David Copperfield

C >> Charles Dickens >> David Copperfield

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77

('Confound the woman!' said my aunt, 'she WON'T be quiet!')

'I never thought,' proceeded Annie, with a heightened colour, 'of
any worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart
had no room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama,
forgive me when I say that it was you who first presented to my
mind the thought that anyone could wrong me, and wrong him, by such
a cruel suspicion.'

'Me!' cried Mrs. Markleham.

('Ah! You, to be sure!' observed my aunt, 'and you can't fan it
away, my military friend!')

'It was the first unhappiness of my new life,' said Annie. 'It was
the first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. These
moments have been more, of late, than I can count; but not - my
generous husband! - not for the reason you suppose; for in my heart
there is not a thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any power
could separate from you!'

She raised her eyes, and clasped her hands, and looked as beautiful
and true, I thought, as any Spirit. The Doctor looked on her,
henceforth, as steadfastly as she on him.

'Mama is blameless,' she went on, 'of having ever urged you for
herself, and she is blameless in intention every way, I am sure, -
but when I saw how many importunate claims were pressed upon you in
my name; how you were traded on in my name; how generous you were,
and how Mr. Wickfield, who had your welfare very much at heart,
resented it; the first sense of my exposure to the mean suspicion
that my tenderness was bought - and sold to you, of all men on
earth - fell upon me like unmerited disgrace, in which I forced you
to participate. I cannot tell you what it was - mama cannot
imagine what it was - to have this dread and trouble always on my
mind, yet know in my own soul that on my marriage-day I crowned the
love and honour of my life!'

'A specimen of the thanks one gets,' cried Mrs. Markleham, in
tears, 'for taking care of one's family! I wish I was a Turk!'

('I wish you were, with all my heart - and in your native country!'
said my aunt.)

'It was at that time that mama was most solicitous about my Cousin
Maldon. I had liked him': she spoke softly, but without any
hesitation: 'very much. We had been little lovers once. If
circumstances had not happened otherwise, I might have come to
persuade myself that I really loved him, and might have married
him, and been most wretched. There can be no disparity in marriage
like unsuitability of mind and purpose.'

I pondered on those words, even while I was studiously attending to
what followed, as if they had some particular interest, or some
strange application that I could not divine. 'There can be no
disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose' -'no
disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.'

'There is nothing,' said Annie, 'that we have in common. I have
long found that there is nothing. If I were thankful to my husband
for no more, instead of for so much, I should be thankful to him
for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my
undisciplined heart.'

She stood quite still, before the Doctor, and spoke with an
earnestness that thrilled me. Yet her voice was just as quiet as
before.

'When he was waiting to be the object of your munificence, so
freely bestowed for my sake, and when I was unhappy in the
mercenary shape I was made to wear, I thought it would have become
him better to have worked his own way on. I thought that if I had
been he, I would have tried to do it, at the cost of almost any
hardship. But I thought no worse of him, until the night of his
departure for India. That night I knew he had a false and
thankless heart. I saw a double meaning, then, in Mr. Wickfield's
scrutiny of me. I perceived, for the first time, the dark
suspicion that shadowed my life.'

'Suspicion, Annie!' said the Doctor. 'No, no, no!'

'In your mind there was none, I know, my husband!' she returned.
'And when I came to you, that night, to lay down all my load of
shame and grief, and knew that I had to tell that, underneath your
roof, one of my own kindred, to whom you had been a benefactor, for
the love of me, had spoken to me words that should have found no
utterance, even if I had been the weak and mercenary wretch he
thought me - my mind revolted from the taint the very tale
conveyed. It died upon my lips, and from that hour till now has
never passed them.'

Mrs. Markleham, with a short groan, leaned back in her easy-chair;
and retired behind her fan, as if she were never coming out any
more.

'I have never, but in your presence, interchanged a word with him
from that time; then, only when it has been necessary for the
avoidance of this explanation. Years have passed since he knew,
from me, what his situation here was. The kindnesses you have
secretly done for his advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my
surprise and pleasure, have been, you will believe, but
aggravations of the unhappiness and burden of my secret.'

She sunk down gently at the Doctor's feet, though he did his utmost
to prevent her; and said, looking up, tearfully, into his face:

'Do not speak to me yet! Let me say a little more! Right or
wrong, if this were to be done again, I think I should do just the
same. You never can know what it was to be devoted to you, with
those old associations; to find that anyone could be so hard as to
suppose that the truth of my heart was bartered away, and to be
surrounded by appearances confirming that belief. I was very
young, and had no adviser. Between mama and me, in all relating to
you, there was a wide division. If I shrunk into myself, hiding
the disrespect I had undergone, it was because I honoured you so
much, and so much wished that you should honour me!'

'Annie, my pure heart!' said the Doctor, 'my dear girl!'

'A little more! a very few words more! I used to think there were
so many whom you might have married, who would not have brought
such charge and trouble on you, and who would have made your home
a worthier home. I used to be afraid that I had better have
remained your pupil, and almost your child. I used to fear that I
was so unsuited to your learning and wisdom. If all this made me
shrink within myself (as indeed it did), when I had that to tell,
it was still because I honoured you so much, and hoped that you
might one day honour me.'

'That day has shone this long time, Annie,' said the Doctor, and
can have but one long night, my dear.'

'Another word! I afterwards meant - steadfastly meant, and
purposed to myself - to bear the whole weight of knowing the
unworthiness of one to whom you had been so good. And now a last
word, dearest and best of friends! The cause of the late change in
you, which I have seen with so much pain and sorrow, and have
sometimes referred to my old apprehension - at other times to
lingering suppositions nearer to the truth - has been made clear
tonight; and by an accident I have also come to know, tonight, the
full measure of your noble trust in me, even under that mistake.
I do not hope that any love and duty I may render in return, will
ever make me worthy of your priceless confidence; but with all this
knowledge fresh upon me, I can lift my eyes to this dear face,
revered as a father's, loved as a husband's, sacred to me in my
childhood as a friend's, and solemnly declare that in my lightest
thought I have never wronged you; never wavered in the love and the
fidelity I owe you!'

She had her arms around the Doctor's neck, and he leant his head
down over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses.

'Oh, hold me to your heart, my husband! Never cast me out! Do not
think or speak of disparity between us, for there is none, except
in all my many imperfections. Every succeeding year I have known
this better, as I have esteemed you more and more. Oh, take me to
your heart, my husband, for my love was founded on a rock, and it
endures!'

In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick,
without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding
kiss. And it was very fortunate, with a view to his credit, that
she did so; for I am confident that I detected him at that moment
in the act of making preparations to stand on one leg, as an
appropriate expression of delight.

'You are a very remarkable man, Dick!' said my aunt, with an air of
unqualified approbation; 'and never pretend to be anything else,
for I know better!'

With that, my aunt pulled him by the sleeve, and nodded to me; and
we three stole quietly out of the room, and came away.

'That's a settler for our military friend, at any rate,' said my
aunt, on the way home. 'I should sleep the better for that, if
there was nothing else to be glad of!'

'She was quite overcome, I am afraid,' said Mr. Dick, with great
commiseration.

'What! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?' inquired my aunt.

'I don't think I ever saw a crocodile,' returned Mr. Dick, mildly.

'There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn't been
for that old Animal,' said my aunt, with strong emphasis. 'It's
very much to be wished that some mothers would leave their
daughters alone after marriage, and not be so violently
affectionate. They seem to think the only return that can be made
them for bringing an unfortunate young woman into the world - God
bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought, or wanted to come! -
is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What are you
thinking of, Trot?'

I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still
running on some of the expressions used. 'There can be no
disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.'
'The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.' 'My love
was founded on a rock.' But we were at home; and the trodden
leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind was blowing.

CHAPTER 46
INTELLIGENCE

I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for
dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning
from a solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing - for
my success had steadily increased with my steady application, and
I was engaged at that time upon my first work of fiction - I came
past Mrs. Steerforth's house. I had often passed it before, during
my residence in that neighbourhood, though never when I could
choose another road. Howbeit, it did sometimes happen that it was
not easy to find another, without making a long circuit; and so I
had passed that way, upon the whole, pretty often.

I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with
a quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of
the best rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed
old-fashioned windows, never cheerful under any circumstances,
looked very dismal, close shut, and with their blinds always drawn
down. There was a covered way across a little paved court, to an
entrance that was never used; and there was one round staircase
window, at odds with all the rest, and the only one unshaded by a
blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look. I do not remember
that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had been a casual
passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some childless
person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge of
the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should
have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say.

As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could
not go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened
a long train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular
evening that I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and
later fancies, the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows
of disappointments dimly seen and understood, the blending of
experience and imagination, incidental to the occupation with which
my thoughts had been busy, it was more than commonly suggestive.
I fell into a brown study as I walked on, and a voice at my side
made me start.

It was a woman's voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs.
Steerforth's little parlour-maid, who had formerly worn blue
ribbons in her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself,
I suppose, to the altered character of the house; and wore but one
or two disconsolate bows of sober brown.

'If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and
speak to Miss Dartle?'

'Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?' I inquired.

'Not tonight, sir, but it's just the same. Miss Dartle saw you
pass
a night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and
when I saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her.'

I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how
Mrs. Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept
her own room a good deal.

When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the
garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was
sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the
great city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the
sky; and as I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here
and there some larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I
fancied it was no inapt companion to the memory of this fierce
woman.

She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I
thought her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had
seen her last; the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still
plainer.

Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last
occasion; and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took
no pains to conceal.

'I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,' said I, standing
near her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her
gesture of invitation to sit down.

'If you please,' said she. 'Pray has this girl been found?'

'No.'

'And yet she has run away!'

I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were
eager to load her with reproaches.

'Run away?' I repeated.

'Yes! From him,' she said, with a laugh. 'If she is not found,
perhaps she never will be found. She may be dead!'

The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw
expressed in any other face that ever I have seen.

'To wish her dead,' said I, 'may be the kindest wish that one of
her own sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has
softened you so much, Miss Dartle.'

She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another
scornful laugh, said:

'The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are
friends of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights.
Do you wish to know what is known of her?'

'Yes,' said I.

She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards
a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a
kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, 'Come here!' - as if she
were calling to some unclean beast.

'You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in
this place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?' said she, looking over her
shoulder at me with the same expression.

I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said,
'Come here!' again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr.
Littimer, who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and
took up his position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of
triumph, in which, strange to say, there was yet something feminine
and alluring: with which she reclined upon the seat between us, and
looked at me, was worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend.

'Now,' said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching
the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with
pleasure rather than pain. 'Tell Mr. Copperfield about the
flight.'

'Mr. James and myself, ma'am -'

'Don't address yourself to me!' she interrupted with a frown.

'Mr. James and myself, sir -'

'Nor to me, if you please,' said I.

Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a
slight obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was
most agreeable to him; and began again.

'Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever
since she left Yarmouth under Mr. james's protection. We have been
in a variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We
have been in France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all
parts.'

He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself
to that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were
striking chords upon a dumb piano.

'Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more
settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I
have been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and
spoke the languages; and wouldn't have been known for the same
country-person. I noticed that she was much admired wherever we
went.'

Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance
at her, and slightly smile to himself.

'Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her
dress; what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of;
what with this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted
general notice.'

He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the
distant prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy
mouth.

Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the
other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded,
with his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little
advanced, and a little on one side:

'The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being
occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary
Mr. James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that
kind; and things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be
restless again. The more restless he got, the worse she got; and
I must say, for myself, that I had a very difficult time of it
indeed between the two. Still matters were patched up here, and
made good there, over and over again; and altogether lasted, I am
sure, for a longer time than anybody could have expected.'

Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now,
with her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his
hand with a respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on:

'At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words
and reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the
neighbourhood of Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman
being very partial to the sea), and, under pretence of coming back
in a day or so, left it in charge with me to break it out, that,
for the general happiness of all concerned, he was' - here an
interruption of the short cough - 'gone. But Mr. James, I must
say, certainly did behave extremely honourable; for he proposed
that the young woman should marry a very respectable person, who
was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as
good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular
way: her connexions being very common.'

He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that
the scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected
in Miss Dartle's face.

'This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do
anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore
harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has
undergone so much on his account. Therefore I undertook the
commission. The young woman's violence when she came to, after I
broke the fact of his departure, was beyond all expectations. She
was quite mad, and had to be held by force; or, if she couldn't
have got to a knife, or got to the sea, she'd have beaten her head
against the marble floor.'

Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation
in her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had
uttered.

'But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to
me,' said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands uneasily, 'which anybody
might have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as
a kind intention, then the young woman came out in her true
colours. A more outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct
was surprisingly bad. She had no more gratitude, no more feeling,
no more patience, no more reason in her, than a stock or a stone.
If I hadn't been upon my guard, I am convinced she would have had
my blood.'

'I think the better of her for it,' said I, indignantly.

Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, 'Indeed, sir? But
you're young!' and resumed his narrative.

'It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything
nigh her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury
with, and to shut her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out
in the night; forced the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up
myself; dropped on a vine that was trailed below; and never has
been seen or heard of, to my knowledge, since.'

'She is dead, perhaps,' said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she
could have spurned the body of the ruined girl.

'She may have drowned herself, miss,' returned Mr. Littimer,
catching at an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. 'It's
very possible. Or, she may have had assistance from the boatmen,
and the boatmen's wives and children. Being given to low company,
she was very much in the habit of talking to them on the beach,
Miss Dartle, and sitting by their boats. I have known her do it,
when Mr. James has been away, whole days. Mr. James was far from
pleased to find out, once, that she had told the children she was
a boatman's daughter, and that in her own country, long ago, she
had roamed about the beach, like them.'

Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her
sitting on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when
she was innocent, listening to little voices such as might have
called her Mother had she been a poor man's wife; and to the great
voice of the sea, with its eternal 'Never more!'

'When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle -'

'Did I tell you not to speak to me?' she said, with stern contempt.

'You spoke to me, miss,' he replied. 'I beg your pardon. But it
is my service to obey.'

'Do your service,' she returned. 'Finish your story, and go!'

'When it was clear,' he said, with infinite respectability and an
obedient bow, 'that she was not to be found, I went to Mr. James,
at the place where it had been agreed that I should write to him,
and informed him of what had occurred. Words passed between us in
consequence, and I felt it due to my character to leave him. I
could bear, and I have borne, a great deal from Mr. James; but he
insulted me too far. He hurt me. Knowing the unfortunate
difference between himself and his mother, and what her anxiety of
mind was likely to be, I took the liberty of coming home to
England, and relating -'

'For money which I paid him,' said Miss Dartle to me.

'Just so, ma'am - and relating what I knew. I am not aware,' said
Mr. Littimer, after a moment's reflection, 'that there is anything
else. I am at present out of employment, and should be happy to
meet with a respectable situation.'

Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there
were anything that I desired to ask. As there was something which
had occurred to my mind, I said in reply:

'I could wish to know from this - creature,' I could not bring
myself to utter any more conciliatory word, 'whether they
intercepted a letter that was written to her from home, or whether
he supposes that she received it.'

He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and
the tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against
the tip of every finger of his left.

Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him.

'I beg your pardon, miss,' he said, awakening from his abstraction,
'but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a
servant. Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If
Mr. Copperfield wishes to know anything from me, I take the liberty
of reminding Mr. Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I
have a character to maintain.'

After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him,
and said, 'You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to
yourself, if you choose. What answer do you make?'

'Sir,' he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of
those delicate tips, 'my answer must be qualified; because, to
betray Mr. james's confidence to his mother, and to betray it to
you, are two different actions. It is not probable, I consider,
that Mr. James would encourage the receipt of letters likely to
increase low spirits and unpleasantness; but further than that,
sir, I should wish to avoid going.'

'Is that all?' inquired Miss Dartle of me.

I indicated that I had nothing more to say. 'Except,' I added, as
I saw him moving off, 'that I understand this fellow's part in the
wicked story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man
who has been her father from her childhood, I would recommend him
to avoid going too much into public.'