David Copperfield

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There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long
deserted by the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and
topped out of their remembered shapes. The garden had run wild,
and half the windows of the house were shut up. It was occupied,
but only by a poor lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care
of him. He was always sitting at my little window, looking out
into the churchyard; and I wondered whether his rambling thoughts
ever went upon any of the fancies that used to occupy mine, on the
rosy mornings when I peeped out of that same little window in my
night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly feeding in the light of
the rising sun.

Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South
America, and the rain had made its way through the roof of their
empty house, and stained the outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married
again to a tall, raw-boned, high-nosed wife; and they had a weazen
little baby, with a heavy head that it couldn't hold up, and two
weak staring eyes, with which it seemed to be always wondering why
it had ever been born.

It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used
to linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun
admonished me that it was time to start on my returning walk. But,
when the place was left behind, and especially when Steerforth and
I were happily seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was
delicious to think of having been there. So it was, though in a
softened degree, when I went to my neat room at night; and, turning
over the leaves of the crocodile-book (which was always there, upon
a little table), remembered with a grateful heart how blest I was
in having such a friend as Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty,
and such a substitute for what I had lost as my excellent and
generous aunt.

MY nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks,
was by a ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the
sea, which I could make straight across, and so save myself a
considerable circuit by the high road. Mr. Peggotty's house being
on that waste-place, and not a hundred yards out of my track, I
always looked in as I went by. Steerforth was pretty sure to be
there expecting me, and we went on together through the frosty air
and gathering fog towards the twinkling lights of the town.

One dark evening, when I was later than usual - for I had, that
day, been making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now
about to return home - I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty's house,
sitting thoughtfully before the fire. He was so intent upon his
own reflections that he was quite unconscious of my approach.
This, indeed, he might easily have been if he had been less
absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the sandy ground
outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was standing
close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he was
lost in his meditations.

He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he
made me start too.

'You come upon me,' he said, almost angrily, 'like a reproachful
ghost!'

'I was obliged to announce myself, somehow,' I replied. 'Have I
called you down from the stars?'

'No,' he answered. 'No.'

'Up from anywhere, then?' said I, taking my seat near him.

'I was looking at the pictures in the fire,' he returned.

'But you are spoiling them for me,' said I, as he stirred it
quickly with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of
red-hot sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and
roaring out into the air.

'You would not have seen them,' he returned. 'I detest this
mongrel time, neither day nor night. How late you are! Where have
you been?'

'I have been taking leave of my usual walk,' said I.

'And I have been sitting here,' said Steerforth, glancing round the
room, 'thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night
of our coming down, might - to judge from the present wasted air of
the place - be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don't know what
harm. David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last
twenty years!'

'My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?'

'I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!' he exclaimed.
'I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!'

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed
me. He was more unlike himself than I could have supposed
possible.

'It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a
nephew,' he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the
chimney-piece, with his face towards the fire, 'than to be myself,
twenty times richer and twenty times wiser, and be the torment to
myself that I have been, in this Devil's bark of a boat, within the
last half-hour!'

I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could
only observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his
hand, and looking gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged
him, with all the earnestness I felt, to tell me what had occurred
to cross him so unusually, and to let me sympathize with him, if I
could not hope to advise him. Before I had well concluded, he
began to laugh - fretfully at first, but soon with returning
gaiety.

'Tut, it's nothing, Daisy! nothing!' he replied. 'I told you at
the inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I
have been a nightmare to myself, just now - must have had one, I
think. At odd dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory,
unrecognized for what they are. I believe I have been confounding
myself with the bad boy who "didn't care", and became food for
lions - a grander kind of going to the dogs, I suppose. What old
women call the horrors, have been creeping over me from head to
foot. I have been afraid of myself.'

'You are afraid of nothing else, I think,' said I.

'Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too,' he
answered. 'Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped
again, David; but I tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it
would have been well for me (and for more than me) if I had had a
steadfast and judicious father!'

His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express
such a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with
his glance bent on the fire.

'So much for that!' he said, making as if he tossed something light
into the air, with his hand. "'Why, being gone, I am a man again,"
like Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like)
broken up the feast with most admired disorder, Daisy.'

'But where are they all, I wonder!' said I.

'God knows,' said Steerforth. 'After strolling to the ferry
looking for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted.
That set me thinking, and you found me thinking.'

The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house
had happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something
that was needed, against Mr. Peggotty's return with the tide; and
had left the door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em'ly,
with whom it was an early night, should come home while she was
gone. Steerforth, after very much improving Mrs. Gummidge's
spirits by a cheerful salutation and a jocose embrace, took my arm,
and hurried me away.

He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge's, for
they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious
conversation as we went along.

'And so,' he said, gaily, 'we abandon this buccaneer life tomorrow,
do we?'

'So we agreed,' I returned. 'And our places by the coach are
taken, you know.'

'Ay! there's no help for it, I suppose,' said Steerforth. 'I have
almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to
go out tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not.'

'As long as the novelty should last,' said I, laughing.

'Like enough,' he returned; 'though there's a sarcastic meaning in
that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young
friend. Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know
I am; but while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too.
I could pass a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in
these waters, I think.'

'Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder,' I returned.

'A nautical phenomenon, eh?' laughed Steerforth.

'Indeed he does, and you know how truly; I know how ardent you are
in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And
that amazes me most in you, Steerforth- that you should be
contented with such fitful uses of your powers.'

'Contented?' he answered, merrily. 'I am never contented, except
with your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have
never learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on
which the Ixions of these days are turning round and round. I
missed it somehow in a bad apprenticeship, and now don't care about
it. - You know I have bought a boat down here?'

'What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!' I exclaimed,
stopping - for this was the first I had heard of it. 'When you may
never care to come near the place again!'

'I don't know that,' he returned. 'I have taken a fancy to the
place. At all events,' walking me briskly on, 'I have bought a
boat that was for sale - a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she
is - and Mr. Peggotty will be master of her in my absence.'

'Now I understand you, Steerforth!' said I, exultingly. 'You
pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so
to confer a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first,
knowing you. My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I
think of your generosity?'

'Tush!' he answered, turning red. 'The less said, the better.'

'Didn't I know?' cried I, 'didn't I say that there was not a joy,
or sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was
indifferent to you?'

'Aye, aye,' he answered, 'you told me all that. There let it rest.
We have said enough!'

Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so
light of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even
a quicker pace than before.

'She must be newly rigged,' said Steerforth, 'and I shall leave
Littimer behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite
complete. Did I tell you Littimer had come down?'

'No.'

'Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother.'

As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips,
though he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some
difference between him and his mother might have led to his being
in the frame of mind in which I had found him at the solitary
fireside. I hinted so.

'Oh no!' he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh.
'Nothing of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine.'

'The same as ever?' said I.

'The same as ever,' said Steerforth. 'Distant and quiet as the
North Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She's the
"Stormy Petrel" now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy
Petrels! I'll have her christened again.'

'By what name?' I asked.

'The "Little Em'ly".'

As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder
that he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could
not help showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said
little, and he resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved.

'But see here,' he said, looking before us, 'where the original
little Em'ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul,
he's a true knight. He never leaves her!'

Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural
ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled
workman. He was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough,
but manly withal, and a very fit protector for the blooming little
creature at his side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face,
an honesty, and an undisguised show of his pride in her, and his
love for her, which were, to me, the best of good looks. I
thought, as they came towards us, that they were well matched even
in that particular.

She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak
to them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When
they passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not
like to replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and
constrained, walked by herself. I thought all this very pretty and
engaging, and Steerforth seemed to think so too, as we looked after
them fading away in the light of a young moon.

Suddenly there passed us - evidently following them - a young woman
whose approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she
went by, and thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly
dressed; looked bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but
seemed, for the time, to have given all that to the wind which was
blowing, and to have nothing in her mind but going after them. As
the dark distant level, absorbing their figures into itself, left
but itself visible between us and the sea and clouds, her figure
disappeared in like manner, still no nearer to them than before.

'That is a black shadow to be following the girl,' said Steerforth,
standing still; 'what does it mean?'

He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to Me.

'She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,' said I.

'A beggar would be no novelty,' said Steerforth; 'but it is a
strange thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight.'

'Why?' I asked.

'For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking,' he
said, after a pause, 'of something like it, when it came by. Where
the Devil did it come from, I wonder!'

'From the shadow of this wall, I think,' said I, as we emerged upon
a road on which a wall abutted.

'It's gone!' he returned, looking over his shoulder. 'And all ill
go with it. Now for our dinner!'

But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line
glimmering afar off, and yet again. And he wondered about it, in
some broken expressions, several times, in the short remainder of
our walk; and only seemed to forget it when the light of fire and
candle shone upon us, seated warm and merry, at table.

Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said
to him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he
answered respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were
tolerably well, he thanked me, and had sent their compliments.
This was all, and yet he seemed to me to say as plainly as a man
could say: 'You are very young, sir; you are exceedingly young.'

We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards
the table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather
upon me, as I felt, he said to his master:

'I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here.'

'Who?' cried Steerforth, much astonished.

'Miss Mowcher, sir.'

'Why, what on earth does she do here?' said Steerforth.

'It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs
me that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year,
sir. I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to
know if she might have the honour of waiting on you after dinner,
sir.'

'Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?' inquired Steerforth.

I was obliged to confess - I felt ashamed, even of being at this
disadvantage before Littimer - that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly
unacquainted.

'Then you shall know her,' said Steerforth, 'for she is one of the
seven wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in.'

I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as
Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and
positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the
subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable
expectation until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and
we were sitting over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the
door opened, and Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite
undisturbed, announced:

'Miss Mowcher!'

I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at
the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her
appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling
round a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about
forty or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of
roguish grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable
herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled
Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay
her nose against it. Her chin, which was what is called a double
chin, was so fat that it entirely swallowed up the strings of her
bonnet, bow and all. Throat she had none; waist she had none; legs
she had none, worth mentioning; for though she was more than
full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had had
any, and though she terminated, as human beings generally do, in a
pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized
chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. This
lady - dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and
her forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described;
standing with her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of
her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face - after
ogling Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent of words.

'What! My flower!' she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at
him. 'You're there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame,
what do you do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I'll be
bound. Oh, you're a downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I'm
another, ain't I? Ha, ha, ha! You'd have betted a hundred pound
to five, now, that you wouldn't have seen me here, wouldn't you?
Bless you, man alive, I'm everywhere. I'm here and there, and
where not, like the conjurer's half-crown in the lady's
handkercher. Talking of handkerchers - and talking of ladies -
what a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain't you, my dear
boy, over one of my shoulders, and I don't say which!'

Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse,
threw back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in
front of the fire - making a kind of arbour of the dining table,
which spread its mahogany shelter above her head.

'Oh my stars and what's-their-names!' she went on, clapping a hand
on each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, 'I'm of
too full a habit, that's the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of
stairs, it gives me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as
if it was a bucket of water. If you saw me looking out of an upper
window, you'd think I was a fine woman, wouldn't you?'

'I should think that, wherever I saw you,' replied Steerforth.

'Go along, you dog, do!' cried the little creature, making a whisk
at him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face,
'and don't be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at
Lady Mithers's last week - THERE'S a woman! How SHE wears! - and
Mithers himself came into the room where I was waiting for her -
THERE'S a man! How HE wears! and his wig too, for he's had it
these ten years - and he went on at that rate in the complimentary
line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring the bell.
Ha! ha! ha! He's a pleasant wretch, but he wants principle.'

'What were you doing for Lady Mithers?' asked Steerforth.

'That's tellings, my blessed infant,' she retorted, tapping her
nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an
imp of supernatural intelligence. 'Never YOU mind! You'd like to
know whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch
up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so
you shall, my darling - when I tell you! Do you know what my great
grandfather's name was?'

'No,' said Steerforth.

'It was Walker, my sweet pet,' replied Miss Mowcher, 'and he came
of a long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates
from.'

I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher's wink except
Miss Mowcher's self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when
listening to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to
what she had said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on
one side, and one eye turned up like a magpie's. Altogether I was
lost in amazement, and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am
afraid, of the laws of politeness.

She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily
engaged in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the
shoulder, at every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs,
brushes, bits of flannel, little pairs of curling-irons, and other
instruments, which she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this
employment she suddenly desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to
my confusion:

'Who's your friend?'

'Mr. Copperfield,' said Steerforth; 'he wants to know you.'

'Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!' returned
Miss Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as
she came. 'Face like a peach!' standing on tiptoe to pinch my
cheek as I sat. 'Quite tempting! I'm very fond of peaches. Happy
to make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure.'

I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour to make
hers, and that the happiness was mutual.

'Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!' exclaimed Miss Mowcher,
making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her
morsel of a hand. 'What a world of gammon and spinnage it is,
though, ain't it!'

This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of
a hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in
the bag again.

'What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?' said Steerforth.

'Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure,
ain't we, my sweet child?' replied that morsel of a woman, feeling
in the bag with her head on one side and her eye in the air. 'Look
here!' taking something out. 'Scraps of the Russian Prince's
nails. Prince Alphabet turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his
name's got all the letters in it, higgledy-piggledy.'

'The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?' said Steerforth.

'I believe you, my pet,' replied Miss Mowcher. 'I keep his nails
in order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes.'

'He pays well, I hope?' said Steerforth.

'Pays, as he speaks, my dear child - through the nose,' replied
Miss Mowcher. 'None of your close shavers the Prince ain't. You'd
say so, if you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art.'

'By your art, of course,' said Steerforth.

Miss Mowcher winked assent. 'Forced to send for me. Couldn't help
it. The climate affected his dye; it did very well in Russia, but
it was no go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your
born days as he was. Like old iron!'
'Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?' inquired
Steerforth.

'Oh, you're a broth of a boy, ain't you?' returned Miss Mowcher,
shaking her head violently. 'I said, what a set of humbugs we were
in general, and I showed you the scraps of the Prince's nails to
prove it. The Prince's nails do more for me in private families of
the genteel sort, than all my talents put together. I always carry
'em about. They're the best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts
the Prince's nails, she must be all right. I give 'em away to the
young ladies. They put 'em in albums, I believe. Ha! ha! ha!
Upon my life, "the whole social system" (as the men call it when
they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of Prince's nails!'
said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and
nodding her large head.

Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher
continuing all the time to shake her head (which was very much on
one side), and to look into the air with one eye, and to wink with
the other.

'Well, well!' she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, 'this
is not business. Come, Steerforth, let's explore the polar
regions, and have it over.'

She then selected two or three of the little instruments, and a
little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear.
On Steerforth's replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair
against it, and begging the assistance of my hand, mounted up,
pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it were a stage.

'If either of you saw my ankles,' she said, when she was safely
elevated, 'say so, and I'll go home and destroy myself!'

'I did not,' said Steerforth.

'I did not,' said I.

'Well then,' cried Miss Mowcher,' I'll consent to live. Now,
ducky, ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed.'

This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself under her
hands; who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the
table, and his laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to
her inspection, evidently for no other purpose than our
entertainment. To see Miss Mowcher standing over him, looking at
his rich profusion of brown hair through a large round magnifying
glass, which she took out of her pocket, was a most amazing
spectacle.