The Personal History of David Copperfield

CHAPTER XXXIX.

WICKFIELD AND HEEP

My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should go to Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term of occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong, where I saw her every day. She had been undecided, on leaving Dover, whether or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of mankind in which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she decided against that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I believe, as because she happened not to like him.

Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather willingly into my aunt’s pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a few tranquil hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative to an absence of three days; and the Doctor wishing me to take that relaxation, – he wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear that, – I made up my mind to go.

As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down to but a doubtful position. The business had been indifferent under Mr. Jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow’s time; and although it had been quickened by the infusion of new blood, and by the display which Mr. Spenlow made, still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear, without being shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active manager. It fell off very much. Mr. Jorkins, notwithstanding his reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable, sort of man, whose reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. I was turned over to him now, and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business go, I regretted my aunt’s thousand pounds more than ever.

But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on and outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors themselves, dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil; – and there were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted business on any terms, we joined this noble band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on and outsiders, to bring their business to us. Marriage licenses and small probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best; and the competition for these, ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons, with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning, and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested; which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal opponent. The conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of a nature to irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place; and the Commons was even scandalised by our principal inveigler (who had formerly been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery line) walking about for some days with a black eye. Any one of these scouts used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for, representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected) to his employer’s office. Many captives were brought to me in this way. As to marriage licenses, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word “Marriage-license” in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in his arms and lifting me into a proctor’s.

From this digression, let me proceed to Dover.

I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkies. Having settled the little business I had to transact there, and slept there one night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little.

Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere – on everything – I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit.

Arrived at Mr. Wickfield’s house, I found, in the little lower-room on the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit, Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small office.

Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too. He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but I declined.

“I know the house of old, you recollect,” said I, “and will find my way up stairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber?”

“My dear Copperfield,” he replied. “To a man possessed of the higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence,” said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, “the mind is not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a great pursuit. A great pursuit!”

He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep’s old house; and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more, under her own roof.

“It is humble,” said Mr. Micawber, “ – to quote a favourite expression of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more ambitious domiciliary accommodation.”

I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his friend Heep’s treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door were close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice:

“My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage. That disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend Heep has responded to appeals to which I need not more particularly refer, in a manner calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of his heart.”

“I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either,” I observed.

“Pardon me!” said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, “I speak of my friend Heep as I have experience.”

“I am glad your experience is so favourable,” I returned.

“You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber; and hummed a tune.

“Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield?” I asked, to change the subject.

“Not much,” said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. “Mr. Wickfield is, I dare say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is – in short, he is obsolete.”

“I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so,” said I.

“My dear Copperfield!” returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy evolutions on his stool, “allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in a capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The discussion of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity of intellect), is, I am led to consider, incompatible with the functions now devolving on me. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in our friendly intercourse – which I trust will never be disturbed! – we draw a line. On one side of this line,” said Mr. Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, “is the whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on the other, is that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs. Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this proposition to his cooler judgment?”

Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands with me.

“I am charmed, Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “let me assure you, with Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very remarkable attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour,” said Mr. Micawber, indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, “I do Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem!”

“I am glad of that, at least,” said I.

“If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that D was your favourite letter,” said Mr. Micawber, “I should unquestionably have supposed that A had been so.”

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances – of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he uttered those words.

I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my best remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool and his pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing order, I clearly perceived that there was something interposed between him and me, since he had come into his new functions which prevented our getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the character of our intercourse.

There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented tokens of Mrs. Heep’s whereabout. I looked into the room still belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty old fashioned desk she had, writing.

My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that sweet regard and welcome!

“Ah, Agnes!” said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; “I have missed you so much, lately!”

“Indeed?” she replied. “Again! And so soon?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind that I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it?”

“And what is it?” said Agnes, cheerfully.

“I don’t know what to call it,” I replied. “I think I am earnest and persevering?”

“I am sure of it,” said Agnes.

“And patient, Agnes?” I enquired, with a little hesitation.

“Yes,” returned Agnes, laughing. “Pretty well.”

“And yet,” said I, “I get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must want – shall I call it – reliance, of some kind?”

“Call it so, if you will,” said Agnes.

“Well!” I returned. “See here! You come to London, I rely on you, and I have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how much for the better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes?”

Her head was bent down, looking at the fire.

“It’s the old story,” said I. “Don’t laugh, when I say it was always the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away from my adopted sister – ”

Agnes looked up – with such a Heavenly face! – and gave me her hand, which I kissed.

“Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done), I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!”

I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I write the truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest and peace of having Agnes near me.

In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last meeting.

“And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,” said I, when I had made an end of my confidence. “Now, my reliance is on you.”

“But it must not be on me, Trotwood,” returned Agnes, with a pleasant smile. “It must be on some one else.”

“On Dora?” said I.

“Assuredly.”

“Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes,” said I, a little embarrassed, “that Dora is rather difficult to – I would not, for the world, say, to rely upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth – but rather difficult to – I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before her father’s death, when I thought it right to mention to her – but I’ll tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was.”

Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the cookery-book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it.

“Oh, Trotwood!” she remonstrated, with a smile. “Just your old headlong way! You might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the world, without being so very sudden with a timid, loving, inexperienced girl. Poor Dora!”

I never heard such sweet forbearing kindness expressed in a voice, as she expressed in making this reply. It was as if I had seen her admiringly and tenderly embracing Dora, and tacitly reproving me, by her considerate protection, for my hot haste in fluttering that little heart. It was as if I had seen Dora, in all her fascinating artlessness, caressing Agnes, and thanking her, and coaxingly appealing against me, and loving me with all her childish innocence.

I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so! I saw those two together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each adorning the other so much!

“What ought I to do then, Agnes?” I inquired, after looking at the fire a little while. “What would it be right to do?”

“I think,” said Agnes, “that the honourable course to take, would be to write to those two ladies. Don’t you think that any secret course is an unworthy one?”

“Yes. If you think so,” said I.

“I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters,” replied Agnes, with a modest hesitation, “but I certainly feel – in short, I feel that your being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself.”

“Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am afraid,” said I.

“Like yourself in the candour of your nature,” she returned; “and therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as plainly and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and I would ask their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that you are young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions they might impose upon you. I would entreat them not to dismiss your request, without a reference to Dora; and to discuss it with her when they should think the time suitable. I would not be too vehement,” said Agnes, gently, “or propose too much. I would trust to my fidelity and perseverance – and to Dora.”

“But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to her,” said I. “And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about me!”

“Is that likely?” inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration in her face.

“God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird,” said I. “It might be! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that way!”

“I don’t think, Trotwood,” returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes to mine, “I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it.”

I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, though with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I devoted the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I went down stairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep.

I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity of books and papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and pretended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber; a pretence I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr. Wickfield’s room, which was the shadow of its former self – having been divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the new partner – and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged greetings.

“You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury?” said Mr. Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval.

“Is there room for me?” said I.

“I am sure, Master Copperfield – I should say Mister, but the other comes so natural,” said Uriah, – “I would turn out of your old room with pleasure, if it would be agreeable.”

“No, no,” said Mr. Wickfield. “Why should you be inconvenienced? There’s another room. There’s another room.”

“Oh, but you know,” returned Uriah, with a grin, “I should really be delighted!”

To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at all; so it was settled that I should have the other room: and, taking my leave of the firm until dinner, I went up stairs again.

I had hoped, to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep had asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the drawing-room or dining-parlour. Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, without remorse, I made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation.

“I’m umbly thankful to you, sir,” said Mrs. Heep, in acknowledgment of my inquiries concerning her health, “but I’m only pretty well. I haven’t much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I couldn’t expect much more I think. How do you think my Ury looking, sir?”

I thought him looking as villanous as ever, and I replied that I saw no change in him.

“Oh, don’t you think he’s changed?” said Mrs. Heep. “There I must umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don’t you see a thinness in him?”

“Not more than usual,” I replied.

“Don’t you though!” said Mrs. Heep. “But you don’t take notice of him with a mother’s eye!”

His mother’s eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her son were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes.

“Don’t you see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield?” inquired Mrs. Heep.

“No,” said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged. “You are too solicitous about him. He is very well.”

Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting.

She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass might have poured out its sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, I lifted up my eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of Agnes, saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, I was conscious presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the knitting was, I don’t know, not being learned in that art; but it looked like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but getting ready for a cast of her net by-and-by.