 36 I began the next day with another dive into the Roman Bath and then started for Highgate. I was not dispirited now, I was not afraid of the shabby coat and had no yearnings after gallant graze. My whole manner of thinking of our late misfortune was changed. What I had to do was to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had not been thrown away on an insensible, ungrateful object. What I had to do was to turn the painful discipline of my younger days to account by going to work with a resolute and steady heart. What I had to do was to take my woodman's axe in my hand and clear my own way through the forest of difficulty by cutting down the trees until I came to Dora. And I went on at a mighty rate as if it could be done by walking. When I found myself on the familiar Highgate Road pursuing such a different errand from that old one of pleasure with which it was associated, it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole life. But that did not discourage me. But the new life came new purpose, new intention. Great was the labor, priceless the reward. Dora was the reward, and Dora must be one. I got into such a transport that I felt quite sorry my coat was not a little shabby already. I wanted to be cutting at those trees in the forest of difficulty under circumstances that should prove my strength. I had a good mind to ask an old man in wire spectacles, who was breaking stones upon the road, to lend me his hammer for a little while and let me begin to beat a path to Dora out of granite. I stimulated myself into such a heat and got so out of breath that I felt as if I had been earning I don't know how much. In this state I went into a cottage that I saw was to let and examined it narrowly, for I felt it necessary to be practical. It would do for me and Dora admirably, with a little front garden for Jip to run about in, and bark at the tradespeople through the railings and a capital room upstairs for my aunt. I came out again, hotter and faster than ever, and dashed up to Highgate at such a rate that I was there an hour too early, and though I had not been, should have been obliged to stroll about to cool myself before I was at all presentable. My first care, after putting myself under this necessary course of preparation, was to find the doctor's house. It was not in that part of Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth lived, but quite on the opposite side of the little town. When I had made this discovery I went back in an attraction I could not resist to a lane by Mrs. Steerforth's, and looked over the corner of the garden wall. His room was shut up close. The conservatory doors were standing open, and Rosa Darnell was walking, bare-headed, with a quick, impetuous step, up and down a gravel walk on one side of the lawn. She gave me the idea of some fierce thing that was dragging the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track and wearing its heart out. I came softly away from my place of observation, and avoiding that part of the neighborhood and wishing I had not gone near it, strolled about until it was ten o'clock. The church, with the slender spire that stands on the top of the hill now, was not there then to tell me the time. An old red brick mansion used as a school was in its place, and a fine old house it must have been to go to school at, as I recollect it. When I approached the doctor's cottage, a pretty old place, on which he seemed to have expended some money if I might judge from the embellishments and repairs that had the look of being just completed, I saw him walking in the garden at the side, gators in all, as if he had never left off walking since the days of my pupilage. He had his old companions about him, too, for there were plenty of high trees in the neighborhood, and two or three rooks were on the grass looking after him, as if they had been written to about him by the canterbury rooks, and were observing him closely in consequence. Knowing the utter hopelessness of attracting his attention from that distance, I made bold to open the gate and walk after him so as to meet him when he should turn round. When he did, and came towards me, he looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, evidently without thinking about me at all, and then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary pleasure, and he took me by both hands. Why, my dear Copperfield, said the doctor, you are a man. How do you do? I am delighted to see you. My dear Copperfield, how very much you have improved. You are quite—yes, dear me. I hoped he was well, and missus strong, too. Oh, dear yes, said the doctor. Annie's quite well, and she'll be delighted to see you. You were always her favorite. She said so last night when I showed her your letter. And yes, to be sure, you recollect Mr. Jack Maldon, Copperfield? Perfectly, sir. Of course, said the doctor, to be sure. He's pretty well, too. Has he come home, sir, I inquired. From India, said the doctor. Yes, Mr. Jack Maldon couldn't bear the climate, my dear. Mrs. Markleham, you have not forgotten Mrs. Markleham. Forgotten the old soldier, and in that short time? Mrs. Markleham said the doctor was quite vexed about him, poor thing. So we have got him at home again, and we have bought him a little patent place, which agrees with him much better. I knew enough of Mr. Jack Maldon to suspect from this account that it was a place where there was not much to do, and which was pretty well paid. The doctor, walking up and down with his hand on my shoulder, and his kind face turned encouragingly to mine, went on. Now, my dear Copperfield, in reference to this proposal of yours, it's very gratifying and agreeable to me, I am sure. But don't you think you could do better? You achieved distinction, you know, when you were with us. You were qualified for many good things. You have laid a foundation that any edifice may be raised upon. And is it not a pity that you should devote the springtime of your life to such a poor pursuit as I can offer? I became very glowing again, and expressing myself in a rhapsodical style, I am afraid, urged my requests strongly, reminding the doctor that I had already a profession. Well, well, said the doctor, that's true. Certainly you're having a profession, and being actually engaged in studying it makes a difference. But my good young friend, what's seventy pounds a year? It doubles our income, Dr. Strong, said I. Dear me, replied the doctor, to think of that. Not that I mean to say it's rigidly limited to seventy pounds a year, because I have always contemplated making any young friend I might thus employ a present to. Undoubtedly, said the doctor, still walking me up and down with his hand on my shoulder, I have always taken an annual present and do account. My dear Tudor, said I, now really without any nonsense, to whom I owe more obligations already than I ever can acknowledge. So no, interposed the doctor, pardon me. If you will take such time as I have, and that is my mornings and evenings, and can think it worth seventy pounds a year, you will do me such a service as I cannot express. Dear me, said the doctor, innocently, to think that so little should go for so much. Dear, dear, and when you can do better you will, on your word now, said the doctor, which he had always made a very grave appeal to the honor of us boys. On my word, sir, I returned, answering in our old school manner. Then be it so, said the doctor, flapping me on the shoulder, and still keeping his hand there as we still walked up and down. And I shall be twenty times happier, sir, said I, with a little, I hope, innocent flattery, if my employment is to be on the dictionary. The doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and exclaimed with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity. My dear young friend, you have hit it, it is the dictionary. How could it be anything else? His pockets were as full of it as his head. It was sticking out of him in all directions. He told me that since his retirement from scholastic life he had been advancing with it wonderfully, and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning and evening work, as it was his custom to walk about in the daytime with his considering cap on. His papers were in little confusion, in consequence of Mr. Jack Maldon having lately proffered his occasional surfaces as an emmanuensess, and not being accustomed to that occupation. But we should soon put right what was amiss and go on swimmingly. Afterwards, when we were fairly at our work, I found Mr. Jack Maldon's efforts more troublesome to me than I had expected, as he had not confined himself to making numerous mistakes, but had sketched so many soldiers and ladies' heads over the doctor's manuscript that I often became involved in labyrinths of obscurity. The doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work together on that wonderful performance, and we settled to begin next morning at seven o'clock. We were to work two hours every morning and two or three hours every night, except on Saturdays when I was to rest. On Sundays, of course, I was to rest also, and I considered these very easy terms. Our plans, being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction, the doctor took me into the house to present me to Mrs. Strong, whom we found in the doctor's new study dusting his books, a freedom which he never permitted anybody else to take with those sacred favorites. They had postponed their breakfast on my account, and we sat down to table together. We had not been seated long when I saw an approaching arrival in Mrs. Strong's face before I heard any sound of it. A gentleman on horseback came to the gate, and leading his horse into the little court, with a bridle over his arm, as if he were quite at home, tied him to a ring in the empty coach-house wall, and came into the breakfast-parler whipping hand. It was Mr. Jack Maldon, and Mr. Jack Maldon was not at all improved by India, I thought. I was not in a state of ferocious virtue, however, as to young men who were not cutting down trees in the forest of difficulty, and my impression must be received with due allowance. Mr. Jack, said the doctor, copper-filled. Mr. Jack Maldon shook hands with me but not very warmly, I believed, and with an air of languid patronage, at which I secretly took great umbrage. But his langer altogether was quite a wonderful sight, except when he addressed himself to his cousin Annie. Have you breakfasted this morning, Mr. Jack, said the doctor? I hardly ever take breakfast, sir, he replied, with his head thrown back in an easy chair. I find it boars me. Is there any news today, inquired the doctor? Nothing at all, sir, replied Mr. Maldon. There is an account about the people being hungry and discontented down in the north, but they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere. The doctor looked grave and sad as though he wished to change the subject. Then there's no news at all. And no news, they say, is good news. There's a long statement in the papers, sir, about a murder, observed Mr. Maldon. But somebody is always being murdered, and I didn't read it. A display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time, I think, as I have observed it to be considered since. I have known it very fashionable, indeed. I have seen it displayed with such success that I have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars. Perhaps it impressed me the more, then, because it was new to me, but it certainly did not tend to exalt my opinion of or to strengthen my confidence in Mr. Jack Maldon. I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera tonight, said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. It's the last good night there will be this season, and there's a singer there whom she really ought to hear. She is perfectly exquisite, besides which she is so charmingly ugly, relapsing into langer. The doctor, ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife, turned to her and said, you must go, Annie, you must go. I would rather not, she said to the doctor. I prefer to remain at home. I would much rather remain at home. Without looking at her cousin, she then addressed me and asked me about Agnes and whether she should see her and whether she was not likely to come that day, and was so much disturbed that I wondered how even the doctor, buttering his toast, could be blind to what was so obvious. But he saw nothing. He told her, good-naturedly, that she was young and ought to be amused and entertained, and must not allow herself to be made dull by a dull old fellow. Moreover, he said, he wanted to hear her sing all the new singers' songs to him, and how could she do that well unless she went? So the doctor persisted in making the engagement for her, and Mr. Jack Maldon was to come back to dinner. This concluded he went to his patent place, I suppose, but at all events went away on his horse looking very idle. I was curious to find out next morning whether she had been. She had not, but had sent in to London to put her cousin off, and had gone out in the afternoon to see Agnes, and had prevailed upon the doctor to go with her. And they had walked home by the fields, the doctor told me, the evening being delightful. I wondered, then, whether she would have gone if Agnes had not been in town, and whether Agnes had some good influence over her, too. She did not look very happy, I thought, but it was a good face or a very false one. I often glanced at it, for she sat in the window all the time we were at work, and made our breakfast which we took by snatches as we were employed. When I left at nine o'clock she was kneeling on the ground at the doctor's feet, putting on his shoes and gaiters for him. There was a softened shade upon her face, thrown from some green leaves overhanging the open window of the low room. And I thought all the way to Doctor's Commons of the night when I had seen it looking at him as he read. I was pretty busy now, up at five in the morning and home at nine or ten at night, but I had infinite satisfaction in being so closely engaged, and never walked slowly on any account, and felt enthusiastically that the more I tired myself the more I was doing to deserve Dora. I had not revealed myself in my altered character to Dora yet, because she was coming to see Miss Mills in a few days, and I deferred all I had to tell her until then, merely informing her in my letters, all our communications were secretly forwarded through Miss Mills, that I had much to tell her. In the meantime I put myself on a short allowance of Bear's Grease, wholly abandoned scented soap and lavender water, and sold off three waistcoats at a prodigious sacrifice as being too luxurious for my stern career. Not satisfied with all these proceedings, but burning with impatience to do something more, I went to see Traddles, now lodging up behind the parapet of a house in Castle Street, Holborn. Mr. Dick, who had been with me to Highgate twice already, and had resumed his companionship with the doctor I took with me. I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt's reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley slave or convict worked as I did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and appetite as having nothing useful to do. In this condition he felt more incapable of finishing the memorial than ever, and the harder he worked at it, the oftener that unlucky head of King Charles I got into it. Really apprehending that his malady would increase unless we put some innocent deception upon him and caused him to believe that he was useful, or unless we could put him in the way of being really useful, which would be better, I made up my mind to try if Traddles could help us. Before we went I wrote Traddles a full statement of all that had happened, and Traddles wrote me back a capital answer expressive of his sympathy and friendship. We found him hard at work with his ink stand and papers refreshed by the sight of the flower pot stand and the little round table in a corner of the small apartment. He received us cordially and made friends with Mr. Dick in a moment. Mr. Dick professed an absolute certainty of having seen him before, and we both said very likely, the first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was this. I had heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by reporting the debates in Parliament. Traddles having mentioned newspapers to me as one of his hopes, I had put the two things together and told Traddles in my letter that I wished to know how I could qualify myself for this pursuit. Traddles now informed me, as the result of his inquiries, that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say a perfect and entire command of the mystery of shorthand writing and reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages, and that it might perhaps be attained by dint of perseverance in the course of a few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would settle the business, but I, only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on to Dora through this thicket, axe in hand. I am very much obliged to you, my dear Traddles, said I. I'll begin to-morrow. Traddles looked astonished, as he wall might, but he had no notion as yet of my rapturous condition. I'll buy a book, said I, with a good scheme of this art in it. I'll work at it at the commons where I haven't half enough to do. I'll take down the speeches in our court for practice. Traddles, my dear fellow, I'll master it. Dear me, said Traddles, opening his eyes, I had no idea you were such a determined character, Copperfield. I don't know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me. I passed that off and brought Mr. Dick on the carpet. You see, said Mr. Dick wistfully, if I could exert myself, Mr. Traddles, if I could beat a drum or blow anything, poor fellow, I have little doubt he would have preferred such an employment in his heart to all others. Traddles, who would not have smiled for the world, replied compositely, but you are a very good penman, sir. You told me so, Copperfield. Excellent, said I. And indeed he was. He wrote with extraordinary neatness. Don't you think, said Traddles, you could copy writing, sir, if I got them for you? Mr. Dick looked doubtfully at me. Hey, Trotwood? I shook my head. Mr. Dick shook his inside. Tell him about the memorial, said Mr. Dick. I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping King Charles I out of Mr. Dick's manuscripts. Mr. Dick, in the meanwhile, looking very deferentially and seriously at Traddles, and sucking his thumb. But these writings, you know, that I speak of are already drawn up and finished, said Traddles, after a little consideration. Mr. Dick has nothing to do with them. Wouldn't that make a difference, Copperfield? At all events, wouldn't it be well to try? This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads together apart while Mr. Dick anxiously watched us from his chair. We concocted a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day with triumphant success. On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work Traddles procured for him, which was to make, I forget how many copies, of a legal document about some right of way. And on another table we spread the last unfinished original of the Great Memorial. Our instructions to Mr. Dick were that he should copy exactly what he had before him without the least departure from the original, and that when he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to King Charles I, he should fly to the memorial. We exhorted him to be resolute in this, and left my aunt to observe him. My aunt reported to us afterwards that at first he was like a man playing the kettle drums and constantly divided his attentions between the two, but that finding this confusion fatigue him and having his copy there plainly before his eyes, he soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner and postponed the memorial to a more convenient time. In a word, although we took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him, and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week, he earned by the following Saturday night ten shillings and nine pence, and never while I live shall I forget his going about to all the shops in the neighborhood to change this treasure into six pence, or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter with tears of joy and pride in his eyes. He was like one under the propitious influence of a charm from the moment of his being usefully employed, and if there were a happy man in the world that Saturday night it was the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence and me the most wonderful young man. No starving now, Trotwood, said Mr. Dick, shaking hands with me in a corner, I'll provide for her, sir, and he flourished his ten fingers in the air as if they were ten banks. I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or I. It really, said Traddles, suddenly taking a letter out of his pocket and giving it to me, put Mr. Macabre quite out of my head. The letter, Mr. Macabre never missed any possible opportunity of writing a letter, was addressed to me. By the kindness of T. Traddles, Esquire, of the Inner Temple. It ran thus, my dear Copperfield, you may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former occasion that I was an expectation of such an event. I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our favorite island where the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical. An immediate connection with one of the learned professions. Mrs. Macabre and our offspring will accompany me. Our ashes at a future period will probably be found commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile for which the spot to which I refer has acquired a reputation. Shall I say from China to Peru? In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon where we have undergone many vicissitudes, I trust not ignomely, Mrs. Macabre and myself cannot disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be forever, with an individual linked by strong associations to the altar of our domestic life. If, on the eve of such a departure, you will accompany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas Trattles, to our present abode and there reciprocate the wishes natural to the occasion, you will confer a boon on one who is ever yours, Wilkins Macabre. I was glad to find that Mr. Macabre had got rid of his dust and ashes and that something really had turned up at last. Learning from Trattles that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I expressed my readiness to do honor to it and we went off together to the lodging which Mr. Macabre occupied as Mr. Mortimer and which was situated near the top of the Grey's Inn Road. The resources of this lodging were so limited that we found the twins, now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up bedstead in the family's sitting room where Mr. Macabre had prepared, in a wash-hand stand jug, what he called a brew of the agreeable beverage for which he was famous. I had the pleasure on this occasion of renewing the acquaintance of Master Macabre, whom I found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in use of his age. I also became once more known to his sister, Miss Macabre, in whom, as Mr. Macabre told us, her mother renewed her youth like the phoenix. My dear Copperfield, said Mr. Macabre, yourself and Mr. Trattles find us on the brink of migration and will excuse any little discomforts incidental to that position. Glancing round as I made a suitable reply, I observed that the family effects were already packed and that the amount of luggage was by no means overwhelming. I congratulated Mrs. Macabre on the approaching change. My dear Mr. Copperfield, said Mrs. Macabre, of your friendly interest in all our affairs I am well assured my family may consider it banishment if they please, but I am a wife and mother and I never will desert Mr. Macabre. Trattles appealed to by Mrs. Macabre's eye, feelingly acquiesced. That, said Mrs. Macabre, that at least is my view, my dear Mr. Copperfield and Mr. Trattles, of the obligation which I took upon myself when I repeated the irrevocable words, I am a take thee Wilkins. I read the service over with a flat candle on the previous night and the conclusion I derived from it was that I never could desert Mr. Macabre. And, said Mrs. Macabre, though it is possible I may be mistaken in my view of the ceremony, I never will. My dear, said Mr. Macabre, a little impatiently, I am not conscious that you are expected to do anything of the sort. I am aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield pursued Mrs. Macabre, that I am now about to cast my lot among strangers and I am also aware that the various members of my family to whom Mr. Macabre has written in the most gentlemanly terms announcing that fact have not taken the least notice of Mr. Macabre's communication. Indeed, I may be superstitious, said Mrs. Macabre, but it appears to me that Mr. Macabre is destined never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the communications he writes. I may augur from the silence of my family that they object to the resolution I have taken, but I should not allow myself to be swerved from the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield, even by my papa and mama, were they still living? I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. It may be a sacrifice, said Mrs. Macabre, to a Muir once self in a cathedral town, but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if it is a sacrifice in me it is much more a sacrifice than a man of Mr. Macabre's abilities. Oh, you are going to a cathedral town, said I. Mr. Macabre, who had been helping us all out of the wash-hands stand-jug, replied, to Canterbury, in fact, my dear Copperfield, I have entered into arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged and contracted to our friend Heap, to assist and serve him in the capacity of, and to be, his confidential clerk. I stared at Mr. Macabre, who greatly enjoyed my surprise. I am bound to state to you, he said, with an official air, that the business habits and the prudent suggestions of Mrs. Macabre have in a great measure conduced to this result. The gauntlet to which Mrs. Macabre referred upon a formal occasion, being thrown down in the form of an advertisement, was taken up by my friend Heap and led to mutual recognition. Of my friend Heap, said Mr. Macabre, who is a man of remarkable sprudeness, I desire to speak with all possible respect. My friend Heap has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a figure, but he has made a great deal in the way of extrication from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties contingent on the value of my services, and on the value of those services I pin my faith. Such address and intelligence as I chance to possess, said Mr. Macabre, boastfully disparaging himself with the old gentile air, will be devoted to my friend Heap's service. I have already some acquaintance with the law, as a defendant on civil process, and I shall immediately apply myself to the commentaries of one of the most eminent and remarkable of our English jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to add that I allude to Mr. Justice Blackstone. These observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Macabre's discovering that Master Macabre was sitting on his boots or holding his head on with both arms, as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking treadles under the table or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them at distances from himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying sideways with his hair among the wine glasses, or developing his restlessness of limb in some other form incompatible with the general interests of society, and by Master Macabre's receiving those discoveries in a resentful spirit. I sat all the while amazed by Mr. Macabre's disclosure and wondering what it meant until Mrs. Macabre resumed the thread of the discourse and claimed my attention. What I particularly request Mr. Macabre to be careful of is, said Mrs. Macabre, that he does not, my dear Copperfield, in applying himself to this subordinate branch of the law, place it out of his power to rise ultimately to the top of the tree. I am convinced that Mr. Macabre, giving his mind to a profession so adapted to his fertile resources and his flow of language, must distinguish himself. Now, for example, Mr. Trattles said Mrs. Macabre, assuming a profound heir, a judge, or even say a chancellor, does an individual place himself beyond the pale of those performance by entering on such an office as Mr. Macabre has accepted? My dear, observed Mr. Macabre, but glancing inquisitively at Trattles, too, we have time enough before us for the consideration of those questions. Macabre, she returned, no, your mistake in life is that you do not look forward far enough. You are bound injustice to your family, if not to yourself, to take in at a comprehensive glance the extremist point in the horizon to which your abilities may lead you. Mr. Macabre coughed and drank his punch with an air of exceeding satisfaction, still glancing at Trattles as if he desired to have his opinion. Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Macabre, said Trattles, mildly breaking the truth to her, I mean the real prosaic fact, you know. Just so, said Mrs. Macabre, my dear Mr. Trattles, I wish to be as prosaic and literal as possible on the subject of so much importance. Is, said Trattles, that this branch of the law, even if Mr. Macabre were a regular solicitor, exactly so, returned Mrs. Macabre, welcomes your squinting and will not be able to get your eyes back. Has nothing pursued Trattles to do with that. Only a barrister is eligible for such performance. And Mr. Macabre could not be a barrister without being entered at an inn of court as a student for five years. Do I follow you, said Mrs. Macabre, with your most affable air of business? Do I understand, my dear Mr. Trattles, that at the expiration of that period Mr. Macabre would be eligible as a judge or chancellor? He would be eligible, returned Trattles, with a strong emphasis on that word. Thank you, said Mrs. Macabre. That is quite sufficient. If such is the case, and Mr. Macabre forfeits no privilege by entering on these duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I speak, said Mrs. Macabre, as a female necessarily, but I have always been of opinion that Mr. Macabre possesses what I have heard my papa call when I lived at home, the judicial mind, and I hope Mr. Macabre is now entering on a field where that mind will develop itself and take a commanding station. I quite believe that Mr. Macabre saw himself in his judicial mind's eye on the wool sack. He passed his hand complacently over his bald head, and said, with ostentatious resignation, My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. If I am reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared externally, in allusion to his baldness, for that distinction. I do not, said Mr. Macabre, regret my hair, and I may have been deprived of it for a specific purpose. I cannot say. It is my intention, my dear Copperfield, to educate my son for the church. I will not deny that I should be happy on his account to attain to eminence. For the church, said I, still pondering between wiles on Uriaheep. Yes, said Mr. Macabre. He has a remarkable head voice, and will commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury and our local connection will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any vacancy that may arise in the cathedral core. On looking at Master Macabre again, I saw that he had a certain expression of face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows, where it presently appeared to be, on his singing us, as an alternative between that and bed, the woodpecker tapping. After many compliments on this performance, we fell into some general conversation. And as I was too full of my desperate intentions to keep my altered circumstances to myself, I made them known to Mr. and Mrs. Macabre. I cannot express how extremely delighted they both were by the idea of my aunts being in difficulties and how comfortable and friendly it made them. When we were nearly come to the last round of the punch, I addressed myself to Traddles and reminded him that we must not separate without wishing our friends health, happiness, and success in their new career. I begged Mr. Macabre to fill us bumpers and propose the toast in due form, shaking hands with him across the table, and kissing Mrs. Macabre to commemorate that eventful occasion. Traddles imitated me in the first particular, but did not consider himself a sufficiently old friend to venture on the second. My dear Copperfield, said Mr. Macabre, rising with one of his thumbs in each of his waist-coat pockets. The companion of my youth, if I may be allowed the expression, and my esteemed friend Traddles, if I may be permitted to call him so, will allow me, on the part of Mrs. Macabre, myself and our offspring, to thank them in the warmest and most uncompromising terms for their good wishes. It may be expected that on the eve of a migration which will consign us to a perfectly new existence, Mr. Macabre spoke as if they were going 500,000 miles. I should offer a few valedictory remarks to two such friends as I see before me. But all that I have to say in this way I have said, whatever station in society I may attain through the medium of the learned profession of which I am about to become an unworthy member, I shall endeavor not to disgrace, and Mrs. Macabre will be safe to adorn. Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation, but remaining unliquidated through a combination of circumstances, I have been under the necessity of assuming a garb from which my natural instincts recoil. I allude to spectacles and possessing myself of a cognonment to which I can establish no legitimate pretensions. All I have to say on that score is that the cloud has passed from the dreary scene and the god of day is once more high upon the mountaintops. On Monday next, on the arrival of the four o'clock afternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot will be on my native heath, my name Macabre. Mr. Macabre resumed his seat on the clothes of these remarks and drank two glasses of punch in grave succession. He then said, with much solemnity, One thing more I have to do before this separation is complete, and that is to perform an act of justice. My friend Mr. Thomas Tradles has, on two several occasions, put his name, if I may use a common expression, to bills of exchange for my accommodation. On the first occasion Mr. Thomas Tradles was left, let me say in short, in the lurch. The fulfillment of the second has not yet arrived. The amount of the first obligation, here Mr. Macabre carefully referred to the papers, was I believe 23, 4, 9, and a half. Of the second, according to my entry of that transaction, 18, 6, 2. These sums, united, make a total, if my calculation is correct, amounting to 41, 10, 11, and a half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do me the favor to check that total. I did so and found it correct. To leave this metropolis, said Mr. Macabre, and my friend Mr. Thomas Tradles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. I have therefore prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas Tradles, and I now hold in my hand a document which accomplishes the desired object. I beg to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Tradles, my IOU, for 41, 10, 11, and a half. And I am happy to recover my moral dignity and to know that I can once more walk erect before my fellow man. With this introduction, which greatly affected him, Mr. Macabre placed his IOU in the hands of Tradles and said he wished him well in every relation of life. I am persuaded, not only that this was quite the same to Mr. Macabre as paying the money, but that Tradles himself hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it. Mr. Macabre walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength of this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he lighted us downstairs. We parted with great hardiness on both sides. And when I had seen Tradles to his own door, and was going home alone, I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon, that slippery as Mr. Macabre was, I was probably indebted to some compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy lodger for never having been asked by him for money. I certainly should not have had the moral courage to refuse it, and I have no doubt he knew that, to his credit be it written, quite as well as I did. CHAPTER 37 A LITTLE COLD WATER I knew life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger than ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the crisis required. I continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea that I was getting on. I made a rule to take as much out of myself as I possibly could in my way of doing everything to which I applied my energies. I made a perfect victim of myself. I even entertained some idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that in becoming a grim-nimbrous animal I should sacrifice to Dora. As yet little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness, otherwise than as my letters darkly shattered it forth. But another Saturday came, and on that Saturday evening she was to be at Miss Millis, and when Mr. Millis had gone to his WIST club telegraphed to me in the street by a birdcage in the drawing room middle window, I was to go there to tea. By this time you were quite settled down in Buckingham Street, where Mr. Dick continued his copying in a state of absolute solicity. My aunt had obtained a signal victory over Mrs. Krupp by paying her off. Throwing the first picture, she planted on the stairs out of the window, and protecting in person up and down the staircase a super-numerary whom she engaged from the outer world. These vigorous measures struck such terror to the breast of Mrs. Krupp that she subsided into her own kitchen under the impression that my aunt was mad. My aunt being supremely indifferent to Mrs. Krupp's opinion and everybody else's, and rather favoring than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Krupp, of late, the bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted that rather than encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she would endeavor to hide or portly form behind doors, leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel petticoat, or would shrink into dark corners. This gave my aunt such unspeakable satisfaction that I believe she took a delight in prowling up and down with her bonnet, insanely perched on the top of her head, at times when Mrs. Krupp was likely to be in the way. My aunt, being uncommonly neat and ingenious, made so many little improvements in our domestic arrangements that I seemed to be richer instead of poorer. Among the rest she converted the pantry into a dressing room for me, and purchased and embellished a bedstead for my occupation, which looked like a bookcase in the daytime. I was the object of her constant solicitude, and my poor mother herself could not have loved better, or studied more, how to make me happy. Pegady had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed to participate in these labors, and although she still retained something of her old sentiment of awe and reference to my aunt, had received so many marks of encouragement and confidence that they were the best friends possible. But the time had now come, I'm speaking of the Saturday when I was to take tea at Miss Mills. It was necessary for her to return home, and enter on the discharge of the duties she had undertaken in behalf of him. So good-bye, Barquis, said my aunt, and take care of yourself. I'm sure I never thought I could be sorry to lose you. I took Pegady to the coach office and saw her off. She cried at parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done. We had heard nothing of him since he went away that sunny afternoon. And now, my own dear Davy, said Pegady, if, while you're apprentice, you should want any money to spend, or if, when you're out of your time, my dear, you should want any to set you up, and you must do one or other or both, my darling, who has such a good right to ask leave to lend it to you as my sweet girl's own old stupid me? I was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply, but that if I ever borrowed money of anyone, I would borrow it of her. Next to accepting a large sum on the spot, I believed this gave Pegady more comfort than anything I could have done. And my dear, whispered Pegady, tell the pretty little angel that I should so have liked to see her, only for a minute, and tell her that before she marries my boy, I'll come and make your house so beautiful for you if you let me. I declared that nobody else should touch it, and this gave Pegady such delight that she went away in good spirits. I fatigued myself as much as I possibly could in the commons all day by a variety of devices, and at the appointed time in the evening, repaired to Mr. Millis' street. Mr. Millis, who was a terrible fellow to fall asleep after dinner, was not yet gone out, and there was no birdcage in the middle window. He kept waiting so long that I fervently hoped the club would find him for being late. At last he came out, and then I saw my own Dora hang up the birdcage and peep into the balcony to look for me, and run in again when she saw I was there while Jip remained behind to bark injuriously at an immense butcher's dog in the street who would have taken him like a pill. Dora came to the drawing room, Dora to meet me, and Jip came scrambling out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression that I was abandoned, and we all three went in as happy and loving as could be. I soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys, not that I meant to do it, but that I was so full of the subject by asking Dora without the smallest preparation if she could love a beggar. My pretty little startled Dora, her only association with the word was a yellow face in a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, or a dog with a decanter stand in his mouth, or something of that kind, and she stared at me with the most delightful wonder, how can you ask me anything so foolish, pouted Dora? Love a beggar. Dora, my own dearest, said I, I am a beggar. How can you be such a silly thing? replied Dora, slapping my hand. Ask to sit there telling such stories? I'll make you bite you. Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but it was necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly repeated, Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David, I'll declare I'll make you bite you, said Dora, shaking her curls, if you are so ridiculous. But I look so serious that Dora left off shaking her curls and laid her trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked scared and anxious, then began to cry. That was dreadful. I fell upon my knees before the sofa caressing her and imploring her not to rent my heart. For some time poor little Dora did nothing but exclaim, oh dear, oh dear, and oh, she was so frightened, and there was Julia Mills, and oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please, until I was almost beside myself. At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, I got Dora to look at me with a horrified expression on her face, which I gradually soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek was lying against mine. Then I told her, with my arms clasped round her how I loved her, so dearly, and so dearly, how I felt it right to offer to release her from her engagement, because now I was poor, how I never could bear it or recover it if I lost her, how I had no fears of poverty if she had none, my arm being nerved and my heart inspired by her, how I was already working with a courage such as none but lovers knew, how I had begun to be practical and look into the future, how a crust well-earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited, and much more to the same purpose, which I delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence, quite surprising to myself, though I had been thinking about it day and night ever since my aunt had astonished me. Is your heart mine still, dear Dora? said I rapturously, for I knew by her, clinging to me that it was. Oh yes, cried Dora, yes, it's all yours. Oh, don't be dreadful. I dreadful to Dora. Don't talk about being poor and working hard that Dora nestling closer to me. Oh, don't, don't. My dearest love, said I, the crust well-earned. Oh yes, but I don't want to hear any more about crusts, said Dora, and Jib must have a mutton chop every day at twelve, or he'll die. I was charmed with her childish winning way. I fondly explained to Dora that Jib should have his mutton chop with his accustomed regularity. I drew a picture of our frugal home, made independent by my labor. Sketching in the little house I had seen at Highgate and my aunt in her room upstairs. I'm not dreadful now, Dora, said I tenderly. Oh no, no, cried Dora, but I hope your aunt will keep in her own room a good deal. And I hope she's not a scolding old thing. If it were possible for me to love Dora more than ever, I am sure I did, but I felt she was a little impracticable. It damped my newborn ardor to find that ardor so difficult of communication to her. I made another trial when she was quite herself again and was curling Jib's ears as he lay upon her lap. I became grave and said, My own, may I mention something? Oh please, don't be practical, said Dora coaxingly, because it frightens me so. Sweetheart, I return, there's nothing to alarm you in all this. I want you to think of it quite differently. I want to make it nerve you and inspire you, Dora. Oh but that's so shocking, cried Dora. My love, no, perseverance and strength of character will enable us to bear much worse things. But I haven't got any strength at all, said Dora shaking her curls. Have I, Jib? Oh, do kiss Jib and be agreeable. It was impossible to resist kissing Jib when she held him up to me for that purpose, putting her own bright rosy little mouth into kissing form as she directed the operation which she insisted should be performed symmetrically on the center of his nose. I did as she bade me, rewarding myself afterwards for my obedience, and she charmed me out of my graver character for I don't know how long. But Dora, my beloved, said I, at last resuming it, I was going to mention something. The judge of the prerogative court might have fallen in love with her to see her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and praying me not to be dreadful anymore. Indeed, I'm not going to be my darling, I assured her. But Dora, my love, if you will sometimes think, not despondingly, you know far from that. But if you will sometimes think, just to encourage yourself, that you're engaged to a poor man, don't, don't, pray don't, cried Dora, it's so very dreadful. My soul not at all, said I cheerfully. If you will sometimes think of that and look about now and then at your papa's housekeeping and endeavor to acquire a little habit of account, for instance, put a little Dora received the suggestion with something that was half a sob and half a scream. It would be so useful to us afterwards, I went on. And if you would promise to me to read a little, a little cookery book that I would send you, it would be so excellent for both of us. For our path and life, my Dora, said I, warming with the subject, Estonian rugged now and addressed with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We must be brave. There are obstacles to be met. And we must meet and crush them. I was going on at a great rate with a clenched hand and the most enthusiastic countenance, but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. I had said enough. I had done it again. Oh, she was so frightened. Oh, where was Julia Mills? Oh, take her to Julia Mills and go away, please. So that, in short, I was quite distracted and raved about the drawing room. I thought I had killed her this time. I sprinkled water on her face. I went down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced myself as a remorseless brood and unroofless beast. I implored her forgiveness. I bethought her to look up. I ravaged Mrs. Mills' workbox for a smelling bottle and in my agony of mind applied an ivory needle case instead and dropped all the needles over Nora. I shook my fist at Jeep who was as frantic as myself. I did every wild extravagance that could be done and was a long way beyond the end of my wits. When Mrs. Mills came into the room, who has done this, exclaimed Mrs. Mills, suckering her friend? I replied, I, Mrs. Mills, I have done it. Behold the destroyer, forward to that effect and hid my face from the light in the sofa cushion. At first Mrs. Mills thought it was a quarrel and that we were verging on the desert of Sahara, but she soon found out how matter stood. For my dear affectionate little Nora, embracing her, began exclaiming that I was a poor laborer and then cried for me and embraced me and asked me would I let her give me all her money to keep and then fell on Mrs. Mills' neck sobbing as if her tender heart were broken. Mrs. Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She ascertained for me in a few words what it was all about, comforted Nora and gradually convinced her that I was not a laborer. From my manner of stating the case, I believe Nora concluded that I was a navigator and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a wheelbarrow and so brought us together in peace. When we were quite composed and Nora had gone upstairs to put some rose water to her eyes, Ms. Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I told Ms. Mills that she was ever more my friend and that my heart must seize to vibrate or I could forget her sympathy. I then expounded to Ms. Mills what I had endeavored, so very unsuccessfully to expound to Nora. Ms. Mills replied on general principles that the cottage of content was better than the palace of cold splendor and that where love was, all was. I said to Ms. Mills that this was very true and who should know it better than I who loved Nora with a love that never a mortal had experienced yet. But on Ms. Mills' observing with despondency that it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so, I explained that I begged leave to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine gender. I then put it to Ms. Mills to say whether she considered that there was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had been anxious to make concerning the accounts to housekeeping in the cookery book. Ms. Mills, after some consideration, thus replied, Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you, mental suffering and trial supply in some natures, the place of years, and I will be as plain with you as if I were a lady abyss. No, the suggestion is not appropriate to our Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favored child of nature. She is a thing of light, of airiness and joy. I am free to confess that if it could be done, it might be well. But, in Ms. Mills' shook her head, I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of Ms. Mills to ask her whether for Dora's sake, if she had any opportunity of luring her attention to such preparations for an earnest life, she would avail herself of it. Ms. Mills replied, in the affirmative so readily that I further asked her if she would take charge of the cookery book, and if she could ever insinuate it upon Dora's acceptance, without frightening her, undertake to do me that crowning service. Ms. Mills accepted this trust, too, but was not sanguine, and Dora returned looking such a lovely little creature that I really doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary. And she loved me so much and was so captivating, particularly when she made chip stand on his hind legs for toast, and when she pretended to hold that nose of his against the hot teapot for punishment because he wouldn't, and I felt like, a sort of monster who had gotten to a fairy's power when I thought of having frightened her and made her cry. After tea, we had the guitar, and Dora sang those same dear old French songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off dancing, la-ra-la, la-ra-la, until I felt a much greater monster than before. We had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little while before I took my leave when Ms. Mills, chanting to make some allusion to more mourning, I unluckily let out that being obliged to exert myself now, I got up at five o'clock, whether Dora had any idea that I was a private watchman, I'm unable to say, but made a great impression on her, and she neither played nor sang any more. It was so on her mind when I beat her at you, and she said to me in her pretty coaxing way, as if I were a doll, I used to think. Now, don't get up at five o'clock, you naughty boy, it's so nonsensical. My love said I, I have work to do, but don't do it, returned Dora, why should you? It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, otherwise, then lightly and playfully, that we must work to live. Oh, how ridiculous, cried Dora, how should we live without Dora, that I? How anyhow said Dora? She seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me such a triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that I would hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer for a fortune. Well, I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly entirely and completely, but going on too, working pretty hard, and beating and busily keeping red hot all the irons I now had in the fire, I would sit sometimes of the night opposite my aunt, thinking how I had frightened Dora that time, and how I would best make my way with a guitar case through the rest of the forest of difficulty, until I used to fancy that my head was turning quite gray, and of a little cold water, recording by noonday. Recording by Simon Evers David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 38 A Dissolution of Partnership I did not allow my resolution with respect to the parliamentary debate to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately, and one of the irons I kept hot and hammered at with a perseverance I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography, which cost me ten and six months, and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me in a few weeks to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else entirely different, the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles, the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs, the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place, not only troubled my waking hours, but reappear before me of my sleep. When I had groped my way blindly through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian temple in itself, there then appeared a procession of new horrors called arbitrary characters, the most despotic characters I've ever known, who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb meant expectation, and that a pen and ink skyrocket stood for disenfantages. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found that they'd driven everything else out of it. Then beginning again, I forgot them. While I was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments of the system. In short, it was almost heartbreaking. It might have been quite heartbreaking, but for Dora, who was the stay and anchor of my tempest-driven bark. Every scratch in the scheme was a gnarled oak in the forest of difficulty, and I went on cutting them down one after another with such vigor that in three or four months I was in a condition to make an experiment on one of our crack-speakers in the commons. Shall I ever forget how the crack-speaker walked off from me before? I walked off from me before I began, and left my imbecile pencil staggering about the paper as if it were in a fit. This would not do. It was quite clear. I was flying too high and should never get on so. I resorted to Traddles for advice, who suggested that he should dictate speeches to me at a pace and with occasional stoppages adapted to my weakness. Very grateful for this friendly aid, I accepted the proposal, and night after night, almost every night, for a long time, we had a sort of private parliament in Buckingham Street after I came home from the doctors. I should like to see such a parliament anywhere else. My aunt and Mr. Dick represented the government or the opposition as the case might be, and Traddles, with the assistance of Enfield's speakers, or a volume of parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing invectives against them. Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head, Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord Carceray, Viscount Sybmyth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself into the most violent heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy and corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick. While I used to sit at a little distance, with my notebook on my knee, fagging after him with all my might and main. The inconsistency and rectusness of Traddles were not to be exceeded by any real politician. He was for any description of policy in the company of a week, and nailed all sorts of colours to every denomination of mast. My aunt, looking very like an immovable chancellor of the Exchequer, would occasionally throw in an interruption or two as here, or no, or oh, when the text seemed to require it, which was always a signal to Mr. Dick, a perfect country gentleman, to follow lustily with the same cry. But Mr. Dick got taxed with such things in the course of his parliamentary career, and was made responsible for such awful consequences that he became uncomfortable in his mind sometimes. I believe he actually began to be afraid he really had been doing something, tending to the annihilation of the British Constitution and the ruin of the country. Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to midnight, and the candles were burning down. The result of so much good practice was that by and by I began to keep pace with Traddles pretty well, and should have been quite triumphant if I had had the least idea what my notes were about. But as to reading them after I got them, I might as well have copied the Chinese inscriptions of an immense collection of tea chests, or the golden characters on all the red and green bottles in the chemist shops. There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace. Stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way on all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever I met them. I was always punctual at the office, at the doctor's too, and I really did work, as the common expression is, like a cart-horse. One day, when I went to the commons as usual, I found Mr. Spenlow in the doorway looking extremely grave, and talking to himself. As he was in the habit of complaining of pains in his head, he had naturally a short throat, and I do seriously believe he overstarted himself. I was at first alarmed by the idea that he was not quite right in that direction, but he soon relieved my uneasiness. Instead of retiring my good morning, with his usual affability, he looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly requested me to accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which in those days had a door opening into the commons, just within the little archway in St. Paul's churchyard. I complied, in a very uncomfortable state, and with a warm shooting all over me, as if my apprehensions were breaking out into buds. When I allowed him to go on a little before, on account of the narrowness of the way, I observed that he carried his head with a lofty air that was particularly unpromising, and my mind misgave me that he had found out about my darling Dora. If I had not guessed this on the way to the coffee-house, I could hardly have failed to know what was the matter when I followed him into an upstairs room and found Miss Murdstone there, supported by a background of sideboard, on which were several inverted tumblers sustaining lemons, and two of those extraordinary boxes, all corners and flutings, for sticking knives and forks in, which, happily for mankind, are now obsolete. Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly fingernails, and sat severely rigid. Mr. Spenlow shut the door, motioned to me to a chair, and stood on the hearth-rug in front of the far-place. Have the goodness to show, Mr. Copperfield! said Mr. Spenlow, what you have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone! I believe it was the old, identical steel-clasped reticule of my childhood that shut up like a bite. Compressing her lips in sympathy with her as a snap, Miss Murdstone opened it, opening her mouth a little at the same time, and produced my last letter to Dora, teeming with expressions of devoted affection. I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield! said Mr. Spenlow. I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike mine, when I said, It is, sir. If I am not mistaken, said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss Murdstone bought a parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the dearest bit of blue ribbon. Those are also from your pen, Mr. Copperfield! I took them from her with the most desolate sensation, and glancing at such phrases at the toppers, my ever-dearest and own Dora, my best beloved angel, my blessed one for ever, and the like, blushed deeply, and inclined my head. No, thank you! said Mr. Spenlow coldly, as I mechanically offered them back to him. I will not deprive you of them. Miss Murdstone, be so good as to proceed. That gentle creature, after a moment's thoughtful survey of the carpet, delivered herself with much dry unction as follows. I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of Miss Spenlow in reference to David Copperfield for some time. I observed Miss Spenlow and David Copperfield when they first met, and the impression made upon me then was not agreeable. The depravity of the human heart is such you would oblige me, ma'am, interrupted Mr. Spenlow, by confiding yourself to facts. Miss Murdstone, cast down her eyes, shook her head as if retesting against this unseemly interruption, and with frightening dignity resumed. Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will stake them as dryly as I can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding. I have already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow in reference to David Copperfield for some time. I have frequently endeavored to find decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but without effect. I have therefore foreborn to mention them to Miss Spenlow's father, looking severely at him, knowing how little disposition there usually is in such cases to acknowledge the conscientious discharge of duty. Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss Murdstone's manner, and deprecated her severity with a considerably little wave of his hand. On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by my brother's marriage, presumed Miss Murdstone in a disdainful voice, and on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss Mills, I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater occasion for suspicion than before, therefore I watched Miss Spenlow closely. Dear tender little Dora, so unconscious of this dragon's eye! I still—resumed Miss Murdstone—I found no proof until last night. It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many letters from her friend Miss Mills, but Miss Mills being her friend with her father's full concurrence—another telling blur, Mr. Spenlow—it was not for me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude to the natural depravity of the human heart, at least I may—I must be permitted so far to refer to misplaced confidence. Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent. Last evening after tea—pursued Miss Murdstone—I observed the little dog starting, rolling and growling about the drawing-room, worrying something. I said to Miss Spenlow, Dora, what is it that the dog has in his mouth? It's paper! Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed and said, Dora, my love, you must permit me. Oh, jib, miserable spaniel! This wretchedness, then, was your work. Miss Spenlow endeavoured, said Miss Murdstone, to bribe me with kisses, work boxes, and small articles of jewellery. That, of course, I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the far arms. Even when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth, and on my endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten, he kept it between his teeth so pertinatiously as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air by means of the document. At length I obtained possession of it. After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with having many such letters in her possession, and utterly obtained from her the packet which is now in David Copperfield's hand. Here she ceased, and snapping her reticule again and shutting her mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent. You've heard, Miss Murdstone? said Miss Spenlow, turning to me. I beg to ask Mr Copperfield if you have anything to say in reply. The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my heart sobbing and crying all night, of her being alone, frightened and wretched, then of her having so piteously begged and prayed that stony-hearted woman to forgive her, of her vainly offering those kitches, work-books, and trinkets, of her being in such grievous distress and all for me. Very much impair the little dignity in I've been able to muster. I'm afraid I was in a tremulous state for a minute or so, though I did my best to disguise it. There is nothing I can say, sir, I returned, except that all the blame is mine. Dora, Miss Spenlow, if you please, said her father majestically, was induced and persuaded by me, I went on, swallowing that colder designation, to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly regret it. You are very much to blame, sir, said Mr. Spenlow, walking to and fro upon the hearthrug, and emphasising what he said with his whole body, instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and spine. You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. Copperfield. When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether he is nineteen, twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in a spirit of confidence. If he abuses my confidence, he commits a dishonourable action, a dishonourable action, Mr. Copperfield. I feel it, sir, I assure you, I returned. But I never thought so before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never thought so before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent. Nonsense! said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. Pray don't tell me to my face that you love my daughter, Mr. Copperfield. Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir? I returned, with all humility. Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir? Said Mr. Spenlow, stopping short upon the hearth-rug. Have you considered your years, and my daughter's years, Mr. Copperfield? Have you considered what it is to undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and myself? Have you considered my daughter's station in life, the projects I may contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary intentions I may have with reference to her? Have you considered anything, Mr. Copperfield? Very little, sir, I am afraid, I answered, speaking to him as respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt. But, pray believe me, I have considered my own worldly position. When I explained it to you, we were already engaged. I beg, said Mr. Spenlow, all I'd punch than I'd ever seen him, as he energetically struck one hand upon the other. I could not help noticing that, even in my despair. That you will not talk to me of engagements, Mr. Copperfield! The otherwise immovable Miss Murdstone laughed contemptuously in one short syllable. When I explained my altered position to you, sir, I began again, substituting a new form of expression for what was so unparotable to him. This concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have led Miss Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered position, I have strained every nerve, I have exerted every energy to improve it. I'm sure I shall improve it in time. Will you grant me time, any length of time? We are both so young, sir. You are right, interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great many times, and frowning very much. You are both very young. It's all nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away those letters and throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow's letters to throw in the fire, and although our future intercourse must, you are aware, be restricted to the commons here, we will agree to make no further mention of the past. Come, Mr. Copperfield, you don't want sense, and this is the sensible course. No, I couldn't think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but there was a higher consideration than sense. Love was above all earthly considerations, and I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I didn't exactly say so. I softened it down as much as I could, but I implied it, and I was resolute upon it. I don't think I made myself very ridiculous, but I know I was resolute. Very well, Mr. Copperfield, say Mr. Spenlow, I must try my influence with my daughter. Miss Murdstone, by an expressionist sound, a long-drawn respiration, which was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her opinion that he should have done this at first. I must try, said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, my influence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, Mr. Copperfield? Boy, I had laid them on the table. Yes, I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I couldn't possibly take them from Miss Murdstone. Nor from me, said Mr. Spenlow. No, I replied, but the profoundest respect, nor from him. Very well, said Mr. Spenlow. A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At length I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing, when he said, with his hands in his coat-pockets, into which it was as much as he could do to get them, and with what I should call upon the whole a decidedly pious air. You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and dearest relative. I hurriedly made a reply to the effect that I hoped the error into which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love did not induce him to think me mercenary too. I don't allude to the matter in that light, said Mr. Spenlow. It would be better for yourself and all of us, if you were a mercenary, Mr. Copperfield, I mean if you were more discreet and less influenced by all this youthful nonsense. No, I merely say, with quite another view, you are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my child. I certainly be supposed so. And you can hardly think, said Mr. Spenlow, having experience of what we see in the commons here every day of the various unaccountable and negligent proceedings of men in respect of their testamentary arrangements, of all subjects the one on which perhaps the strangest revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with, but that mine are made. I inclined my head in acquiescence. I should not allow, said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes and heels alternately. My suitable provision for my child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere folly, mere nonsense, and in a little while it will weigh lighter than any feather. But I might, I might, if this silly business were not completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment to guard her from and surround her with protections against the consequences of any foolish step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to open even for a quarter of an hour that closed page in the Book of Life, an unsettle even for a quarter of an hour grave affairs long since composed. There was a serenity, a tranquility, a calm sunset air about him which quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned, clearly had his affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up, that he was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw tears rise to his eyes from the depth of his own feeling of all this. But what could I do? I could not deny Nora and my own heart. When he told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how could I say I wouldn't take a week? How could I fail to know that no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine? In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with any knowledge of life, said Mr. Spendow, adjusting his cravat with both hands. Take a week, Mr. Copperfield. I submitted, and with accountants as expressive as I was able to make it, of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. Miss Murdstone's heavy eyebrows followed me to the door. I say her eyebrows rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her face, and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that hour of the morning in our parlour at Blunderson, that I could have fancied I'd been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spending-book with oval woodcuts shaped to my youthful fancy like the glasses out of spectacles. When I got to the office, and shutting out old Tiffy and the rest of them with my hands, sat at my desk in my own particular nook, thinking of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the bitterness of my spirit cursing jib, I fell into such a state of torment about Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to Norwood. The idea of there frightening her and making her cry, and of my not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that impelled me to write a wild letter to Mr. Spendot, beseeching him not to visit upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored him to spare her gentle nature, not to crush a fragile flower, and addressed him generally to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her father, he had been an ogre or the dragon of wantly. This letter I sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned, and when he came in, I saw him through the half-opened door of his room, take it up, and read it. He said nothing about it all the morning. But before he went away in the afternoon, he called me in and told me that I need not make myself at all uneasy about his daughter's happiness. He had assured her, he said, that it was all nonsense, and he had nothing more to say to her. He believed he was an indulgent father, as indeed he was, and I might spare myself any solicitude on her account. You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr. Copperfield, he observed, for me to send my daughter abroad again for a term. But I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser than that in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone, for I had alluded to her in the letter, I respect that lady's vigilance and feel obliged to her, but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr. Copperfield, is that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do, Mr. Copperfield, is to forget it. All. In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with goomy sarcasm, was to forget Dora. That was all, and what was that? I entreated Miss Mills to see me that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills's sanction and concurrence, I besorted clandestine interview in the back kitchen where the mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed. I sighed myself, hers distractedly, and I couldn't help feeling when I read this composition over before sending it by a porter, that it was something in the style of Mr. McCorber. However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills's street, and walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills's maid, and taken the area away to the back kitchen. I have since seen reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in at the front door and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss Mills's love of the romantic and mysterious. In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose, to make a fool of myself. And I'm quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered, and saying, Oh, pray come to me, Julia, do, do! But Miss Mills, to mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had not yet gone. And we were all benighted in the desert of Sahara. Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words. I'd liked to pour them out. I could not help feeling that she mingled her tears with mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say, and made the most of them. A deep gulf she observed had opened between Dora and me, and love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern world. It ever had been so, it ever would be so. No matter, Miss Mills remarked, hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last, and then love was avenged. This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn't encourage fallacious hopes. She may be much more wretched than I was before. And I felt, and told her with the deepest gratitude, that she was indeed a friend. We resolved that she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning and find some means of assuring her, either by looks or words, of my devotion and misery. We parted, overwhelmed with grief. And I think Miss Mills enjoyed herself completely. I confided all to my aunt when I got home, and in spite of all, she could say to me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and went out despairing. It was Saturday morning, and I went straight to the commons. I was surprised when I came with insight of our office door to see the ticket-porters standing outside talking together, and some half-dozen stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I quickened my pace, and passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly in. The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. Old Tiffy, for the first time in his life, I should think, was sitting on somebody else's stool, and had not hung up his hat. This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield said he as I entered. What is I exclaimed? What's the matter? Didn't you knew, cried Tiffy, and all the rest of them coming round me? No, said I, looking from face to face. Mr. Spinlow, said Tiffy. What about him? Did! I thought it was the office-reeling, and not I, as one of the clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my neck-cloth, and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this took any time. Dead, said I. He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the faton by himself, said Tiffy, having sent his own room home by the coaches he sometimes did you know. Well, the faton went home without him. The horses stopped at the stable gate. The man went out with a lantern. Nobody in the carriage. Had they run away? They were not hot, said Tiffy, putting on his glasses. No hotter, I understand, than they would have been going down at the usual pace. The reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. The house was roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. They found him a mile off. More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffy. Interposed to junior. Was it? I believe you are right, said Mr. Tiffy. More than a mile off, not far from the church, lying partly on the roadside, partly on the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a fit, or got out feeling ill before the fit came on, or even whether he was quite dead then, that there is no doubt he was quite insensible, no one appears to know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke. Medical assistance was got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless. I cannot describe the state of mind in which I was thrown by this intelligence, the shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and happening to one with whom I have been in any respect at variance. The appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair and table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was like a ghost. Indefinable impossibility of separating himself from the place, and feeling when the door opened as if he might come in. The lazy hush and rust rest there was in the office, and the insatiable reddish with which our people talked about it, and other people came in and out all day, and gored themselves with the subject. This is easily intelligible to any one. What I cannot describe is how in the innermost recesses of my own heart I had a lurking jealousy, even of death, how I felt as if its might would push me for my ground in dourer's thoughts, how I was in a grudging way I have no words for, envious of her grief, how it made me restless to think of her weeping to others, of being consoled by others, how I had a grasping avaricious wish to shut out everybody from her but myself, and to be all in all to her at that unseasonable time of all times. In the trouble of this state of mind, not exclusively of my own, I hope, but known to others, I went down to Norwood that night. And finding from one of the servants, when I made my inquiries of the door that Miss Mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote. I deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow most sincerely, and shed tears in doing so. I entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were an estate to hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and consideration, and a coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful word with her name. I know I did this selfishly, to have my name brought before her, but I tried to believe it was an act of justice to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it. My aunt received a few lines next day in reply, addressed outside to her, within to me. Dora was overcome by grief, and when her friend had asked her should she send her love to me, had only cried as she was always crying, oh, dear papa, oh, poor papa! But she had not said no, and that I made the most of. Mr. Jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to the office a few days afterwards. He and Tiffy were closeted together for some few moments, and then Tiffy looked out at the door and beckoned me in. Oh, said Mr. Jorkins, Mr. Tiffy and myself, Mr. Cofffield, are about to examine the desks, the drawers, and other such repositories of the deceased, with a view of sealing up his private papers and searching for a will. There is no trace of any elsewhere. It may be as well for you to assist us, if you please. I have been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances in which my door would be placed, as in whose guardianship and so forth, and this was something towards it. We began the search at once. Mr. Jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the papers. The office papers we placed on one side, and the private papers, which were not numerous, on the other. We were very grave, and when we came to a stray seal, or pencil case, or ring, or any little article of that kind which we associated personally with him, we spoke very low. We had sealed up several packets, and were still going on dusterly and quietly. When Mr. Jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to his late partner, as his late partner had applied to him, Mr. Spendler was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he was. I am disposed to think he had made no mill. Oh, I know he had, said I. They both stopped and looked at me. On the very day when I last saw him, said I, he told me that he had, and that his affairs were long since settled. Mr. Jorkins, an old Tiffy, shook their heads with one accord. That looks unpromising, said Tiffy. Very unpromising, said Mr. Jorkins. Surely you don't doubt, I began. My good Mr. Copperfield, said Tiffy, laying his hand upon my arm, and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head. If you had been in the commons as long as I have, you would know there is no subject on which men are so inconsistent and so little to be trusted. Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark, I reply persistently. I should call that almost final, observed Tiffy. My opinion is no will. It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there was no will. He had never so much as thought of making one so far as his papers afforded any evidence, for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or memorandum, or any testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely less astonishing to me was that his affairs were in a most disordered state. It was extremely difficult, I heard, to make out what he owed, or what he had paid, or of what he had died possessed. It was considered likely that for years he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects himself. By little and little he came out that, in the competition on all points of appearance and gentility then running high in the commons, he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a very large one, and had reduced his private means, if there ever had been great, which was exceedingly doubtful, to a very low ebb indeed. There was a sale of the furniture and lease at Norwood, and Tiffy told me, little thinking how interested I was in the story, that paying all the just debts of the deceased and deducting his share of outstanding bad and doubtful debts due to the firm, he wouldn't give a thousand pounds for all the assets remaining. This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had suffered tortures all the time and thought I really must have laid violent hands upon myself, when Miss Mills still reported to me that my broken-hearted little dora would say nothing when I was mentioned but, oh pa-pa-pa, oh de-ep-pa-pa. Also, that she had no other relations than two aunts, maiden sisters of Mr. Spenlow, who lived at Putney, and who had not held any other than chance communication with their brother for many years. Not that they had ever quarrelled, Miss Mills informed me, but that having been on the occasion of Dora's christening invited to tea, when they considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner, they'd expressed their opinion in writing that it was better for the happiness of all parties that they should stay away, since which they had gone their road and their brother had gone his. These two ladies now emerged from their retirement and proposed to take Dora to live at Putney. Dora, clinging to them both and weeping, exclaimed, oh yes, aunts, please take Julia Mills and me and Gip to Putney? So they went, very soon after the funeral. How I found time to haunt Putney, I'm sure I don't know, but I contrived, by some means rather, to prowl about the neighbourhood pretty often. Miss Mills, for the more exact discharge of the duties of friendship, kept a journal, and she used to meet me sometimes on the common and read it, or, if she had not had time to do that, lend it to me. How I treasured up the entries, of which I subjoin a sample. Monday. My sweet D still much depressed, headache, called attention to J, has been beautifully sleek. D fondled J. Associations thus awakened, open floodgates of sorrow. Rush of grief admitted. Our tears, the dew-drips of the heart. J. M. Tuesday. D. weak and nervous. Beautiful Impala. Do we not remark this in moon likewise? J. M. D. J. M. and J. took airing in carriage. J., looking out of window, embarking violently at Dussman, occasioned a smile to overspread features of D. Of such slight links his chain of life composed. J. M. Wednesday. D. competitively cheerful, sang to her as congenial melody Evening Bells. Effect not soothing but reverse. D. inexpressibly affected, found sobbing afterwards in own room. Creative verses respecting self and young gazelle, ineffectually, also referred to patience on monument. Question, why on monument? J. M. Thursday. D. certainly improved, better night, slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek. Resolved to mention name of D. C. Introduced same cautiously in course of airing. D. immediately ever come. Oh, dear, dear, Julia, oh, I have been a naughty and unbeautiful child. Soothed and caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. C. on verge of tomb. D. again ever come. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? Oh, take me somewhere. Much alarmed. Fainting of D. and glass of water from public house. Poetical affinity. Checkered sign on doorpost. Checkered human life. Alas! J. M. Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen with blue bag, for ladies' boots left out to heal. Cook replies, no such orders. Man argues point. Cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man alone with J. On Cook's return, man still argues point, but ultimately goes. J. missing. D. distracted. Information sent to police. Man, to be identified by broad nose and legs like balustrades of bridge. Search made in every direction. No J. D. weeping bitterly and inconsolable. Renewed reference young gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards evening strange boy calls, brought into parlour. Broad nose, but no balustrades. Says he wants a pound, and knows a dog. Detlines to explain further though much pressed. Pound being produced by D. takes Cook to little house, where J. alone tied up to leg of table. Joy of D. who dances round J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by this happy change, mention D. C. upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries pitisly. Oh, don't, don't, don't! It is so wicked to think of anything but poor papa. Embraces J. and sobs herself to sleep. Must not D. C. confine himself to the broad pinions of time? J. M. Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation of this period. To see her, who had seen Dora but a little while before, to trace the initial letter of Dora's name through her sympathetic pages, to be made more and more miserable by her, were my only comforts. I felt as if I had been living in a palace of cards which had tumbled down, leaving only Miss Mills and me among the ruins. I felt as if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but those same strong pinions capable of carrying so many people over so much would enable me to enter. End of Chapter 38. Recording by Simon Evers