David Copperfield

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Mr. Micawber took an early opportunity, after that, of hinting,
with the utmost delicacy and ceremony, at the state of MY
affections. Nothing but the serious assurance of his friend
Copperfield to the contrary, he observed, could deprive him of the
impression that his friend Copperfield loved and was beloved.
After feeling very hot and uncomfortable for some time, and after
a good deal of blushing, stammering, and denying, I said, having my
glass in my hand, 'Well! I would give them D.!' which so excited
and gratified Mr. Micawber, that he ran with a glass of punch into
my bedroom, in order that Mrs. Micawber might drink D., who drank
it with enthusiasm, crying from within, in a shrill voice, 'Hear,
hear! My dear Mr. Copperfield, I am delighted. Hear!' and tapping
at the wall, by way of applause.

Our conversation, afterwards, took a more worldly turn; Mr.
Micawber telling us that he found Camden Town inconvenient, and
that the first thing he contemplated doing, when the advertisement
should have been the cause of something satisfactory turning up,
was to move. He mentioned a terrace at the western end of Oxford
Street, fronting Hyde Park, on which he had always had his eye, but
which he did not expect to attain immediately, as it would require
a large establishment. There would probably be an interval, he
explained, in which he should content himself with the upper part
of a house, over some respectable place of business - say in
Piccadilly, - which would be a cheerful situation for Mrs.
Micawber; and where, by throwing out a bow-window, or carrying up
the roof another story, or making some little alteration of that
sort, they might live, comfortably and reputably, for a few years.
Whatever was reserved for him, he expressly said, or wherever his
abode might be, we might rely on this - there would always be a
room for Traddles, and a knife and fork for me. We acknowledged
his kindness; and he begged us to forgive his having launched into
these practical and business-like details, and to excuse it as
natural in one who was making entirely new arrangements in life.

Mrs. Micawber, tapping at the wall again to know if tea were ready,
broke up this particular phase of our friendly conversation. She
made tea for us in a most agreeable manner; and, whenever I went
near her, in handing about the tea-cups and bread-and-butter, asked
me, in a whisper, whether D. was fair, or dark, or whether she was
short, or tall: or something of that kind; which I think I liked.
After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and
Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat
voice, which I remembered to have considered, when I first knew
her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favourite ballads of
'The Dashing White Sergeant', and 'Little Tafflin'. For both of
these songs Mrs. Micawber had been famous when she lived at home
with her papa and mama. Mr. Micawber told us, that when he heard
her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her
beneath the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an
extraordinary degree; but that when it came to Little Tafflin, he
had resolved to win that woman or perish in the attempt.

It was between ten and eleven o'clock when Mrs. Micawber rose to
replace her cap in the whitey-brown paper parcel, and to put on her
bonnet. Mr. Micawber took the opportunity of Traddles putting on
his great-coat, to slip a letter into my hand, with a whispered
request that I would read it at my leisure. I also took the
opportunity of my holding a candle over the banisters to light them
down, when Mr. Micawber was going first, leading Mrs. Micawber, and
Traddles was following with the cap, to detain Traddles for a
moment on the top of the stairs.

'Traddles,' said I, 'Mr. Micawber don't mean any harm, poor fellow:
but, if I were you, I wouldn't lend him anything.'

'My dear Copperfield,' returned Traddles, smiling, 'I haven't got
anything to lend.'

'You have got a name, you know,' said I.

'Oh! You call THAT something to lend?' returned Traddles, with a
thoughtful look.

'Certainly.'

'Oh!' said Traddles. 'Yes, to be sure! I am very much obliged to
you, Copperfield; but - I am afraid I have lent him that already.'

'For the bill that is to be a certain investment?' I inquired.

'No,' said Traddles. 'Not for that one. This is the first I have
heard of that one. I have been thinking that he will most likely
propose that one, on the way home. Mine's another.'

'I hope there will be nothing wrong about it,' said I.
'I hope not,' said Traddles. 'I should think not, though, because
he told me, only the other day, that it was provided for. That was
Mr. Micawber's expression, "Provided for."'

Mr. Micawber looking up at this juncture to where we were standing,
I had only time to repeat my caution. Traddles thanked me, and
descended. But I was much afraid, when I observed the good-natured
manner in which he went down with the cap in his hand, and gave
Mrs. Micawber his arm, that he would be carried into the Money
Market neck and heels.

I returned to my fireside, and was musing, half gravely and half
laughing, on the character of Mr. Micawber and the old relations
between us, when I heard a quick step ascending the stairs. At
first, I thought it was Traddles coming back for something Mrs.
Micawber had left behind; but as the step approached, I knew it,
and felt my heart beat high, and the blood rush to my face, for it
was Steerforth's.

I was never unmindful of Agnes, and she never left that sanctuary
in my thoughts - if I may call it so - where I had placed her from
the first. But when he entered, and stood before me with his hand
out, the darkness that had fallen on him changed to light, and I
felt confounded and ashamed of having doubted one I loved so
heartily. I loved her none the less; I thought of her as the same
benignant, gentle angel in my life; I reproached myself, not her,
with having done him an injury; and I would have made him any
atonement if I had known what to make, and how to make it.

'Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!' laughed Steerforth, shaking
my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. 'Have I detected you
in another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors' Commons fellows are
the gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people
all to nothing!' His bright glance went merrily round the room, as
he took the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber
had recently vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze.

'I was so surprised at first,' said I, giving him welcome with all
the cordiality I felt, 'that I had hardly breath to greet you with,
Steerforth.'

'Well, the sight of me is good for sore eyes, as the Scotch say,'
replied Steerforth, 'and so is the sight of you, Daisy, in full
bloom. How are you, my Bacchanal?'

'I am very well,' said I; 'and not at all Bacchanalian tonight,
though I confess to another party of three.'

'All of whom I met in the street, talking loud in your praise,'
returned Steerforth. 'Who's our friend in the tights?'

I gave him the best idea I could, in a few words, of Mr. Micawber.
He laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that gentleman, and
said he was a man to know, and he must know him.
'But who do you suppose our other friend is?' said I, in my turn.

'Heaven knows,' said Steerforth. 'Not a bore, I hope? I thought
he looked a little like one.'

'Traddles!' I replied, triumphantly.

'Who's he?' asked Steerforth, in his careless way.

'Don't you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem
House?'

'Oh! That fellow!' said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the
top of the fire, with the poker. 'Is he as soft as ever? And
where the deuce did you pick him up?'

I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that
Steerforth rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject
with a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad
to see the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish,
inquired if I could give him anything to eat? During most of this
short dialogue, when he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious
manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker.
I observed that he did the same thing while I was getting out the
remains of the pigeon-pie, and so forth.

'Why, Daisy, here's a supper for a king!' he exclaimed, starting
out of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table.
'I shall do it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth.'

'I thought you came from Oxford?' I returned.

'Not I,' said Steerforth. 'I have been seafaring - better
employed.'

'Littimer was here today, to inquire for you,' I remarked, 'and I
understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it,
he certainly did not say so.'

'Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been
inquiring for me at all,' said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a
glass of wine, and drinking to me. 'As to understanding him, you
are a cleverer fellow than most of us, Daisy, if you can do that.'

'That's true, indeed,' said I, moving my chair to the table. 'So
you have been at Yarmouth, Steerforth!' interested to know all
about it. 'Have you been there long?'

'No,' he returned. 'An escapade of a week or so.'

'And how are they all? Of course, little Emily is not married
yet?'

'Not yet. Going to be, I believe - in so many weeks, or months, or
something or other. I have not seen much of 'em. By the by'; he
laid down his knife and fork, which he had been using with great
diligence, and began feeling in his pockets; 'I have a letter for
you.'

'From whom?'

'Why, from your old nurse,' he returned, taking some papers out of
his breast pocket. "'J. Steerforth, Esquire, debtor, to The
Willing Mind"; that's not it. Patience, and we'll find it
presently. Old what's-his-name's in a bad way, and it's about
that, I believe.'

'Barkis, do you mean?'

'Yes!' still feeling in his pockets, and looking over their
contents: 'it's all over with poor Barkis, I am afraid. I saw a
little apothecary there - surgeon, or whatever he is - who brought
your worship into the world. He was mighty learned about the case,
to me; but the upshot of his opinion was, that the carrier was
making his last journey rather fast. - Put your hand into the
breast pocket of my great-coat on the chair yonder, and I think
you'll find the letter. Is it there?'

'Here it is!' said I.

'That's right!'

It was from Peggotty; something less legible than usual, and brief.
It informed me of her husband's hopeless state, and hinted at his
being 'a little nearer' than heretofore, and consequently more
difficult to manage for his own comfort. It said nothing of her
weariness and watching, and praised him highly. It was written
with a plain, unaffected, homely piety that I knew to be genuine,
and ended with 'my duty to my ever darling' - meaning myself.

While I deciphered it, Steerforth continued to eat and drink.

'It's a bad job,' he said, when I had done; 'but the sun sets every
day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the
common lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot
at all men's doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in
this world would slip from us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need
be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all
obstacles, and win the race!'

'And win what race?' said I.

'The race that one has started in,' said he. 'Ride on!'

I noticed, I remember, as he paused, looking at me with his
handsome head a little thrown back, and his glass raised in his
hand, that, though the freshness of the sea-wind was on his face,
and it was ruddy, there were traces in it, made since I last saw
it, as if he had applied himself to some habitual strain of the
fervent energy which, when roused, was so passionately roused
within him. I had it in my thoughts to remonstrate with him upon
his desperate way of pursuing any fancy that he took - such as this
buffeting of rough seas, and braving of hard weather, for example
- when my mind glanced off to the immediate subject of our
conversation again, and pursued that instead.

'I tell you what, Steerforth,' said I, 'if your high spirits will
listen to me -'

'They are potent spirits, and will do whatever you like,' he
answered, moving from the table to the fireside again.

'Then I tell you what, Steerforth. I think I will go down and see
my old nurse. It is not that I can do her any good, or render her
any real service; but she is so attached to me that my visit will
have as much effect on her, as if I could do both. She will take
it so kindly that it will be a comfort and support to her. It is
no great effort to make, I am sure, for such a friend as she has
been to me. Wouldn't you go a day's journey, if you were in my
place?'

His face was thoughtful, and he sat considering a little before he
answered, in a low voice, 'Well! Go. You can do no harm.'

'You have just come back,' said I, 'and it would be in vain to ask
you to go with me?'

'Quite,' he returned. 'I am for Highgate tonight. I have not seen
my mother this long time, and it lies upon my conscience, for it's
something to be loved as she loves her prodigal son. - Bah!
Nonsense! - You mean to go tomorrow, I suppose?' he said, holding
me out at arm's length, with a hand on each of my shoulders.

'Yes, I think so.'

'Well, then, don't go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay
a few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly
off to Yarmouth!'

'You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are
always running wild on some unknown expedition or other!'

He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined,
still holding me as before, and giving me a shake:

'Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of tomorrow as you can
with us! Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the
next day! I want you to stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep
us asunder.'

'Would you love each other too much, without me?'

'Yes; or hate,' laughed Steerforth; 'no matter which. Come! Say
the next day!'

I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat and lighted his
cigar, and set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I
put on my own great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having
had enough of that for one while) and walked with him as far as the
open road: a dull road, then, at night. He was in great spirits
all the way; and when we parted, and I looked after him going so
gallantly and airily homeward, I thought of his saying, 'Ride on
over all obstacles, and win the race!' and wished, for the first
time, that he had some worthy race to run.

I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber's letter tumbled
on the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as
follows. It was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not
sure whether I have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any
particularly desperate crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology,
which he seemed to think equivalent to winding up his affairs.

'SIR - for I dare not say my dear Copperfield,

'It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is
Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature
knowledge of his calamitous position, you may observe in him this
day; but hope has sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is
Crushed.

'The present communication is penned within the personal range (I
cannot call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely
bordering on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual
is in legal possession of the premises, under a distress for rent.
His inventory includes, not only the chattels and effects of every
description belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this
habitation, but also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles,
lodger, a member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.

'If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is
now "commended" (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips
of the undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly
acceptance granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr.
Thomas Traddles, for the sum Of 23l 4s 9 1/2d is over due, and is
NOT provided for. Also, in the fact that the living
responsibilities clinging to the undersigned will, in the course of
nature, be increased by the sum of one more helpless victim; whose
miserable appearance may be looked for - in round numbers - at the
expiration of a period not exceeding six lunar months from the
present date.

'After premising thus much, it would be a work of supererogation to
add, that dust and ashes are for ever scattered

'On
'The
'Head
'Of
'WILKINS MICAWBER.'

Poor Traddles! I knew enough of Mr. Micawber by this time, to
foresee that he might be expected to recover the blow; but my
night's rest was sorely distressed by thoughts of Traddles, and of
the curate's daughter, who was one of ten, down in Devonshire, and
who was such a dear girl, and who would wait for Traddles (ominous
praise!) until she was sixty, or any age that could be mentioned.

CHAPTER 29
I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN

I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of
absence for a short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any
salary, and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable
Jorkins, there was no difficulty about it. I took that
opportunity, with my voice sticking in my throat, and my sight
failing as I uttered the words, to express my hope that Miss
Spenlow was quite well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied, with no more
emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human being,
that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well.

We articled clerks, as germs of the patrician order of proctors,
were treated with so much consideration, that I was almost my own
master at all times. As I did not care, however, to get to
Highgate before one or two o'clock in the day, and as we had
another little excommunication case in court that morning, which
was called The office of the judge promoted by Tipkins against
Bullock for his soul's correction, I passed an hour or two in
attendance on it with Mr. Spenlow very agreeably. It arose out of
a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was alleged to
have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which pump
projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a
gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence.
It was an amusing case; and sent me up to Highgate, on the box of
the stage-coach, thinking about the Commons, and what Mr. Spenlow
had said about touching the Commons and bringing down the country.

Mrs. Steerforth was pleased to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle. I
was agreeably surprised to find that Littimer was not there, and
that we were attended by a modest little parlour-maid, with blue
ribbons in her cap, whose eye it was much more pleasant, and much
less disconcerting, to catch by accident, than the eye of that
respectable man. But what I particularly observed, before I had
been half-an-hour in the house, was the close and attentive watch
Miss Dartle kept upon me; and the lurking manner in which she
seemed to compare my face with Steerforth's, and Steerforth's with
mine, and to lie in wait for something to come out between the two.
So surely as I looked towards her, did I see that eager visage,
with its gaunt black eyes and searching brow, intent on mine; or
passing suddenly from mine to Steerforth's; or comprehending both
of us at once. In this lynx-like scrutiny she was so far from
faltering when she saw I observed it, that at such a time she only
fixed her piercing look upon me with a more intent expression
still. Blameless as I was, and knew that I was, in reference to
any wrong she could possibly suspect me of, I shrunk before her
strange eyes, quite unable to endure their hungry lustre.

All day, she seemed to pervade the whole house. If I talked to
Steerforth in his room, I heard her dress rustle in the little
gallery outside. When he and I engaged in some of our old
exercises on the lawn behind the house, I saw her face pass from
window to window, like a wandering light, until it fixed itself in
one, and watched us. When we all four went out walking in the
afternoon, she closed her thin hand on my arm like a spring, to
keep me back, while Steerforth and his mother went on out of
hearing: and then spoke to me.

'You have been a long time,' she said, 'without coming here. Is
your profession really so engaging and interesting as to absorb
your whole attention? I ask because I always want to be informed,
when I am ignorant. Is it really, though?'

I replied that I liked it well enough, but that I certainly could
not claim so much for it.

'Oh! I am glad to know that, because I always like to be put right
when I am wrong,' said Rosa Dartle. 'You mean it is a little dry,
perhaps?'

'Well,' I replied; 'perhaps it was a little dry.'

'Oh! and that's a reason why you want relief and change -
excitement and all that?' said she. 'Ah! very true! But isn't it
a little - Eh? - for him; I don't mean you?'

A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was
walking, with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she
meant; but beyond that, I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have
no doubt.

'Don't it - I don't say that it does, mind I want to know - don't
it rather engross him? Don't it make him, perhaps, a little more
remiss than usual in his visits to his blindly-doting - eh?' With
another quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to
look into my innermost thoughts.

'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'pray do not think -'

'I don't!' she said. 'Oh dear me, don't suppose that I think
anything! I am not suspicious. I only ask a question. I don't
state any opinion. I want to found an opinion on what you tell me.
Then, it's not so? Well! I am very glad to know it.'

'It certainly is not the fact,' said I, perplexed, 'that I am
accountable for Steerforth's having been away from home longer than
usual - if he has been: which I really don't know at this moment,
unless I understand it from you. I have not seen him this long
while, until last night.'

'No?'

'Indeed, Miss Dartle, no!'

As she looked full at me, I saw her face grow sharper and paler,
and the marks of the old wound lengthen out until it cut through
the disfigured lip, and deep into the nether lip, and slanted down
the face. There was something positively awful to me in this, and
in the brightness of her eyes, as she said, looking fixedly at me:

'What is he doing?'

I repeated the words, more to myself than her, being so amazed.

'What is he doing?' she said, with an eagerness that seemed enough
to consume her like a fire. 'In what is that man assisting him,
who never looks at me without an inscrutable falsehood in his eyes?
If you are honourable and faithful, I don't ask you to betray your
friend. I ask you only to tell me, is it anger, is it hatred, is
it pride, is it restlessness, is it some wild fancy, is it love,
what is it, that is leading him?'

'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'how shall I tell you, so that you will
believe me, that I know of nothing in Steerforth different from
what there was when I first came here? I can think of nothing. I
firmly believe there is nothing. I hardly understand even what you
mean.'

As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing,
from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that
cruel mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn,
or with a pity that despised its object. She put her hand upon it
hurriedly - a hand so thin and delicate, that when I had seen her
hold it up before the fire to shade her face, I had compared it in
my thoughts to fine porcelain - and saying, in a quick, fierce,
passionate way, 'I swear you to secrecy about this!' said not a
word more.

Mrs. Steerforth was particularly happy in her son's society, and
Steerforth was, on this occasion, particularly attentive and
respectful to her. It was very interesting to me to see them
together, not only on account of their mutual affection, but
because of the strong personal resemblance between them, and the
manner in which what was haughty or impetuous in him was softened
by age and sex, in her, to a gracious dignity. I thought, more
than once, that it was well no serious cause of division had ever
come between them; or two such natures - I ought rather to express
it, two such shades of the same nature - might have been harder to
reconcile than the two extremest opposites in creation. The idea
did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but
in a speech of Rosa Dartle's.

She said at dinner:

'Oh, but do tell me, though, somebody, because I have been thinking
about it all day, and I want to know.'