.
‘You are a very old friend of my nephew’s, Mr. Micawber,’ said my aunt.
‘I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before.’
‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘I wish I had had the honour of knowing
you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you at present
behold.’
‘I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir,’ said my aunt.
Mr. Micawber inclined his head. ‘They are as well, ma’am,’ he
desperately observed after a pause, ‘as Aliens and Outcasts can ever
hope to be.’
‘Lord bless you, sir!’ exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. ‘What are
you talking about?’
‘The subsistence of my family, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘trembles
in the balance. My employer--’
Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons
that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the
other appliances he used in making punch.
‘Your employer, you know,’ said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a gentle
reminder.
‘My good sir,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘you recall me, I am obliged to
you.’ They shook hands again. ‘My employer, ma’am--Mr. Heep--once did
me the favour to observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the
stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should
probably be a mountebank about the country, swallowing a sword-blade,
and eating the devouring element. For anything that I can perceive to
the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to
seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets
their unnatural feats by playing the barrel-organ.’
Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife,
signified that these performances might be expected to take place after
he was no more; then resumed his peeling with a desperate air.
My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept
beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion with
which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was
not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at this
point, but for the strange proceedings in which I saw him engaged;
whereof his putting the lemon-peel into the kettle, the sugar into the
snuffer-tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting
to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most
remarkable. I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He clattered
all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out
his pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief,
‘this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled mind, and
self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the question.’
‘Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘what is the matter? Pray speak out. You are
among friends.’
‘Among friends, sir!’ repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had reserved
came breaking out of him. ‘Good heavens, it is principally because I AM
among friends that my state of mind is what it is. What is the matter,
gentlemen? What is NOT the matter? Villainy is the matter; baseness is
the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name
of the whole atrocious mass is--HEEP!’
My aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were
possessed.
‘The struggle is over!’ said Mr. Micawber violently gesticulating with
his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time with
both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. ‘I will
lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from everything
that makes life tolerable. I have been under a Taboo in that infernal
scoundrel’s service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family,
substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots
at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and
I’ll do it. With an appetite!’
I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we might
come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and wouldn’t
hear a word.
‘I’ll put my hand in no man’s hand,’ said Mr. Micawber, gasping,
puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man
fighting with cold water, ‘until I have--blown to
fragments--the--a--detestable--serpent--HEEP! I’ll partake of no
one’s hospitality, until I have--a--moved Mount Vesuvius--to
eruption--on--a--the abandoned rascal--HEEP! Refreshment--a--underneath
this roof--particularly punch--would--a--choke me--unless--I
had--previously--choked the eyes--out of the head--a--of--interminable
cheat, and liar--HEEP! I--a--I’ll know nobody--and--a--say
nothing--and--a--live nowhere--until I have
crushed--to--a--undiscoverable atoms--the--transcendent and immortal
hypocrite and perjurer--HEEP!’
I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber’s dying on the spot. The manner
in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and,
whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep, fought his way
on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a
vehemence little less than marvellous, was frightful; but now, when
he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us, with every possible
colour in his face that had no business there, and an endless procession
of lumps following one another in hot haste up his throat, whence they
seemed to shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being in
the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me
off, and wouldn’t hear a word.
‘No, Copperfield!--No communication--a--until--Miss
Wickfield--a--redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate
scoundrel--HEEP!’ (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three
words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when
he felt it coming.) ‘Inviolable secret--a--from the whole world--a--no
exceptions--this day week--a--at breakfast-time--a--everybody
present--including aunt--a--and extremely friendly gentleman--to be at
the hotel at Canterbury--a--where--Mrs. Micawber and myself--Auld Lang
Syne in chorus--and--a--will expose intolerable ruffian--HEEP! No more
to say--a--or listen to persuasion--go immediately--not capable--a--bear
society--upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor--HEEP!’
With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at
all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. Micawber
rushed out of the house; leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and
wonder, that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But
even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted;
for while we were yet in the height of our excitement, hope, and wonder,
the following pastoral note was brought to me from a neighbouring
tavern, at which he had called to write it:--
‘Most secret and confidential.
‘MY DEAR SIR,
‘I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your
excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smouldering
volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more
easily conceived than described.
‘I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the
morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at
Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honour of
uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the Immortal
exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed.
‘The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable
me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall
simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,
‘--With the plain Inscription,
‘WILKINS MICAWBER.’
CHAPTER 50. Mr. PEGGOTTY’S DREAM COMES TRUE
By this time, some months had passed since our interview on the bank
of the river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she had
communicated with Mr. Peggotty on several occasions. Nothing had come of
her zealous intervention; nor could I infer, from what he told me, that
any clue had been obtained, for a moment, to Emily’s fate. I confess
that I began to despair of her recovery, and gradually to sink deeper
and deeper into the belief that she was dead.
His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know--and I believe
his honest heart was transparent to me--he never wavered again, in his
solemn certainty of finding her. His patience never tired. And, although
I trembled for the agony it might one day be to him to have his strong
assurance shivered at a blow, there was something so religious in it, so
affectingly expressive of its anchor being in the purest depths of
his fine nature, that the respect and honour in which I held him were
exalted every day.
His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He had
been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things
wherein he wanted help he must do his own part faithfully, and help
himself. I have known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the
light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the old boat,
and walk to Yarmouth. I have known him, on reading something in the
newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a
journey of three--or four-score miles. He made his way by sea to Naples,
and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle had assisted
me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always
steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily’s sake, when she should
be found. In all this long pursuit, I never heard him repine; I never
heard him say he was fatigued, or out of heart.
Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of him.
I fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his rough
cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a timid
wonder, to his face. Sometimes of an evening, about twilight, when
he came to talk with me, I would induce him to smoke his pipe in the
garden, as we slowly paced to and fro together; and then, the picture
of his deserted home, and the comfortable air it used to have in my
childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning, and the wind
moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind.
One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha waiting
near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out, and that she
had asked him not to leave London on any account, until he should have
seen her again.
‘Did she tell you why?’ I inquired.
‘I asked her, Mas’r Davy,’ he replied, ‘but it is but few words as she
ever says, and she on’y got my promise and so went away.’
‘Did she say when you might expect to see her again?’ I demanded.
‘No, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down his
face. ‘I asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she could
tell.’
As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads,
I made no other comment on this information than that I supposed he
would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept
to myself, and those were faint enough.
I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight
afterwards. I remember that evening well. It was the second in Mr.
Micawber’s week of suspense. There had been rain all day, and there was
a damp feeling in the air. The leaves were thick upon the trees, and
heavy with wet; but the rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark;
and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. As I walked to and fro
in the garden, and the twilight began to close around me, their little
voices were hushed; and that peculiar silence which belongs to such an
evening in the country when the lightest trees are quite still, save for
the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed.
There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the side
of our cottage, through which I could see, from the garden where I was
walking, into the road before the house. I happened to turn my eyes
towards this place, as I was thinking of many things; and I saw a figure
beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was bending eagerly towards me, and
beckoning.
‘Martha!’ said I, going to it.
‘Can you come with me?’ she inquired, in an agitated whisper. ‘I have
been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was to come,
and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he would not be out
long. I have tidings for him. Can you come directly?’
My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a hasty
gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence,
and turned towards London, whence, as her dress betokened, she had come
expeditiously on foot.
I asked her if that were not our destination? On her motioning Yes,
with the same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty coach that was
coming by, and we got into it. When I asked her where the coachman was
to drive, she answered, ‘Anywhere near Golden Square! And quick!’--then
shrunk into a corner, with one trembling hand before her face, and the
other making the former gesture, as if she could not bear a voice.
Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and
dread, I looked at her for some explanation. But seeing how strongly
she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my own natural
inclination too, at such a time, I did not attempt to break the silence.
We proceeded without a word being spoken. Sometimes she glanced out of
the window, as though she thought we were going slowly, though indeed we
were going fast; but otherwise remained exactly as at first.
We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had mentioned,
where I directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have
some occasion for it. She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on
to one of the sombre streets, of which there are several in that part,
where the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupation of single
families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off
in rooms. Entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my
arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was
like a tributary channel to the street.
The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were
opened and people’s heads put out; and we passed other people on the
stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, before
we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the windows over
flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these
were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. It was a
broad panelled staircase, with massive balustrades of some dark wood;
cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved fruit and flowers; and
broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur
were miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened
the flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some
attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this
dwindling frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there
with common deal; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to
a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away
from the other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had
been darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that remained, there was
scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by which the bad
air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw, through other
glassless windows, into other houses in a similar condition, and looked
giddily down into a wretched yard, which was the common dust-heap of the
mansion.
We proceeded to the top-storey of the house. Two or three times, by the
way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female
figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of
stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure
pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it turned the handle, and went in.
‘What’s this!’ said Martha, in a whisper. ‘She has gone into my room. I
don’t know her!’
I knew her. I had recognized her with amazement, for Miss Dartle.
I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen
before, in a few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done so,
when we heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we stood,
what she was saying. Martha, with an astonished look, repeated her
former action, and softly led me up the stairs; and then, by a little
back-door which seemed to have no lock, and which she pushed open with a
touch, into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof, little better
than a cupboard. Between this, and the room she had called hers,
there was a small door of communication, standing partly open. Here we
stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on
my lips. I could only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large;
that there was a bed in it; and that there were some common pictures of
ships upon the walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom
we had heard her address. Certainly, my companion could not, for my
position was the best. A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha
kept one hand on my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude.
‘It matters little to me her not being at home,’ said Rosa Dartle
haughtily, ‘I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see.’
‘Me?’ replied a soft voice.
At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily’s!
‘Yes,’ returned Miss Dartle, ‘I have come to look at you. What? You are
not ashamed of the face that has done so much?’
The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern
sharpness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I had
seen her standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes, and the
passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar, with its white track cutting
through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she spoke.
‘I have come to see,’ she said, ‘James Steerforth’s fancy; the girl who
ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people of her
native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons like
James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is like.’
There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these
taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself
before it. It was succeeded by a moment’s pause.
When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with a
stamp upon the ground.
‘Stay there!’ she said, ‘or I’ll proclaim you to the house, and the
whole street! If you try to evade me, I’ll stop you, if it’s by the
hair, and raise the very stones against you!’
A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A silence
succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired to put an end to
the interview, I felt that I had no right to present myself; that it was
for Mr. Peggotty alone to see her and recover her. Would he never come?
I thought impatiently.
‘So!’ said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, ‘I see her at last!
Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate mock-modesty,
and that hanging head!’
‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, spare me!’ exclaimed Emily. ‘Whoever you are,
you know my pitiable story, and for Heaven’s sake spare me, if you would
be spared yourself!’
‘If I would be spared!’ returned the other fiercely; ‘what is there in
common between US, do you think!’
‘Nothing but our sex,’ said Emily, with a burst of tears.
‘And that,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘is so strong a claim, preferred by one
so infamous, that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn and
abhorrence of you, it would freeze it up. Our sex! You are an honour to
our sex!’
‘I have deserved this,’ said Emily, ‘but it’s dreadful! Dear, dear lady,
think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha, come back!
Oh, home, home!’
Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and
looked downward, as if Emily were crouching on the floor before her.
Being now between me and the light, I could see her curled lip, and her
cruel eyes intently fixed on one place, with a greedy triumph.
‘Listen to what I say!’ she said; ‘and reserve your false arts for your
dupes. Do you hope to move me by your tears? No more than you could
charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave.’
‘Oh, have some mercy on me!’ cried Emily. ‘Show me some compassion, or I
shall die mad!’
‘It would be no great penance,’ said Rosa Dartle, ‘for your crimes. Do
you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you have laid
waste?’
‘Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don’t think of it!’ cried Emily;
and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head thrown back,
her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped and held out,
and her hair streaming about her. ‘Has there ever been a single minute,
waking or sleeping, when it hasn’t been before me, just as it used to
be in the lost days when I turned my back upon it for ever and for ever!
Oh, home, home! Oh dear, dear uncle, if you ever could have known the
agony your love would cause me when I fell away from good, you never
would have shown it to me so constant, much as you felt it; but would
have been angry to me, at least once in my life, that I might have had
some comfort! I have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them
were always fond of me!’ She dropped on her face, before the imperious
figure in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her
dress.
Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of
brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she
must keep a strong constraint upon herself--I write what I sincerely
believe--or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful form with
her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of her face and
character seemed forced into that expression.---Would he never come?
‘The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!’ she said, when she had so
far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust
herself to speak. ‘YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow a thought
on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low place, which money
would not pay for, and handsomely? YOUR home! You were a part of the
trade of your home, and were bought and sold like any other vendible
thing your people dealt in.’
‘Oh, not that!’ cried Emily. ‘Say anything of me; but don’t visit
my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as
honourable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady, if you
have no mercy for me.’
‘I speak,’ she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal, and
drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily’s touch, ‘I speak
of HIS home--where I live. Here,’ she said, stretching out her hand with
her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the prostrate girl, ‘is a
worthy cause of division between lady-mother and gentleman-son; of grief
in a house where she wouldn’t have been admitted as a kitchen-girl; of
anger, and repining, and reproach. This piece of pollution, picked up
from the water-side, to be made much of for an hour, and then tossed
back to her original place!’
‘No! no!’ cried Emily, clasping her hands together. ‘When he first came
into my way--that the day had never dawned upon me, and he had met me
being carried to my grave!--I had been brought up as virtuous as you or
any lady, and was going to be the wife of as good a man as you or any
lady in the world can ever marry. If you live in his home and know him,
you know, perhaps, what his power with a weak, vain girl might be. I
don’t defend myself, but I know well, and he knows well, or he will know
when he comes to die, and his mind is troubled with it, that he used all
his power to deceive me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved
him!’
Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling struck
at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by
passion, that I had almost thrown myself between them. The blow, which
had no aim, fell upon the air. As she now stood panting, looking at
her with the utmost detestation that she was capable of expressing, and
trembling from head to foot with rage and scorn, I thought I had never
seen such a sight, and never could see such another.
‘YOU love him? You?’ she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering as if
it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath.
Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply.
‘And tell that to ME,’ she added, ‘with your shameful lips? Why don’t
they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done, I would have
this girl whipped to death.’
And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her with the
rack itself, while that furious look lasted. She slowly, very slowly,
broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily with her hand, as if she were a
sight of shame for gods and men.
‘SHE love!’ she said. ‘THAT carrion! And he ever cared for her, she’d
tell me. Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!’
Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I would
have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But, when she
suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She had chained
it up again, and however it might tear her within, she subdued it to
herself.
‘I came here, you pure fountain of love,’ she said, ‘to see--as I began
by telling you--what such a thing as you was like. I was curious. I am
satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek that home of yours,
with all speed, and hide your head among those excellent people who are
expecting you, and whom your money will console. When it’s all gone, you
can believe, and trust, and love again, you know! I thought you a broken
toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished,
and thrown away. But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and
an ill-used innocent, with a fresh heart full of love and
trustfulness--which you look like, and is quite consistent with your
story!--I have something more to say. Attend to it; for what I say I’ll
do. Do you hear me, you fairy spirit? What I say, I mean to do!’
Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over
her face like a spasm, and left her smiling.
‘Hide yourself,’ she pursued, ‘if not at home, somewhere. Let it be
somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life--or, better still, in some
obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not break, you have
found no way of helping it to be still! I have heard of such means
sometimes. I believe they may be easily found.’
A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She stopped,
and listened to it as if it were music.
‘I am of a strange nature, perhaps,’ Rosa Dartle went on; ‘but I can’t
breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly. Therefore, I
will have it cleared; I will have it purified of you. If you live here
tomorrow, I’ll have your story and your character proclaimed on the
common stair. There are decent women in the house, I am told; and it
is a pity such a light as you should be among them, and concealed. If,
leaving here, you seek any refuge in this town in any character but your
true one (which you are welcome to bear, without molestation from me),
the same service shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being
assisted by a gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favour of your
hand, I am sanguine as to that.’
Would he never, never come? How long was I to bear this? How long could
I bear it? ‘Oh me, oh me!’ exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that
might have touched the hardest heart, I should have thought; but there
was no relenting in Rosa Dartle’s smile. ‘What, what, shall I do!’
‘Do?’ returned the other. ‘Live happy in your own reflections!
Consecrate your existence to the recollection of James Steerforth’s
tenderness--he would have made you his serving-man’s wife, would he
not?---or to feeling grateful to the upright and deserving creature who
would have taken you as his gift. Or, if those proud remembrances, and
the consciousness of your own virtues, and the honourable position to
which they have raised you in the eyes of everything that wears the
human shape, will not sustain you, marry that good man, and be happy in
his condescension. If this will not do either, die! There are doorways
and dust-heaps for such deaths, and such despair--find one, and take
your flight to Heaven!’
I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain. It was
his, thank God!
She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and passed out
of my sight.
‘But mark!’ she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door to
go away, ‘I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds that
I entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my reach
altogether, or drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to say; and
what I say, I mean to do!’
The foot upon the stairs came nearer--nearer--passed her as she went
down--rushed into the room!
‘Uncle!’
A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking in, saw
him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed for a few
seconds in the face; then stooped to kiss it--oh, how tenderly!--and
drew a handkerchief before it.
‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was covered, ‘I
thank my Heav’nly Father as my dream’s come true! I thank Him hearty for
having guided of me, in His own ways, to my darling!’
With those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled
face lying on his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried her,
motionless and unconscious, down the stairs.
CHAPTER 51. THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY
It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as I was
walking in my garden with my aunt (who took little other exercise
now, being so much in attendance on my dear Dora), I was told that Mr.
Peggotty desired to speak with me. He came into the garden to meet me
half-way, on my going towards the gate; and bared his head, as it was
always his custom to do when he saw my aunt, for whom he had a high
respect. I had been telling her all that had happened overnight. Without
saying a word, she walked up with a cordial face, shook hands with him,
and patted him on the arm. It was so expressively done, that she had no
need to say a word. Mr. Peggotty understood her quite as well as if she
had said a thousand.
‘I’ll go in now, Trot,’ said my aunt, ‘and look after Little Blossom,
who will be getting up presently.’
‘Not along of my being heer, ma’am, I hope?’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘Unless
my wits is gone a bahd’s neezing’--by which Mr. Peggotty meant to say,
bird’s-nesting--‘this morning, ‘tis along of me as you’re a-going to
quit us?’
‘You have something to say, my good friend,’ returned my aunt, ‘and will
do better without me.’
‘By your leave, ma’am,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘I should take it kind,
pervising you doen’t mind my clicketten, if you’d bide heer.’
‘Would you?’ said my aunt, with short good-nature. ‘Then I am sure I
will!’
So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty’s, and walked with him to a
leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden, where
she sat down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat for Mr.
Peggotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand on the small
rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap for a little while before
beginning to speak, I could not help observing what power and force
of character his sinewy hand expressed, and what a good and trusty
companion it was to his honest brow and iron-grey hair.
‘I took my dear child away last night,’ Mr. Peggotty began, as he
raised his eyes to ours, ‘to my lodging, wheer I have a long time been
expecting of her and preparing fur her. It was hours afore she knowed me
right; and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet, and kiender said
to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come to be. You may believe
me, when I heerd her voice, as I had heerd at home so playful--and see
her humbled, as it might be in the dust our Saviour wrote in with his
blessed hand--I felt a wownd go to my ‘art, in the midst of all its
thankfulness.’
He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of concealing
why; and then cleared his voice.
‘It warn’t for long as I felt that; for she was found. I had on’y to
think as she was found, and it was gone. I doen’t know why I do so much
as mention of it now, I’m sure. I didn’t have it in my mind a minute
ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so nat’ral, that I
yielded to it afore I was aweer.’
‘You are a self-denying soul,’ said my aunt, ‘and will have your
reward.’
Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his
face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as an
acknowledgement of her good opinion; then took up the thread he had
relinquished.
‘When my Em’ly took flight,’ he said, in stern wrath for the moment,
‘from the house wheer she was made a prisoner by that theer spotted
snake as Mas’r Davy see,--and his story’s trew, and may GOD confound
him!--she took flight in the night. It was a dark night, with a many
stars a-shining. She was wild. She ran along the sea beach, believing
the old boat was theer; and calling out to us to turn away our faces,
for she was a-coming by. She heerd herself a-crying out, like as if
it was another person; and cut herself on them sharp-pinted stones and
rocks, and felt it no more than if she had been rock herself. Ever so
fur she run, and there was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her
ears. Of a sudden--or so she thowt, you unnerstand--the day broke, wet
and windy, and she was lying b’low a heap of stone upon the shore, and
a woman was a-speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country,
what was it as had gone so much amiss?’
He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, so
vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what
he described to me, with greater distinctness than I can express. I can
hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but that I was actually
present in these scenes; they are impressed upon me with such an
astonishing air of fidelity.
‘As Em’ly’s eyes--which was heavy--see this woman better,’ Mr. Peggotty
went on, ‘she know’d as she was one of them as she had often talked to
on the beach. Fur, though she had run (as I have said) ever so fur in
the night, she had oftentimes wandered long ways, partly afoot, partly
in boats and carriages, and know’d all that country, ‘long the coast,
miles and miles. She hadn’t no children of her own, this woman, being
a young wife; but she was a-looking to have one afore long. And may
my prayers go up to Heaven that ‘twill be a happiness to her, and a
comfort, and a honour, all her life! May it love her and be dootiful to
her, in her old age; helpful of her at the last; a Angel to her heer,
and heerafter!’
‘Amen!’ said my aunt.
‘She had been summat timorous and down,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and had sat,
at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work as it was,
when Em’ly talked to the children. But Em’ly had took notice of her,
and had gone and spoke to her; and as the young woman was partial to
the children herself, they had soon made friends. Sermuchser, that when
Em’ly went that way, she always giv Em’ly flowers. This was her as
now asked what it was that had gone so much amiss. Em’ly told her,
and she--took her home. She did indeed. She took her home,’ said Mr.
Peggotty, covering his face.
He was more affected by this act of kindness, than I had ever seen him
affected by anything since the night she went away. My aunt and I did
not attempt to disturb him.
‘It was a little cottage, you may suppose,’ he said, presently, ‘but she
found space for Em’ly in it,--her husband was away at sea,--and she kep
it secret, and prevailed upon such neighbours as she had (they was not
many near) to keep it secret too. Em’ly was took bad with fever,
and, what is very strange to me is,--maybe ‘tis not so strange to
scholars,--the language of that country went out of her head, and she
could only speak her own, that no one unnerstood. She recollects, as if
she had dreamed it, that she lay there always a-talking her own tongue,
always believing as the old boat was round the next pint in the bay, and
begging and imploring of ‘em to send theer and tell how she was dying,
and bring back a message of forgiveness, if it was on’y a wured. A’most
the whole time, she thowt,--now, that him as I made mention on just now
was lurking for her unnerneath the winder; now that him as had brought
her to this was in the room,--and cried to the good young woman not to
give her up, and know’d, at the same time, that she couldn’t unnerstand,
and dreaded that she must be took away. Likewise the fire was afore
her eyes, and the roarings in her ears; and theer was no today, nor
yesterday, nor yet tomorrow; but everything in her life as ever had
been, or as ever could be, and everything as never had been, and as
never could be, was a crowding on her all at once, and nothing clear nor
welcome, and yet she sang and laughed about it! How long this lasted, I
doen’t know; but then theer come a sleep; and in that sleep, from being
a many times stronger than her own self, she fell into the weakness of
the littlest child.’
Here he stopped, as if for relief from the terrors of his own
description. After being silent for a few moments, he pursued his story.
‘It was a pleasant arternoon when she awoke; and so quiet, that there
warn’t a sound but the rippling of that blue sea without a tide, upon
the shore. It was her belief, at first, that she was at home upon a
Sunday morning; but the vine leaves as she see at the winder, and the
hills beyond, warn’t home, and contradicted of her. Then, come in her
friend to watch alongside of her bed; and then she know’d as the old
boat warn’t round that next pint in the bay no more, but was fur off;
and know’d where she was, and why; and broke out a-crying on that good
young woman’s bosom, wheer I hope her baby is a-lying now, a-cheering of
her with its pretty eyes!’
He could not speak of this good friend of Emily’s without a flow of
tears. It was in vain to try. He broke down again, endeavouring to bless
her!
‘That done my Em’ly good,’ he resumed, after such emotion as I could
not behold without sharing in; and as to my aunt, she wept with all her
heart; ‘that done Em’ly good, and she begun to mend. But, the language
of that country was quite gone from her, and she was forced to make
signs. So she went on, getting better from day to day, slow, but sure,
and trying to learn the names of common things--names as she seemed
never to have heerd in all her life--till one evening come, when she
was a-setting at her window, looking at a little girl at play upon the
beach. And of a sudden this child held out her hand, and said, what
would be in English, “Fisherman’s daughter, here’s a shell!”--for you
are to unnerstand that they used at first to call her “Pretty lady”, as
the general way in that country is, and that she had taught ‘em to
call her “Fisherman’s daughter” instead. The child says of a sudden,
“Fisherman’s daughter, here’s a shell!” Then Em’ly unnerstands her; and
she answers, bursting out a-crying; and it all comes back!
‘When Em’ly got strong again,’ said Mr. Peggotty, after another short
interval of silence, ‘she cast about to leave that good young creetur,
and get to her own country. The husband was come home, then; and the two
together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that
to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they
would take for all they done. I’m a’most glad on it, though they was
so poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth or rust doth
corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas’r Davy,
it’ll outlast all the treasure in the wureld.
‘Em’ly got to France, and took service to wait on travelling ladies at a
inn in the port. Theer, theer come, one day, that snake. --Let him never
come nigh me. I doen’t know what hurt I might do him!--Soon as she see
him, without him seeing her, all her fear and wildness returned upon
her, and she fled afore the very breath he draw’d. She come to England,
and was set ashore at Dover.
‘I doen’t know,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘for sure, when her ‘art begun to
fail her; but all the way to England she had thowt to come to her dear
home. Soon as she got to England she turned her face tow’rds it. But,
fear of not being forgiv, fear of being pinted at, fear of some of
us being dead along of her, fear of many things, turned her from it,
kiender by force, upon the road: “Uncle, uncle,” she says to me, “the
fear of not being worthy to do what my torn and bleeding breast so
longed to do, was the most fright’ning fear of all! I turned back, when
my ‘art was full of prayers that I might crawl to the old door-step, in
the night, kiss it, lay my wicked face upon it, and theer be found dead
in the morning.”
‘She come,’ said Mr. Peggotty, dropping his voice to an
awe-stricken whisper, ‘to London. She--as had never seen it in her
life--alone--without a penny--young--so pretty--come to London. A’most
the moment as she lighted heer, all so desolate, she found (as she
believed) a friend; a decent woman as spoke to her about the needle-work
as she had been brought up to do, about finding plenty of it fur her,
about a lodging fur the night, and making secret inquiration concerning
of me and all at home, tomorrow. When my child,’ he said aloud, and with
an energy of gratitude that shook him from head to foot, ‘stood upon the
brink of more than I can say or think on--Martha, trew to her promise,
saved her.’
I could not repress a cry of joy.
‘Mas’r Davy!’ said he, gripping my hand in that strong hand of his,
‘it was you as first made mention of her to me. I thankee, sir! She was
arnest. She had know’d of her bitter knowledge wheer to watch and what
to do. She had done it. And the Lord was above all! She come, white and
hurried, upon Em’ly in her sleep. She says to her, “Rise up from worse
than death, and come with me!” Them belonging to the house would have
stopped her, but they might as soon have stopped the sea. “Stand away
from me,” she says, “I am a ghost that calls her from beside her open
grave!” She told Em’ly she had seen me, and know’d I loved her, and
forgive her. She wrapped her, hasty, in her clothes. She took her, faint
and trembling, on her arm. She heeded no more what they said, than if
she had had no ears. She walked among ‘em with my child, minding only
her; and brought her safe out, in the dead of the night, from that black
pit of ruin!
‘She attended on Em’ly,’ said Mr. Peggotty, who had released my hand,
and put his own hand on his heaving chest; ‘she attended to my Em’ly,
lying wearied out, and wandering betwixt whiles, till late next day.
Then she went in search of me; then in search of you, Mas’r Davy. She
didn’t tell Em’ly what she come out fur, lest her ‘art should fail, and
she should think of hiding of herself. How the cruel lady know’d of
her being theer, I can’t say. Whether him as I have spoke so much of,
chanced to see ‘em going theer, or whether (which is most like, to my
thinking) he had heerd it from the woman, I doen’t greatly ask myself.
My niece is found.
‘All night long,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘we have been together, Em’ly
and me. ‘Tis little (considering the time) as she has said, in wureds,
through them broken-hearted tears; ‘tis less as I have seen of her dear
face, as grow’d into a woman’s at my hearth. But, all night long, her
arms has been about my neck; and her head has laid heer; and we knows
full well, as we can put our trust in one another, ever more.’
He ceased to speak, and his hand upon the table rested there in perfect
repose, with a resolution in it that might have conquered lions.
‘It was a gleam of light upon me, Trot,’ said my aunt, drying her eyes,
‘when I formed the resolution of being godmother to your sister Betsey
Trotwood, who disappointed me; but, next to that, hardly anything would
have given me greater pleasure, than to be godmother to that good young
creature’s baby!’
Mr. Peggotty nodded his understanding of my aunt’s feelings, but could
not trust himself with any verbal reference to the subject of her
commendation. We all remained silent, and occupied with our own
reflections (my aunt drying her eyes, and now sobbing convulsively, and
now laughing and calling herself a fool); until I spoke.
‘You have quite made up your mind,’ said I to Mr. Peggotty, ‘as to the
future, good friend? I need scarcely ask you.’
‘Quite, Mas’r Davy,’ he returned; ‘and told Em’ly. Theer’s mighty
countries, fur from heer. Our future life lays over the sea.’
‘They will emigrate together, aunt,’ said I.
‘Yes!’ said Mr. Peggotty, with a hopeful smile. ‘No one can’t reproach
my darling in Australia. We will begin a new life over theer!’
I asked him if he yet proposed to himself any time for going away.
‘I was down at the Docks early this morning, sir,’ he returned, ‘to get
information concerning of them ships. In about six weeks or two
months from now, there’ll be one sailing--I see her this morning--went
aboard--and we shall take our passage in her.’
‘Quite alone?’ I asked.
‘Aye, Mas’r Davy!’ he returned. ‘My sister, you see, she’s that fond
of you and yourn, and that accustomed to think on’y of her own country,
that it wouldn’t be hardly fair to let her go. Besides which, theer’s
one she has in charge, Mas’r Davy, as doen’t ought to be forgot.’
‘Poor Ham!’ said I.
‘My good sister takes care of his house, you see, ma’am, and he takes
kindly to her,’ Mr. Peggotty explained for my aunt’s better information.
‘He’ll set and talk to her, with a calm spirit, wen it’s like he
couldn’t bring himself to open his lips to another. Poor fellow!’ said
Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, ‘theer’s not so much left him, that he
could spare the little as he has!’
‘And Mrs. Gummidge?’ said I.
‘Well, I’ve had a mort of consideration, I do tell you,’ returned Mr.
Peggotty, with a perplexed look which gradually cleared as he went
on, ‘concerning of Missis Gummidge. You see, wen Missis Gummidge falls
a-thinking of the old ‘un, she an’t what you may call good company.
Betwixt you and me, Mas’r Davy--and you, ma’am--wen Mrs. Gummidge takes
to wimicking,’--our old country word for crying,--‘she’s liable to be
considered to be, by them as didn’t know the old ‘un, peevish-like. Now
I DID know the old ‘un,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and I know’d his merits,
so I unnerstan’ her; but ‘tan’t entirely so, you see, with
others--nat’rally can’t be!’
My aunt and I both acquiesced.
‘Wheerby,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘my sister might--I doen’t say she would,
but might--find Missis Gummidge give her a leetle trouble now-and-again.
Theerfur ‘tan’t my intentions to moor Missis Gummidge ‘long with them,
but to find a Beein’ fur her wheer she can fisherate for herself.’
(A Beein’ signifies, in that dialect, a home, and to fisherate is to
provide.) ‘Fur which purpose,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I means to make her
a ‘lowance afore I go, as’ll leave her pretty comfort’ble. She’s the
faithfullest of creeturs. ‘Tan’t to be expected, of course, at her
time of life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old Mawther is to
be knocked about aboardship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and
fur-away country. So that’s what I’m a-going to do with her.’
He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody’s claims and strivings, but
his own.
‘Em’ly,’ he continued, ‘will keep along with me--poor child, she’s sore
in need of peace and rest!--until such time as we goes upon our voyage.
She’ll work at them clothes, as must be made; and I hope her troubles
will begin to seem longer ago than they was, wen she finds herself once
more by her rough but loving uncle.’
My aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great
satisfaction to Mr. Peggotty.
‘Theer’s one thing furder, Mas’r Davy,’ said he, putting his hand in his
breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper bundle I had
seen before, which he unrolled on the table. ‘Theer’s these here
banknotes--fifty pound, and ten. To them I wish to add the money as she
come away with. I’ve asked her about that (but not saying why), and have
added of it up. I an’t a scholar. Would you be so kind as see how ‘tis?’
He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, and
observed me while I looked it over. It was quite right.
‘Thankee, sir,’ he said, taking it back. ‘This money, if you doen’t
see objections, Mas’r Davy, I shall put up jest afore I go, in a cover
directed to him; and put that up in another, directed to his mother.
I shall tell her, in no more wureds than I speak to you, what it’s the
price on; and that I’m gone, and past receiving of it back.’
I told him that I thought it would be right to do so--that I was
thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right.
‘I said that theer was on’y one thing furder,’ he proceeded with a grave
smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put it in his
pocket; ‘but theer was two. I warn’t sure in my mind, wen I come out
this morning, as I could go and break to Ham, of my own self, what had
so thankfully happened. So I writ a letter while I was out, and put
it in the post-office, telling of ‘em how all was as ‘tis; and that I
should come down tomorrow to unload my mind of what little needs a-doing
of down theer, and, most-like, take my farewell leave of Yarmouth.’
‘And do you wish me to go with you?’ said I, seeing that he left
something unsaid.
‘If you could do me that kind favour, Mas’r Davy,’ he replied. ‘I know
the sight on you would cheer ‘em up a bit.’
My little Dora being in good spirits, and very desirous that I should
go--as I found on talking it over with her--I readily pledged myself to
accompany him in accordance with his wish. Next morning, consequently,
we were on the Yarmouth coach, and again travelling over the old ground.
As we passed along the familiar street at night--Mr. Peggotty, in
despite of all my remonstrances, carrying my bag--I glanced into Omer
and Joram’s shop, and saw my old friend Mr. Omer there, smoking his
pipe. I felt reluctant to be present, when Mr. Peggotty first met his
sister and Ham; and made Mr. Omer my excuse for lingering behind.
‘How is Mr. Omer, after this long time?’ said I, going in.
He fanned away the smoke of his pipe, that he might get a better view of
me, and soon recognized me with great delight.
‘I should get up, sir, to acknowledge such an honour as this visit,’
said he, ‘only my limbs are rather out of sorts, and I am wheeled about.
With the exception of my limbs and my breath, howsoever, I am as hearty
as a man can be, I’m thankful to say.’
I congratulated him on his contented looks and his good spirits, and
saw, now, that his easy-chair went on wheels.
‘It’s an ingenious thing, ain’t it?’ he inquired, following the
direction of my glance, and polishing the elbow with his arm. ‘It runs
as light as a feather, and tracks as true as a mail-coach. Bless you,
my little Minnie--my grand-daughter you know, Minnie’s child--puts her
little strength against the back, gives it a shove, and away we go, as
clever and merry as ever you see anything! And I tell you what--it’s a
most uncommon chair to smoke a pipe in.’
I never saw such a good old fellow to make the best of a thing, and
find out the enjoyment of it, as Mr. Omer. He was as radiant, as if
his chair, his asthma, and the failure of his limbs, were the various
branches of a great invention for enhancing the luxury of a pipe.
‘I see more of the world, I can assure you,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘in this
chair, than ever I see out of it. You’d be surprised at the number of
people that looks in of a day to have a chat. You really would! There’s
twice as much in the newspaper, since I’ve taken to this chair, as there
used to be. As to general reading, dear me, what a lot of it I do get
through! That’s what I feel so strong, you know! If it had been my eyes,
what should I have done? If it had been my ears, what should I have
done? Being my limbs, what does it signify? Why, my limbs only made my
breath shorter when I used ‘em. And now, if I want to go out into
the street or down to the sands, I’ve only got to call Dick, Joram’s
youngest ‘prentice, and away I go in my own carriage, like the Lord
Mayor of London.’
He half suffocated himself with laughing here.
‘Lord bless you!’ said Mr. Omer, resuming his pipe, ‘a man must take
the fat with the lean; that’s what he must make up his mind to, in this
life. Joram does a fine business. Ex-cellent business!’
‘I am very glad to hear it,’ said I.
‘I knew you would be,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘And Joram and Minnie are like
Valentines. What more can a man expect? What’s his limbs to that!’
His supreme contempt for his own limbs, as he sat smoking, was one of
the pleasantest oddities I have ever encountered.
‘And since I’ve took to general reading, you’ve took to general writing,
eh, sir?’ said Mr. Omer, surveying me admiringly. ‘What a lovely work
that was of yours! What expressions in it! I read it every word--every
word. And as to feeling sleepy! Not at all!’
I laughingly expressed my satisfaction, but I must confess that I
thought this association of ideas significant.
‘I give you my word and honour, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘that when I lay
that book upon the table, and look at it outside; compact in three
separate and indiwidual wollumes--one, two, three; I am as proud as
Punch to think that I once had the honour of being connected with
your family. And dear me, it’s a long time ago, now, ain’t it? Over
at Blunderstone. With a pretty little party laid along with the other
party. And you quite a small party then, yourself. Dear, dear!’
I changed the subject by referring to Emily. After assuring him that I
did not forget how interested he had always been in her, and how
kindly he had always treated her, I gave him a general account of her
restoration to her uncle by the aid of Martha; which I knew would please
the old man. He listened with the utmost attention, and said, feelingly,
when I had done:
‘I am rejoiced at it, sir! It’s the best news I have heard for many
a day. Dear, dear, dear! And what’s going to be undertook for that
unfortunate young woman, Martha, now?’
‘You touch a point that my thoughts have been dwelling on since
yesterday,’ said I, ‘but on which I can give you no information yet, Mr.
Omer. Mr. Peggotty has not alluded to it, and I have a delicacy in
doing so. I am sure he has not forgotten it. He forgets nothing that is
disinterested and good.’
‘Because you know,’ said Mr. Omer, taking himself up, where he had left
off, ‘whatever is done, I should wish to be a member of. Put me down for
anything you may consider right, and let me know. I never could think
the girl all bad, and I am glad to find she’s not. So will my daughter
Minnie be. Young women are contradictory creatures in some things--her
mother was just the same as her--but their hearts are soft and kind.
It’s all show with Minnie, about Martha. Why she should consider it
necessary to make any show, I don’t undertake to tell you. But it’s all
show, bless you. She’d do her any kindness in private. So, put me down
for whatever you may consider right, will you be so good? and drop me
a line where to forward it. Dear me!’ said Mr. Omer, ‘when a man is
drawing on to a time of life, where the two ends of life meet; when he
finds himself, however hearty he is, being wheeled about for the second
time, in a speeches of go-cart; he should be over-rejoiced to do a
kindness if he can. He wants plenty. And I don’t speak of myself,
particular,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘because, sir, the way I look at it is, that
we are all drawing on to the bottom of the hill, whatever age we are,
on account of time never standing still for a single moment. So let us
always do a kindness, and be over-rejoiced. To be sure!’
He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it on a ledge in the back
of his chair, expressly made for its reception.
‘There’s Em’ly’s cousin, him that she was to have been married to,’ said
Mr. Omer, rubbing his hands feebly, ‘as fine a fellow as there is in
Yarmouth! He’ll come and talk or read to me, in the evening, for an hour
together sometimes. That’s a kindness, I should call it! All his life’s
a kindness.’
‘I am going to see him now,’ said I.
‘Are you?’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Tell him I was hearty, and sent my respects.
Minnie and Joram’s at a ball. They would be as proud to see you as I
am, if they was at home. Minnie won’t hardly go out at all, you see, “on
account of father”, as she says. So I swore tonight, that if she didn’t
go, I’d go to bed at six. In consequence of which,’ Mr. Omer shook
himself and his chair with laughter at the success of his device, ‘she
and Joram’s at a ball.’
I shook hands with him, and wished him good night.
‘Half a minute, sir,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘If you was to go without seeing
my little elephant, you’d lose the best of sights. You never see such
a sight! Minnie!’ A musical little voice answered, from somewhere
upstairs, ‘I am coming, grandfather!’ and a pretty little girl with
long, flaxen, curling hair, soon came running into the shop.
‘This is my little elephant, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, fondling the child.
‘Siamese breed, sir. Now, little elephant!’
The little elephant set the door of the parlour open, enabling me to see
that, in these latter days, it was converted into a bedroom for Mr.
Omer who could not be easily conveyed upstairs; and then hid her pretty
forehead, and tumbled her long hair, against the back of Mr. Omer’s
chair.
‘The elephant butts, you know, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, winking, ‘when he
goes at a object. Once, elephant. Twice. Three times!’
At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to
marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with Mr. Omer
in it, and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlour, without touching
the door-post: Mr. Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and
looking back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his
life’s exertions.
After a stroll about the town I went to Ham’s house. Peggotty had now
removed here for good; and had let her own house to the successor of
Mr. Barkis in the carrying business, who had paid her very well for the
good-will, cart, and horse. I believe the very same slow horse that Mr.
Barkis drove was still at work.
I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs. Gummidge, who had
been fetched from the old boat by Mr. Peggotty himself. I doubt if
she could have been induced to desert her post, by anyone else. He
had evidently told them all. Both Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge had their
aprons to their eyes, and Ham had just stepped out ‘to take a turn on
the beach’. He presently came home, very glad to see me; and I hope they
were all the better for my being there. We spoke, with some approach to
cheerfulness, of Mr. Peggotty’s growing rich in a new country, and of
the wonders he would describe in his letters. We said nothing of Emily
by name, but distantly referred to her more than once. Ham was the
serenest of the party.
But, Peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little chamber where the
Crocodile book was lying ready for me on the table, that he always was
the same. She believed (she told me, crying) that he was broken-hearted;
though he was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked harder and
better than any boat-builder in any yard in all that part. There were
times, she said, of an evening, when he talked of their old life in
the boat-house; and then he mentioned Emily as a child. But, he never
mentioned her as a woman.
I thought I had read in his face that he would like to speak to me
alone. I therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, as he
came home from his work. Having settled this with myself, I fell asleep.
That night, for the first time in all those many nights, the candle was
taken out of the window, Mr. Peggotty swung in his old hammock in the
old boat, and the wind murmured with the old sound round his head.
All next day, he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-boat and
tackle; in packing up, and sending to London by waggon, such of his
little domestic possessions as he thought would be useful to him; and in
parting with the rest, or bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. She was with
him all day. As I had a sorrowful wish to see the old place once more,
before it was locked up, I engaged to meet them there in the evening.
But I so arranged it, as that I should meet Ham first.
It was easy to come in his way, as I knew where he worked. I met him
at a retired part of the sands, which I knew he would cross, and turned
back with him, that he might have leisure to speak to me if he really
wished. I had not mistaken the expression of his face. We had walked but
a little way together, when he said, without looking at me:
‘Mas’r Davy, have you seen her?’
‘Only for a moment, when she was in a swoon,’ I softly answered.
We walked a little farther, and he said:
‘Mas’r Davy, shall you see her, d’ye think?’
‘It would be too painful to her, perhaps,’ said I.
‘I have thowt of that,’ he replied. ‘So ‘twould, sir, so ‘twould.’
‘But, Ham,’ said I, gently, ‘if there is anything that I could write
to her, for you, in case I could not tell it; if there is anything
you would wish to make known to her through me; I should consider it a
sacred trust.’
‘I am sure on’t. I thankee, sir, most kind! I think theer is something I
could wish said or wrote.’
‘What is it?’
We walked a little farther in silence, and then he spoke.
‘’Tan’t that I forgive her. ‘Tan’t that so much. ‘Tis more as I beg of
her to forgive me, for having pressed my affections upon her. Odd times,
I think that if I hadn’t had her promise fur to marry me, sir, she was
that trustful of me, in a friendly way, that she’d have told me what was
struggling in her mind, and would have counselled with me, and I might
have saved her.’
I pressed his hand. ‘Is that all?’ ‘Theer’s yet a something else,’ he
returned, ‘if I can say it, Mas’r Davy.’
We walked on, farther than we had walked yet, before he spoke again. He
was not crying when he made the pauses I shall express by lines. He was
merely collecting himself to speak very plainly.
‘I loved her--and I love the mem’ry of her--too deep--to be able to
lead her to believe of my own self as I’m a happy man. I could only be
happy--by forgetting of her--and I’m afeerd I couldn’t hardly bear as
she should be told I done that. But if you, being so full of learning,
Mas’r Davy, could think of anything to say as might bring her to believe
I wasn’t greatly hurt: still loving of her, and mourning for her:
anything as might bring her to believe as I was not tired of my life,
and yet was hoping fur to see her without blame, wheer the wicked cease
from troubling and the weary are at rest--anything as would ease her
sorrowful mind, and yet not make her think as I could ever marry, or as
‘twas possible that anyone could ever be to me what she was--I should
ask of you to say that--with my prayers for her--that was so dear.’
I pressed his manly hand again, and told him I would charge myself to do
this as well as I could.
‘I thankee, sir,’ he answered. ‘’Twas kind of you to meet me. ‘Twas kind
of you to bear him company down. Mas’r Davy, I unnerstan’ very well,
though my aunt will come to Lon’on afore they sail, and they’ll unite
once more, that I am not like to see him agen. I fare to feel sure on’t.
We doen’t say so, but so ‘twill be, and better so. The last you see on
him--the very last--will you give him the lovingest duty and thanks of
the orphan, as he was ever more than a father to?’
This I also promised, faithfully.
‘I thankee agen, sir,’ he said, heartily shaking hands. ‘I know wheer
you’re a-going. Good-bye!’
With a slight wave of his hand, as though to explain to me that he could
not enter the old place, he turned away. As I looked after his figure,
crossing the waste in the moonlight, I saw him turn his face towards a
strip of silvery light upon the sea, and pass on, looking at it, until
he was a shadow in the distance.
The door of the boat-house stood open when I approached; and, on
entering, I found it emptied of all its furniture, saving one of the old
lockers, on which Mrs. Gummidge, with a basket on her knee, was seated,
looking at Mr. Peggotty. He leaned his elbow on the rough chimney-piece,
and gazed upon a few expiring embers in the grate; but he raised his
head, hopefully, on my coming in, and spoke in a cheery manner.
‘Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to ‘t, eh, Mas’r Davy?’
he said, taking up the candle. ‘Bare enough, now, an’t it?’ ‘Indeed you
have made good use of the time,’ said I.
‘Why, we have not been idle, sir. Missis Gummidge has worked like a--I
doen’t know what Missis Gummidge an’t worked like,’ said Mr. Peggotty,
looking at her, at a loss for a sufficiently approving simile.
Mrs. Gummidge, leaning on her basket, made no observation.
‘Theer’s the very locker that you used to sit on, ‘long with Em’ly!’
said Mr. Peggotty, in a whisper. ‘I’m a-going to carry it away with me,
last of all. And heer’s your old little bedroom, see, Mas’r Davy! A’most
as bleak tonight, as ‘art could wish!’
In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept
around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very
mournful. Everything was gone, down to the little mirror with the
oyster-shell frame. I thought of myself, lying here, when that first
great change was being wrought at home. I thought of the blue-eyed child
who had enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth: and a foolish, fearful
fancy came upon me of his being near at hand, and liable to be met at
any turn.
‘’Tis like to be long,’ said Mr. Peggotty, in a low voice, ‘afore
the boat finds new tenants. They look upon ‘t, down heer, as being
unfortunate now!’
‘Does it belong to anybody in the neighbourhood?’ I asked.
‘To a mast-maker up town,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘I’m a-going to give the
key to him tonight.’
We looked into the other little room, and came back to Mrs. Gummidge,
sitting on the locker, whom Mr. Peggotty, putting the light on the
chimney-piece, requested to rise, that he might carry it outside the
door before extinguishing the candle.
‘Dan’l,’ said Mrs. Gummidge, suddenly deserting her basket, and clinging
to his arm ‘my dear Dan’l, the parting words I speak in this house is, I
mustn’t be left behind. Doen’t ye think of leaving me behind, Dan’l! Oh,
doen’t ye ever do it!’
Mr. Peggotty, taken aback, looked from Mrs. Gummidge to me, and from me
to Mrs. Gummidge, as if he had been awakened from a sleep.
‘Doen’t ye, dearest Dan’l, doen’t ye!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge, fervently.
‘Take me ‘long with you, Dan’l, take me ‘long with you and Em’ly! I’ll
be your servant, constant and trew. If there’s slaves in them parts
where you’re a-going, I’ll be bound to you for one, and happy, but
doen’t ye leave me behind, Dan’l, that’s a deary dear!’
‘My good soul,’ said Mr. Peggotty, shaking his head, ‘you doen’t know
what a long voyage, and what a hard life ‘tis!’ ‘Yes, I do, Dan’l! I can
guess!’ cried Mrs. Gummidge. ‘But my parting words under this roof is,
I shall go into the house and die, if I am not took. I can dig, Dan’l.
I can work. I can live hard. I can be loving and patient now--more than
you think, Dan’l, if you’ll on’y try me. I wouldn’t touch the ‘lowance,
not if I was dying of want, Dan’l Peggotty; but I’ll go with you and
Em’ly, if you’ll on’y let me, to the world’s end! I know how ‘tis; I
know you think that I am lone and lorn; but, deary love, ‘tan’t so no
more! I ain’t sat here, so long, a-watching, and a-thinking of your
trials, without some good being done me. Mas’r Davy, speak to him for
me! I knows his ways, and Em’ly’s, and I knows their sorrows, and can be
a comfort to ‘em, some odd times, and labour for ‘em allus! Dan’l, deary
Dan’l, let me go ‘long with you!’
And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and
affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well
deserved.
We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door
on the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in
the cloudy night. Next day, when we were returning to London outside the
coach, Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs.
Gummidge was happy.
CHAPTER 52. I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION
When the time Mr. Micawber had appointed so mysteriously, was within
four-and-twenty hours of being come, my aunt and I consulted how we
should proceed; for my aunt was very unwilling to leave Dora. Ah! how
easily I carried Dora up and down stairs, now!
We were disposed, notwithstanding Mr. Micawber’s stipulation for my
aunt’s attendance, to arrange that she should stay at home, and be
represented by Mr. Dick and me. In short, we had resolved to take this
course, when Dora again unsettled us by declaring that she never
would forgive herself, and never would forgive her bad boy, if my aunt
remained behind, on any pretence.
‘I won’t speak to you,’ said Dora, shaking her curls at my aunt. ‘I’ll
be disagreeable! I’ll make Jip bark at you all day. I shall be sure that
you really are a cross old thing, if you don’t go!’
‘Tut, Blossom!’ laughed my aunt. ‘You know you can’t do without me!’
‘Yes, I can,’ said Dora. ‘You are no use to me at all. You never run up
and down stairs for me, all day long. You never sit and tell me stories
about Doady, when his shoes were worn out, and he was covered with
dust--oh, what a poor little mite of a fellow! You never do anything at
all to please me, do you, dear?’ Dora made haste to kiss my aunt, and
say, ‘Yes, you do! I’m only joking!’-lest my aunt should think she
really meant it.
‘But, aunt,’ said Dora, coaxingly, ‘now listen. You must go. I shall
tease you, ‘till you let me have my own way about it. I shall lead my
naughty boy such a life, if he don’t make you go. I shall make myself
so disagreeable--and so will Jip! You’ll wish you had gone, like a good
thing, for ever and ever so long, if you don’t go. Besides,’ said Dora,
putting back her hair, and looking wonderingly at my aunt and me, ‘why
shouldn’t you both go? I am not very ill indeed. Am I?’
‘Why, what a question!’ cried my aunt.
‘What a fancy!’ said I.
‘Yes! I know I am a silly little thing!’ said Dora, slowly looking from
one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to kiss us
as she lay upon her couch. ‘Well, then, you must both go, or I shall not
believe you; and then I shall cry!’
I saw, in my aunt’s face, that she began to give way now, and Dora
brightened again, as she saw it too.
‘You’ll come back with so much to tell me, that it’ll take at least
a week to make me understand!’ said Dora. ‘Because I know I shan’t
understand, for a length of time, if there’s any business in it. And
there’s sure to be some business in it! If there’s anything to add up,
besides, I don’t know when I shall make it out; and my bad boy will look
so miserable all the time. There! Now you’ll go, won’t you? You’ll only
be gone one night, and Jip will take care of me while you are gone.
Doady will carry me upstairs before you go, and I won’t come down again
till you come back; and you shall take Agnes a dreadfully scolding
letter from me, because she has never been to see us!’
We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, and
that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather unwell,
because she liked to be petted. She was greatly pleased, and very merry;
and we four, that is to say, my aunt, Mr. Dick, Traddles, and I, went
down to Canterbury by the Dover mail that night.
At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, which
we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, I found a
letter, importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half
past nine. After which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour,
to our respective beds, through various close passages; which smelt as
if they had been steeped, for ages, in a solution of soup and stables.
Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets,
and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and
churches. The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the
towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich
country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air,
as if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet the bells, when
they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of
their own age, and my pretty Dora’s youth; and of the many, never old,
who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells
had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up
within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as
circles do in water.
I looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did not go
nearer to it, lest, being observed, I might unwittingly do any harm to
the design I had come to aid. The early sun was striking edgewise on its
gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams of
its old peace seemed to touch my heart.
I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by
the main street, which in the interval had shaken off its last night’s
sleep. Among those who were stirring in the shops, I saw my ancient
enemy the butcher, now advanced to top-boots and a baby, and in business
for himself. He was nursing the baby, and appeared to be a benignant
member of society.
We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to breakfast.
As it approached nearer and nearer to half past nine o’clock, our
restless expectation of Mr. Micawber increased. At last we made no more
pretence of attending to the meal, which, except with Mr. Dick, had been
a mere form from the first; but my aunt walked up and down the room.
Traddles sat upon the sofa affecting to read the paper with his eyes on
the ceiling; and I looked out of the window to give early notice of Mr.
Micawber’s coming. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime of
the half hour, he appeared in the street.
‘Here he is,’ said I, ‘and not in his legal attire!’
My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to breakfast
in it), and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for anything that
was resolute and uncompromising. Traddles buttoned his coat with a
determined air. Mr. Dick, disturbed by these formidable appearances, but
feeling it necessary to imitate them, pulled his hat, with both hands,
as firmly over his ears as he possibly could; and instantly took it off
again, to welcome Mr. Micawber.
‘Gentlemen, and madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘good morning! My dear sir,’
to Mr. Dick, who shook hands with him violently, ‘you are extremely
good.’
‘Have you breakfasted?’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Have a chop!’
‘Not for the world, my good sir!’ cried Mr. Micawber, stopping him on
his way to the bell; ‘appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon, have long been
strangers.’
Mr. Dixon was so well pleased with his new name, and appeared to think
it so obliging in Mr. Micawber to confer it upon him, that he shook
hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly.
‘Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘attention!’
Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush.
‘Now, sir,’ said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves, ‘we
are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as YOU please.’
‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘I trust you will shortly witness an
eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to mention
here that we have been in communication together?’
‘It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, to whom I
looked in surprise. ‘Mr. Micawber has consulted me in reference to
what he has in contemplation; and I have advised him to the best of my
judgement.’
‘Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles,’ pursued Mr. Micawber, ‘what I
contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature.’
‘Highly so,’ said Traddles.
‘Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen,’ said Mr.
Micawber, ‘you will do me the favour to submit yourselves, for the
moment, to the direction of one who, however unworthy to be regarded in
any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature,
is still your fellow-man, though crushed out of his original form
by individual errors, and the accumulative force of a combination of
circumstances?’
‘We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘and will do
what you please.’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘your confidence is not, at
the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed a start
of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the present company,
inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of Wickfield and Heep, whose
Stipendiary I am.’
My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval.
‘I have no more,’ observed Mr. Micawber, ‘to say at present.’
With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a
comprehensive bow, and disappeared; his manner being extremely distant,
and his face extremely pale.
Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing upright
on the top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation; so I took
out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the five minutes. My
aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the like. When the time was
expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we all went out together to the
old house, without saying one word on the way.
We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the
ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The large
office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so well concealed
but that a foot or more of that instrument protruded from his bosom,
like a new kind of shirt-frill.
As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud:
‘How do you do, Mr. Micawber?’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, gravely, ‘I hope I see you well?’
‘Is Miss Wickfield at home?’ said I.
‘Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever,’ he
returned; ‘but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to see old
friends. Will you walk in, sir?’
He preceded us to the dining-room--the first room I had entered in that
house--and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield’s former office,
said, in a sonorous voice:
‘Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and Mr.
Dixon!’
I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit
astonished him, evidently; not the less, I dare say, because it
astonished ourselves. He did not gather his eyebrows together, for he
had none worth mentioning; but he frowned to that degree that he almost
closed his small eyes, while the hurried raising of his grisly hand to
his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. This was only when we
were in the act of entering his room, and when I caught a glance at him
over my aunt’s shoulder. A moment afterwards, he was as fawning and as
humble as ever.
‘Well, I am sure,’ he said. ‘This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! To
have, as I may say, all friends round St. Paul’s at once, is a treat
unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you well, and--if I may
umbly express myself so--friendly towards them as is ever your friends,
whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, sir, I hope she’s getting on. We have
been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state,
lately, I do assure you.’
I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what else
to do.
‘Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was an umble
clerk, and held your pony; ain’t they?’ said Uriah, with his sickliest
smile. ‘But I am not changed, Miss Trotwood.’
‘Well, sir,’ returned my aunt, ‘to tell you the truth, I think you are
pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that’s any satisfaction
to you.’
‘Thank you, Miss Trotwood,’ said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly manner,
‘for your good opinion! Micawber, tell ‘em to let Miss Agnes know--and
mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she sees the present
company!’ said Uriah, setting chairs.
‘You are not busy, Mr. Heep?’ said Traddles, whose eye the cunning red
eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinized and evaded us.
‘No, Mr. Traddles,’ replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and
squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm between his bony knees. ‘Not
so much so as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not
easily satisfied, you know! Not but what myself and Micawber have our
hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr. Wickfield’s being
hardly fit for any occupation, sir. But it’s a pleasure as well as a
duty, I am sure, to work for him. You’ve not been intimate with Mr.
Wickfield, I think, Mr. Traddles? I believe I’ve only had the honour of
seeing you once myself?’
‘No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield,’ returned Traddles;
‘or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr. Heep.’
There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah look at
the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious expression. But,
seeing only Traddles, with his good-natured face, simple manner, and
hair on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole
body, but especially his throat:
‘I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as much
as we all do. His little failings would only have endeared him to you
the more. But if you would like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently
spoken of, I should refer you to Copperfield. The family is a subject
he’s very strong upon, if you never heard him.’
I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have
done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by Mr.
Micawber. She was not quite so self-possessed as usual, I thought; and
had evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. But her earnest cordiality,
and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler lustre for it.
I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of an
ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the meanwhile,
some slight sign passed between Mr. Micawber and Traddles; and Traddles,
unobserved except by me, went out.
‘Don’t wait, Micawber,’ said Uriah.
Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood erect
before the door, most unmistakably contemplating one of his fellow-men,
and that man his employer.
‘What are you waiting for?’ said Uriah. ‘Micawber! did you hear me tell
you not to wait?’
‘Yes!’ replied the immovable Mr. Micawber.
‘Then why DO you wait?’ said Uriah.
‘Because I--in short, choose,’ replied Mr. Micawber, with a burst.
Uriah’s cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still faintly
tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at Mr. Micawber
attentively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every
feature.
‘You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows,’ he said, with an
effort at a smile, ‘and I am afraid you’ll oblige me to get rid of you.
Go along! I’ll talk to you presently.’
‘If there is a scoundrel on this earth,’ said Mr. Micawber, suddenly
breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, ‘with whom I have already
talked too much, that scoundrel’s name is--HEEP!’
Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly round
upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face could
wear, he said, in a lower voice:
‘Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here by appointment! You are
playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take care.
You’ll make nothing of this. We understand each other, you and me.
There’s no love between us. You were always a puppy with a proud
stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my rise, do you?
None of your plots against me; I’ll counterplot you! Micawber, you be
off. I’ll talk to you presently.’
‘Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘there is a sudden change in this fellow, in
more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth in
one particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. Deal with
him as he deserves!’
‘You are a precious set of people, ain’t you?’ said Uriah, in the same
low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped from his
forehead, with his long lean hand, ‘to buy over my clerk, who is the
very scum of society,--as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know it,
before anyone had charity on you,--to defame me with his lies? Miss
Trotwood, you had better stop this; or I’ll stop your husband shorter
than will be pleasant to you. I won’t know your story professionally,
for nothing, old lady! Miss Wickfield, if you have any love for your
father, you had better not join that gang. I’ll ruin him, if you do.
Now, come! I have got some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before
it goes over you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don’t want to
be crushed. I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to
presently, you fool! while there’s time to retreat. Where’s mother?’ he
said, suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles,
and pulling down the bell-rope. ‘Fine doings in a person’s own house!’
‘Mrs. Heep is here, sir,’ said Traddles, returning with that worthy
mother of a worthy son. ‘I have taken the liberty of making myself known
to her.’
‘Who are you to make yourself known?’ retorted Uriah. ‘And what do you
want here?’
‘I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ said Traddles, in a
composed and business-like way. ‘And I have a power of attorney from him
in my pocket, to act for him in all matters.’
‘The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,’ said Uriah,
turning uglier than before, ‘and it has been got from him by fraud!’
‘Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,’ returned Traddles
quietly; ‘and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that question, if you
please, to Mr. Micawber.’
‘Ury--!’ Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture.
‘YOU hold your tongue, mother,’ he returned; ‘least said, soonest
mended.’
‘But, my Ury--’
‘Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?’
Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his
pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the
extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. The
suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was
useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer
with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done--all
this time being desperate too, and at his wits’ end for the means
of getting the better of us--though perfectly consistent with the
experience I had of him, at first took even me by surprise, who had
known him so long, and disliked him so heartily.
I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us,
one after another; for I had always understood that he hated me, and I
remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when his eyes passed
on to Agnes, and I saw the rage with which he felt his power over her
slipping away, and the exhibition, in their disappointment, of the
odious passions that had led him to aspire to one whose virtues he could
never appreciate or care for, I was shocked by the mere thought of her
having lived, an hour, within sight of such a man.
After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking at us
with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one more address
to me, half whining, and half abusive.
‘You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride yourself
so much on your honour and all the rest of it, to sneak about my place,
eaves-dropping with my clerk? If it had been ME, I shouldn’t have
wondered; for I don’t make myself out a gentleman (though I never was
in the streets either, as you were, according to Micawber), but being
you!--And you’re not afraid of doing this, either? You don’t think at
all of what I shall do, in return; or of getting yourself into
trouble for conspiracy and so forth? Very well. We shall see! Mr.
What’s-your-name, you were going to refer some question to Micawber.
There’s your referee. Why don’t you make him speak? He has learnt his
lesson, I see.’
Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the
edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay
feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might
follow.
Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the
greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first
syllable of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now burst
forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive
weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the
form of a large letter. Opening this packet, with his old flourish, and
glancing at the contents, as if he cherished an artistic admiration of
their style of composition, he began to read as follows:
‘“Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen--“’
‘Bless and save the man!’ exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. ‘He’d write
letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!’
Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on.
‘“In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate
Villain that has ever existed,”’ Mr. Micawber, without looking off the
letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep,
‘“I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of
pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have
ever been the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy,
Want, Despair, and Madness, have, collectively or separately, been the
attendants of my career.”’
The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to these
dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he
read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of
his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed.
‘“In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered
the office--or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the
Bureau--of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of
Wickfield and--HEEP, but in reality, wielded by--HEEP alone. HEEP, and
only HEEP, is the mainspring of that machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is
the Forger and the Cheat.”’
Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter,
as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of
dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and
disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken.
The blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood.
‘The Devil take you!’ said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. ‘I’ll
be even with you.’
‘Approach me again, you--you--you HEEP of infamy,’ gasped Mr. Micawber,
‘and if your head is human, I’ll break it. Come on, come on!’
I think I never saw anything more ridiculous--I was sensible of it, even
at the time--than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards with the ruler,
and crying, ‘Come on!’ while Traddles and I pushed him back into a
corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in
emerging again.
His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for
sometime, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; then
held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face
looking down.
Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter.
‘“The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered into
the service of--HEEP,”’ always pausing before that word and uttering
it with astonishing vigour, ‘“were not defined, beyond the pittance of
twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent on
the value of my professional exertions; in other and more expressive
words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the
poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance
between myself and--HEEP. Need I say, that it soon became necessary for
me to solicit from--HEEP--pecuniary advances towards the support of
Mrs. Micawber, and our blighted but rising family? Need I say that this
necessity had been foreseen by--HEEP? That those advances were secured
by I.O.U.’s and other similar acknowledgements, known to the legal
institutions of this country? And that I thus became immeshed in the web
he had spun for my reception?”’
Mr. Micawber’s enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing this
unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any pain or
anxiety that the reality could have caused him. He read on:
‘“Then it was that--HEEP--began to favour me with just so much of his
confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal business.
Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly express myself, to
dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly
called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the
mystification of an individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr.
W. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible
way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian--HEEP--was professing
unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused
gentleman. This was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes,
with that universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious
ornament of the Elizabethan Era, worse remains behind!”’
Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off with a
quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second reading of
the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place.
‘“It is not my intention,”’ he continued reading on, ‘“to enter on a
detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though it
is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor nature,
affecting the individual whom I have denominated Mr. W., to which I
have been a tacitly consenting party. My object, when the contest within
myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and no baker, existence
and non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage of my opportunities
to discover and expose the major malpractices committed, to that
gentleman’s grievous wrong and injury, by--HEEP. Stimulated by the
silent monitor within, and by a no less touching and appealing monitor
without--to whom I will briefly refer as Miss W.--I entered on a not
unlaborious task of clandestine investigation, protracted--now, to the
best of my knowledge, information, and belief, over a period exceeding
twelve calendar months.”’
He read this passage as if it were from an Act of Parliament; and
appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words.
‘“My charges against--HEEP,”’ he read on, glancing at him, and drawing
the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in case of
need, ‘“are as follows.”’
We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his.
‘“First,”’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘“When Mr. W.’s faculties and memory
for business became, through causes into which it is not necessary or
expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused,--HEEP--designedly
perplexed and complicated the whole of the official transactions. When
Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business,--HEEP was always at hand
to force him to enter on it. He obtained Mr. W.’s signature under such
circumstances to documents of importance, representing them to be other
documents of no importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw
out, thus, one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six
fourteen, two and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business
charges and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or
had never really existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, the
appearance of having originated in Mr. W.’s own dishonest intention, and
of having been accomplished by Mr. W.’s own dishonest act; and has used
it, ever since, to torture and constrain him.”’
‘You shall prove this, you Copperfield!’ said Uriah, with a threatening
shake of the head. ‘All in good time!’
‘Ask--HEEP--Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after him,’ said Mr.
Micawber, breaking off from the letter; ‘will you?’
‘The fool himself--and lives there now,’ said Uriah, disdainfully.
‘Ask--HEEP--if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house,’ said Mr.
Micawber; ‘will you?’
I saw Uriah’s lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his
chin.
‘Or ask him,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if he ever burnt one there. If he says
yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins Micawber,
and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage!’
The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself of
these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who cried
out, in much agitation:
‘Ury, Ury! Be umble, and make terms, my dear!’
‘Mother!’ he retorted, ‘will you keep quiet? You’re in a fright, and
don’t know what you say or mean. Umble!’ he repeated, looking at me,
with a snarl; ‘I’ve umbled some of ‘em for a pretty long time back,
umble as I was!’
Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently
proceeded with his composition.
‘“Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge,
information, and belief--“’
‘But that won’t do,’ muttered Uriah, relieved. ‘Mother, you keep quiet.’
‘We will endeavour to provide something that WILL do, and do for you
finally, sir, very shortly,’ replied Mr. Micawber.
‘“Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge,
information, and belief, systematically forged, to various entries,
books, and documents, the signature of Mr. W.; and has distinctly done
so in one instance, capable of proof by me. To wit, in manner following,
that is to say:”’
Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words,
which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not
at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of my life,
in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of
legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily
when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression
of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so
forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle.
We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them
too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to
wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds
well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on
state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the
meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there
be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by
making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too
numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a
nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many
greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words.
Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips:
‘“To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W. being infirm, and
it being within the bounds of probability that his decease might lead
to some discoveries, and to the downfall of--HEEP’S--power over the W.
family,--as I, Wilkins Micawber, the undersigned, assume--unless the
filial affection of his daughter could be secretly influenced from
allowing any investigation of the partnership affairs to be ever made,
the said--HEEP--deemed it expedient to have a bond ready by him, as from
Mr. W., for the before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and
nine, with interest, stated therein to have been advanced by--HEEP--to
Mr. W. to save Mr. W. from dishonour; though really the sum was never
advanced by him, and has long been replaced. The signatures to this
instrument purporting to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by Wilkins
Micawber, are forgeries by--HEEP. I have, in my possession, in his hand
and pocket-book, several similar imitations of Mr. W.’s signature, here
and there defaced by fire, but legible to anyone. I never attested any
such document. And I have the document itself, in my possession.”’ Uriah
Heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys, and opened
a certain drawer; then, suddenly bethought himself of what he was about,
and turned again towards us, without looking in it.
‘“And I have the document,”’ Mr. Micawber read again, looking about as
if it were the text of a sermon, ‘“in my possession,--that is to say,
I had, early this morning, when this was written, but have since
relinquished it to Mr. Traddles.”’
‘It is quite true,’ assented Traddles.
‘Ury, Ury!’ cried the mother, ‘be umble and make terms. I know my
son will be umble, gentlemen, if you’ll give him time to think. Mr.
Copperfield, I’m sure you know that he was always very umble, sir!’
It was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick, when
the son had abandoned it as useless.
‘Mother,’ he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in which
his hand was wrapped, ‘you had better take and fire a loaded gun at me.’
‘But I love you, Ury,’ cried Mrs. Heep. And I have no doubt she did; or
that he loved her, however strange it may appear; though, to be sure,
they were a congenial couple. ‘And I can’t bear to hear you provoking
the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more. I told the gentleman
at first, when he told me upstairs it was come to light, that I would
answer for your being umble, and making amends. Oh, see how umble I am,
gentlemen, and don’t mind him!’
‘Why, there’s Copperfield, mother,’ he angrily retorted, pointing his
lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled, as the
prime mover in the discovery; and I did not undeceive him; ‘there’s
Copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say less than
you’ve blurted out!’
‘I can’t help it, Ury,’ cried his mother. ‘I can’t see you running into
danger, through carrying your head so high. Better be umble, as you
always was.’
He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to me
with a scowl:
‘What more have you got to bring forward? If anything, go on with it.
What do you look at me for?’
Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, glad to revert to a
performance with which he was so highly satisfied.
‘“Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show, by--HEEP’S--false
books, and--HEEP’S--real memoranda, beginning with the partially
destroyed pocket-book (which I was unable to comprehend, at the time of
its accidental discovery by Mrs. Micawber, on our taking possession of
our present abode, in the locker or bin devoted to the reception of the
ashes calcined on our domestic hearth), that the weaknesses, the faults,
the very virtues, the parental affections, and the sense of honour, of
the unhappy Mr. W. have been for years acted on by, and warped to the
base purposes of--HEEP. That Mr. W. has been for years deluded and
plundered, in every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement
of the avaricious, false, and grasping--HEEP. That the engrossing object
of--HEEP--was, next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss W. (of his ulterior
views in reference to the latter I say nothing) entirely to himself.
That his last act, completed but a few months since, was to induce Mr.
W. to execute a relinquishment of his share in the partnership, and even
a bill of sale on the very furniture of his house, in consideration of a
certain annuity, to be well and truly paid by--HEEP--on the four common
quarter-days in each and every year. That these meshes; beginning with
alarming and falsified accounts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the
receiver, at a period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and
ill-judged speculations, and may not have had the money, for which he
was morally and legally responsible, in hand; going on with pretended
borrowings of money at enormous interest, really coming from--HEEP--and
by--HEEP--fraudulently obtained or withheld from Mr. W. himself,
on pretence of such speculations or otherwise; perpetuated by a
miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous chicaneries--gradually
thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. could see no world beyond. Bankrupt,
as he believed, alike in circumstances, in all other hope, and
in honour, his sole reliance was upon the monster in the garb of
man,”’--Mr. Micawber made a good deal of this, as a new turn of
expression,--‘“who, by making himself necessary to him, had achieved his
destruction. All this I undertake to show. Probably much more!”’
I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully, half
sorrowfully, at my side; and there was a movement among us, as if Mr.
Micawber had finished. He said, with exceeding gravity, ‘Pardon me,’
and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits and the most intense
enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter.
‘“I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to substantiate these
accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to disappear from the
landscape on which we appear to be an encumbrance. That is soon done. It
may be reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of inanition,
as being the frailest member of our circle; and that our twins will
follow next in order. So be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has
done much; imprisonment on civil process, and want, will soon do more.
I trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation--of which the
smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure of
arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at rise of
morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the watchful eye of
one whom it were superfluous to call Demon--combined with the struggle
of parental Poverty to turn it, when completed, to the right account,
may be as the sprinkling of a few drops of sweet water on my funeral
pyre. I ask no more. Let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a
gallant and eminent naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to
cope, that what I have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish
objects,
For England, home, and Beauty.
‘“Remaining always, &c. &c., WILKINS MICAWBER.”’
Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded
up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as something she
might like to keep.
There was, as I had noticed on my first visit long ago, an iron safe in
the room. The key was in it. A hasty suspicion seemed to strike Uriah;
and, with a glance at Mr. Micawber, he went to it, and threw the doors
clanking open. It was empty.
‘Where are the books?’ he cried, with a frightful face. ‘Some thief has
stolen the books!’
Mr. Micawber tapped himself with the ruler. ‘I did, when I got the key
from you as usual--but a little earlier--and opened it this morning.’
‘Don’t be uneasy,’ said Traddles. ‘They have come into my possession. I
will take care of them, under the authority I mentioned.’
‘You receive stolen goods, do you?’ cried Uriah.
‘Under such circumstances,’ answered Traddles, ‘yes.’
What was my astonishment when I beheld my aunt, who had been profoundly
quiet and attentive, make a dart at Uriah Heep, and seize him by the
collar with both hands!
‘You know what I want?’ said my aunt.
‘A strait-waistcoat,’ said he.
‘No. My property!’ returned my aunt. ‘Agnes, my dear, as long as
I believed it had been really made away with by your father, I
wouldn’t--and, my dear, I didn’t, even to Trot, as he knows--breathe a
syllable of its having been placed here for investment. But, now I know
this fellow’s answerable for it, and I’ll have it! Trot, come and take
it away from him!’
Whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he kept her property in
his neck-kerchief, I am sure I don’t know; but she certainly pulled at
it as if she thought so. I hastened to put myself between them, and to
assure her that we would all take care that he should make the utmost
restitution of everything he had wrongly got. This, and a few moments’
reflection, pacified her; but she was not at all disconcerted by what
she had done (though I cannot say as much for her bonnet) and resumed
her seat composedly.
During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clamouring to her son
to be ‘umble’; and had been going down on her knees to all of us in
succession, and making the wildest promises. Her son sat her down in his
chair; and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm with his hand, but
not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look:
‘What do you want done?’
‘I will tell you what must be done,’ said Traddles.
‘Has that Copperfield no tongue?’ muttered Uriah, ‘I would do a good
deal for you if you could tell me, without lying, that somebody had cut
it out.’
‘My Uriah means to be umble!’ cried his mother. ‘Don’t mind what he
says, good gentlemen!’
‘What must be done,’ said Traddles, ‘is this. First, the deed of
relinquishment, that we have heard of, must be given over to me
now--here.’
‘Suppose I haven’t got it,’ he interrupted.
‘But you have,’ said Traddles; ‘therefore, you know, we won’t suppose
so.’ And I cannot help avowing that this was the first occasion on
which I really did justice to the clear head, and the plain, patient,
practical good sense, of my old schoolfellow. ‘Then,’ said Traddles,
‘you must prepare to disgorge all that your rapacity has become
possessed of, and to make restoration to the last farthing. All the
partnership books and papers must remain in our possession; all your
books and papers; all money accounts and securities, of both kinds. In
short, everything here.’
‘Must it? I don’t know that,’ said Uriah. ‘I must have time to think
about that.’
‘Certainly,’ replied Traddles; ‘but, in the meanwhile, and until
everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall maintain possession
of these things; and beg you--in short, compel you--to keep to your own
room, and hold no communication with anyone.’
‘I won’t do it!’ said Uriah, with an oath.
‘Maidstone jail is a safer place of detention,’ observed Traddles; ‘and
though the law may be longer in righting us, and may not be able to
right us so completely as you can, there is no doubt of its punishing
YOU. Dear me, you know that quite as well as I! Copperfield, will you go
round to the Guildhall, and bring a couple of officers?’
Here, Mrs. Heep broke out again, crying on her knees to Agnes to
interfere in their behalf, exclaiming that he was very humble, and it
was all true, and if he didn’t do what we wanted, she would, and much
more to the same purpose; being half frantic with fears for her darling.
To inquire what he might have done, if he had had any boldness, would
be like inquiring what a mongrel cur might do, if it had the spirit of
a tiger. He was a coward, from head to foot; and showed his dastardly
nature through his sullenness and mortification, as much as at any time
of his mean life.
‘Stop!’ he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand. ‘Mother,
hold your noise. Well! Let ‘em have that deed. Go and fetch it!’
‘Do you help her, Mr. Dick,’ said Traddles, ‘if you please.’
Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick accompanied her
as a shepherd’s dog might accompany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep gave him
little trouble; for she not only returned with the deed, but with the
box in which it was, where we found a banker’s book and some other
papers that were afterwards serviceable.
‘Good!’ said Traddles, when this was brought. ‘Now, Mr. Heep, you can
retire to think: particularly observing, if you please, that I declare
to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one thing to be
done; that it is what I have explained; and that it must be done without
delay.’
Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across the
room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said:
‘Copperfield, I have always hated you. You’ve always been an upstart,
and you’ve always been against me.’
‘As I think I told you once before,’ said I, ‘it is you who have been,
in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable
to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in
the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is
as certain as death.’
‘Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school where I
picked up so much umbleness), from nine o’clock to eleven, that labour
was a curse; and from eleven o’clock to one, that it was a blessing and
a cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don’t know what all, eh?’ said
he with a sneer. ‘You preach, about as consistent as they did.
Won’t umbleness go down? I shouldn’t have got round my gentleman
fellow-partner without it, I think. --Micawber, you old bully, I’ll pay
YOU!’
Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and
making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the door,
then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the satisfaction of
‘witnessing the re-establishment of mutual confidence between himself
and Mrs. Micawber’. After which, he invited the company generally to the
contemplation of that affecting spectacle.
‘The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs. Micawber and
myself, is now withdrawn,’ said Mr. Micawber; ‘and my children and the
Author of their Being can once more come in contact on equal terms.’
As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that we
were, as well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would permit, I
dare say we should all have gone, but that it was necessary for Agnes to
return to her father, as yet unable to bear more than the dawn of
hope; and for someone else to hold Uriah in safe keeping. So, Traddles
remained for the latter purpose, to be presently relieved by Mr. Dick;
and Mr. Dick, my aunt, and I, went home with Mr. Micawber. As I parted
hurriedly from the dear girl to whom I owed so much, and thought from
what she had been saved, perhaps, that morning--her better resolution
notwithstanding--I felt devoutly thankful for the miseries of my younger
days which had brought me to the knowledge of Mr. Micawber.
His house was not far off; and as the street door opened into the
sitting-room, and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own,
we found ourselves at once in the bosom of the family. Mr. Micawber
exclaiming, ‘Emma! my life!’ rushed into Mrs. Micawber’s arms. Mrs.
Micawber shrieked, and folded Mr. Micawber in her embrace. Miss
Micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of Mrs. Micawber’s last
letter to me, was sensibly affected. The stranger leaped. The twins
testified their joy by several inconvenient but innocent demonstrations.
Master Micawber, whose disposition appeared to have been soured by
early disappointment, and whose aspect had become morose, yielded to his
better feelings, and blubbered.
‘Emma!’ said Mr. Micawber. ‘The cloud is past from my mind. Mutual
confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored, to know
no further interruption. Now, welcome poverty!’ cried Mr. Micawber,
shedding tears. ‘Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger,
rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the
end!’
With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a chair,
and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of bleak
prospects, which appeared, to the best of my judgement, to be anything
but welcome to them; and calling upon them to come out into Canterbury
and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for their support.
But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted away,
the first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be considered
complete, was to recover her. This my aunt and Mr. Micawber did; and
then my aunt was introduced, and Mrs. Micawber recognized me.
‘Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said the poor lady, giving me her
hand, ‘but I am not strong; and the removal of the late misunderstanding
between Mr. Micawber and myself was at first too much for me.’
‘Is this all your family, ma’am?’ said my aunt.
‘There are no more at present,’ returned Mrs. Micawber.
‘Good gracious, I didn’t mean that, ma’am,’ said my aunt. ‘I mean, are
all these yours?’
‘Madam,’ replied Mr. Micawber, ‘it is a true bill.’
‘And that eldest young gentleman, now,’ said my aunt, musing, ‘what has
he been brought up to?’
‘It was my hope when I came here,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘to have got
Wilkins into the Church: or perhaps I shall express my meaning more
strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor in
the venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and he
has--in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses,
rather than in sacred edifices.’
‘But he means well,’ said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly.
‘I dare say, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Micawber, ‘that he means
particularly well; but I have not yet found that he carries out his
meaning, in any given direction whatsoever.’
Master Micawber’s moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and he
demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? Whether he had been born
a carpenter, or a coach-painter, any more than he had been born a bird?
Whether he could go into the next street, and open a chemist’s shop?
Whether he could rush to the next assizes, and proclaim himself a
lawyer? Whether he could come out by force at the opera, and succeed
by violence? Whether he could do anything, without being brought up to
something?
My aunt mused a little while, and then said:
‘Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to
emigration.’
‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘it was the dream of my youth, and the
fallacious aspiration of my riper years.’ I am thoroughly persuaded, by
the by, that he had never thought of it in his life.
‘Aye?’ said my aunt, with a glance at me. ‘Why, what a thing it would
be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if you were to
emigrate now.’
‘Capital, madam, capital,’ urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily.
‘That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr.
Copperfield,’ assented his wife.
‘Capital?’ cried my aunt. ‘But you are doing us a great service--have
done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come out of
the fire--and what could we do for you, that would be half so good as to
find the capital?’
‘I could not receive it as a gift,’ said Mr. Micawber, full of fire and
animation, ‘but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five per
cent interest, per annum, upon my personal liability--say my notes of
hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to
allow time for something to turn up--’
‘Could be? Can be and shall be, on your own terms,’ returned my aunt,
‘if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here are some
people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If you decide to go,
why shouldn’t you go in the same ship? You may help each other. Think of
this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take your time, and weigh it well.’
‘There is but one question, my dear ma’am, I could wish to ask,’ said
Mrs. Micawber. ‘The climate, I believe, is healthy?’
‘Finest in the world!’ said my aunt.
‘Just so,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘Then my question arises. Now, are
the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr. Micawber’s
abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the social scale? I will
not say, at present, might he aspire to be Governor, or anything of that
sort; but would there be a reasonable opening for his talents to
develop themselves--that would be amply sufficient--and find their own
expansion?’
‘No better opening anywhere,’ said my aunt, ‘for a man who conducts
himself well, and is industrious.’
‘For a man who conducts himself well,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber, with her
clearest business manner, ‘and is industrious. Precisely. It is
evident to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action for Mr.
Micawber!’
‘I entertain the conviction, my dear madam,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘that
it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land, for myself
and family; and that something of an extraordinary nature will turn up
on that shore. It is no distance--comparatively speaking; and though
consideration is due to the kindness of your proposal, I assure you that
is a mere matter of form.’
Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of men,
looking on to fortune; or how Mrs. Micawber presently discoursed
about the habits of the kangaroo! Shall I ever recall that street of
Canterbury on a market-day, without recalling him, as he walked
back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed, the
unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land; and looking at
the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an Australian farmer!
CHAPTER 53. ANOTHER RETROSPECT
I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure in the
moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in its innocent
love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me--turn to look upon the
Little Blossom, as it flutters to the ground!
I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora, in our
cottage. I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so used to it in
feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is not really long, in weeks
or months; but, in my usage and experience, it is a weary, weary while.
They have left off telling me to ‘wait a few days more’. I have begun
to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall see my
child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip.
He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be that he misses in
his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger; but he
mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is
sorry that he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on
Dora’s bed--she sitting at the bedside--and mildly licks her hand.
Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or
complaining word. She says that we are very good to her; that her dear
old careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt has no
sleep, yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes, the
little bird-like ladies come to see her; and then we talk about our
wedding-day, and all that happy time.
What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be--and in all
life, within doors and without--when I sit in the quiet, shaded, orderly
room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned towards me, and her
little fingers twining round my hand! Many and many an hour I sit thus;
but, of all those times, three times come the freshest on my mind.
It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt’s hands, shows me how
her pretty hair will curl upon the pillow yet, an how long and bright it
is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that net she wears.
‘Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy,’ she says, when I
smile; ‘but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful; and
because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep in the
glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have a lock of it.
Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I gave you one!’
‘That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given you,
Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was.’
‘Ah! but I didn’t like to tell you,’ says Dora, ‘then, how I had cried
over them, because I believed you really liked me! When I can run about
again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those places where we
were such a silly couple, shall we? And take some of the old walks? And
not forget poor papa?’
‘Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must make haste to get
well, my dear.’
‘Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you don’t know!’
It is evening; and I sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with the
same face turned towards me. We have been silent, and there is a smile
upon her face. I have ceased to carry my light burden up and down stairs
now. She lies here all the day.
‘Doady!’
‘My dear Dora!’
‘You won’t think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what you
told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield’s not being well? I
want to see Agnes. Very much I want to see her.’
‘I will write to her, my dear.’
‘Will you?’
‘Directly.’
‘What a good, kind boy! Doady, take me on your arm. Indeed, my dear,
it’s not a whim. It’s not a foolish fancy. I want, very much indeed, to
see her!’
‘I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she is sure to
come.’
‘You are very lonely when you go downstairs, now?’ Dora whispers, with
her arm about my neck.
‘How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your empty chair?’
‘My empty chair!’ She clings to me for a little while, in silence. ‘And
you really miss me, Doady?’ looking up, and brightly smiling. ‘Even
poor, giddy, stupid me?’
‘My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss so much?’
‘Oh, husband! I am so glad, yet so sorry!’ creeping closer to me, and
folding me in both her arms. She laughs and sobs, and then is quiet, and
quite happy.
‘Quite!’ she says. ‘Only give Agnes my dear love, and tell her that I
want very, very, much to see her; and I have nothing left to wish for.’
‘Except to get well again, Dora.’
‘Ah, Doady! Sometimes I think--you know I always was a silly little
thing!--that that will never be!’
‘Don’t say so, Dora! Dearest love, don’t think so!’
‘I won’t, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy; though my dear
boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife’s empty chair!’
It is night; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived; has been among
us for a whole day and an evening. She, my aunt, and I, have sat with
Dora since the morning, all together. We have not talked much, but Dora
has been perfectly contented and cheerful. We are now alone.
Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me? They have told me
so; they have told me nothing new to my thoughts--but I am far from
sure that I have taken that truth to heart. I cannot master it. I have
withdrawn by myself, many times today, to weep. I have remembered Who
wept for a parting between the living and the dead. I have bethought me
of all that gracious and compassionate history. I have tried to resign
myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may have done
imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly settle in my mind is, that the end
will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine,
I see her love for me, alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a
pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared.
‘I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I have
often thought of saying, lately. You won’t mind?’ with a gentle look.
‘Mind, my darling?’
‘Because I don’t know what you will think, or what you may have thought
sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. Doady, dear, I am
afraid I was too young.’
I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, and
speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a stricken
heart, that she is speaking of herself as past.
‘I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don’t mean in years only, but
in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a silly little
creature! I am afraid it would have been better, if we had only loved
each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I
was not fit to be a wife.’
I try to stay my tears, and to reply, ‘Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I to be
a husband!’
‘I don’t know,’ with the old shake of her curls. ‘Perhaps! But if I had
been more fit to be married I might have made you more so, too. Besides,
you are very clever, and I never was.’
‘We have been very happy, my sweet Dora.’
‘I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would have
wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less a companion
for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting
in his home. She wouldn’t have improved. It is better as it is.’
‘Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems a
reproach!’
‘No, not a syllable!’ she answers, kissing me. ‘Oh, my dear, you never
deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a reproachful word to
you, in earnest--it was all the merit I had, except being pretty--or you
thought me so. Is it lonely, down-stairs, Doady?’
‘Very! Very!’
‘Don’t cry! Is my chair there?’
‘In its old place.’
‘Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise. I want
to speak to Agnes. When you go downstairs, tell Agnes so, and send her
up to me; and while I speak to her, let no one come--not even aunt.
I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to Agnes, quite
alone.’
I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for my
grief.
‘I said that it was better as it is!’ she whispers, as she holds me in
her arms. ‘Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have loved your
child-wife better than you do; and, after more years, she would so have
tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love
her half so well! I know I was too young and foolish. It is much better
as it is!’
Agnes is downstairs, when I go into the parlour; and I give her the
message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip.
His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed of
flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and clear.
As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined
heart is chastened heavily--heavily.
I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those
secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every
little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles
make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is the
image of the dear child as I knew her first, graced by my young love,
and by her own, with every fascination wherein such love is rich. Would
it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each other as a boy and a
girl, and forgotten it? Undisciplined heart, reply!
How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my child-wife’s
old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls out of his house,
and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go upstairs.
‘Not tonight, Jip! Not tonight!’
He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes
to my face.
‘Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!’
He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with
a plaintive cry, is dead.
‘Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here!’ --That face, so full of pity, and of
grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn
hand upraised towards Heaven!
‘Agnes?’
It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all things
are blotted out of my remembrance.
CHAPTER 54. Mr. MICAWBER’S TRANSACTIONS
This is not the time at which I am to enter on the state of my mind
beneath its load of sorrow. I came to think that the Future was walled
up before me, that the energy and action of my life were at an end, that
I never could find any refuge but in the grave. I came to think so, I
say, but not in the first shock of my grief. It slowly grew to that.
If the events I go on to relate, had not thickened around me, in the
beginning to confuse, and in the end to augment, my affliction, it is
possible (though I think not probable), that I might have fallen at once
into this condition. As it was, an interval occurred before I fully knew
my own distress; an interval, in which I even supposed that its sharpest
pangs were past; and when my mind could soothe itself by resting on
all that was most innocent and beautiful, in the tender story that was
closed for ever.
When it was first proposed that I should go abroad, or how it came to be
agreed among us that I was to seek the restoration of my peace in change
and travel, I do not, even now, distinctly know. The spirit of Agnes so
pervaded all we thought, and said, and did, in that time of sorrow, that
I assume I may refer the project to her influence. But her influence was
so quiet that I know no more.
And now, indeed, I began to think that in my old association of her with
the stained-glass window in the church, a prophetic foreshadowing of
what she would be to me, in the calamity that was to happen in the
fullness of time, had found a way into my mind. In all that sorrow, from
the moment, never to be forgotten, when she stood before me with her
upraised hand, she was like a sacred presence in my lonely house. When
the Angel of Death alighted there, my child-wife fell asleep--they told
me so when I could bear to hear it--on her bosom, with a smile. From my
swoon, I first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears, her
words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down as from a purer
region nearer Heaven, over my undisciplined heart, and softening its
pain.
Let me go on.
I was to go abroad. That seemed to have been determined among us from
the first. The ground now covering all that could perish of my
departed wife, I waited only for what Mr. Micawber called the ‘final
pulverization of Heep’; and for the departure of the emigrants.
At the request of Traddles, most affectionate and devoted of friends in
my trouble, we returned to Canterbury: I mean my aunt, Agnes, and I. We
proceeded by appointment straight to Mr. Micawber’s house; where, and at
Mr. Wickfield’s, my friend had been labouring ever since our explosive
meeting. When poor Mrs. Micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes,
she was sensibly affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs.
Micawber’s heart, which had not been dunned out of it in all those many
years.
‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber,’ was my aunt’s first salutation after we
were seated. ‘Pray, have you thought about that emigration proposal of
mine?’
‘My dear madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘perhaps I cannot better express
the conclusion at which Mrs. Micawber, your humble servant, and I may
add our children, have jointly and severally arrived, than by borrowing
the language of an illustrious poet, to reply that our Boat is on the
shore, and our Bark is on the sea.’
‘That’s right,’ said my aunt. ‘I augur all sort of good from your
sensible decision.’
‘Madam, you do us a great deal of honour,’ he rejoined. He then referred
to a memorandum. ‘With respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling
us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have
reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose
my notes of hand--drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the
amounts respectively required by the various Acts of Parliament applying
to such securities--at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months.
The proposition I originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and
twenty-four; but I am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not
allow sufficient time for the requisite amount of--Something--to turn
up. We might not,’ said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it
represented several hundred acres of highly cultivated land, ‘on the
first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our harvest,
or we might not have got our harvest in. Labour, I believe, is sometimes
difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it
will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil.’
‘Arrange it in any way you please, sir,’ said my aunt.
‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible of
the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What I wish
is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. Turning over,
as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back,
as we are now in the act of falling back, for a Spring of no common
magnitude; it is important to my sense of self-respect, besides being
an example to my son, that these arrangements should be concluded as
between man and man.’
I don’t know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase;
I don’t know that anybody ever does, or did; but he appeared to relish
it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, ‘as between man
and man’.
‘I propose,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘Bills--a convenience to the mercantile
world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted to the Jews, who
appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them
ever since--because they are negotiable. But if a Bond, or any other
description of security, would be preferred, I should be happy to
execute any such instrument. As between man and man.’
My aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to
agree to anything, she took it for granted there would be no difficulty
in settling this point. Mr. Micawber was of her opinion.
‘In reference to our domestic preparations, madam,’ said Mr. Micawber,
with some pride, ‘for meeting the destiny to which we are now understood
to be self-devoted, I beg to report them. My eldest daughter attends
at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment, to acquire
the process--if process it may be called--of milking cows. My younger
children are instructed to observe, as closely as circumstances will
permit, the habits of the pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer
parts of this city: a pursuit from which they have, on two occasions,
been brought home, within an inch of being run over. I have myself
directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking; and
my son Wilkins has issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle,
when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to
render any voluntary service in that direction--which I regret to say,
for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being generally warned,
with imprecations, to desist.’
‘All very right indeed,’ said my aunt, encouragingly. ‘Mrs. Micawber has
been busy, too, I have no doubt.’
‘My dear madam,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, with her business-like air.
‘I am free to confess that I have not been actively engaged in pursuits
immediately connected with cultivation or with stock, though well aware
that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore. Such opportunities
as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, I have
devoted to corresponding at some length with my family. For I own it
seems to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always
fell back on me, I suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might
address her discourse at starting, ‘that the time is come when the past
should be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by
the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take my family by the hand; when the
lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms with Mr.
Micawber.’
I said I thought so too.
‘This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ pursued Mrs.
Micawber, ‘in which I view the subject. When I lived at home with my
papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any point was under
discussion in our limited circle, “In what light does my Emma view the
subject?” That my papa was too partial, I know; still, on such a point
as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between Mr. Micawber and
my family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may
be.’
‘No doubt. Of course you have, ma’am,’ said my aunt.
‘Precisely so,’ assented Mrs. Micawber. ‘Now, I may be wrong in my
conclusions; it is very likely that I am, but my individual impression
is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may be traced to an
apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr. Micawber would require
pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking,’ said Mrs. Micawber,
with an air of deep sagacity, ‘that there are members of my family who
have been apprehensive that Mr. Micawber would solicit them for their
names.---I do not mean to be conferred in Baptism upon our children,
but to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money
Market.’
The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this
discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to
astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, ‘Well, ma’am, upon the whole, I
shouldn’t wonder if you were right!’
‘Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary
shackles that have so long enthralled him,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘and of
commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range
for his abilities,--which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important; Mr.
Micawber’s abilities peculiarly requiring space,--it seems to me that
my family should signalize the occasion by coming forward. What I could
wish to see, would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at
a festive entertainment, to be given at my family’s expense; where Mr.
Micawber’s health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member
of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing his
views.’
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, ‘it may be better for me
to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views to that
assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature:
my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent
Snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians.’
‘Micawber,’ said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, ‘no! You have never
understood them, and they have never understood you.’
Mr. Micawber coughed.
‘They have never understood you, Micawber,’ said his wife. ‘They may
be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity their
misfortune.’
‘I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,’ said Mr. Micawber, relenting, ‘to
have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have
the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say is, that
I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favour me,--in
short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders; and that, upon the
whole, I would rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than
derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my
dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications--which
our joint experience renders most improbable--far be it from me to be a
barrier to your wishes.’
The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. Micawber
his arm, and glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before
Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to ourselves; which they
ceremoniously did.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, leaning back in his chair when
they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes
red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, ‘I don’t make any excuse for
troubling you with business, because I know you are deeply interested
in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope you are not
worn out?’
‘I am quite myself,’ said I, after a pause. ‘We have more cause to think
of my aunt than of anyone. You know how much she has done.’
‘Surely, surely,’ answered Traddles. ‘Who can forget it!’
‘But even that is not all,’ said I. ‘During the last fortnight, some new
trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of London every day.
Several times she has gone out early, and been absent until evening.
Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost
midnight before she came home. You know what her consideration for
others is. She will not tell me what has happened to distress her.’
My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable until
I had finished; when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, and
she put her hand on mine.
‘It’s nothing, Trot; it’s nothing. There will be no more of it. You
shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to these
affairs.’
‘I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say,’ Traddles began, ‘that
although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for
himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. I
never saw such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, he must
be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. The heat into
which he has been continually putting himself; and the distracted and
impetuous manner in which he has been diving, day and night, among
papers and books; to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has
written me between this house and Mr. Wickfield’s, and often across the
table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much more easily have
spoken; is quite extraordinary.’
‘Letters!’ cried my aunt. ‘I believe he dreams in letters!’
‘There’s Mr. Dick, too,’ said Traddles, ‘has been doing wonders! As soon
as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept in such
charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to Mr.
Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we
have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying,
and fetching, and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us.’
‘Dick is a very remarkable man,’ exclaimed my aunt; ‘and I always said
he was. Trot, you know it.’
‘I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield,’ pursued Traddles, at once with
great delicacy and with great earnestness, ‘that in your absence Mr.
Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus that had
fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions
under which he had lived, he is hardly the same person. At times,
even his impaired power of concentrating his memory and attention on
particular points of business, has recovered itself very much; and he
has been able to assist us in making some things clear, that we should
have found very difficult indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But
what I have to do is to come to results; which are short enough; not
to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall
never have done.’ His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it
transparent that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable
Agnes to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence; but it was
not the less pleasant for that.
‘Now, let me see,’ said Traddles, looking among the papers on the
table. ‘Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass of
unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and
falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield
might now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no
deficiency or defalcation whatever.’
‘Oh, thank Heaven!’ cried Agnes, fervently.
‘But,’ said Traddles, ‘the surplus that would be left as his means of
support--and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying this--would
be so small, not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of pounds,
that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best to consider whether he
might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been
receiver. His friends might advise him, you know; now he is free. You
yourself, Miss Wickfield--Copperfield--I--’
‘I have considered it, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, looking to me, ‘and I feel
that it ought not to be, and must not be; even on the recommendation of
a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so much.’
‘I will not say that I recommend it,’ observed Traddles. ‘I think it
right to suggest it. No more.’
‘I am happy to hear you say so,’ answered Agnes, steadily, ‘for it gives
me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear Mr. Traddles and
dear Trotwood, papa once free with honour, what could I wish for! I have
always aspired, if I could have released him from the toils in which he
was held, to render back some little portion of the love and care I owe
him, and to devote my life to him. It has been, for years, the utmost
height of my hopes. To take our future on myself, will be the next
great happiness--the next to his release from all trust and
responsibility--that I can know.’
‘Have you thought how, Agnes?’
‘Often! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success. So many
people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am certain. Don’t
mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent the dear old house, and
keep a school, I shall be useful and happy.’
The calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, first
the dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my heart was
too full for speech. Traddles pretended for a little while to be busily
looking among the papers.
‘Next, Miss Trotwood,’ said Traddles, ‘that property of yours.’
‘Well, sir,’ sighed my aunt. ‘All I have got to say about it is, that if
it’s gone, I can bear it; and if it’s not gone, I shall be glad to get
it back.’
‘It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?’ said
Traddles.
‘Right!’ replied my aunt.
‘I can’t account for more than five,’ said Traddles, with an air of
perplexity.
‘--thousand, do you mean?’ inquired my aunt, with uncommon composure,
‘or pounds?’
‘Five thousand pounds,’ said Traddles.
‘It was all there was,’ returned my aunt. ‘I sold three, myself. One, I
paid for your articles, Trot, my dear; and the other two I have by me.
When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing about that sum,
but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted to see how you would
come out of the trial, Trot; and you came out nobly--persevering,
self-reliant, self-denying! So did Dick. Don’t speak to me, for I find
my nerves a little shaken!’
Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her arms
folded; but she had wonderful self-command.
‘Then I am delighted to say,’ cried Traddles, beaming with joy, ‘that we
have recovered the whole money!’
‘Don’t congratulate me, anybody!’ exclaimed my aunt. ‘How so, sir?’
‘You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wickfield?’ said
Traddles.
‘Of course I did,’ said my aunt, ‘and was therefore easily silenced.
Agnes, not a word!’
‘And indeed,’ said Traddles, ‘it was sold, by virtue of the power of
management he held from you; but I needn’t say by whom sold, or on whose
actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr. Wickfield, by that
rascal,--and proved, too, by figures,--that he had possessed himself of
the money (on general instructions, he said) to keep other deficiencies
and difficulties from the light. Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and
helpless in his hands as to pay you, afterwards, several sums of
interest on a pretended principal which he knew did not exist, made
himself, unhappily, a party to the fraud.’
‘And at last took the blame upon himself,’ added my aunt; ‘and wrote me
a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong unheard of. Upon
which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burnt
the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself, to
do it; and if he couldn’t, to keep his own counsel for his daughter’s
sake.---If anybody speaks to me, I’ll leave the house!’
We all remained quiet; Agnes covering her face.
‘Well, my dear friend,’ said my aunt, after a pause, ‘and you have
really extorted the money back from him?’
‘Why, the fact is,’ returned Traddles, ‘Mr. Micawber had so completely
hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new points if an
old one failed, that he could not escape from us. A most remarkable
circumstance is, that I really don’t think he grasped this sum even so
much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in
the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He said so to me, plainly. He said
he would even have spent as much, to baulk or injure Copperfield.’
‘Ha!’ said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing at
Agnes. ‘And what’s become of him?’
‘I don’t know. He left here,’ said Traddles, ‘with his mother, who had
been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole time. They
went away by one of the London night coaches, and I know no more about
him; except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious. He
seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me, than to Mr.
Micawber; which I consider (as I told him) quite a compliment.’
‘Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles?’ I asked.
‘Oh dear, yes, I should think so,’ he replied, shaking his head,
seriously. ‘I should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one
way or other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had an
opportunity of observing his course, that money would never keep that
man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever
object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It’s his only compensation
for the outward restraints he puts upon himself. Always creeping along
the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every
object in the way; and consequently will hate and suspect everybody that
comes, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. So the crooked
courses will become crookeder, at any moment, for the least reason,
or for none. It’s only necessary to consider his history here,’ said
Traddles, ‘to know that.’
‘He’s a monster of meanness!’ said my aunt.
‘Really I don’t know about that,’ observed Traddles thoughtfully. ‘Many
people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it.’
‘And now, touching Mr. Micawber,’ said my aunt.
‘Well, really,’ said Traddles, cheerfully, ‘I must, once more, give Mr.
Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and persevering
for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do anything worth
speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that Mr. Micawber did
right, for right’s sake, when we reflect what terms he might have made
with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence.’
‘I think so too,’ said I.
‘Now, what would you give him?’ inquired my aunt.
‘Oh! Before you come to that,’ said Traddles, a little disconcerted,
‘I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being able to carry
everything before me) two points, in making this lawless adjustment--for
it’s perfectly lawless from beginning to end--of a difficult affair.
Those I.O.U.’s, and so forth, which Mr. Micawber gave him for the
advances he had--’
‘Well! They must be paid,’ said my aunt.
‘Yes, but I don’t know when they may be proceeded on, or where they
are,’ rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes; ‘and I anticipate, that,
between this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be constantly
arrested, or taken in execution.’
‘Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of execution,’
said my aunt. ‘What’s the amount altogether?’
‘Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions--he calls them
transactions--with great form, in a book,’ rejoined Traddles, smiling;
‘and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, five.’
‘Now, what shall we give him, that sum included?’ said my aunt. ‘Agnes,
my dear, you and I can talk about division of it afterwards. What should
it be? Five hundred pounds?’
Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both recommended
a small sum in money, and the payment, without stipulation to Mr.
Micawber, of the Uriah claims as they came in. We proposed that the
family should have their passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds;
and that Mr. Micawber’s arrangement for the repayment of the advances
should be gravely entered into, as it might be wholesome for him
to suppose himself under that responsibility. To this, I added the
suggestion, that I should give some explanation of his character and
history to Mr. Peggotty, who I knew could be relied on; and that to Mr.
Peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another
hundred. I further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in Mr. Peggotty,
by confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty’s story to him as I might feel
justified in relating, or might think expedient; and to endeavour to
bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common advantage. We
all entered warmly into these views; and I may mention at once, that the
principals themselves did so, shortly afterwards, with perfect good will
and harmony.
Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, I reminded
him of the second and last point to which he had adverted.
‘You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I touch upon a
painful theme, as I greatly fear I shall,’ said Traddles, hesitating;
‘but I think it necessary to bring it to your recollection. On the day
of Mr. Micawber’s memorable denunciation a threatening allusion was made
by Uriah Heep to your aunt’s--husband.’
My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure, assented
with a nod.
‘Perhaps,’ observed Traddles, ‘it was mere purposeless impertinence?’
‘No,’ returned my aunt.
‘There was--pardon me--really such a person, and at all in his power?’
hinted Traddles.
‘Yes, my good friend,’ said my aunt.
Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained that he
had not been able to approach this subject; that it had shared the fate
of Mr. Micawber’s liabilities, in not being comprehended in the terms he
had made; that we were no longer of any authority with Uriah Heep; and
that if he could do us, or any of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt
he would.
My aunt remained quiet; until again some stray tears found their way to
her cheeks. ‘You are quite right,’ she said. ‘It was very thoughtful to
mention it.’
‘Can I--or Copperfield--do anything?’ asked Traddles, gently.
‘Nothing,’ said my aunt. ‘I thank you many times. Trot, my dear, a vain
threat! Let us have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber back. And don’t any of you
speak to me!’ With that she smoothed her dress, and sat, with her
upright carriage, looking at the door.
‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!’ said my aunt, when they entered. ‘We have
been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to you for keeping
you out of the room so long; and I’ll tell you what arrangements we
propose.’
These she explained to the unbounded satisfaction of the
family,--children and all being then present,--and so much to the
awakening of Mr. Micawber’s punctual habits in the opening stage of
all bill transactions, that he could not be dissuaded from immediately
rushing out, in the highest spirits, to buy the stamps for his notes of
hand. But, his joy received a sudden check; for within five minutes,
he returned in the custody of a sheriff ‘s officer, informing us, in
a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, being quite prepared for this
event, which was of course a proceeding of Uriah Heep’s, soon paid the
money; and in five minutes more Mr. Micawber was seated at the table,
filling up the stamps with an expression of perfect joy, which only
that congenial employment, or the making of punch, could impart in full
completeness to his shining face. To see him at work on the stamps, with
the relish of an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them
sideways, taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book,
and contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of their
precious value, was a sight indeed.
‘Now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you’ll allow me to advise
you,’ said my aunt, after silently observing him, ‘is to abjure that
occupation for evermore.’
‘Madam,’ replied Mr. Micawber, ‘it is my intention to register such a
vow on the virgin page of the future. Mrs. Micawber will attest it. I
trust,’ said Mr. Micawber, solemnly, ‘that my son Wilkins will ever bear
in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist in the fire, than
use it to handle the serpents that have poisoned the life-blood of his
unhappy parent!’ Deeply affected, and changed in a moment to the image
of despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy
abhorrence (in which his late admiration of them was not quite subdued),
folded them up and put them in his pocket.
This closed the proceedings of the evening. We were weary with sorrow
and fatigue, and my aunt and I were to return to London on the morrow.
It was arranged that the Micawbers should follow us, after effecting a
sale of their goods to a broker; that Mr. Wickfield’s affairs should be
brought to a settlement, with all convenient speed, under the direction
of Traddles; and that Agnes should also come to London, pending those
arrangements. We passed the night at the old house, which, freed from
the presence of the Heeps, seemed purged of a disease; and I lay in my
old room, like a shipwrecked wanderer come home.
We went back next day to my aunt’s house--not to mine--and when she and
I sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said:
‘Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon my mind lately?’
‘Indeed I do, aunt. If there ever was a time when I felt unwilling that
you should have a sorrow or anxiety which I could not share, it is now.’
‘You have had sorrow enough, child,’ said my aunt, affectionately,
‘without the addition of my little miseries. I could have no other
motive, Trot, in keeping anything from you.’
‘I know that well,’ said I. ‘But tell me now.’
‘Would you ride with me a little way tomorrow morning?’ asked my aunt.
‘Of course.’
‘At nine,’ said she. ‘I’ll tell you then, my dear.’
At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to
London. We drove a long way through the streets, until we came to one of
the large hospitals. Standing hard by the building was a plain hearse.
The driver recognized my aunt, and, in obedience to a motion of her hand
at the window, drove slowly off; we following.
‘You understand it now, Trot,’ said my aunt. ‘He is gone!’
‘Did he die in the hospital?’
‘Yes.’
She sat immovable beside me; but, again I saw the stray tears on her
face.
‘He was there once before,’ said my aunt presently. ‘He was ailing a
long time--a shattered, broken man, these many years. When he knew his
state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me. He was sorry
then. Very sorry.’
‘You went, I know, aunt.’
‘I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards.’
‘He died the night before we went to Canterbury?’ said I. My aunt
nodded. ‘No one can harm him now,’ she said. ‘It was a vain threat.’
We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Hornsey. ‘Better here
than in the streets,’ said my aunt. ‘He was born here.’
We alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I remember well,
where the service was read consigning it to the dust.
‘Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear,’ said my aunt, as we
walked back to the chariot, ‘I was married. God forgive us all!’ We took
our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long time, holding
my hand. At length she suddenly burst into tears, and said:
‘He was a fine-looking man when I married him, Trot--and he was sadly
changed!’
It did not last long. After the relief of tears, she soon became
composed, and even cheerful. Her nerves were a little shaken, she said,
or she would not have given way to it. God forgive us all!
So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found the
following short note, which had arrived by that morning’s post from Mr.
Micawber:
‘Canterbury,
‘Friday.
‘My dear Madam, and Copperfield,
‘The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again
enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the eyes of
a drifting wretch whose Doom is sealed!
‘Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty’s High Court of King’s
Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP V. MICAWBER, and
the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff having legal
jurisdiction in this bailiwick.
‘Now’s the day, and now’s the hour,
See the front of battle lower,
See approach proud EDWARD’S power--
Chains and slavery!
‘Consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture is not
supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I feel I have
attained), my course is run. Bless you, bless you! Some future
traveller, visiting, from motives of curiosity, not unmingled, let us
hope, with sympathy, the place of confinement allotted to debtors in
this city, may, and I trust will, Ponder, as he traces on its wall,
inscribed with a rusty nail,
‘The obscure initials,
‘W. M.
‘P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles
(who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), has paid the
debt and costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood; and that myself and
family are at the height of earthly bliss.’
CHAPTER 55. TEMPEST
I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by
an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages,
that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing larger
and larger as I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing
its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days.
For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started up so
vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet
room, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though at lengthened
and uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have an association between it
and a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong as
any of which my mind is conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened,
I will try to write it down. I do not recall it, but see it done; for it
happens again before me.
The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, my
good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came up
to London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and the Micawbers
(they being very much together); but Emily I never saw.
One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with Peggotty
and her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She described to us how
tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly he
had borne himself. Most of all, of late, when she believed he was most
tried. It was a subject of which the affectionate creature never tired;
and our interest in hearing the many examples which she, who was so much
with him, had to relate, was equal to hers in relating them.
My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at Highgate; I
intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at Dover. We had
a temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, after this
evening’s conversation, reflecting on what had passed between Ham and
myself when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in the original purpose
I had formed, of leaving a letter for Emily when I should take leave of
her uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be better to write to
her now. She might desire, I thought, after receiving my communication,
to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to give
her the opportunity.
I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to her.
I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me to tell her
what I have already written in its place in these sheets. I faithfully
repeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the right.
Its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or any
man. I left it out, to be sent round in the morning; with a line to Mr.
Peggotty, requesting him to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak.
I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the sun
was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by the silent
presence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my sleep, as I suppose
we all do feel such things.
‘Trot, my dear,’ she said, when I opened my eyes, ‘I couldn’t make up my
mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come up?’
I replied yes, and he soon appeared.
‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, when we had shaken hands, ‘I giv Em’ly your
letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask you
to read it, and if you see no hurt in’t, to be so kind as take charge
on’t.’
‘Have you read it?’ said I.
He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows:
‘I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for your
good and blessed kindness to me!
‘I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I die.
They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have prayed over
them, oh, I have prayed so much. When I find what you are, and what
uncle is, I think what God must be, and can cry to him.
‘Good-bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good-bye for ever in this
world. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child and come
to you. All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore.’
This, blotted with tears, was the letter.
‘May I tell her as you doen’t see no hurt in’t, and as you’ll be so kind
as take charge on’t, Mas’r Davy?’ said Mr. Peggotty, when I had read it.
‘Unquestionably,’ said I--‘but I am thinking--’
‘Yes, Mas’r Davy?’
‘I am thinking,’ said I, ‘that I’ll go down again to Yarmouth. There’s
time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the ship sails. My
mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude; to put this letter
of her writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell her,
in the moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness to
both of them. I solemnly accepted his commission, dear good fellow, and
cannot discharge it too completely. The journey is nothing to me. I am
restless, and shall be better in motion. I’ll go down tonight.’
Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was of my
mind; and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my intention, would
have had the effect. He went round to the coach office, at my request,
and took the box-seat for me on the mail. In the evening I started,
by that conveyance, down the road I had traversed under so many
vicissitudes.
‘Don’t you think that,’ I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of
London, ‘a very remarkable sky? I don’t remember to have seen one like
it.’
‘Nor I--not equal to it,’ he replied. ‘That’s wind, sir. There’ll be
mischief done at sea, I expect, before long.’
It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like the
colour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds, tossed up into
most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than
there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the
earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in
a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were
frightened. There had been a wind all day; and it was rising then, with
an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much increased, and
the sky was more overcast, and blew hard.
But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely
over-spreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder
and harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face
the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in
September, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, or
came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that the
coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this
storm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when there was any
shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a
sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle.
When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth
when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like
of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich--very late,
having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of
London; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who had
risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some of
these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told us
of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, and
flung into a by-street, which they then blocked up. Others had to tell
of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen
great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered about
the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the storm, but it
blew harder.
As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty
wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific.
Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered
salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flat
country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed its
banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us.
When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught
at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another
shore with towers and buildings. When at last we got into the town, the
people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair,
making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night.
I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering
along the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with
flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and
holding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw,
not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind
buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look
away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag
back.
Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were away
in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to think
might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety.
Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, as they
looked from water to sky, and muttering to one another; ship-owners,
excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and peering into older
faces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their
glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they were
surveying an enemy.
The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at
it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand,
and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came
rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if
the least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back with a
hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its
purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headed billows
thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the
land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full
might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another
monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys
(with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted
up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming
sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change
its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal
shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the
clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of
all nature.
Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind--for it is
still remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow upon
that coast--had brought together, I made my way to his house. It was
shut; and as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back ways and
by-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there, that he had
gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of ship-repairing
in which his skill was required; but that he would be back tomorrow
morning, in good time.
I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried to
sleep, but in vain, it was five o’clock in the afternoon. I had not sat
five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stir
it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down,
with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships had been
seen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great distress, to keep
off shore. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had
another night like the last!
I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an
uneasiness in Ham’s not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. I
was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by late events; and my
long exposure to the fierce wind had confused me. There was that jumble
in my thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear arrangement
of time and distance. Thus, if I had gone out into the town, I should
not have been surprised, I think, to encounter someone who I knew must
be then in London. So to speak, there was in these respects a curious
inattention in my mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances
the place naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct and
vivid.
In this state, the waiter’s dismal intelligence about the ships
immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with my
uneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension of his
returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strong
with me, that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took my dinner,
and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by sea
at all likely? If he gave me the least reason to think so, I would go
over to Lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me.
I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none too
soon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was locking
the yard-gate. He quite laughed when I asked him the question, and said
there was no fear; no man in his senses, or out of them, would put off
in such a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had been born to
seafaring.
So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doing
what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. If
such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, the
rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the
apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigious
tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. But there
was now a great darkness besides; and that invested the storm with new
terrors, real and fanciful.
I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue steadfast
to anything. Something within me, faintly answering to the storm
without, tossed up the depths of my memory and made a tumult in them.
Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running with the thundering
sea,--the storm, and my uneasiness regarding Ham were always in the
fore-ground.
My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself with
a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber before
the fire, without losing my consciousness, either of the uproar out of
doors, or of the place in which I was. Both became overshadowed by a new
and indefinable horror; and when I awoke--or rather when I shook off
the lethargy that bound me in my chair--my whole frame thrilled with
objectless and unintelligible fear.
I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to the
awful noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire.
At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall
tormented me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed.
It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the
inn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went to bed,
exceedingly weary and heavy; but, on my lying down, all such sensations
vanished, as if by magic, and I was broad awake, with every sense
refined.
For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, now,
that I heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard the firing
of signal guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. I got up,
several times, and looked out; but could see nothing, except the
reflection in the window-panes of the faint candle I had left burning,
and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the black void.
At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried on
my clothes, and went downstairs. In the large kitchen, where I dimly
saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers were
clustered together, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely moved
away from the great chimney, and brought near the door. A pretty girl,
who had her ears stopped with her apron, and her eyes upon the door,
screamed when I appeared, supposing me to be a spirit; but the others
had more presence of mind, and were glad of an addition to their
company. One man, referring to the topic they had been discussing, asked
me whether I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone down,
were out in the storm?
I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the yard-gate,
and looked into the empty street. The sand, the sea-weed, and the flakes
of foam, were driving by; and I was obliged to call for assistance
before I could shut the gate again, and make it fast against the wind.
There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length returned
to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell--off
a tower and down a precipice--into the depths of sleep. I have an
impression that for a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and
in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length,
I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with two dear
friends, but who they were I don’t know, at the siege of some town in a
roar of cannonading.
The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could not
hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great exertion
and awoke. It was broad day--eight or nine o’clock; the storm raging, in
lieu of the batteries; and someone knocking and calling at my door.
‘What is the matter?’ I cried.
‘A wreck! Close by!’
I sprung out of bed, and asked, what wreck?
‘A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. Make
haste, sir, if you want to see her! It’s thought, down on the beach,
she’ll go to pieces every moment.’
The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I wrapped
myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street.
Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, to
the beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came
facing the wild sea.
The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more
sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been diminished
by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But the sea,
having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night, was
infinitely more terrific than when I had seen it last. Every appearance
it had then presented, bore the expression of being swelled; and the
height to which the breakers rose, and, looking over one another,
bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most
appalling. In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves,
and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless
efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked
out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the
great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his
bare arm (a tattoo’d arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the
left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, close in upon us!
One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay
over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that
ruin, as the ship rolled and beat--which she did without a moment’s
pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable--beat the side as if it
would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this
portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on,
turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at
work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair,
conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, which was audible even
above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea,
sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men,
spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling
surge.
The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and
a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship had
struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted
in and struck again. I understood him to add that she was parting
amidships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating
were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. As he spoke,
there was another great cry of pity from the beach; four men arose with
the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining
mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair.
There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a
desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her
deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but
her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell
rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards
us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two men were
gone. The agony on the shore increased. Men groaned, and clasped their
hands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly
up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. I
found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom
I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes.
They were making out to me, in an agitated way--I don’t know how,
for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to
understand--that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and
could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt
to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore,
there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that some new sensation
moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking
through them to the front.
I ran to him--as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. But,
distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, the
determination in his face, and his look out to sea--exactly the same
look as I remembered in connexion with the morning after Emily’s
flight--awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both
arms; and implored the men with whom I had been speaking, not to listen
to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand!
Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel
sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up
in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast.
Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the
calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people
present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. ‘Mas’r Davy,’
he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, ‘if my time is come, ‘tis
come. If ‘tan’t, I’ll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all!
Mates, make me ready! I’m a-going off!’
I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people
around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was
bent on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the
precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I
don’t know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on
the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and
penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw
him standing alone, in a seaman’s frock and trousers: a rope in his
hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the
best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out
himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet.
The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that she
was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon
the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had a singular red
cap on,--not like a sailor’s cap, but of a finer colour; and as the few
yielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his
anticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. I
saw him do it now, and thought I was going distracted, when his action
brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend.
Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended
breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great
retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope
which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a
moment was buffeting with the water; rising with the hills, falling
with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to land. They
hauled in hastily.
He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he took
no thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some directions for
leaving him more free--or so I judged from the motion of his arm--and
was gone as before.
And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the
valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore,
borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance was
nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At
length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his
vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it,--when a high, green, vast
hill-side of water, moving on shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed
to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone!
Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been
broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternation
was in every face. They drew him to my very feet--insensible--dead.
He was carried to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, I
remained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried;
but he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous
heart was stilled for ever.
As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a
fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever
since, whispered my name at the door.
‘Sir,’ said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which,
with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, ‘will you come over yonder?’
The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. I
asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support
me:
‘Has a body come ashore?’
He said, ‘Yes.’
‘Do I know it?’ I asked then.
He answered nothing.
But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I had
looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter
fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by
the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lying
with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.
CHAPTER 56. THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD
No need, O Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together, in
that hour which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour--no need to
have said, ‘Think of me at my best!’ I had done that ever; and could I
change now, looking on this sight!
They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with a
flag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All the men
who carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him, and seen him
merry and bold. They carried him through the wild roar, a hush in the
midst of all the tumult; and took him to the cottage where Death was
already.
But when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at one
another, and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as if it were
not right to lay him down in the same quiet room.
We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as I
could at all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged him to
provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to London in the night.
I knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of preparing his mother to
receive it, could only rest with me; and I was anxious to discharge that
duty as faithfully as I could.
I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less curiosity
when I left the town. But, although it was nearly midnight when I came
out of the yard in a chaise, followed by what I had in charge, there
were many people waiting. At intervals, along the town, and even a
little way out upon the road, I saw more: but at length only the bleak
night and the open country were around me, and the ashes of my youthful
friendship.
Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed by
fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red, and
brown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was shining, I
arrived at Highgate. I walked the last mile, thinking as I went along of
what I had to do; and left the carriage that had followed me all through
the night, awaiting orders to advance.
The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind was
raised; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its covered
way leading to the disused door. The wind had quite gone down, and
nothing moved.
I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when I did
ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of the
bell. The little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her hand; and
looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said:
‘I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill?’
‘I have been much agitated, and am fatigued.’
‘Is anything the matter, sir?---Mr. James?--’ ‘Hush!’ said I. ‘Yes,
something has happened, that I have to break to Mrs. Steerforth. She is
at home?’
The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now,
even in a carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no company, but
would see me. Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss Dartle was with
her. What message should she take upstairs?
Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to
carry in my card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room (which
we had now reached) until she should come back. Its former pleasant air
of occupation was gone, and the shutters were half closed. The harp had
not been used for many and many a day. His picture, as a boy, was
there. The cabinet in which his mother had kept his letters was there. I
wondered if she ever read them now; if she would ever read them more!
The house was so still that I heard the girl’s light step upstairs. On
her return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs. Steerforth
was an invalid and could not come down; but that if I would excuse her
being in her chamber, she would be glad to see me. In a few moments I
stood before her.
She was in his room; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she had
taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many tokens
of his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was surrounded,
remained there, just as he had left them, for the same reason. She
murmured, however, even in her reception of me, that she was out of her
own chamber because its aspect was unsuited to her infirmity; and with
her stately look repelled the least suspicion of the truth.
At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first moment of
her dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of evil
tidings. The scar sprung into view that instant. She withdrew herself
a step behind the chair, to keep her own face out of Mrs. Steerforth’s
observation; and scrutinized me with a piercing gaze that never
faltered, never shrunk.
‘I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir,’ said Mrs. Steerforth.
‘I am unhappily a widower,’ said I.
‘You are very young to know so great a loss,’ she returned. ‘I am
grieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be good to
you.’
‘I hope Time,’ said I, looking at her, ‘will be good to all of us.
Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest
misfortunes.’
The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed her. The
whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and change.
I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it trembled.
She repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low tone. Then,
addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness:
‘My son is ill.’
‘Very ill.’
‘You have seen him?’
‘I have.’
‘Are you reconciled?’
I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her head
towards the spot where Rosa Dartle had been standing at her elbow, and
in that moment I said, by the motion of my lips, to Rosa, ‘Dead!’
That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and read,
plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met her look
quickly; but I had seen Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in the air with
vehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them on her face.
The handsome lady--so like, oh so like!--regarded me with a fixed look,
and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm, and prepare
herself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather have entreated
her to weep, for she sat like a stone figure.
‘When I was last here,’ I faltered, ‘Miss Dartle told me he was sailing
here and there. The night before last was a dreadful one at sea. If he
were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast, as it is said he
was; and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship which--’
‘Rosa!’ said Mrs. Steerforth, ‘come to me!’
She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed like fire
as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful laugh.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘is your pride appeased, you madwoman? Now has he made
atonement to you--with his life! Do you hear?---His life!’
Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no sound
but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare.
‘Aye!’ cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast, ‘look at
me! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here!’ striking the scar, ‘at
your dead child’s handiwork!’
The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to My heart. Always
the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always accompanied with
an incapable motion of the head, but with no change of face. Always
proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth, as if the jaw were
locked and the face frozen up in pain.
‘Do you remember when he did this?’ she proceeded. ‘Do you remember
when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his
pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me,
marked until I die with his high displeasure; and moan and groan for
what you made him!’
‘Miss Dartle,’ I entreated her. ‘For Heaven’s sake--’
‘I WILL speak!’ she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. ‘Be
silent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud, false son! Moan
for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your
loss of him, moan for mine!’
She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as
if her passion were killing her by inches.
‘You, resent his self-will!’ she exclaimed. ‘You, injured by his haughty
temper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey, the qualities
which made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who from his cradle reared
him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you
rewarded, now, for your years of trouble?’
‘Oh, Miss Dartle, shame! Oh cruel!’
‘I tell you,’ she returned, ‘I WILL speak to her. No power on earth
should stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent all these
years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better than you ever loved
him!’ turning on her fiercely. ‘I could have loved him, and asked no
return. If I had been his wife, I could have been the slave of his
caprices for a word of love a year. I should have been. Who knows it
better than I? You were exacting, proud, punctilious, selfish. My love
would have been devoted--would have trod your paltry whimpering under
foot!’
With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually did
it.
‘Look here!’ she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand.
‘When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw
it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show
the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to such
knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was
freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, he did! Many a time, when you
were put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart!’
She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy--for it
was little less--yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which the
smouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment.
‘I descended--as I might have known I should, but that he fascinated me
with his boyish courtship--into a doll, a trifle for the occupation
of an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and trifled with, as the
inconstant humour took him. When he grew weary, I grew weary. As his
fancy died out, I would no more have tried to strengthen any power I
had, than I would have married him on his being forced to take me for
his wife. We fell away from one another without a word. Perhaps you saw
it, and were not sorry. Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece
of furniture between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings,
no remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you made him; not for your love. I
tell you that the time was, when I loved him better than you ever did!’
She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare, and the
set face; and softened no more, when the moaning was repeated, than if
the face had been a picture.
‘Miss Dartle,’ said I, ‘if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for
this afflicted mother--’
‘Who feels for me?’ she sharply retorted. ‘She has sown this. Let her
moan for the harvest that she reaps today!’
‘And if his faults--’ I began.
‘Faults!’ she cried, bursting into passionate tears. ‘Who dares malign
him? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he stooped!’
‘No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer
remembrance than I,’ I replied. ‘I meant to say, if you have no
compassion for his mother; or if his faults--you have been bitter on
them--’
‘It’s false,’ she cried, tearing her black hair; ‘I loved him!’
‘--if his faults cannot,’ I went on, ‘be banished from your remembrance,
in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have never seen
before, and render it some help!’
All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable.
Motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time to
time, with the same helpless motion of the head; but giving no other
sign of life. Miss Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it, and began to
loosen the dress.
‘A curse upon you!’ she said, looking round at me, with a mingled
expression of rage and grief. ‘It was in an evil hour that you ever came
here! A curse upon you! Go!’
After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, the
sooner to alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive figure
in her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it, kissing it,
calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom like a child, and
trying every tender means to rouse the dormant senses. No longer afraid
of leaving her, I noiselessly turned back again; and alarmed the house
as I went out.
Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother’s room. She
was just the same, they told me; Miss Dartle never left her; doctors
were in attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay like a
statue, except for the low sound now and then.
I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The windows
of the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up the leaden
hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed death and
silence, broken only by his mother’s moaning.
CHAPTER 57. THE EMIGRANTS
One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of
these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who
were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance.
In this, no time was to be lost.
I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the
task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late
catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any
newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him.
‘If it penetrates to him, sir,’ said Mr. Micawber, striking himself on
the breast, ‘it shall first pass through this body!’
Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new
state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely
lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child
of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of
civilization, and about to return to his native wilds.
He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of
oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on
the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common mariner’s telescope
under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky
as looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his
manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it,
were cleared for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most
uncompromising of bonnets, made fast under the chin; and in a shawl
which tied her up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt first received
me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong
knot. Miss Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same
manner; with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly
visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever
saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious
cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely
turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any
direction, and to ‘tumble up’, or sing out, ‘Yeo--Heave--Yeo!’ on the
shortest notice.
Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden
steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure
of a boat with some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of
the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him; but there could be
no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to help
me in this last service. It was here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and
received his promise.
The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down
public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose
protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as emigrants,
being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so
many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was
one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath.
My aunt and Agnes were there, busily making some little extra comforts,
in the way of dress, for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting,
with the old insensible work-box, yard-measure, and bit of wax-candle
before her, that had now outlived so much.
It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr.
Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter,
and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If I showed any
trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it.
‘And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?’ asked my aunt.
Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his
wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday.
‘The boat brought you word, I suppose?’ said my aunt.
‘It did, ma’am,’ he returned.
‘Well?’ said my aunt. ‘And she sails--’
‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘I am informed that we must positively be on board
before seven tomorrow morning.’
‘Heyday!’ said my aunt, ‘that’s soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr.
Peggotty?’ ‘’Tis so, ma’am. She’ll drop down the river with that theer
tide. If Mas’r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen’, arternoon
o’ next day, they’ll see the last on us.’
‘And that we shall do,’ said I, ‘be sure!’
‘Until then, and until we are at sea,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with a
glance of intelligence at me, ‘Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly
keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my
love,’ said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way,
‘my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear,
that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary
to the composition of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is
peculiarly associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England.
I allude to--in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I should
scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield,
but-’
‘I can only say for myself,’ said my aunt, ‘that I will drink all
happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost pleasure.’
‘And I too!’ said Agnes, with a smile.
Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be
quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I could
not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own
clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was
about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation,
on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two elder members
of the family I now found to be provided with similar formidable
instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its
body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in
the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest
son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have
done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a
series of villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything
so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it
in his pocket at the close of the evening.
‘The luxuries of the old country,’ said Mr. Micawber, with an intense
satisfaction in their renouncement, ‘we abandon. The denizens of the
forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of
the land of the Free.’
Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs.
‘I have a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot,
‘that it is a member of my family!’
‘If so, my dear,’ observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness of
warmth on that subject, ‘as the member of your family--whoever he, she,
or it, may be--has kept us waiting for a considerable period, perhaps
the Member may now wait MY convenience.’
‘Micawber,’ said his wife, in a low tone, ‘at such a time as this--’
‘“It is not meet,”’ said Mr. Micawber, rising, ‘“that every nice offence
should bear its comment!” Emma, I stand reproved.’
‘The loss, Micawber,’ observed his wife, ‘has been my family’s, not
yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which
their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to
extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.’
‘My dear,’ he returned, ‘so be it!’
‘If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,’ said his wife.
‘Emma,’ he returned, ‘that view of the question is, at such a moment,
irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall
upon your family’s neck; but the member of your family, who is now in
attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.’
Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of
which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words
might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy
reappeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed,
in a legal manner, ‘Heep v. Micawber’. From this document, I learned
that Mr. Micawber being again arrested, ‘Was in a final paroxysm of
despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by
bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of
his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship,
that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that
such a Being ever lived.
Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the
money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at
the Sheriff ‘s Officer who had effected the capture. On his release,
he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an entry of the
transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, I recollect,
about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the
total.
This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another
transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for
his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over
which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper,
folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. From
the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums
out of a school ciphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations of
compound interest on what he called ‘the principal amount of forty-one,
ten, eleven and a half’, for various periods. After a careful
consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources,
he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the
amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and
fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note-of-hand
with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot,
a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many
acknowledgements.
‘I have still a presentiment,’ said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her
head, ‘that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart.’
Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he
put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.
‘If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage,
Mrs. Micawber,’ said my aunt, ‘you must let us hear from you, you know.’
‘My dear Miss Trotwood,’ she replied, ‘I shall only be too happy
to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to
correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend,
will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one
who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious?’
I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of
writing.
‘Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,’ said Mr.
Micawber. ‘The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and
we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely
crossing,’ said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, ‘merely
crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.’
I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber,
that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as
if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went
from England to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across
the channel.
‘On the voyage, I shall endeavour,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘occasionally
to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust,
be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her
sea-legs on--an expression in which I hope there is no conventional
impropriety--she will give them, I dare say, “Little Tafflin”. Porpoises
and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our
Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of
interest will be continually descried. In short,’ said Mr. Micawber,
with the old genteel air, ‘the probability is, all will be found so
exciting, alow and aloft, that when the lookout, stationed in the
main-top, cries Land-oh! we shall be very considerably astonished!’
With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he
had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the
highest naval authorities.
‘What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber,
‘is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old
country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now refer to my own family,
but to our children’s children. However vigorous the sapling,’ said Mrs.
Micawber, shaking her head, ‘I cannot forget the parent-tree; and when
our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that
fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia.’
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘Britannia must take her chance. I am
bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have no
particular wish upon the subject.’
‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, ‘there, you are wrong. You are going
out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the
connexion between yourself and Albion.’
‘The connexion in question, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Micawber, ‘has not
laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that I am at
all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.’
‘Micawber,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘There, I again say, you are wrong.
You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will strengthen,
even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between yourself
and Albion.’
Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half
receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber’s views as they were
stated, but very sensible of their foresight.
‘My dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘I wish Mr. Micawber to
feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. Micawber
should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old
knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I have
not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposition is, if I
may say so, eminently practical. I know that this is a long voyage. I
know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. I cannot
shut my eyes to those facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is.
I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it
vitally important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position.’
‘My love,’ he observed, ‘perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is
barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present moment.’
‘I think not, Micawber,’ she rejoined. ‘Not fully. My dear Mr.
Copperfield, Mr. Micawber’s is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is going
to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully understood
and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take his
stand upon that vessel’s prow, and firmly say, “This country I am
come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches? Have you posts of
profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be brought forward. They are
mine!”’
Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good deal
in this idea.
‘I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood,’ said Mrs. Micawber,
in her argumentative tone, ‘to be the Caesar of his own fortunes. That,
my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his true position. From
the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon
that vessel’s prow and say, “Enough of delay: enough of disappointment:
enough of limited means. That was in the old country. This is the new.
Produce your reparation. Bring it forward!”’
Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner, as if he were then
stationed on the figure-head.
‘And doing that,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘--feeling his position--am I not
right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not weaken, his
connexion with Britain? An important public character arising in that
hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at home?
Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the rod of
talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England? I am but
a woman; but I should be unworthy of myself and of my papa, if I were
guilty of such absurd weakness.’
Mrs. Micawber’s conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, gave
a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard in it
before.
‘And therefore it is,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘that I the more wish, that,
at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. Mr. Micawber
may be--I cannot disguise from myself that the probability is, Mr.
Micawber will be--a page of History; and he ought then to be represented
in the country which gave him birth, and did NOT give him employment!’
‘My love,’ observed Mr. Micawber, ‘it is impossible for me not to be
touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good
sense. What will be--will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my
native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our
descendants!’
‘That’s well,’ said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, ‘and I drink
my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend you!’
Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each
knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in return;
and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades, and his
brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make his way,
establish a good name, and be beloved, go where he would.
Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into Mr.
Micawber’s pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was done, my
aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful
farewell. They were all crying; the children hung about Agnes to the
last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition,
sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that must have made the room look,
from the river, like a miserable light-house.
I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had
departed, in a boat, as early as five o’clock. It was a wonderful
instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my
association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden
stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now
that they were gone.
In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to
Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd
of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her
mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and getting
through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went
on board.
Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Micawber
had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) at the suit of
Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had made to him, he had
paid the money, which I repaid him. He then took us down between decks;
and there, any lingering fears I had of his having heard any rumours of
what had happened, were dispelled by Mr. Micawber’s coming out of the
gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and
telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the
night before last.
It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at
first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it cleared, as
my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in
a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the
ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and
heaps of miscellaneous baggage--‘lighted up, here and there, by dangling
lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail
or a hatchway--were crowded groups of people, making new friendships,
taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and
drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their few
feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny children
established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others, despairing of
a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. From babies who had but a
week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed
to have but a week or two of life before them; and from ploughmen bodily
carrying out soil of England on their boots, to smiths taking away
samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins; every age and occupation
appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the ‘tween decks.
As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an open
port, with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure like Emily’s;
it first attracted my attention, by another figure parting from it with
a kiss; and as it glided calmly away through the disorder, reminding
me of--Agnes! But in the rapid motion and confusion, and in the
unsettlement of my own thoughts, I lost it again; and only knew that
the time was come when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship;
that my nurse was crying on a chest beside me; and that Mrs. Gummidge,
assisted by some younger stooping woman in black, was busily arranging
Mr. Peggotty’s goods.
‘Is there any last wured, Mas’r Davy?’ said he. ‘Is there any one
forgotten thing afore we parts?’
‘One thing!’ said I. ‘Martha!’
He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and
Martha stood before me.
‘Heaven bless you, you good man!’ cried I. ‘You take her with you!’
She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more at
that time, but I wrung his hand; and if ever I have loved and honoured
any man, I loved and honoured that man in my soul.
The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that I had,
remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone, had given me
in charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply. But when he charged
me, in return, with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf
ears, he moved me more.
The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my arm,
and hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs. Micawber. She was
looking distractedly about for her family, even then; and her last words
to me were, that she never would desert Mr. Micawber.
We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance, to
see the ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant sunset.
She lay between us, and the red light; and every taper line and spar was
visible against the glow. A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and
so hopeful, as the glorious ship, lying, still, on the flushed water,
with all the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks, and there
clustering, for a moment, bare-headed and silent, I never saw.
Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the ship
began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheers,
which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which were echoed
and re-echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the sound, and beheld the
waving of the hats and handkerchiefs--and then I saw her!
Then I saw her, at her uncle’s side, and trembling on his shoulder. He
pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her last
good-bye to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to him with
the utmost trust of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to thee, with
all the might of his great love!
Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck, apart
together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they solemnly passed
away. The night had fallen on the Kentish hills when we were rowed
ashore--and fallen darkly upon me.
CHAPTER 58. ABSENCE
It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the
ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many
unavailing sorrows and regrets.
I went away from England; not knowing, even then, how great the shock
was, that I had to bear. I left all who were dear to me, and went away;
and believed that I had borne it, and it was past. As a man upon a
field of battle will receive a mortal hurt, and scarcely know that he is
struck, so I, when I was left alone with my undisciplined heart, had no
conception of the wound with which it had to strive.
The knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by little, and grain
by grain. The desolate feeling with which I went abroad, deepened
and widened hourly. At first it was a heavy sense of loss and sorrow,
wherein I could distinguish little else. By imperceptible degrees,
it became a hopeless consciousness of all that I had lost--love,
friendship, interest; of all that had been shattered--my first trust,
my first affection, the whole airy castle of my life; of all that
remained--a ruined blank and waste, lying wide around me, unbroken, to
the dark horizon.
If my grief were selfish, I did not know it to be so. I mourned for my
child-wife, taken from her blooming world, so young. I mourned for him
who might have won the love and admiration of thousands, as he had won
mine long ago. I mourned for the broken heart that had found rest in the
stormy sea; and for the wandering remnants of the simple home, where I
had heard the night-wind blowing, when I was a child.
From the accumulated sadness into which I fell, I had at length no hope
of ever issuing again. I roamed from place to place, carrying my burden
with me everywhere. I felt its whole weight now; and I drooped beneath
it, and I said in my heart that it could never be lightened.
When this despondency was at its worst, I believed that I should die.
Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die at home; and actually
turned back on my road, that I might get there soon. At other times, I
passed on farther away,--from city to city, seeking I know not what, and
trying to leave I know not what behind.
It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases of
distress of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams that can
only be imperfectly and vaguely described; and when I oblige myself to
look back on this time of my life, I seem to be recalling such a dream.
I see myself passing on among the novelties of foreign towns, palaces,
cathedrals, temples, pictures, castles, tombs, fantastic streets--the
old abiding places of History and Fancy--as a dreamer might; bearing my
painful load through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they
fade before me. Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was the
night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from it--as
at last I did, thank Heaven!--and from its long, sad, wretched dream, to
dawn.
For many months I travelled with this ever-darkening cloud upon my
mind. Some blind reasons that I had for not returning home--reasons then
struggling within me, vainly, for more distinct expression--kept me
on my pilgrimage. Sometimes, I had proceeded restlessly from place to
place, stopping nowhere; sometimes, I had lingered long in one spot. I
had had no purpose, no sustaining soul within me, anywhere.
I was in Switzerland. I had come out of Italy, over one of the great
passes of the Alps, and had since wandered with a guide among the
by-ways of the mountains. If those awful solitudes had spoken to my
heart, I did not know it. I had found sublimity and wonder in the dread
heights and precipices, in the roaring torrents, and the wastes of ice
and snow; but as yet, they had taught me nothing else.
I came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley, where I was to
rest. In the course of my descent to it, by the winding track along
the mountain-side, from which I saw it shining far below, I think some
long-unwonted sense of beauty and tranquillity, some softening influence
awakened by its peace, moved faintly in my breast. I remember pausing
once, with a kind of sorrow that was not all oppressive, not quite
despairing. I remember almost hoping that some better change was
possible within me.
I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the remote
heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds. The bases of
the mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were
richly green; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of
dark fir, cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the
avalanche. Above these, were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey
rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually
blending with the crowning snow. Dotted here and there on the
mountain’s-side, each tiny dot a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so
dwarfed by the towering heights that they appeared too small for toys.
So did even the clustered village in the valley, with its wooden bridge
across the stream, where the stream tumbled over broken rocks, and
roared away among the trees. In the quiet air, there was a sound of
distant singing--shepherd voices; but, as one bright evening cloud
floated midway along the mountain’s-side, I could almost have believed
it came from there, and was not earthly music. All at once, in this
serenity, great Nature spoke to me; and soothed me to lay down my weary
head upon the grass, and weep as I had not wept yet, since Dora died!
I had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes before,
and had strolled out of the village to read them while my supper was
making ready. Other packets had missed me, and I had received none for a
long time. Beyond a line or two, to say that I was well, and had arrived
at such a place, I had not had fortitude or constancy to write a letter
since I left home.
The packet was in my hand. I opened it, and read the writing of Agnes.
She was happy and useful, was prospering as she had hoped. That was all
she told me of herself. The rest referred to me.
She gave me no advice; she urged no duty on me; she only told me, in her
own fervent manner, what her trust in me was. She knew (she said) how
such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good. She knew how trial
and emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was sure that in my every
purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher tendency, through the grief
I had undergone. She, who so gloried in my fame, and so looked forward
to its augmentation, well knew that I would labour on. She knew that in
me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be strength. As the endurance
of my childish days had done its part to make me what I was, so greater
calamities would nerve me on, to be yet better than I was; and so, as
they had taught me, would I teach others. She commended me to God, who
had taken my innocent darling to His rest; and in her sisterly affection
cherished me always, and was always at my side go where I would; proud
of what I had done, but infinitely prouder yet of what I was reserved to
do.
I put the letter in my breast, and thought what had I been an hour ago!
When I heard the voices die away, and saw the quiet evening cloud grow
dim, and all the colours in the valley fade, and the golden snow upon
the mountain-tops become a remote part of the pale night sky, yet felt
that the night was passing from my mind, and all its shadows clearing,
there was no name for the love I bore her, dearer to me, henceforward,
than ever until then.
I read her letter many times. I wrote to her before I slept. I told her
that I had been in sore need of her help; that without her I was not,
and I never had been, what she thought me; but that she inspired me to
be that, and I would try.
I did try. In three months more, a year would have passed since the
beginning of my sorrow. I determined to make no resolutions until the
expiration of those three months, but to try. I lived in that valley,
and its neighbourhood, all the time.
The three months gone, I resolved to remain away from home for some
time longer; to settle myself for the present in Switzerland, which was
growing dear to me in the remembrance of that evening; to resume my pen;
to work.
I resorted humbly whither Agnes had commended me; I sought out Nature,
never sought in vain; and I admitted to my breast the human interest
I had lately shrunk from. It was not long, before I had almost as many
friends in the valley as in Yarmouth: and when I left it, before the
winter set in, for Geneva, and came back in the spring, their cordial
greetings had a homely sound to me, although they were not conveyed in
English words.
I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a Story, with a
purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience, and sent it to
Traddles, and he arranged for its publication very advantageously for
me; and the tidings of my growing reputation began to reach me from
travellers whom I encountered by chance. After some rest and change, I
fell to work, in my old ardent way, on a new fancy, which took strong
possession of me. As I advanced in the execution of this task, I felt it
more and more, and roused my utmost energies to do it well. This was my
third work of fiction. It was not half written, when, in an interval of
rest, I thought of returning home.
For a long time, though studying and working patiently, I had accustomed
myself to robust exercise. My health, severely impaired when I left
England, was quite restored. I had seen much. I had been in many
countries, and I hope I had improved my store of knowledge.
I have now recalled all that I think it needful to recall here, of this
term of absence--with one reservation. I have made it, thus far, with
no purpose of suppressing any of my thoughts; for, as I have elsewhere
said, this narrative is my written memory. I have desired to keep the
most secret current of my mind apart, and to the last. I enter on it
now. I cannot so completely penetrate the mystery of my own heart, as
to know when I began to think that I might have set its earliest and
brightest hopes on Agnes. I cannot say at what stage of my grief
it first became associated with the reflection, that, in my wayward
boyhood, I had thrown away the treasure of her love. I believe I may
have heard some whisper of that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss
or want of something never to be realized, of which I had been sensible.
But the thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when
I was left so sad and lonely in the world.
If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the weakness of
my desolation, have betrayed this. It was what I remotely dreaded when I
was first impelled to stay away from England. I could not have borne
to lose the smallest portion of her sisterly affection; yet, in that
betrayal, I should have set a constraint between us hitherto unknown.
I could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded me had
grown up in my own free choice and course. That if she had ever loved me
with another love--and I sometimes thought the time was when she might
have done so--I had cast it away. It was nothing, now, that I had
accustomed myself to think of her, when we were both mere children,
as one who was far removed from my wild fancies. I had bestowed my
passionate tenderness upon another object; and what I might have done,
I had not done; and what Agnes was to me, I and her own noble heart had
made her.
In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I
tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I
did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when I might
possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as
to marry her. But, as time wore on, this shadowy prospect faded, and
departed from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I should hold her
the more sacred; remembering the confidences I had reposed in her, her
knowledge of my errant heart, the sacrifice she must have made to be my
friend and sister, and the victory she had won. If she had never loved
me, could I believe that she would love me now?
I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and
fortitude; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have been
to her, or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long ago, I was
not now, and she was not. The time was past. I had let it go by, and had
deservedly lost her.
That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with
unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it
was required of me, in right and honour, to keep away from myself, with
shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my
hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright and
fresh--which consideration was at the root of every thought I had
concerning her--is all equally true. I made no effort to conceal from
myself, now, that I loved her, that I was devoted to her; but I brought
the assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and that our
long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed.
I had thought, much and often, of my Dora’s shadowing out to me what
might have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us;
I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much
realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished. The
very years she spoke of, were realities now, for my correction; and
would have been, one day, a little later perhaps, though we had parted
in our earliest folly. I endeavoured to convert what might have been
between myself and Agnes, into a means of making me more self-denying,
more resolved, more conscious of myself, and my defects and errors.
Thus, through the reflection that it might have been, I arrived at the
conviction that it could never be.
These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting
quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of my
return home, three years afterwards. Three years had elapsed since the
sailing of the emigrant ship; when, at that same hour of sunset, and in
the same place, I stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought me
home, looking on the rosy water where I had seen the image of that ship
reflected.
Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. And
home was very dear to me, and Agnes too--but she was not mine--she was
never to be mine. She might have been, but that was past!
CHAPTER 59. RETURN
I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and raining,
and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a year. I
walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach;
and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were
like old friends to me, I could not but admit that they were very dingy
friends.
I have often remarked--I suppose everybody has--that one’s going away
from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it.
As I looked out of the coach window, and observed that an old house on
Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or
bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence; and that
a neighbouring street, of time-honoured insalubrity and inconvenience,
was being drained and widened; I half expected to find St. Paul’s
Cathedral looking older.
For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My aunt
had long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun to get
into some little practice at the Bar, in the very first term after my
departure. He had chambers in Gray’s Inn, now; and had told me, in his
last letters, that he was not without hopes of being soon united to the
dearest girl in the world.
They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning
so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of
taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill
and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and
silent, through the misty streets.
The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did something
for me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house,
I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first, that so-different
time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the
changes that had come to pass since then; but that was natural.
‘Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?’ I asked the waiter,
as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire.
‘Holborn Court, sir. Number two.’
‘Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I believe?’
said I.
‘Well, sir,’ returned the waiter, ‘probably he has, sir; but I am not
aware of it myself.’
This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter
of more authority--a stout, potential old man, with a double chin,
in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a
churchwarden’s pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company
with a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers.
‘Mr. Traddles,’ said the spare waiter. ‘Number two in the Court.’
The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me.
‘I was inquiring,’ said I, ‘whether Mr. Traddles, at number two in the
Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?’
‘Never heard his name,’ said the waiter, in a rich husky voice.
I felt quite apologetic for Traddles.
‘He’s a young man, sure?’ said the portentous waiter, fixing his eyes
severely on me. ‘How long has he been in the Inn?’
‘Not above three years,’ said I.
The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden’s pew for forty
years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He asked me what
I would have for dinner?
I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on
Traddles’s account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly ordered
a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his
obscurity.
As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking
that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he
was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive,
stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the
room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the
same manner when the chief waiter was a boy--if he ever was a boy,
which appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where I saw
myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps,
without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; and at the comfortable
green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes;
and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of
decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old
port wine below; and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be
very difficult indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bedroom
to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscoted
apartment (which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember),
and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable
gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly
frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth. I
came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the meal,
and the orderly silence of the place--which was bare of guests, the Long
Vacation not yet being over--were eloquent on the audacity of Traddles,
and his small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come.
I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed my
hopes for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He came near
me no more; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, to
meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come out of the cellar of its
own accord, for he gave no order. The second waiter informed me, in a
whisper, that this old gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the
Square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave
to his laundress’s daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had
a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more
than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers
by mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost; and
settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him.
Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I
dispatched my dinner, in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in
the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. Number
two in the Court was soon reached; and an inscription on the door-post
informing me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of chambers on the top
storey, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old staircase I found it to
be, feebly lighted on each landing by a club-headed little oil wick,
dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass.
In the course of my stumbling upstairs, I fancied I heard a pleasant
sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or
attorney’s clerk or barrister’s clerk, but of two or three merry girls.
Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole
where the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn had left a plank deficient,
I fell down with some noise, and when I recovered my footing all was
silent.
Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart
beat high when I found the outer door, which had Mr. TRADDLES painted on
it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing
else. I therefore knocked again.
A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very
much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it
legally, presented himself.
‘Is Mr. Traddles within?’ I said.
‘Yes, sir, but he’s engaged.’
‘I want to see him.’
After a moment’s survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me
in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first,
into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room;
where I came into the presence of my old friend (also out of breath),
seated at a table, and bending over papers.
‘Good God!’ cried Traddles, looking up. ‘It’s Copperfield!’ and rushed
into my arms, where I held him tight.
‘All well, my dear Traddles?’
‘All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!’
We cried with pleasure, both of us.
‘My dear fellow,’ said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his excitement,
which was a most unnecessary operation, ‘my dearest Copperfield, my
long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to see you! How
brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honour, I never was so
rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!’
I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to
speak, at first.
‘My dear fellow!’ said Traddles. ‘And grown so famous! My glorious
Copperfield! Good gracious me, WHEN did you come, WHERE have you come
from, WHAT have you been doing?’
Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had
clapped me into an easy-chair by the fire, all this time impetuously
stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with
the other, under some wild delusion that it was a great-coat. Without
putting down the poker, he now hugged me again; and I hugged him; and,
both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook
hands across the hearth.
‘To think,’ said Traddles, ‘that you should have been so nearly coming
home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the ceremony!’
‘What ceremony, my dear Traddles?’
‘Good gracious me!’ cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old way.
‘Didn’t you get my last letter?’
‘Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony.’
‘Why, my dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, sticking his hair upright
with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, ‘I am married!’
‘Married!’ I cried joyfully.
‘Lord bless me, yes!’ said Traddles--‘by the Reverend Horace--to
Sophy--down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she’s behind the window
curtain! Look here!’
To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same
instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And a
more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I believe
(as I could not help saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed
her as an old acquaintance should, and wished them joy with all my might
of heart.
‘Dear me,’ said Traddles, ‘what a delightful re-union this is! You are
so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how happy I
am!’
‘And so am I,’ said I.
‘And I am sure I am!’ said the blushing and laughing Sophy.
‘We are all as happy as possible!’ said Traddles. ‘Even the girls are
happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them!’
‘Forgot?’ said I.
‘The girls,’ said Traddles. ‘Sophy’s sisters. They are staying with us.
They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, when--was it you
that tumbled upstairs, Copperfield?’
‘It was,’ said I, laughing.
‘Well then, when you tumbled upstairs,’ said Traddles, ‘I was romping
with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss in the Corner.
But as that wouldn’t do in Westminster Hall, and as it wouldn’t look
quite professional if they were seen by a client, they decamped. And
they are now--listening, I have no doubt,’ said Traddles, glancing at
the door of another room.
‘I am sorry,’ said I, laughing afresh, ‘to have occasioned such a
dispersion.’
‘Upon my word,’ rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, ‘if you had seen
them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, to
pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on in
the maddest manner, you wouldn’t have said so. My love, will you fetch
the girls?’
Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with
a peal of laughter.
‘Really musical, isn’t it, my dear Copperfield?’ said Traddles. ‘It’s
very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms. To an
unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life, you
know, it’s positively delicious. It’s charming. Poor things, they have
had a great loss in Sophy--who, I do assure you, Copperfield is, and
ever was, the dearest girl!--and it gratifies me beyond expression
to find them in such good spirits. The society of girls is a very
delightful thing, Copperfield. It’s not professional, but it’s very
delightful.’
Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the
goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he
had said, I expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that evidently
relieved and pleased him greatly.
‘But then,’ said Traddles, ‘our domestic arrangements are, to say
the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. Even
Sophy’s being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other place of
abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared to
rough it. And Sophy’s an extraordinary manager! You’ll be surprised how
those girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly know how it’s done!’
‘Are many of the young ladies with you?’ I inquired.
‘The eldest, the Beauty is here,’ said Traddles, in a low confidential
voice, ‘Caroline. And Sarah’s here--the one I mentioned to you as having
something the matter with her spine, you know. Immensely better! And the
two youngest that Sophy educated are with us. And Louisa’s here.’
‘Indeed!’ cried I.
‘Yes,’ said Traddles. ‘Now the whole set--I mean the chambers--is only
three rooms; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the most wonderful way,
and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in that room,’ said
Traddles, pointing. ‘Two in that.’
I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation
remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me.
‘Well!’ said Traddles, ‘we are prepared to rough it, as I said just now,
and we did improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here. But there’s
a little room in the roof--a very nice room, when you’re up there--which
Sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and that’s our room at present.
It’s a capital little gipsy sort of place. There’s quite a view from
it.’
‘And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles!’ said I. ‘How
rejoiced I am!’
‘Thank you, my dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, as we shook hands
once more. ‘Yes, I am as happy as it’s possible to be. There’s your old
friend, you see,’ said Traddles, nodding triumphantly at the flower-pot
and stand; ‘and there’s the table with the marble top! All the other
furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. And as to plate, Lord
bless you, we haven’t so much as a tea-spoon.’
‘All to be earned?’ said I, cheerfully.
‘Exactly so,’ replied Traddles, ‘all to be earned. Of course we have
something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea. But
they’re Britannia metal.’
‘The silver will be the brighter when it comes,’ said I.
‘The very thing we say!’ cried Traddles. ‘You see, my dear Copperfield,’
falling again into the low confidential tone, ‘after I had delivered my
argument in DOE dem. JIPES versus WIGZIELL, which did me great service
with the profession, I went down into Devonshire, and had some serious
conversation in private with the Reverend Horace. I dwelt upon the fact
that Sophy--who I do assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest girl!--’
‘I am certain she is!’ said I.
‘She is, indeed!’ rejoined Traddles. ‘But I am afraid I am wandering
from the subject. Did I mention the Reverend Horace?’
‘You said that you dwelt upon the fact--’
‘True! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long
period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more
than content to take me--in short,’ said Traddles, with his old frank
smile, ‘on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very well. I then
proposed to the Reverend Horace--who is a most excellent clergyman,
Copperfield, and ought to be a Bishop; or at least ought to have enough
to live upon, without pinching himself--that if I could turn the corner,
say of two hundred and fifty pounds, in one year; and could see my
way pretty clearly to that, or something better, next year; and could
plainly furnish a little place like this, besides; then, and in that
case, Sophy and I should be united. I took the liberty of representing
that we had been patient for a good many years; and that the
circumstance of Sophy’s being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not
to operate with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in
life--don’t you see?’
‘Certainly it ought not,’ said I.
‘I am glad you think so, Copperfield,’ rejoined Traddles, ‘because,
without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think parents, and
brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such cases.
Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful
to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and anything should
happen to him--I refer to the Reverend Horace--’
‘I understand,’ said I.
‘--Or to Mrs. Crewler--it would be the utmost gratification of my
wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most admirable
manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain
the consent of Mrs. Crewler to this arrangement. They had a dreadful
time of it with her. It mounted from her legs into her chest, and then
into her head--’
‘What mounted?’ I asked.
‘Her grief,’ replied Traddles, with a serious look. ‘Her feelings
generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior
woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs to harass
her, usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it mounted to the
chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the whole system
in a most alarming manner. However, they brought her through it by
unremitting and affectionate attention; and we were married yesterday
six weeks. You have no idea what a Monster I felt, Copperfield, when I
saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction! Mrs.
Crewler couldn’t see me before we left--couldn’t forgive me, then, for
depriving her of her child--but she is a good creature, and has done so
since. I had a delightful letter from her, only this morning.’
‘And in short, my dear friend,’ said I, ‘you feel as blest as you
deserve to feel!’
‘Oh! That’s your partiality!’ laughed Traddles. ‘But, indeed, I am in a
most enviable state. I work hard, and read Law insatiably. I get up at
five every morning, and don’t mind it at all. I hide the girls in the
daytime, and make merry with them in the evening. And I assure you I am
quite sorry that they are going home on Tuesday, which is the day before
the first day of Michaelmas Term. But here,’ said Traddles, breaking off
in his confidence, and speaking aloud, ‘ARE the girls! Mr. Copperfield,
Miss Crewler--Miss Sarah--Miss Louisa--Margaret and Lucy!’
They were a perfect nest of roses; they looked so wholesome and fresh.
They were all pretty, and Miss Caroline was very handsome; but there was
a loving, cheerful, fireside quality in Sophy’s bright looks, which was
better than that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well.
We all sat round the fire; while the sharp boy, who I now divined had
lost his breath in putting the papers out, cleared them away again, and
produced the tea-things. After that, he retired for the night, shutting
the outer door upon us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, with perfect pleasure
and composure beaming from her household eyes, having made the tea, then
quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire.
She had seen Agnes, she told me while she was toasting. ‘Tom’ had taken
her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen my aunt,
too; and both my aunt and Agnes were well, and they had all talked of
nothing but me. ‘Tom’ had never had me out of his thoughts, she really
believed, all the time I had been away. ‘Tom’ was the authority for
everything. ‘Tom’ was evidently the idol of her life; never to be shaken
on his pedestal by any commotion; always to be believed in, and done
homage to with the whole faith of her heart, come what might.
The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the Beauty,
pleased me very much. I don’t know that I thought it very reasonable;
but I thought it very delightful, and essentially a part of their
character. If Traddles ever for an instant missed the tea-spoons that
were still to be won, I have no doubt it was when he handed the Beauty
her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife could have got up any self-assertion
against anyone, I am satisfied it could only have been because she was
the Beauty’s sister. A few slight indications of a rather petted and
capricious manner, which I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly
considered, by Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural
endowment. If she had been born a Queen Bee, and they labouring Bees,
they could not have been more satisfied of that.
But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these girls, and
their submission of themselves to all their whims, was the pleasantest
little testimony to their own worth I could have desired to see. If
Traddles were addressed as ‘a darling’, once in the course of that
evening; and besought to bring something here, or carry something there,
or take something up, or put something down, or find something, or fetch
something, he was so addressed, by one or other of his sisters-in-law,
at least twelve times in an hour. Neither could they do anything without
Sophy. Somebody’s hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up.
Somebody forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but Sophy could
hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to recall the name of a place in
Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to be written
home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in
the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no one but
Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. They were
entire mistresses of the place, and Sophy and Traddles waited on them.
How many children Sophy could have taken care of in her time, I can’t
imagine; but she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that
ever was addressed to a child in the English tongue; and she sang dozens
to order with the clearest little voice in the world, one after another
(every sister issuing directions for a different tune, and the Beauty
generally striking in last), so that I was quite fascinated. The best
of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, all the sisters had
a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy and Traddles. I am sure,
when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming out to walk with me to the
coffee-house, I thought I had never seen an obstinate head of hair, or
any other head of hair, rolling about in such a shower of kisses.
Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with pleasure,
for a long time after I got back and had wished Traddles good night. If
I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that
withered Gray’s Inn, they could not have brightened it half so much.
The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers and the
attorneys’ offices; and of the tea and toast, and children’s songs, in
that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers,
ink-jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and
bills of costs; seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had
dreamed that the Sultan’s famous family had been admitted on the roll of
attorneys, and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the
golden water into Gray’s Inn Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken
leave of Traddles for the night, and come back to the coffee-house, with
a great change in my despondency about him. I began to think he would
get on, in spite of all the many orders of chief waiters in England.
Drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to think about him
at my leisure, I gradually fell from the consideration of his happiness
to tracing prospects in the live-coals, and to thinking, as they broke
and changed, of the principal vicissitudes and separations that had
marked my life. I had not seen a coal fire, since I had left England
three years ago: though many a wood fire had I watched, as it crumbled
into hoary ashes, and mingled with the feathery heap upon the hearth,
which not inaptly figured to me, in my despondency, my own dead hopes.
I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could
contemplate the future in a brave spirit. Home, in its best sense, was
for me no more. She in whom I might have inspired a dearer love, I had
taught to be my sister. She would marry, and would have new claimants on
her tenderness; and in doing it, would never know the love for her that
had grown up in my heart. It was right that I should pay the forfeit of
my headlong passion. What I reaped, I had sown.
I was thinking. And had I truly disciplined my heart to this, and could
I resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home which she
had calmly held in mine,--when I found my eyes resting on a countenance
that might have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my early
remembrances.
Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted in
the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the
shadow of an opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in years by this
time; but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that
I thought he looked at that moment just as he might have looked when he
sat in our parlour, waiting for me to be born.
Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had
never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with his
little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at his
elbow. He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to
apologize to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it.
I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, ‘How do you do, Mr.
Chillip?’
He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger, and
replied, in his slow way, ‘I thank you, sir, you are very good. Thank
you, sir. I hope YOU are well.’
‘You don’t remember me?’ said I.
‘Well, sir,’ returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking his
head as he surveyed me, ‘I have a kind of an impression that something
in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but I couldn’t lay my hand
upon your name, really.’
‘And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself,’ I returned.
‘Did I indeed, sir?’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Is it possible that I had the
honour, sir, of officiating when--?’
‘Yes,’ said I.
‘Dear me!’ cried Mr. Chillip. ‘But no doubt you are a good deal changed
since then, sir?’
‘Probably,’ said I.
‘Well, sir,’ observed Mr. Chillip, ‘I hope you’ll excuse me, if I am
compelled to ask the favour of your name?’
On my telling him my name, he was really moved. He quite shook hands
with me--which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual course being
to slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in advance of his
hip, and evince the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with
it. Even now, he put his hand in his coat-pocket as soon as he could
disengage it, and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back.
‘Dear me, sir!’ said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one
side. ‘And it’s Mr. Copperfield, is it? Well, sir, I think I should have
known you, if I had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you.
There’s a strong resemblance between you and your poor father, sir.’
‘I never had the happiness of seeing my father,’ I observed.
‘Very true, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. ‘And very much
to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant, sir,’ said
Mr. Chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, ‘down in our part of
the country, of your fame. There must be great excitement here, sir,’
said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger.
‘You must find it a trying occupation, sir!’
‘What is your part of the country now?’ I asked, seating myself near
him.
‘I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmund’s, sir,’ said
Mr. Chillip. ‘Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little property in that
neighbourhood, under her father’s will, I bought a practice down there,
in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My daughter is
growing quite a tall lass now, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, giving his little
head another little shake. ‘Her mother let down two tucks in her frocks
only last week. Such is time, you see, sir!’
As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made this
reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would keep him
company with another. ‘Well, sir,’ he returned, in his slow way, ‘it’s
more than I am accustomed to; but I can’t deny myself the pleasure
of your conversation. It seems but yesterday that I had the honour of
attending you in the measles. You came through them charmingly, sir!’
I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was soon
produced. ‘Quite an uncommon dissipation!’ said Mr. Chillip, stirring
it, ‘but I can’t resist so extraordinary an occasion. You have no
family, sir?’
I shook my head.
‘I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago,’ said
Mr. Chillip. ‘I heard it from your father-in-law’s sister. Very decided
character there, sir?’
‘Why, yes,’ said I, ‘decided enough. Where did you see her, Mr.
Chillip?’
‘Are you not aware, sir,’ returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest
smile, ‘that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?’
‘No,’ said I.
‘He is indeed, sir!’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Married a young lady of that
part, with a very good little property, poor thing.---And this action
of the brain now, sir? Don’t you find it fatigue you?’ said Mr. Chillip,
looking at me like an admiring Robin.
I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. ‘I was aware of
his being married again. Do you attend the family?’ I asked.
‘Not regularly. I have been called in,’ he replied. ‘Strong
phrenological developments of the organ of firmness, in Mr. Murdstone
and his sister, sir.’
I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was emboldened
by that, and the negus together, to give his head several short shakes,
and thoughtfully exclaim, ‘Ah, dear me! We remember old times, Mr.
Copperfield!’
‘And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are they?’
said I.
‘Well, sir,’ replied Mr. Chillip, ‘a medical man, being so much in
families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his
profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir: both as to
this life and the next.’
‘The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare say,’
I returned: ‘what are they doing as to this?’
Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it.
‘She was a charming woman, sir!’ he observed in a plaintive manner.
‘The present Mrs. Murdstone?’
‘A charming woman indeed, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip; ‘as amiable, I am sure,
as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip’s opinion is, that her spirit
has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but
melancholy mad. And the ladies,’ observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, ‘are
great observers, sir.’
‘I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould,
Heaven help her!’ said I. ‘And she has been.’
‘Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you,’ said
Mr. Chillip; ‘but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be considered
forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the
sister came to help, the brother and sister between them have nearly
reduced her to a state of imbecility?’
I told him I could easily believe it.
‘I have no hesitation in saying,’ said Mr. Chillip, fortifying himself
with another sip of negus, ‘between you and me, sir, that her mother
died of it--or that tyranny, gloom, and worry have made Mrs. Murdstone
nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, and
their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They go about with her, now,
more like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. That was
Mrs. Chillip’s remark to me, only last week. And I assure you, sir, the
ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillip herself is a great observer!’
‘Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in such
association) religious still?’ I inquired.
‘You anticipate, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite
red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. ‘One of Mrs.
Chillip’s most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip,’ he proceeded, in the
calmest and slowest manner, ‘quite electrified me, by pointing out
that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the Divine
Nature. You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir,
with the feather of a pen, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The
ladies are great observers, sir?’
‘Intuitively,’ said I, to his extreme delight.
‘I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir,’ he
rejoined. ‘It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical opinion,
I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it
is said,--in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip,--that the darker
tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine.’
‘I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right,’ said I.
‘Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say,’ pursued the meekest of little
men, much encouraged, ‘that what such people miscall their religion, is
a vent for their bad humours and arrogance. And do you know I must say,
sir,’ he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, ‘that I DON’T
find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament?’
‘I never found it either!’ said I.
‘In the meantime, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, ‘they are much disliked;
and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them
to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in
our neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo a
continual punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own
hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now, sir, about that
brain of yours, if you’ll excuse my returning to it. Don’t you expose it
to a good deal of excitement, sir?’
I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip’s own brain,
under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic
to his own affairs, on which, for the next half-hour, he was quite
loquacious; giving me to understand, among other pieces of information,
that he was then at the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house to lay his professional
evidence before a Commission of Lunacy, touching the state of mind of a
patient who had become deranged from excessive drinking. ‘And I assure
you, sir,’ he said, ‘I am extremely nervous on such occasions. I could
not support being what is called Bullied, sir. It would quite unman
me. Do you know it was some time before I recovered the conduct of that
alarming lady, on the night of your birth, Mr. Copperfield?’
I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that night,
early in the morning; and that she was one of the most tender-hearted
and excellent of women, as he would know full well if he knew her
better. The mere notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her again,
appeared to terrify him. He replied with a small pale smile, ‘Is she so,
indeed, sir? Really?’ and almost immediately called for a candle, and
went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else. He did not
actually stagger under the negus; but I should think his placid little
pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had
done since the great night of my aunt’s disappointment, when she struck
at him with her bonnet.
Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next day on
the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt’s old parlour while
she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was received by her, and
Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open
arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily amused, when we began to
talk composedly, by my account of my meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of
his holding her in such dread remembrance; and both she and Peggotty
had a great deal to say about my poor mother’s second husband, and ‘that
murdering woman of a sister’,--on whom I think no pain or penalty would
have induced my aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper Name, or any
other designation.
CHAPTER 60. AGNES
My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. How
the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully;
how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on
account of those ‘pecuniary liabilities’, in reference to which he had
been so business-like as between man and man; how Janet, returning into
my aunt’s service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out
her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving
tavern-keeper; and how my aunt had finally set her seal on the same
great principle, by aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the
marriage-ceremony with her presence; were among our topics--already
more or less familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick,
as usual, was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly
occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and
kept King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance
of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life
that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint;
and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully
know what he was.
‘And when, Trot,’ said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we sat
in our old way before the fire, ‘when are you going over to Canterbury?’
‘I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, aunt, unless you
will go with me?’
‘No!’ said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. ‘I mean to stay where I
am.’
Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury
today without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone but her.
She was pleased, but answered, ‘Tut, Trot; MY old bones would have
kept till tomorrow!’ and softly patted my hand again, as I sat looking
thoughtfully at the fire.
Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes,
without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been
occupied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed
to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less
regrets. ‘Oh, Trot,’ I seemed to hear my aunt say once more; and I
understood her better now--‘Blind, blind, blind!’
We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I found
that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had followed the
current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful
as it had been once.
‘You will find her father a white-haired old man,’ said my aunt, ‘though
a better man in all other respects--a reclaimed man. Neither will you
find him measuring all human interests, and joys, and sorrows, with his
one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me, child, such things must shrink
very much, before they can be measured off in that way.’
‘Indeed they must,’ said I.
‘You will find her,’ pursued my aunt, ‘as good, as beautiful, as
earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew higher
praise, Trot, I would bestow it on her.’
There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. Oh, how
had I strayed so far away!
‘If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like
herself,’ said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes with
tears, ‘Heaven knows, her life will be well employed! Useful and happy,
as she said that day! How could she be otherwise than useful and happy!’
‘Has Agnes any--’ I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking.
‘Well? Hey? Any what?’ said my aunt, sharply.
‘Any lover,’ said I.
‘A score,’ cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. ‘She might
have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been gone!’
‘No doubt,’ said I. ‘No doubt. But has she any lover who is worthy of
her? Agnes could care for no other.’
My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand.
Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said:
‘I suspect she has an attachment, Trot.’
‘A prosperous one?’ said I.
‘Trot,’ returned my aunt gravely, ‘I can’t say. I have no right to tell
you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I suspect it.’
She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her tremble),
that I felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my late thoughts.
I summoned all the resolutions I had made, in all those many days and
nights, and all those many conflicts of my heart.
‘If it should be so,’ I began, ‘and I hope it is-’
‘I don’t know that it is,’ said my aunt curtly. ‘You must not be ruled
by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very slight,
perhaps. I have no right to speak.’
‘If it should be so,’ I repeated, ‘Agnes will tell me at her own good
time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, aunt, will not be
reluctant to confide in me.’
My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned them
upon me; and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and by she
put her other hand on my shoulder; and so we both sat, looking into the
past, without saying another word, until we parted for the night.
I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old school-days.
I cannot say that I was yet quite happy, in the hope that I was gaining
a victory over myself; even in the prospect of so soon looking on her
face again.
The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the quiet
streets, where every stone was a boy’s book to me. I went on foot to the
old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. I returned; and
looking, as I passed, through the low window of the turret-room where
first Uriah Heep, and afterwards Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit,
saw that it was a little parlour now, and that there was no office.
Otherwise the staid old house was, as to its cleanliness and order,
still just as it had been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid
who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on
her from a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown up the grave old
staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the unchanged
drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read together, were on
their shelves; and the desk where I had laboured at my lessons, many
a night, stood yet at the same old corner of the table. All the little
changes that had crept in when the Heeps were there, were changed again.
Everything was as it used to be, in the happy time.
I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the
opposite houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet afternoons,
when I first came there; and how I had used to speculate about the
people who appeared at any of the windows, and had followed them with my
eyes up and down stairs, while women went clicking along the pavement in
pattens, and the dull rain fell in slanting lines, and poured out of the
water-spout yonder, and flowed into the road. The feeling with which
I used to watch the tramps, as they came into the town on those wet
evenings, at dusk, and limped past, with their bundles drooping over
their shoulders at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught,
as then, with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the
sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey.
The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made me start and
turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. She
stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her in my arms.
‘Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon you.’
‘No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood!’
‘Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!’
I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both silent.
Presently we sat down, side by side; and her angel-face was turned upon
me with the welcome I had dreamed of, waking and sleeping, for whole
years.
She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good,--I owed her so
much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no utterance
for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell
her (as I had often done in letters) what an influence she had upon me;
but all my efforts were in vain. My love and joy were dumb.
With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me back to
the time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited,
in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora’s grave. With the
unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my
memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; I
could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from
nothing it awoke. How could I, when, blended with it all, was her dear
self, the better angel of my life?
‘And you, Agnes,’ I said, by and by. ‘Tell me of yourself. You have
hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of time!’
‘What should I tell?’ she answered, with her radiant smile. ‘Papa is
well. You see us here, quiet in our own home; our anxieties set at rest,
our home restored to us; and knowing that, dear Trotwood, you know all.’
‘All, Agnes?’ said I.
She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face.
‘Is there nothing else, Sister?’ I said.
Her colour, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again. She
smiled; with a quiet sadness, I thought; and shook her head.
I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at; for, sharply
painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I was to
discipline my heart, and do my duty to her. I saw, however, that she was
uneasy, and I let it pass.
‘You have much to do, dear Agnes?’
‘With my school?’ said she, looking up again, in all her bright
composure.
‘Yes. It is laborious, is it not?’
‘The labour is so pleasant,’ she returned, ‘that it is scarcely grateful
in me to call it by that name.’
‘Nothing good is difficult to you,’ said I.
Her colour came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her head,
I saw the same sad smile.
‘You will wait and see papa,’ said Agnes, cheerfully, ‘and pass the
day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room? We always call it
yours.’
I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt’s at night;
but I would pass the day there, joyfully.
‘I must be a prisoner for a little while,’ said Agnes, ‘but here are the
old books, Trotwood, and the old music.’
‘Even the old flowers are here,’ said I, looking round; ‘or the old
kinds.’
‘I have found a pleasure,’ returned Agnes, smiling, ‘while you have been
absent, in keeping everything as it used to be when we were children.
For we were very happy then, I think.’
‘Heaven knows we were!’ said I.
‘And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother,’ said Agnes,
with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, ‘has been a welcome
companion. Even this,’ showing me the basket-trifle, full of keys, still
hanging at her side, ‘seems to jingle a kind of old tune!’
She smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come.
It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care. It
was all that I had left myself, and it was a treasure. If I once shook
the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage, in virtue of which
it was given to me, it was lost, and could never be recovered. I set
this steadily before myself. The better I loved her, the more it behoved
me never to forget it.
I walked through the streets; and, once more seeing my old adversary the
butcher--now a constable, with his staff hanging up in the shop--went
down to look at the place where I had fought him; and there meditated
on Miss Shepherd and the eldest Miss Larkins, and all the idle loves and
likings, and dislikings, of that time. Nothing seemed to have survived
that time but Agnes; and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and
higher.
When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home, from a garden he had, a
couple of miles or so out of town, where he now employed himself almost
every day. I found him as my aunt had described him. We sat down to
dinner, with some half-dozen little girls; and he seemed but the shadow
of his handsome picture on the wall.
The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground in my
memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. Wickfield taking no
wine, and I desiring none, we went up-stairs; where Agnes and her little
charges sang and played, and worked. After tea the children left us; and
we three sat together, talking of the bygone days.
‘My part in them,’ said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, ‘has much
matter for regret--for deep regret, and deep contrition, Trotwood, you
well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in my power.’
I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him.
‘I should cancel with it,’ he pursued, ‘such patience and devotion, such
fidelity, such a child’s love, as I must not forget, no! even to forget
myself.’
‘I understand you, sir,’ I softly said. ‘I hold it--I have always held
it--in veneration.’
‘But no one knows, not even you,’ he returned, ‘how much she has done,
how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear Agnes!’
She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was very,
very pale.
‘Well, well!’ he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some trial
she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my aunt had
told me. ‘Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. Has
anyone?’
‘Never, sir.’
‘It’s not much--though it was much to suffer. She married me in
opposition to her father’s wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him
to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was a very hard
man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. He broke her
heart.’
Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck.
‘She had an affectionate and gentle heart,’ he said; ‘and it was broken.
I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I did not. She
loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always labouring, in
secret, under this distress; and being delicate and downcast at the time
of his last repulse--for it was not the first, by many--pined away
and died. She left me Agnes, two weeks old; and the grey hair that you
recollect me with, when you first came.’ He kissed Agnes on her cheek.
‘My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all
unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of myself,
Trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any clue to what
I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I know. What Agnes
is, I need not say. I have always read something of her poor mother’s
story, in her character; and so I tell it you tonight, when we three are
again together, after such great changes. I have told it all.’
His bowed head, and her angel-face and filial duty, derived a more
pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted
anything by which to mark this night of our re-union, I should have
found it in this.
Agnes rose up from her father’s side, before long; and going softly to
her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in
that place.
‘Have you any intention of going away again?’ Agnes asked me, as I was
standing by.
‘What does my sister say to that?’
‘I hope not.’
‘Then I have no such intention, Agnes.’
‘I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me,’ she said, mildly.
‘Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of doing good;
and if I could spare my brother,’ with her eyes upon me, ‘perhaps the
time could not.’
‘What I am, you have made me, Agnes. You should know best.’
‘I made you, Trotwood?’
‘Yes! Agnes, my dear girl!’ I said, bending over her. ‘I tried to tell
you, when we met today, something that has been in my thoughts since
Dora died. You remember, when you came down to me in our little
room--pointing upward, Agnes?’
‘Oh, Trotwood!’ she returned, her eyes filled with tears. ‘So loving, so
confiding, and so young! Can I ever forget?’
‘As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since, you have ever
been to me. Ever pointing upward, Agnes; ever leading me to something
better; ever directing me to higher things!’
She only shook her head; through her tears I saw the same sad quiet
smile.
‘And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that there
is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to know, yet don’t
know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall look up to you,
and be guided by you, as I have been through the darkness that is past.
Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may form, whatever changes may
come between us, I shall always look to you, and love you, as I do now,
and have always done. You will always be my solace and resource, as you
have always been. Until I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always
before me, pointing upward!’
She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of what I
said; although I praised her very far beyond her worth. Then she went
on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from me. ‘Do you know,
what I have heard tonight, Agnes,’ said I, strangely seems to be a part
of the feeling with which I regarded you when I saw you first--with
which I sat beside you in my rough school-days?’
‘You knew I had no mother,’ she replied with a smile, ‘and felt kindly
towards me.’
‘More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost as if I had known this story,
that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened, surrounding
you; something that might have been sorrowful in someone else (as I can
now understand it was), but was not so in you.’
She softly played on, looking at me still.
‘Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?’
‘No!’
‘Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you could
be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and never cease
to be so, until you ceased to live?---Will you laugh at such a dream?’
‘Oh, no! Oh, no!’
For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the
start it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and looking at me
with her own calm smile.
As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a restless
memory, I thought of this, and feared she was not happy. I was not
happy; but, thus far, I had faithfully set the seal upon the Past, and,
thinking of her, pointing upward, thought of her as pointing to that
sky above me, where, in the mystery to come, I might yet love her with
a love unknown on earth, and tell her what the strife had been within me
when I loved her here.
CHAPTER 61. I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS
For a time--at all events until my book should be completed, which would
be the work of several months--I took up my abode in my aunt’s house at
Dover; and there, sitting in the window from which I had looked out at
the moon upon the sea, when that roof first gave me shelter, I quietly
pursued my task.
In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only when
their course should incidentally connect itself with the progress of my
story, I do not enter on the aspirations, the delights, anxieties, and
triumphs of my art. That I truly devoted myself to it with my strongest
earnestness, and bestowed upon it every energy of my soul, I have
already said. If the books I have written be of any worth, they will
supply the rest. I shall otherwise have written to poor purpose, and the
rest will be of interest to no one.
Occasionally, I went to London; to lose myself in the swarm of life
there, or to consult with Traddles on some business point. He had
managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgement; and my
worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety began to bring upon
me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom I had no
knowledge--chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult to answer--I
agreed with Traddles to have my name painted up on his door. There, the
devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels of letters for me; and
there, at intervals, I laboured through them, like a Home Secretary of
State without the salary.
Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an
obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking
about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would take
the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself), and pay me
a percentage on the profits. But I declined these offers; being already
aware that there were plenty of such covert practitioners in existence,
and considering the Commons quite bad enough, without my doing anything
to make it worse.
The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on Traddles’s
door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had never heard of
Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from her work into a sooty
little strip of garden with a pump in it. But there I always found her,
the same bright housewife; often humming her Devonshire ballads when no
strange foot was coming up the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his
official closet with melody.
I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a copy-book;
and why she always shut it up when I appeared, and hurried it into the
table-drawer. But the secret soon came out. One day, Traddles (who had
just come home through the drizzling sleet from Court) took a paper out
of his desk, and asked me what I thought of that handwriting?
‘Oh, DON’T, Tom!’ cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers before the
fire.
‘My dear,’ returned Tom, in a delighted state, ‘why not? What do you say
to that writing, Copperfield?’
‘It’s extraordinarily legal and formal,’ said I. ‘I don’t think I ever
saw such a stiff hand.’
‘Not like a lady’s hand, is it?’ said Traddles.
‘A lady’s!’ I repeated. ‘Bricks and mortar are more like a lady’s hand!’
Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was
Sophy’s writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a
copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had acquired
this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off--I forget how
many folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by my being told all
this, and said that when ‘Tom’ was made a judge he wouldn’t be so ready
to proclaim it. Which ‘Tom’ denied; averring that he should always be
equally proud of it, under all circumstances.
‘What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear Traddles!’
said I, when she had gone away, laughing.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ returned Traddles, ‘she is, without any
exception, the dearest girl! The way she manages this place; her
punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her cheerfulness,
Copperfield!’
‘Indeed, you have reason to commend her!’ I returned. ‘You are a happy
fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two of the
happiest people in the world.’
‘I am sure we ARE two of the happiest people,’ returned Traddles. ‘I
admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her getting up
by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day’s
arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the Inn,
caring for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of
the plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in
its right place, always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up
at night with me if it’s ever so late, sweet-tempered and encouraging
always, and all for me, I positively sometimes can’t believe it,
Copperfield!’
He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put them
on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender.
‘I positively sometimes can’t believe it,’ said Traddles. ‘Then our
pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite wonderful!
When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the outer door, and
draw those curtains--which she made--where could we be more snug? When
it’s fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening, the streets
abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the glittering windows of the
jewellers’ shops; and I show Sophy which of the diamond-eyed serpents,
coiled up on white satin rising grounds, I would give her if I could
afford it; and Sophy shows me which of the gold watches that are
capped and jewelled and engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal
lever-escape-movement, and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if
she could afford it; and we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices,
butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer if we could both
afford it; and really we go away as if we had got them! Then, when we
stroll into the squares, and great streets, and see a house to let,
sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would THAT do, if I was made
a judge? And we parcel it out--such a room for us, such rooms for the
girls, and so forth; until we settle to our satisfaction that it
would do, or it wouldn’t do, as the case may be. Sometimes, we go at
half-price to the pit of the theatre--the very smell of which is cheap,
in my opinion, at the money--and there we thoroughly enjoy the play:
which Sophy believes every word of, and so do I. In walking home,
perhaps we buy a little bit of something at a cook’s-shop, or a little
lobster at the fishmongers, and bring it here, and make a splendid
supper, chatting about what we have seen. Now, you know, Copperfield, if
I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn’t do this!’
‘You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles,’ thought
I, ‘that would be pleasant and amiable. And by the way,’ I said aloud,
‘I suppose you never draw any skeletons now?’
‘Really,’ replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, ‘I can’t wholly
deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For being in one of the back rows
of the King’s Bench the other day, with a pen in my hand, the fancy came
into my head to try how I had preserved that accomplishment. And I am
afraid there’s a skeleton--in a wig--on the ledge of the desk.’
After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking with a
smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, ‘Old Creakle!’
‘I have a letter from that old--Rascal here,’ said I. For I never was
less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter Traddles, than
when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself.
‘From Creakle the schoolmaster?’ exclaimed Traddles. ‘No!’
‘Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and
fortune,’ said I, looking over my letters, ‘and who discover that they
were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle. He is not
a schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a Middlesex
Magistrate.’
I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so at
all.
‘How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate?’ said I.
‘Oh dear me!’ replied Traddles, ‘it would be very difficult to answer
that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money to somebody,
or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or
jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the lieutenant of the
county to nominate him for the commission.’
‘On the commission he is, at any rate,’ said I. ‘And he writes to me
here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true
system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of making
sincere and lasting converts and penitents--which, you know, is by
solitary confinement. What do you say?’
‘To the system?’ inquired Traddles, looking grave.
‘No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?’
‘I don’t object,’ said Traddles.
‘Then I’ll write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our
treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors, I suppose,
and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Traddles.
‘Yet, if you’ll read his letter, you’ll find he is the tenderest of
men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies,’ said I;
‘though I can’t find that his tenderness extends to any other class of
created beings.’
Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I had not
expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my observation of
similar practical satires would have been but scanty. We arranged the
time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr. Creakle that evening.
On the appointed day--I think it was the next day, but no
matter--Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was
powerful. It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast
expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what
an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had
proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an
industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving
old.
In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the Tower of
Babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our old
schoolmaster; who was one of a group, composed of two or three of the
busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had brought. He
received me, like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years, and
had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing Traddles, Mr. Creakle
expressed, in like manner, but in an inferior degree, that he had always
been Traddles’s guide, philosopher, and friend. Our venerable instructor
was a great deal older, and not improved in appearance. His face was
as fiery as ever; his eyes were as small, and rather deeper set. The
scanty, wet-looking grey hair, by which I remembered him, was almost
gone; and the thick veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable
to look at.
After some conversation among these gentlemen, from which I might have
supposed that there was nothing in the world to be legitimately taken
into account but the supreme comfort of prisoners, at any expense, and
nothing on the wide earth to be done outside prison-doors, we began
our inspection. It being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the
great kitchen, where every prisoner’s dinner was in course of being set
out separately (to be handed to him in his cell), with the regularity
and precision of clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered
whether it occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast
between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not
to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers, the great bulk
of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five hundred
ever dined half so well. But I learned that the ‘system’ required high
living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all, I found
that on that head and on all others, ‘the system’ put an end to all
doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least
idea that there was any other system, but THE system, to be considered.
As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I inquired of
Mr. Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be the main advantages
of this all-governing and universally over-riding system? I found
them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners--so that no one man in
confinement there, knew anything about another; and the reduction of
prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, leading to sincere contrition
and repentance.
Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells,
and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the
manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained to us, that there
was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each
other, and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse.
This, at the time I write, has been proved, I believe, to be the case;
but, as it would have been flat blasphemy against the system to have
hinted such a doubt then, I looked out for the penitence as diligently
as I could.
And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a fashion
in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the forms of the
coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors’ shops. I found a
vast amount of profession, varying very little in character: varying
very little (which I thought exceedingly suspicious), even in words. I
found a great many foxes, disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible
grapes; but I found very few foxes whom I would have trusted within
reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the most professing men were
the greatest objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity,
their want of excitement, and their love of deception (which many
of them possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories
showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified by
them.
However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and fro,
of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favourite, and who really
appeared to be a Model Prisoner, that I resolved to suspend my judgement
until I should see Twenty Seven. Twenty Eight, I understood, was also
a bright particular star; but it was his misfortune to have his glory
a little dimmed by the extraordinary lustre of Twenty Seven. I heard so
much of Twenty Seven, of his pious admonitions to everybody around him,
and of the beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he
seemed to consider in a very bad way), that I became quite impatient to
see him.
I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of Twenty
Seven being reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last, we came to
the door of his cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through a little hole in
it, reported to us, in a state of the greatest admiration, that he was
reading a Hymn Book.
There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty Seven
reading his Hymn Book, that the little hole was blocked up, six or seven
heads deep. To remedy this inconvenience, and give us an opportunity of
conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity, Mr. Creakle directed the
door of the cell to be unlocked, and Twenty Seven to be invited out into
the passage. This was done; and whom should Traddles and I then behold,
to our amazement, in this converted Number Twenty Seven, but Uriah Heep!
He knew us directly; and said, as he came out--with the old writhe,--
‘How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do, Mr. Traddles?’
This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I rather
thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and taking
notice of us.
‘Well, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him. ‘How do
you find yourself today?’
‘I am very umble, sir!’ replied Uriah Heep.
‘You are always so, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle.
Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: ‘Are you quite
comfortable?’
‘Yes, I thank you, sir!’ said Uriah Heep, looking in that direction.
‘Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside. I see my follies,
now, sir. That’s what makes me comfortable.’
Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner, forcing
himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling: ‘How do you find
the beef?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction of this
voice, ‘it was tougher yesterday than I could wish; but it’s my duty to
bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen,’ said Uriah, looking round
with a meek smile, ‘and I ought to bear the consequences without
repining.’ A murmur, partly of gratification at Twenty Seven’s celestial
state of mind, and partly of indignation against the Contractor who had
given him any cause of complaint (a note of which was immediately made
by Mr. Creakle), having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the midst of
us, as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly
meritorious museum. That we, the neophytes, might have an excess of
light shining upon us all at once, orders were given to let out Twenty
Eight.
I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind of
resigned wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth, reading a good book!
‘Twenty Eight,’ said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet spoken,
‘you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa. How has it been
since?’
‘I thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Littimer, ‘it has been better made. If I
might take the liberty of saying so, sir, I don’t think the milk which
is boiled with it is quite genuine; but I am aware, sir, that there is
a great adulteration of milk, in London, and that the article in a pure
state is difficult to be obtained.’
It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his Twenty
Eight against Mr. Creakle’s Twenty Seven, for each of them took his own
man in hand.
‘What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?’ said the questioner in
spectacles.
‘I thank you, sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer; ‘I see my follies now, sir.
I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my former
companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness.’
‘You are quite happy yourself?’ said the questioner, nodding
encouragement.
‘I am much obliged to you, sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer. ‘Perfectly so.’
‘Is there anything at all on your mind now?’ said the questioner. ‘If
so, mention it, Twenty Eight.’
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, ‘if my eyes have not
deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with me
in my former life. It may be profitable to that gentleman to know, sir,
that I attribute my past follies, entirely to having lived a thoughtless
life in the service of young men; and to having allowed myself to be led
by them into weaknesses, which I had not the strength to resist. I hope
that gentleman will take warning, sir, and will not be offended at my
freedom. It is for his good. I am conscious of my own past follies. I
hope he may repent of all the wickedness and sin to which he has been a
party.’
I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each with one
hand, as if they had just come into church.
‘This does you credit, Twenty Eight,’ returned the questioner. ‘I should
have expected it of you. Is there anything else?’
‘Sir,’ returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but not
his eyes, ‘there was a young woman who fell into dissolute courses, that
I endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue. I beg that gentleman,
if he has it in his power, to inform that young woman from me that
I forgive her her bad conduct towards myself, and that I call her to
repentance--if he will be so good.’
‘I have no doubt, Twenty Eight,’ returned the questioner, ‘that the
gentleman you refer to feels very strongly--as we all must--what you
have so properly said. We will not detain you.’
‘I thank you, sir,’ said Mr. Littimer. ‘Gentlemen, I wish you a good
day, and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness, and
amend!’
With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between him and
Uriah; as if they were not altogether unknown to each other, through
some medium of communication; and a murmur went round the group, as his
door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable man, and a beautiful
case.
‘Now, Twenty Seven,’ said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage with
his man, ‘is there anything that anyone can do for you? If so, mention
it.’
‘I would umbly ask, sir,’ returned Uriah, with a jerk of his malevolent
head, ‘for leave to write again to mother.’
‘It shall certainly be granted,’ said Mr. Creakle.
‘Thank you, sir! I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain’t safe.’
Somebody incautiously asked, what from? But there was a scandalized
whisper of ‘Hush!’
‘Immortally safe, sir,’ returned Uriah, writhing in the direction of
the voice. ‘I should wish mother to be got into my state. I never should
have been got into my present state if I hadn’t come here. I wish mother
had come here. It would be better for everybody, if they got took up,
and was brought here.’
This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction--greater satisfaction, I
think, than anything that had passed yet.
‘Before I come here,’ said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he would
have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could, ‘I was
given to follies; but now I am sensible of my follies. There’s a deal
of sin outside. There’s a deal of sin in mother. There’s nothing but sin
everywhere--except here.’
‘You are quite changed?’ said Mr. Creakle.
‘Oh dear, yes, sir!’ cried this hopeful penitent.
‘You wouldn’t relapse, if you were going out?’ asked somebody else.
‘Oh de-ar no, sir!’
‘Well!’ said Mr. Creakle, ‘this is very gratifying. You have addressed
Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven. Do you wish to say anything further to
him?’
‘You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed, Mr.
Copperfield,’ said Uriah, looking at me; and a more villainous look
I never saw, even on his visage. ‘You knew me when, in spite of my
follies, I was umble among them that was proud, and meek among them that
was violent--you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield. Once, you
struck me a blow in the face, you know.’
General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at me.
‘But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Uriah, making his forgiving
nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel, which I shall
not record. ‘I forgive everybody. It would ill become me to bear malice.
I freely forgive you, and I hope you’ll curb your passions in future. I
hope Mr. W. will repent, and Miss W., and all of that sinful lot. You’ve
been visited with affliction, and I hope it may do you good; but you’d
better have come here. Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss W.
too. The best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of
you gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I
think of my past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would be
best for you. I pity all who ain’t brought here!’
He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of approbation;
and both Traddles and I experienced a great relief when he was locked
in.
It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that I was fain to
ask what these two men had done, to be there at all. That appeared to be
the last thing about which they had anything to say. I addressed
myself to one of the two warders, who, I suspected from certain latent
indications in their faces, knew pretty well what all this stir was
worth.
‘Do you know,’ said I, as we walked along the passage, ‘what felony was
Number Twenty Seven’s last “folly”?’
The answer was that it was a Bank case.
‘A fraud on the Bank of England?’ I asked. ‘Yes, sir. Fraud, forgery,
and conspiracy. He and some others. He set the others on. It was a deep
plot for a large sum. Sentence, transportation for life. Twenty Seven
was the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself
safe; but not quite. The Bank was just able to put salt upon his
tail--and only just.’
‘Do you know Twenty Eight’s offence?’
‘Twenty Eight,’ returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low
tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage, to
guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful reference
to these Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest; ‘Twenty Eight (also
transportation) got a place, and robbed a young master of a matter of
two hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables, the night before
they were going abroad. I particularly recollect his case, from his
being took by a dwarf.’
‘A what?’
‘A little woman. I have forgot her name?’
‘Not Mowcher?’
‘That’s it! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a flaxen
wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never you see in all
your born days; when the little woman, being in Southampton, met
him walking along the street--picked him out with her sharp eye in a
moment--ran betwixt his legs to upset him--and held on to him like grim
Death.’
‘Excellent Miss Mowcher!’ cried I.
‘You’d have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in the
witness-box at the trial, as I did,’ said my friend. ‘He cut her face
right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner, when she took
him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked up. She held so
tight to him, in fact, that the officers were obliged to take ‘em
both together. She gave her evidence in the gamest way, and was highly
complimented by the Bench, and cheered right home to her lodgings. She
said in Court that she’d have took him single-handed (on account of what
she knew concerning him), if he had been Samson. And it’s my belief she
would!’
It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it.
We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain to
represent to such a man as the Worshipful Mr. Creakle, that Twenty Seven
and Twenty Eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged; that exactly
what they were then, they had always been; that the hypocritical knaves
were just the subjects to make that sort of profession in such a place;
that they knew its market-value at least as well as we did, in the
immediate service it would do them when they were expatriated; in
a word, that it was a rotten, hollow, painfully suggestive piece of
business altogether. We left them to their system and themselves, and
went home wondering.
‘Perhaps it’s a good thing, Traddles,’ said I, ‘to have an unsound Hobby
ridden hard; for it’s the sooner ridden to death.’
‘I hope so,’ replied Traddles.
CHAPTER 62. A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY
The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home above
two months. I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general voice
might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the emotions
and endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest word of
praise as I heard nothing else.
At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, and
passed the evening. I usually rode back at night; for the old unhappy
sense was always hovering about me now--most sorrowfully when I left
her--and I was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the
past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. I wore away the longest
part of many wild sad nights, in those rides; reviving, as I went, the
thoughts that had occupied me in my long absence.
Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those
thoughts, I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from afar
off. I had put them at a distance, and accepted my inevitable place.
When I read to Agnes what I wrote; when I saw her listening face; moved
her to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the
shadowy events of that imaginative world in which I lived; I thought
what a fate mine might have been--but only thought so, as I had thought
after I was married to Dora, what I could have wished my wife to be.
My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted, I
wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my matured
assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what I
had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, and must bear;
comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But I loved her: and now
it even became some consolation to me, vaguely to conceive a distant day
when I might blamelessly avow it; when all this should be over; when I
could say ‘Agnes, so it was when I came home; and now I am old, and I
never have loved since!’
She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always had been
to me, she still was; wholly unaltered.
Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion,
since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or an
avoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding that we
thought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into words. When,
according to our old custom, we sat before the fire at night, we often
fell into this train; as naturally, and as consciously to each other, as
if we had unreservedly said so. But we preserved an unbroken silence. I
believed that she had read, or partly read, my thoughts that night; and
that she fully comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression.
This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new
confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my
mind--whether she could have that perception of the true state of
my breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me
pain--began to oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice was
nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every poor
action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to set this
right beyond all doubt;--if such a barrier were between us, to break it
down at once with a determined hand.
It was--what lasting reason have I to remember it!--a cold, harsh,
winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it lay, not
deep, but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond my window, the
wind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking of it, sweeping
over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland, then inaccessible to
any human foot; and had been speculating which was the lonelier, those
solitary regions, or a deserted ocean.
‘Riding today, Trot?’ said my aunt, putting her head in at the door.
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I am going over to Canterbury. It’s a good day for a
ride.’
‘I hope your horse may think so too,’ said my aunt; ‘but at present he
is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there,
as if he thought his stable preferable.’
My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, but
had not at all relented towards the donkeys.
‘He will be fresh enough, presently!’ said I.
‘The ride will do his master good, at all events,’ observed my aunt,
glancing at the papers on my table. ‘Ah, child, you pass a good many
hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books, what work it was
to write them.’
‘It’s work enough to read them, sometimes,’ I returned. ‘As to the
writing, it has its own charms, aunt.’
‘Ah! I see!’ said my aunt. ‘Ambition, love of approbation, sympathy, and
much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!’
‘Do you know anything more,’ said I, standing composedly before her--she
had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair--‘of that
attachment of Agnes?’
She looked up in my face a little while, before replying:
‘I think I do, Trot.’
‘Are you confirmed in your impression?’ I inquired.
‘I think I am, Trot.’
She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or
suspense in her affection: that I summoned the stronger determination to
show her a perfectly cheerful face.
‘And what is more, Trot--’ said my aunt.
‘Yes!’
‘I think Agnes is going to be married.’
‘God bless her!’ said I, cheerfully.
‘God bless her!’ said my aunt, ‘and her husband too!’
I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, mounted,
and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do what I had
resolved to do.
How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of ice,
brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face;
the hard clatter of the horse’s hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground;
the stiff-tilled soil; the snowdrift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit
as the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with the waggon of old hay,
stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and shaking their bells musically;
the whitened slopes and sweeps of Down-land lying against the dark sky,
as if they were drawn on a huge slate!
I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes now,
and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book on seeing
me come in; and having welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket and
sat in one of the old-fashioned windows.
I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was doing,
and when it would be done, and of the progress I had made since my last
visit. Agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly predicted that I should
soon become too famous to be talked to, on such subjects.
‘So I make the most of the present time, you see,’ said Agnes, ‘and talk
to you while I may.’
As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she raised her
mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her.
‘You are thoughtful today, Trotwood!’
‘Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you.’
She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were seriously
discussing anything; and gave me her whole attention.
‘My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?’
‘No!’ she answered, with a look of astonishment.
‘Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?’
‘No!’ she answered, as before.
‘Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what a debt
of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I felt towards
you?’
‘I remember it,’ she said, gently, ‘very well.’
‘You have a secret,’ said I. ‘Let me share it, Agnes.’
She cast down her eyes, and trembled.
‘I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard--but from other
lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange--that there is someone upon
whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do not shut me out of
what concerns your happiness so nearly! If you can trust me, as you say
you can, and as I know you may, let me be your friend, your brother, in
this matter, of all others!’
With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the
window; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where, put
her hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote me to the
heart.
And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my heart.
Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with the quietly
sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with
hope than fear or sorrow.
‘Agnes! Sister! Dearest! What have I done?’
‘Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I will speak
to you by and by--another time. I will write to you. Don’t speak to me
now. Don’t! don’t!’
I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her on
that former night, of her affection needing no return. It seemed a very
world that I must search through in a moment. ‘Agnes, I cannot bear
to see you so, and think that I have been the cause. My dearest girl,
dearer to me than anything in life, if you are unhappy, let me share
your unhappiness. If you are in need of help or counsel, let me try to
give it to you. If you have indeed a burden on your heart, let me try to
lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, if it is not for you!’
‘Oh, spare me! I am not myself! Another time!’ was all I could
distinguish.
Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or, having once a clue
to hope, was there something opening to me that I had not dared to think
of?
‘I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For Heaven’s sake,
Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and all
that has come and gone with them! I must speak plainly. If you have any
lingering thought that I could envy the happiness you will confer; that
I could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your own choosing; that
I could not, from my removed place, be a contented witness of your joy;
dismiss it, for I don’t deserve it! I have not suffered quite in vain.
You have not taught me quite in vain. There is no alloy of self in what
I feel for you.’
She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face towards
me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but very clear:
‘I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood--which, indeed, I do
not doubt--to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more. If I have
sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and counsel, they have
come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy, the feeling has passed
away. If I have ever had a burden on my heart, it has been lightened
for me. If I have any secret, it is--no new one; and is--not what you
suppose. I cannot reveal it, or divide it. It has long been mine, and
must remain mine.’
‘Agnes! Stay! A moment!’
She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her
waist. ‘In the course of years!’ ‘It is not a new one!’ New thoughts and
hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were
changing.
‘Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honour--whom I so devotedly love!
When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have wrested this
confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all our
lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have indeed any new-born hope
that I may ever call you something more than Sister, widely different
from Sister!--’
Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately shed,
and I saw my hope brighten in them.
‘Agnes! Ever my guide, and best support! If you had been more mindful
of yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together, I think my
heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But you were so
much better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish hope and
disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely upon in
everything, became a second nature, supplanting for the time the first
and greater one of loving you as I do!’
Still weeping, but not sadly--joyfully! And clasped in my arms as she
had never been, as I had thought she never was to be!
‘When I loved Dora--fondly, Agnes, as you know--’
‘Yes!’ she cried, earnestly. ‘I am glad to know it!’
‘When I loved her--even then, my love would have been incomplete,
without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when I lost
her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!’
Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon my
shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine!
‘I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you. I
returned home, loving you!’
And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and the
conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her, truly, and
entirely. I tried to show her how I had hoped I had come into the better
knowledge of myself and of her; how I had resigned myself to what that
better knowledge brought; and how I had come there, even that day, in my
fidelity to this. If she did so love me (I said) that she could take me
for her husband, she could do so, on no deserving of mine, except upon
the truth of my love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened to
be what it was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And O, Agnes, even
out of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife
looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee, to
tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its bloom!
‘I am so blest, Trotwood--my heart is so overcharged--but there is one
thing I must say.’
‘Dearest, what?’
She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in my
face.
‘Do you know, yet, what it is?’
‘I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear.’
‘I have loved you all my life!’
O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials (hers
so much the greater) through which we had come to be thus, but for the
rapture of being thus, never to be divided more!
We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the blessed
calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air. The early stars
began to shine while we were lingering on, and looking up to them, we
thanked our GOD for having guided us to this tranquillity.
We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when the
moon was shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; I following
her glance. Long miles of road then opened out before my mind; and,
toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and neglected, who
should come to call even the heart now beating against mine, his own.
It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt. She
was up in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride to keep in
readiness and order for me. We found her, in her spectacles, sitting by
the fire.
‘Goodness me!’ said my aunt, peering through the dusk, ‘who’s this
you’re bringing home?’
‘Agnes,’ said I.
As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a little
discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said ‘Agnes’; but
seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair,
and rubbed her nose with them.
She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the
lighted parlour downstairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her spectacles
twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took them
off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them. Much to the
discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom.
‘By the by, aunt,’ said I, after dinner; ‘I have been speaking to Agnes
about what you told me.’
‘Then, Trot,’ said my aunt, turning scarlet, ‘you did wrong, and broke
your promise.’
‘You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won’t be, when you
learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said my aunt.
As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to cut her
annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and we
both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look
through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the first
and only time in all my knowledge of her.
The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored, she
flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged her with
all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was highly honoured,
but a good deal surprised); and after that, told them why. Then, we were
all happy together.
I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short conversation
with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really mistaken the state
of my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that she had told me Agnes
was going to be married; and that I now knew better than anyone how true
it was.
We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor and
Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We left them
full of joy; and drove away together. Clasped in my embrace, I held the
source of every worthy aspiration I had ever had; the centre of myself,
the circle of my life, my own, my wife; my love of whom was founded on a
rock!
‘Dearest husband!’ said Agnes. ‘Now that I may call you by that name, I
have one thing more to tell you.’
‘Let me hear it, love.’
‘It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me.’
‘She did.’
‘She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it was?’
I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me, closer to
my side.
‘She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last
charge.’
‘And it was--’
‘That only I would occupy this vacant place.’
And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept with her,
though we were so happy.
CHAPTER 63. A VISITOR
What I have purposed to record is nearly finished; but there is yet an
incident conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with delight,
and without which one thread in the web I have spun would have a
ravelled end.
I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, I had
been married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the fire, in
our house in London, one night in spring, and three of our children were
playing in the room, when I was told that a stranger wished to see me.
He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered No; he had
come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way. He was an
old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer.
As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like the
beginning of a favourite story Agnes used to tell them, introductory
to the arrival of a wicked old Fairy in a cloak who hated everybody, it
produced some commotion. One of our boys laid his head in his mother’s
lap to be out of harm’s way, and little Agnes (our eldest child) left
her doll in a chair to represent her, and thrust out her little heap
of golden curls from between the window-curtains, to see what happened
next.
‘Let him come in here!’ said I.
There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a hale,
grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks, had run to
bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face, when my wife,
starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and agitated voice, that it
was Mr. Peggotty!
It WAS Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty, strong old
age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before the fire with
the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on his face, he looked,
to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as handsome, an old man, as ever I
had seen.
‘Mas’r Davy,’ said he. And the old name in the old tone fell so
naturally on my ear! ‘Mas’r Davy, ‘tis a joyful hour as I see you, once
more, ‘long with your own trew wife!’
‘A joyful hour indeed, old friend!’ cried I.
‘And these heer pretty ones,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘To look at these heer
flowers! Why, Mas’r Davy, you was but the heighth of the littlest of
these, when I first see you! When Em’ly warn’t no bigger, and our poor
lad were BUT a lad!’
‘Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then,’ said I.
‘But let these dear rogues go to bed; and as no house in England but
this must hold you, tell me where to send for your luggage (is the old
black bag among it, that went so far, I wonder!), and then, over a glass
of Yarmouth grog, we will have the tidings of ten years!’
‘Are you alone?’ asked Agnes.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, kissing her hand, ‘quite alone.’
We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough; and
as I began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have fancied he
was still pursuing his long journey in search of his darling niece.
‘It’s a mort of water,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘fur to come across, and
on’y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water [‘specially when ‘tis salt)
comes nat’ral to me; and friends is dear, and I am heer. --Which is
verse,’ said Mr. Peggotty, surprised to find it out, ‘though I hadn’t
such intentions.’
‘Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?’ asked Agnes.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he returned. ‘I giv the promise to Em’ly, afore I come
away. You see, I doen’t grow younger as the years comes round, and if
I hadn’t sailed as ‘twas, most like I shouldn’t never have done ‘t. And
it’s allus been on my mind, as I must come and see Mas’r Davy and your
own sweet blooming self, in your wedded happiness, afore I got to be too
old.’
He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently.
Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he
might see us better.
‘And now tell us,’ said I, ‘everything relating to your fortunes.’
‘Our fortuns, Mas’r Davy,’ he rejoined, ‘is soon told. We haven’t fared
nohows, but fared to thrive. We’ve allus thrived. We’ve worked as we
ought to ‘t, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at first or so, but
we have allus thrived. What with sheep-farming, and what with
stock-farming, and what with one thing and what with t’other, we are as
well to do, as well could be. Theer’s been kiender a blessing fell upon
us,’ said Mr. Peggotty, reverentially inclining his head, ‘and we’ve
done nowt but prosper. That is, in the long run. If not yesterday, why
then today. If not today, why then tomorrow.’
‘And Emily?’ said Agnes and I, both together.
‘Em’ly,’ said he, ‘arter you left her, ma’am--and I never heerd her
saying of her prayers at night, t’other side the canvas screen, when we
was settled in the Bush, but what I heerd your name--and arter she and
me lost sight of Mas’r Davy, that theer shining sundown--was that low,
at first, that, if she had know’d then what Mas’r Davy kep from us so
kind and thowtful, ‘tis my opinion she’d have drooped away. But theer
was some poor folks aboard as had illness among ‘em, and she took care
of them; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care of
them; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped
her.’
‘When did she first hear of it?’ I asked.
‘I kep it from her arter I heerd on ‘t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘going
on nigh a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among the
beautifullest trees, and with the roses a-covering our Beein to the
roof. Theer come along one day, when I was out a-working on the land, a
traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England (I doen’t rightly
mind which), and of course we took him in, and giv him to eat and drink,
and made him welcome. We all do that, all the colony over. He’d got an
old newspaper with him, and some other account in print of the storm.
That’s how she know’d it. When I came home at night, I found she know’d
it.’
He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so well
remembered overspread his face.
‘Did it change her much?’ we asked.
‘Aye, for a good long time,’ he said, shaking his head; ‘if not to this
present hour. But I think the solitoode done her good. And she had a
deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and
come through. I wonder,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if you could see my
Em’ly now, Mas’r Davy, whether you’d know her!’
‘Is she so altered?’ I inquired.
‘I doen’t know. I see her ev’ry day, and doen’t know; But, odd-times, I
have thowt so. A slight figure,’ said Mr. Peggotty, looking at the fire,
‘kiender worn; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes; a delicate face; a pritty
head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice and way--timid a’most. That’s
Em’ly!’
We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire.
‘Some thinks,’ he said, ‘as her affection was ill-bestowed; some, as her
marriage was broken off by death. No one knows how ‘tis. She might have
married well, a mort of times, “but, uncle,” she says to me, “that’s
gone for ever.” Cheerful along with me; retired when others is by;
fond of going any distance fur to teach a child, or fur to tend a sick
person, or fur to do some kindness tow’rds a young girl’s wedding (and
she’s done a many, but has never seen one); fondly loving of her uncle;
patient; liked by young and old; sowt out by all that has any trouble.
That’s Em’ly!’
He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh looked
up from the fire.
‘Is Martha with you yet?’ I asked.
‘Martha,’ he replied, ‘got married, Mas’r Davy, in the second year. A
young man, a farm-labourer, as come by us on his way to market with his
mas’r’s drays--a journey of over five hundred mile, theer and back--made
offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very scarce theer), and
then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush. She spoke to me fur to
tell him her trew story. I did. They was married, and they live fower
hundred mile away from any voices but their own and the singing birds.’
‘Mrs. Gummidge?’ I suggested.
It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty suddenly burst into a
roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs, as he had
been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the long-shipwrecked
boat.
‘Would you believe it!’ he said. ‘Why, someun even made offer fur to
marry her! If a ship’s cook that was turning settler, Mas’r Davy, didn’t
make offers fur to marry Missis Gummidge, I’m Gormed--and I can’t say no
fairer than that!’
I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstasy on the part of Mr.
Peggotty was so delightful to her, that she could not leave off
laughing; and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh, and the
greater Mr. Peggotty’s ecstasy became, and the more he rubbed his legs.
‘And what did Mrs. Gummidge say?’ I asked, when I was grave enough.
‘If you’ll believe me,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘Missis Gummidge, ‘stead
of saying “thank you, I’m much obleeged to you, I ain’t a-going fur
to change my condition at my time of life,” up’d with a bucket as was
standing by, and laid it over that theer ship’s cook’s head ‘till he
sung out fur help, and I went in and reskied of him.’
Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I both
kept him company.
‘But I must say this, for the good creetur,’ he resumed, wiping his
face, when we were quite exhausted; ‘she has been all she said she’d
be to us, and more. She’s the willingest, the trewest, the
honestest-helping woman, Mas’r Davy, as ever draw’d the breath of life.
I have never know’d her to be lone and lorn, for a single minute,
not even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new to it. And
thinking of the old ‘un is a thing she never done, I do assure you,
since she left England!’
‘Now, last, not least, Mr. Micawber,’ said I. ‘He has paid off every
obligation he incurred here--even to Traddles’s bill, you remember my
dear Agnes--and therefore we may take it for granted that he is doing
well. But what is the latest news of him?’
Mr. Peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-pocket, and
produced a flat-folded, paper parcel, from which he took out, with much
care, a little odd-looking newspaper.
‘You are to understan’, Mas’r Davy,’ said he, ‘as we have left the
Bush now, being so well to do; and have gone right away round to Port
Middlebay Harbour, wheer theer’s what we call a town.’
‘Mr. Micawber was in the Bush near you?’ said I.
‘Bless you, yes,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and turned to with a will. I never
wish to meet a better gen’l’man for turning to with a will. I’ve seen
that theer bald head of his a perspiring in the sun, Mas’r Davy, till I
a’most thowt it would have melted away. And now he’s a Magistrate.’
‘A Magistrate, eh?’ said I.
Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where I
read aloud as follows, from the Port Middlebay Times:
‘The public dinner to our distinguished fellow-colonist and townsman,
WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, Port Middlebay District Magistrate, came
off yesterday in the large room of the Hotel, which was crowded to
suffocation. It is estimated that not fewer than forty-seven persons
must have been accommodated with dinner at one time, exclusive of the
company in the passage and on the stairs. The beauty, fashion, and
exclusiveness of Port Middlebay, flocked to do honour to one so
deservedly esteemed, so highly talented, and so widely popular. Doctor
Mell (of Colonial Salem-House Grammar School, Port Middlebay) presided,
and on his right sat the distinguished guest. After the removal of the
cloth, and the singing of Non Nobis (beautifully executed, and in which
we were at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted
amateur, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR), the usual loyal and
patriotic toasts were severally given and rapturously received. Doctor
Mell, in a speech replete with feeling, then proposed “Our distinguished
Guest, the ornament of our town. May he never leave us but to better
himself, and may his success among us be such as to render his bettering
himself impossible!” The cheering with which the toast was received
defies description. Again and again it rose and fell, like the waves
of ocean. At length all was hushed, and WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE,
presented himself to return thanks. Far be it from us, in the present
comparatively imperfect state of the resources of our establishment,
to endeavour to follow our distinguished townsman through the
smoothly-flowing periods of his polished and highly-ornate address!
Suffice it to observe, that it was a masterpiece of eloquence; and that
those passages in which he more particularly traced his own successful
career to its source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory
from the shoals of ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they were
unable to liquidate, brought a tear into the manliest eye present. The
remaining toasts were DOCTOR MELL; Mrs. MICAWBER (who gracefully bowed
her acknowledgements from the side-door, where a galaxy of beauty was
elevated on chairs, at once to witness and adorn the gratifying scene),
Mrs. RIDGER BEGS (late Miss Micawber); Mrs. MELL; WILKINS MICAWBER,
ESQUIRE, JUNIOR (who convulsed the assembly by humorously remarking that
he found himself unable to return thanks in a speech, but would do so,
with their permission, in a song); Mrs. MICAWBER’S FAMILY (well known,
it is needless to remark, in the mother-country), &c. &c. &c. At the
conclusion of the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art-magic
for dancing. Among the votaries of TERPSICHORE, who disported themselves
until Sol gave warning for departure, Wilkins Micawber, Esquire, Junior,
and the lovely and accomplished Miss Helena, fourth daughter of Doctor
Mell, were particularly remarkable.’
I was looking back to the name of Doctor Mell, pleased to have
discovered, in these happier circumstances, Mr. Mell, formerly poor
pinched usher to my Middlesex magistrate, when Mr. Peggotty pointing
to another part of the paper, my eyes rested on my own name, and I read
thus:
‘TO DAVID COPPERFIELD, ESQUIRE,
‘THE EMINENT AUTHOR.
‘My Dear Sir,
‘Years have elapsed, since I had an opportunity of ocularly perusing the
lineaments, now familiar to the imaginations of a considerable portion
of the civilized world.
‘But, my dear Sir, though estranged (by the force of circumstances over
which I have had no control) from the personal society of the friend and
companion of my youth, I have not been unmindful of his soaring flight.
Nor have I been debarred,
Though seas between us braid ha’ roared,
(BURNS) from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread
before us.
‘I cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this place of an
individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear Sir,
taking this public opportunity of thanking you, on my own behalf, and,
I may undertake to add, on that of the whole of the Inhabitants of Port
Middlebay, for the gratification of which you are the ministering agent.
‘Go on, my dear Sir! You are not unknown here, you are not
unappreciated. Though “remote”, we are neither “unfriended”,
“melancholy”, nor (I may add) “slow”. Go on, my dear Sir, in your Eagle
course! The inhabitants of Port Middlebay may at least aspire to watch
it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction!
‘Among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the globe,
will ever be found, while it has light and life,
‘The
‘Eye
‘Appertaining to
‘WILKINS MICAWBER,
‘Magistrate.’
I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper, that
Mr. Micawber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that journal.
There was another letter from him in the same paper, touching a bridge;
there was an advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him, to
be shortly republished, in a neat volume, ‘with considerable additions’;
and, unless I am very much mistaken, the Leading Article was his also.
We talked much of Mr. Micawber, on many other evenings while Mr.
Peggotty remained with us. He lived with us during the whole term of his
stay,--which, I think, was something less than a month,--and his sister
and my aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I parted from him
aboard-ship, when he sailed; and we shall never part from him more, on
earth.
But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little tablet
I had put up in the churchyard to the memory of Ham. While I was copying
the plain inscription for him at his request, I saw him stoop, and
gather a tuft of grass from the grave and a little earth.
‘For Em’ly,’ he said, as he put it in his breast. ‘I promised, Mas’r
Davy.’
CHAPTER 64. A LAST RETROSPECT
And now my written story ends. I look back, once more--for the last
time--before I close these leaves.
I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life.
I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the roar of
many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on.
What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo, these;
all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question!
Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score
years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a
stretch in winter weather.
Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in
spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to the
lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a
yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of St.
Paul’s upon the lid.
The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days,
when I wondered why the birds didn’t peck her in preference to apples,
are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole
neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still);
but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket
nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching
at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlour
at home, when I could scarcely walk. My aunt’s old disappointment is set
right, now. She is godmother to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora
(the next in order) says she spoils her.
There is something bulky in Peggotty’s pocket. It is nothing smaller
than the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by
this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which
Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious relic. I find it very
curious to see my own infant face, looking up at me from the Crocodile
stories; and to be reminded by it of my old acquaintance Brooks of
Sheffield.
Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making giant
kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there
are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods
and winks, ‘Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that I shall finish the
Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and that your aunt’s the most
extraordinary woman in the world, sir!’
Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me
a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty,
feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the
mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered
woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what they say.
‘Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman’s name.’
Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, ‘Mr. Copperfield.’
‘I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in mourning. I
hope Time will be good to you.’
Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, bids
her look again, tries to rouse her.
‘You have seen my son, sir,’ says the elder lady. ‘Are you reconciled?’
Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and moans.
Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, ‘Rosa, come to me. He is
dead!’ Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels
with her; now fiercely telling her, ‘I loved him better than you ever
did!’--now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. Thus
I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they wear their time away,
from year to year.
What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is this,
married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of ears? Can
this be Julia Mills?
Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry
cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-coloured woman
in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin
in her dressing-room. But Julia keeps no diary in these days; never
sings Affection’s Dirge; eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus,
who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in
money to the throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her
better in the Desert of Sahara.
Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a stately
house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no
green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower.
What Julia calls ‘society’, I see; among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his
Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me
of the Doctor as ‘so charmingly antique’. But when society is the name
for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is
professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard
mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of
Sahara, and had better find the way out.
And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his Dictionary
(somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home and wife. Also
the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means so
influential as in days of yore!
Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his hair
(where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the constant
friction of his lawyer’s-wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old
Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles of papers; and I say, as
I look around me:
‘If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to do!’
‘You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital days,
too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?’
‘When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town talk
then!’
‘At all events,’ says Traddles, ‘if I ever am one--’ ‘Why, you know you
will be.’
‘Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story, as I
said I would.’
We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with
Traddles. It is Sophy’s birthday; and, on our road, Traddles discourses
to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed.
‘I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had most
at heart. There’s the Reverend Horace promoted to that living at four
hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys receiving the
very best education, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars
and good fellows; there are three of the girls married very comfortably;
there are three more living with us; there are three more keeping house
for the Reverend Horace since Mrs. Crewler’s decease; and all of them
happy.’
‘Except--’ I suggest.
‘Except the Beauty,’ says Traddles. ‘Yes. It was very unfortunate that
she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain dash and glare
about him that caught her. However, now we have got her safe at our
house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up again.’
Traddles’s house is one of the very houses--or it easily may have
been--which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening walks. It
is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his dressing-room
and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy squeeze themselves into
upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms for the Beauty and the girls.
There is no room to spare in the house; for more of ‘the girls’ are
here, and always are here, by some accident or other, than I know how
to count. Here, when we go in, is a crowd of them, running down to
the door, and handing Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of
breath. Here, established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow
with a little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy’s birthday, are the three
married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband’s
brothers, and another husband’s cousin, and another husband’s sister,
who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the
same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the
large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon him, from the head,
across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with Britannia
metal.
And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these
faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by
which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And
that remains.
I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.
My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear
presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.
O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life
indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows
which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!
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