The Personal History of David Copperfield

CHAPTER XVI.

I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE

Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies – a grave building in a court-yard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot – and was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong.

Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for Time to play at. He was in his library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly well combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on the hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which I didn’t know what to do with, as it did nothing for itself.

But, sitting at work, not far off from Doctor Strong, was a very pretty young lady – whom he called Annie, and who was his daughter, I supposed – who got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to put Doctor Strong’s shoes on, and button his gaiters, which she did with great cheerfulness and quickness. When she had finished, and we were going out to the school-room, I was much surprised to hear Mr. Wickfield, in bidding her good morning, address her as “Mrs. Strong;” and I was wondering could she be Doctor Strong’s son’s wife, or could she be Mrs. Doctor Strong, when Doctor Strong himself unconsciously enlightened me.

“By the bye, Wickfield,” he said, stopping in a passage with his hand on my shoulder; “you have not found any suitable provision for my wife’s cousin yet?”

“No,” said Mr. Wickfield. “No. Not yet.”

“I could wish it done as soon as it can be done, Wickfield,” said Doctor Strong, “for Jack Maldon is needy, and idle; and of those two bad things, worse things sometimes come. What does Doctor Watts say,” he added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation, “‘Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.’”

“Egad, doctor,” returned Mr. Wickfield, “if Doctor Watts knew mankind, he might have written, with as much truth, ‘Satan finds some mischief still, for busy hands to do.’ The busy people achieve their full share of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the people been about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in getting power, this century or two? No mischief?”

“Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect,” said Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“Perhaps not,” said Mr. Wickfield; “and you bring me back to the question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able to dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe,” he said this with some hesitation, “I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more difficult.”

“My motive,” returned Dr. Strong, “is to make some suitable provision for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of Annie’s.”

“Yes, I know,” said Mr. Wickfield; “at home or abroad.”

“Aye!” replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasised those words so much. “At home or abroad.”

“Your own expression, you know,” said Mr. Wickfield. “Or abroad.”

“Surely,” the Doctor answered. “Surely. One or other.”

“One or other? Have you no choice?” asked Mr. Wickfield.

“No,” returned the Doctor.

“No?” with astonishment.

“Not the least.”

“No motive,” said Mr. Wickfield, “for meaning abroad, and not at home?”

“No,” returned the Doctor.

“I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you,” said Mr. Wickfield. “It might have simplified my office very much, if I had known it before. But I confess I entertained another impression.”

Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look, which almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great encouragement; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and there was a simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when the studious, pondering frost upon it was got through, very attractive and hopeful to a young scholar like me. Repeating “no,” and “not the least,” and other short assurances to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged on before us, at a queer, uneven pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield looking grave, I observed, and shaking his head to himself, without knowing that I saw him.

The school-room was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of painted tin) have ever since, by association, been symbolical to me of silence and retirement. About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me.

“A new boy, young gentlemen,” said the Doctor; “Trotwood Copperfield.”

One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humored; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease, if anything could.

It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealey Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in all my life. I was so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age, appearance, and condition, as one of them, that I half believed it was an imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy. I had become, in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short or long it may have been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew I was awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them. Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares of my life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what I knew, I knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school. But, troubled as I was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning too, I was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration, that, in what I did know, I was much farther removed from my companions than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they would think, if they knew of my familiar acquaintance with the King’s Bench Prison? Was there anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with the Micawber family – all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers – in spite of myself? Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through Canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? What would they say, who made so light of money, if they could know how I had scraped my halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, or my slices of pudding? How would it affect them, who were so innocent of London life, and London streets, to discover how knowing I was (and was ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases of both? All this ran in my head so much, on that first day at Doctor Strong’s, that I felt distrustful of my slightest look and gesture; shrunk within myself whensoever I was approached by one of my new schoolfellows; and hurried off the minute school was over, afraid of committing myself in my response to any friendly notice or advance.

But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield’s old house, that when I knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, I began to feel my uneasiness softening away. As I went up to my airy old room, the grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears, and to make the past more indistinct. I sat there, sturdily conning my books, until dinner time (we were out of school for good at three); and went down, hopeful of becoming a passable sort of boy yet.

Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father, who was detained by some one in his office. She met me with her pleasant smile, and asked me how I liked the school. I told her I should like it very much, I hoped; but I was a little strange to it at first.

“You have never been to school,” I said, “have you?”

“Oh, yes! Every day.”

“Ah, but you mean here, at your own home?”

“Papa couldn’t spare me to go anywhere else,” she answered, smiling and shaking her head. “His housekeeper must be in his house, you know.”

“He is very fond of you, I am sure,” I said.

She nodded “Yes,” and went to the door to listen for his coming up, that she might meet him on the stairs. But, as he was not there, she came back again.

“Mama has been dead ever since I was born,” she said, in her quiet way. “I only know her picture, down stairs. I saw you looking at it yesterday. Did you think whose it was?”

I told her yes, because it was so like herself.

“Papa says so, too,” said Agnes, pleased. “Hark! That’s papa now!”

Her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him, and as they came in, hand in hand. He greeted me cordially; and told me I should certainly be happy under Doctor Strong, who was one of the gentlest of men.

“There may be some, perhaps – I don’t know that there are – who abuse his kindness,” said Mr. Wickfield. “Never be one of those, Trotwood, in anything. He is the least suspicious of mankind; and whether that’s a merit, or whether it’s a blemish, it deserves consideration in all dealings with the Doctor, great or small.”

He spoke, I thought, as if he were weary, or dissatisfied with something; but I did not pursue the question in my mind, for dinner was just then announced, and we went down and took the same seats as before.

We had scarcely done so, when Uriah Heep put in his red head and his lank hand at the door, and said:

“Here’s Mr. Maldon begs the favor of a word, sir.”

“I am but this moment quit of Mr. Maldon,” said his master.

“Yes, sir,” returned Uriah; “but Mr. Maldon has come back, and he begs the favor of a word.”

As he held the door open with his hand, Uriah looked at me, and looked at Agnes, and looked at the dishes, and looked at the plates, and looked at every object in the room, I thought, – yet seemed to look at nothing; he made such an appearance all the while of keeping his red eyes dutifully on his master.

“I beg your pardon. It’s only to say, on reflection,” observed a voice behind Uriah, as Uriah’s head was pushed away, and the speaker’s substituted – “pray excuse me for this intrusion – that as it seems I have no choice in the matter, the sooner I go abroad, the better. My cousin Annie did say, when we talked of it, that she liked to have her friends within reach rather than to have them banished, and the old Doctor – ”

“Doctor Strong, was that?” Mr. Wickfield interposed, gravely.

“Doctor Strong of course,” returned the other; “I call him the old Doctor – it’s all the same, you know.”

“I don’t know,” returned Mr. Wickfield.

“Well, Doctor Strong,” said the other – “Doctor Strong was of the same mind, I believed. But as it appears from the course you take with me that he has changed his mind, why there’s no more to be said, except that the sooner I am off, the better. Therefore, I thought I’d come back and say, that the sooner I am off, the better. When a plunge is to be made into the water, it’s of no use lingering on the bank.”

“There shall be as little lingering as possible, in your case, Mr. Maldon, you may depend upon it,” said Mr. Wickfield.

“Thank’ee,” said the other. “Much obliged. I don’t want to look a gift-horse in the mouth, which is not a gracious thing to do; otherwise, I dare say, my cousin Annie could easily arrange it in her own way. I suppose Annie would only have to say to the old Doctor – ”

“Meaning that Mrs. Strong would only have to say to her husband – do I follow you?” said Mr. Wickfield.

“Quite so,” returned the other, “ – would only have to say, that she wanted such and such a thing to be so and so; and it would be so and so, as a matter of course.”

“And why as a matter of course, Mr. Maldon?” asked Mr. Wickfield, sedately eating his dinner.

“Why, because Annie’s a charming young girl, and the old Doctor – Doctor Strong, I mean – is not quite a charming young boy,” said Mr. Jack Maldon, laughing. “No offence to anybody, Mr. Wickfield. I only mean that I suppose some compensation is fair and reasonable, in that sort of marriage.”

“Compensation to the lady, sir?” asked Mr. Wickfield gravely.

“To the lady, sir,” Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But appearing to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in the same sedate, immoveable manner, and that there was no hope of making him relax a muscle of his face, he added:

“However, I have said what I came back to say, and, with another apology for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of course I shall observe your directions, in considering the matter as one to be arranged between you and me solely, and not to be referred to, up at the Doctor’s.”

“Have you dined?” asked Mr. Wickfield, with a motion of his hand towards the table.

“Thank’ee. I am going to dine,” said Mr. Maldon, “with my cousin Annie. Good bye!”

Mr. Wickfield, without rising, looked after him thoughtfully as he went out. He was rather a shallow sort of young gentleman, I thought, with a handsome face, a rapid utterance, and a confident, bold air. And this was the first I ever saw of Mr. Jack Maldon; whom I had not expected to see so soon, when I heard the Doctor speak of him that morning.

When we had dined, we went up-stairs again, where everything went on exactly as on the previous day. Agnes set the glasses and decanters in the same corner, and Mr. Wickfield sat down to drink, and drank a good deal. Agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked, and played some games at dominoes with me. In good time she made tea; and afterwards, when I brought down my books, looked into them, and showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she said it was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them. I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and I hear her beautiful calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins already to descend upon my breast. I love little Em’ly, and I don’t love Agnes – no, not at all in that way – but I feel that there are goodness, peace, and truth, wherever Agnes is; and that the soft light of the colored window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me when I am near her, and on every thing around.

The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself. But he checked me and said: “Should you like to stay with us, Trotwood, or to go elsewhere?”

“To stay” I answered, quickly.

“You are sure?”

“If you please. If I may!”

“Why, it’s but a dull life that we lead here, boy, I am afraid,” he said.

“Not more dull for me than Agnes, sir. Not dull at all!”

“Than Agnes,” he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece, and leaning against it. “Than Agnes!”

He had drank wine that evening (or I fancied it), until his eyes were bloodshot. Not that I could see them now, for they were cast down, and shaded by his hand; but I had noticed them a little while before.

“Now I wonder,” he muttered, “whether my Agnes tires of me. When should I ever tire of her! But that’s different – that’s quite different.”

He was musing – not speaking to me; so I remained quiet.

“A dull old house,” he said, “and a monotonous life; but I must have her near me. I must keep her near me. If the thought that I may die and leave my darling, or that my darling may die and leave me, comes, like a spectre, to distress my happiest hours, and is only to be drowned in – ”

He did not supply the word; but pacing slowly to the place where he had sat, and mechanically going through the action of pouring wine from the empty decanter, set it down and paced back again.

“If it is miserable to bear, when she is here,” he said, “what would it be, and she away? No, no, no. I cannot try that.”

He leaned against the chimney-piece, brooding so long that I could not decide whether to run the risk of disturbing him by going, or to remain quietly where I was, until he should come out of his reverie. At length he aroused himself, and looked about the room until his eyes encountered mine.

“Stay with us, Trotwood, eh?” he said, in his usual manner, and as if he were answering something I had just said. “I am glad of it. You are company to us both. It is wholesome to have you here. Wholesome for me, wholesome for Agnes, wholesome perhaps for all of us.”

“I am sure it is for me, sir,” I said. “I am so glad to be here.”

“That’s a fine fellow!” said Mr. Wickfield. “As long as you are glad to be here, you shall stay here.” He shook hands with me upon it, and clapped me on the back; and told me that when I had anything to do at night after Agnes had left us, or when I wished to read for my own pleasure, I was free to come down to his room, if he were there and if I desired it for company’s sake, and to sit with him. I thanked him for his consideration; and, as he went down soon afterwards, and I was not tired, went down too, with a book in my hand, to avail myself, for half-an-hour, of his permission.

But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank fore-finger followed up every line as he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail.

“You are working late to-night, Uriah,” says I.

“Yes, Master Copperfield,” says Uriah.

As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he could only widen his mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one.

“I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah.

“What work, then?” I asked.

“I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah. “I am going through Tidd’s Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield!”

My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his fore-finger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves – that they seemed to twinkle, instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all.

“I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?” I said, after looking at him for some time.

“Me, Master Copperfield?” said Uriah. “Oh, no! I’m a very umble person.”

It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief.

“I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,” said Uriah Heep, modestly; “let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble. He was a sexton.”

“What is he now?” I asked.

“He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah Heep. “But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for, in living with Mr. Wickfield!”

I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long?

“I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he had left off. “Since a year after my father’s death. How much have I to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr. Wickfield’s kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise not lay within the umble means of mother and self!”

“Then, when your articled time is over, you’ll be a regular lawyer, I suppose?” said I.

“With the blessing of Providence, Master Copperfield,” returned Uriah.

“Perhaps you’ll be a partner in Mr. Wickfield’s business, one of these days,” I said, to make myself agreeable; “and it will be Wickfield and Heep, or Heep late Wickfield.”

“Oh, no, Master Copperfield,” returned Uriah, shaking his head, “I am much too umble for that!”

He certainly did look uncommonly like the carved face on the beam outside my window, as he sat, in his humility, eyeing me sideways, with his mouth widened, and the creases in his cheeks.

“Mr. Wickfield is a most excellent man, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah. “If you have known him long, you know it, I am sure, much better than I can inform you.”

I replied that I was certain he was; but that I had not known him long myself, though he was a friend of my aunt’s.

“Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah. “Your aunt is a sweet lady, Master Copperfield!”

He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very ugly; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body.

“A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!” said Uriah Heep. “She has a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?”

I said “Yes,” boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven forgive me!

“I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah. “But I am sure you must have.”

“Everybody must have,” I returned.

“Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah Heep, “for that remark! It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield!”