DAVID COPPERFIELD by CHARLES DICKENS

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!
CHAPTER 49
I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY
I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated
Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctor's Commons; which I read
with some surprise:
'MY DEAR SIR,
'Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a
considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy
which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of
my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of
the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded
me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no
common description. This fact, my dear sir, combined with the
distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you,
deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the
companion of my youth, by the familiar appellation of Copperfield!
It is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself the
honour to refer, will ever be treasured among the muniments of our
house (I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers,
preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem
amounting to affection.
'It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a
fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered
Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination),
who now takes up the pen to address you - it is not, I repeat, for
one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of
congratulation. That he leaves to abler and to purer hands.
'If your more important avocations should admit of your ever
tracing these imperfect characters thus far - which may be, or may
not be, as circumstances arise - you will naturally inquire by what
object am I influenced, then, in inditing the present missive?
Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of
that inquiry, and proceed to develop it; premising that it is not
an object of a pecuniary nature.
'Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may
possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or
directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be
permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for
ever dispelled - that my peace is shattered and my power of
enjoyment destroyed - that my heart is no longer in the right place
- and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker
is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at
his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the
better. But I will not digress.
'Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the
assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised
in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my
intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a
respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan
scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic
tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards
the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the
outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil
process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening,
precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is
accomplished.
'I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr.
Copperfield, or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner
Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to
condescend to meet me, and renew (so far as may be) our past
relations of the olden time. I confine myself to throwing out the
observation, that, at the hour and place I have indicated, may be
found such ruined vestiges as yet
'Remain,
'Of
'A
'Fallen Tower,
'WILKINS MICAWBER.
'P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement
that Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential possession of my
intentions.'
I read the letter over several times. Making due allowance for Mr.
Micawber's lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary
relish with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all
possible and impossible occasions, I still believed that something
important lay hidden at the bottom of this roundabout
communication. I put it down, to think about it; and took it up
again, to read it once more; and was still pursuing it, when
Traddles found me in the height of my perplexity.
'My dear fellow,' said I, 'I never was better pleased to see you.
You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgement at a most
opportune time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles,
from Mr. Micawber.'
'No?' cried Traddles. 'You don't say so? And I have received one
from Mrs. Micawber!'
With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair,
under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end
as if he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an
exchange with me. I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber's
letter, and returned the elevation of eyebrows with which he said
"'Wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging
flame!" Bless me, Copperfield!'- and then entered on the perusal of
Mrs. Micawber's epistle.
It ran thus:
'My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still
remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well
acquainted with him, may I beg a few moments of his leisure time?
I assure Mr. T. T. that I would not intrude upon his kindness, were
I in any other position than on the confines of distraction.
'Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr.
Micawber (formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is
the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and
soliciting his best indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea
of the change in Mr. Micawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his
violence. It has gradually augmented, until it assumes the
appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes, I
assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take place.
Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him
that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he
has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have long been his
principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence.
The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he
would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a
separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for
twopence, to buy 'lemon-stunners' - a local sweetmeat - he
presented an oyster-knife at the twins!
'I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these
details. Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to
form the faintest conception of my heart-rending situation.
'May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter?
Will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration?
Oh yes, for I know his heart!
'The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the
female sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously
concealed his hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the
direction-card which he attached to the little brown valise of
happier days, the eagle-glance of matrimonial anxiety detected, d,
o, n, distinctly traced. The West-End destination of the coach, is
the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T. to see my
misguided husband, and to reason with him? Dare I ask Mr. T. to
endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his agonized family?
Oh no, for that would be too much!
'If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will
Mr. T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar
entreaties? In any case, he will have the benevolence to consider
this communication strictly private, and on no account whatever to
be alluded to, however distantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber.
If Mr. T. should ever reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be
most improbable), a letter addressed to M. E., Post Office,
Canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any
addressed immediately to one, who subscribes herself, in extreme
distress,
'Mr. Thomas Traddles's respectful friend and suppliant,
'EMMA MICAWBER.'
'What do you think of that letter?' said Traddles, casting his eyes
upon me, when I had read it twice.
'What do you think of the other?' said I. For he was still reading
it with knitted brows.
'I think that the two together, Copperfield,' replied Traddles,
'mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their
correspondence - but I don't know what. They are both written in
good faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor
thing!' he was now alluding to Mrs. Micawber's letter, and we were
standing side by side comparing the two; 'it will be a charity to
write to her, at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to
see Mr. Micawber.'
I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself
with having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set
me thinking a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its
place; but my absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the
family, and my hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my
dismissing the subject. I had often thought of the Micawbers, but
chiefly to wonder what 'pecuniary liabilities' they were
establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy Mr. Micawber was
of me when he became clerk to Uriah Heep.
However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our
joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post
it, Traddles and I held a long conference, and launched into a
number of speculations, which I need not repeat. We took my aunt
into our counsels in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion
was, that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber's
appointment.
Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour
before the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was
standing with his arms folded, over against the wall, looking at
the spikes on the top, with a sentimental expression, as if they
were the interlacing boughs of trees that had shaded him in his
youth.
When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and
something less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his
legal suit of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore
the old surtout and tights, but not quite with the old air. He
gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed with him;
but, his very eye-glass seemed to hang less easily, and his
shirt-collar, though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather
drooped.
'Gentlemen!' said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, 'you
are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my
inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs.
Copperfield in esse, and Mrs. Traddles in posse, - presuming, that
is to say, that my friend Mr. Traddles is not yet united to the
object of his affections, for weal and for woe.'
We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then
directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning, 'I assure
you, gentlemen,' when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form
of address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way.
'My dear Copperfield,' he returned, pressing my hand, 'your
cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment
of the Temple once called Man - if I may be permitted so to express
myself - bespeaks a heart that is an honour to our common nature.
I was about to observe that I again behold the serene spot where
some of the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by.'
'Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber,' said I. 'I hope she is
well?'
'Thank you,' returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this
reference, 'she is but so-so. And this,' said Mr. Micawber,
nodding his head sorrowfully, 'is the Bench! Where, for the first
time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of
pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed, from day to day, by
importune voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was
no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where
personal service of process was not required, and detainees were
merely lodged at the gate! Gentlemen,' said Mr. Micawber, 'when the
shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure has
been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children
thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks.
I have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray
weakness, you will know how to excuse me.'
'We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber,' said I.
'Mr. Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, 'when I was an
inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and
punch his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no
longer on those glorious terms!'
Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber
accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of
Traddles on the other, and walked away between us.
'There are some landmarks,' observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly
back over his shoulder, 'on the road to the tomb, which, but for
the impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have
passed. Such is the Bench in my chequered career.'
'Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber,' said Traddles.
'I am, sir,' interposed Mr. Micawber.
'I hope,' said Traddles, 'it is not because you have conceived a
dislike to the law - for I am a lawyer myself, you know.'
Mr. Micawber answered not a word.
'How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber?' said I, after a silence.
'My dear Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state
of much excitement, and turning pale, 'if you ask after my employer
as your friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as MY
friend, I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask
after my employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply
to this - that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance
is foxy: not to say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private
individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to
the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity.'
I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme
that roused him so much. 'May I ask,' said I, 'without any hazard
of repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield
are?'
'Miss Wickfield,' said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, 'is, as she
always is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield,
she is the only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect
for that young lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to
her for her love and truth, and goodness! - Take me,' said Mr.
Micawber, 'down a turning, for, upon my soul, in my present state
of mind I am not equal to this!'
We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his
pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I
looked as gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our
company by no means inspiriting.
'It is my fate,' said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing
even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something
genteel; 'it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our
nature have become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield,
is a flight of arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you
please, to walk the earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle my
business in double-quick time.'
Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up
his pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude
any person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him,
hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned
- not knowing what might be lost if we lost sight of him yet - that
it would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he
would ride out to Highgate, where a bed was at his service.
'You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber,' said
I, 'and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter
reminiscences.'
'Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to
relieve you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber,' said
Traddles, prudently.
'Gentlemen,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'do with me as you will! I am
a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all
directions by the elephants - I beg your pardon; I should have said
the elements.'
We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of
starting; and arrived at Highgate without encountering any
difficulties by the way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in
my mind what to say or do for the best - so was Traddles,
evidently. Mr. Micawber was for the most part plunged into deep
gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself, and hum
the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound melancholy
were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat
exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes.
We went to my aunt's house rather than to mine, because of Dora's
not being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and
welcomed Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber
kissed her hand, retired to the window, and pulling out his
pocket-handkerchief, had a mental wrestle with himself.
Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly
compassionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so
quick to find any such person out, that he shook hands with Mr.
Micawber, at least half-a-dozen times in five minutes. To Mr.
Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on the part of a stranger,
was so extremely touching, that he could only say, on the occasion
of each successive shake, 'My dear sir, you overpower me!' Which
gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went at it again with greater
vigour than before.
'The friendliness of this gentleman,' said Mr. Micawber to my aunt,
'if you will allow me, ma'am, to cull a figure of speech from the
vocabulary of our coarser national sports - floors me. To a man
who is struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and
disquiet, such a reception is trying, I assure you.'
'My friend Mr. Dick,' replied my aunt proudly, 'is not a common
man.'
'That I am convinced of,' said Mr. Micawber. 'My dear sir!' for
Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him again; 'I am deeply sensible of
your cordiality!'
'How do you find yourself?' said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look.
'Indifferent, my dear sir,' returned Mr. Micawber, sighing.
'You must keep up your spirits,' said Mr. Dick, 'and make yourself
as comfortable as possible.'
Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by
finding Mr. Dick's hand again within his own. 'It has been my
lot,' he observed, 'to meet, in the diversified panorama of human
existence, with an occasional oasis, but never with one so green,
so gushing, as the present!'
At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that
we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so
anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to
reveal something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that
I was in a perfect fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his
chair, with his eyes wide open, and his hair more emphatically
erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at Mr. Micawber,
without so much as attempting to put in a word. My aunt, though I
saw that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new
guest, had more useful possession of her wits than either of us;
for she held him in conversation, and made it necessary for him to
talk, whether he liked it or not.
'You are a very old friend of my nephew's, Mr. Micawber,' said my
aunt. 'I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before.'
'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'I wish I had had the honour of
knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you
at present behold.'
'I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir,' said my aunt.
Mr. Micawber inclined his head. 'They are as well, ma'am,' he
desperately observed after a pause, 'as Aliens and Outcasts can
ever hope to be.'
'Lord bless you, sir!' exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. 'What
are you talking about?'
'The subsistence of my family, ma'am,' returned Mr. Micawber,
'trembles in the balance. My employer -'
Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the
lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together
with all the other appliances he used in making punch.
'Your employer, you know,' said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a
gentle reminder.
'My good sir,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'you recall me, I am obliged
to you.' They shook hands again. 'My employer, ma'am - Mr. Heep
- once did me the favour to observe to me, that if I were not in
the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my
engagement with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the
country, swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring
element. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is
still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood
by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural
feats by playing the barrel-organ.'
Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife,
signified that these performances might be expected to take place
after he was no more; then resumed his peeling with a desperate
air.
My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually
kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the
aversion with which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any
disclosure he was not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have
taken him up at this point, but for the strange proceedings in
which I saw him engaged; whereof his putting the lemon-peel into
the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer-tray, the spirit into the
empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of
a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. I saw that a crisis
was at hand, and it came. He clattered all his means and
implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his
pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears.
'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief,
'this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled
mind, and self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the
question.'
'Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'what is the matter? Pray speak out. You
are among friends.'
'Among friends, sir!' repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had
reserved came breaking out of him. 'Good heavens, it is
principally because I AM among friends that my state of mind is
what it is. What is the matter, gentlemen? What is NOT the
matter? Villainy is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception,
fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole
atrocious mass is - HEEP!'
MY aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were
possessed.
'The struggle is over!' said Mr. Micawber violently gesticulating
with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to
time with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman
difficulties. 'I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched
being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. I have
been under a Taboo in that infernal scoundrel's service. Give me
back my wife, give me back my family, substitute Micawber for the
petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet,
and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and I'll do it. With
an appetite!'
I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we
might come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and
wouldn't hear a word.
'I'll put my hand in no man's hand,' said Mr. Micawber, gasping,
puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man
fighting with cold water, 'until I have - blown to fragments - the
- a - detestable - serpent - HEEP! I'll partake of no one's
hospitality, until I have - a - moved Mount Vesuvius - to eruption
- on - a - the abandoned rascal - HEEP! Refreshment - a -
underneath this roof - particularly punch - would - a - choke me -
unless - I had - previously - choked the eyes - out of the head -
a - of - interminable cheat, and liar - HEEP! I - a- I'll know
nobody - and - a - say nothing - and - a - live nowhere - until I
have crushed - to - a - undiscoverable atoms - the - transcendent
and immortal hypocrite and perjurer - HEEP!'
I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber's dying on the spot. The
manner in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences,
and, whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep,
fought his way on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and
brought it out with a vehemence little less than marvellous, was
frightful; but now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked
at us, with every possible colour in his face that had no business
there, and an endless procession of lumps following one another in
hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to shoot into his
forehead, he had the appearance of being in the last extremity. I
would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me off, and
wouldn't hear a word.
'No, Copperfield! - No communication - a - until - Miss Wickfield
- a - redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel -
HEEP!' (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words,
but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when
he felt it coming.) 'Inviolable secret - a - from the whole world
- a - no exceptions - this day week - a - at breakfast-time - a -
everybody present - including aunt - a - and extremely friendly
gentleman - to be at the hotel at Canterbury - a - where - Mrs.
Micawber and myself - Auld Lang Syne in chorus - and - a - will
expose intolerable ruffian - HEEP! No more to say - a - or listen
to persuasion - go immediately - not capable - a - bear society -
upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor - HEEP!'
With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going
at all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr.
Micawber rushed out of the house; leaving us in a state of
excitement, hope, and wonder, that reduced us to a condition little
better than his own. But even then his passion for writing letters
was too strong to be resisted; for while we were yet in the height
of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note
was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he had
called to write it: -
'Most secret and confidential.
'MY DEAR SIR,
'I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your
excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a
smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal
contest more easily conceived than described.
'I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the
morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at
Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honour of
uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the
Immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed.
'The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone
enable me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no
more. I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of
universal resort, where
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,
'- With the plain Inscription,
'WILKINS MICAWBER.'
CHAPTER 50
Mr. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE
By this time, some months had passed since our interview on the
bank of the river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she
had communicated with Mr. Peggotty on several occasions. Nothing
had come of her zealous intervention; nor could I infer, from what
he told me, that any clue had been obtained, for a moment, to
Emily's fate. I confess that I began to despair of her recovery,
and gradually to sink deeper and deeper into the belief that she
was dead.
His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know - and I
believe his honest heart was transparent to me - he never wavered
again, in his solemn certainty of finding her. His patience never
tired. And, although I trembled for the agony it might one day be
to him to have his strong assurance shivered at a blow, there was
something so religious in it, so affectingly expressive of its
anchor being in the purest depths of his fine nature, that the
respect and honour in which I held him were exalted every day.
His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He
had been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in
all things wherein he wanted help he must do his own part
faithfully, and help himself. I have known him set out in the
night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some
accident, in the window of the old boat, and walk to Yarmouth. I
have known him, on reading something in the newspaper that might
apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a journey of
three- or four-score miles. He made his way by sea to Naples, and
back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle had assisted
me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always
steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily's sake, when she
should be found. In all this long pursuit, I never heard him
repine; I never heard him say he was fatigued, or out of heart.
Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of
him. I fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa,
with his rough cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife
raised, with a timid wonder, to his face. Sometimes of an evening,
about twilight, when he came to talk with me, I would induce him to
smoke his pipe in the garden, as we slowly paced to and fro
together; and then, the picture of his deserted home, and the
comfortable air it used to have in my childish eyes of an evening
when the fire was burning, and the wind moaning round it, came most
vividly into my mind.
One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha
waiting near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out,
and that she had asked him not to leave London on any account,
until he should have seen her again.
'Did she tell you why?' I inquired.
'I asked her, Mas'r Davy,' he replied, 'but it is but few words as
she ever says, and she on'y got my promise and so went away.'
'Did she say when you might expect to see her again?' I demanded.
'No, Mas'r Davy,' he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down
his face. 'I asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she
could tell.'
As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on
threads, I made no other comment on this information than that I
supposed he would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered
within me I kept to myself, and those were faint enough.
I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight
afterwards. I remember that evening well. It was the second in
Mr. Micawber's week of suspense. There had been rain all day, and
there was a damp feeling in the air. The leaves were thick upon
the trees, and heavy with wet; but the rain had ceased, though the
sky was still dark; and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully.
As I walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began to
close around me, their little voices were hushed; and that peculiar
silence which belongs to such an evening in the country when the
lightest trees are quite still, save for the occasional droppings
from their boughs, prevailed.
There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the
side of our cottage, through which I could see, from the garden
where I was walking, into the road before the house. I happened to
turn my eyes towards this place, as I was thinking of many things;
and I saw a figure beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was
bending eagerly towards me, and beckoning.
'Martha!' said I, going to it.
'Can you come with me?' she inquired, in an agitated whisper. 'I
have been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was
to come, and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he
would not be out long. I have tidings for him. Can you come
directly?'
My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a
hasty gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my
silence, and turned towards London, whence, as her dress betokened,
she had come expeditiously on foot.
I asked her if that were not our destination? On her motioning
Yes, with the same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty
coach that was coming by, and we got into it. When I asked her
where the coachman was to drive, she answered, 'Anywhere near
Golden Square! And quick!' - then shrunk into a corner, with one
trembling hand before her face, and the other making the former
gesture, as if she could not bear a voice.
Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and
dread, I looked at her for some explanation. But seeing how
strongly she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my
own natural inclination too, at such a time, I did not attempt to
break the silence. We proceeded without a word being spoken.
Sometimes she glanced out of the window, as though she thought we
were going slowly, though indeed we were going fast; but otherwise
remained exactly as at first.
We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had
mentioned, where I directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that
we might have some occasion for it. She laid her hand on my arm,
and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets, of which there are
several in that part, where the houses were once fair dwellings in
the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long
degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. Entering at the
open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to
follow her up the common staircase, which was like a tributary
channel to the street.
The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were
opened and people's heads put out; and we passed other people on
the stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside,
before we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the
windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their
curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out
of their doors. It was a broad panelled staircase, with massive
balustrades of some dark wood; cornices above the doors, ornamented
with carved fruit and flowers; and broad seats in the windows. But
all these tokens of past grandeur were miserably decayed and dirty;
rot, damp, and age, had weakened the flooring, which in many places
was unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had been made, I
noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by
repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal;
but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian
pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from
the other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had been
darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that remained, there was
scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by which the
bad air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw,
through other glassless windows, into other houses in a similar
condition, and looked giddily down into a wretched yard, which was
the common dust-heap of the mansion.
We proceeded to the top-storey of the house. Two or three times,
by the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts
of a female figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the
last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full
view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it
turned the handle, and went in.
'What's this!' said Martha, in a whisper. 'She has gone into my
room. I don't know her!'
I knew her. I had recognized her with amazement, for Miss Dartle.
I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen
before, in a few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done
so, when we heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we
stood, what she was saying. Martha, with an astonished look,
repeated her former action, and softly led me up the stairs; and
then, by a little back-door which seemed to have no lock, and which
she pushed open with a touch, into a small empty garret with a low
sloping roof, little better than a cupboard. Between this, and the
room she had called hers, there was a small door of communication,
standing partly open. Here we stopped, breathless with our ascent,
and she placed her hand lightly on my lips. I could only see, of
the room beyond, that it was pretty large; that there was a bed in
it; and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the
walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom we had
heard her address. Certainly, my companion could not, for my
position was the best.
A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha kept one hand on
my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude.
'It matters little to me her not being at home,' said Rosa Dartle
haughtily, 'I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see.'
'Me?' replied a soft voice.
At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was
Emily's!
'Yes,' returned Miss Dartle, 'I have come to look at you. What?
You are not ashamed of the face that has done so much?'
The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern
sharpness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I
had seen her standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes,
and the passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar, with its white
track cutting through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she
spoke.
'I have come to see,' she said, 'James Steerforth's fancy; the girl
who ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people
of her native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of
persons like James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is
like.'
There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped
these taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly
interposed herself before it. It was succeeded by a moment's
pause.
When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and
with a stamp upon the ground.
'Stay there!' she said, 'or I'll proclaim you to the house, and the
whole street! If you try to evade me, I'll stop you, if it's by the
hair, and raise the very stones against you!'
A frightened murmur was the only reply that reached my ears. A
silence succeeded. I did not know what to do. Much as I desired
to put an end to the interview, I felt that I had no right to
present myself; that it was for Mr. Peggotty alone to see her and
recover her. Would he never come? I thought impatiently.
'So!' said Rosa Dartle, with a contemptuous laugh, 'I see her at
last! Why, he was a poor creature to be taken by that delicate
mock-modesty, and that hanging head!'
'Oh, for Heaven's sake, spare me!' exclaimed Emily. 'Whoever you
are, you know my pitiable story, and for Heaven's sake spare me, if
you would be spared yourself!'
'If I would be spared!' returned the other fiercely; 'what is there
in common between US, do you think!'
'Nothing but our sex,' said Emily, with a burst of tears.
'And that,' said Rosa Dartle, 'is so strong a claim, preferred by
one so infamous, that if I had any feeling in my breast but scorn
and abhorrence of you, it would freeze it up. Our sex! You are an
honour to our sex!'
'I have deserved this,' said Emily, 'but it's dreadful! Dear, dear
lady, think what I have suffered, and how I am fallen! Oh, Martha,
come back! Oh, home, home!'
Miss Dartle placed herself in a chair, within view of the door, and
looked downward, as if Emily were crouching on the floor before
her. Being now between me and the light, I could see her curled
lip, and her cruel eyes intently fixed on one place, with a greedy
triumph.
'Listen to what I say!' she said; 'and reserve your false arts for
your dupes. Do you hope to move me by your tears? No more than
you could charm me by your smiles, you purchased slave.'
'Oh, have some mercy on me!' cried Emily. 'Show me some
compassion, or I shall die mad!'
'It would be no great penance,' said Rosa Dartle, 'for your crimes.
Do you know what you have done? Do you ever think of the home you
have laid waste?'
'Oh, is there ever night or day, when I don't think of it!' cried
Emily; and now I could just see her, on her knees, with her head
thrown back, her pale face looking upward, her hands wildly clasped
and held out, and her hair streaming about her. 'Has there ever
been a single minute, waking or sleeping, when it hasn't been
before me, just as it used to be in the lost days when I turned my
back upon it for ever and for ever! Oh, home, home! Oh dear, dear
uncle, if you ever could have known the agony your love would cause
me when I fell away from good, you never would have shown it to me
so constant, much as you felt it; but would have been angry to me,
at least once in my life, that I might have had some comfort! I
have none, none, no comfort upon earth, for all of them were always
fond of me!' She dropped on her face, before the imperious figure
in the chair, with an imploring effort to clasp the skirt of her
dress.
Rosa Dartle sat looking down upon her, as inflexible as a figure of
brass. Her lips were tightly compressed, as if she knew that she
must keep a strong constraint upon herself - I write what I
sincerely believe - or she would be tempted to strike the beautiful
form with her foot. I saw her, distinctly, and the whole power of
her face and character seemed forced into that expression. - Would
he never come?
'The miserable vanity of these earth-worms!' she said, when she had
so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could
trust herself to speak. 'YOUR home! Do you imagine that I bestow
a thought on it, or suppose you could do any harm to that low
place, which money would not pay for, and handsomely? YOUR home!
You were a part of the trade of your home, and were bought and sold
like any other vendible thing your people dealt in.'
'Oh, not that!' cried Emily. 'Say anything of me; but don't visit
my disgrace and shame, more than I have done, on folks who are as
honourable as you! Have some respect for them, as you are a lady,
if you have no mercy for me.'
'I speak,' she said, not deigning to take any heed of this appeal,
and drawing away her dress from the contamination of Emily's touch,
'I speak of HIS home - where I live. Here,' she said, stretching
out her hand with her contemptuous laugh, and looking down upon the
prostrate girl, 'is a worthy cause of division between lady-mother
and gentleman-son; of grief in a house where she wouldn't have been
admitted as a kitchen-girl; of anger, and repining, and reproach.
This piece of pollution, picked up from the water-side, to be made
much of for an hour, and then tossed back to her original place!'
'No! no!' cried Emily, clasping her hands together. 'When he first
came into my way - that the day had never dawned upon me, and he
had met me being carried to my grave! - I had been brought up as
virtuous as you or any lady, and was going to be the wife of as
good a man as you or any lady in the world can ever marry. If you
live in his home and know him, you know, perhaps, what his power
with a weak, vain girl might be. I don't defend myself, but I know
well, and he knows well, or he will know when he comes to die, and
his mind is troubled with it, that he used all his power to deceive
me, and that I believed him, trusted him, and loved him!'
Rosa Dartle sprang up from her seat; recoiled; and in recoiling
struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and
disfigured by passion, that I had almost thrown myself between
them. The blow, which had no aim, fell upon the air. As she now
stood panting, looking at her with the utmost detestation that she
was capable of expressing, and trembling from head to foot with
rage and scorn, I thought I had never seen such a sight, and never
could see such another.
'YOU love him? You?' she cried, with her clenched hand, quivering
as if it only wanted a weapon to stab the object of her wrath.
Emily had shrunk out of my view. There was no reply.
'And tell that to ME,' she added, 'with your shameful lips? Why
don't they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done,
I would have this girl whipped to death.'
And so she would, I have no doubt. I would not have trusted her
with the rack itself, while that furious look lasted.
She slowly, very slowly, broke into a laugh, and pointed at Emily
with her hand, as if she were a sight of shame for gods and men.
'SHE love!' she said. 'THAT carrion! And he ever cared for her,
she'd tell me. Ha, ha! The liars that these traders are!'
Her mockery was worse than her undisguised rage. Of the two, I
would have much preferred to be the object of the latter. But,
when she suffered it to break loose, it was only for a moment. She
had chained it up again, and however it might tear her within, she
subdued it to herself.
'I came here, you pure fountain of love,' she said, 'to see - as I
began by telling you - what such a thing as you was like. I was
curious. I am satisfied. Also to tell you, that you had best seek
that home of yours, with all speed, and hide your head among those
excellent people who are expecting you, and whom your money will
console. When it's all gone, you can believe, and trust, and love
again, you know! I thought you a broken toy that had lasted its
time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished, and thrown away.
But, finding you true gold, a very lady, and an ill-used innocent,
with a fresh heart full of love and trustfulness - which you look
like, and is quite consistent with your story! - I have something
more to say. Attend to it; for what I say I'll do. Do you hear
me, you fairy spirit? What I say, I mean to do!'
Her rage got the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed
over her face like a spasm, and left her smiling.
'Hide yourself,' she pursued, 'if not at home, somewhere. Let it
be somewhere beyond reach; in some obscure life - or, better still,
in some obscure death. I wonder, if your loving heart will not
break, you have found no way of helping it to be still! I have
heard of such means sometimes. I believe they may be easily
found.'
A low crying, on the part of Emily, interrupted her here. She
stopped, and listened to it as if it were music.
'I am of a strange nature, perhaps,' Rosa Dartle went on; 'but I
can't breathe freely in the air you breathe. I find it sickly.
Therefore, I will have it cleared; I will have it purified of you.
If you live here tomorrow, I'll have your story and your character
proclaimed on the common stair. There are decent women in the
house, I am told; and it is a pity such a light as you should be
among them, and concealed. If, leaving here, you seek any refuge
in this town in any character but your true one (which you are
welcome to bear, without molestation from me), the same service
shall be done you, if I hear of your retreat. Being assisted by a
gentleman who not long ago aspired to the favour of your hand, I am
sanguine as to that.'
Would he never, never come? How long was I to bear this? How long
could I bear it?
'Oh me, oh me!' exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that might
have touched the hardest heart, I should have thought; but there
was no relenting in Rosa Dartle's smile. 'What, what, shall I do!'
'Do?' returned the other. 'Live happy in your own reflections!
Consecrate your existence to the recollection of James Steerforth's
tenderness - he would have made you his serving-man's wife, would
he not? - or to feeling grateful to the upright and deserving
creature who would have taken you as his gift. Or, if those proud
remembrances, and the consciousness of your own virtues, and the
honourable position to which they have raised you in the eyes of
everything that wears the human shape, will not sustain you, marry
that good man, and be happy in his condescension. If this will not
do either, die! There are doorways and dust-heaps for such deaths,
and such despair - find one, and take your flight to Heaven!'
I heard a distant foot upon the stairs. I knew it, I was certain.
It was his, thank God!
She moved slowly from before the door when she said this, and
passed out of my sight.
'But mark!' she added, slowly and sternly, opening the other door
to go away, 'I am resolved, for reasons that I have and hatreds
that I entertain, to cast you out, unless you withdraw from my
reach altogether, or drop your pretty mask. This is what I had to
say; and what I say, I mean to do!'
The foot upon the stairs came nearer - nearer - passed her as she
went down - rushed into the room!
'Uncle!'
A fearful cry followed the word. I paused a moment, and looking
in, saw him supporting her insensible figure in his arms. He gazed
for a few seconds in the face; then stooped to kiss it - oh, how
tenderly! - and drew a handkerchief before it.
'Mas'r Davy,' he said, in a low tremulous voice, when it was
covered, 'I thank my Heav'nly Father as my dream's come true! I
thank Him hearty for having guided of me, in His own ways, to my
darling!'
With those words he took her up in his arms; and, with the veiled
face lying on his bosom, and addressed towards his own, carried
her, motionless and unconscious, down the stairs.
CHAPTER 51
THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY
It was yet early in the morning of the following day, when, as I
was walking in my garden with my aunt (who took little other
exercise now, being so much in attendance on my dear Dora), I was
told that Mr. Peggotty desired to speak with me. He came into the
garden to meet me half-way, on my going towards the gate; and bared
his head, as it was always his custom to do when he saw my aunt,
for whom he had a high respect. I had been telling her all that
had happened overnight. Without saying a word, she walked up with
a cordial face, shook hands with him, and patted him on the arm.
It was so expressively done, that she had no need to say a word.
Mr. Peggotty understood her quite as well as if she had said a
thousand.
'I'll go in now, Trot,' said my aunt, 'and look after Little
Blossom, who will be getting up presently.'
'Not along of my being heer, ma'am, I hope?' said Mr. Peggotty.
'Unless my wits is gone a bahd's neezing' - by which Mr. Peggotty
meant to say, bird's-nesting - 'this morning, 'tis along of me as
you're a-going to quit us?'
'You have something to say, my good friend,' returned my aunt, 'and
will do better without me.'
'By your leave, ma'am,' returned Mr. Peggotty, 'I should take it
kind, pervising you doen't mind my clicketten, if you'd bide heer.'
'Would you?' said my aunt, with short good-nature. 'Then I am sure
I will!'
So, she drew her arm through Mr. Peggotty's, and walked with him to
a leafy little summer-house there was at the bottom of the garden,
where she sat down on a bench, and I beside her. There was a seat
for Mr. Peggotty too, but he preferred to stand, leaning his hand
on the small rustic table. As he stood, looking at his cap for a
little while before beginning to speak, I could not help observing
what power and force of character his sinewy hand expressed, and
what a good and trusty companion it was to his honest brow and
iron-grey hair.
'I took my dear child away last night,' Mr. Peggotty began, as he
raised his eyes to ours, 'to my lodging, wheer I have a long time
been expecting of her and preparing fur her. It was hours afore
she knowed me right; and when she did, she kneeled down at my feet,
and kiender said to me, as if it was her prayers, how it all come
to be. You may believe me, when I heerd her voice, as I had heerd
at home so playful - and see her humbled, as it might be in the
dust our Saviour wrote in with his blessed hand - I felt a wownd go
to my 'art, in the midst of all its thankfulness.'
He drew his sleeve across his face, without any pretence of
concealing why; and then cleared his voice.
'It warn't for long as I felt that; for she was found. I had on'y
to think as she was found, and it was gone. I doen't know why I do
so much as mention of it now, I'm sure. I didn't have it in my
mind a minute ago, to say a word about myself; but it come up so
nat'ral, that I yielded to it afore I was aweer.'
'You are a self-denying soul,' said my aunt, 'and will have your
reward.'
Mr. Peggotty, with the shadows of the leaves playing athwart his
face, made a surprised inclination of the head towards my aunt, as
an acknowledgement of her good opinion; then took up the thread he
had relinquished.
'When my Em'ly took flight,' he said, in stern wrath for the
moment, 'from the house wheer she was made a prisoner by that theer
spotted snake as Mas'r Davy see, - and his story's trew, and may
GOD confound him! - she took flight in the night. It was a dark
night, with a many stars a-shining. She was wild. She ran along
the sea beach, believing the old boat was theer; and calling out to
us to turn away our faces, for she was a-coming by. She heerd
herself a-crying out, like as if it was another person; and cut
herself on them sharp-pinted stones and rocks, and felt it no more
than if she had been rock herself. Ever so fur she run, and there
was fire afore her eyes, and roarings in her ears. Of a sudden -
or so she thowt, you unnerstand - the day broke, wet and windy, and
she was lying b'low a heap of stone upon the shore, and a woman was
a-speaking to her, saying, in the language of that country, what
was it as had gone so much amiss?'
He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke,
so vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented
what he described to me, with greater distinctness than I can
express. I can hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but
that I was actually present in these scenes; they are impressed
upon me with such an astonishing air of fidelity.
'As Em'ly's eyes - which was heavy - see this woman better,' Mr.
Peggotty went on, 'she know'd as she was one of them as she had
often talked to on the beach. Fur, though she had run (as I have
said) ever so fur in the night, she had oftentimes wandered long
ways, partly afoot, partly in boats and carriages, and know'd all
that country, 'long the coast, miles and miles. She hadn't no
children of her own, this woman, being a young wife; but she was alooking
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.
CHAPTER 52
I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION
When the time Mr. Micawber had appointed so mysteriously, was
within four-and-twenty hours of being come, my aunt and I consulted
how we should proceed; for my aunt was very unwilling to leave
Dora. Ah! how easily I carried Dora up and down stairs, now!
We were disposed, notwithstanding Mr. Micawber's stipulation for my
aunt's attendance, to arrange that she should stay at home, and be
represented by Mr. Dick and me. In short, we had resolved to take
this course, when Dora again unsettled us by declaring that she
never would forgive herself, and never would forgive her bad boy,
if my aunt remained behind, on any pretence.
'I won't speak to you,' said Dora, shaking her curls at my aunt.
'I'll be disagreeable! I'll make Jip bark at you all day. I shall
be sure that you really are a cross old thing, if you don't go!'
'Tut, Blossom!' laughed my aunt. 'You know you can't do without
me!'
'Yes, I can,' said Dora. 'You are no use to me at all. You never
run up and down stairs for me, all day long. You never sit and
tell me stories about Doady, when his shoes were worn out, and he
was covered with dust - oh, what a poor little mite of a fellow!
You never do anything at all to please me, do you, dear?' Dora made
haste to kiss my aunt, and say, 'Yes, you do! I'm only joking!'-
lest my aunt should think she really meant it.
'But, aunt,' said Dora, coaxingly, 'now listen. You must go. I
shall tease you, 'till you let me have my own way about it. I
shall lead my naughty boy such a life, if he don't make you go. I
shall make myself so disagreeable - and so will Jip! You'll wish
you had gone, like a good thing, for ever and ever so long, if you
don't go. Besides,' said Dora, putting back her hair, and looking
wonderingly at my aunt and me, 'why shouldn't you both go? I am
not very ill indeed. Am I?'
'Why, what a question!' cried my aunt.
'What a fancy!' said I.
'Yes! I know I am a silly little thing!' said Dora, slowly looking
from one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to
kiss us as she lay upon her couch. 'Well, then, you must both go,
or I shall not believe you; and then I shall cry!'
I saw, in my aunt's face, that she began to give way now, and Dora
brightened again, as she saw it too.
'You'll come back with so much to tell me, that it'll take at least
a week to make me understand!' said Dora. 'Because I know I shan't
understand, for a length of time, if there's any business in it.
And there's sure to be some business in it! If there's anything to
add up, besides, I don't know when I shall make it out; and my bad
boy will look so miserable all the time. There! Now you'll go,
won't you? You'll only be gone one night, and Jip will take care
of me while you are gone. Doady will carry me upstairs before you
go, and I won't come down again till you come back; and you shall
take Agnes a dreadfully scolding letter from me, because she has
never been to see us!'
We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go,
and that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather
unwell, because she liked to be petted. She was greatly pleased,
and very merry; and we four, that is to say, my aunt, Mr. Dick,
Traddles, and I, went down to Canterbury by the Dover mail that
night.
At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him,
which we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night,
I found a letter, importing that he would appear in the morning
punctually at half past nine. After which, we went shivering, at
that uncomfortable hour, to our respective beds, through various
close passages; which smelt as if they had been steeped, for ages,
in a solution of soup and stables.
Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil
streets, and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable
gateways and churches. The rooks were sailing about the cathedral
towers; and the towers themselves, overlooking many a long
unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant streams, were
cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as
change on earth. Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me
sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and
my pretty Dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived
and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had
hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up
within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in
air, as circles do in water.
I looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did
not go nearer to it, lest, being observed, I might unwittingly do
any harm to the design I had come to aid. The early sun was
striking edgewise on its gables and lattice-windows, touching them
with gold; and some beams of its old peace seemed to touch my
heart.
I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by
the main street, which in the interval had shaken off its last
night's sleep. Among those who were stirring in the shops, I saw
my ancient enemy the butcher, now advanced to top-boots and a baby,
and in business for himself. He was nursing the baby, and appeared
to be a benignant member of society.
We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to
breakfast. As it approached nearer and nearer to half past nine
o'clock, our restless expectation of Mr. Micawber increased. At
last we made no more pretence of attending to the meal, which,
except with Mr. Dick, had been a mere form from the first; but my
aunt walked up and down the room, Traddles sat upon the sofa
affecting to read the paper with his eyes on the ceiling; and I
looked out of the window to give early notice of Mr. Micawber's
coming. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime of the
half hour, he appeared in the street.
'Here he is,' said I, 'and not in his legal attire!'
My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to
breakfast in it), and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for
anything that was resolute and uncompromising. Traddles buttoned
his coat with a determined air. Mr. Dick, disturbed by these
formidable appearances, but feeling it necessary to imitate them,
pulled his hat, with both hands, as firmly over his ears as he
possibly could; and instantly took it off again, to welcome Mr.
Micawber.
'Gentlemen, and madam,' said Mr. Micawber, 'good morning! My dear
sir,' to Mr. Dick, who shook hands with him violently, 'you are
extremely good.'
'Have you breakfasted?' said Mr. Dick. 'Have a chop!'
'Not for the world, my good sir!' cried Mr. Micawber, stopping him
on his way to the bell; 'appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon, have long
been strangers.'
Mr. Dixon was so well pleased with his new name, and appeared to
think it so obliging in Mr. Micawber to confer it upon him, that he
shook hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly.
'Dick,' said my aunt, 'attention!'
Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush.
'Now, sir,' said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves,
'we are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as YOU
please.'
'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'I trust you will shortly witness
an eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to
mention here that we have been in communication together?'
'It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield,' said Traddles, to whom
I looked in surprise. 'Mr. Micawber has consulted me in reference
to what he has in contemplation; and I have advised him to the best
of my judgement.'
'Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles,' pursued Mr. Micawber,
'what I contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature.'
'Highly so,' said Traddles.
'Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen,' said Mr.
Micawber, 'you will do me the favour to submit yourselves, for the
moment, to the direction of one who, however unworthy to be
regarded in any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore
of human nature, is still your fellow-man, though crushed out of
his original form by individual errors, and the accumulative force
of a combination of circumstances?'
'We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'and
will do what you please.'
'Mr. Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'your confidence is not,
at the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed
a start of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the
present company, inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of
Wickfield and Heep, whose Stipendiary I am.'
My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval.
'I have no more,' observed Mr. Micawber, 'to say at present.'
With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a
comprehensive bow, and disappeared; his manner being extremely
distant, and his face extremely pale.
Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing
upright on the top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation;
so I took out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the
five minutes. My aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the
like. When the time was expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we
all went out together to the old house, without saying one word on
the way.
We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the
ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The
large office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so
well concealed but that a foot or more of that instrument protruded
from his bosom, like a new kind of shirt-frill.
As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud:
'How do you do, Mr. Micawber?'
'Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, gravely, 'I hope I see you
well?'
'Is Miss Wickfield at home?' said I.
'Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever,' he
returned; 'but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to
see old friends. Will you walk in, sir?'
He preceded us to the dining-room - the first room I had entered in
that house - and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield's former
office, said, in a sonorous voice:
'Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and Mr.
Dixon!'
I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit
astonished him, evidently; not the less, I dare say, because it
astonished ourselves. He did not gather his eyebrows together, for
he had none worth mentioning; but he frowned to that degree that he
almost closed his small eyes, while the hurried raising of his
grisly hand to his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise.
This was only when we were in the act of entering his room, and
when I caught a glance at him over my aunt's shoulder. A moment
afterwards, he was as fawning and as humble as ever.
'Well, I am sure,' he said. 'This is indeed an unexpected
pleasure! To have, as I may say, all friends round St. Paul's at
once, is a treat unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you
well, and - if I may umbly express myself so - friendly towards
them as is ever your friends, whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield,
sir, I hope she's getting on. We have been made quite uneasy by
the poor accounts we have had of her state, lately, I do assure
you.'
I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what
else to do.
'Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was an
umble clerk, and held your pony; ain't they?' said Uriah, with his
sickliest smile. 'But I am not changed, Miss Trotwood.'
'Well, sir,' returned my aunt, 'to tell you the truth, I think you
are pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that's any
satisfaction to you.'
'Thank you, Miss Trotwood,' said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly
manner, 'for your good opinion! Micawber, tell 'em to let Miss
Agnes know - and mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she
sees the present company!' said Uriah, setting chairs.
'You are not busy, Mr. Heep?' said Traddles, whose eye the cunning
red eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinized and evaded
us.
'No, Mr. Traddles,' replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and
squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm between his bony knees.
'Not so much so as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches,
are not easily satisfied, you know! Not but what myself and
Micawber have our hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr.
Wickfield's being hardly fit for any occupation, sir. But it's a
pleasure as well as a duty, I am sure, to work for him. You've not
been intimate with Mr. Wickfield, I think, Mr. Traddles? I believe
I've only had the honour of seeing you once myself?'
'No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield,' returned
Traddles; 'or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr.
Heep.'
There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah
look at the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious
expression. But, seeing only Traddles, with his good-natured face,
simple manner, and hair on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with
a jerk of his whole body, but especially his throat:
'I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as
much as we all do. His little failings would only have endeared
him to you the more. But if you would like to hear my
fellow-partner eloquently spoken of, I should refer you to
Copperfield. The family is a subject he's very strong upon, if you
never heard him.'
I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have
done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by
Mr. Micawber. She was not quite so self-possessed as usual, I
thought; and had evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. But her
earnest cordiality, and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler
lustre for it.
I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of
an ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the
meanwhile, some slight sign passed between Mr. Micawber and
Traddles; and Traddles, unobserved except by me, went out.
'Don't wait, Micawber,' said Uriah.
Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood
erect before the door, most unmistakably contemplating one of his
fellow-men, and that man his employer.
'What are you waiting for?' said Uriah. 'Micawber! did you hear me
tell you not to wait?'
'Yes!' replied the immovable Mr. Micawber.
'Then why DO you wait?' said Uriah.
'Because I - in short, choose,' replied Mr. Micawber, with a burst.
Uriah's cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still
faintly tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at
Mr. Micawber attentively, with his whole face breathing short and
quick in every feature.
'You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows,' he said,
with an effort at a smile, 'and I am afraid you'll oblige me to get
rid of you. Go along! I'll talk to you presently.'
'If there is a scoundrel on this earth,' said Mr. Micawber,
suddenly breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, 'with whom
I have already talked too much, that scoundrel's name is - HEEP!'
Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly
round upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his
face could wear, he said, in a lower voice:
'Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here by appointment! You
are playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take
care. You'll make nothing of this. We understand each other, you
and me. There's no love between us. You were always a puppy with
a proud stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my
rise, do you? None of your plots against me; I'll counterplot you!
Micawber, you be off. I'll talk to you presently.'
'Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'there is a sudden change in this fellow.
in more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the
truth in one particular, which assures me that he is brought to
bay. Deal with him as he deserves!'
'You are a precious set of people, ain't you?' said Uriah, in the
same low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped
from his forehead, with his long lean hand, 'to buy over my clerk,
who is the very scum of society, - as you yourself were,
Copperfield, you know it, before anyone had charity on you, - to
defame me with his lies? Miss Trotwood, you had better stop this;
or I'll stop your husband shorter than will be pleasant to you. I
won't know your story professionally, for nothing, old lady! Miss
Wickfield, if you have any love for your father, you had better not
join that gang. I'll ruin him, if you do. Now, come! I have got
some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before it goes over
you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don't want to be crushed.
I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to presently,
you fool! while there's time to retreat. Where's mother?' he said,
suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles,
and pulling down the bell-rope. 'Fine doings in a person's own
house!'
'Mrs. Heep is here, sir,' said Traddles, returning with that worthy
mother of a worthy son. 'I have taken the liberty of making myself
known to her.'
'Who are you to make yourself known?' retorted Uriah. 'And what do
you want here?'
'I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir,' said Traddles,
in a composed and business-like way. 'And I have a power of
attorney from him in my pocket, to act for him in all matters.'
'The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,' said Uriah,
turning uglier than before, 'and it has been got from him by
fraud!'
'Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,' returned
Traddles quietly; 'and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that
question, if you please, to Mr. Micawber.'
'Ury -!' Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture.
'YOU hold your tongue, mother,' he returned; 'least said, soonest
mended.'
'But, my Ury -'
'Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?'
Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his
pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of
the extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off.
The suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it
was useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed;
the leer with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he
had done - all this time being desperate too, and at his wits' end
for the means of getting the better of us - though perfectly
consistent with the experience I had of him, at first took even me
by surprise, who had known him so long, and disliked him so
heartily.
I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing
us, one after another; for I had always understood that he hated
me, and I remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when
his eyes passed on to Agnes, and I saw the rage with which he felt
his power over her slipping away, and the exhibition, in their
disappointment, of the odious passions that had led him to aspire
to one whose virtues he could never appreciate or care for, I was
shocked by the mere thought of her having lived, an hour, within
sight of such a man.
After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking
at us with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one
more address to me, half whining, and half abusive.
'You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride
yourself so much on your honour and all the rest of it, to sneak
about my place, eaves-dropping with my clerk? If it had been ME,
I shouldn't have wondered; for I don't make myself out a gentleman
(though I never was in the streets either, as you were, according
to Micawber), but being you! - And you're not afraid of doing this,
either? You don't think at all of what I shall do, in return; or
of getting yourself into trouble for conspiracy and so forth? Very
well. We shall see! Mr. What's-your-name, you were going to refer
some question to Micawber. There's your referee. Why don't you
make him speak? He has learnt his lesson, I see.'
Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat
on the edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of
his splay feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for
what might follow.
Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the
greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the
first syllable Of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now
burst forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a
defensive weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap
document, folded in the form of a large letter. Opening this
packet, with his old flourish, and glancing at the contents, as if
he cherished an artistic admiration of their style of composition,
he began to read as follows:
'"Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen -"'
'Bless and save the man!' exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. 'He'd
write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!'
Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on.
'"In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate
Villain that has ever existed,"' Mr. Micawber, without looking off
the letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah
Heep, '"I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my
cradle, of pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to
respond, I have ever been the sport and toy of debasing
circumstances. Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, have,
collectively or separately, been the attendants of my career."'
The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to
these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis
with which he read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered
to it with a roll of his head, when he thought he had hit a
sentence very hard indeed.
'"In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I
entered the office - or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would
term it, the Bureau - of the Firm, nominally conducted under the
appellation of Wickfield and - HEEP, but in reality, wielded by -
HEEP alone. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the mainspring of that
machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the Forger and the Cheat."'
Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the
letter, as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect
miracle of dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with
the ruler, and disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist,
as if it were broken. The blow sounded as if it had fallen on
wood.
'The Devil take you!' said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain.
'I'll be even with you.'
'Approach me again, you - you - you HEEP of infamy,' gasped Mr.
Micawber, 'and if your head is human, I'll break it. Come on, come
on! '
I think I never saw anything more ridiculous - I was sensible of
it, even at the time - than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards
with the ruler, and crying, 'Come on!' while Traddles and I pushed
him back into a corner, from which, as often as we got him into it,
he persisted in emerging again.
His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand
for sometime, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up;
then held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his
sullen face looking down.
Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his
letter.
'"The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered
into the service of - HEEP,"' always pausing before that word and
uttering it with astonishing vigour, '"were not defined, beyond the
pittance of twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was
left contingent on the value of my professional exertions; in other
and more expressive words, on the baseness of my nature, the
cupidity of my motives, the poverty of my family, the general moral
(or rather immoral) resemblance between myself and - HEEP. Need I
say, that it soon became necessary for me to solicit from - HEEP -
pecuniary advances towards the support of Mrs. Micawber, and our
blighted but rising family? Need I say that this necessity had
been foreseen by - HEEP? That those advances were secured by
I.O.U.'s and other similar acknowledgements, known to the legal
institutions of this country? And that I thus became immeshed in
the web he had spun for my reception?"'
Mr. Micawber's enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing
this unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any
pain or anxiety that the reality could have caused him. He read
on:
'"Then it was that - HEEP - began to favour me with just so much of
his confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal
business. Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly
express myself, to dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my
services were constantly called into requisition for the
falsification of business, and the mystification of an individual
whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr. W. was imposed upon, kept
in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible way; yet, that all
this while, the ruffian - HEEP - was professing unbounded gratitude
to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused gentleman. This
was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes, with that
universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious
ornament of the Elizabethan Era, worse remains behind!"'
Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off
with a quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second
reading of the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place.
'"It is not my intention,"' he continued reading on, '"to enter on
a detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though
it is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor
nature, affecting the individual whom I have denominated Mr. W., to
which I have been a tacitly consenting party. My object, when the
contest within myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and no
baker, existence and non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage
of my opportunities to discover and expose the major malpractices
committed, to that gentleman's grievous wrong and injury, by -
HEEP. Stimulated by the silent monitor within, and by a no less
touching and appealing monitor without - to whom I will briefly
refer as Miss W. - I entered on a not unlaborious task of
clandestine investigation, protracted - now, to the best of my
knowledge, information, and belief, over a period exceeding twelve
calendar months."'
He read this passage as if it were from an Act of Parliament; and
appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words.
'"My charges against - HEEP,"' he read on, glancing at him, and
drawing the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in
case of need, '"are as follows."'
We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his.
'"First,"' said Mr. Micawber, '"When Mr. W.'s faculties and memory
for business became, through causes into which it is not necessary
or expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused, - HEEP -
designedly perplexed and complicated the whole of the official
transactions. When Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business, -
HEEP was always at hand to force him to enter on it. He obtained
Mr. W.'s signature under such circumstances to documents of
importance, representing them to be other documents of no
importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw out, thus,
one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six
fourteen, two and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business
charges and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or
had never really existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, the
appearance of having originated in Mr. W.'s own dishonest
intention, and of having been accomplished by Mr. W.'s own
dishonest act; and has used it, ever since, to torture and
constrain him."'
'You shall prove this, you Copperfield!' said Uriah, with a
threatening shake of the head. 'All in good time!'
'Ask - HEEP - Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after him,' said
Mr. Micawber, breaking off from the letter; 'will you?'
'The fool himself- and lives there now,' said Uriah, disdainfully.
'Ask - HEEP - if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house,' said
Mr. Micawber; 'will you?'
I saw Uriah's lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his
chin.
'Or ask him,' said Mr. Micawber,'if he ever burnt one there. If he
says yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins
Micawber, and he will hear of something not at all to his
advantage!'
The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself
of these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who
cried out, in much agitation:
'Ury, Ury! Be umble, and make terms, my dear!'
'Mother!' he retorted, 'will you keep quiet? You're in a fright,
and don't know what you say or mean. Umble!' he repeated, looking
at me, with a snarl; 'I've umbled some of 'em for a pretty long
time back, umble as I was!'
Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently
proceeded with his composition.
'"Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my
knowledge, information, and belief -"'
'But that won't do,' muttered Uriah, relieved. 'Mother, you keep
quiet.'
'We will endeavour to provide something that WILL do, and do for
you finally, sir, very shortly,' replied Mr. Micawber.
'"Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my
knowledge, information, and belief, systematically forged, to
various entries, books, and documents, the signature of Mr. W.; and
has distinctly done so in one instance, capable of proof by me. To
wit, in manner following, that is to say:"'
Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words,
which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say,
not at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of
my life, in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule.
In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy
themselves mightily when they come to several good words in
succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly
detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas
were made relishing on the same principle. We talk about the
tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them too; we are
fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait
upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds
well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries
on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so,
the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration,
if there be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get
into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves
when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so I think
I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties,
and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a
retinue of words.
Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips:
'"To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W. being
infirm, and it being within the bounds of probability that his
decease might lead to some discoveries, and to the downfall of -
HEEP'S - power over the W. family, - as I, Wilkins Micawber, the
undersigned, assume - unless the filial affection of his daughter
could be secretly influenced from allowing any investigation of the
partnership affairs to be ever made, the said - HEEP - deemed it
expedient to have a bond ready by him, as from Mr. W., for the
before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and nine, with
interest, stated therein to have been advanced by - HEEP - to Mr.
W. to save Mr. W. from dishonour; though really the sum was never
advanced by him, and has long been replaced. The signatures to
this instrument purporting to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by
Wilkins Micawber, are forgeries by - HEEP. I have, in my
possession, in his hand and pocket-book, several similar imitations
of Mr. W.'s signature, here and there defaced by fire, but legible
to anyone. I never attested any such document. And I have the
document itself, in my possession."'
Uriah Heep, with a start, took out of his pocket a bunch of keys,
and opened a certain drawer; then, suddenly bethought himself of
what he was about, and turned again towards us, without looking in
it.
'"And I have the document,"' Mr. Micawber read again, looking about
as if it were the text of a sermon, '"in my possession, - that is
to say, I had, early this morning, when this was written, but have
since relinquished it to Mr. Traddles."'
'It is quite true,' assented Traddles.
'Ury, Ury!' cried the mother, 'be umble and make terms. I know my
son will be umble, gentlemen, if you'll give him time to think.
Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure you know that he was always very umble,
sir!'
It was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick,
when the son had abandoned it as useless.
'Mother,' he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in
which his hand was wrapped, 'you had better take and fire a loaded
gun at me.'
'But I love you, Ury,' cried Mrs. Heep. And I have no doubt she
did; or that he loved her, however strange it may appear; though,
to be sure, they were a congenial couple. 'And I can't bear to
hear you provoking the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more.
I told the gentleman at first, when he told me upstairs it was come
to light, that I would answer for your being umble, and making
amends. Oh, see how umble I am, gentlemen, and don't mind him!'
'Why, there's Copperfield, mother,' he angrily retorted, pointing
his lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled,
as the prime mover in the discovery; and I did not undeceive him;
'there's Copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say
less than you've blurted out!'
'I can't help it, Ury,' cried his mother. 'I can't see you running
into danger, through carrying your head so high. Better be umble,
as you always was.'
He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to
me with a scowl:
'What more have you got to bring forward? If anything, go on with
it. What do you look at me for?'
Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, glad to revert to a
performance with which he was so highly satisfied.
'"Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show, by - HEEP'S
- false books, and - HEEP'S - real memoranda, beginning with the
partially destroyed pocket-book (which I was unable to comprehend,
at the time of its accidental discovery by Mrs. Micawber, on our
taking possession of our present abode, in the locker or bin
devoted to the reception of the ashes calcined on our domestic
hearth), that the weaknesses, the faults, the very virtues, the
parental affections, and the sense of honour, of the unhappy Mr. W.
have been for years acted on by, and warped to the base purposes of
- HEEP. That Mr. W. has been for years deluded and plundered, in
every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement of the
avaricious, false, and grasping - HEEP. That the engrossing object
of- HEEP - was, next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss W. (of his
ulterior views in reference to the latter I say nothing) entirely
to himself. That his last act, completed but a few months since,
was to induce Mr. W. to execute a relinquishment of his share in
the partnership, and even a bill of sale on the very furniture of
his house, in consideration of a certain annuity, to be well and
truly paid by - HEEP - on the four common quarter-days in each and
every year. That these meshes; beginning with alarming and
falsified accounts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the receiver,
at a period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and ill-judged
speculations, and may not have had the money, for which he was
morally and legally responsible, in hand; going on with pretended
borrowings of money at enormous interest, really coming from - HEEP
- and by - HEEP - fraudulently obtained or withheld from Mr. W.
himself, on pretence of such speculations or otherwise; perpetuated
by a miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous chicaneries -
gradually thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. could see no world
beyond. Bankrupt, as he believed, alike in circumstances, in all
other hope, and in honour, his sole reliance was upon the monster
in the garb of man,"' - Mr. Micawber made a good deal of this, as
a new turn of expression, - '"who, by making himself necessary to
him, had achieved his destruction. All this I undertake to show.
Probably much more!"'
I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully,
half sorrowfully, at my side; and there was a movement among us, as
if Mr. Micawber had finished. He said, with exceeding gravity,
'Pardon me,' and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits
and the most intense enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter.
'"I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to substantiate
these accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to
disappear from the landscape on which we appear to be an
encumbrance. That is soon done. It may be reasonably inferred
that our baby will first expire of inanition, as being the frailest
member of our circle; and that our twins will follow next in order.
So be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has done much;
imprisonment on civil process, and want, will soon do more. I
trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation - of which the
smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure
of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at
rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the
watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon -
combined with the struggle of parental Poverty to turn it, when
completed, to the right account, may be as the sprinkling of a few
drops of sweet water on my funeral pyre. I ask no more. Let it
be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and eminent
naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that what I
have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objects,
For England, home, and Beauty.
'"Remaining always, &c. &c., WILKINS MICAWBER."'
Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber
folded up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as
something she might like to keep.
There was, as I had noticed on my first visit long ago, an iron
safe in the room. The key was in it. A hasty suspicion seemed to
strike Uriah; and, with a glance at Mr. Micawber, he went to it,
and threw the doors clanking open. It was empty.
'Where are the books?' he cried, with a frightful face. 'Some
thief has stolen the books!'
Mr. Micawber tapped himself with the ruler. 'I did, when I got the
key from you as usual - but a little earlier - and opened it this
morning.'
'Don't be uneasy,' said Traddles. 'They have come into my
possession. I will take care of them, under the authority I
mentioned.'
'You receive stolen goods, do you?' cried Uriah.
'Under such circumstances,' answered Traddles, 'yes.'
What was my astonishment when I beheld my aunt, who had been
profoundly quiet and attentive, make a dart at Uriah Heep, and
seize him by the collar with both hands!
'You know what I want?' said my aunt.
'A strait-waistcoat,' said he.
'No. My property!' returned my aunt. 'Agnes, my dear, as long as
I believed it had been really made away with by your father, I
wouldn't - and, my dear, I didn't, even to Trot, as he knows -
breathe a syllable of its having been placed here for investment.
But, now I know this fellow's answerable for it, and I'll have it!
Trot, come and take it away from him!'
Whether my aunt supposed, for the moment, that he kept her property
in his neck-kerchief, I am sure I don't know; but she certainly
pulled at it as if she thought so. I hastened to put myself
between them, and to assure her that we would all take care that he
should make the utmost restitution of everything he had wrongly
got. This, and a few moments' reflection, pacified her; but she
was not at all disconcerted by what she had done (though I cannot
say as much for her bonnet) and resumed her seat composedly.
During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clamouring to her
son to be 'umble'; and had been going down on her knees to all of
us in succession, and making the wildest promises. Her son sat her
down in his chair; and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm
with his hand, but not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look:
'What do you want done?'
'I will tell you what must be done,' said Traddles.
'Has that Copperfield no tongue?' muttered Uriah, 'I would do a
good deal for you if you could tell me, without lying, that
somebody had cut it out.'
'My Uriah means to be umble!' cried his mother. 'Don't mind what
he says, good gentlemen!'
'What must be done,' said Traddles, 'is this. First, the deed of
relinquishment, that we have heard of, must be given over to me now
- here.'
'Suppose I haven't got it,' he interrupted.
'But you have,' said Traddles; 'therefore, you know, we won't
suppose so.' And I cannot help avowing that this was the first
occasion on which I really did justice to the clear head, and the
plain, patient, practical good sense, of my old schoolfellow.
'Then,' said Traddles, 'you must prepare to disgorge all that your
rapacity has become possessed of, and to make restoration to the
last farthing. All the partnership books and papers must remain in
our possession; all your books and papers; all money accounts and
securities, of both kinds. In short, everything here.'
'Must it? I don't know that,' said Uriah. 'I must have time to
think about that.'
'Certainly,' replied Traddles; 'but, in the meanwhile, and until
everything is done to our satisfaction, we shall maintain
possession of these things; and beg you - in short, compel you - to
keep to your own room, and hold no communication with anyone.'
'I won't do it!' said Uriah, with an oath.
'Maidstone jail is a safer place of detention,' observed Traddles;
'and though the law may be longer in righting us, and may not be
able to right us so completely as you can, there is no doubt of its
punishing YOU. Dear me, you know that quite as well as I!
Copperfield, will you go round to the Guildhall, and bring a couple
of officers?'
Here, Mrs. Heep broke out again, crying on her knees to Agnes to
interfere in their behalf, exclaiming that he was very humble, and
it was all true, and if he didn't do what we wanted, she would, and
much more to the same purpose; being half frantic with fears for
her darling. To inquire what he might have done, if he had had any
boldness, would be like inquiring what a mongrel cur might do, if
it had the spirit of a tiger. He was a coward, from head to foot;
and showed his dastardly nature through his sullenness and
mortification, as much as at any time of his mean life.
'Stop!' he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand.
'Mother, hold your noise. Well! Let 'em have that deed. Go and
fetch it!'
'Do you help her, Mr. Dick,' said Traddles, 'if you please.'
Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr. Dick accompanied
her as a shepherd's dog might accompany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep
gave him little trouble; for she not only returned with the deed,
but with the box in which it was, where we found a banker's book
and some other papers that were afterwards serviceable.
'Good!' said Traddles, when this was brought. 'Now, Mr. Heep, you
can retire to think: particularly observing, if you please, that I
declare to you, on the part of all present, that there is only one
thing to be done; that it is what I have explained; and that it
must be done without delay.'
Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled across
the room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at the door, said:
'Copperfield, I have always hated you. You've always been an
upstart, and you've always been against me.'
'As I think I told you once before,' said I, 'it is you who have
been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be
profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were
greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and
overreach themselves. It is as certain as death.'
'Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same school
where I picked up so much umbleness), from nine o'clock to eleven,
that labour was a curse; and from eleven o'clock to one, that it
was a blessing and a cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don't know
what all, eh?' said he with a sneer. 'You preach, about as
consistent as they did. Won't umbleness go down? I shouldn't have
got round my gentleman fellow-partner without it, I think. -
Micawber, you old bully, I'll pay YOU!'
Mr. Micawber, supremely defiant of him and his extended finger, and
making a great deal of his chest until he had slunk out at the
door, then addressed himself to me, and proffered me the
satisfaction of 'witnessing the re-establishment of mutual
confidence between himself and Mrs. Micawber'. After which, he
invited the company generally to the contemplation of that
affecting spectacle.
'The veil that has long been interposed between Mrs. Micawber and
myself, is now withdrawn,' said Mr. Micawber; 'and my children and
the Author of their Being can once more come in contact on equal
terms.'
As we were all very grateful to him, and all desirous to show that
we were, as well as the hurry and disorder of our spirits would
permit, I dare say we should all have gone, but that it was
necessary for Agnes to return to her father, as yet unable to bear
more than the dawn of hope; and for someone else to hold Uriah in
safe keeping. So, Traddles remained for the latter purpose, to be
presently relieved by Mr. Dick; and Mr. Dick, my aunt, and I, went
home with Mr. Micawber. As I parted hurriedly from the dear girl
to whom I owed so much, and thought from what she had been saved,
perhaps, that morning - her better resolution notwithstanding - I
felt devoutly thankful for the miseries of my younger days which
had brought me to the knowledge of Mr. Micawber.
His house was not far off; and as the street door opened into the
sitting-room, and he bolted in with a precipitation quite his own,
we found ourselves at once in the bosom of the family. Mr.
Micawber exclaiming, 'Emma! my life!' rushed into Mrs. Micawber's
arms. Mrs. Micawber shrieked, and folded Mr. Micawber in her
embrace. Miss Micawber, nursing the unconscious stranger of Mrs.
Micawber's last letter to me, was sensibly affected. The stranger
leaped. The twins testified their joy by several inconvenient but
innocent demonstrations. Master Micawber, whose disposition
appeared to have been soured by early disappointment, and whose
aspect had become morose, yielded to his better feelings, and
blubbered.
'Emma!' said Mr. Micawber. 'The cloud is past from my mind.
Mutual confidence, so long preserved between us once, is restored,
to know no further interruption. Now, welcome poverty!' cried Mr.
Micawber, shedding tears. 'Welcome misery, welcome houselessness,
welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will
sustain us to the end!'
With these expressions, Mr. Micawber placed Mrs. Micawber in a
chair, and embraced the family all round; welcoming a variety of
bleak prospects, which appeared, to the best of my judgement, to be
anything but welcome to them; and calling upon them to come out
into Canterbury and sing a chorus, as nothing else was left for
their support.
But Mrs. Micawber having, in the strength of her emotions, fainted
away, the first thing to be done, even before the chorus could be
considered complete, was to recover her. This my aunt and Mr.
Micawber did; and then my aunt was introduced, and Mrs. Micawber
recognized me.
'Excuse me, dear Mr. Copperfield,' said the poor lady, giving me
her hand, 'but I am not strong; and the removal of the late
misunderstanding between Mr. Micawber and myself was at first too
much for me.'
'Is this all your family, ma'am?' said my aunt.
'There are no more at present,' returned Mrs. Micawber.
'Good gracious, I didn't mean that, ma'am,' said my aunt. 'I mean,
are all these yours?'
'Madam,' replied Mr. Micawber, 'it is a true bill.'
'And that eldest young gentleman, now,' said my aunt, musing, 'what
has he been brought up to?'
'It was my hope when I came here,' said Mr. Micawber, 'to have got
Wilkins into the Church: or perhaps I shall express my meaning more
strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor
in the venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and
he has - in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in
public-houses, rather than in sacred edifices.'
'But he means well,' said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly.
'I dare say, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'that he means
particularly well; but I have not yet found that he carries out his
meaning, in any given direction whatsoever.'
Master Micawber's moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and
he demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? Whether he had
been born a carpenter, or a coach-painter, any more than he had
been born a bird? Whether he could go into the next street, and
open a chemist's shop? Whether he could rush to the next assizes,
and proclaim himself a lawyer? Whether he could come out by force
at the opera, and succeed by violence? Whether he could do
anything, without being brought up to something?
My aunt mused a little while, and then said:
'Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to
emigration.'
'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'it was the dream of my youth, and
the fallacious aspiration of my riper years.' I am thoroughly
persuaded, by the by, that he had never thought of it in his life.
'Aye?' said my aunt, with a glance at me. 'Why, what a thing it
would be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if
you were to emigrate now.'
'Capital, madam, capital,' urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily.
'That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr.
Copperfield,' assented his wife.
'Capital?' cried my aunt. 'But you are doing us a great service -
have done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come
out of the fire - and what could we do for you, that would be half
so good as to find the capital?'
'I could not receive it as a gift,' said Mr. Micawber, full of fire
and animation, 'but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at
five per cent interest, per annum, upon my personal liability - say
my notes of hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months,
respectively, to allow time for something to turn up -'
'Could be? Can be and shall be, on your own terms,' returned my
aunt, 'if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here
are some people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If
you decide to go, why shouldn't you go in the same ship? You may
help each other. Think of this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take
your time, and weigh it well.'
'There is but one question, my dear ma'am, I could wish to ask,'
said Mrs. Micawber. 'The climate, I believe, is healthy?'
'Finest in the world!' said my aunt.
'Just so,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'Then my question arises. Now,
are the circumstances of the country such, that a man of Mr.
Micawber's abilities would have a fair chance of rising in the
social scale? I will not say, at present, might he aspire to be
Governor, or anything of that sort; but would there be a reasonable
opening for his talents to develop themselves - that would be amply
sufficient - and find their own expansion?'
'No better opening anywhere,' said my aunt, 'for a man who conducts
himself well, and is industrious.'
'For a man who conducts himself well,' repeated Mrs. Micawber, with
her clearest business manner, 'and is industrious. Precisely. It
is evident to me that Australia is the legitimate sphere of action
for Mr. Micawber!'
'I entertain the conviction, my dear madam,' said Mr. Micawber,
'that it is, under existing circumstances, the land, the only land,
for myself and family; and that something of an extraordinary
nature will turn up on that shore. It is no distance -
comparatively speaking; and though consideration is due to the
kindness of your proposal, I assure you that is a mere matter of
form.'
Shall I ever forget how, in a moment, he was the most sanguine of
men, looking on to fortune; or how Mrs. Micawber presently
discoursed about the habits of the kangaroo! Shall I ever recall
that street of Canterbury on a market-day, without recalling him,
as he walked back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner
he assumed, the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the
land; and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of
an Australian farmer!
CHAPTER 53
ANOTHER RETROSPECT
I must pause yet once again. O, my child-wife, there is a figure
in the moving crowd before my memory, quiet and still, saying in
its innocent love and childish beauty, Stop to think of me - turn
to look upon the Little Blossom, as it flutters to the ground!
I do. All else grows dim, and fades away. I am again with Dora,
in our cottage. I do not know how long she has been ill. I am so
used to it in feeling, that I cannot count the time. It is not
really long, in weeks or months; but, in my usage and experience,
it is a weary, weary while.
They have left off telling me to 'wait a few days more'. I have
begun to fear, remotely, that the day may never shine, when I shall
see my child-wife running in the sunlight with her old friend Jip.
He is, as it were suddenly, grown very old. It may be that he
misses in his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him
younger; but he mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are
feeble, and my aunt is sorry that he objects to her no more, but
creeps near her as he lies on Dora's bed - she sitting at the
bedside - and mildly licks her hand.
Dora lies smiling on us, and is beautiful, and utters no hasty or
complaining word. She says that we are very good to her; that her
dear old careful boy is tiring himself out, she knows; that my aunt
has no sleep, yet is always wakeful, active, and kind. Sometimes,
the little bird-like ladies come to see her; and then we talk about
our wedding-day, and all that happy time.
What a strange rest and pause in my life there seems to be - and in
all life, within doors and without - when I sit in the quiet,
shaded, orderly room, with the blue eyes of my child-wife turned
towards me, and her little fingers twining round my hand! Many and
many an hour I sit thus; but, of all those times, three times come
the freshest on my mind.
It is morning; and Dora, made so trim by my aunt's hands, shows me
how her pretty hair will curl upon the pillow yet, an how long and
bright it is, and how she likes to have it loosely gathered in that
net she wears.
'Not that I am vain of it, now, you mocking boy,' she says, when I
smile; 'but because you used to say you thought it so beautiful;
and because, when I first began to think about you, I used to peep
in the glass, and wonder whether you would like very much to have
a lock of it. Oh what a foolish fellow you were, Doady, when I
gave you one!'
'That was on the day when you were painting the flowers I had given
you, Dora, and when I told you how much in love I was.'
'Ah! but I didn't like to tell you,' says Dora, 'then, how I had
cried over them, because I believed you really liked me! When I can
run about again as I used to do, Doady, let us go and see those
places where we were such a silly couple, shall we? And take some
of the old walks? And not forget poor papa?'
'Yes, we will, and have some happy days. So you must make haste to
get well, my dear.'
'Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you don't know!'
It is evening; and I sit in the same chair, by the same bed, with
the same face turned towards me. We have been silent, and there is
a smile upon her face. I have ceased to carry my light burden up
and down stairs now. She lies here all the day.
'Doady!'
'My dear Dora!'
'You won't think what I am going to say, unreasonable, after what
you told me, such a little while ago, of Mr. Wickfield's not being
well? I want to see Agnes. Very much I want to see her.'
'I will write to her, my dear.'
'Will you?'
'Directly.'
'What a good, kind boy! Doady, take me on your arm. Indeed, my
dear, it's not a whim. It's not a foolish fancy. I want, very
much indeed, to see her!'
'I am certain of it. I have only to tell her so, and she is sure
to come.'
'You are very lonely when you go downstairs, now?' Dora whispers,
with her arm about my neck.
'How can I be otherwise, my own love, when I see your empty chair?'
'My empty chair!' She clings to me for a little while, in silence.
'And you really miss me, Doady?' looking up, and brightly smiling.
'Even poor, giddy, stupid me?'
'My heart, who is there upon earth that I could miss so much?'
'Oh, husband! I am so glad, yet so sorry!' creeping closer to me,
and folding me in both her arms. She laughs and sobs, and then is
quiet, and quite happy.
'Quite!' she says. 'Only give Agnes my dear love, and tell her
that I want very, very, much to see her; and I have nothing left to
wish for.'
'Except to get well again, Dora.'
'Ah, Doady! Sometimes I think - you know I always was a silly
little thing! - that that will never be!'
'Don't say so, Dora! Dearest love, don't think so!'
'I won't, if I can help it, Doady. But I am very happy; though my
dear boy is so lonely by himself, before his child-wife's empty
chair!'
It is night; and I am with her still. Agnes has arrived; has been
among us for a whole day and an evening. She, my aunt, and I, have
sat with Dora since the morning, all together. We have not talked
much, but Dora has been perfectly contented and cheerful. We are
now alone.
Do I know, now, that my child-wife will soon leave me? They have
told me so; they have told me nothing new to my thoughts- but I am
far from sure that I have taken that truth to heart. I cannot
master it. I have withdrawn by myself, many times today, to weep.
I have remembered Who wept for a parting between the living and the
dead. I have bethought me of all that gracious and compassionate
history. I have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and
that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly
settle in my mind is, that the end will absolutely come. I hold
her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me,
alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a pale lingering
shadow of belief that she will be spared.
'I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I
have often thought of saying, lately. You won't mind?' with a
gentle look.
'Mind, my darling?'
'Because I don't know what you will think, or what you may have
thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same.
Doady, dear, I am afraid I was too young.'
I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes,
and speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a
stricken heart, that she is speaking of herself as past.
'I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don't mean in years only,
but in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a
silly little creature! I am afraid it would have been better, if we
had only loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I
have begun to think I was not fit to be a wife.'
I try to stay my tears, and to reply, 'Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I
to be a husband!'
'I don't know,' with the old shake of her curls. 'Perhaps! But if
I had been more fit to be married I might have made you more so,
too. Besides, you are very clever, and I never was.'
'We have been very happy, my sweet Dora.'
'I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would
have wearied of his child-wife. She would have been less and less
a companion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of
what was wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is
better as it is.'
'Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word
seems a reproach!'
'No, not a syllable!' she answers, kissing me. 'Oh, my dear, you
never deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a
reproachful word to you, in earnest - it was all the merit I had,
except being pretty - or you thought me so. Is it lonely, downstairs,
Doady?'
'Very! Very!'
'Don't cry! Is my chair there?'
'In its old place.'
'Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise.
I want to speak to Agnes. When you go downstairs, tell Agnes so,
and send her up to me; and while I speak to her, let no one come -
not even aunt. I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to
speak to Agnes, quite alone.'
I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for
my grief.
'I said that it was better as it is!' she whispers, as she holds me
in her arms. 'Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have
loved your child-wife better than you do; and, after more years,
she would so have tried and disappointed you, that you might not
have been able to love her half so well! I know I was too young and
foolish. It is much better as it is!'
Agnes is downstairs, when I go into the parlour; and I give her the
message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip.
His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed
of flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high
and clear. As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my
undisciplined heart is chastened heavily - heavily.
I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those
secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of
every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that
trifles make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my
remembrance, is the image of the dear child as I knew her first,
graced by my young love, and by her own, with every fascination
wherein such love is rich. Would it, indeed, have been better if
we had loved each other as a boy and a girl, and forgotten it?
Undisciplined heart, reply!
How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my
child-wife's old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls
out of his house, and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and
whines to go upstairs.
'Not tonight, Jip! Not tonight!'
He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim
eyes to my face.
'Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!'
He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and
with a plaintive cry, is dead.
'Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here!'
- That face, so full of pity, and of grief, that rain of tears,
that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards
Heaven!
'Agnes?'
It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all
things are blotted out of my remembrance.
CHAPTER 54
Mr. MICAWBER'S TRANSACTIONS
This is not the time at which I am to enter on the state of my mind
beneath its load of sorrow. I came to think that the Future was
walled up before me, that the energy and action of my life were at
an end, that I never could find any refuge but in the grave. I
came to think so, I say, but not in the first shock of my grief.
It slowly grew to that. If the events I go on to relate, had not
thickened around me, in the beginning to confuse, and in the end to
augment, my affliction, it is possible (though I think not
probable), that I might have fallen at once into this condition.
As it was, an interval occurred before I fully knew my own
distress; an interval, in which I even supposed that its sharpest
pangs were past; and when my mind could soothe itself by resting on
all that was most innocent and beautiful, in the tender story that
was closed for ever.
When it was first proposed that I should go abroad, or how it came
to be agreed among us that I was to seek the restoration of my
peace in change and travel, I do not, even now, distinctly know.
The spirit of Agnes so pervaded all we thought, and said, and did,
in that time of sorrow, that I assume I may refer the project to
her influence. But her influence was so quiet that I know no more.
And now, indeed, I began to think that in my old association of her
with the stained-glass window in the church, a prophetic
foreshadowing of what she would be to me, in the calamity that was
to happen in the fullness of time, had found a way into my mind.
In all that sorrow, from the moment, never to be forgotten, when
she stood before me with her upraised hand, she was like a sacred
presence in my lonely house. When the Angel of Death alighted
there, my child-wife fell asleep - they told me so when I could
bear to hear it - on her bosom, with a smile. From my swoon, I
first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears, her
words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down as from a
purer region nearer Heaven, over my undisciplined heart, and
softening its pain.
Let me go on.
I was to go abroad. That seemed to have been determined among us
from the first. The ground now covering all that could perish of
my departed wife, I waited only for what Mr. Micawber called the
'final pulverization of Heep'; and for the departure of the
emigrants.
At the request of Traddles, most affectionate and devoted of
friends in my trouble, we returned to Canterbury: I mean my aunt,
Agnes, and I. We proceeded by appointment straight to Mr.
Micawber's house; where, and at Mr. Wickfield's, my friend had been
labouring ever since our explosive meeting. When poor Mrs.
Micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes, she was sensibly
affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs. Micawber's heart,
which had not been dunned out of it in all those many years.
'Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber,' was my aunt's first salutation after
we were seated. 'Pray, have you thought about that emigration
proposal of mine?'
'My dear madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'perhaps I cannot better
express the conclusion at which Mrs. Micawber, your humble servant,
and I may add our children, have jointly and severally arrived,
than by borrowing the language of an illustrious poet, to reply
that our Boat is on the shore, and our Bark is on the sea.'
'That's right,' said my aunt. 'I augur all sort of good from your
sensible decision.'
'Madam, you do us a great deal of honour,' he rejoined. He then
referred to a memorandum. 'With respect to the pecuniary
assistance enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of
enterprise, I have reconsidered that important business-point; and
would beg to propose my notes of hand - drawn, it is needless to
stipulate, on stamps of the amounts respectively required by the
various Acts of Parliament applying to such securities - at
eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months. The proposition I
originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but I
am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not allow sufficient
time for the requisite amount of - Something - to turn up. We
might not,' said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it
represented several hundred acres of highly cultivated land, 'on
the first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our
harvest, or we might not have got our harvest in. Labour, I
believe, is sometimes difficult to obtain in that portion of our
colonial possessions where it will be our lot to combat with the
teeming soil.'
'Arrange it in any way you please, sir,' said my aunt.
'Madam,' he replied, 'Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible
of the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What
I wish is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual.
Turning over, as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf;
and falling back, as we are now in the act of falling back, for a
Spring of no common magnitude; it is important to my sense of
self-respect, besides being an example to my son, that these
arrangements should be concluded as between man and man.'
I don't know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last
phrase; I don't know that anybody ever does, or did; but he
appeared to relish it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive
cough, 'as between man and man'.
'I propose,' said Mr. Micawber, 'Bills - a convenience to the
mercantile world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted
to the Jews, who appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much
to do with them ever since - because they are negotiable. But if
a Bond, or any other description of security, would be preferred,
I should be happy to execute any such instrument. As between man
and man.'
MY aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to
agree to anything, she took it for granted there would be no
difficulty in settling this point. Mr. Micawber was of her
opinion.
'In reference to our domestic preparations, madam,' said Mr.
Micawber, with some pride, 'for meeting the destiny to which we are
now understood to be self-devoted, I beg to report them. My eldest
daughter attends at five every morning in a neighbouring
establishment, to acquire the process - if process it may be called
- of milking cows. My younger children are instructed to observe,
as closely as circumstances will permit, the habits of the pigs and
poultry maintained in the poorer parts of this city: a pursuit from
which they have, on two occasions, been brought home, within an
inch of being run over. I have myself directed some attention,
during the past week, to the art of baking; and my son Wilkins has
issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle, when
permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to
render any voluntary service in that direction - which I regret to
say, for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being
generally warned, with imprecations, to desist.'
'All very right indeed,' said my aunt, encouragingly. 'Mrs.
Micawber has been busy, too, I have no doubt.'
'My dear madam,' returned Mrs. Micawber, with her business-like
air. 'I am free to confess that I have not been actively engaged
in pursuits immediately connected with cultivation or with stock,
though well aware that both will claim my attention on a foreign
shore. Such opportunities as I have been enabled to alienate from
my domestic duties, I have devoted to corresponding at some length
with my family. For I own it seems to me, my dear Mr.
Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, who always fell back on me, I
suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might address her
discourse at starting, 'that the time is come when the past should
be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by
the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take my family by the hand; when
the lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms
with Mr. Micawber.'
I said I thought so too.
'This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' pursued
Mrs. Micawber, 'in which I view the subject. When I lived at home
with my papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any
point was under discussion in our limited circle, "In what light
does my Emma view the subject?" That my papa was too partial, I
know; still, on such a point as the frigid coldness which has ever
subsisted between Mr. Micawber and my family, I necessarily have
formed an opinion, delusive though it may be.'
'No doubt. Of course you have, ma'am,' said my aunt.
'Precisely so,' assented Mrs. Micawber. 'Now, I may be wrong in my
conclusions; it is very likely that I am, but my individual
impression is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may
be traced to an apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr.
Micawber would require pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help
thinking,' said Mrs. Micawber, with an air of deep sagacity, 'that
there are members of my family who have been apprehensive that Mr.
Micawber would solicit them for their names. - I do not mean to be
conferred in Baptism upon our children, but to be inscribed on
Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money Market.'
The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this
discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed
rather to astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, 'Well, ma'am,
upon the whole, I shouldn't wonder if you were right!'
'Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary
shackles that have so long enthralled him,' said Mrs. Micawber,
'and of commencing a new career in a country where there is
sufficient range for his abilities, - which, in my opinion, is
exceedingly important; Mr. Micawber's abilities peculiarly
requiring space, - it seems to me that my family should signalize
the occasion by coming forward. What I could wish to see, would be
a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at a festive
entertainment, to be given at my family's expense; where Mr.
Micawber's health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading
member of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of
developing his views.'
'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, 'it may be better for
me to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views
to that assembled group, they would possibly be found of an
offensive nature: my impression being that your family are, in the
aggregate, impertinent Snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated
Ruffians.'
'Micawber,' said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, 'no! You have
never understood them, and they have never understood you.'
Mr. Micawber coughed.
'They have never understood you, Micawber,' said his wife. 'They
may be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can
pity their misfortune.'
'I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,' said Mr. Micawber, relenting,
'to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even
remotely, have the appearance of being strong expressions. All I
would say is, that I can go abroad without your family coming
forward to favour me, - in short, with a parting Shove of their
cold shoulders; and that, upon the whole, I would rather leave
England with such impetus as I possess, than derive any
acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my dear,
if they should condescend to reply to your communications - which
our joint experience renders most improbable - far be it from me to
be a barrier to your wishes.'
The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs.
Micawber his arm, and glancing at the heap of books and papers
lying before Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to
ourselves; which they ceremoniously did.
'My dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, leaning back in his chair
when they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made
his eyes red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, 'I don't make any
excuse for troubling you with business, because I know you are
deeply interested in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear
boy, I hope you are not worn out?'
'I am quite myself,' said I, after a pause. 'We have more cause to
think of my aunt than of anyone. You know how much she has done.'
'Surely, surely,' answered Traddles. 'Who can forget it!'
'But even that is not all,' said I. 'During the last fortnight,
some new trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of
London every day. Several times she has gone out early, and been
absent until evening. Last night, Traddles, with this journey
before her, it was almost midnight before she came home. You know
what her consideration for others is. She will not tell me what
has happened to distress her.'
My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable
until I had finished; when some stray tears found their way to her
cheeks, and she put her hand on mine.
'It's nothing, Trot; it's nothing. There will be no more of it.
You shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to
these affairs.'
'I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say,' Traddles began, 'that
although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for
himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people.
I never saw such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way,
he must be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present.
The heat into which he has been continually putting himself; and
the distracted and impetuous manner in which he has been diving,
day and night, among papers and books; to say nothing of the
immense number of letters he has written me between this house and
Mr. Wickfield's, and often across the table when he has been
sitting opposite, and might much more easily have spoken; is quite
extraordinary.'
'Letters!' cried my aunt. 'I believe he dreams in letters!'
'There's Mr. Dick, too,' said Traddles, 'has been doing wonders! As
soon as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept
in such charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself
to Mr. Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the
investigations we have been making, and his real usefulness in
extracting, and copying, and fetching, and carrying, have been
quite stimulating to us.'
'Dick is a very remarkable man,' exclaimed my aunt; 'and I always
said he was. Trot, you know it.'
'I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield,' pursued Traddles, at once with
great delicacy and with great earnestness, 'that in your absence
Mr. Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus
that had fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful
apprehensions under which he had lived, he is hardly the same
person. At times, even his impaired power of concentrating his
memory and attention on particular points of business, has
recovered itself very much; and he has been able to assist us in
making some things clear, that we should have found very difficult
indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But what I have to do is to
come to results; which are short enough; not to gossip on all the
hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall never have done.'
His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it transparent
that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable Agnes to
hear her father mentioned with greater confidence; but it was not
the less pleasant for that.
'Now, let me see,' said Traddles, looking among the papers on the
table. 'Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great
mass of unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful
confusion and falsification in the second, we take it to be clear
that Mr. Wickfield might now wind up his business, and his
agency-trust, and exhibit no deficiency or defalcation whatever.'
'Oh, thank Heaven!' cried Agnes, fervently.
'But,' said Traddles, 'the surplus that would be left as his means
of support - and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying
this - would be so small, not exceeding in all probability some
hundreds of pounds, that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best
to consider whether he might not retain his agency of the estate to
which he has so long been receiver. His friends might advise him,
you know; now he is free. You yourself, Miss Wickfield -
Copperfield - I -'
'I have considered it, Trotwood,' said Agnes, looking to me, 'and
I feel that it ought not to be, and must not be; even on the
recommendation of a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so
much.'
'I will not say that I recommend it,' observed Traddles. 'I think
it right to suggest it. No more.'
'I am happy to hear you say so,' answered Agnes, steadily, 'for it
gives me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear Mr.
Traddles and dear Trotwood, papa once free with honour, what could
I wish for! I have always aspired, if I could have released him
from the toils in which he was held, to render back some little
portion of the love and care I owe him, and to devote my life to
him. It has been, for years, the utmost height of my hopes. To
take our future on myself, will be the next great happiness - the
next to his release from all trust and responsibility - that I can
know.'
'Have you thought how, Agnes?'
'Often! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success.
So many people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am
certain. Don't mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent
the dear old house, and keep a school, I shall be useful and
happy.'
The calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly,
first the dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my
heart was too full for speech. Traddles pretended for a little
while to be busily looking among the papers.
'Next, Miss Trotwood,' said Traddles, 'that property of yours.'
'Well, sir,' sighed my aunt. 'All I have got to say about it is,
that if it's gone, I can bear it; and if it's not gone, I shall be
glad to get it back.'
'It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?' said
Traddles.
'Right!' replied my aunt.
'I can't account for more than five,' said Traddles, with an air of
perplexity.
'- thousand, do you mean?' inquired my aunt, with uncommon
composure, 'or pounds?'
'Five thousand pounds,' said Traddles.
'It was all there was,' returned my aunt. 'I sold three, myself.
One, I paid for your articles, Trot, my dear; and the other two I
have by me. When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing
about that sum, but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted
to see how you would come out of the trial, Trot; and you came out
nobly - persevering, self-reliant, self-denying! So did Dick.
Don't speak to me, for I find my nerves a little shaken!'
Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her
arms folded; but she had wonderful self-command.
'Then I am delighted to say,' cried Traddles, beaming with joy,
'that we have recovered the whole money!'
'Don't congratulate me, anybody!' exclaimed my aunt. 'How so,
sir?'
'You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wickfield?' said
Traddles.
'Of course I did,' said my aunt, 'and was therefore easily
silenced. Agnes, not a word!'
'And indeed,' said Traddles, 'it was sold, by virtue of the power
of management he held from you; but I needn't say by whom sold, or
on whose actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr.
Wickfield, by that rascal, - and proved, too, by figures, - that he
had possessed himself of the money (on general instructions, he
said) to keep other deficiencies and difficulties from the light.
Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and helpless in his hands as to pay
you, afterwards, several sums of interest on a pretended principal
which he knew did not exist, made himself, unhappily, a party to
the fraud.'
'And at last took the blame upon himself,' added my aunt; 'and
wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong
unheard of. Upon which I paid him a visit early one morning,
called for a candle, burnt the letter, and told him if he ever
could right me and himself, to do it; and if he couldn't, to keep
his own counsel for his daughter's sake. - If anybody speaks to
me, I'll leave the house!'
We all remained quiet; Agnes covering her face.
'Well, my dear friend,' said my aunt, after a pause, 'and you have
really extorted the money back from him?'
'Why, the fact is,' returned Traddles, 'Mr. Micawber had so
completely hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new
points if an old one failed, that he could not escape from us. A
most remarkable circumstance is, that I really don't think he
grasped this sum even so much for the gratification of his avarice,
which was inordinate, as in the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He
said so to me, plainly. He said he would even have spent as much,
to baulk or injure Copperfield.'
'Ha!' said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing
at Agnes. 'And what's become of him?'
'I don't know. He left here,' said Traddles, 'with his mother, who
had been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole
time. They went away by one of the London night coaches, and I
know no more about him; except that his malevolence to me at
parting was audacious. He seemed to consider himself hardly less
indebted to me, than to Mr. Micawber; which I consider (as I told
him) quite a compliment.'
'Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles?' I asked.
'Oh dear, yes, I should think so,' he replied, shaking his head,
seriously. 'I should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one
way or other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had
an opportunity of observing his course, that money would never keep
that man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that
whatever object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It's his
only compensation for the outward restraints he puts upon himself.
Always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he
will always magnify every object in the way; and consequently will
hate and suspect everybody that comes, in the most innocent manner,
between him and it. So the crooked courses will become crookeder,
at any moment, for the least reason, or for none. It's only
necessary to consider his history here,' said Traddles, 'to know
that.'
'He's a monster of meanness!' said my aunt.
'Really I don't know about that,' observed Traddles thoughtfully.
'Many people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it.'
'And now, touching Mr. Micawber,' said my aunt.
'Well, really,' said Traddles, cheerfully, 'I must, once more, give
Mr. Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and
persevering for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do
anything worth speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that
Mr. Micawber did right, for right's sake, when we reflect what
terms he might have made with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence.'
'I think so too,' said I.
'Now, what would you give him?' inquired my aunt.
'Oh! Before you come to that,' said Traddles, a little
disconcerted, 'I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being
able to carry everything before me) two points, in making this
lawless adjustment - for it's perfectly lawless from beginning to
end - of a difficult affair. Those I.O.U.'s, and so forth, which
Mr. Micawber gave him for the advances he had -'
'Well! They must be paid,' said my aunt.
'Yes, but I don't know when they may be proceeded on, or where they
are,' rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes; 'and I anticipate, that,
between this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be
constantly arrested, or taken in execution.'
'Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of
execution,' said my aunt. 'What's the amount altogether?'
'Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions - he calls them
transactions - with great form, in a book,' rejoined Traddles,
smiling; 'and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds,
five.'
'Now, what shall we give him, that sum included?' said my aunt.
'Agnes, my dear, you and I can talk about division of it
afterwards. What should it be? Five hundred pounds?'
Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both
recommended a small sum in money, and the payment, without
stipulation to Mr. Micawber, of the Uriah claims as they came in.
We proposed that the family should have their passage and their
outfit, and a hundred pounds; and that Mr. Micawber's arrangement
for the repayment of the advances should be gravely entered into,
as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that
responsibility. To this, I added the suggestion, that I should
give some explanation of his character and history to Mr. Peggotty,
who I knew could be relied on; and that to Mr. Peggotty should be
quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another hundred. I
further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in Mr. Peggotty, by
confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty's story to him as I might feel
justified in relating, or might think expedient; and to endeavour
to bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common
advantage. We all entered warmly into these views; and I may
mention at once, that the principals themselves did so, shortly
afterwards, with perfect good will and harmony.
Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, I
reminded him of the second and last point to which he had adverted.
'You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I touch upon a
painful theme, as I greatly fear I shall,' said Traddles,
hesitating; 'but I think it necessary to bring it to your
recollection. On the day of Mr. Micawber's memorable denunciation
a threatening allusion was made by Uriah Heep to your aunt's -
husband.'
My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure,
assented with a nod.
'Perhaps,' observed Traddles, 'it was mere purposeless
impertinence?'
'No,' returned my aunt.
'There was - pardon me - really such a person, and at all in his
power?' hinted Traddles.
'Yes, my good friend,' said my aunt.
Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained
that he had not been able to approach this subject; that it had
shared the fate of Mr. Micawber's liabilities, in not being
comprehended in the terms he had made; that we were no longer of
any authority with Uriah Heep; and that if he could do us, or any
of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt he would.
My aunt remained quiet; until again some stray tears found their
way to her cheeks.
'You are quite right,' she said. 'It was very thoughtful to
mention it.'
'Can I - or Copperfield - do anything?' asked Traddles, gently.
'Nothing,' said my aunt. 'I thank you many times. Trot, my dear,
a vain threat! Let us have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber back. And don't
any of you speak to me!' With that she smoothed her dress, and sat,
with her upright carriage, looking at the door.
'Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!' said my aunt, when they entered.
'We have been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to
you for keeping you out of the room so long; and I'll tell you what
arrangements we propose.'
These she explained to the unbounded satisfaction of the family, -
children and all being then present, - and so much to the awakening
of Mr. Micawber's punctual habits in the opening stage of all bill
transactions, that he could not be dissuaded from immediately
rushing out, in the highest spirits, to buy the stamps for his
notes of hand. But, his joy received a sudden check; for within
five minutes, he returned in the custody of a sheriff 's officer,
informing us, in a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, being
quite prepared for this event, which was of course a proceeding of
Uriah Heep's, soon paid the money; and in five minutes more Mr.
Micawber was seated at the table, filling up the stamps with an
expression of perfect joy, which only that congenial employment, or
the making of punch, could impart in full completeness to his
shining face. To see him at work on the stamps, with the relish of
an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them sideways,
taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, and
contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of their
precious value, was a sight indeed.
'Now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you'll allow me to advise
you,' said my aunt, after silently observing him, 'is to abjure
that occupation for evermore.'
'Madam,' replied Mr. Micawber, 'it is my intention to register such
a vow on the virgin page of the future. Mrs. Micawber will attest
it. I trust,' said Mr. Micawber, solemnly, 'that my son Wilkins
will ever bear in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist
in the fire, than use it to handle the serpents that have poisoned
the life-blood of his unhappy parent!' Deeply affected, and changed
in a moment to the image of despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the
serpents with a look of gloomy abhorrence (in which his late
admiration of them was not quite subdued), folded them up and put
them in his pocket.
This closed the proceedings of the evening. We were weary with
sorrow and fatigue, and my aunt and I were to return to London on
the morrow. It was arranged that the Micawbers should follow us,
after effecting a sale of their goods to a broker; that Mr.
Wickfield's affairs should be brought to a settlement, with all
convenient speed, under the direction of Traddles; and that Agnes
should also come to London, pending those arrangements. We passed
the night at the old house, which, freed from the presence of the
Heeps, seemed purged of a disease; and I lay in my old room, like
a shipwrecked wanderer come home.
We went back next day to my aunt's house - not to mine- and when
she and I sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said:
'Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon my mind
lately?'
'Indeed I do, aunt. If there ever was a time when I felt unwilling
that you should have a sorrow or anxiety which I could not share,
it is now.'
'You have had sorrow enough, child,' said my aunt, affectionately,
'without the addition of my little miseries. I could have no other
motive, Trot, in keeping anything from you.'
'I know that well,' said I. 'But tell me now.'
'Would you ride with me a little way tomorrow morning?' asked my
aunt.
'Of course.'
'At nine,' said she. 'I'll tell you then, my dear.'
At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to
London. We drove a long way through the streets, until we came to
one of the large hospitals. Standing hard by the building was a
plain hearse. The driver recognized my aunt, and, in obedience to
a motion of her hand at the window, drove slowly off; we following.
'You understand it now, Trot,' said my aunt. 'He is gone!'
'Did he die in the hospital?'
'Yes.'
She sat immovable beside me; but, again I saw the stray tears on
her face.
'He was there once before,' said my aunt presently. 'He was ailing
a long time - a shattered, broken man, these many years. When he
knew his state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me.
He was sorry then. Very sorry.'
'You went, I know, aunt.'
'I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards.'
'He died the night before we went to Canterbury?' said I.
My aunt nodded. 'No one can harm him now,' she said. 'It was a
vain threat.'
We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Hornsey. 'Better
here than in the streets,' said my aunt. 'He was born here.'
We alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I remember
well, where the service was read consigning it to the dust.
'Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear,' said my aunt, as we
walked back to the chariot, 'I was married. God forgive us all!'
We took our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long
time, holding my hand. At length she suddenly burst into tears,
and said:
'He was a fine-looking man when I married him, Trot - and he was
sadly changed!'
It did not last long. After the relief of tears, she soon became
composed, and even cheerful. Her nerves were a little shaken, she
said, or she would not have given way to it. God forgive us all!
So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found
the following short note, which had arrived by that morning's post
from Mr. Micawber:
'Canterbury,
'Friday.
'My dear Madam, and Copperfield,
'The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again
enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the
eyes of a drifting wretch whose Doom is sealed!
'Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty's High Court of
King's Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP V.
MICAWBER, and the defendant in that cause is the prey of the
sheriff having legal jurisdiction in this bailiwick.
'Now's the day, and now's the hour,
See the front of battle lower,
See approach proud EDWARD'S power -
Chains and slavery!
'Consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture is not
supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I feel I have
attained), my course is run. Bless you, bless you! Some future
traveller, visiting, from motives of curiosity, not unmingled, let
us hope, with sympathy, the place of confinement allotted to
debtors in this city, may, and I trust will, Ponder, as he traces
on its wall, inscribed with a rusty nail,
'The obscure initials,
'W. M.
'P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas
Traddles (who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well),
has paid the debt and costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood;
and that myself and family are at the height of earthly bliss.'
CHAPTER 55
TEMPEST
I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so
bound by an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it,
in these pages, that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have
seen it growing larger and larger as I advanced, like a great tower
in a plain, and throwing its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents
of my childish days.
For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started
up so vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging
in my quiet room, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes,
though at lengthened and uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have
an association between it and a stormy wind, or the lightest
mention of a sea-shore, as strong as any of which my mind is
conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened, I will try to
write it down. I do not recall it, but see it done; for it happens
again before me.
The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship,
my good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met)
came up to London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and
the Micawbers (they being very much together); but Emily I never
saw.
One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with
Peggotty and her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She
described to us how tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how
manfully and quietly he had borne himself. Most of all, of late,
when she believed he was most tried. It was a subject of which the
affectionate creature never tired; and our interest in hearing the
many examples which she, who was so much with him, had to relate,
was equal to hers in relating them.
MY aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at
Highgate; I intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house
at Dover. We had a temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I
walked home to it, after this evening's conversation, reflecting on
what had passed between Ham and myself when I was last at Yarmouth,
I wavered in the original purpose I had formed, of leaving a letter
for Emily when I should take leave of her uncle on board the ship,
and thought it would be better to write to her now. She might
desire, I thought, after receiving my communication, to send some
parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to give her the
opportunity.
I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to
her. I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me
to tell her what I have already written in its place in these
sheets. I faithfully repeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon
it, if I had had the right. Its deep fidelity and goodness were
not to be adorned by me or any man. I left it out, to be sent
round in the morning; with a line to Mr. Peggotty, requesting him
to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak.
I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the
sun was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by
the silent presence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my
sleep, as I suppose we all do feel such things.
'Trot, my dear,' she said, when I opened my eyes, 'I couldn't make
up my mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come
up?'
I replied yes, and he soon appeared.
'Mas'r Davy,' he said, when we had shaken hands, 'I giv Em'ly your
letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask
you to read it, and if you see no hurt in't, to be so kind as take
charge on't.'
'Have you read it?' said I.
He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows:
'I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for
your good and blessed kindness to me!
'I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I
die. They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have
prayed over them, oh, I have prayed so much. When I find what you
are, and what uncle is, I think what God must be, and can cry to
him.
'Good-bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good-bye for ever in
this world. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child
and come to you. All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore.'
This, blotted with tears, was the letter.
'May I tell her as you doen't see no hurt in't, and as you'll be so
kind as take charge on't, Mas'r Davy?' said Mr. Peggotty, when I
had read it.
'Unquestionably,' said I - 'but I am thinking -'
'Yes, Mas'r Davy?'
'I am thinking,' said I, 'that I'll go down again to Yarmouth.
There's time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the
ship sails. My mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude;
to put this letter of her writing in his hand at this time, and to
enable you to tell her, in the moment of parting, that he has got
it, will be a kindness to both of them. I solemnly accepted his
commission, dear good fellow, and cannot discharge it too
completely. The journey is nothing to me. I am restless, and
shall be better in motion. I'll go down tonight.'
Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was
of my mind; and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my
intention, would have had the effect. He went round to the coach
office, at my request, and took the box-seat for me on the mail.
In the evening I started, by that conveyance, down the road I had
traversed under so many vicissitudes.
'Don't you think that,' I asked the coachman, in the first stage
out of London, 'a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have
seen one like it.'
'Nor I - not equal to it,' he replied. 'That's wind, sir.
There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long.'
It was a murky confusion - here and there blotted with a colour
like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel - of flying clouds,
tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in
the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the
deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to
plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of
nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. There had been
a wind all day; and it was rising then, with an extraordinary great
sound. In another hour it had much increased, and the sky was more
overcast, and blew hard.
But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely
over-spreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow,
harder and harder. It still increased, until our horses could
scarcely face the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night
(it was then late in September, when the nights were not short),
the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often
in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over.
Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm, like showers of
steel; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of trees or
lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility
of continuing the struggle.
When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in
Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never
known the like of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to
Ipswich - very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since
we were ten miles out of London; and found a cluster of people in
the market-place, who had risen from their beds in the night,
fearful of falling chimneys. Some of these, congregating about the
inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead
having been ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a
by-street, which they then blocked up. Others had to tell of
country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen
great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered
about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the
storm, but it blew harder.
As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this
mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and
more terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our
lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over
miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every
sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little
breakers setting heavily towards us. When we came within sight of
the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the
rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and
buildings. When at last we got into the town, the people came out
to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair, making a
wonder of the mail that had come through such a night.
I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea;
staggering along the street, which was strewn with sand and
seaweed, and with flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling
slates and tiles; and holding by people I met, at angry corners.
Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the
people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then
braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer
out of their course in trying to get zigzag back.
joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were
away in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to
think might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for
safety. Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their
heads, as they looked from water to sky, and muttering to one
another; ship-owners, excited and uneasy; children, huddling
together, and peering into older faces; even stout mariners,
disturbed and anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from
behind places of shelter, as if they were surveying an enemy.
The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to
look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying
stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high
watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into
surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town. As the
receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out
deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the
earth. When some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed
themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment
of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath,
rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster.
Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with
a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted
up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a
booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made,
to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place
away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and
buildings, rose and fell; the clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed
to see a rending and upheaving of all nature.
Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind - for it
is still remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow
upon that coast - had brought together, I made my way to his house.
It was shut; and as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back
ways and by-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there,
that he had gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of
ship-repairing in which his skill was required; but that he would
be back tomorrow morning, in good time.
I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and
tried to sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon.
I had not sat five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the
waiter, coming to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that
two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and
that some other ships had been seen labouring hard in the Roads,
and trying, in great distress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them,
and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the
last!
I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an
uneasiness in Ham's not being there, disproportionate to the
occasion. I was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by
late events; and my long exposure to the fierce wind had confused
me. There was that jumble in my thoughts and recollections, that
I had lost the clear arrangement of time and distance. Thus, if I
had gone out into the town, I should not have been surprised, I
think, to encounter someone who I knew must be then in London. So
to speak, there was in these respects a curious inattention in my
mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances the place
naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct and vivid.
In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the ships
immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition,
with my uneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an
apprehension of his returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being
lost. This grew so strong with me, that I resolved to go back to
the yard before I took my dinner, and ask the boat-builder if he
thought his attempting to return by sea at all likely? If he gave
me the least reason to think so, I would go over to Lowestoft and
prevent it by bringing him with me.
I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none
too soon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was
locking the yard-gate. He quite laughed when I asked him the
question, and said there was no fear; no man in his senses, or out
of them, would put off in such a gale of wind, least of all Ham
Peggotty, who had been born to seafaring.
So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of
doing what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the
inn. If such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl
and roar, the rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in
the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered
me, and the prodigious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in
the morning. But there was now a great darkness besides; and that
invested the storm with new terrors, real and fanciful.
I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue
steadfast to anything. Something within me, faintly answering to
the storm without, tossed up the depths of my memory and made a
tumult in them. Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running
with the thundering sea, - the storm, and my uneasiness regarding
Ham were always in the fore-ground.
My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself
with a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber
before the fire, without losing my consciousness, either of the
uproar out of doors, or of the place in which I was. Both became
overshadowed by a new and indefinable horror; and when I awoke - or
rather when I shook off the lethargy that bound me in my chair- my
whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelligible fear.
I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to
the awful noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire.
At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall
tormented me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed.
It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the
inn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went
to bed, exceedingly weary and heavy; but, on my lying down, all
such sensations vanished, as if by magic, and I was broad awake,
with every sense refined.
For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining,
now, that I heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard
the firing of signal guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town.
I got up, several times, and looked out; but could see nothing,
except the reflection in the window-panes of the faint candle I had
left burning, and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the
black void.
At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried
on my clothes, and went downstairs. In the large kitchen, where I
dimly saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the
watchers were clustered together, in various attitudes, about a
table, purposely moved away from the great chimney, and brought
near the door. A pretty girl, who had her ears stopped with her
apron, and her eyes upon the door, screamed when I appeared,
supposing me to be a spirit; but the others had more presence of
mind, and were glad of an addition to their company. One man,
referring to the topic they had been discussing, asked me whether
I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone down, were
out in the storm?
I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the
yard-gate, and looked into the empty street. The sand, the
sea-weed, and the flakes of foam, were driving by; and I was
obliged to call for assistance before I could shut the gate again,
and make it fast against the wind.
There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length
returned to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again,
fell - off a tower and down a precipice - into the depths of sleep.
I have an impression that for a long time, though I dreamed of
being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing
in my dream. At length, I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and
was engaged with two dear friends, but who they were I don't know,
at the siege of some town in a roar of cannonading.
The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could
not hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great
exertion and awoke. It was broad day - eight or nine o'clock; the
storm raging, in lieu of the batteries; and someone knocking and
calling at my door.
'What is the matter?' I cried.
'A wreck! Close by!'
I sprung out of bed, and asked, what wreck?
'A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine.
Make haste, sir, if you want to see her! It's thought, down on the
beach, she'll go to pieces every moment.'
The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I
wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into
the street.
Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one
direction, to the beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good
many, and soon came facing the wild sea.
The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more
sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been
diminished by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds.
But the sea, having upon it the additional agitation of the whole
night, was infinitely more terrific than when I had seen it last.
Every appearance it had then presented, bore the expression of
being swelled; and the height to which the breakers rose, and,
looking over one another, bore one another down, and rolled in, in
interminable hosts, was most appalling.
In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, and in
the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless
efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I
looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming
heads of the great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next
me, pointed with his bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in
the same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it,
close in upon us!
One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and
lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all
that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat - which she did without a
moment's pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable - beat the
side as if it would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being
made, to cut this portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship,
which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly
descried her people at work with axes, especially one active figure
with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But a great
cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the
shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck,
made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks,
bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge.
The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and
a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship
had struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then
lifted in and struck again. I understood him to add that she was
parting amidships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling
and beating were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long.
As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the beach;
four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the
rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with
the curling hair.
There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like
a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of
her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now
nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards
the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy
men, was borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and
again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony on the shore
increased. Men groaned, and clasped their hands; women shrieked,
and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly up and down along the
beach, crying for help where no help could be. I found myself one
of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom I knew, not
to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes.
They were making out to me, in an agitated way - I don't know how,
for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to
understand - that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago,
and could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as
to attempt to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication
with the shore, there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that
some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and saw them
part, and Ham come breaking through them to the front.
I ran to him - as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help.
But, distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible,
the determination in his face, and his look out to sea - exactly
the same look as I remembered in connexion with the morning after
Emily's flight - awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him
back with both arms; and implored the men with whom I had been
speaking, not to listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him
stir from off that sand!
Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the
cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men,
and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the
mast.
Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the
calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the
people present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind.
'Mas'r Davy,' he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, 'if my
time is come, 'tis come. If 'tan't, I'll bide it. Lord above
bless you, and bless all! Mates, make me ready! I'm a-going off!'
I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the
people around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived,
that he was bent on going, with help or without, and that I should
endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with
whom they rested. I don't know what I answered, or what they
rejoined; but I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes
from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of
figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing alone, in
a seaman's frock and trousers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his
wrist: another round his body: and several of the best men holding,
at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself,
slack upon the shore, at his feet.
The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that
she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary
man upon the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had
a singular red cap on, - not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer
colour; and as the few yielding planks between him and destruction
rolled and bulged, and his anticipative death-knell rung, he was
seen by all of us to wave it. I saw him do it now, and thought I
was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to
my mind of a once dear friend.
Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended
breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great
retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the
rope which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and
in a moment was buffeting with the water; rising with the hills,
falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again
to land. They hauled in hastily.
He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he
took no thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some
directions for leaving him more free - or so I judged from the
motion of his arm - and was gone as before.
And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with
the valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the
shore, borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The
distance was nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the
strife deadly. At length he neared the wreck. He was so near,
that with one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to
it, - when a high, green, vast hill-side of water, moving on
shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with
a mighty bound, and the ship was gone!
Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been
broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in.
Consternation was in every face. They drew him to my very feet -
insensible - dead. He was carried to the nearest house; and, no
one preventing me now, I remained near him, busy, while every means
of restoration were tried; but he had been beaten to death by the
great wave, and his generous heart was stilled for ever.
As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done,
a fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and
ever since, whispered my name at the door.
'Sir,' said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face,
which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, 'will you come over
yonder?'
The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look.
I asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to
support me:
'Has a body come ashore?'
He said, 'Yes.'
'Do I know it?' I asked then.
He answered nothing.
But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and
I had looked for shells, two children - on that part of it where
some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had
been scattered by the wind - among the ruins of the home he had
wronged - I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had
often seen him lie at school.
CHAPTER 56
THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD
No need, O Steerforth, to have said, when we last spoke together,
in that hour which I so little deemed to be our parting-hour - no
need to have said, 'Think of me at my best!' I had done that ever;
and could I change now, looking on this sight!
They brought a hand-bier, and laid him on it, and covered him with
a flag, and took him up and bore him on towards the houses. All
the men who carried him had known him, and gone sailing with him,
and seen him merry and bold. They carried him through the wild
roar, a hush in the midst of all the tumult; and took him to the
cottage where Death was already.
But when they set the bier down on the threshold, they looked at
one another, and at me, and whispered. I knew why. They felt as
if it were not right to lay him down in the same quiet room.
We went into the town, and took our burden to the inn. So soon as
I could at all collect my thoughts, I sent for Joram, and begged
him to provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to London
in the night. I knew that the care of it, and the hard duty of
preparing his mother to receive it, could only rest with me; and I
was anxious to discharge that duty as faithfully as I could.
I chose the night for the journey, that there might be less
curiosity when I left the town. But, although it was nearly
midnight when I came out of the yard in a chaise, followed by what
I had in charge, there were many people waiting. At intervals,
along the town, and even a little way out upon the road, I saw
more: but at length only the bleak night and the open country were
around me, and the ashes of my youthful friendship.
Upon a mellow autumn day, about noon, when the ground was perfumed
by fallen leaves, and many more, in beautiful tints of yellow, red,
and brown, yet hung upon the trees, through which the sun was
shining, I arrived at Highgate. I walked the last mile, thinking
as I went along of what I had to do; and left the carriage that had
followed me all through the night, awaiting orders to advance.
The house, when I came up to it, looked just the same. Not a blind
was raised; no sign of life was in the dull paved court, with its
covered way leading to the disused door. The wind had quite gone
down, and nothing moved.
I had not, at first, the courage to ring at the gate; and when I
did ring, my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound
of the bell. The little parlour-maid came out, with the key in her
hand; and looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate, said:
'I beg your pardon, sir. Are you ill?'
'I have been much agitated, and am fatigued.'
'Is anything the matter, sir? - Mr. James? -'
'Hush!' said I. 'Yes, something has happened, that I have to break
to Mrs. Steerforth. She is at home?'
The girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out
now, even in a carriage; that she kept her room; that she saw no
company, but would see me. Her mistress was up, she said, and Miss
Dartle was with her. What message should she take upstairs?
Giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner, and only to
carry in my card and say I waited, I sat down in the drawing-room
(which we had now reached) until she should come back. Its former
pleasant air of occupation was gone, and the shutters were half
closed. The harp had not been used for many and many a day. His
picture, as a boy, was there. The cabinet in which his mother had
kept his letters was there. I wondered if she ever read them now;
if she would ever read them more!
The house was so still that I heard the girl's light step upstairs.
On her return, she brought a message, to the effect that Mrs.
Steerforth was an invalid and could not come down; but that if I
would excuse her being in her chamber, she would be glad to see me.
In a few moments I stood before her.
She was in his room; not in her own. I felt, of course, that she
had taken to occupy it, in remembrance of him; and that the many
tokens of his old sports and accomplishments, by which she was
surrounded, remained there, just as he had left them, for the same
reason. She murmured, however, even in her reception of me, that
she was out of her own chamber because its aspect was unsuited to
her infirmity; and with her stately look repelled the least
suspicion of the truth.
At her chair, as usual, was Rosa Dartle. From the first moment of
her dark eyes resting on me, I saw she knew I was the bearer of
evil tidings. The scar sprung into view that instant. She
withdrew herself a step behind the chair, to keep her own face out
of Mrs. Steerforth's observation; and scrutinized me with a
piercing gaze that never faltered, never shrunk.
'I am sorry to observe you are in mourning, sir,' said Mrs.
Steerforth.
'I am unhappily a widower,' said I.
'You are very young to know so great a loss,' she returned. 'I am
grieved to hear it. I am grieved to hear it. I hope Time will be
good to you.'
'I hope Time,' said I, looking at her, 'will be good to all of us.
Dear Mrs. Steerforth, we must all trust to that, in our heaviest
misfortunes.'
The earnestness of my manner, and the tears in my eyes, alarmed
her. The whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop, and
change.
I tried to command my voice in gently saying his name, but it
trembled. She repeated it to herself, two or three times, in a low
tone. Then, addressing me, she said, with enforced calmness:
'My son is ill.'
'Very ill.'
'You have seen him?'
'I have.'
'Are you reconciled?'
I could not say Yes, I could not say No. She slightly turned her
head towards the spot where Rosa Dartle had been standing at her
elbow, and in that moment I said, by the motion of my lips, to
Rosa, 'Dead!'
That Mrs. Steerforth might not be induced to look behind her, and
read, plainly written, what she was not yet prepared to know, I met
her look quickly; but I had seen Rosa Dartle throw her hands up in
the air with vehemence of despair and horror, and then clasp them
on her face.
The handsome lady - so like, oh so like! - regarded me with a fixed
look, and put her hand to her forehead. I besought her to be calm,
and prepare herself to bear what I had to tell; but I should rather
have entreated her to weep, for she sat like a stone figure.
'When I was last here,' I faltered, 'Miss Dartle told me he was
sailing here and there. The night before last was a dreadful one
at sea. If he were at sea that night, and near a dangerous coast,
as it is said he was; and if the vessel that was seen should really
be the ship which -'
'Rosa!' said Mrs. Steerforth, 'come to me!'
She came, but with no sympathy or gentleness. Her eyes gleamed
like fire as she confronted his mother, and broke into a frightful
laugh.
'Now,' she said, 'is your pride appeased, you madwoman? Now has he
made atonement to you - with his life! Do you hear? - His life!'
Mrs. Steerforth, fallen back stiffly in her chair, and making no
sound but a moan, cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare.
'Aye!' cried Rosa, smiting herself passionately on the breast,
'look at me! Moan, and groan, and look at me! Look here!' striking
the scar, 'at your dead child's handiwork!'
The moan the mother uttered, from time to time, went to My heart.
Always the same. Always inarticulate and stifled. Always
accompanied with an incapable motion of the head, but with no
change of face. Always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed
teeth, as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up in pain.
'Do you remember when he did this?' she proceeded. 'Do you
remember when, in his inheritance of your nature, and in your
pampering of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me
for life? Look at me, marked until I die with his high
displeasure; and moan and groan for what you made him!'
'Miss Dartle,' I entreated her. 'For Heaven's sake -'
'I WILL speak!' she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes.
'Be silent, you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud, false
son! Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him,
moan for your loss of him, moan for mine!'
She clenched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure,
as if her passion were killing her by inches.
'You, resent his self-will!' she exclaimed. 'You, injured by his
haughty temper! You, who opposed to both, when your hair was grey,
the qualities which made both when you gave him birth! YOU, who
from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he
should have been! Are you rewarded, now, for your years of
trouble?'
'Oh, Miss Dartle, shame! Oh cruel!'
'I tell you,' she returned, 'I WILL speak to her. No power on
earth should stop me, while I was standing here! Have I been silent
all these years, and shall I not speak now? I loved him better
than you ever loved him!' turning on her fiercely. 'I could have
loved him, and asked no return. If I had been his wife, I could
have been the slave of his caprices for a word of love a year. I
should have been. Who knows it better than I? You were exacting,
proud, punctilious, selfish. My love would have been devoted -
would have trod your paltry whimpering under foot!'
With flashing eyes, she stamped upon the ground as if she actually
did it.
'Look here!' she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless
hand. 'When he grew into the better understanding of what he had
done, he saw it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk
to him, and show the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain
with labour to such knowledge as most interested him; and I
attracted him. When he was freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes,
he did! Many a time, when you were put off with a slight word, he
has taken Me to his heart!'
She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy - for
it was little less - yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which
the smouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment.
'I descended - as I might have known I should, but that he
fascinated me with his boyish courtship - into a doll, a trifle for
the occupation of an idle hour, to be dropped, and taken up, and
trifled with, as the inconstant humour took him. When he grew
weary, I grew weary. As his fancy died out, I would no more have
tried to strengthen any power I had, than I would have married him
on his being forced to take me for his wife. We fell away from one
another without a word. Perhaps you saw it, and were not sorry.
Since then, I have been a mere disfigured piece of furniture
between you both; having no eyes, no ears, no feelings, no
remembrances. Moan? Moan for what you made him; not for your
love. I tell you that the time was, when I loved him better than
you ever did!'
She stood with her bright angry eyes confronting the wide stare,
and the set face; and softened no more, when the moaning was
repeated, than if the face had been a picture.
'Miss Dartle,' said I, 'if you can be so obdurate as not to feel
for this afflicted mother -'
'Who feels for me?' she sharply retorted. 'She has sown this. Let
her moan for the harvest that she reaps today!'
'And if his faults -' I began.
'Faults!' she cried, bursting into passionate tears. 'Who dares
malign him? He had a soul worth millions of the friends to whom he
stooped!'
'No one can have loved him better, no one can hold him in dearer
remembrance than I,' I replied. 'I meant to say, if you have no
compassion for his mother; or if his faults - you have been bitter
on them -'
'It's false,' she cried, tearing her black hair; 'I loved him!'
'- if his faults cannot,' I went on, 'be banished from your
remembrance, in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you
have never seen before, and render it some help!'
All this time, the figure was unchanged, and looked unchangeable.
Motionless, rigid, staring; moaning in the same dumb way from time
to time, with the same helpless motion of the head; but giving no
other sign of life. Miss Dartle suddenly kneeled down before it,
and began to loosen the dress.
'A curse upon you!' she said, looking round at me, with a mingled
expression of rage and grief. 'It was in an evil hour that you
ever came here! A curse upon you! Go!'
After passing out of the room, I hurried back to ring the bell, the
sooner to alarm the servants. She had then taken the impassive
figure in her arms, and, still upon her knees, was weeping over it,
kissing it, calling to it, rocking it to and fro upon her bosom
like a child, and trying every tender means to rouse the dormant
senses. No longer afraid of leaving her, I noiselessly turned back
again; and alarmed the house as I went out.
Later in the day, I returned, and we laid him in his mother's room.
She was just the same, they told me; Miss Dartle never left her;
doctors were in attendance, many things had been tried; but she lay
like a statue, except for the low sound now and then.
I went through the dreary house, and darkened the windows. The
windows of the chamber where he lay, I darkened last. I lifted up
the leaden hand, and held it to my heart; and all the world seemed
death and silence, broken only by his mother's moaning.
CHAPTER 57
THE EMIGRANTS
One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of
these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those
who were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy
ignorance. In this, no time was to be lost.
I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the
task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late
catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any
newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach
him.
'If it penetrates to him, sir,' said Mr. Micawber, striking himself
on the breast, 'it shall first pass through this body!'
Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new
state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not
absolutely lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have
supposed him a child of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out
of the confines of civilization, and about to return to his native
wilds.
He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit
of oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or
caulked on the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common
mariner's telescope under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up
his eye at the sky as looking out for dirty weather, he was far
more nautical, after his manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole
family, if I may so express it, were cleared for action. I found
Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most uncompromising of bonnets,
made fast under the chin; and in a shawl which tied her up (as I
had been tied up, when my aunt first received me) like a bundle,
and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong knot. Miss
Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same manner;
with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly
visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever
saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in
impervious cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their
sleeves loosely turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend
a hand in any direction, and to 'tumble up', or sing out, 'Yeo -
Heave - Yeo!' on the shortest notice.
Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the
wooden steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the
departure of a boat with some of their property on board. I had
told Traddles of the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked
him; but there could be no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a
secret, and he had come to help me in this last service. It was
here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and received his promise.
The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down
public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and
whose protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as
emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford,
attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in
their room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the
tide flowing underneath. My aunt and Agnes were there, busily
making some little extra comforts, in the way of dress, for the
children. Peggotty was quietly assisting, with the old insensible
work-box, yard-measure, and bit of wax-candle before her, that had
now outlived so much.
It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr.
Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the
letter, and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If
I showed any trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient
to account for it.
'And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?' asked my aunt.
Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or
his wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected
yesterday.
'The boat brought you word, I suppose?' said my aunt.
'It did, ma'am,' he returned.
'Well?' said my aunt. 'And she sails -'
'Madam,' he replied, 'I am informed that we must positively be on
board before seven tomorrow morning.'
'Heyday!' said my aunt, 'that's soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr.
Peggotty?'
''Tis so, ma'am. She'll drop down the river with that theer tide.
If Mas'r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen', arternoon o'
next day, they'll see the last on us.'
'And that we shall do,' said I, 'be sure!'
'Until then, and until we are at sea,' observed Mr. Micawber, with
a glance of intelligence at me, 'Mr. Peggotty and myself will
constantly keep a double look-out together, on our goods and
chattels. Emma, my love,' said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat
in his magnificent way, 'my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so
obliging as to solicit, in my ear, that he should have the
privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary to the composition
of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is peculiarly
associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England. I
allude to - in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I
should scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss
Wickfield, but-'
'I can only say for myself,' said my aunt, 'that I will drink all
happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost
pleasure.'
'And I too!' said Agnes, with a smile.
Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to
be quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I
could not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his
own clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler,
was about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without
ostentation, on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two
elder members of the family I now found to be provided with similar
formidable instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon
attached to its body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation
of life afloat, and in the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping
Mrs. Micawber and his eldest son and daughter to punch, in
wine-glasses, which he might easily have done, for there was a
shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a series of
villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything so
much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it
in his pocket at the close of the evening.
'The luxuries of the old country,' said Mr. Micawber, with an
intense satisfaction in their renouncement, 'we abandon. The
denizens of the forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in
the refinements of the land of the Free.'
Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs.
'I have a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin
pot, 'that it is a member of my family!'
'If so, my dear,' observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness
of warmth on that subject, 'as the member of your family - whoever
he, she, or it, may be - has kept us waiting for a considerable
period, perhaps the Member may now wait MY convenience.'
'Micawber,' said his wife, in a low tone, 'at such a time as
this -'
'"It is not meet,"' said Mr. Micawber, rising, '"that every nice
offence should bear its comment!" Emma, I stand reproved.'
'The loss, Micawber,' observed his wife, 'has been my family's, not
yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to
which their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now
desire to extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.'
'My dear,' he returned, 'so be it!'
'If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,' said his wife.
'Emma,' he returned, 'that view of the question is, at such a
moment, irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself
to fall upon your family's neck; but the member of your family, who
is now in attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.'
Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the
course of which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an
apprehension that words might have arisen between him and the
Member. At length the same boy reappeared, and presented me with
a note written in pencil, and headed, in a legal manner, 'Heep v.
Micawber'. From this document, I learned that Mr. Micawber being
again arrested, 'Was in a final paroxysm of despair; and that he
begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by bearer, as they
might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of his
existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of
friendship, that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse,
and forget that such a Being ever lived.
Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay
the money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking
darkly at the Sheriff 's Officer who had effected the capture. On
his release, he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an
entry of the transaction in his pocket-book - being very
particular, I recollect, about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted
from my statement of the total.
This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another
transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he
accounted for his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by
circumstances over which he had no control), he took out of it a
large sheet of paper, folded small, and quite covered with long
sums, carefully worked. From the glimpse I had of them, I should
say that I never saw such sums out of a school ciphering-book.
These, it seemed, were calculations of compound interest on what he
called 'the principal amount of forty-one, ten, eleven and a half',
for various periods. After a careful consideration of these, and
an elaborate estimate of his resources, he had come to the
conclusion to select that sum which represented the amount with
compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and
fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a
note-of-hand with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles
on the spot, a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and
man), with many acknowledgements.
'I have still a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, pensively
shaking her head, 'that my family will appear on board, before we
finally depart.'
Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but
he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.
'If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your
passage, Mrs. Micawber,' said my aunt, 'you must let us hear from
you, you know.'
'My dear Miss Trotwood,' she replied, 'I shall only be too happy to
think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to
correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar
friend, will not object to receive occasional intelligence,
himself, from one who knew him when the twins were yet
unconscious?'
I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity
of writing.
'Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,' said Mr.
Micawber. 'The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships;
and we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is
merely crossing,' said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass,
'merely crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.'
I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr.
Micawber, that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should
have talked as if he were going to the farthest limits of the
earth; and, when he went from England to Australia, as if he were
going for a little trip across the channel.
'On the voyage, I shall endeavour,' said Mr. Micawber,
'occasionally to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins
will, I trust, be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs.
Micawber has her sea-legs on - an expression in which I hope there
is no conventional impropriety - she will give them, I dare say,
"Little Tafflin". Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be
frequently observed athwart our Bows; and, either on the starboard
or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually
descried. In short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air,
'the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft,
that when the lookout, stationed in the main-top, cries Land-oh! we
shall be very considerably astonished!'
With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as
if he had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination
before the highest naval authorities.
' What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs.
Micawber, 'is, that in some branches of our family we may live
again in the old country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now
refer to my own family, but to our children's children. However
vigorous the sapling,' said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, 'I
cannot forget the parent-tree; and when our race attains to
eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that fortune to flow into
the coffers of Britannia.'
'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'Britannia must take her chance. I
am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I
have no particular wish upon the subject.'
'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber, 'there, you are wrong. You are
going out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to
weaken, the connexion between yourself and Albion.'
'The connexion in question, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'has
not laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that
I am at all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.'
'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'There, I again say, you are
wrong. You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which
will strengthen, even in this step you are about to take, the
connexion between yourself and Albion.'
Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half
receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber's views as they were
stated, but very sensible of their foresight.
'My dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I wish Mr. Micawber
to feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr.
Micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his
position. Your old knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will
have told you that I have not the sanguine disposition of Mr.
Micawber. My disposition is, if I may say so, eminently practical.
I know that this is a long voyage. I know that it will involve
many privations and inconveniences. I cannot shut my eyes to those
facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is. I know the latent
power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it vitally
important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position.'
'My love,' he observed, 'perhaps you will allow me to remark that
it is barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present
moment.'
'I think not, Micawber,' she rejoined. 'Not fully. My dear Mr.
Copperfield, Mr. Micawber's is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is
going to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully
understood and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber
to take his stand upon that vessel's prow, and firmly say, "This
country I am come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches?
Have you posts of profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be
brought forward. They are mine!"'
Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good
deal in this idea.
'I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood,' said Mrs.
Micawber, in her argumentative tone, 'to be the Caesar of his own
fortunes. That, my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his
true position. From the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr.
Micawber to stand upon that vessel's prow and say, "Enough of
delay: enough of disappointment: enough of limited means. That was
in the old country. This is the new. Produce your reparation.
Bring it forward!"'
Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner, as if he were
then stationed on the figure-head.
'And doing that,' said Mrs. Micawber, '- feeling his position - am
I not right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not
weaken, his connexion with Britain? An important public character
arising in that hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will
not be felt at home? Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr.
Micawber, wielding the rod of talent and of power in Australia,
will be nothing in England? I am but a woman; but I should be
unworthy of myself and of my papa, if I were guilty of such absurd
weakness.'
Mrs. Micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable,
gave a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard
in it before.
'And therefore it is,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'that I the more wish,
that, at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil.
Mr. Micawber may be - I cannot disguise from myself that the
probability is, Mr. Micawber will be - a page of History; and he
ought then to be represented in the country which gave him birth,
and did NOT give him employment!'
'My love,' observed Mr. Micawber, 'it is impossible for me not to
be touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your
good sense. What will be - will be. Heaven forbid that I should
grudge my native country any portion of the wealth that may be
accumulated by our descendants!'
'That's well,' said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, 'and I
drink my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend
you!'
Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on
each knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us
in return; and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as
comrades, and his brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that
he would make his way, establish a good name, and be beloved, go
where he would.
Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into
Mr. Micawber's pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was
done, my aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It
was a sorrowful farewell. They were all crying; the children hung
about Agnes to the last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very
distressed condition, sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that
must have made the room look, from the river, like a miserable
light-house.
I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They
had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a
wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that
although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house
and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed
dreary and deserted, now that they were gone.
In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to
Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd
of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her
mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and
getting through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the
centre, went on board.
Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr.
Micawber had just now been arrested again (and for the last time)
at the suit of Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had
made to him, he had paid the money, which I repaid him. He then
took us down between decks; and there, any lingering fears I had of
his having heard any rumours of what had happened, were dispelled
by Mr. Micawber's coming out of the gloom, taking his arm with an
air of friendship and protection, and telling me that they had
scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the night before last.
It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that,
at first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it
cleared, as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I
seemed to stand in a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams,
bulks, and ringbolts of the ship, and the emigrant-berths, and
chests, and bundles, and barrels, and heaps of miscellaneous
baggage -'lighted up, here and there, by dangling lanterns; and
elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail or a
hatchway - were crowded groups of people, making new friendships,
taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and
drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their
few feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny
children established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others,
despairing of a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. From
babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to crooked
old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life
before them; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of England
on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke
upon their skins; every age and occupation appeared to be crammed
into the narrow compass of the 'tween decks.
As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an
open port, with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure
like Emily's; it first attracted my attention, by another figure
parting from it with a kiss; and as it glided calmly away through
the disorder, reminding me of - Agnes! But in the rapid motion and
confusion, and in the unsettlement of my own thoughts, I lost it
again; and only knew that the time was come when all visitors were
being warned to leave the ship; that my nurse was crying on a chest
beside me; and that Mrs. Gummidge, assisted by some younger
stooping woman in black, was busily arranging Mr. Peggotty's goods.
'Is there any last wured, Mas'r Davy?' said he. 'Is there any one
forgotten thing afore we parts?'
'One thing!' said I. 'Martha!'
He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and
Martha stood before me.
'Heaven bless you, you good man!' cried I. 'You take her with
you!'
She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more
at that time, but I wrung his hand; and if ever I have loved and
honoured any man, I loved and honoured that man in my soul.
The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that
I had, remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone,
had given me in charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply.
But when he charged me, in return, with many messages of affection
and regret for those deaf ears, he moved me more.
The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my
arm, and hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs.
Micawber. She was looking distractedly about for her family, even
then; and her last words to me were, that she never would desert
Mr. Micawber.
We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance,
to see the ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant
sunset. She lay between us, and the red light; and every taper
line and spar was visible against the glow. A sight at once so
beautiful, so mournful, and so hopeful, as the glorious ship,
lying, still, on the flushed water, with all the life on board her
crowded at the bulwarks, and there clustering, for a moment,
bare-headed and silent, I never saw.
Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the
ship began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding
cheers, which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which
were echoed and re-echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the
sound, and beheld the waving of the hats and handkerchiefs - and
then I saw her!
Then I saw her, at her uncle's side, and trembling on his shoulder.
He pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her
last good-bye to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to
him with the utmost trust of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to
thee, with all the might of his great love!
Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck,
apart together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they
solemnly passed away. The night had fallen on the Kentish hills
when we were rowed ashore - and fallen darkly upon me.
CHAPTER 58
ABSENCE
It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the
ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many
unavailing sorrows and regrets.
I went away from England; not knowing, even then, how great the
shock was, that I had to bear. I left all who were dear to me, and
went away; and believed that I had borne it, and it was past. As
a man upon a field of battle will receive a mortal hurt, and
scarcely know that he is struck, so I, when I was left alone with
my undisciplined heart, had no conception of the wound with which
it had to strive.
The knowledge came upon me, not quickly, but little by little, and
grain by grain. The desolate feeling with which I went abroad,
deepened and widened hourly. At first it was a heavy sense of loss
and sorrow, wherein I could distinguish little else. By
imperceptible degrees, it became a hopeless consciousness of all
that I had lost - love, friendship, interest; of all that had been
shattered - my first trust, my first affection, the whole airy
castle of my life; of all that remained - a ruined blank and waste,
lying wide around me, unbroken, to the dark horizon.
If my grief were selfish, I did not know it to be so. I mourned
for my child-wife, taken from her blooming world, so young. I
mourned for him who might have won the love and admiration of
thousands, as he had won mine long ago. I mourned for the broken
heart that had found rest in the stormy sea; and for the wandering
remnants of the simple home, where I had heard the night-wind
blowing, when I was a child.
From the accumulated sadness into which I fell, I had at length no
hope of ever issuing again. I roamed from place to place, carrying
my burden with me everywhere. I felt its whole weight now; and I
drooped beneath it, and I said in my heart that it could never be
lightened.
When this despondency was at its worst, I believed that I should
die. Sometimes, I thought that I would like to die at home; and
actually turned back on my road, that I might get there soon. At
other times, I passed on farther away, -from city to city, seeking
I know not what, and trying to leave I know not what behind.
It is not in my power to retrace, one by one, all the weary phases
of distress of mind through which I passed. There are some dreams
that can only be imperfectly and vaguely described; and when I
oblige myself to look back on this time of my life, I seem to be
recalling such a dream. I see myself passing on among the
novelties of foreign towns, palaces, cathedrals, temples, pictures,
castles, tombs, fantastic streets - the old abiding places of
History and Fancy - as a dreamer might; bearing my painful load
through all, and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade
before me. Listlessness to everything, but brooding sorrow, was
the night that fell on my undisciplined heart. Let me look up from
it - as at last I did, thank Heaven! - and from its long, sad,
wretched dream, to dawn.
For many months I travelled with this ever-darkening cloud upon my
mind. Some blind reasons that I had for not returning home -
reasons then struggling within me, vainly, for more distinct
expression - kept me on my pilgrimage. Sometimes, I had proceeded
restlessly from place to place, stopping nowhere; sometimes, I had
lingered long in one spot. I had had no purpose, no sustaining
soul within me, anywhere.
I was in Switzerland. I had come out of Italy, over one of the
great passes of the Alps, and had since wandered with a guide among
the by-ways of the mountains. If those awful solitudes had spoken
to my heart, I did not know it. I had found sublimity and wonder
in the dread heights and precipices, in the roaring torrents, and
the wastes of ice and snow; but as yet, they had taught me nothing
else.
I came, one evening before sunset, down into a valley, where I was
to rest. In the course of my descent to it, by the winding track
along the mountain-side, from which I saw it shining far below, I
think some long-unwonted sense of beauty and tranquillity, some
softening influence awakened by its peace, moved faintly in my
breast. I remember pausing once, with a kind of sorrow that was
not all oppressive, not quite despairing. I remember almost hoping
that some better change was possible within me.
I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the
remote heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds.
The bases of the mountains forming the gorge in which the little
village lay, were richly green; and high above this gentler
vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry
snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche. Above these,
were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and
smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually blending with the
crowning snow. Dotted here and there on the mountain's-side, each
tiny dot a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so dwarfed by the
towering heights that they appeared too small for toys. So did
even the clustered village in the valley, with its wooden bridge
across the stream, where the stream tumbled over broken rocks, and
roared away among the trees. In the quiet air, there was a sound
of distant singing - shepherd voices; but, as one bright evening
cloud floated midway along the mountain's-side, I could almost have
believed it came from there, and was not earthly music. All at
once, in this serenity, great Nature spoke to me; and soothed me to
lay down my weary head upon the grass, and weep as I had not wept
yet, since Dora died!
I had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes
before, and had strolled out of the village to read them while my
supper was making ready. Other packets had missed me, and I had
received none for a long time. Beyond a line or two, to say that
I was well, and had arrived at such a place, I had not had
fortitude or constancy to write a letter since I left home.
The packet was in my hand. I opened it, and read the writing of
Agnes.
She was happy and useful, was prospering as she had hoped. That
was all she told me of herself. The rest referred to me.
She gave me no advice; she urged no duty on me; she only told me,
in her own fervent manner, what her trust in me was. She knew (she
said) how such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good. She
knew how trial and emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was
sure that in my every purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher
tendency, through the grief I had undergone. She, who so gloried
in my fame, and so looked forward to its augmentation, well knew
that I would labour on. She knew that in me, sorrow could not be
weakness, but must be strength. As the endurance of my childish
days had done its part to make me what I was, so greater calamities
would nerve me on, to be yet better than I was; and so, as they had
taught me, would I teach others. She commended me to God, who had
taken my innocent darling to His rest; and in her sisterly
affection cherished me always, and was always at my side go where
I would; proud of what I had done, but infinitely prouder yet of
what I was reserved to do.
I put the letter in my breast, and thought what had I been an hour
ago! When I heard the voices die away, and saw the quiet evening
cloud grow dim, and all the colours in the valley fade, and the
golden snow upon the mountain-tops become a remote part of the pale
night sky, yet felt that the night was passing from my mind, and
all its shadows clearing, there was no name for the love I bore
her, dearer to me, henceforward, than ever until then.
I read her letter many times. I wrote to her before I slept. I
told her that I had been in sore need of her help; that without her
I was not, and I never had been, what she thought me; but that she
inspired me to be that, and I would try.
I did try. In three months more, a year would have passed since
the beginning of my sorrow. I determined to make no resolutions
until the expiration of those three months, but to try. I lived in
that valley, and its neighbourhood, all the time.
The three months gone, I resolved to remain away from home for some
time longer; to settle myself for the present in Switzerland, which
was growing dear to me in the remembrance of that evening; to
resume my pen; to work.
I resorted humbly whither Agnes had commended me; I sought out
Nature, never sought in vain; and I admitted to my breast the human
interest I had lately shrunk from. It was not long, before I had
almost as many friends in the valley as in Yarmouth: and when I
left it, before the winter set in, for Geneva, and came back in the
spring, their cordial greetings had a homely sound to me, although
they were not conveyed in English words.
I worked early and late, patiently and hard. I wrote a Story, with
a purpose growing, not remotely, out of my experience, and sent it
to Traddles, and he arranged for its publication very
advantageously for me; and the tidings of my growing reputation
began to reach me from travellers whom I encountered by chance.
After some rest and change, I fell to work, in my old ardent way,
on a new fancy, which took strong possession of me. As I advanced
in the execution of this task, I felt it more and more, and roused
my utmost energies to do it well. This was my third work of
fiction. It was not half written, when, in an interval of rest, I
thought of returning home.
For a long time, though studying and working patiently, I had
accustomed myself to robust exercise. My health, severely impaired
when I left England, was quite restored. I had seen much. I had
been in many countries, and I hope I had improved my store of
knowledge.
I have now recalled all that I think it needful to recall here, of
this term of absence - with one reservation. I have made it, thus
far, with no purpose of suppressing any of my thoughts; for, as I
have elsewhere said, this narrative is my written memory. I have
desired to keep the most secret current of my mind apart, and to
the last. I enter on it now. I cannot so completely penetrate the
mystery of my own heart, as to know when I began to think that I
might have set its earliest and brightest hopes on Agnes. I cannot
say at what stage of my grief it first became associated with the
reflection, that, in my wayward boyhood, I had thrown away the
treasure of her love. I believe I may have heard some whisper of
that distant thought, in the old unhappy loss or want of something
never to be realized, of which I had been sensible. But the
thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when I
was left so sad and lonely in the world.
If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the
weakness of my desolation, have betrayed this. It was what I
remotely dreaded when I was first impelled to stay away from
England. I could not have borne to lose the smallest portion of
her sisterly affection; yet, in that betrayal, I should have set a
constraint between us hitherto unknown.
I could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded me
had grown up in my own free choice and course. That if she had
ever loved me with another love - and I sometimes thought the time
was when she might have done so - I had cast it away. It was
nothing, now, that I had accustomed myself to think of her, when we
were both mere children, as one who was far removed from my wild
fancies. I had bestowed my passionate tenderness upon another
object; and what I might have done, I had not done; and what Agnes
was to me, I and her own noble heart had made her.
In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I
tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man,
I did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when
I might possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so
blessed as to marry her. But, as time wore on, this shadowy
prospect faded, and departed from me. If she had ever loved me,
then, I should hold her the more sacred; remembering the
confidences I had reposed in her, her knowledge of my errant heart,
the sacrifice she must have made to be my friend and sister, and
the victory she had won. If she had never loved me, could I
believe that she would love me now?
I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and
fortitude; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have
been to her, or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long
ago, I was not now, and she was not. The time was past. I had let
it go by, and had deservedly lost her.
That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with
unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that
it was required of me, in right and honour, to keep away from
myself, with shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the
withering of my hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they
were bright and fresh - which consideration was at the root of
every thought I had concerning her - is all equally true. I made
no effort to conceal from myself, now, that I loved her, that I was
devoted to her; but I brought the assurance home to myself, that it
was now too late, and that our long-subsisting relation must be
undisturbed.
I had thought, much and often, of my Dora's shadowing out to me
what might have happened, in those years that were destined not to
try us; I had considered how the things that never happen, are
often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are
accomplished. The very years she spoke of, were realities now, for
my correction; and would have been, one day, a little later
perhaps, though we had parted in our earliest folly. I endeavoured
to convert what might have been between myself and Agnes, into a
means of making me more self-denying, more resolved, more conscious
of myself, and my defects and errors. Thus, through the reflection
that it might have been, I arrived at the conviction that it could
never be.
These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the
shifting quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to
the time of my return home, three years afterwards. Three years
had elapsed since the sailing of the emigrant ship; when, at that
same hour of sunset, and in the same place, I stood on the deck of
the packet vessel that brought me home, looking on the rosy water
where I had seen the image of that ship reflected.
Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by.
And home was very dear to me, and Agnes too - but she was not mine
- she was never to be mine. She might have been, but that was
past!
CHAPTER 59
RETURN
I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and
raining, and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in
a year. I walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I
found a coach; and although the very house-fronts, looking on the
swollen gutters, were like old friends to me, I could not but admit
that they were very dingy friends.
I have often remarked - I suppose everybody has - that one's going
away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change
in it. As I looked out of the coach window, and observed that an
old house on Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by
painter, carpenter, or bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled
down in my absence; and that a neighbouring street, of
time-honoured insalubrity and inconvenience, was being drained and
widened; I half expected to find St. Paul's Cathedral looking
older.
For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My
aunt had long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun
to get into some little practice at the Bar, in the very first term
after my departure. He had chambers in Gray's Inn, now; and had
told me, in his last letters, that he was not without hopes of
being soon united to the dearest girl in the world.
They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my
returning so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have
the pleasure of taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse
enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome,
and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets.
The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did
something for me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray's Inn
Coffee-house, I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first,
that so-different time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and
reminded me of the changes that had come to pass since then; but
that was natural.
'Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?' I asked the
waiter, as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire.
'Holborn Court, sir. Number two.'
'Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I
believe?' said I.
'Well, sir,' returned the waiter, 'probably he has, sir; but I am
not aware of it myself.'
This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a
waiter of more authority - a stout, potential old man, with a
double chin, in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a
place like a churchwarden's pew, at the end of the coffee-room,
where he kept company with a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and
other books and papers.
'Mr. Traddles,' said the spare waiter. 'Number two in the Court.'
The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me.
'I was inquiring,' said I, 'whether Mr. Traddles, at number two in
the Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?'
'Never heard his name,' said the waiter, in a rich husky voice.
I felt quite apologetic for Traddles.
'He's a young man, sure?' said the portentous waiter, fixing his
eyes severely on me. 'How long has he been in the Inn?'
'Not above three years,' said I.
The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden's pew for
forty years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He
asked me what I would have for dinner?
I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on
Traddles's account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly
ordered a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing
on his obscurity.
As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help
thinking that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the
flower he was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a
prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air.
I glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no
doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy
- if he ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the
shining tables, where I saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths
of old mahogany; and at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimming
or cleaning; and at the comfortable green curtains, with their pure
brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes; and at the two large coal
fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of decanters, burly as if
with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below;
and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult
indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bedroom to change my
wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscoted apartment
(which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember), and
the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable
gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly
frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth.
I came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the
meal, and the orderly silence of the place - which was bare of
guests, the Long Vacation not yet being over - were eloquent on the
audacity of Traddles, and his small hopes of a livelihood for
twenty years to come.
I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed
my hopes for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He
came near me no more; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in
long gaiters, to meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come
out of the cellar of its own accord, for he gave no order. The
second waiter informed me, in a whisper, that this old gentleman
was a retired conveyancer living in the Square, and worth a mint of
money, which it was expected he would leave to his laundress's
daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had a service of
plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more than
one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by
mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost;
and settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him.
Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I
dispatched my dinner, in a manner not at all calculated to raise me
in the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back
way. Number two in the Court was soon reached; and an inscription
on the door-post informing me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of
chambers on the top storey, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old
staircase I found it to be, feebly lighted on each landing by a
club- headed little oil wick, dying away in a little dungeon of
dirty glass.
In the course of my stumbling upstairs, I fancied I heard a
pleasant sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or
barrister, or attorney's clerk or barrister's clerk, but of two or
three merry girls. Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to
put my foot in a hole where the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn
had left a plank deficient, I fell down with some noise, and when
I recovered my footing all was silent.
Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my
heart beat high when I found the outer door, which had Mr. TRADDLES
painted on it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within
ensued, but nothing else. I therefore knocked again.
A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was
very much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to
prove it legally, presented himself.
'Is Mr. Traddles within?' I said.
'Yes, sir, but he's engaged.'
'I want to see him.'
After a moment's survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let
me in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me,
first, into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little
sitting-room; where I came into the presence of my old friend (also
out of breath), seated at a table, and bending over papers.
'Good God!' cried Traddles, looking up. 'It's Copperfield!' and
rushed into my arms, where I held him tight.
'All well, my dear Traddles?'
'All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!'
We cried with pleasure, both of us.
'My dear fellow,' said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his
excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation, 'my dearest
Copperfield, my long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to
see you! How brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honour,
I never was so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!'
I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable
to speak, at first.
'My dear fellow!' said Traddles. 'And grown so famous! My glorious
Copperfield! Good gracious me, WHEN did you come, WHERE have you
come from, WHAT have you been doing?'
Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had
clapped me into an easy-chair by the fire, all this time
impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my
neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild delusion that it was
a great-coat. Without putting down the poker, he now hugged me
again; and I hugged him; and, both laughing, and both wiping our
eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands across the hearth.
'To think,' said Traddles, 'that you should have been so nearly
coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the
ceremony!'
'What ceremony, my dear Traddles?'
'Good gracious me!' cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old
way. 'Didn't you get my last letter?'
'Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony.'
'Why, my dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, sticking his hair
upright with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, 'I
am married!'
'Married!' I cried joyfully.
'Lord bless me, yes,!' said Traddles - 'by the Reverend Horace - to
Sophy - down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she's behind the
window curtain! Look here!'
To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same
instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And
a more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I
believe (as I could not help saying on the spot) the world never
saw. I kissed her as an old acquaintance should, and wished them
joy with all my might of heart.
'Dear me,' said Traddles, 'what a delightful re-union this is! You
are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how
happy I am!'
'And so am I,' said I.
'And I am sure I am!' said the blushing and laughing Sophy.
'We are all as happy as possible!' said Traddles. 'Even the girls
are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them!'
'Forgot?' said I.
'The girls,' said Traddles. 'Sophy's sisters. They are staying
with us. They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is,
when - was it you that tumbled upstairs, Copperfield?'
'It was,' said I, laughing.
'Well then, when you tumbled upstairs,' said Traddles, 'I was
romping with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss
in the Corner. But as that wouldn't do in Westminster Hall, and as
it wouldn't look quite professional if they were seen by a client,
they decamped. And they are now - listening, I have no doubt,'
said Traddles, glancing at the door of another room.
'I am sorry,' said I, laughing afresh, 'to have occasioned such a
dispersion.'
'Upon my word,' rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, 'if you had
seen them running away, and running back again, after you had
knocked, to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair,
and going on in the maddest manner, you wouldn't have said so. My
love, will you fetch the girls?'
Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room
with a peal of laughter.
'Really musical, isn't it, my dear Copperfield?' said Traddles.
'It's very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms.
To an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his
life, you know, it's positively delicious. It's charming. Poor
things, they have had a great loss in Sophy - who, I do assure you,
Copperfield is, and ever was, the dearest girl! - and it gratifies
me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. The
society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not
professional, but it's very delightful.'
Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the
goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what
he had said, I expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that
evidently relieved and pleased him greatly.
'But then,' said Traddles, 'our domestic arrangements are, to say
the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield.
Even Sophy's being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other
place of abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite
prepared to rough it. And Sophy's an extraordinary manager! You'll
be surprised how those girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly
know how it's done!'
'Are many of the young ladies with you?' I inquired.
'The eldest, the Beauty is here,' said Traddles, in a low
confidential voice, 'Caroline. And Sarah's here - the one I
mentioned to you as having something the matter with her spine, you
know. Immensely better! And the two youngest that Sophy educated
are with us. And Louisa's here.'
'Indeed!' cried I.
'Yes,' said Traddles. 'Now the whole set - I mean the chambers -
is only three rooms; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the most
wonderful way, and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in
that room,' said Traddles, pointing. 'Two in that.'
I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation
remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me.
'Well!' said Traddles, 'we are prepared to rough it, as I said just
now, and we did improvise a bed last week, upon the floor here.
But there's a little room in the roof - a very nice room, when
you're up there - which Sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and
that's our room at present. It's a capital little gipsy sort of
place. There's quite a view from it.'
'And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles!' said I.
'How rejoiced I am!'
'Thank you, my dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, as we shook hands
once more. 'Yes, I am as happy as it's possible to be. There's
your old friend, you see,' said Traddles, nodding triumphantly at
the flower-pot and stand; 'and there's the table with the marble
top! All the other furniture is plain and serviceable, you
perceive. And as to plate, Lord bless you, we haven't so much as
a tea-spoon.'
'All to be earned?' said I, cheerfully.
'Exactly so,' replied Traddles, 'all to be earned. Of course we
have something in the shape of tea-spoons, because we stir our tea.
But they're Britannia metal."
'The silver will be the brighter when it comes,' said I.
'The very thing we say!' cried Traddles. 'You see, my dear
Copperfield,' falling again into the low confidential tone, 'after
I had delivered my argument in DOE dem. JIPES versus WIGZIELL,
which did me great service with the profession, I went down into
Devonshire, and had some serious conversation in private with the
Reverend Horace. I dwelt upon the fact that Sophy - who I do
assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest girl! -'
'I am certain she is!' said I.
'She is, indeed!' rejoined Traddles. 'But I am afraid I am
wandering from the subject. Did I mention the Reverend Horace?'
'You said that you dwelt upon the fact -'
'True! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long
period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was
more than content to take me - in short,' said Traddles, with his
old frank smile, 'on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very
well. I then proposed to the Reverend Horace - who is a most
excellent clergyman, Copperfield, and ought to be a Bishop; or at
least ought to have enough to live upon, without pinching himself
- that if I could turn the corner, say of two hundred and fifty
pounds, in one year; and could see my way pretty clearly to that,
or something better, next year; and could plainly furnish a little
place like this, besides; then, and in that case, Sophy and I
should be united. I took the liberty of representing that we had
been patient for a good many years; and that the circumstance of
Sophy's being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not to operate
with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in life -
don't you see?'
'Certainly it ought not,' said I.
'I am glad you think so, Copperfield,' rejoined Traddles, 'because,
without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think parents,
and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such
cases. Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was,
to be useful to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and
anything should happen to him - I refer to the Reverend Horace -'
'I understand,' said I.
'- Or to Mrs. Crewler - it would be the utmost gratification of my
wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most
admirable manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and
undertook to obtain the consent of Mrs. Crewler to this
arrangement. They had a dreadful time of it with her. It mounted
from her legs into her chest, and then into her head -'
'What mounted?' I asked.
'Her grief,' replied Traddles, with a serious look. 'Her feelings
generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very
superior woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs
to harass her, usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it
mounted to the chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded
the whole system in a most alarming manner. However, they brought
her through it by unremitting and affectionate attention; and we
were married yesterday six weeks. You have no idea what a Monster
I felt, Copperfield, when I saw the whole family crying and
fainting away in every direction! Mrs. Crewler couldn't see me
before we left - couldn't forgive me, then, for depriving her of
her child - but she is a good creature, and has done so since. I
had a delightful letter from her, only this morning.'
'And in short, my dear friend,' said I, 'you feel as blest as you
deserve to feel!'
'Oh! That's your partiality!' laughed Traddles. 'But, indeed, I am
in a most enviable state. I work hard, and read Law insatiably.
I get up at five every morning, and don't mind it at all. I hide
the girls in the daytime, and make merry with them in the evening.
And I assure you I am quite sorry that they are going home on
Tuesday, which is the day before the first day of Michaelmas Term.
But here,' said Traddles, breaking off in his confidence, and
speaking aloud, 'ARE the girls! Mr. Copperfield, Miss Crewler -
Miss Sarah - Miss Louisa - Margaret and Lucy!'
They were a perfect nest of roses; they looked so wholesome and
fresh. They were all pretty, and Miss Caroline was very handsome;
but there was a loving, cheerful, fireside quality in Sophy's
bright looks, which was better than that, and which assured me that
my friend had chosen well. We all sat round the fire; while the
sharp boy, who I now divined had lost his breath in putting the
papers out, cleared them away again, and produced the tea-things.
After that, he retired for the night, shutting the outer door upon
us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, with perfect pleasure and composure
beaming from her household eyes, having made the tea, then quietly
made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire.
She had seen Agnes, she told me while she was toasting. 'Tom' had
taken her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen
my aunt, too; and both my aunt and Agnes were well, and they had
all talked of nothing but me. 'Tom' had never had me out of his
thoughts, she really believed, all the time I had been away. 'Tom'
was the authority for everything. 'Tom' was evidently the idol of
her life; never to be shaken on his pedestal by any commotion;
always to be believed in, and done homage to with the whole faith
of her heart, come what might.
The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the
Beauty, pleased me very much. I don't know that I thought it very
reasonable; but I thought it very delightful, and essentially a
part of their character. If Traddles ever for an instant missed
the tea-spoons that were still to be won, I have no doubt it was
when he handed the Beauty her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife
could have got up any self-assertion against anyone, I am satisfied
it could only have been because she was the Beauty's sister. A few
slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which
I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly considered, by Traddles
and his wife, as her birthright and natural endowment. If she had
been born a Queen Bee, and they labouring Bees, they could not have
been more satisfied of that.
But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these
girls, and their submission of themselves to all their whims, was
the pleasantest little testimony to their own worth I could have
desired to see. If Traddles were addressed as 'a darling', once in
the course of that evening; and besought to bring something here,
or carry something there, or take something up, or put something
down, or find something, or fetch something, he was so addressed,
by one or other of his sisters-in-law, at least twelve times in an
hour. Neither could they do anything without Sophy. Somebody's
hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up. Somebody
forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but Sophy could hum
that tune right. Somebody wanted to recall the name of a place in
Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to be
written home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before
breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of
knitting, and no one but Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the
right direction. They were entire mistresses of the place, and
Sophy and Traddles waited on them. How many children Sophy could
have taken care of in her time, I can't imagine; but she seemed to
be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to
a child in the English tongue; and she sang dozens to order with
the clearest little voice in the world, one after another (every
sister issuing directions for a different tune, and the Beauty
generally striking in last), so that I was quite fascinated. The
best of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, all the
sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy and
Traddles. I am sure, when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming
out to walk with me to the coffee-house, I thought I had never seen
an obstinate head of hair, or any other head of hair, rolling about
in such a shower of kisses.
Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with
pleasure, for a long time after I got back and had wished Traddles
good night. If I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set
of chambers, in that withered Gray's Inn, they could not have
brightened it half so much. The idea of those Devonshire girls,
among the dry law-stationers and the attorneys' offices; and of the
tea and toast, and children's songs, in that grim atmosphere of
pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars, brief and
draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of costs;
seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the
Sultan's famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys,
and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the golden
water into Gray's Inn Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken
leave of Traddles for the night, and come back to the coffee-house,
with a great change in my despondency about him. I began to think
he would get on, in spite of all the many orders of chief waiters
in England.
Drawing a chair before one of the coffee-room fires to think about
him at my leisure, I gradually fell from the consideration of his
happiness to tracing prospects in the live-coals, and to thinking,
as they broke and changed, of the principal vicissitudes and
separations that had marked my life. I had not seen a coal fire,
since I had left England three years ago: though many a wood fire
had I watched, as it crumbled into hoary ashes, and mingled with
the feathery heap upon the hearth, which not inaptly figured to me,
in my despondency, my own dead hopes.
I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could
contemplate the future in a brave spirit. Home, in its best sense,
was for me no more. She in whom I might have inspired a dearer
love, I had taught to be my sister. She would marry, and would
have new claimants on her tenderness; and in doing it, would never
know the love for her that had grown up in my heart. It was right
that I should pay the forfeit of my headlong passion. What I
reaped, I had sown.
I was thinking. And had I truly disciplined my heart to this, and
could I resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home
which she had calmly held in mine, - when I found my eyes resting
on a countenance that might have arisen out of the fire, in its
association with my early remembrances.
Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted
in the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper
in the shadow of an opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in
years by this time; but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had
worn so easily, that I thought he looked at that moment just as he
might have looked when he sat in our parlour, waiting for me to be
born.
Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had
never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with
his little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at
his elbow. He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he
seemed to apologize to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of
reading it.
I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, 'How do you do, Mr.
Chillip?'
He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a
stranger, and replied, in his slow way, 'I thank you, sir, you are
very good. Thank you, sir. I hope YOU are well.'
'You don't remember me?' said I.
'Well, sir,' returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking
his head as he surveyed me, 'I have a kind of an impression that
something in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but I
couldn't lay my hand upon your name, really.'
'And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself,' I returned.
'Did I indeed, sir?' said Mr. Chillip. 'Is it possible that I had
the honour, sir, of officiating when -?'
'Yes,' said I.
'Dear me!' cried Mr. Chillip. 'But no doubt you are a good deal
changed since then, sir?'
'Probably,' said I.
'Well, sir,' observed Mr. Chillip, 'I hope you'll excuse me, if I
am compelled to ask the favour of your name?'
On my telling him my name, he was really moved. He quite shook
hands with me - which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual
course being to slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in
advance of his hip, and evince the greatest discomposure when
anybody grappled with it. Even now, he put his hand in his
coat-pocket as soon as he could disengage it, and seemed relieved
when he had got it safe back.
'Dear me, sir!' said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one
side. 'And it's Mr. Copperfield, is it? Well, sir, I think I
should have known you, if I had taken the liberty of looking more
closely at you. There's a strong resemblance between you and your
poor father, sir.'
'I never had the happiness of seeing my father,' I observed.
'Very true, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. 'And very
much to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant,
sir,' said Mr. Chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, 'down
in our part of the country, of your fame. There must be great
excitement here, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the
forehead with his forefinger. 'You must find it a trying
occupation, sir!'
'What is your part of the country now?' I asked, seating myself
near him.
'I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmund's, sir,'
said Mr. Chillip. 'Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little property in
that neighbourhood, under her father's will, I bought a practice
down there, in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My
daughter is growing quite a tall lass now, sir,' said Mr. Chillip,
giving his little head another little shake. 'Her mother let down
two tucks in her frocks only last week. Such is time, you see,
sir!'
As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made
this reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would
keep him company with another. 'Well, sir,' he returned, in his
slow way, 'it's more than I am accustomed to; but I can't deny
myself the pleasure of your conversation. It seems but yesterday
that I had the honour of attending you in the measles. You came
through them charmingly, sir!'
I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was
soon produced. 'Quite an uncommon dissipation!' said Mr. Chillip,
stirring it, 'but I can't resist so extraordinary an occasion. You
have no family, sir?'
I shook my head.
'I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago,'
said Mr. Chillip. 'I heard it from your father-in-law's sister.
Very decided character there, sir?'
'Why, yes,' said I, 'decided enough. Where did you see her, Mr.
Chillip?'
'Are you not aware, sir,' returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest
smile, 'that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?'
'No,' said I.
'He is indeed, sir!' said Mr. Chillip. 'Married a young lady of
that part, with a very good little property, poor thing. - And
this action of the brain now, sir? Don't you find it fatigue you?'
said Mr. Chillip, looking at me like an admiring Robin.
I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. 'I was
aware of his being married again. Do you attend the family?' I
asked.
'Not regularly. I have been called in,' he replied. 'Strong
phrenological developments of the organ of firmness, in Mr.
Murdstone and his sister, sir.'
I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was
emboldened by that, and the negus together, to give his head
several short shakes, and thoughtfully exclaim, 'Ah, dear me! We
remember old times, Mr. Copperfield!'
'And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are
they?' said I.
'Well, sir,' replied Mr. Chillip, 'a medical man, being so much in
families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his
profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir: both as
to this life and the next.'
'The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare
say,' I returned: 'what are they doing as to this?'
Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it.
'She was a charming woman, sir!' he observed in a plaintive manner.
'The present Mrs. Murdstone?'
A charming woman indeed, sir,' said Mr. Chillip; 'as amiable, I am
sure, as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip's opinion is, that her
spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is
all but melancholy mad. And the ladies,' observed Mr. Chillip,
timorously, 'are great observers, sir.'
'I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable
mould, Heaven help her!' said I. 'And she has been.'
'Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you,'
said Mr. Chillip; 'but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be
considered forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that
since the sister came to help, the brother and sister between them
have nearly reduced her to a state of imbecility?'
I told him I could easily believe it.
'I have no hesitation in saying,' said Mr. Chillip, fortifying
himself with another sip of negus, 'between you and me, sir, that
her mother died of it - or that tyranny, gloom, and worry have made
Mrs. Murdstone nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir,
before marriage, and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They
go about with her, now, more like her keepers than her husband and
sister-in-law. That was Mrs. Chillip's remark to me, only last
week. And I assure you, sir, the ladies are great observers. Mrs.
Chillip herself is a great observer!'
'Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in
such association) religious still?' I inquired.
'You anticipate, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite
red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. 'One of
Mrs. Chillip's most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip,' he
proceeded, in the calmest and slowest manner, 'quite electrified
me, by pointing out that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself,
and calls it the Divine Nature. You might have knocked me down on
the flat of my back, sir, with the feather of a pen, I assure you,
when Mrs. Chillip said so. The ladies are great observers, sir?'
'Intuitively,' said I, to his extreme delight.
'I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir,' he
rejoined. 'It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical
opinion, I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses
sometimes, and it is said, - in short, sir, it is said by Mrs.
Chillip, - that the darker tyrant he has lately been, the more
ferocious is his doctrine.'
'I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right,' said I.
'Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say,' pursued the meekest of
little men, much encouraged, 'that what such people miscall their
religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance. And do
you know I must say, sir,' he continued, mildly laying his head on
one side, 'that I DON'T find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone
in the New Testament?'
'I never found it either!' said I.
'In the meantime, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, 'they are much disliked;
and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them
to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in
our neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo
a continual punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon
their own hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now,
sir, about that brain of yours, if you'll excuse my returning to
it. Don't you expose it to a good deal of excitement, sir?'
I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip's own
brain, under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from
this topic to his own affairs, on which, for the next half-hour, he
was quite loquacious; giving me to understand, among other pieces
of information, that he was then at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house to
lay his professional evidence before a Commission of Lunacy,
touching the state of mind of a patient who had become deranged
from excessive drinking.
'And I assure you, sir,' he said, 'I am extremely nervous on such
occasions. I could not support being what is called Bullied, sir.
It would quite unman me. Do you know it was some time before I
recovered the conduct of that alarming lady, on the night of your
birth, Mr. Copperfield?'
I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that
night, early in the morning; and that she was one of the most
tender-hearted and excellent of women, as he would know full well
if he knew her better. The mere notion of the possibility of his
ever seeing her again, appeared to terrify him. He replied with a
small pale smile, 'Is she so, indeed, sir? Really?' and almost
immediately called for a candle, and went to bed, as if he were not
quite safe anywhere else. He did not actually stagger under the
negus; but I should think his placid little pulse must have made
two or three more beats in a minute, than it had done since the
great night of my aunt's disappointment, when she struck at him
with her bonnet.
Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next
day on the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt's old
parlour while she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was
received by her, and Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as
housekeeper, with open arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily
amused, when we began to talk composedly, by my account of my
meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of his holding her in such dread
remembrance; and both she and Peggotty had a great deal to say
about my poor mother's second husband, and 'that murdering woman of
a sister', - on whom I think no pain or penalty would have induced
my aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper Name, or any other
designation.
CHAPTER 60
AGNES
My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night.
How the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and
hopefully; how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums
of money, on account of those 'pecuniary liabilities', in reference
to which he had been so business-like as between man and man; how
Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to
Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by
entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper; and how my
aunt had finally set her seal on the same great principle, by
aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony
with her presence; were among our topics - already more or less
familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick, as usual,
was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied
himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept
King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance
of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her
life that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous
restraint; and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she
could ever fully know what he was.
'And when, Trot,' said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we
sat in our old way before the fire, 'when are you going over to
Canterbury?'
'I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, aunt, unless
you will go with me?'
'No!' said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. 'I mean to stay where
I am.'
Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through
Canterbury today without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone
but her.
She was pleased, but answered, 'Tut, Trot; MY old bones would have
kept till tomorrow!' and softly patted my hand again, as I sat
looking thoughtfully at the fire.
Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes,
without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been
occupied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had
failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the
less regrets. 'Oh, Trot,' I seemed to hear my aunt say once more;
and I understood her better now - 'Blind, blind, blind!'
We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I
found that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had
followed the current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to
track now, wilful as it had been once.
'You will find her father a white-haired old man,' said my aunt,
'though a better man in all other respects - a reclaimed man.
Neither will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys,
and sorrows, with his one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me,
child, such things must shrink very much, before they can be
measured off in that way.'
'Indeed they must,' said I.
'You will find her,' pursued my aunt, 'as good, as beautiful, as
earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew
higher praise, Trot, I would bestow it on her.'
There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. Oh,
how had I strayed so far away!
'If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like
herself,' said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes
with tears, 'Heaven knows, her life will be well employed! Useful
and happy, as she said that day! How could she be otherwise than
useful and happy!'
'Has Agnes any -' I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking.
'Well? Hey? Any what?' said my aunt, sharply.
'Any lover,' said I.
'A score,' cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. 'She
might have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been
gone!'
'No doubt,' said I. 'No doubt. But has she any lover who is
worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other.'
My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand.
Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said:
'I suspect she has an attachment, Trot.'
'A prosperous one?' said I.
'Trot,' returned my aunt gravely, 'I can't say. I have no right to
tell you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I
suspect it.'
She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her
tremble), that I felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my
late thoughts. I summoned all the resolutions I had made, in all
those many days and nights, and all those many conflicts of my
heart.
'If it should be so,' I began, 'and I hope it is-'
'I don't know that it is,' said my aunt curtly. 'You must not be
ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very
slight, perhaps. I have no right to speak.'
'If it should be so,' I repeated, 'Agnes will tell me at her own
good time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, aunt, will
not be reluctant to confide in me.'
My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned
them upon me; and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and
by she put her other hand on my shoulder; and so we both sat,
looking into the past, without saying another word, until we parted
for the night.
I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old
school-days. I cannot say that I was yet quite happy, in the hope
that I was gaining a victory over myself; even in the prospect of
so soon looking on her face again.
The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the
quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's book to me. I went on
foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to
enter. I returned; and looking, as I passed, through the low
window of the turret-room where first Uriah Heep, and afterwards
Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit, saw that it was a little
parlour now, and that there was no office. Otherwise the staid old
house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had
been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid who admitted
me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from
a friend abroad, was there; and I was shown up the grave old
staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the
unchanged drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read
together, were on their shelves; and the desk where I had laboured
at my lessons, many a night, stood yet at the same old corner of
the table. All the little changes that had crept in when the Heeps
were there, were changed again. Everything was as it used to be,
in the happy time.
I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the
opposite houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet
afternoons, when I first came there; and how I had used to
speculate about the people who appeared at any of the windows, and
had followed them with my eyes up and down stairs, while women went
clicking along the pavement in pattens, and the dull rain fell in
slanting lines, and poured out of the water-spout yonder, and
flowed into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch the
tramps, as they came into the town on those wet evenings, at dusk,
and limped past, with their bundles drooping over their shoulders
at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me; fraught, as then,
with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and briar, and the
sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome
journey.
The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made me start
and turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards
me. She stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her
in my arms.
'Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon you.'
'No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood!'
'Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!'
I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both
silent. Presently we sat down, side by side; and her angel-face
was turned upon me with the welcome I had dreamed of, waking and
sleeping, for whole years.
She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good, - I owed
her so much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no
utterance for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank
her, tried to tell her (as I had often done in letters) what an
influence she had upon me; but all my efforts were in vain. My
love and joy were dumb.
With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me
back to the time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had
visited, in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora's
grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched
the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one
jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music,
and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. How could I, when,
blended with it all, was her dear self, the better angel of my
life?
'And you, Agnes,' I said, by and by. 'Tell me of yourself. You
have hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of
time!'
'What should I tell?' she answered, with her radiant smile. 'Papa
is well. You see us here, quiet in our own home; our anxieties set
at rest, our home restored to us; and knowing that, dear Trotwood,
you know all.'
'All, Agnes?' said I.
She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face.
'Is there nothing else, Sister?' I said.
Her colour, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again.
She smiled; with a quiet sadness, I thought; and shook her head.
I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at; for,
sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I
was to discipline my heart, and do my duty to her. I saw, however,
that she was uneasy, and I let it pass.
'You have much to do, dear Agnes?'
'With my school?' said she, looking up again, in all her bright
composure.
'Yes. It is laborious, is it not?'
'The labour is so pleasant,' she returned, 'that it is scarcely
grateful in me to call it by that name.'
'Nothing good is difficult to you,' said I.
Her colour came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her
head, I saw the same sad smile.
'You will wait and see papa,' said Agnes, cheerfully, 'and pass the
day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room? We always
call it yours.'
I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt's at
night; but I would pass the day there, joyfully.
'I must be a prisoner for a little while,' said Agnes, 'but here
are the old books, Trotwood, and the old music.'
'Even the old flowers are here,' said I, looking round; 'or the old
kinds.'
'I have found a pleasure,' returned Agnes, smiling, 'while you have
been absent, in keeping everything as it used to be when we were
children. For we were very happy then, I think.'
'Heaven knows we were!' said I.
'And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother,' said
Agnes, with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, 'has been
a welcome companion. Even this,' showing me the basket-trifle,
full of keys, still hanging at her side, 'seems to jingle a kind of
old tune!'
She smiled again, and went out at the door by which she had come.
It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care.
It was all that I had left myself, and it was a treasure. If I
once shook the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage, in
virtue of which it was given to me, it was lost, and could never be
recovered. I set this steadily before myself. The better I loved
her, the more it behoved me never to forget it.
I walked through the streets; and, once more seeing my old
adversary the butcher - now a constable, with his staff hanging up
in the shop - went down to look at the place where I had fought
him; and there meditated on Miss Shepherd and the eldest Miss
Larkins, and all the idle loves and likings, and dislikings, of
that time. Nothing seemed to have survived that time but Agnes;
and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and higher.
When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home, from a garden he had,
a couple of miles or so out of town, where he now employed himself
almost every day. I found him as my aunt had described him. We
sat down to dinner, with some half-dozen little girls; and he
seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall.
The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground
in my memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr.
Wickfield taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went up-stairs;
where Agnes and her little charges sang and played, and worked.
After tea the children left us; and we three sat together, talking
of the bygone days.
'My part in them,' said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, 'has
much matter for regret - for deep regret, and deep contrition,
Trotwood, you well know. But I would not cancel it, if it were in
my power.'
I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him.
'I should cancel with it,' he pursued, 'such patience and devotion,
such fidelity, such a child's love, as I must not forget, no! even
to forget myself.'
'I understand you, sir,' I softly said. 'I hold it - I have always
held it - in veneration.'
'But no one knows, not even you,' he returned, 'how much she has
done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear
Agnes!'
She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was
very, very pale.
'Well, well!' he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some
trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my
aunt had told me. 'Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her
mother. Has anyone?'
'Never, sir.'
'It's not much - though it was much to suffer. She married me in
opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed
him to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was
a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed
her. He broke her heart.'
Agnes leaned upon his shoulder, and stole her arm about his neck.
'She had an affectionate and gentle heart,' he said; 'and it was
broken. I knew its tender nature very well. No one could, if I
did not. She loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always
labouring, in secret, under this distress; and being delicate and
downcast at the time of his last repulse - for it was not the
first, by many - pined away and died. She left me Agnes, two weeks
old; and the grey hair that you recollect me with, when you first
came.' He kissed Agnes on her cheek.
'My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all
unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of
myself, Trotwood, but of her mother, and of her. If I give you any
clue to what I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I
know. What Agnes is, I need not say. I have always read something
of her poor mother's story, in her character; and so I tell it you
tonight, when we three are again together, after such great
changes. I have told it all.'
His bowed head, and her angel-face and filial duty, derived a more
pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted
anything by which to mark this night of our re-union, I should have
found it in this.
Agnes rose up from her father's side, before long; and going softly
to her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often
listened in that place.
'Have you any intention of going away again?' Agnes asked me, as I
was standing by.
'What does my sister say to that?'
'I hope not.'
'Then I have no such intention, Agnes.'
'I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me,' she said,
mildly. 'Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of
doing good; and if I could spare my brother,' with her eyes upon
me, 'perhaps the time could not.'
'What I am, you have made me, Agnes. You should know best.'
'I made you, Trotwood?'
'Yes! Agnes, my dear girl!' I said, bending over her. 'I tried to
tell you, when we met today, something that has been in my thoughts
since Dora died. You remember, when you came down to me in our
little room - pointing upward, Agnes?'
'Oh, Trotwood!' she returned, her eyes filled with tears. 'So
loving, so confiding, and so young! Can I ever forget?'
'As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since, you have
ever been to me. Ever pointing upward, Agnes; ever leading me to
something better; ever directing me to higher things!'
She only shook her head; through her tears I saw the same sad quiet
smile.
'And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that
there is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to
know, yet don't know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall
look up to you, and be guided by you, as I have been through the
darkness that is past. Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may
form, whatever changes may come between us, I shall always look to
you, and love you, as I do now, and have always done. You will
always be my solace and resource, as you have always been. Until
I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always before me,
pointing upward!'
She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of
what I said; although I praised her very far beyond her worth.
Then she went on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from
me.
'Do you know, what I have heard tonight, Agnes,' said I, strangely
seems to be a part of the feeling with which I regarded you when I
saw you first - with which I sat beside you in my rough
school-days?'
'You knew I had no mother,' she replied with a smile, 'and felt
kindly towards me.'
'More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost as if I had known this
story, that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened,
surrounding you; something that might have been sorrowful in
someone else (as I can now understand it was), but was not so in
you.'
She softly played on, looking at me still.
'Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?'
'No!'
'Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you
could be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and
never cease to be so, until you ceased to live? - Will you laugh
at such a dream?'
'Oh, no! Oh, no!'
For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in
the start it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and
looking at me with her own calm smile.
As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a
restless memory, I thought of this, and feared she was not happy.
I was not happy; but, thus far, I had faithfully set the seal upon
the Past, and, thinking of her, pointing upward, thought of her as
pointing to that sky above me, where, in the mystery to come, I
might yet love her with a love unknown on earth, and tell her what
the strife had been within me when I loved her here.
CHAPTER 61
I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS
For a time - at all events until my book should be completed, which
would be the work of several months - I took up my abode in my
aunt's house at Dover; and there, sitting in the window from which
I had looked out at the moon upon the sea, when that roof first
gave me shelter, I quietly pursued my task.
In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions only
when their course should incidentally connect itself with the
progress of my story, I do not enter on the aspirations, the
delights, anxieties, and triumphs of my art. That I truly devoted
myself to it with my strongest earnestness, and bestowed upon it
every energy of my soul, I have already said. If the books I have
written be of any worth, they will supply the rest. I shall
otherwise have written to poor purpose, and the rest will be of
interest to no one.
Occasionally, I went to London; to lose myself in the swarm of life
there, or to consult with Traddles on some business point. He had
managed for me, in my absence, with the soundest judgement; and my
worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety began to bring
upon me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom I had
no knowledge - chiefly about nothing, and extremely difficult to
answer - I agreed with Traddles to have my name painted up on his
door. There, the devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels of
letters for me; and there, at intervals, I laboured through them,
like a Home Secretary of State without the salary.
Among this correspondence, there dropped in, every now and then, an
obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking
about the Commons, to practise under cover of my name (if I would
take the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself),
and pay me a percentage on the profits. But I declined these
offers; being already aware that there were plenty of such covert
practitioners in existence, and considering the Commons quite bad
enough, without my doing anything to make it worse.
The girls had gone home, when my name burst into bloom on
Traddles's door; and the sharp boy looked, all day, as if he had
never heard of Sophy, shut up in a back room, glancing down from
her work into a sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it.
But there I always found her, the same bright housewife; often
humming her Devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming up
the stairs, and blunting the sharp boy in his official closet with
melody.
I wondered, at first, why I so often found Sophy writing in a
copy-book; and why she always shut it up when I appeared, and
hurried it into the table-drawer. But the secret soon came out.
One day, Traddles (who had just come home through the drizzling
sleet from Court) took a paper out of his desk, and asked me what
I thought of that handwriting?
'Oh, DON'T, Tom!' cried Sophy, who was warming his slippers before
the fire.
'My dear,' returned Tom, in a delighted state, 'why not? What do
you say to that writing, Copperfield?'
'It's extraordinarily legal and formal,' said I. 'I don't think I
ever saw such a stiff hand.'
'Not like a lady's hand, is it?' said Traddles.
'A lady's!' I repeated. 'Bricks and mortar are more like a lady's
hand!'
Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh, and informed me that it was
Sophy's writing; that Sophy had vowed and declared he would need a
copying-clerk soon, and she would be that clerk; that she had
acquired this hand from a pattern; and that she could throw off -
I forget how many folios an hour. Sophy was very much confused by
my being told all this, and said that when 'Tom' was made a judge
he wouldn't be so ready to proclaim it. Which 'Tom' denied;
averring that he should always be equally proud of it, under all
circumstances.
'What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear
Traddles!' said I, when she had gone away, laughing.
'My dear Copperfield,' returned Traddles, 'she is, without any
exception, the dearest girl! The way she manages this place; her
punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy, and order; her
cheerfulness, Copperfield!'
'Indeed, you have reason to commend her!' I returned. 'You are a
happy fellow. I believe you make yourselves, and each other, two
of the happiest people in the world.'
'I am sure we ARE two of the happiest people,' returned Traddles.
'I admit that, at all events. Bless my soul, when I see her
getting up by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself
in the day's arrangements, going out to market before the clerks
come into the Inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital
little dinners out of the plainest materials, making puddings and
pies, keeping everything in its right place, always so neat and
ornamental herself, sitting up at night with me if it's ever so
late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for me, I
positively sometimes can't believe it, Copperfield!'
He was tender of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put
them on, and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender.
'I positively sometimes can't believe it,' said Traddles. 'Then
our pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite
wonderful! When we are at home here, of an evening, and shut the
outer door, and draw those curtains - which she made - where could
we be more snug? When it's fine, and we go out for a walk in the
evening, the streets abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the
glittering windows of the jewellers' shops; and I show Sophy which
of the diamond-eyed serpents, coiled up on white satin rising
grounds, I would give her if I could afford it; and Sophy shows me
which of the gold watches that are capped and jewelled and
engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal leverescape-
movement, and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if
she could afford it; and we pick out the spoons and forks,
fish-slices, butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer
if we could both afford it; and really we go away as if we had got
them! Then, when we stroll into the squares, and great streets, and
see a house to let, sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would
THAT do, if I was made a judge? And we parcel it out - such a room
for us, such rooms for the girls, and so forth; until we settle to
our satisfaction that it would do, or it wouldn't do, as the case
may be. Sometimes, we go at half-price to the pit of the theatre
- the very smell of which is cheap, in my opinion, at the money -
and there we thoroughly enjoy the play: which Sophy believes every
word of, and so do I. In walking home, perhaps we buy a little bit
of something at a cook's-shop, or a little lobster at the
fishmongers, and bring it here, and make a splendid supper,
chatting about what we have seen. Now, you know, Copperfield, if
I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn't do this!'
'You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles,'
thought I, 'that would be pleasant and amiable. And by the way,'
I said aloud, 'I suppose you never draw any skeletons now?'
'Really,' replied Traddles, laughing, and reddening, 'I can't
wholly deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For being in one of
the back rows of the King's Bench the other day, with a pen in my
hand, the fancy came into my head to try how I had preserved that
accomplishment. And I am afraid there's a skeleton - in a wig - on
the ledge of the desk.'
After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking
with a smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, 'Old
Creakle!'
'I have a letter from that old - Rascal here,' said I. For I never
was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter
Traddles, than when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself.
'From Creakle the schoolmaster?' exclaimed Traddles. 'No!'
'Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and
fortune,' said I, looking over my letters, 'and who discover that
they were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle. He
is not a schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a
Middlesex Magistrate.'
I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so
at all.
'How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate?' said I.
'Oh dear me!' replied Traddles, 'it would be very difficult to
answer that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money
to somebody, or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged
somebody, or jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the
lieutenant of the county to nominate him for the commission.'
'On the commission he is, at any rate,' said I. 'And he writes to
me here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only
true system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of
making sincere and lasting converts and penitents - which, you
know, is by solitary confinement. What do you say?'
'To the system?' inquired Traddles, looking grave.
'No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?'
'I don't object,' said Traddles.
'Then I'll write to say so. You remember (to say nothing of our
treatment) this same Creakle turning his son out of doors, I
suppose, and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter?'
'Perfectly,' said Traddles.
'Yet, if you'll read his letter, you'll find he is the tenderest of
men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies,' said
I; 'though I can't find that his tenderness extends to any other
class of created beings.'
Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I
had not expected him to be, and was not surprised myself; or my
observation of similar practical satires would have been but
scanty. We arranged the time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly
to Mr. Creakle that evening.
On the appointed day - I think it was the next day, but no matter
- Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was
powerful. It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast
expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate,
what an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded
man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the
erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of
refuge for the deserving old.
In an office that might have been on the ground-floor of the Tower
of Babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our
old schoolmaster; who was one of a group, composed of two or three
of the busier sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had
brought. He received me, like a man who had formed my mind in
bygone years, and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing
Traddles, Mr. Creakle expressed, in like manner, but in an inferior
degree, that he had always been Traddles's guide, philosopher, and
friend. Our venerable instructor was a great deal older, and not
improved in appearance. His face was as fiery as ever; his eyes
were as small, and rather deeper set. The scanty, wet-looking grey
hair, by which I remembered him, was almost gone; and the thick
veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at.
After some conversation among these gentlemen, from which I might
have supposed that there was nothing in the world to be
legitimately taken into account but the supreme comfort of
prisoners, at any expense, and nothing on the wide earth to be done
outside prison-doors, we began our inspection. It being then just
dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen, where every
prisoner's dinner was in course of being set out separately (to be
handed to him in his cell), with the regularity and precision of
clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered whether it
occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast between
these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not to
say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers, the great bulk
of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five
hundred ever dined half so well. But I learned that the 'system'
required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once
for all, I found that on that head and on all others, 'the system'
put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody
appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system,
but THE system, to be considered.
As we were going through some of the magnificent passages, I
inquired of Mr. Creakle and his friends what were supposed to be
the main advantages of this all-governing and universally
over-riding system? I found them to be the perfect isolation of
prisoners - so that no one man in confinement there, knew anything
about another; and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state
of mind, leading to sincere contrition and repentance.
Now, it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their
cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and
to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained
to us, that there was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing
a good deal about each other, and of their carrying on a pretty
complete system of intercourse. This, at the time I write, has
been proved, I believe, to be the case; but, as it would have been
flat blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then,
I looked out for the penitence as diligently as I could.
And here again, I had great misgivings. I found as prevalent a
fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the
forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors'
shops. I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little in
character: varying very little (which I thought exceedingly
suspicious), even in words. I found a great many foxes,
disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes; but I found
very few foxes whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch.
Above all, I found that the most professing men were the greatest
objects of interest; and that their conceit, their vanity, their
want of excitement, and their love of deception (which many of them
possessed to an almost incredible extent, as their histories
showed), all prompted to these professions, and were all gratified
by them.
However, I heard so repeatedly, in the course of our goings to and
fro, of a certain Number Twenty Seven, who was the Favourite, and
who really appeared to be a Model Prisoner, that I resolved to
suspend my judgement until I should see Twenty Seven. Twenty
Eight, I understood, was also a bright particular star; but it was
his misfortune to have his glory a little dimmed by the
extraordinary lustre of Twenty Seven. I heard so much of Twenty
Seven, of his pious admonitions to everybody around him, and of the
beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother (whom he seemed
to consider in a very bad way), that I became quite impatient to
see him.
I had to restrain my impatience for some time, on account of Twenty
Seven being reserved for a concluding effect. But, at last, we
came to the door of his cell; and Mr. Creakle, looking through a
little hole in it, reported to us, in a state of the greatest
admiration, that he was reading a Hymn Book.
There was such a rush of heads immediately, to see Number Twenty
Seven reading his Hymn Book, that the little hole was blocked up,
six or seven heads deep. To remedy this inconvenience, and give us
an opportunity of conversing with Twenty Seven in all his purity,
Mr. Creakle directed the door of the cell to be unlocked, and
Twenty Seven to be invited out into the passage. This was done;
and whom should Traddles and I then behold, to our amazement, in
this converted Number Twenty Seven, but Uriah Heep!
He knew us directly; and said, as he came out - with the old
writhe, -
'How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do, Mr. Traddles?'
This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I
rather thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud, and
taking notice of us.
'Well, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him.
'How do you find yourself today?'
'I am very umble, sir!' replied Uriah Heep.
'You are always so, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle.
Here, another gentleman asked, with extreme anxiety: 'Are you quite
comfortable?'
'Yes, I thank you, sir!' said Uriah Heep, looking in that
direction. 'Far more comfortable here, than ever I was outside.
I see my follies, now, sir. That's what makes me comfortable.'
Several gentlemen were much affected; and a third questioner,
forcing himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling: 'How
do you find the beef?'
'Thank you, sir,' replied Uriah, glancing in the new direction of
this voice, 'it was tougher yesterday than I could wish; but it's
my duty to bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen,' said Uriah,
looking round with a meek smile, 'and I ought to bear the
consequences without repining.'
A murmur, partly of gratification at Twenty Seven's celestial state
of mind, and partly of indignation against the Contractor who had
given him any cause of complaint (a note of which was immediately
made by Mr. Creakle), having subsided, Twenty Seven stood in the
midst of us, as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in
a highly meritorious museum. That we, the neophytes, might have an
excess of light shining upon us all at once, orders were given to
let out Twenty Eight.
I had been so much astonished already, that I only felt a kind of
resigned wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth, reading a good
book!
'Twenty Eight,' said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet
spoken, 'you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa.
How has it been since?'
'I thank you, sir,' said Mr. Littimer, 'it has been better made.
If I might take the liberty of saying so, sir, I don't think the
milk which is boiled with it is quite genuine; but I am aware, sir,
that there is a great adulteration of milk, in London, and that the
article in a pure state is difficult to be obtained.'
It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his
Twenty Eight against Mr. Creakle's Twenty Seven, for each of them
took his own man in hand.
'What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?' said the questioner in
spectacles.
'I thank you, sir,' returned Mr. Littimer; 'I see my follies now,
sir. I am a good deal troubled when I think of the sins of my
former companions, sir; but I trust they may find forgiveness.'
'You are quite happy yourself?' said the questioner, nodding
encouragement.
'I am much obliged to you, sir,' returned Mr. Littimer. 'Perfectly
so.'
'Is there anything at all on your mind now?' said the questioner.
'If so, mention it, Twenty Eight.'
'Sir,' said Mr. Littimer, without looking up, 'if my eyes have not
deceived me, there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with
me in my former life. It may be profitable to that gentleman to
know, sir, that I attribute my past follies, entirely to having
lived a thoughtless life in the service of young men; and to having
allowed myself to be led by them into weaknesses, which I had not
the strength to resist. I hope that gentleman will take warning,
sir, and will not be offended at my freedom. It is for his good.
I am conscious of my own past follies. I hope he may repent of all
the wickedness and sin to which he has been a party.'
I observed that several gentlemen were shading their eyes, each
with one hand, as if they had just come into church.
'This does you credit, Twenty Eight,' returned the questioner. 'I
should have expected it of you. Is there anything else?'
'Sir,' returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but
not his eyes, 'there was a young woman who fell into dissolute
courses, that I endeavoured to save, sir, but could not rescue. I
beg that gentleman, if he has it in his power, to inform that young
woman from me that I forgive her her bad conduct towards myself,
and that I call her to repentance - if he will be so good.'
'I have no doubt, Twenty Eight,' returned the questioner, 'that the
gentleman you refer to feels very strongly - as we all must - what
you have so properly said. We will not detain you.'
'I thank you, sir,' said Mr. Littimer. 'Gentlemen, I wish you a
good day, and hoping you and your families will also see your
wickedness, and amend!'
With this, Number Twenty Eight retired, after a glance between him
and Uriah; as if they were not altogether unknown to each other,
through some medium of communication; and a murmur went round the
group, as his door shut upon him, that he was a most respectable
man, and a beautiful case.
'Now, Twenty Seven,' said Mr. Creakle, entering on a clear stage
with his man, 'is there anything that anyone can do for you? If
so, mention it.'
'I would umbly ask, sir,' returned Uriah, with a jerk of his
malevolent head, 'for leave to write again to mother.'
'It shall certainly be granted,' said Mr. Creakle.
'Thank you, sir! I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain't
safe.'
Somebody incautiously asked, what from? But there was a
scandalized whisper of 'Hush!'
'Immortally safe, sir,' returned Uriah, writhing in the direction
of the voice. 'I should wish mother to be got into my state. I
never should have been got into my present state if I hadn't come
here. I wish mother had come here. It would be better for
everybody, if they got took up, and was brought here.'
This sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction - greater satisfaction,
I think, than anything that had passed yet.
'Before I come here,' said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he
would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he
could, 'I was given to follies; but now I am sensible of my
follies. There's a deal of sin outside. There's a deal of sin in
mother. There's nothing but sin everywhere - except here.'
'You are quite changed?' said Mr. Creakle.
'Oh dear, yes, sir!' cried this hopeful penitent.
'You wouldn't relapse, if you were going out?' asked somebody else.
'Oh de-ar no, sir!'
'Well!' said Mr. Creakle, 'this is very gratifying. You have
addressed Mr. Copperfield, Twenty Seven. Do you wish to say
anything further to him?'
'You knew me, a long time before I came here and was changed, Mr.
Copperfield,' said Uriah, looking at me; and a more villainous look
I never saw, even on his visage. 'You knew me when, in spite of my
follies, I was umble among them that was proud, and meek among them
that was violent - you was violent to me yourself, Mr. Copperfield.
Once, you struck me a blow in the face, you know.'
General commiseration. Several indignant glances directed at me.
'But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield,' said Uriah, making his
forgiving nature the subject of a most impious and awful parallel,
which I shall not record. 'I forgive everybody. It would ill
become me to bear malice. I freely forgive you, and I hope you'll
curb your passions in future. I hope Mr. W. will repent, and Miss
W., and all of that sinful lot. You've been visited with
affliction, and I hope it may do you good; but you'd better have
come here. Mr. W. had better have come here, and Miss W. too. The
best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, and give all of you
gentlemen, is, that you could be took up and brought here. When I
think of my past follies, and my present state, I am sure it would
be best for you. I pity all who ain't brought here!'
He sneaked back into his cell, amidst a little chorus of
approbation; and both Traddles and I experienced a great relief
when he was locked in.
It was a characteristic feature in this repentance, that I was fain
to ask what these two men had done, to be there at all. That
appeared to be the last thing about which they had anything to say.
I addressed myself to one of the two warders, who, I suspected from
certain latent indications in their faces, knew pretty well what
all this stir was worth.
'Do you know,' said I, as we walked along the passage, 'what felony
was Number Twenty Seven's last "folly"?'
The answer was that it was a Bank case.
'A fraud on the Bank of England?' I asked.
'Yes, sir. Fraud, forgery, and conspiracy. He and some others.
He set the others on. It was a deep plot for a large sum.
Sentence, transportation for life. Twenty Seven was the knowingest
bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself safe; but not
quite. The Bank was just able to put salt upon his tail - and only
just.'
'Do you know Twenty Eight's offence?'
'Twenty Eight,' returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low
tone, and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage,
to guard himself from being overheard, in such an unlawful
reference to these Immaculates, by Creakle and the rest; 'Twenty
Eight (also transportation) got a place, and robbed a young master
of a matter of two hundred and fifty pounds in money and valuables,
the night before they were going abroad. I particularly recollect
his case, from his being took by a dwarf.'
'A what?'
'A little woman. I have forgot her name?'
'Not Mowcher?'
'That's it! He had eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a
flaxen wig, and whiskers, and such a complete disguise as never you
see in all your born days; when the little woman, being in
Southampton, met him walking along the street - picked him out with
her sharp eye in a moment - ran betwixt his legs to upset him - and
held on to him like grim Death.'
'Excellent Miss Mowcher!' cried I.
'You'd have said so, if you had seen her, standing on a chair in
the witness-box at the trial, as I did,' said my friend. 'He cut
her face right open, and pounded her in the most brutal manner,
when she took him; but she never loosed her hold till he was locked
up. She held so tight to him, in fact, that the officers were
obliged to take 'em both together. She gave her evidence in the
gamest way, and was highly complimented by the Bench, and cheered
right home to her lodgings. She said in Court that she'd have took
him single-handed (on account of what she knew concerning him), if
he had been Samson. And it's my belief she would!'
It was mine too, and I highly respected Miss Mowcher for it.
We had now seen all there was to see. It would have been in vain
to represent to such a man as the Worshipful Mr. Creakle, that
Twenty Seven and Twenty Eight were perfectly consistent and
unchanged; that exactly what they were then, they had always been;
that the hypocritical knaves were just the subjects to make that
sort of profession in such a place; that they knew its market-value
at least as well as we did, in the immediate service it would do
them when they were expatriated; in a word, that it was a rotten,
hollow, painfully suggestive piece of business altogether. We left
them to their system and themselves, and went home wondering.
'Perhaps it's a good thing, Traddles,' said I, 'to have an unsound
Hobby ridden hard; for it's the sooner ridden to death.'
'I hope so,' replied Traddles.
CHAPTER 62
A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY
The year came round to Christmas-time, and I had been at home above
two months. I had seen Agnes frequently. However loud the general
voice might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the
emotions and endeavours to which it roused me, I heard her lightest
word of praise as I heard nothing else.
At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there, and
passed the evening. I usually rode back at night; for the old
unhappy sense was always hovering about me now - most sorrowfully
when I left her - and I was glad to be up and out, rather than
wandering over the past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams.
I wore away the longest part of many wild sad nights, in those
rides; reviving, as I went, the thoughts that had occupied me in my
long absence.
Or, if I were to say rather that I listened to the echoes of those
thoughts, I should better express the truth. They spoke to me from
afar off. I had put them at a distance, and accepted my inevitable
place. When I read to Agnes what I wrote; when I saw her listening
face; moved her to smiles or tears; and heard her cordial voice so
earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which I
lived; I thought what a fate mine might have been - but only
thought so, as I had thought after I was married to Dora, what I
could have wished my wife to be.
My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted,
I wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my
matured assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and
won what I had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur,
and must bear; comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But
I loved her: and now it even became some consolation to me, vaguely
to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avow it; when
all this should be over; when I could say 'Agnes, so it was when I
came home; and now I am old, and I never have loved since!'
She did not once show me any change in herself. What she always
had been to me, she still was; wholly unaltered.
Between my aunt and me there had been something, in this connexion,
since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint, or
an avoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding
that we thought of it together, but did not shape our thoughts into
words. When, according to our old custom, we sat before the fire
at night, we often fell into this train; as naturally, and as
consciously to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so. But
we preserved an unbroken silence. I believed that she had read, or
partly read, my thoughts that night; and that she fully
comprehended why I gave mine no more distinct expression.
This Christmas-time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new
confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind
- whether she could have that perception of the true state of my
breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me
pain - began to oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice
was nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every
poor action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to
set this right beyond all doubt; - if such a barrier were between
us, to break it down at once with a determined hand.
It was - what lasting reason have I to remember it! - a cold,
harsh, winter day. There had been snow, some hours before; and it
lay, not deep, but hard-frozen on the ground. Out at sea, beyond
my window, the wind blew ruggedly from the north. I had been
thinking of it, sweeping over those mountain wastes of snow in
Switzerland, then inaccessible to any human foot; and had been
speculating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a
deserted ocean.
'Riding today, Trot?' said my aunt, putting her head in at the
door.
'Yes,' said I, 'I am going over to Canterbury. It's a good day for
a ride.'
'I hope your horse may think so too,' said my aunt; 'but at present
he is holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door
there, as if he thought his stable preferable.'
My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground,
but had not at all relented towards the donkeys.
'He will be fresh enough, presently!' said I.
'The ride will do his master good, at all events,' observed my
aunt, glancing at the papers on my table. 'Ah, child, you pass a
good many hours here! I never thought, when I used to read books,
what work it was to write them.'
'It's work enough to read them, sometimes,' I returned. 'As to the
writing, it has its own charms, aunt.'
'Ah! I see!' said my aunt. 'Ambition, love of approbation,
sympathy, and much more, I suppose? Well: go along with you!'
'Do you know anything more,' said I, standing composedly before her
- she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair - 'of
that attachment of Agnes?'
She looked up in my face a little while, before replying:
'I think I do, Trot.'
'Are you confirmed in your impression?' I inquired.
'I think I am, Trot.'
She looked so steadfastly at me: with a kind of doubt, or pity, or
suspense in her affection: that I summoned the stronger
determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face.
'And what is more, Trot -' said my aunt.
'Yes!'
'I think Agnes is going to be married.'
'God bless her!' said I, cheerfully.
'God bless her!' said my aunt, 'and her husband too!'
I echoed it, parted from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs,
mounted, and rode away. There was greater reason than before to do
what I had resolved to do.
How well I recollect the wintry ride! The frozen particles of ice,
brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my
face; the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon
the ground; the stiff-tilled soil; the snowdrift, lightly eddying
in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with
the waggon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and
shaking their bells musically; the whitened slopes and sweeps of
Down-land lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a
huge slate!
I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their own homes
now, and she was alone by the fire, reading. She put down her book
on seeing me come in; and having welcomed me as usual, took her
work-basket and sat in one of the old-fashioned windows.
I sat beside her on the window-seat, and we talked of what I was
doing, and when it would be done, and of the progress I had made
since my last visit. Agnes was very cheerful; and laughingly
predicted that I should soon become too famous to be talked to, on
such subjects.
'So I make the most of the present time, you see,' said Agnes, 'and
talk to you while I may.'
As I looked at her beautiful face, observant of her work, she
raised her mild clear eyes, and saw that I was looking at her.
'You are thoughtful today, Trotwood!'
'Agnes, shall I tell you what about? I came to tell you.'
She put aside her work, as she was used to do when we were
seriously discussing anything; and gave me her whole attention.
'My dear Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you?'
'No!' she answered, with a look of astonishment.
'Do you doubt my being what I always have been to you?'
'No!' she answered, as before.
'Do you remember that I tried to tell you, when I came home, what
a debt of gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, and how fervently I
felt towards you?'
'I remember it,' she said, gently, 'very well.'
'You have a secret,' said I. 'Let me share it, Agnes.'
She cast down her eyes, and trembled.
'I could hardly fail to know, even if I had not heard - but from
other lips than yours, Agnes, which seems strange - that there is
someone upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do
not shut me out of what concerns your happiness so nearly! If you
can trust me, as you say you can, and as I know you may, let me be
your friend, your brother, in this matter, of all others!'
With an appealing, almost a reproachful, glance, she rose from the
window; and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where,
put her hands before her face, and burst into such tears as smote
me to the heart.
And yet they awakened something in me, bringing promise to my
heart. Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with
the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and
shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow.
'Agnes! Sister! Dearest! What have I done?'
'Let me go away, Trotwood. I am not well. I am not myself. I
will speak to you by and by - another time. I will write to you.
Don't speak to me now. Don't! don't!'
I sought to recollect what she had said, when I had spoken to her
on that former night, of her affection needing no return. It
seemed a very world that I must search through in a moment.
'Agnes, I cannot bear to see you so, and think that I have been the
cause. My dearest girl, dearer to me than anything in life, if you
are unhappy, let me share your unhappiness. If you are in need of
help or counsel, let me try to give it to you. If you have indeed
a burden on your heart, let me try to lighten it. For whom do I
live now, Agnes, if it is not for you!'
'Oh, spare me! I am not myself! Another time!' was all I could
distinguish.
Was it a selfish error that was leading me away? Or, having once
a clue to hope, was there something opening to me that I had not
dared to think of?
'I must say more. I cannot let you leave me so! For Heaven's sake,
Agnes, let us not mistake each other after all these years, and all
that has come and gone with them! I must speak plainly. If you
have any lingering thought that I could envy the happiness you will
confer; that I could not resign you to a dearer protector, of your
own choosing; that I could not, from my removed place, be a
contented witness of your joy; dismiss it, for I don't deserve it!
I have not suffered quite in vain. You have not taught me quite in
vain. There is no alloy of self in what I feel for you.'
She was quiet now. In a little time, she turned her pale face
towards me, and said in a low voice, broken here and there, but
very clear:
'I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood - which, indeed,
I do not doubt - to tell you, you are mistaken. I can do no more.
If I have sometimes, in the course of years, wanted help and
counsel, they have come to me. If I have sometimes been unhappy,
the feeling has passed away. If I have ever had a burden on my
heart, it has been lightened for me. If I have any secret, it is
- no new one; and is - not what you suppose. I cannot reveal it,
or divide it. It has long been mine, and must remain mine.'
'Agnes! Stay! A moment!'
She was going away, but I detained her. I clasped my arm about her
waist. 'In the course of years!' 'It is not a new one!' New
thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the
colours of my life were changing.
'Dearest Agnes! Whom I so respect and honour - whom I so devotedly
love! When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have
wrested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in
my bosom all our lives, till we were old. But, Agnes, if I have
indeed any new-born hope that I may ever call you something more
than Sister, widely different from Sister! -'
Her tears fell fast; but they were not like those she had lately
shed, and I saw my hope brighten in them.
'Agnes! Ever my guide, and best support! If you had been more
mindful of yourself, and less of me, when we grew up here together,
I think my heedless fancy never would have wandered from you. But
you were so much better than I, so necessary to me in every boyish
hope and disappointment, that to have you to confide in, and rely
upon in everything, became a second nature, supplanting for the
time the first and greater one of loving you as I do!'
Still weeping, but not sadly - joyfully! And clasped in my arms as
she had never been, as I had thought she never was to be!
'When I loved Dora - fondly, Agnes, as you know -'
'Yes!' she cried, earnestly. 'I am glad to know it!'
'When I loved her - even then, my love would have been incomplete,
without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected. And when
I lost her, Agnes, what should I have been without you, still!'
Closer in my arms, nearer to my heart, her trembling hand upon my
shoulder, her sweet eyes shining through her tears, on mine!
'I went away, dear Agnes, loving you. I stayed away, loving you.
I returned home, loving you!'
And now, I tried to tell her of the struggle I had had, and the
conclusion I had come to. I tried to lay my mind before her,
truly, and entirely. I tried to show her how I had hoped I had
come into the better knowledge of myself and of her; how I had
resigned myself to what that better knowledge brought; and how I
had come there, even that day, in my fidelity to this. If she did
so love me (I said) that she could take me for her husband, she
could do so, on no deserving of mine, except upon the truth of my
love for her, and the trouble in which it had ripened to be what it
was; and hence it was that I revealed it. And O, Agnes, even out
of thy true eyes, in that same time, the spirit of my child-wife
looked upon me, saying it was well; and winning me, through thee,
to tenderest recollections of the Blossom that had withered in its
bloom!
'I am so blest, Trotwood - my heart is so overcharged - but there
is one thing I must say.'
'Dearest, what?'
She laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders, and looked calmly in
my face.
'Do you know, yet, what it is?'
'I am afraid to speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear.'
'I have loved you all my life!'
O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials
(hers so much the greater) through which we had come to be thus,
but for the rapture of being thus, never to be divided more!
We walked, that winter evening, in the fields together; and the
blessed calm within us seemed to be partaken by the frosty air.
The early stars began to shine while we were lingering on, and
looking up to them, we thanked our GOD for having guided us to this
tranquillity.
We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night, when
the moon was shining; Agnes with her quiet eyes raised up to it; I
following her glance. Long miles of road then opened out before my
mind; and, toiling on, I saw a ragged way-worn boy, forsaken and
neglected, who should come to call even the heart now beating
against mine, his own.
It was nearly dinner-time next day when we appeared before my aunt.
She was up in my study, Peggotty said: which it was her pride to
keep in readiness and order for me. We found her, in her
spectacles, sitting by the fire.
'Goodness me!' said my aunt, peering through the dusk, 'who's this
you're bringing home?'
'Agnes,' said I.
As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a
little discomfited. She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said
'Agnes'; but seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her
spectacles in despair, and rubbed her nose with them.
She greeted Agnes heartily, nevertheless; and we were soon in the
lighted parlour downstairs, at dinner. My aunt put on her
spectacles twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as
often took them off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with
them. Much to the discomfiture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a
bad symptom.
'By the by, aunt,' said I, after dinner; 'I have been speaking to
Agnes about what you told me.'
'Then, Trot,' said my aunt, turning scarlet, 'you did wrong, and
broke your promise.'
'You are not angry, aunt, I trust? I am sure you won't be, when
you learn that Agnes is not unhappy in any attachment.'
'Stuff and nonsense!' said my aunt.
As my aunt appeared to be annoyed, I thought the best way was to
cut her annoyance short. I took Agnes in my arm to the back of her
chair, and we both leaned over her. My aunt, with one clap of her
hands, and one look through her spectacles, immediately went into
hysterics, for the first and only time in all my knowledge of her.
The hysterics called up Peggotty. The moment my aunt was restored,
she flew at Peggotty, and calling her a silly old creature, hugged
her with all her might. After that, she hugged Mr. Dick (who was
highly honoured, but a good deal surprised); and after that, told
them why. Then, we were all happy together.
I could not discover whether my aunt, in her last short
conversation with me, had fallen on a pious fraud, or had really
mistaken the state of my mind. It was quite enough, she said, that
she had told me Agnes was going to be married; and that I now knew
better than anyone how true it was.
We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophy, and Doctor
and Mrs. Strong, were the only guests at our quiet wedding. We
left them full of joy; and drove away together. Clasped in my
embrace, I held the source of every worthy aspiration I had ever
had; the centre of myself, the circle of my life, my own, my wife;
my love of whom was founded on a rock!
'Dearest husband!' said Agnes. 'Now that I may call you by that
name, I have one thing more to tell you.'
'Let me hear it, love.'
'It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sent you for me.'
'She did.'
'She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it
was?'
I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me,
closer to my side.
'She told me that she made a last request to me, and left me a last
charge.'
'And it was -'
'That only I would occupy this vacant place.'
And Agnes laid her head upon my breast, and wept; and I wept with
her, though we were so happy.
CHAPTER 63
A VISITOR
What I have purposed to record is nearly finished; but there is yet
an incident conspicuous in my memory, on which it often rests with
delight, and without which one thread in the web I have spun would
have a ravelled end.
I had advanced in fame and fortune, my domestic joy was perfect, I
had been married ten happy years. Agnes and I were sitting by the
fire, in our house in London, one night in spring, and three of our
children were playing in the room, when I was told that a stranger
wished to see me.
He had been asked if he came on business, and had answered No; he
had come for the pleasure of seeing me, and had come a long way.
He was an old man, my servant said, and looked like a farmer.
As this sounded mysterious to the children, and moreover was like
the beginning of a favourite story Agnes used to tell them,
introductory to the arrival of a wicked old Fairy in a cloak who
hated everybody, it produced some commotion. One of our boys laid
his head in his mother's lap to be out of harm's way, and little
Agnes (our eldest child) left her doll in a chair to represent her,
and thrust out her little heap of golden curls from between the
window-curtains, to see what happened next.
'Let him come in here!' said I.
There soon appeared, pausing in the dark doorway as he entered, a
hale, grey-haired old man. Little Agnes, attracted by his looks,
had run to bring him in, and I had not yet clearly seen his face,
when my wife, starting up, cried out to me, in a pleased and
agitated voice, that it was Mr. Peggotty!
It WAS Mr. Peggotty. An old man now, but in a ruddy, hearty,
strong old age. When our first emotion was over, and he sat before
the fire with the children on his knees, and the blaze shining on
his face, he looked, to me, as vigorous and robust, withal as
handsome, an old man, as ever I had seen.
'Mas'r Davy,' said he. And the old name in the old tone fell so
naturally on my ear! 'Mas'r Davy, 'tis a joyful hour as I see you,
once more, 'long with your own trew wife!'
'A joyful hour indeed, old friend!' cried I.
'And these heer pretty ones,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'To look at these
heer flowers! Why, Mas'r Davy, you was but the heighth of the
littlest of these, when I first see you! When Em'ly warn't no
bigger, and our poor lad were BUT a lad!'
'Time has changed me more than it has changed you since then,' said
I. 'But let these dear rogues go to bed; and as no house in
England but this must hold you, tell me where to send for your
luggage (is the old black bag among it, that went so far, I
wonder!), and then, over a glass of Yarmouth grog, we will have the
tidings of ten years!'
'Are you alone?' asked Agnes.
'Yes, ma'am,' he said, kissing her hand, 'quite alone.'
We sat him between us, not knowing how to give him welcome enough;
and as I began to listen to his old familiar voice, I could have
fancied he was still pursuing his long journey in search of his
darling niece.
'It's a mort of water,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'fur to come across, and
on'y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water ('specially when 'tis
salt) comes nat'ral to me; and friends is dear, and I am heer. -
Which is verse,' said Mr. Peggotty, surprised to find it out,
'though I hadn't such intentions.'
'Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?' asked
Agnes.
'Yes, ma'am,' he returned. 'I giv the promise to Em'ly, afore I
come away. You see, I doen't grow younger as the years comes
round, and if I hadn't sailed as 'twas, most like I shouldn't never
have done 't. And it's allus been on my mind, as I must come and
see Mas'r Davy and your own sweet blooming self, in your wedded
happiness, afore I got to be too old.'
He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us
sufficiently. Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of
his grey hair, that he might see us better.
'And now tell us,' said I, 'everything relating to your fortunes.'
'Our fortuns, Mas'r Davy,' he rejoined, 'is soon told. We haven't
fared nohows, but fared to thrive. We've allus thrived. We've
worked as we ought to 't, and maybe we lived a leetle hard at first
or so, but we have allus thrived. What with sheep-farming, and
what with stock-farming, and what with one thing and what with
t'other, we are as well to do, as well could be. Theer's been
kiender a blessing fell upon us,' said Mr. Peggotty, reverentially
inclining his head, 'and we've done nowt but prosper. That is, in
the long run. If not yesterday, why then today. If not today, why
then tomorrow.'
'And Emily?' said Agnes and I, both together.
'Em'ly,' said he, 'arter you left her, ma'am - and I never heerd
her saying of her prayers at night, t'other side the canvas screen,
when we was settled in the Bush, but what I heerd your name - and
arter she and me lost sight of Mas'r Davy, that theer shining
sundown - was that low, at first, that, if she had know'd then what
Mas'r Davy kep from us so kind and thowtful, 'tis my opinion she'd
have drooped away. But theer was some poor folks aboard as had
illness among 'em, and she took care of them; and theer was the
children in our company, and she took care of them; and so she got
to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her.'
'When did she first hear of it?' I asked.
'I kep it from her arter I heerd on 't,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'going
on nigh a year. We was living then in a solitary place, but among
the beautifullest trees, and with the roses a-covering our Beein to
the roof. Theer come along one day, when I was out a-working on
the land, a traveller from our own Norfolk or Suffolk in England (I
doen't rightly mind which), and of course we took him in, and giv
him to eat and drink, and made him welcome. We all do that, all
the colony over. He'd got an old newspaper with him, and some
other account in print of the storm. That's how she know'd it.
When I came home at night, I found she know'd it.'
He dropped his voice as he said these words, and the gravity I so
well remembered overspread his face.
'Did it change her much?' we asked.
'Aye, for a good long time,' he said, shaking his head; 'if not to
this present hour. But I think the solitoode done her good. And
she had a deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and
minded of it, and come through. I wonder,' he said thoughtfully,
'if you could see my Em'ly now, Mas'r Davy, whether you'd know
her!'
'Is she so altered?' I inquired.
'I doen't know. I see her ev'ry day, and doen't know; But,
odd-times, I have thowt so. A slight figure,' said Mr. Peggotty,
looking at the fire, 'kiender worn; soft, sorrowful, blue eyes; a
delicate face; a pritty head, leaning a little down; a quiet voice
and way - timid a'most. That's Em'ly!'
We silently observed him as he sat, still looking at the fire.
'Some thinks,' he said, 'as her affection was ill-bestowed; some,
as her marriage was broken off by death. No one knows how 'tis.
She might have married well, a mort of times, "but, uncle," she
says to me, "that's gone for ever." Cheerful along with me; retired
when others is by; fond of going any distance fur to teach a child,
or fur to tend a sick person, or fur to do some kindness tow'rds a
young girl's wedding (and she's done a many, but has never seen
one); fondly loving of her uncle; patient; liked by young and old;
sowt out by all that has any trouble. That's Em'ly!'
He drew his hand across his face, and with a half-suppressed sigh
looked up from the fire.
'Is Martha with you yet?' I asked.
'Martha,' he replied, 'got married, Mas'r Davy, in the second year.
A young man, a farm-labourer, as come by us on his way to market
with his mas'r's drays - a journey of over five hundred mile, theer
and back - made offers fur to take her fur his wife (wives is very
scarce theer), and then to set up fur their two selves in the Bush.
She spoke to me fur to tell him her trew story. I did. They was
married, and they live fower hundred mile away from any voices but
their own and the singing birds.'
'Mrs. Gummidge?' I suggested.
It was a pleasant key to touch, for Mr. Peggotty suddenly burst
into a roar of laughter, and rubbed his hands up and down his legs,
as he had been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the
long-shipwrecked boat.
'Would you believe it!' he said. 'Why, someun even made offer fur
to marry her! If a ship's cook that was turning settler, Mas'r
Davy, didn't make offers fur to marry Missis Gummidge, I'm Gormed
- and I can't say no fairer than that!'
I never saw Agnes laugh so. This sudden ecstasy on the part of Mr.
Peggotty was so delightful to her, that she could not leave off
laughing; and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh, and
the greater Mr. Peggotty's ecstasy became, and the more he rubbed
his legs.
'And what did Mrs. Gummidge say?' I asked, when I was grave enough.
'If you'll believe me,' returned Mr. Peggotty, 'Missis Gummidge,
'stead of saying "thank you, I'm much obleeged to you, I ain't
a-going fur to change my condition at my time of life," up'd with
a bucket as was standing by, and laid it over that theer ship's
cook's head 'till he sung out fur help, and I went in and reskied
of him.'
Mr. Peggotty burst into a great roar of laughter, and Agnes and I
both kept him company.
'But I must say this, for the good creetur,' he resumed, wiping his
face, when we were quite exhausted; 'she has been all she said
she'd be to us, and more. She's the willingest, the trewest, the
honestest-helping woman, Mas'r Davy, as ever draw'd the breath of
life. I have never know'd her to be lone and lorn, for a single
minute, not even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new
to it. And thinking of the old 'un is a thing she never done, I do
assure you, since she left England!'
'Now, last, not least, Mr. Micawber,' said I. 'He has paid off
every obligation he incurred here - even to Traddles's bill, you
remember my dear Agnes - and therefore we may take it for granted
that he is doing well. But what is the latest news of him?'
Mr. Peggotty, with a smile, put his hand in his breast-pocket, and
produced a flat-folded, paper parcel, from which he took out, with
much care, a little odd-looking newspaper.
'You are to understan', Mas'r Davy,' said he, 'as we have left the
Bush now, being so well to do; and have gone right away round to
Port Middlebay Harbour, wheer theer's what we call a town.'
'Mr. Micawber was in the Bush near you?' said I.
'Bless you, yes,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'and turned to with a will.
I never wish to meet a better gen'l'man for turning to with a will.
I've seen that theer bald head of his a perspiring in the sun,
Mas'r Davy, till I a'most thowt it would have melted away. And now
he's a Magistrate.'
'A Magistrate, eh?' said I.
Mr. Peggotty pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper, where
I read aloud as follows, from the Port Middlebay Times:
'The public dinner to our distinguished fellow-colonist and
townsman, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, Port Middlebay District
Magistrate, came off yesterday in the large room of the Hotel,
which was crowded to suffocation. It is estimated that not fewer
than forty-seven persons must have been accommodated with dinner at
one time, exclusive of the company in the passage and on the
stairs. The beauty, fashion, and exclusiveness of Port Middlebay,
flocked to do honour to one so deservedly esteemed, so highly
talented, and so widely popular. Doctor Mell (of Colonial
Salem-House Grammar School, Port Middlebay) presided, and on his
right sat the distinguished guest. After the removal of the cloth,
and the singing of Non Nobis (beautifully executed, and in which we
were at no loss to distinguish the bell-like notes of that gifted
amateur, WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR), the usual loyal and
patriotic toasts were severally given and rapturously received.
Doctor Mell, in a speech replete with feeling, then proposed "Our
distinguished Guest, the ornament of our town. May he never leave
us but to better himself, and may his success among us be such as
to render his bettering himself impossible!" The cheering with
which the toast was received defies description. Again and again
it rose and fell, like the waves of ocean. At length all was
hushed, and WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, presented himself to return
thanks. Far be it from us, in the present comparatively imperfect
state of the resources of our establishment, to endeavour to follow
our distinguished townsman through the smoothly-flowing periods of
his polished and highly-ornate address! Suffice it to observe, that
it was a masterpiece of eloquence; and that those passages in which
he more particularly traced his own successful career to its
source, and warned the younger portion of his auditory from the
shoals of ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they were
unable to liquidate, brought a tear into the manliest eye present.
The remaining toasts were DOCTOR MELL; Mrs. MICAWBER (who
gracefully bowed her acknowledgements from the side-door, where a
galaxy of beauty was elevated on chairs, at once to witness and
adorn the gratifying scene), Mrs. RIDGER BEGS (late Miss Micawber);
Mrs. MELL; WILKINS MICAWBER, ESQUIRE, JUNIOR (who convulsed the
assembly by humorously remarking that he found himself unable to
return thanks in a speech, but would do so, with their permission,
in a song); Mrs. MICAWBER'S FAMILY (well known, it is needless to
remark, in the mother-country), &c. &c. &c. At the conclusion of
the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by art-magic for
dancing. Among the votaries of TERPSICHORE, who disported
themselves until Sol gave warning for departure, Wilkins Micawber,
Esquire, Junior, and the lovely and accomplished Miss Helena,
fourth daughter of Doctor Mell, were particularly remarkable.'
I was looking back to the name of Doctor Mell, pleased to have
discovered, in these happier circumstances, Mr. Mell, formerly poor
pinched usher to my Middlesex magistrate, when Mr. Peggotty
pointing to another part of the paper, my eyes rested on my own
name, and I read thus:
' TO DAVID COPPERFIELD, ESQUIRE,
'THE EMINENT AUTHOR.
'My Dear Sir,
'Years have elapsed, since I had an opportunity of ocularly
perusing the lineaments, now familiar to the imaginations of a
considerable portion of the civilized world.
'But, my dear Sir, though estranged (by the force of circumstances
over which I have had no control) from the personal society of the
friend and companion of my youth, I have not been unmindful of his
soaring flight. Nor have I been debarred,
Though seas between us braid ha' roared,
(BURNS) from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread
before us.
'I cannot, therefore, allow of the departure from this place of an
individual whom we mutually respect and esteem, without, my dear
Sir, taking this public opportunity of thanking you, on my own
behalf, and, I may undertake to add, on that of the whole of the
Inhabitants of Port Middlebay, for the gratification of which you
are the ministering agent.
'Go on, my dear Sir! You are not unknown here, you are not
unappreciated. Though "remote", we are neither "unfriended",
"melancholy", nor (I may add) "slow". Go on, my dear Sir, in your
Eagle course! The inhabitants of Port Middlebay may at least aspire
to watch it, with delight, with entertainment, with instruction!
'Among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the
globe, will ever be found, while it has light and life,
'The
'Eye
'Appertaining to
'WILKINS MICAWBER,
'Magistrate.'
I found, on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper,
that Mr. Micawber was a diligent and esteemed correspondent of that
journal. There was another letter from him in the same paper,
touching a bridge; there was an advertisement of a collection of
similar letters by him, to be shortly republished, in a neat
volume, 'with considerable additions'; and, unless I am very much
mistaken, the Leading Article was his also.
We talked much of Mr. Micawber, on many other evenings while Mr.
Peggotty remained with us. He lived with us during the whole term
of his stay, - which, I think, was something less than a month, -
and his sister and my aunt came to London to see him. Agnes and I
parted from him aboard-ship, when he sailed; and we shall never
part from him more, on earth.
But before he left, he went with me to Yarmouth, to see a little
tablet I had put up in the churchyard to the memory of Ham. While
I was copying the plain inscription for him at his request, I saw
him stoop, and gather a tuft of grass from the grave and a little
earth.
'For Em'ly,' he said, as he put it in his breast. 'I promised,
Mas'r Davy.'
CHAPTER 64
A LAST RETROSPECT
And now my written story ends. I look back, once more - for the
last time - before I close these leaves.
I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of
life. I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the
roar of many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on.
What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo,
these; all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question!
Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score
years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles
at a stretch in winter weather.
Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise
in spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to
the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle,
a yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of
St. Paul's upon the lid.
The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish
days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference
to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken
their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they
glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated
with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my
least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I
think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk.
My aunt's old disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother
to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora (the next in order) says
she spoils her.
There is something bulky in Peggotty's pocket. It is nothing
smaller than the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated
condition by this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched
across, but which Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious
relic. I find it very curious to see my own infant face, looking
up at me from the Crocodile stories; and to be reminded by it of my
old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield.
Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making
giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for
which there are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers,
with many nods and winks, 'Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that
I shall finish the Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and
that your aunt's the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir!'
Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing
me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and
beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful
wandering of the mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a
sharp, dark, withered woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me
hear what they say.
'Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman's name.'
Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, 'Mr. Copperfield.'
'I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in
mourning. I hope Time will be good to you.'
Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning,
bids her look again, tries to rouse her.
'You have seen my son, sir,' says the elder lady. 'Are you
reconciled?'
Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and
moans. Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, 'Rosa, come to
me. He is dead!' Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her,
and quarrels with her; now fiercely telling her, 'I loved him
better than you ever did!'- now soothing her to sleep on her
breast, like a sick child. Thus I leave them; thus I always find
them; thus they wear their time away, from year to year.
What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is
this, married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of
ears? Can this be Julia Mills?
Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to
carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a
copper-coloured woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round
her head, to serve her Tiffin in her dressing-room. But Julia
keeps no diary in these days; never sings Affection's Dirge;
eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus, who is a sort of
yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in money to the
throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her better
in the Desert of Sahara.
Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a
stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day,
I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit
or flower. What Julia calls 'society', I see; among it Mr. Jack
Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it
him, and speaking to me of the Doctor as 'so charmingly antique'.
But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies,
Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to
everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must
have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better
find the way out.
And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his
Dictionary (somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home
and wife. Also the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing,
and by no means so influential as in days of yore!
Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his
hair (where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the
constant friction of his lawyer's-wig, I come, in a later time,
upon my dear old Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles
of papers; and I say, as I look around me:
'If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to
do!'
'You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital
days, too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?'
'When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town
talk then!'
'At all events,' says Traddles, 'if I ever am one -'
'Why, you know you will be.'
'Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story,
as I said I would.'
We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with
Traddles. It is Sophy's birthday; and, on our road, Traddles
discourses to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed.
'I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had
most at heart. There's the Reverend Horace promoted to that living
at four hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys
receiving the very best education, and distinguishing themselves as
steady scholars and good fellows; there are three of the girls
married very comfortably; there are three more living with us;
there are three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace since
Mrs. Crewler's decease; and all of them happy.'
'Except -' I suggest.
'Except the Beauty,' says Traddles. 'Yes. It was very unfortunate
that she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain
dash and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have got
her safe at our house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up
again.'
Traddles's house is one of the very houses - or it easily may have
been - which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening
walks. It is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his
dressing-room and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy
squeeze themselves into upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms
for the Beauty and the girls. There is no room to spare in the
house; for more of 'the girls' are here, and always are here, by
some accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, when we go
in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door, and handing
Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here,
established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow with a
little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy's birthday, are the three
married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband's
brothers, and another husband's cousin, and another husband's
sister, who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles,
exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at
the foot of the large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon
him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not
glittering with Britannia metal.
And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet,
these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly
light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond
them all. And that remains.
I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.
My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the
dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.
O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life
indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the
shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing
upward!