"And so," he said, gaily, "we abandon this buccaneer life tomorrow, do we?"
"So we agreed," I returned. "And our places by the coach are taken, you know."
"Ayl there's no help for it, I suppose," said Steerforth. "I have almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not."
"As long as the novelty should last," said I, laughing.
"Like enough," he returned, "though there's a sarcastic meaning in that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend. Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know I am, but while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, I think."
"Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder," I returned.
"A nautical phenomenon, eh?" laughed Steerforth.
"Indeed he does, and you know how truly, knowing how ardent you are in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And that amazes me most in you, Steerforth--that you should be contented with such fitful uses of your powers."
"Contented?" he answered, merrily. "I am never contented, except with your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never learnt the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad apprenticeship, and now don't care about it. You know I have bought a boat down here?"
"What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!" I exclaimed, stopping--for this was the first I had heard of it. "When you may never care to come near the place again!"
"I don't know that," he returned. "I have taken a fancy to the place. At all events," walking me briskly on, "I have bought a boat that was for sale--a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says, and so she is--and Mr. Peggotty will be master of her in my absence."
"Now I understand you, Steerforthl" said I, exultingly. "You pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you. My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your generosity?"
"Tush!" he answered, turning red. "The less said, the better."
"Didn't I know?" cried I, "didn't I say that there was not a joy, or sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to you?"
"Aye, aye," he answered, "you told me all that. There let it rest. We have said enoughl"
Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we .went on at even a quicker pace than before.
"She must be newly rigged," said Steerforth, "and I shall leave Littimer behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. Did I tell you Littimer had come down?"
"No."
"Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother."
As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which I had found him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so.
"Oh no!" he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. "Nothing of the sort ! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine."
"The same as ever?" said I.
"The same as ever," said Steerforth. "Distant and quiet as the North Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She's the Stormy Petrel now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels! I'll have her christened again."
"By what name?" I asked.
"The Little Em'ly."
As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved.
"But see here," he said, looking before us, "where the original little Em'ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, he's a true knight. He never leaves herl"
Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal, and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were, to me, the best of good looks. I thought, as they came towards us, that they were well-matched even in that particular.
She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked by herself. I thought all this very pretty and engaging, and Steerforth seemed to think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light of a young moon.
Suddenly there passed us--evidently following them--a young woman whose approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she went by, and thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed, looked bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor, but seemed, for the time, to have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer to them than before.
"That is a black shadow to be following the girl," said Steerforth, standing still, "what does it mean?"
He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to me.
"She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think," said I.
"A beggar would be no novelty," said Steerforth, "but it is a strange thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight."
"Why?" I asked him.
"For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking," he said, after a pause, "of something like it, when it came by. Where the Devil did it come from, I wonder!" .
"From the shadow of this wall, I think," said I, as we emerged upon a road on which a wall abutted.
"It's gone!" he returned, looking over his shoulder. "And all ill go with it. Now for our dinner!"
But, he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering afar off, and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk, and only seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us, seated warm and merry, at table.
Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered respectfully (and of course respectably) that they were tolerably well, he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: "You are very young, sir; you are exceedingly young."
We had almost finished dinner, when, taking a step or two towards the table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me, as I felt, he said to his master:
"I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here."
"Who?" cried Steerforth, much astonished.
"Miss Mowcher, sir."
"Why, what on earth does she do here?" said Steerforth.
"It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me that she makes one of her professional visits here every year, sir. I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she might have the honour of waiting on you after dinner, sir."
"Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?" inquired Steerforth.
I was obliged to confess--I felt ashamed, even of being at this disadvantage before Littimer--that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly unacquainted.
"Then you shall know her," said Steerforth, "for she is one of the seven wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in."
I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as Steerforth burst into
a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation until the cloth had been removed some half-an-hour, and we were sitting over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced:
"Miss Mowcher!"
I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose as she ogled Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it. Her chin, which was what is called a double-chin, was so fat that it entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning, for, though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. This lady, dressed in an off-hand, easy style, bringing her nose and her forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described, standing with her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face, after ogling Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent of words.
"What! My flower!" she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him. "You're there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I'll be bound. Oh, you're a downy fellow. Steerforth, so you are, and I'm another, ain't I? Ha, ha, ha! You'd have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn't have seen me here, wouldn't you? Bless you, man alive, I'm everywhere. I'm here, and there, and where not, like the conjurer's half-crown in the lady's hankercher. Talking of hankerchers--and talking of ladies--what a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain't you, my dear boy, over one of my shoulders, and I don't say which!"
Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of the fire--making a kind of arbour of the dining-table, which spread its mahogany shelter above her head.
"Oh my stars and what's-their-names!" she went on, clapping a hand on each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me. "I'm of too full a habit, that's the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket of water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you'd think I was a fine woman, wouldn't you?"
"I should think that, wherever I saw you," replied Steerforth.
"Go along, you dog, do!" cried the little creature, making a whisk at him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, "and don't be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at Lady Mithers's last week--there's a woman! How she weanl-and Mithers himself came into the room where I was waiting for her--there's a man! How he wears! and his wig too, for he's had it these ten years--and he went on at that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He's a pleasant wretch, but he wants principle."
"What were you doing for Lady Mithers?" asked Steerforth.
"That's tellings, my blessed infant," she retorted, tapping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. "Never you mind! You'd like to know whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall, my darling--when I tell you! Do you know what my great-grandfather's name was?"
"No," said Steerforth.
"It was Walker, my sweet pet," replied Miss Mowcher, "and he came of a long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates from."
I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher's wink, except Miss Mowcher's self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one eye turned up like a magpie's. Altogether I was lost in amazement, and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of politeness.
She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of flannel, little pairs of curling-irons, and other instruments, which she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this employment she suddenly desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion:
"Who's your friend?"
"Mr. Copperfield," said Steerforth, "he wants to know you."
"Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!" returned Miss Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came. "Face like a peach!" standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I sat. "Quite tempting! I'm very fond of peaches. Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure."
I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour to make hers, and that the happiness was mutual.
"Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!" exclaimed Miss Mowcher, making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand. "What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it!"
This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag again.
"What do you mean, Miss Mowcher?" said Steerforth.
"Hal ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, ain't we, my sweet child?" replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag with her head on one side and her eye in the air. "Look here!" taking something out. "Scraps of the Russian Prince's nails. Prince Alphabet turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his name's got all the letters in it, higgledy piggledy."
"The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he?" said Steerforth.
"I believe you, my pet," replied Miss Mowcher. "I keep his nails in order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes."
"He pays well, I hope?" said Steerforth.
"Pays as he speaks, my dear child--through the nose," replied Miss Mowcher. "None of your close shavers the Prince ain't. You'd say so, if you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art."
"By your art, of course," said Steerforth.
Miss Mowcher winked assent. "Forced to send for me. Couldn't help it. The climate affected his dye; it did very well in Russia, but it was no go here. You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born days as he was. Like old iron!"
"Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?" inquired Steerforth.
"Oh, you're a broth of a boy, ain't you?" returned Miss Mowcher, shaking her head violently. "I said, what a set of humbugs we were in general, and I showed you the scraps of the Prince's nails to prove it. The Prince's nails do more for me in private families of the genteel sort than all my talents put together. I always carry 'em about. They're the best introduction. If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince's nails, she must be all right. I give 'em away to the young ladies. They put 'em in albums, I believe. Ha! ha! ha! Upon my life, 'the whole social system' (as the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of Prince's nails!" said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and nodding her large head.
Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too, Miss Mowcher continuing all the time to shake her head (which was very much on one side), and to look into the air with one eye, and to wink with the other.
"Well, well!" she said, smiting her small knees, and rising, "this is not business. Come, Steerforth, let's explore the polar regions, and have it over."
She then selecte
d two or three of the little instruments, and a little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table would bear. On Steerforth's replying in the affirmative, she pushed a chair against it, and begging the assistance of my hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it were a stage.
"If either of you saw my ankles," she said, when she was safely elevated, "say so, and I'll go home and destroy myself."
"I did not," said Steerforth.
"I did not," said I.
"Well then," cried Miss Mowcher, "I'll consent to live. Now, ducky, ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed."
This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself under her hands, who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his back to the table, and his laughing face towards me, and submitted his head to her inspection, evidently for no other purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss Mowcher standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown hair through a large round magnifying glass, which she took out of her pocket, was a most amazing spectacle.
"You're a pretty fellow!" said Miss Mowcher, after a brief inspection. "You'd be as bald as a friar on the top of your head in twelve months, but for me. Just half-a-minute, my young friend, and we'll give you a polishing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years!"
With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing and scraping away with both on the crown of Steerforth's head in the busiest manner I ever witnessed, talking all the time.
"There's Charley Pyegrave, the duke's son," she said. "You know Charley?" peeping round into his face.
"A little," said Steerforth.
"What a man he is! There's a whisker! As to Charley's legs, if they were only a pair (which they ain't), they'd defy competition. Would you believe he tried to do without me--in the Life-Guards, too?"
"Mad!" said Steerforth.
"It looks like it. However, mad or sane, he tried," returned Miss Mowcher. "What does he do, but, lo-and-behold-you, he goes into a perfumer's shop, and wants to buy a bottle of the Madagascar Liquid."
"Charley does?" said Steerforth.
"Charley does. But they haven't got any of the Madagascar Liquid."