David Copperfield

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'I dare say I didn't make myself very clear,' he went on, 'nor you
neither. Naturally, we was both of us inclined to give such a
subject a wide berth. Hows'ever, at last I have made up my mind to
speak plain; and I have mentioned to Doctor Strong that - did you
speak, sir?'

This was to the Doctor, who had moaned. The sound might have
touched any heart, I thought, but it had no effect upon Uriah's.

'- mentioned to Doctor Strong,' he proceeded, 'that anyone may see
that Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Doctor
Strong's wife, are too sweet on one another. Really the time is
come (we being at present all mixing ourselves up with what
oughtn't to be), when Doctor Strong must be told that this was full
as plain to everybody as the sun, before Mr. Maldon went to India;
that Mr. Maldon made excuses to come back, for nothing else; and
that he's always here, for nothing else. When you come in, sir, I
was just putting it to my fellow-partner,' towards whom he turned,
'to say to Doctor Strong upon his word and honour, whether he'd
ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. Come, Mr. Wickfield,
sir! Would you be so good as tell us? Yes or no, sir? Come,
partner!'

'For God's sake, my dear Doctor,' said Mr. Wickfield again laying
his irresolute hand upon the Doctor's arm, 'don't attach too much
weight to any suspicions I may have entertained.'

'There!' cried Uriah, shaking his head. 'What a melancholy
confirmation: ain't it? Him! Such an old friend! Bless your
soul, when I was nothing but a clerk in his office, Copperfield,
I've seen him twenty times, if I've seen him once, quite in a
taking about it - quite put out, you know (and very proper in him
as a father; I'm sure I can't blame him), to think that Miss Agnes
was mixing herself up with what oughtn't to be.'

'My dear Strong,' said Mr. Wickfield in a tremulous voice, 'my good
friend, I needn't tell you that it has been my vice to look for
some one master motive in everybody, and to try all actions by one
narrow test. I may have fallen into such doubts as I have had,
through this mistake.'

'You have had doubts, Wickfield,' said the Doctor, without lifting
up his head. 'You have had doubts.'

'Speak up, fellow-partner,' urged Uriah.

'I had, at one time, certainly,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'I - God
forgive me - I thought YOU had.'

'No, no, no!' returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic
grief.
'I thought, at one time,' said Mr. Wickfield, 'that you wished to
send Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation.'

'No, no, no!' returned the Doctor. 'To give Annie pleasure, by
making some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing
else.'

'So I found,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'I couldn't doubt it, when you
told me so. But I thought - I implore you to remember the narrow
construction which has been my besetting sin - that, in a case
where there was so much disparity in point of years -'

'That's the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield!' observed
Uriah, with fawning and offensive pity.

'- a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her
respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly
considerations only. I make no allowance for innumerable feelings
and circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven's
sake remember that!'

'How kind he puts it!' said Uriah, shaking his head.

'Always observing her from one point of view,' said Mr. Wickfield;
'but by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to
consider what it was; I am forced to confess now, having no escape
-'

'No! There's no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir,' observed
Uriah, 'when it's got to this.'

'- that I did,' said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and
distractedly at his partner, 'that I did doubt her, and think her
wanting in her duty to you; and that I did sometimes, if I must say
all, feel averse to Agnes being in such a familiar relation towards
her, as to see what I saw, or in my diseased theory fancied that I
saw. I never mentioned this to anyone. I never meant it to be
known to anyone. And though it is terrible to you to hear,' said
Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, 'if you knew how terrible it is for
me to tell, you would feel compassion for me!'

The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his
hand. Mr. Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his
head bowed down.

'I am sure,' said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a
Conger-eel, 'that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to
everybody. But since we have got so far, I ought to take the
liberty of mentioning that Copperfield has noticed it too.'

I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me!

'Oh! it's very kind of you, Copperfield,' returned Uriah,
undulating all over, 'and we all know what an amiable character
yours is; but you know that the moment I spoke to you the other
night, you knew what I meant. You know you knew what I meant,
Copperfield. Don't deny it! You deny it with the best intentions;
but don't do it, Copperfield.'

I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a
moment, and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and
remembrances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked.
It was of no use raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would,
I could not unsay it.

We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and
walked twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to
where his chair stood; and, leaning on the back of it, and
occasionally putting his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple
honesty that did him more honour, to my thinking, than any disguise
he could have effected, said:

'I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to
blame. I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart, to trials and
aspersions - I call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in
anybody's inmost mind - of which she never, but for me, could have
been the object.'

Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy.

'Of which my Annie,' said the Doctor, 'never, but for me, could
have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know; I do
not feel, tonight, that I have much to live for. But my life - my
Life - upon the truth and honour of the dear lady who has been the
subject of this conversation!'

I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the
realization of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever
imagined by painter, could have said this, with a more impressive
and affecting dignity than the plain old Doctor did.

'But I am not prepared,' he went on, 'to deny - perhaps I may have
been, without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit - that
I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage.
I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe
that the observation of several people, of different ages and
positions, all too plainly tending in one direction (and that so
natural), is better than mine.'

I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant
manner towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness he
manifested in every reference to her on this occasion, and the
almost reverential manner in which he put away from him the
lightest doubt of her integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond
description.

'I married that lady,' said the Doctor, 'when she was extremely
young. I took her to myself when her character was scarcely
formed. So far as it was developed, it had been my happiness to
form it. I knew her father well. I knew her well. I had taught
her what I could, for the love of all her beautiful and virtuous
qualities. If I did her wrong; as I fear I did, in taking
advantage (but I never meant it) of her gratitude and her
affection; I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!'

He walked across the room, and came back to the same place; holding
the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in
its earnestness.

'I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and
vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we
were in years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me.
I did not shut out of my consideration the time when I should leave
her free, and still young and still beautiful, but with her
judgement more matured - no, gentlemen - upon my truth!'

His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and
generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace
could have imparted to it.

'My life with this lady has been very happy. Until tonight, I have
had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her
great injustice.'

His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words,
stopped for a few moments; then he went on:

'Once awakened from my dream - I have been a poor dreamer, in one
way or other, all my life - I see how natural it is that she should
have some regretful feeling towards her old companion and her
equal. That she does regard him with some innocent regret, with
some blameless thoughts of what might have been, but for me, is, I
fear, too true. Much that I have seen, but not noted, has come
back upon me with new meaning, during this last trying hour. But,
beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady's name never must be coupled
with a word, a breath, of doubt.'

For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a
little while he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as
before:

'It only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness
I have occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should
reproach; not I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel
misconstruction, that even my friends have not been able to avoid,
becomes my duty. The more retired we live, the better I shall
discharge it. And when the time comes - may it come soon, if it be
His merciful pleasure! - when my death shall release her from
constraint, I shall close my eyes upon her honoured face, with
unbounded confidence and love; and leave her, with no sorrow then,
to happier and brighter days.'

I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and
goodness, so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of
his manner, brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door, when
he added:

'Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect
it. What we have said tonight is never to be said more.
Wickfield, give me an old friend's arm upstairs!'

Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they
went slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them.

'Well, Master Copperfield!' said Uriah, meekly turning to me. 'The
thing hasn't took quite the turn that might have been expected, for
the old Scholar - what an excellent man! - is as blind as a
brickbat; but this family's out of the cart, I think!'

I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I
never was before, and never have been since.

'You villain,' said I, 'what do you mean by entrapping me into your
schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as
if we had been in discussion together?'

As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy
exultation of his face, what I already so plainly knew; I mean that
he forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable,
and had set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter; that I
couldn't bear it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly
before me, and I struck it with my open hand with that force that
my fingers tingled as if I had burnt them.

He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connexion, looking
at each other. We stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see
the white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek,
and leave it a deeper red.

'Copperfield,' he said at length, in a breathless voice, 'have you
taken leave of your senses?'

'I have taken leave of you,' said I, wresting my hand away. 'You
dog, I'll know no more of you.'

'Won't you?' said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put
his hand there. 'Perhaps you won't be able to help it. Isn't this
ungrateful of you, now?'

'I have shown you often enough,' said I, 'that I despise you. I
have shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread
your doing your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?'

He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that
had hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather
think that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped
me, but for the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is
no matter.

There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed
to take every shade of colour that could make eyes ugly.

'Copperfield,' he said, removing his hand from his cheek, 'you have
always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at
Mr. Wickfield's.'

'You may think what you like,' said I, still in a towering rage.
'If it is not true, so much the worthier you.'

'And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!' he rejoined.

I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going
out to bed, when he came between me and the door.

'Copperfield,' he said, 'there must be two parties to a quarrel.
I won't be one.'

'You may go to the devil!' said I.

'Don't say that!' he replied. 'I know you'll be sorry afterwards.
How can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad
spirit? But I forgive you.'

'You forgive me!' I repeated disdainfully.

'I do, and you can't help yourself,' replied Uriah. 'To think of
your going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you!
But there can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be
one. I will be a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know
what you've got to expect.'

The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was
very slow; mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not
be disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper;
though my passion was cooling down. Merely telling him that I
should expect from him what I always had expected, and had never
yet been disappointed in, I opened the door upon him, as if he had
been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out of the
house. But he slept out of the house too, at his mother's lodging;
and before I had gone many hundred yards, came up with me.

'You know, Copperfield,' he said, in my ear (I did not turn my
head), 'you're in quite a wrong position'; which I felt to be true,
and that made me chafe the more; 'you can't make this a brave
thing, and you can't help being forgiven. I don't intend to
mention it to mother, nor to any living soul. I'm determined to
forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand
against a person that you knew to be so umble!'

I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew
myself. If he had retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have
been a relief and a justification; but he had put me on a slow
fire, on which I lay tormented half the night.

In the morning, when I came out, the early church-bell was ringing,
and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as
if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had
struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At
all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief,
which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far from
improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist's in
London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was
a double one.

The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and remained alone,
for a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the
visit. Agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we
resumed our usual work. On the day preceding its resumption, the
Doctor gave me with his own hands a folded note not sealed. It was
addressed to myself; and laid an injunction on me, in a few
affectionate words, never to refer to the subject of that evening.
I had confided it to my aunt, but to no one else. It was not a
subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly had not the
least suspicion of what had passed.

Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks
elapsed before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly,
like a cloud when there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder
at the gentle compassion with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at
his wish that she should have her mother with her, to relieve the
dull monotony of her life. Often, when we were at work, and she
was sitting by, I would see her pausing and looking at him with
that memorable face. Afterwards, I sometimes observed her rise,
with her eyes full of tears, and go out of the room. Gradually, an
unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and deepened every day. Mrs.
Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then; but she talked
and talked, and saw nothing.

As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor's
house, the Doctor became older in appearance, and more grave; but
the sweetness of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and
his benevolent solicitude for her, if they were capable of any
increase, were increased. I saw him once, early on the morning of
her birthday, when she came to sit in the window while we were at
work (which she had always done, but now began to do with a timid
and uncertain air that I thought very touching), take her forehead
between his hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly away, too much moved
to remain. I saw her stand where he had left her, like a statue;
and then bend down her head, and clasp her hands, and weep, I
cannot say how sorrowfully.

Sometimes, after that, I fancied that she tried to speak even to
me, in intervals when we were left alone. But she never uttered a
word. The Doctor always had some new project for her participating
in amusements away from home, with her mother; and Mrs. Markleham,
who was very fond of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with
anything else, entered into them with great good-will, and was loud
in her commendations. But Annie, in a spiritless unhappy way, only
went whither she was led, and seemed to have no care for anything.

I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt; who must have
walked, at various times, a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What
was strangest of all was, that the only real relief which seemed to
make its way into the secret region of this domestic unhappiness,
made its way there in the person of Mr. Dick.

What his thoughts were on the subject, or what his observation was,
I am as unable to explain, as I dare say he would have been to
assist me in the task. But, as I have recorded in the narrative of
my school days, his veneration for the Doctor was unbounded; and
there is a subtlety of perception in real attachment, even when it
is borne towards man by one of the lower animals, which leaves the
highest intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may call
it so, in Mr. Dick, some bright ray of the truth shot straight.

He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours,
of walking up and down the garden with the Doctor; as he had been
accustomed to pace up and down The Doctor's Walk at Canterbury.
But matters were no sooner in this state, than he devoted all his
spare time (and got up earlier to make it more) to these
perambulations. If he had never been so happy as when the Doctor
read that marvellous performance, the Dictionary, to him; he was
now quite miserable unless the Doctor pulled it out of his pocket,
and began. When the Doctor and I were engaged, he now fell into
the custom of walking up and down with Mrs. Strong, and helping her
to trim her favourite flowers, or weed the beds. I dare say he
rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour: but his quiet interest, and
his wistful face, found immediate response in both their breasts;
each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both; and he
became what no one else could be - a link between them.

When I think of him, with his impenetrably wise face, walking up
and down with the Doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard
words in the Dictionary; when I think of him carrying huge
watering-pots after Annie; kneeling down, in very paws of gloves,
at patient microscopic work among the little leaves; expressing as
no philosopher could have expressed, in everything he did, a
delicate desire to be her friend; showering sympathy, trustfulness,
and affection, out of every hole in the watering-pot; when I think
of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which
unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate King
Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service,
never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong,
or from his wish to set it right- I really feel almost ashamed of
having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of
the utmost I have done with mine.

'Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is!' my aunt would
proudly remark, when we conversed about it. 'Dick will distinguish
himself yet!'

I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter. While
the visit at the Doctor's was still in progress, I observed that
the postman brought two or three letters every morning for Uriah
Heep, who remained at Highgate until the rest went back, it being
a leisure time; and that these were always directed in a
business-like manner by Mr. Micawber, who now assumed a round legal
hand. I was glad to infer, from these slight premises, that Mr.
Micawber was doing well; and consequently was much surprised to
receive, about this time, the following letter from his amiable
wife.

'CANTERBURY, Monday Evening.

'You will doubtless be surprised, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to
receive this communication. Still more so, by its contents. Still
more so, by the stipulation of implicit confidence which I beg to
impose. But my feelings as a wife and mother require relief; and
as I do not wish to consult my family (already obnoxious to the
feelings of Mr. Micawber), I know no one of whom I can better ask
advice than my friend and former lodger.

'You may be aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that between myself and
Mr. Micawber (whom I will never desert), there has always been
preserved a spirit of mutual confidence. Mr. Micawber may have
occasionally given a bill without consulting me, or he may have
misled me as to the period when that obligation would become due.
This has actually happened. But, in general, Mr. Micawber has had
no secrets from the bosom of affection - I allude to his wife - and
has invariably, on our retirement to rest, recalled the events of
the day.

'You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield, what the
poignancy of my feelings must be, when I inform you that Mr.
Micawber is entirely changed. He is reserved. He is secret. His
life is a mystery to the partner of his joys and sorrows - I again
allude to his wife - and if I should assure you that beyond knowing
that it is passed from morning to night at the office, I now know
less of it than I do of the man in the south, connected with whose
mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale respecting cold
plum porridge, I should adopt a popular fallacy to express an
actual fact.

'But this is not all. Mr. Micawber is morose. He is severe. He
is estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in
his twins, he looks with an eye of coldness even on the unoffending
stranger who last became a member of our circle. The pecuniary
means of meeting our expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing,
are obtained from him with great difficulty, and even under fearful
threats that he will Settle himself (the exact expression); and he
inexorably refuses to give any explanation whatever of this
distracting policy.

'This is hard to bear. This is heart-breaking. If you will advise
me, knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it
will be best to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add
another friendly obligation to the many you have already rendered
me. With loves from the children, and a smile from the
happily-unconscious stranger, I remain, dear Mr. Copperfield,

Your afflicted,

'EMMA MICAWBER.'

I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber's
experience any other recommendation, than that she should try to
reclaim Mr. Micawber by patience and kindness (as I knew she would
in any case); but the letter set me thinking about him very much.

CHAPTER 43
ANOTHER RETROSPECT

Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let
me stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me,
accompanying the shadow of myself, in dim procession.

Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a
summer day and a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with
Dora is all in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen
heather lies in mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow.
In a breath, the river that flows through our Sunday walks is
sparkling in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or
thickened with drifting heaps of ice. Faster than ever river ran
towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and rolls away.