 CHAPTER 42 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. 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 shorthand, 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 stronger 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 could never 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. In knows I write this, in knows spirit of self-lawdation. 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 daresay, 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 self-fulfillment 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 thoroughgoing, 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 doctors. 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 neighborhood for Mrs. Heap, 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, least ways 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 side-long glance out of his sinister red eyes and laughed. Really, Mr. Copperfield, he said, I should say, Mr., 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 look 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 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 scrapings of his chin with his hand, he went on to say, with his eyes cast downward, still scraping very slowly, When I was but an humble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was forever having my agnus backwards and forwards at her house, and she was forever 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 side-long 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 humble, 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 side-long 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 agnus up to higher sort of game. Now, I ain't one of your ladies men, Master Copperfield, but I've had eyes in my head a pretty long time back. We humble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking, and we look out of them. I endeavored 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 humble 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," I said. 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 planer another time. Is that Mr. Maldon, a Norse back 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 escape from him. I was so repelled by his odious behavior, particularly by this concluding instance that I turned away without any ceremony, and I 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 Sunday, 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 stagecoach, 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 she 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 around Agnes' deck, and laid her innocent cheek against her face. I was never 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 manignant 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 Miss Julia Mills is gone. I have omitted to mention it, by the by. Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora and I had gone aboard a great East Indieman at Gravesend to see her, and we had preserved Ginger and Guava and other delicacies of that sort for lunch. And we had left Miss Mills weeping on a campstool on the quarter-deck, with a large nude diary under her arm, in which the original reflections awakened by the contemplation of ocean were to be recorded under lock and key. Miss 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 there 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, Dodie, 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, I said, what nonsense! Do you think it nonsense? And 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 soft little hand travelling up the rove 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 Levinia, would come running out once more to remind Agnes that the coach window about writing, and to shake her curls at me on the box. The stagecoach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we were to take another stagecoach for Highgate. I was impatient for the short walk in the interval that Agnes might praise Dora to me. What praise it was! How lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty creature I had won with all her artless grace as best displayed to my most gentle care! How thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretense 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 seem 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 today, that I have begun to hope you are happier at home. I am happier in myself, she said. I am quite cheerful and lighthearted. 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 courtyard 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, made 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 a while looking through the porch at the stars, with a heartful of love and gratitude, and then walked slowly forth. I had engaged a bed at a decent ale-house 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 Uraya. 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. After 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 Uraya'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 Uraya, 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 demeanor he could have assumed. I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield, said Uraya, to point out to Dr. 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, resume Uraya in the same officious manner, may I take the liberty of humbly mentioning, being among friends, that I have called Dr. Strong's attention to the going zone 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 daresay 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. However, at last, I have made up my mind to speak plain, and I have mentioned to Dr. 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 on Uriah's. Mentioned to Dr. Strong, he proceeded, that anyone may see that Mr. Maldon and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Dr. Strong's wife are too sweet on one another. Really the time is come, we being at prison all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn't to be, when Dr. 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 Dr. Strong upon his word in honor whether he'd ever been of this opinion long ago or not, come, Mr. Wickfield, sir, would you be so good as to 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? Such an old friend, bless your soul, when I was nothing but a clerk in his office-copper-field. 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 someone 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 companionship 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 say, Master Copperfield—observed, Uriah, with forning 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 make 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. No, there's no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir, observed Uriah, when it's got to this, that I did, said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and distractedly at his partner, that I did doubt her and think her wanting in her duty to you, and that I did sometimes, if I must say all, feel averse to Agnes, being in such a familiar relation towards her as to see what I saw, or in my disease theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned this to anyone. I never meant it to be known to anyone, and though it is terrible to you to hear, said Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, if you knew how terrible it is for me to tell, you would feel compassion for me." The doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. Mr. Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed down. I am sure, said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a conjure eel, that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody, but since we have scot so far, I ought to take the liberty of mentioning that Copperfield has noticed it, too. I turned upon him and asked him how he dared refer to me. Oh, it's very kind of you, Copperfield, returned Uriah, undulating all over, and we all know what an amiable character yours is, but you know that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I meant. You know you knew what I meant, Copperfield, don't deny it. You deny it with the best of intentions, but don't do it, Copperfield. I saw the mild eye of the good old doctor turned upon me for a moment, and I felt that the confession of my old kindness-givings and remembrances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no use raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would. I could not unsay it. We were silent again and remained so until the doctor rose and walked twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to where his chair stood, and leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting his handkerchief to his eyes with a simple honesty that did him more honor to my thinking than any disguise he could have affected, said, I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to blame. I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart to trials and aspersions. I call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in anybody's inmost mind, of which she never but for me could have been the object. Uriah Heap gave a kind of snivel, I think, to express sympathy, of which my Annie, said the doctor, never but for me could have been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know. I do not feel tonight that I have much to live for, but my life, my life, upon the truth in honor of the dear lady who has been the subject of this conversation, I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realization of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could have said this with more impressive and affecting dignity than the plain old doctor did. But I am not prepared, he went on, to deny, perhaps, I may have been, without knowing it in some degree, prepared to admit, that I may have unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man quite unaccustomed to observe, and I cannot but believe that the observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too plainly tending in one direction, and that so natural, is better than mine. I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benign manner towards his youthful wife, but the respectful tenderness he manifested in every reference to her on this occasion, and the almost reverential manner in which he put away from him the lightest doubt of her integrity exalted him in my eyes beyond description. I married that lady, said the doctor, when she was extremely young. I took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. So far as it was developed it had been my happiness to form it. I knew her father well, I knew her well, I had taught her what I could for the love of all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her wrong, as I fear I did, in taking advantage, but I never meant it, of her gratitude and her affection, I ask pardon of that lady in my heart. He walked across the room and came back to the same place, holding the chair with a grasp that trembled like his subdued voice in its earnestness. I regarded myself as a refuge for her from the dangers and vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that unequal though we were in years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. I did not shut out of my consideration the time when I should leave her free, and still young, and still beautiful, but with her judgment more matured. No gentlemen, upon my truth, his homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could have imparted to it. My life with this lady has been very happy. Until tonight I have had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her great injustice. His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words, stopped for a few moments. Then he went on, once awakened from my dream, I have been a poor dreamer in one way or another all my life. I see how natural it is that she should have some regretful feelings toward her old companion and her equal. That she does regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless thoughts of what might have been, but for me, is I fear too true. Much that I have seen, but not noted, has come back upon me with new meaning during this last trying hour. But beyond this gentleman the dear lady's name must never be coupled with a word, a breath of doubt. For a little while his eye kindled and his voice was firm. For a little while he was silent again. Presently he proceeded as before. It only remains for me to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness I have occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should reproach, not I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my friends have not been able to avoid becomes my duty. The more retired we live, the better I shall discharge it. And when the time comes, may it come soon, if it be his merciful pleasure. When my death shall release her from constraint, I shall close my eyes upon her honored face with unbounded confidence and love, and leave her with no sorrow then to happier and brighter days. I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness so adorned by and so adorning the perfect simplicity of his manner brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door when he added, Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect it. What we have said tonight is never to be said more. Wickfield, give me an old friend's arm upstairs. Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they went slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them. Well, Master Copperfield, said Uriah, meekly turning to me. The thing hasn't took quite the turn that might have been expected. For the old scholar, what an excellent man, is as blind as a brickbat. But this family's out of the cart, I think. I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I never was before, and never have been since. You villains, said I, what do you mean by entrapping me into your schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we had been in discussion together. As we stood front to front, I saw so plainly in the stealthy exultation of his face what I already so plainly knew. I mean that he forced his confidence upon me expressly to make me miserable, and had set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter, that I couldn't bear it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck it with my open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if I had burnt them. He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connection, looking at each other. We stood so a long time, long enough for me to see the white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and leave it a deeper red. Copperfield, he said at length in a breathless voice, have you taken leave of your senses? I have taken leave of you, said I, resting my hand away. You dog, I'll know no more of you. Won't you? said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek, to put his hand there. Perhaps you wouldn't be able to help it. Isn't this ungrateful of you now? I have shown you often enough, said I, that I despise you. I have shown you now more plainly that I do. Why should I dread your doing your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do? He perfectly understood this illusion to the considerations that had hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think that neither the blow nor the illusion would have escaped me, but for the assurance I had had from Agnes that night, it is no matter. There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to take every shade of color that could make eyes ugly. Copperfield, he said, removing his hand from his cheek, you have always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at Mr. Wickfield's. You may think what you like, said I. You may go to the devil and a towering rage, if it is not true so much the worthier you. And yet I always liked you, Copperfield, he rejoined. I deigned to make him no reply, and taking up my hat was going out to bed when he came between me and the door. Copperfield, he said, there must be two parties to a quarrel. I won't be one. You may go to the devil, said I. Don't say that, he replied. I know you'll be sorry afterwards. How can you make yourself so inferior to me as to show such a bad spirit? But I forgive you. You forgive me, I repeated disdainfully. I do, and you can't help yourself, replied Uriah, to think of your going and attacking me that have always been a friend to you. But there can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be one. I will be a friend to you in spite of you, so now you know what you've got to expect. The necessity of carrying on this dialogue, his part in which was very slow, mine very quick, in a low tone that the house might not be disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper. Though my passion was cooling down, merely telling him that I should expect from him what I always had expected, and had never yet been disappointed in, I opened the door upon him, as if he had been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out of the house. But he slept out of the house, too, at his mother's lodging, and before I had gone many hundred yards came up with me. You know, Copperfield, he said in my ear, I did not turn my head. You're in quite a wrong position, which I felt to be true, and that made me chafe the more. You can't make this a brave thing, and you can't help being forgiven. I don't intend to mention it to mother, nor to any living soul. I'm determined to forgive you. But I do wonder what you should lift your hand against the person that you knew to be so humble. I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. If he had retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief and a justification. But he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay tormented half the night. In the morning when I came out, the early church bell was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched on top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist's in London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was a double one. The doctor gave out that he was not quite well, and remained alone, for a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit. Agnes and her father had been gone a week before we resumed our usual work. On the day preceding its resumption, the doctor gave me with his own hands a folded note not sealed. It was addressed to myself, and laid an injunction on me in a few affectionate words never to refer to the subject of that evening. I had confided it to my aunt but to no one else. It was not a subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed. Neither I felt convinced had missed as strong then. Several weeks elapsed before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud when there is no wind. At first she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with which the doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she should have her mother with her to relieve the dull monotony of her life. Often when we were at work, and she was sitting by, I would see her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face. Afterwards I sometimes observed her rise with her eyes full of tears and go out of the room. Gradually an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and deepened every day. As Marklehem was a regular inmate of the cottage then, but she talked and talked and saw nothing. As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the doctor's house, the doctor became older in appearance and more grave. But the sweetness of his temper, the placid kindness of his manner, and his benevolent solicitude for her, if they were capable of any increase, were increased. I saw him once early on the morning of her birthday, when she came to sit in the window while we were at work, which she had always done, but now began to do with the timid and uncertain air that I thought very touching. Take her forehead between his hands, kiss it, and go hurriedly away, too much move to remain. I saw her stand where he had left her, like a statue, and then bent down her head and clasped her hands and weep. I cannot say how softly. Sometimes after that I fancied that she tried to speak even to me in intervals when we were left alone, but she never uttered a word. The doctor always had some new project for her participating in amusements away from home with her mother and Mrs. Marklehem, who was very fond of amusements, and very easily dissatisfied with anything else, entered into them with a great good will and was loud in her commendations. But Annie, in a spiritless, unhappy way, only went with her she was led, and seemed to have no care for anything. I did not know what to think. Neither did my aunt, who must have walked at various times a hundred miles in her uncertainty. What was strangest of all was that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into the secret region of this domestic unhappiness made its way there in the person of Mr. Dick. What his thoughts were on the subject or what his observation was, I am as unable to explain as I dare say he would have been to assist me in the task. But as I have recorded in the narrative of my school days, his veneration for the doctor was unbounded, and there is a subtlety of perception in real attachment, even when it is born towards man by one of the lower animals which leaves the highest intellect behind. To this mind of the heart, if I may call it so, in Mr. Dick some bright ray of the truth shot straight. He had proudly resumed his privilege, in many of his spare hours, of walking up and down the garden with the doctor, as he had been accustomed to pace up and down the doctor's walk at Canterbury. But matters were no sooner in this state than he devoted all his spare time and got up earlier to make it more to these perambulations. If he had never been so happy as when the doctor read that marvelous performance, the dictionary, to him, he was now quite miserable unless the doctor pulled it out of his pocket and began. When the doctor and I were engaged, he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with Mrs. Strong and helping her to trim her favorite flowers or weed the beds. I daresay he rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour, but his quiet interest and his wistful face found immediate response in both their breasts. Each knew that the other liked him, and that he loved both, and he became what no one else could be, a link between them. When I think of him with his impenetrably wise face, walking up and down with the doctor, delighted to be battered by the hard words in the dictionary, when I think of him carrying huge watering pots after Annie kneeling down in very paws of gloves at patient microscopic work among the little leaves, expressing as no philosopher could have expressed in everything he did a delicate desire to be her friend, showering sympathy, trustfulness, and affection out of every hole in the watering pot. When I think of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which unhappiness addressed itself, never bringing the unfortunate King Charles into the garden, never wavering in his grateful service, never diverted from his knowledge that there was something wrong or from his wish to set it right, I really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was not quite in his wits, taking account of the utmost I have done with mine. Nobody but myself, Trot, knows what that man is, my aunt would proudly remark when we conversed about it, Dick will distinguish himself yet. I must refer to one other topic before I close this chapter. While the visit at the doctors was still in progress, I observed that the postman brought two or three letters every morning for Uriah Heap, who remained at Highgate until the rest went back, it being a leisure time, and that these were always directed in a business-like manner by Mr. McAlber, who now assumed a round legal hand. I was glad to infer from these slight premises that Mr. McAlber was doing well, and consequently was much surprised to receive about this time the following letter from his amiable wife, Canterbury, Monday evening. You will doubtless be surprised, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to receive this communication, still more so by its contents, still more so by the stipulation of implicit confidence which I beg to impose. But my feelings as a wife and mother require relief, and as I do not wish to consult my family, already obnoxious to the feelings of Mr. McAlber, I know no one of whom I can better ask advice than my friend and former lodger. You may be aware, my dear Mr. Copperfield, that between myself and Mr. McAlber, whom I will never desert, there has always been preserved as spirit of mutual confidence. Mr. McAlber may have occasionally given a bill without consulting me, or he may have misled me as to the period when that obligation would become due. This has actually happened, but in general Mr. McAlber has had no secrets from the bosom of affection, I allude to his wife, and has invariably, on our retirement to rest, recalled the events of the day. You will picture to yourself, my dear Mr. Copperfield, what the poignancy of my feelings must be when I inform you that Mr. McAlber is entirely changed. He is reserved, he is secret, his life is a mystery to the partner of his joys and sorrows. I again allude to his wife, and if I should assure you that beyond knowing what it is passed from morning to night at the office, I now know less of it than I do of the man in the south, connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale respecting cold plum porridge. I should adopt a popular fallacy to express an actual fact, but this is not all. Mr. McAlber is morose, he is severe, he is estranged from our eldest son and daughter, he has no pride in his twins, he looks with an eye of coldness, even on the unoffending stranger who last became a member of our circle. The pecuniary means of meeting our expenses kept down to the utmost farthing are obtained from him with great difficulty, and even under fearful threats that he will settle himself, the exact expression, and he inexorably refuses to give any explanation whatever of this distracting policy. This is hard to bear, this is heartbreaking. If you will advise me, knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be best to exert them in a dilemma so unwanted, you will add another friendly obligation to the many you have already rendered me. With loves from the children and a smile from the happily unconscious stranger, I remain, dear Mr. Copperfield, your afflicted Emma McAlber. I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. McAlber's experience any other recommendation than that she should try to reclaim Mr. McAlber by patience and kindness, as I knew she would in any case. But the letter set me thinking about him very much. CHAPTER 43 of David Copperfield This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. CHAPTER 43 Another Retrospect Once again let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let me stand aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying the shadow of myself in dim procession. Weeks, months, seasons pass along. They seem little more than a summer day and a winter evening. Now the common where I walk with Dora is all in bloom, a field of bright gold, and now the unseen heather lies in mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. In a breath the river that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice. After than ever river ran towards the sea it flashes, darkens, and rolls away. Not a thread changes in the house of the two little birdlike ladies. The clock ticks over the fireplace. The weather-glass hangs in the hall. Neither clock nor weather-glass is ever right, but we believe in both devoutly. I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained the dignity of twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one. Let me think what I have achieved. I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable income by it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all pertaining to the art, and enjoined with eleven others in recording the debates in parliament for a morning newspaper. Night after night I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me like a trust fowl, skewered through and through with office pins, and bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the seams to know the worth of political life. I am quite an infidel about it, and shall never be converted. My dear old Trattles has tried his hand at the same pursuit, but it is not in Trattles' way. He is perfectly good-humored respecting his failure, and reminds me that he always did consider himself slow. He has occasional employment on the same newspaper in getting up the facts of dry subjects to be written about and embellished by more fertile minds. He is called to the bar, and with admirable industry and self-denial has scraped another hundred pounds together to fee a conveyancer whose chambers he attends. A great deal of very hot port wine was consumed at his call, and considering the figure I should think the inner temple must have made a profit by it. I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling to authorship. I wrote a little something in secret and sent it to a magazine, and it was published in the magazine. Since then I have taken heart to write a good many trifling pieces. Now I am regularly paid for them. Altogether I am well off. When I tell my income on the fingers of my left hand I pass the third finger and take in the fourth to the middle joint. We have removed from Buckingham Street to a pleasant little cottage very near the one I looked at when my enthusiasm first came on. My aunt, however, who has sold the house at Dover to good advantage, is not going to remain here but intends removing herself to a still more tiny cottage close at hand. What does this portend? My marriage? Yes. Yes, I am going to be married to Dora. Miss LaVenia and Miss Clarissa have given their consent, and if ever canary birds were in a flutter they are. Miss LaVenia, self-charged with the superintendence of my darling's wardrobe, is constantly cutting out brown paper creases and differing in opinion from a highly respectable young man with a long bundle and a yard-measure under his arm. A dressmaker, always stabbed in the breast with a needle and thread, boards and lodges in the house, and seems to me, eating, drinking, or sleeping, never to take her thimble off. They make a lay figure of my dear. They are always sending for her to come and try something on. We can't be happy together for five minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at the door and says, Oh, if you please, Miss Dora, would you step upstairs? Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London to find out articles of furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy the goods at once without this ceremony of inspection, for when we go to see a kitchen-fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for jip with little bells on the top and prefers that, and it takes a long time to accustom jip to his new residence after we have bought it. Whenever he goes in or out he makes all the little bells ring and is horribly frightened. Pegate comes up to make herself useful and falls to work immediately. Her department appears to be to clean everything over and over again. She rubs everything that can be rubbed until it shines like her own honest forehead with perpetual friction. And now it is that I begin to see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night and looking as he goes among the wandering faces. I never speak to him at such an hour. I know too well as his grave figure passes onward what he seeks and what he dreads. Why does Trattles look so important when he calls upon me this afternoon in the Commons, where I still occasionally attend, for form's sake, when I have time? The realization of my boyish daydreams is at hand. I am going to take out the license. It is a little document to do so much, and Trattles contemplates it as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. There are the names in the sweet old visionary connection, David Copperfield and Doris Spinlow, and there in the corner is that parental institution the Stamp Office, which is so benignly interested in the various transactions of human life, looking down upon our union. And there is the archbishop of Canterbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected. Nevertheless I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I can't believe that it is going to be, and yet I can't believe but that every one I pass in the street must have some kind of perception that I am to be married the day after tomorrow. The surrogate knows me when I go down to be sworn and disposes of me easily, as if there were a masonic understanding between us. Trattles is not at all wanted, but is in attendance as my general backer. I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow, I say to Trattles, it will be on the same errand for yourself, and I hope it will be soon. Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield, he replies. I hope so too. It's a satisfaction to know that she'll wait for me any length of time, and that she really is the dearest girl. When are you to meet her at the coach, I ask? At seven, says Trattles, looking at his plain old silver watch, the very watch he wants to co-wheel out of at school to make a water-mill. That is about Miss Wickfield's time, is it not? A little earlier, her time is half past eight. I assure you, my dear boy, says Trattles, I am almost as pleased as if I were going to be married myself to think that this event is coming to such a happy termination, and really the great friendship and consideration of personally associating Sophie with the joyous occasion and inviting her to be a bridesmaid in conjunction with Miss Wickfield demands my warmest thanks. I am extremely sensible of it. I hear him and shake hands with him and we talk and walk and dine and so on, but I don't believe it, nothing is real. Sophie arrives at the house of Dora's aunt in due course. She has the most agreeable of faces, not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily pleasant, and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging creatures I have ever seen. Trattles presents her to us with great pride and rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every individual hair up on his head standing on tiptoe, when I congratulate him in a corner on his choice. I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and her cheerful and beautiful face is among us for the second time. Agnes has a great liking for Trattles, and it is capital to see them meet, and to observe the glory of Trattles as he commends the dearest girl in the world to her acquaintance. Still, I don't believe it. We have a delightful evening and are supremely happy, but I don't believe it yet. I can't collect myself. I can't check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel in a misty and unsettled kind of state, as if I had got up very early in the morning a week or two ago and had never been to bed since. I can't make out when yesterday was. I seem to have been carrying the license about in my pocket many months. Next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house, our house, Dora's and mine, I am quite unable to regard myself as its master. I seem to be there by permission of somebody else. I half expect to see the real master to come home presently and say he is glad to see me. Such a beautiful little house as it is, with everything so bright and new, with the flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered, and the green leaves on the paper as if they had just come out, with the spotless muslin curtains and the blushing rose-colored furniture, and Dora's garden hat with the blue ribbon. Do I remember now how I loved her in such another hat when I first knew her, already hanging on its little peg? The guitar case quite at home on its heels in a corner, and everybody tumbling over Gypsy Pagoda which is much too big for the establishment. Another happy evening quite as unreal as all the rest of it, and I steal into the usual room before going away. Dora is not there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet. Miss Lavinia peeps in and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long. She is rather long, notwithstanding, but by and by I hear a rustling at the door, and someone taps. I say, come in, but someone taps again. I go to the door wondering who it is. There I meet a pair of bright eyes and a blushing face. They are Dora's eyes and face, and Miss Lavinia has dressed her in to-morrow's dress, bonnet and all, for me to see. I take my little wife to my heart, and Miss Lavinia gives a little scream because I tumble the bonnet, and Dora laughs and cries at once because I am so pleased, and I believe it less than ever. Do you think it pretty, Dodie? says Dora. Pretty! I should rather think I did. And are you sure you like me very much? says Dora. The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet that Miss Lavinia gives another little scream, and begs me to understand that Dora is only to be looked at and on no account to be touched. So Dora stands in a delightful state of confusion for a minute or two to be admired, and then takes off her bonnet, looking so natural without it, and runs away with it in her hand, and comes dancing down again in her own familiar dress, and asks Jip if I have got a beautiful little wife, and whether he'll forgive her for being married, and kneels down to make him stand upon the cookery-book for the last time in her single life. I go home more incredulous than ever to a lodging that I have hard by, and get up very early in the morning to ride to the Highgate Road and fetch my aunt. I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in lavender-colored silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. Janet has dressed her, and is there to look at me. Pagate is ready to go to church, intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick, who is to give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled. Traddles whom I have taken up by appointment at the Turnpike, presents a dazzling combination of cream-color and light-blue, and both he and Mr. Dick have a general effect about them of being all-gloves. No doubt I see this because I know it is so, but I am astray and seem to see nothing, nor do I believe anything whatever. Still as we drive along in an open carriage, this fairy marriage is real enough to fill me with a sort of wandering pity for the unfortunate people who have no part in it, but are sweeping out the shops and going to their daily occupations. My aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. When we stop a little way short of the church to put down Pagate, whom we have brought on the box, she gives it a squeeze and me a kiss. God bless you, Trot, my own boy never could be dearer. I think of poor dear baby this morning. So do I, and of all I owe to you, dear aunt. Tuck-child, says my aunt, and gives her hand an overflowing cordiality to Traddles, who then gives his to Mr. Dick, who then gives his to me, who then gives mine to Traddles, and then we come to the church door. The church is calm enough, I am sure, but it might be a steam-power loom in full action for any sedative effect it has on me. I am too far gone for that. The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream. A dream of their coming in with Dora, of the pew-opener arranging us, like a drill sergeant before the altar rails, of my wondering even then why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females procurable, and whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous infection of good humor which renders it indispensable to set those vessels of vinegar upon the road to heaven, of the clergyman and clerk appearing, of a few boatmen and some other people strolling in, of an ancient mariner behind me strongly flavoring the church with rum, of the service beginning in a deep voice, and our all being very attentive, of Miss Levinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bradsmaid being the first to cry, and of her doing homage as I take it to the memory of Pidger and Sobs, of Miss Clarissa applying a smelling-bottle, of Agnes taking care of Dora, of my aunt endeavoring to represent herself as a model of sternness with tears rolling down her face, of little Dora trembling very much and making her responses in faint whispers, of our kneeling down together side by side, of Dora's trembling less and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand, of the service being got through quietly and gravely, of our all looking at each other in an April state of smiles and tears when it is over, of my young wife being hysterical in the vestry and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa, of her soon cheering up again and our signing the register all round, of my going into the gallery for Pegatee to bring her to sign it, of Pegatee's hugging me in a corner and telling me she saw my own dear mother married, of its being over and our going away, of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife upon my arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, monuments, pews, fonts, organs and church windows in which their flutter faint airs of association with my childish church at home so long ago, of their whispering as we pass what a youthful couple we are and what a pretty little wife she is, of our all being so merry and talkative in the carriage going back, of Sophie telling us that when she saw Trattles, whom I had entrusted with the license, asked for it, she almost fainted, having been convinced that he would contrive to lose it or to have his pocket picked, of Agnes laughing gaily and of Dora being so fond of Agnes that she will not be separated from her but still keeps her hand, of their being a breakfast with abundance of things pretty and substantial to eat and drink whereof I partake as I should do in any other dream without the least perception of their flavor. Eating and drinking as I may say nothing but love and marriage and no more believing in the vions than in anything else, of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion without having an idea of what I want to say beyond such as may be comprehended in the full conviction that I haven't said it, of our being very sociably and simply happy always in a dream though, and of Gyps having wedding cake and it's not agreeing with him afterwards, of the pair of hired post-horses being ready and of Dora's going away to change her dress, of my aunt in Miss Clarissa remaining with us and our walking in the garden and my aunt who has made quite a speech at breakfast touching Dora's aunts being mightily amused with herself but a little proud of it too, of Dora's being ready and of Miss Lavinia's hovering about her loath to lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation, of Dora's making a long series of surprise discoveries that she has forgotten all sorts of little things and of everybody's running everywhere to fetch them, of their all closing about Dora when at last she begins to say goodbye looking with their bright colors and ribbons like a bed of flowers, of my darling being almost smothered among the flowers and coming out laughing and crying both together to my jealous arms, of my wanting to carry Gyp who is to go along with us and Dora's saying no that she must carry him or else he'll think she don't like him anymore now she is married and will break his heart, of our going arm in arm and Dora's stopping and looking back and saying if I have ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody don't remember it and bursting into tears, of her waving her little hand and our going away once more, of her once more stopping and looking back and hurrying to Agnes and giving Agnes above all the others her last kisses and farewells. We drive away together and I awake from the dream. I believe it at last. It is my dear, dear little wife beside me whom I love so well. Are you happy now you foolish boy? says Dora, and sure you don't repent? I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone and I resume the journey of my story. Things the honeymoon being over and the bridesmaids gone home when I found myself sitting down in my own small house with Dora quite thrown out of employment as I may say in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love. It seems such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. Sometimes of an evening when I looked up from my writing and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair and think how queer it was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course, nobody's business any more. All the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf, to rust, no one to please but one another, one another to please, for life. When there was a debate and I was kept out very late, it seemed so strange to me as I was walking home to think that Dora was at home. It was such a wonderful thing at first to have her coming softly down to talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know for certain that she put her hair in papers. It was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do it. I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping house than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must have been Mrs. Crump's daughter in disguise. We had such an awful time of it with Mary Ann. Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us when we engaged her as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character as large as a proclamation, and according to this document could do everything of a domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a great many things that I never did hear of. She was a woman in the prime of life of a severe countenance and subject, particularly in the arms, to a sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the lifeguards with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else. His shell jacket was as much too little for him as he was too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it need have been by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides which the walls were not thick, and whenever he passed the evening at our house we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the kitchen. Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler, and that the deficient teaspoons were attributable to the dust man. But she prayed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience and were unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy if she had had any, but she was a remorseless woman and had none. She was the cause of our first little quarrel. My dearest life, I said one day to Dora, do you think Marianne has any idea of time? Why, Doty, inquired Dora, looking up innocently from her drawing. My love, because it's five, and we were to have dined at four. Dora glanced wistfully at the clock and hinted that she thought it was too fast. On the contrary, my love, said I, referring to my watch. It's a few minutes too slow. My little wife came and sat upon my knee to coax me to be quiet, and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose. But I couldn't dine off that, though it was very agreeable. Don't you think, my dear, said I, it would be better for you to rim and straight with Marianne? Oh, no, please, I couldn't, Doty, said Dora. Why not, my love? I gently asked. Oh, because I am such a little goose, said Dora, and she knows I am. I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any system of check on Marianne that I found a little. Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead, said Dora, and still being on my knee she traced them with her pencil, putting it to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious that quite delighted me in spite of myself. There's a good child, said Dora, and makes its face so much prettier to laugh. But my love, said I. No, no, please, cried Dora with a kiss. Don't be a naughty blue beard. Don't be serious. My precious wife, said I, we must be serious sometimes. Come, sit down on this chair close beside me. Give me the pencil. There, now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear, what a little hand it was to hold, and what a tiny wedding ring it was to see. You know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one's dinner. Now is it. No, replied Dora, faintly. My love, how you tremble. Because I know you're going to scold me, exclaimed Dora, in a piteous voice. My sweet, I am only going to reason. Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding, exclaimed Dora, in despair. I didn't marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy. I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face and shook her curls from side to side and said, You cruel, cruel boy, so many times that I really did not exactly know what to do. So I took a few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again. Dora, my darling. No, I am not your darling, because you must be sorry that you married me or else you wouldn't reason with me, returned Dora. I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge that it gave me courage to be grave. Now my own Dora, said I, you are very childish and are talking nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out yesterday when dinner was half over, and that the day before I was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry. Today I don't dine at all, and I'm afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast, and then the water didn't boil. I don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable. Oh, you cruel, cruel boy to say I am a disagreeable wife, cried Dora. Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that. You said I wasn't comfortable, cried Dora. I said the housekeeping was not comfortable. It's exactly the same thing, cried Dora, and she evidently thought so, for she wept most grievously. I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door. I sat down again and said, I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must, you really must—I was resolved not to give this up—a custom yourself to look after Mary Ann. Likewise to act a little for yourself and me. I wonder I do at your making such ungrateful speeches, sobbed Dora. When you know that the other day when you said you would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself miles and miles and ordered it to surprise you. And it was very kind of you, my own darling, said I. I felt it so much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you bought a salmon, which was too much for two, or that it cost one pound six, which was more than we can afford. You enjoyed it very much, sobbed Dora, and you said I was a mouse. And I'll say so again, my love, I returned a thousand times. But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing that I felt as if I had said I don't know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away. I was kept out late, and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness. It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my aunt in our house sitting up for me. Is anything the matter, aunt? said I, alarmed. Nothing trot, she replied. Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. That's all. I leaned my head upon my hand and felt more sorry and downcast as I sat looking at the fire than I could have supposed possible so soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I happened to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on my face. There was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly. I assure you, aunt, said I, I have been quite unhappy myself all night to think of Doris being so, but I had no other intention than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home affairs. My aunt nodded encouragement. You must have patience, trot, said she. Of course, heaven knows I don't mean to be unreasonable, aunt. No, no, said my aunt, but Little Blossom is a very tender Little Blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her. I thanked my good aunt in my heart for her tenderness towards my wife, and I was sure that she knew I did. Don't you think, aunt, said I, after some further contemplation of the fire, that you could advise and counsel Doris a little for our mutual advantage now and then? Trot returned my aunt with some emotion. No, don't ask me such a thing. Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise. I look back on my life, child, said my aunt, and I think of some who are in their graves with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage, it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman a good many years. I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another some good, Trot. At all events you have done me good, my dear, and division must not come between us at this time of day. Division between us, cried I. Child, child, said my aunt, smoothing her dress, how soon it might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our little blossom if I meddled in anything a prophet couldn't say. I want our pet to like me and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home in that second marriage, and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at. I comprehended at once that my aunt was right, and I comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling toward my dear wife. These are early days, Trot, she pursued, and Rome was not built in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself. A cloud passed over her face for a moment, I thought. And you have chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure, too. Of course I know that. I am not delivering a lecture. To estimate her, as you chose her, by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop in her if you can. And if you cannot, child, here my aunt rubbed her nose. You must just accustom yourself to do without them. But remember, my dear, your future is between you, too. No one can assist you. You are to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot, and heaven bless you both in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are. My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the blessing. Now, said she, light my little lantern and see me into my band box by the garden path, for there was a communication between our cottages in that direction. Give Betsy Trot Wood's love to blossom when you come back, and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting Betsy up as a scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the glass she's quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private capacity. With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions, and I escorted her home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light me back, I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again. But I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much impressed, for the first time, in reality, by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us to take much notice of it. Dora came stealing down in her little slippers to meet me, now that I was alone, and cried upon my shoulder and said I had been hard-hearted and she had been naughty, and I said much the same thing in effect, I believe, and we made it up and agreed that our first little difference was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if we lived a hundred years. The next domestic trial we went through was the ordeal of servants. Marianne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out to our great amazement by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front garden with ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Marianne, who went so mildly on receipt of wages that I was surprised, until I found out about the teaspoons, and also about the little sum she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople without authority. After an interval of Mrs. Kidgerberry, the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went out chairing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art, we found another treasurer who was one of the most amiable of women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour as into a bath with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded, with intervals of Mrs. Kidgerberry, by a long line of incapables, terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora's Bonnet, after whom I remember nothing but an average equality of failure. Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves. In search of the principal on which joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough and not too much, I myself referred to the cookery book and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every pound, and say a quarter over. But the principal always failed us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between redness and cinders. I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. It appeared to me on looking over the tradesman's books, as if we might have kept the basement story paved with butter, such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that article. I don't know whether the excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper, but if our performances did not affect the market, I should say several families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact of all was that we never had anything in the house. As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes and coming in a state of penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have happened several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine, and perjury on the part of the beetle. But I apprehend that we were personally fortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials who swelled our running account for porter at the public house by such inexplicable items as quarter-and-rum shrub, Mrs. C., half-quartered gin and clothes, Mrs. C., glass, rum, and peppermint, Mrs. C. The parentheses always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments. One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to Traddles. I met him in town and asked him to walk out with me that afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I would bring him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was very full of it and said that picturing himself with such a home and Sophie waiting and preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete his bliss. I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat down, for a little more room. I did not know how it was, but though there were only two of us, we were at once always cramped for room, and yet had always room enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its own, except Jip's pagoda, which invariably blocked up the main thoroughfare. On the present occasion Traddles was so hemmed in by the pagoda and the guitar case and Dora's flower painting and my writing-table that I had serious doubts of the possibility of his using his knife and fork, but he protested with his own good humor, Oceans of room, Copperfield, I assure you, Oceans. There was another thing I could have wished, namely that Jip had never been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. I began to think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at bay, and he barked at my old friend and made short runs at his plate with such undaunted pertinacity that he may be said to have engrossed the conversation. However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was and how sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favorite, I hinted no objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing plates upon the floor or to the disreputable appearance of the casters which were all at sixes and sevens and looked drunk, or to the further blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. I could not help wondering in my own mind as I contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pass that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes, and whether our butcher contracted for all the deformed sheeps that came into the world, but I kept my reflections to myself. My love, said I to Dora, what have you got in that dish? I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at me as if she wanted to kiss me. Oysters, dear, said Dora timidly. Was that your thought, said I, delighted? Yes, Doty, said Dora. There never was a happier one, I exclaimed, laying down the carving-knife and fork. There is nothing Traddles likes so much. Yes, Doty, said Dora, and so I bought a beautiful little barrel of them, and the man said they were very good. But I am afraid there is something the matter with them. They don't seem right. Here Dora shook her head and diamonds twinkled in her eyes. They are only opened in both shells, said I. Take the top one off, my love. But it won't come off, said Dora, trying very hard and looking very much distressed. Do you know Copperfield, said Traddles, cheerfully examining the dish? I think it is inconsequence. They are capital oysters, but I think it is inconsequence, of their never having been opened. They never had been opened, and we had no oyster knives, and couldn't have used them if we had. So we looked at the oysters and ate the mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with capers. If I had permitted him I am satisfied that Traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat to express enjoyment of the repast. But I would hear of no such emulation on the altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon instead. They are happening by a good fortune to be cold bacon in the larder. My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the discomforture I had subdued very soon vanished, and we passed a happy evening. Dora sitting with her arm on my chair, while Traddles and I discussed a glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross-old boy. By and by she made tea for us, which it was so pretty to see her do, as if she was busying herself with a set of doll's tea-things that I was not particular about the quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played a game or two at cribbage, and Dora singing to the guitar the while it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet over. When Traddles went away and I came back into the parlour from seeing him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine and sat down by my side. I am very sorry, she said. Will you try to teach me, Dodie? I must teach myself first, Dora, said I. I am as bad as you, love. Ah, but you can learn, she returned, and you are a clever, clever man. Nonsense, mouse, said I. I wish, resumed my wife, after a long silence, that I could have gone down into the country for a whole year and lived with Agnes. Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine. Why so, I asked? I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learned from her, said Dora. All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a child, she was the Agnes whom we know, said I. Will you call me a name I want you to call me, inquired Dora, without moving? What is it? I asked with a smile. It's a stupid name, she said, shaking her curls for a moment. Child-wife. I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me. I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, it's only my child-wife. When I am very disappointing, say, I knew a long time ago that she would make but a child-wife. When you miss what I should like to be and I think can never be, say, still my foolish child-wife loves me, for indeed I do. I had not been serious with her, having no idea until now that she was serious herself. But her affection at nature was so happy in what I now said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife indeed, sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese house, ringing all the little bells one after another to punish Jip for his recent bad behavior, while Jip lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased. This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me. I look back on the time I write of, I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved to come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle head towards me once again, and I can still declare that this one little speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have used it to the best account. I was young and inexperienced, but I never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading. Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful housekeeper. Accordingly she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil, bought an immense account book, carefully stitched up with a needle and thread all the leaves of the cookery book which Jip had torn, and made quite a desperate little attempt to be good, as she called it. But the figures had the old obstinate propensity, they would not add up. When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own little right-hand middle finger got steep to the very bone in ink, and I think that was the only decided result obtained. Sometimes of an evening when I was at home and at work, for I wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as a writer. I would lay down my pen and watch my child wife trying to be good. First of all she would bring out the immense account book, and lay it down upon the table with a deep sigh. Then she would open it at the place where Jip had made it illegible last night, and call Jip up to look at his misdeeds. This would occasion a diversion in Jip's favor and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. Then she would tell Jip to lie down on the table instantly, like a lion, which was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was striking. And if he were in an obedient humor he would obey. Then she would take up a pen and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then she would take up another pen and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. Then she would take up another pen and begin to write, and say in a low voice, Oh, it's a talking pen and will disturb Dodie. And then she would give it up as a bad job and put the account book away, after pretending to crush the lion with it. Or if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would sit down with the tablets and a little basket of bills and other documents which looked more like curlpapers than anything else, and endeavor to get some result out of them. After severely comparing one with another, and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again, backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed and discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to see her bright face clouded. And for me, and I would go softly to her and say, What's the matter, Dora? Dora would look up hopelessly and reply, They won't come right, they make my head ache so, and they won't do anything I want. Then I would say, Now let us try together, let me show you Dora. Then I would commence a practical demonstration to which Dora would pay profound attention, perhaps for five minutes, when she would begin to be dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my hair, or trying the effect of my face with my shirt-collar turned down. If I tacitly checked this playfulness and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me, and I would lay the pencil down and call for the guitar. I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the same considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure now that it was right to do this, but I did it for my child-wife's sake. I searched my breast, and I committed secrets, if I know them, without any reservation to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something had, I am conscious some place in my heart, but not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked alone in the fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment, I did miss something of the realization of my dreams, but I thought it was a softened glory of the past which nothing could have thrown upon the present time. I did feel sometimes, for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been my counselor, had had more character and purpose to sustain me and improve me by, had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me, but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness that had never been meant to be and never could have been. I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now. Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life and had no partner in them. We lived much as before in reference to our scrambling household arrangements, but I had got used to those, and Dora, I was pleased to see, was seldom vexed now. She was bright and cheerful in the old childish way, loved me dearly, and was happy with her old trifles. When the debates were heavy I mean as to length not quality, for in the last respect they were not often otherwise. And I went home late. Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps but would always come downstairs to meet me. When my evenings were unoccupied by the pursuit for which I had qualified myself with so much pains and I was engaged in writing at home, she would sit quietly near me, however late the hour, and be so mute that I would often think she had dropped to sleep. But generally when I raised my head I saw her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet attention of which I have already spoken. Oh, what a weary boy, said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as I was shutting up my desk. What a weary girl, said I. That's more to the purpose. You must go to bed another time, my love. It's far too late for you. No, don't send me to bed, pleaded Dora, coming to my side. Pray, don't do that. Dora, to my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. Not well, my dear? Not happy? Yes, quite well and very happy, said Dora. But say you'll let me stop and see you right. Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight, I replied. Are they bright, though? returned Dora, laughing. I'm so glad they're bright. Little vanity, said I. But it was not vanity. It was only harmless delight in my admiration. I knew that very well before she told me so. If you think them pretty, say I may always stop and see you right, said Dora. Do you think them pretty? Very pretty. Then let me always stop and see you right. I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora. Yes, it will, because you clever boy, you'll not forget me then while you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it if I say something very, very silly, more than usual? inquired Dora, peeping over my shoulder into my face. What wonderful thing is that? said I. Please let me hold the pins, said Dora. I want to have something to do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I hold the pins? The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes brings tears into my eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards, she sat in her old place with a spare bundle of pins at her side. Her triumph in this connection with my work, and her delight when I wanted a new pin, which I very often feigned to do, suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretense of wanting a page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if he understood it all. Her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me, like a school copy, and then when I praised it, clasped me round the neck, or touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear to other men. She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket tied to her slender waist. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged were locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Jip. But Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a good deal was affected by this make-belief of housekeeping, and was as merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house for a joke. So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was a cross-old thing. I never saw my aunt unbent more systematically to any one. She courted Jip, though Jip never responded, listened day after day to the guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music. Never attacked the incapables, though the temptation must have been severe. Went wonderful distances on foot to purchase as surprises any trifles that she found out Dora wanted. And she never came in by the garden and missed her from the room, but she would call out at the foot of the stairs, in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house, wheres little blossom.