"I never heard anything so elegant!" said Miss Murdstone.
"Do you think I can't understand you as well as if I had seen you," pursued my aunt, "now that I do see and hear you--which I tell you candidly, is anything but a pleasure to me? Oh yes, bless us! Who so smooth and silky as Mr. Murdstone at first! The poor, benighted innocent had never seen such a man. He was made of sweetness. He worshipped her. He doted on her boy--tenderly doted on him! He was to be another father to him, and they were all to live together in a garden of roses, weren't they? Ugh! Get along with you, do!" said my aunt.
"I never heard anything like this person in my lifel" exclaimed Miss Murdstone.
"And when you had made sure of the poor little fool," said my aunt--"God forgive me that I should call her so, and she gone where you won't go in a hurry--because you had not done wrong enough to her and hers, you must begin to train her, must you? begin to break her, like a poor caged bird, and wear her deluded life away, in teaching her to sing your notes?"
"This is either insanity or intoxication," said Miss Murdstone, in a perfect agony at not being able to turn the current of my aunt's address towards herself, "and my suspicion is that it's intoxication."
Miss Betsey, without taking the least notice of the interruption, continued to address herself to Mr. Murdstone as if there had been no such thing.
"Mr. Murdstone," she said, shaking her finger at him, "you were a tyrant to the simple baby, and you broke her heart. She was a loving baby--I know that; I knew it years before you ever saw her--and through the best part of her weakness you gave her the wounds she died of. There is the truth for your comfort, however you like it. And you and your instruments may make the most of it."
"Allow me to inquire, Miss Trotwood," interposed Miss Murdstone, "whom you are pleased to call, in a choice of words in which I am not experienced, my brother's instruments?"
Still stone-deaf to the voice, and utterly unmoved by it, Miss Betsey pursued her discourse.
"It was clear enough, as I have told you, years before you ever saw her--and why, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, you ever did see her, is more than humanity can comprehend--it was clear enough that the poor soft little thing would marry somebody, at some time or other, but I did hope it wouldn't have been as bad as it has turned out. That was the time, Mr. Murdstone, when she gave birth to her boy here," said my aunt, "to the poor child you sometimes tormented her through afterwards, which is a disagreeable remembrance, and makes the sight of him odious now. Aye, ayel you needn't wincel" said my aunt. "I know it's true without that."
He had stood by the door, all this while, observant of her, with a smile upon his face, though his black eyebrows were heavily contracted. I remarked now, that, though the smile was on his face still, his colour had gone in a moment, and he seemed to breathe as if he had been running.
"Good day, sir," said my aunt, "and good-bye! Good day to you, too, ma'am," said my aunt, turning suddenly upon his sister. "Let me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, I'll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!"
It would require a painter, and no common painter too, to depict my aunt's face as she delivered herself of this very unexpected sentiment, and Miss Murdstone's face as she heard it. But the manner of the speech, no less than the matter, was so fiery, that Miss Murdstone, without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked haughtily out of the cottage, my aunt remaining in the window looking after them, prepared, I have no doubt, in case of the donkey's reappearance, to carry her threat into instant execution.
No attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed, and became so pleasant, that I was emboldened to kiss and thank her, which I did with great heartiness, and with both my arms clasped round her neck. I then shook hands with Mr. Dick, who shook hands with me a great many times, and hailed this happy close of the proceedings with repeated bursts of laughter.
"You'll consider yourself guardian, jointly with me, of this child, Mr. Dick," said my aunt.
"I shall be delighted," said Mr. Dick, "to be the guardian of David's son."
"Very good," returned my aunt, "that's settled. I have been thinking, do you know, Mr. Dick, that I might call him Trotwood?"
"Certainly, certainly. Call him Trotwood, certainly," said Mr. Dick. "David's son's Trotwood."
"Trotwood Copperfield, you mean," returned my aunt.
"Yes, to be sure. Yes. Trotwood Copperfield," said Mr. Dick, a little abashed.
My aunt took so kindly to the notion, that some ready-made clothes, which were purchased for me that afternoon, were marked "Trotwood Copperfield," in her own handwriting, and in indelible marking-ink, before I put them on, and it was settled that all the other clothes which were ordered to be made for me (a complete outfit was bespoke that afternoon) should be marked in the same way.
Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about me. Now that the state of doubt was over, I felt, for many days, like one in a dream. I never thought that I had a curious couple of guardians, in my aunt and Mr. Dick. I never thought of anything about myself, distinctly. The two .things clearest in my mind were that a remoteness had come upon the old Blunderstone life--which seemed to lie in the haze of an immeasurable distance, and that a curtain had for ever fallen on my life at Murdstone and Grinby's. No one has ever raised that curtain since. I have lifted it for a moment, even in this narrative, with a reluctant hand, and dropped it gladly. The remembrance of that life is fraught with so much pain to me, with so much mental suffering and want of hope, that I have never had the courage even to examine how long I was doomed to lead it. Whether it lasted for a year, or more, or less, I do not know. I only know that it was, and ceased to be, and that I have written, and there I leave it.
CHAPTER XV
I Make Another Beginning
MR. DICK AND I SOON BECAME THE BEST OF FRIENDS, AND very often, when his day's work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every day of his life he had a long sitting at the Memorial, which never made the least progress, however hard he laboured, for King Charles the First always strayed into it, sooner or later, and then it was thrown aside, and another one begun. The patience and hope with which he bore these perpetual disappointments, the mild perception he had that there was something wrong about King Charles the First, the feeble efforts he made to keep him out, and the certainty with which he came in, and tumbled the Memorial out of all shape, made a deep impression on me. What Mr. Dick supposed would come of the Memorial, if it were completed, where he thought it was to go, or what he thought it was to do, he knew no more than anybody else, I believe. Nor was it at all necessary that he should trouble himself with such questions, for if anything were certain under the sun, it was certain that the Memorial never would be finished.
It was quite an affecting sight, I used to think, to see him with the kite when it was up a great height in the air. What he had told me, in his room, about his belief in its disseminating the statements pasted on it, which were nothing but old leaves of abortive Memorials, might have been a fancy with him sometimes, but not when he was out, looking up at the kite in the sky, and feeling it pull and tug at his hand. He never looked so serene as he did then. I used to fancy, as I sat by him of an evening, on a green slope, and saw him watch the kite high in the quiet air, that it lifted his mind out of its confusion, and bore it (such was my boyish thought) into the skies. As he wound the string in, and it came lower and lower down out of the beautiful light, until it fluttered to the ground, and lay there like a dead thing, he seemed to wake gradually out of a dream, and I remember to have seen him take it up, and look about him in a lost way, as if they had both come down together, so that I pitied him with all my heart.
While I advanced in friendship and intimacy with Mr. Dick, I did not go backward in the favour of his staunch friend, my aunt. She took so kindly to me that, in the course of a few weeks, she shortened my adopted
name of Trotwood into Trot, and even encouraged me to hope that, if I went on as I had begun, I might take equal rank in her affections with my sister Betsey Trotwood.
"Trot," said my aunt one evening, when the backgammon-board was placed as usual for herself and Mr. Dick, "we must not forget your education."
This was my only subject of anxiety, and I felt quite delighted by her referring to it.
"Should you like to go to school at Canterbury?" said my aunt.
I replied that I should like it very much, as it was so near her.
"Good," said my aunt. "Should you like to go tomorrow?"
Being already no stranger to the general rapidity of my aunt's evolutions, I was not surprised by the suddenness of the proposal, and said: "Yes."
"Good," said my aunt again. "Janet, hire the grey pony and chaise tomorrow morning at ten o'clock, and pack up Master Trotwood's clothes tonight."
I was greatly elated by these orders, but my heart smote me for my selfishness when I witnessed their effect on Mr. Dick, who was so low-spirited at the prospect of our separation, and played so ill in consequence, that my aunt, after giving him several admonitory raps on the knuckles with her dice-box, shut up the board, and declined to play with him any more. But, on hearing from my aunt that I should sometimes come over on a Saturday, and that he could sometimes come and see me on a Wednesday, he revived, and vowed to make another kite for those occasions, of proportions greatly surpassing the present one. In the morning he was downhearted again, and would have sustained himself by giving me all the money he had in his possession, gold and silver too, if my aunt had not interposed, and limited the gift to five shillings, which, at his earnest petition, were afterwards increased to ten. We parted at the garden-gate in a most affectionate manner, and Mr. Dick did not go to the house until my aunt had driven me out of sight of it.
My aunt, who was perfectly indifferent to public opinion, drove the grey pony through Dover in a masterly manner, sitting high and stiff like a state coachman, keeping a steady eye upon him wherever he went, and making a point of not letting him have his own way in any respect. When we came into the country road, she permitted him to relax a little, however, and, looking at me down in a valley of cushion by her side, asked me whether I was happy.
"Very happy indeed, thank you, Aunt," I said.
She was much gratified, and, both her hands being occupied, patted me on the head with her whip.
"Is it a large school, Aunt?" I asked.
"Why, I don't know," said my aunt. "We are going to Mr. Wickfield's first."
"Does he keep a school?" I asked.
"No, Trot," said my aunt. "He keeps an office."
I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to Canterbury, where, as it was market-day, my aunt had a great opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and hucksters' goods. The hair-breadth turns and twists we made drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which were not always complimentary, but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference, and I dare say would have taken her own way with as much coolness through an enemy's country.
At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road, a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen, and all the angles and comers, and carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills.
When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear. The low arched door then opened, and the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged to a red-haired person--a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older--whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble, who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony, dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth, buttoned up to the throat, and had a long, lank skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the chaise.
"Is Mr. Wickfield at home, Uriah Heep?" said my aunt.
"Mr. Wickfield's at home, ma'am," said Uriah Heep, "if you'll please to walk in there," pointing with his long hand to the room he meant.
We got out, and, leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low parlour looking towards the street, from the window of which I caught a glimpse, as I went in, of Uriah Heep breathing into the pony's nostrils, and immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting some spell upon him. Opposite to the tall old chimney-piece were two portraits: one of a gentleman with grey hair (though not by any means an old man) and black eyebrows, who was looking over some papers tied together with red tape, the other of a lady, with a very placid and sweet expression of face, who was looking at me.
I believe I was turning about in search of Uriah's picture when, a door at the farther end of the room opening, a gentleman entered, at sight of whom I turned to the first-mentioned portrait again, to make quite sure that it had not come out of its frame. But it was stationary, and as the gentleman advanced into the light, I saw that he was some years older than when he had had his picture painted.
"Miss Betsey Trotwood," said the gentleman, "pray walk in. I was engaged for a moment, but you'll excuse my being busy. You know my motive. I have but one in life."
Miss Betsey thanked him, and we went into his room, which was furnished as an office, with books, papers, tin boxes, and so forth. It looked into a garden, and had an iron safe let into the wall, so immediately over the mantel-shelf that I wondered, as I sat down, how the sweeps got round it when they swept the chimney.
"Well, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield, for I soon found that it was he, and that he was a lawyer, and steward of the estates of a rich gentleman of the county, "what wind blows you here? Not an ill wind, I hope?"
"No," replied my aunt, "I have not come for any law."
"That's right, ma'am," said Mr. Wickfield. "You had better come for anything else."
His hair was quite white now, though his eyebrows were still black. He had a very agreeable face, and, I thought, was handsome. There was a certain richness in his complexion, which I had been long accustomed, under Peggotty's tuition, to connect with port wine, and I fancied it was in his voice too, and referred his growing corpulency to the same cause. He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen trousers, and his fine frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked unusually soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of the plumage on the breast of a swan.
"This is my nephew," said my aunt.
"Wasn't aware you had one, Miss Trotwood," said Mr. Wickfield.
"My grand-nephew, that is to say," observed my aunt.
"Wasn't aware you had a grand-nephew, I give you my word," said Mr. Wickfield.
"I have adopted him," said my aunt, with a wave of her hand, importing that his knowledge and his ignorance were all one to her, "and I have brought him here to put him to a school where he may be thoroughly well-taught, and well-treated. Now tell me where that school is, and what it is, and all about it."
"Before I c
an advise you properly," said Mr. Wickfield, "the old question, you know. What's your motive in this?"
"Deuce take the man!" exclaimed my aunt. "Always fishing for motives, when they're on the surface! Why, to make the child happy and useful."
"It must be a mixed motive, I think," said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his head and smiling incredulously.
"A mixed fiddlestick!" returned my aunt. "You claim to have one plain motive in all you do yourself. You don't suppose, I hope, that you are the only plain dealer in the world?"
"Ay, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood," he rejoined, smiling. "Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. I have only one. There's the difference. However, that's beside the question. The best school? Whatever the motive, you want the best?"
My aunt nodded assent.
"At the best we have," said Mr. Wickfield, considering, "your nephew couldn't board just now."
"But he could board somewhere else, I suppose?" sug gested my aunt.
Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he proposed to take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself, also to take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he thought I could be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we were all three going out together, when he stopped and said:
"Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting to the arrangements. I think we had better leave him behind."
My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point, but, to facilitate matters, I said I would gladly remain behind, if they pleased, and returned into Mr. Wickfield's office, where I sat down again, in the chair I had first occupied, to await their return.
It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which ended in the little circular room where I had seen Uriah Heep's pale face looking out of window. Uriah, having taken the pony to a neighbouring stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which had a brass frame on the top to hang papers upon, and on which the writing he was making a copy of was then hanging. Though his face was towards me, I thought, for some time, the writing between us, that he could not see me, but looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to go, as cleverly as ever. I made several attempts to get out of their way--such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of the room, and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper--but they always attracted me back again, and whenever I looked towards those two red suns, I was sure to find them, either just rising or just setting.