The Personal History of David Copperfield

CHAPTER XLII.

MISCHIEF

I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that, in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now, to have been my golden rules.

How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes, I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with a thankful love.

She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor’s. Mr. Wickfield was the Doctor’s old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with him, and do him good. It had been matter of conversation with Agnes when she was last in town, and this visit was the result. She and her father came together. I was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged to find a lodging in the neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic complaint required change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in such company. Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day, Uriah, like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession.

“You see, Master Copperfield,” said he, as he forced himself upon my company for a turn in the Doctor’s garden, “where a person loves, a person is a little jealous – leastways, anxious to keep an eye on the beloved one.”

“Of whom are you jealous, now?” said I.

“Thanks to you, Master Copperfield,” he returned, “of no one in particular just at present – no male person, at least.”

“Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?”

He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed.

“Really, Master Copperfield,” he said, “ – I should say Mister, but I know you’ll excuse the abit I’ve got into – you’re so insinuating, that you draw me like a corkscrew! Well, I don’t mind telling you,” putting his fish-like hand on mine, “I’m not a lady’s man in general, sir, and I never was, with Mrs. Strong.”

His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning.

“What do you mean?” said I.

“Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield,” he replied, with a dry grin, “I mean, just at present, what I say.”

“And what do you mean by your look?” I retorted, quietly.

“By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that’s sharp practice! What do I mean by my look?”

“Yes,” said I. “By your look.”

He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his nature to laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went on to say, with his eyes cast downward – still scraping, very slowly:

“When I was but a numble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far beneath her, myself, to be noticed.”

“Well?” said I; “suppose you were!”

“ – And beneath him, too,” pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin.

“Don’t you know the Doctor better,” said I, “than to suppose him conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?”

He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as he answered:

“Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I mean Mr. Maldon!”

My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions on that subject, all the Doctor’s happiness and peace, all the mingled possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow’s twisting.

“He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me about,” said Uriah. “One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was very meek and umble – and I am. But I didn’t like that sort of thing – and I don’t!”

He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the while.

“She is one of your lovely women, she is,” he pursued, when he had slowly restored his face to its natural form; “and ready to be no friend to such as me, I know. She’s just the person as would put my Agnes up to higher sort of game. Now, I ain’t one of your lady’s men, Master Copperfield; but I’ve had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking – and we look out of ’em.”

I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in his face, with poor success.

“Now, I’m not a going to let myself be run down, Copperfield,” he continued, raising that part of his countenance where his red eyebrows would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, “and I shall do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I don’t approve of it. I don’t mind acknowledging to you that I’ve got rather a grudging disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain’t a going, if I know it, to run the risk of being plotted against.”

“You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that everybody else is doing the like, I think,” said I.

“Perhaps so, Master Copperfield,” he replied. “But I’ve got a motive, as my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. I mustn’t be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can’t allow people in my way. Really they must come out of the cart, Master Copperfield!”

“I don’t understand you,” said I.

“Don’t you, though?” he returned, with one of his jerks. “I’m astonished at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick! I’ll try to be plainer, another time. – Is that Mr. Maldon a-norseback, ringing at the gate, sir?”

“It looks like him,” I replied, as carelessly as I could.

Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, and doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. Not a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour, particularly by this concluding instance, that I turned away without any ceremony; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a scarecrow in want of support.

It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next evening but one, which was a Saturday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. I had arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was expected to tea.

I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured Dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks I knew so well; now making up my mind that I should like her to look exactly as she looked at such a time, and then doubting whether I should not prefer her looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying myself into a fever about it.

I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for her, now; and sure enough I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old door.

At first she wouldn’t come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she was ten thousand times prettier yet.

Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was “too clever.” But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes’s neck, and laid her innocent cheek against her face.

I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two sit down together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking up so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful regard which Agnes cast upon her.

Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It was the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut and handed the sweet seed-cake – the little sisters had a bird-like fondness for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another.

The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when Dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me; her modest grace and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence from Dora; seemed to make our circle quite complete.

“I am so glad,” said Dora, after tea, “that you like me. I didn’t think you would; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now Julia Mills is gone.”

I have omitted to mention it, by-the-bye. Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see her; and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that sort for lunch; and we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp-stool on the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her arm, in which the original reflections awakened by the contemplation of Ocean were to be recorded under lock and key.

Agnes said, she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising character; but Dora corrected that directly.

“Oh no!” she said, shaking her curls at me; “it was all praise. He thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of it.”

“My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he knows,” said Agnes, with a smile; “it is not worth their having.”

“But please let me have it,” said Dora, in her coaxing way, “if you can!”

We made merry about Dora’s wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was a goose, and she didn’t like me at any rate, and the short evening flew away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach was to call for us. I was standing alone before the fire, when Dora came stealing softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before I went.

“Don’t you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, Doady,” said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little right hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my coat, “I might have been more clever perhaps?”

“My love!” said I, “what nonsense!”

“Do you think it is nonsense?” returned Dora, without looking at me. “Are you sure it is?”

“Of course I am!”

“I have forgotten,” said Dora, still turning the button round and round, “what relation Agnes is to you, you dear bad boy.”

“No blood-relation,” I replied; “but we were brought up together, like brother and sister.”

“I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?” said Dora, beginning on another button of my coat.

“Perhaps because I couldn’t see you, and not love you, Dora!”

“Suppose you had never seen me at all,” said Dora, going to another button.

“Suppose we had never been born!” said I, gaily.

I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring silence at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, and at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss – once, twice, three times – and went out of the room.

They all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and Dora’s unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. She was laughingly resolved to put Jip through the whole of his performances, before the coach came. They took some time (not so much on account of their variety, as Jip’s reluctance), and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door. There was a hurried but affectionate parting between Agnes and herself; and Dora was to write to Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being foolish, she said), and Agnes was to write to Dora; and they had a second parting at the coach-door, and a third when Dora, in spite of the remonstrances of Miss Lavinia, would come running out once more to remind Agnes at the coach-window about writing, and to shake her curls at me on the box.

The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we were to take another stage-coach for Highgate. I was impatient for the short walk in the interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah! what praise it was! How lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty creature I had won, with all her artless graces best displayed, to my most gentle care! How thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretence of doing so, of the trust in which I held the orphan child!

Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as I loved her that night. When we had again alighted, and were walking in the starlight along the quiet road that led to the Doctor’s house, I told Agnes it was her doing.

“When you were sitting by her,” said I, “you seemed to be no less her guardian angel than mine; and you seem so now, Agnes.”

“A poor angel,” she returned, “but faithful.”

The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it natural to me to say:

“The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no one else that ever I have seen), is so restored, I have observed to-day, that I have begun to hope you are happier at home?”

“I am happier in myself,” she said; “I am quite cheerful and light-hearted.”

I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the stars that made it seem so noble.

“There has been no change at home,” said Agnes, after a few moments.

“No fresh reference,” said I, “to – I wouldn’t distress you, Agnes, but I cannot help asking – to what we spoke of, when we parted last?”

“No, none,” she answered.

“I have thought so much about it.”

“You must think less about it. Remember that I confide in simple love and truth at last. Have no apprehensions for me, Trotwood,” she added, after a moment; “the step you dread my taking, I shall never take.”

Although I think I had never really feared it, in any season of cool reflection, it was an unspeakable relief to me to have this assurance from her own truthful lips. I told her so, earnestly.

“And when this visit is over,” said I, – “for we may not be alone another time, – how long is it likely to be, my dear Agnes, before you come to London again?”

“Probably a long time,” she replied; “I think it will be best – for papa’s sake – to remain at home. We are not likely to meet often, for some time to come; but I shall be a good correspondent of Dora’s, and we shall frequently hear of one another that way.”

We were now within the little court-yard of the Doctor’s cottage. It was growing late. There was a light in the window of Mrs. Strong’s chamber, and Agnes, pointing to it, bade me good night.

“Do not be troubled,” she said, giving me her hand, “by our misfortunes and anxieties. I can be happier in nothing than in your happiness. If you can ever give me help, rely upon it I will ask you for it. God bless you always!”

In her beaming smile, and in these last tones of her cheerful voice, I seemed again to see and hear my little Dora in her company. I stood awhile, looking through the porch at the stars, with a heart full of love and gratitude, and then walked slowly forth. I had engaged a bed at a decent alehouse close by, and was going out at the gate, when, happening to turn my head, I saw a light in the Doctor’s study. A half-reproachful fancy came into my mind, that he had been working at the Dictionary without my help. With the view of seeing if this were so, and, in any case, of bidding him good night, if he were yet sitting among his books, I turned back, and going softly across the hall, and gently opening the door, looked in.

The first person whom I saw, to my surprise, by the sober light of the shaded lamp, was Uriah. He was standing close beside it, with one of his skeleton hands over his mouth, and the other resting on the Doctor’s table. The Doctor sat in his study chair, covering his face with his hands. Mr. Wickfield, sorely troubled and distressed, was leaning forward, irresolutely touching the Doctor’s arm.

For an instant, I supposed that the Doctor was ill. I hastily advanced a step under that impression, when I met Uriah’s eye, and saw what was the matter. I would have withdrawn, but the Doctor made a gesture to detain me, and I remained.

“At any rate,” observed Uriah, with a writhe of his ungainly person, “we may keep the door shut. We needn’t make it known to ALL the town.”

Saying which, he went on his toes to the door, which I had left open, and carefully closed it. He then came back, and took up his former position. There was an obtrusive show of compassionate zeal in his voice and manner, more intolerable – at least to me – than any demeanour he could have assumed.

“I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah, “to point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked about. You didn’t exactly understand me, though?”

I gave him a look, but no other answer; and, going to my good old master, said a few words that I meant to be words of comfort and encouragement. He put his hand upon my shoulder, as it had been his custom to do when I was quite a little fellow, but did not lift his grey head.

“As you didn’t understand me, Master Copperfield,” resumed Uriah in the same officious manner, “I may take the liberty of umbly mentioning, being among friends, that I have called Doctor Strong’s attention to the goings-on of Mrs. Strong. It’s much against the grain with me, I assure you, Copperfield, to be concerned in anything so unpleasant; but really, as it is, we’re all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn’t to be. That was what my meaning was, sir, when you didn’t understand me.”

I wonder now, when I recall his leer, that I did not collar him, and try to shake the breath out of his body.

“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 any one 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 honor, 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 made 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 – ”