AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED TO
THE HON. Mr. AND Mrs. RICHARD WATSON,
OF ROCKINGHAM, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
Prefaces
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
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.
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
EXPERIENCE AND OBSERVATION
OF
DAVID COPPERFIELD
THE YOUNGER
OF BLUNDERSTONE ROOKERY
WHICH HE NEVER MEANT TO BE
PUBLISHED ON ANY ACCOUNT
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
M r 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.
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.
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'sbreadth 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 back gammon - 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.
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.
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.
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 them- selves 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 mea 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Thinks 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
Steer- forth, yielded to a better feeling, My overcharged heart found the same
relief, and I cried too.
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 beer 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!"'
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.
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!'
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!'
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.
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.
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.3 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 in- definable 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!
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.
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 beer
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 beer, some said theer. I
travelled beer, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?'
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.
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.
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!'
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 cried to think, Oh what a fatal name it was, and
how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the tree!
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.'
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.
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 beer, 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.
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!
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.
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.'
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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!