The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off--alas! it was the tune that never does leave off--was beating, softly, all the while.
"Wouldn't you like to step in," said Mr. Omer, "and speak to her? Walk in and speak to her, sir! Make yourself at home!"
I was too bashful to do so then--I was afraid of confusing her, and I was no less afraid of confusing myself--but I informed myself of the hour at which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might be timed accordingly, and, taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty daughter, and her little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty's.
Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! The moment I knocked at the door she opened it, and asked me what I pleased to want. I looked at her with a smile, but she gave me no smile in return. I had never ceased to write to her, but it must have been seven years since we had met.
"Is Mr. Barkis at home, ma'am?" I said, feigning to speak roughly to her.
"He's at home, sir," returned Peggotty, "but he's bad abed with the rheumatics."
"Don't he go over to Blunderstone now?" I asked.
"When he's well he do," she answered.
"Do you ever go there, Mrs. Barkis?"
She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement of her hands towards each other.
"Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they call the--what is it?--the Rookery," said I.
She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided frightened way, as if to keep me off.
"Peggotty!" I cried to her.
She cried, "My darling boy!" and we both burst into tears, and were locked in one another's arms.
What extravagances she committed, what laughing and crying over me, what pride she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride and joy I might have been, could never hold me in a fond embrace, I have not the heart to tell. I was troubled with no misgiving that it was young in me to respond to her emotions. I had never laughed and cried in all my life, I dare say, not even to her, more freely than I did that morning.
"Barkis will be so glad," said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her apron, "that it'll do him more good than pints of liniment. May I go and tell him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my dear?"
Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as easily as she meant to, for, as often as she got to the door and looked round at me, she came back again to have another laugh and another cry upon my shoulder. At last, to make the matter easier, I went upstairs with her, and, having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself before that invalid.
He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of his nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he was driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be nothing but a face--like a conventional cherubim--he looked the queerest object I ever beheld.
'What name was it as I wrote up in the cart, sir?" said Mr. Barkis, with a slow rheumatic smile.
"Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn't we?"
"I was willin' a long time, sir?" said Mr. Barkis.
"A long time," said I.
"And I don't regret it," said Mr. Barkis. "Do you remember what you told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing all the cooking?"
"Yes, very well," I returned.
"It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, "as turnips is. It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis, "as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them."
Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result of his reflections in bed, and I gave it.
"Nothing's truer than them," repeated Mr. Barkis, "a man as poor as I am finds that out in his mind when he's laid up. I'm a very poor man, sir."
"I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis."
"A very poor man, indeed I am," said Mr. Barkis.
Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes, and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some poking about with this instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of distracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an end of which had been visible to me all the time. Then his face became composed.
"Old clothes," said Mr. Barkis.
"Oh!" said I.
"I wish it was Money, sir," said Mr. Barkis.
"I wish it was, indeed," said I.
"But it AIN'T," said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as he possibly could.
I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis, turning his eyes more gently to his wife, said:
"She's the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis. All the praise that anyone can give to C. P. Barkis she deserves, and more! My dear, you'll get a dinner today, for company, something good to eat and drink, will you?"
I should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in my honour, but I saw Peggotty, on the opposite side of the bed, extremely anxious I should not. So I held my peace.
"I have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear," said Mr. Barkis, "but I'm a little tired. If you and Mr. David will leave me for a short nap, I'll try and find it when I wake."
We left the room, in compliance with his request. When we got outside the door, Peggotty informed me that Mr. Barkis, being now "a little nearer" than he used to be, always resorted to this same device before producing a single coin from his store, and that he endured unheard-of agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky box. In effect, we presently heard him uttering supressed groans of the most dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint, but, while Peggotty's eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his generous impulse would do him good, and it was better not to check it. So he groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering, I have no doubt, a martyrdom, and then called us in, pretending to have just woke up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his pillow. His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures.
I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth's arrival, and it was not long before he came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a personal benefactor of hers and a kind friend to me, and that she would have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case. But his easy, spirited, good humour, his genial manner, his handsome looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest in anybody's heart, bound her to him wholly in five minutes. His manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, through all these causes combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind of adoration for him before he left the house that night.
He stayed there with me to dinner--if I were to say willingly, I should not half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. Barkis's room like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy weather. There was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything he did, but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seeming impossibility of doing anything else, or doing anything better, which was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even now, in the remembrance.
We made merry in the little parlour, where the Book of Martyrs, unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where I now turned over its terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations they had awakened, but not feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what she called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of her hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much as look at Steerforth, he
sitating, he was possessed of the whole case.
"Of course," he said. "You'll sleep here, while we stay, and I shall sleep at the hotel."
"But to bring you so far," I returned, "and to separate, seems bad companionship, Steerforth."
"Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally belong!" he said. "What is 'seems,' compared to that?" It was settled at once.
He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we started forth, at eight o'clock, for Mr. Peggotty's boat. Indeed, they were more and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on, for I thought even then, and I have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his determination to please inspired him with a new delicacy of perception, and made it, subtle as it was, more easy to him. If anyone had told me, then, that all, this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown away--I say, if anyone had told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent!
Probably only in an increase, had that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship with which I walked beside him, over the dark wintry sands, towards the old boat, the wind sighing around us even more mournfully than it had sighed and moaned upon the night when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty's door.
"This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not?"
"Dismal enough in the dark," he said, "and the sea roars as if it were hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder?"
"That's the boat," said I.
"And it's the same I saw this morning," he returned. "I came straight to it, by instinct, I suppose."
We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the door. I laid my hand upon the latch, and, whispering Steerforth to keep close to me, went in.
A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands, which latter noise, I was surprised to see, proceeded from the generally disconsolate Mrs. Gummidge. But Mrs. Gummidge was not the only person there who was unusually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his rough arms wide open, as if for little Em'ly to run into them; Ham, with a mixed expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held little Em'ly by the hand, as if he were presenting her to Mr. Peggotty; little Em'ly herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with Mr. Peggotty's delight, as her joyous eyes expressed, was stopped by our entrance (for she saw us first) in the very act of springing from Ham to nestle in Mr. Peggotty's embrace. In the first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of our passing from the dark cold night into the warm light room, this was the way in which they were all employed--Mrs. Gummidge in the background, clapping her hands like a madwoman.
The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going in, that one might have doubted whether it had ever been. I was in the midst of the astonished family, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding out my hand to him, when Ham shouted:
"Mas'r Davy! It's Mas'r Davy!"
In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking one another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to meet, and all talking at once. Mr. Peggotty was so proud and overjoyed to see us that he did not know what to say or do, but kept over and over again shaking hands with me, and then with Steerforth, and then with me, and then ruffling his shaggy hair all over his head, and laughing with such glee and triumph that it was a treat to see him.
"Why, that you two gent'lmen--gent'lmen growed--should come to this here roof tonight, of all nights in my life," said Mr. Peggotty, "is such a thing as never happened afore, I do rightly believe! Em'ly, my darling, come here! Come here, my little witch! There's Mas'r Davy's friend, my dear! There's the gent'lman as you've heered on, Em'ly. He comes to see you, along with Mas'r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle's life as ever was or will be, Gorm the t'other one, and horroar for itl"
After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with extraordinary animation and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one of his large hands rapturously on each side of his niece's face, and kissing it a dozen times, laid it with a gentle pride and love upon his broad chest, and patted it as if his hand had been a lady's. Then he let her go, and, as she ran into the little chamber where I used to sleep, looked round upon us, quite hot and out of breath with his uncommon satisfaction.
"If you two gent'lmen-gent'lmen growed now, and such gent'lmen--" said Mr. Peggotty.
"So th' are, so th' are!" cried Ham. "Well said! So th' are. Mas'r Davy bor--gent'lmen growed--so th' are!"
"If you two gent'lmen, gent'lmen growed," said Mr. Peggotty, "don't ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand matters, I'll arks your pardon. Em'ly, my dear!--She knows I'm a-going to tell," here his delight broke out again, "and has made off. Would you be so good as look arter her, Mawther, for a minute?"
Mrs. Gummidge nodded and disappeared.
"If this ain't," said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among us by the fire, "the brightest night o' my life, I'm a shellfish--biled too--and more I can't say. This here little Em'ly, sir," in a low voice to Steerforth, "--her as you see a-blushing here just now--"
Steerforth only nodded, but with such a pleased expression of interest, and of participation in Mr. Peggotty's feelings, that the latter answered him as if he had spoken.
"To be sure," said Mr. Peggotty, "that's her, and so she is. Thankee, sir."
Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too.
"This here little Em'ly of ours," said Mr. Peggotty, "has been, in our house, what I suppose (I'm a ignorant man, but that's my belief) no one but a little bright-eyed creetur can be in a house. She ain't my child; I never had one, but I couldn't love her more. You understand! I couldn't do it!"
"I quite understand," said Steerforth.
"I know you do, sir," returned Mr. Peggotty, "and thankee again. Mas'r Davy, he can remember what she was; you may judge for your own self what she is, but neither of you can't fully know what she has been, is, and will be, to my loving art. I am rough, sir," said Mr. Peggotty, "I am as rough as a Sea Porkypine, but no one, unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can know, I think, what our little Em'ly is to me. And betwixt ourselves," sinking his voice lower yet, "that woman's name ain't Missis Gummidge neither, though she has a world of merits."
Mr. Peggotty ruffled his hair again with both hands, as a further preparation for what he was going to say, and went on, with a hand upon each of his knees:
"There was a certain person as had know'd our Em'ly, from the time when her father was drownded, as had seen her constant, when a babby, when a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to look at, he warn't," said Mr. Peggotty, "something o' my own build--rough--a good deal o' the sou'-wester in him--wery salt--but, on the whole, a honest sort of a chap, with his art in the right place."
I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to which he sat grinning at us now.
"What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do," said Mr. Peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, "but he loses that there art of his to our little Em'ly. He follers her about, he makes hisself a sort o' sarvant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his wittles, and in the long run he makes it clear to me wot's amiss. Now I could wish myself, you see, that our little Em'ly was in a fair way of being married. I could wish to see her, at all ewents, under articles to a honest man as had a right to defend her. I don't know how long I may live, or how soon I may die, but I know that if I was capsized, any night, in a gale of wind in Yarmouth Roads here, and was to see the town-lights shining for the last time over the rollers as I couldn't make no head against, I could go down quieter for thinking There's a man ashore there, iron-true to m
y little Em'ly, God bless her, and no wrong can touch my Em'ly while so be as that man lives.' it
Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm as if he were waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging a nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as before:
"Well, I counsels him to speak to Em'ly. He's big enough, but he's bashfuller than a little un' and he don't like, So I speak. 'What! Himl' says Em'ly. 'Him that I've know'd so intimate so many years, and like so much. Oh, Uncle! I never can have him. He's such a good fellow!' I gives her a kiss, and I says no more to her than 'My dear, you're right to speak out, you're to choose for yourself, you're as free as a little bird.' Then I aways to him, and I says, 'I wish it could have been so, but it can't. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, Be as you was with her, like a man.' He says to me, a shaking of my hand, 'I will!' he says. And he was--honourable and manful--for two year going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore."
Mr. Peggotty's face, which had varied in its expression with the various stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight, as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth's (previously wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided the following speech between us:
"All of a sudden, one evening--as it might be tonight--comes little Em'ly from her work, and him with her! There ain't so much in that, you'll say. No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap, he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, 'Look here! This is to be my little wife!' And she says, half-bold and half-shy, and half-a-laughing and half-a-crying, 'Yes, Uncle! If you please.' --If I please!" cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstasy at the idea. "Lord, as if I should do anythink else!--'If you please, I am steadier now, and I have thought better of it, and I'll be as good a little wife as I can to him, for he's a dear, good fellow!' Then Missis Gummidge, she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. Theer! the murder's out!" said Mr. Peggotty--"You come in! It took place this here present hour, and here's the man that'll marry her, the minute she's out of her time."