He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and, having given it a damp squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch.
"Dear mel" he said, "it's past one. The moments slip away so, in the confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that it's almost half-past onel"
I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had really thought so, but because my conversational powers were effectually scattered.
"Dear me!" he said, considering. "The ouse that I am stopping at--a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master Copperfield, near the New River ed--will have gone to bed these two hours."
"I am sorry," I returned, "that there is only one bed here, and that I--"
"Oh, don't think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!" he rejoined ecstatically, drawing up one leg. "But would you have any objections to my laying down before the fire?"
"If it comes to that," I said, "pray take my bed, and I'II lie down before the fire."
His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low water-mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities. As no arguments I could urge, in my bewildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty in inducing him to accept my bedroom, I was obliged to make the best arrangements I could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of the sofa (which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the sofa pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and a greatcoat, made him a bed and covering, for which he was more than thankful. Having lent him a nightcap, which he put on at once, and in which he made such an awful figure that I have never worn one since, I left him to his rest.
I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned and tumbled, how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and this creature, how I considered what could I do, and what ought I to do, how I could come to no other conclusion than that the best course for her peace was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard. If I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes with her tender eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as I had so often seen him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with vague terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next room sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare, and oppressed me with a leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger.
The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn't come out. I thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there were nothing in it, that I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his back, with his legs extending to I don't know where, gur glings taking place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like a post-office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered fancy that afterwards I was attracted to him in very repulsion, and could not help wandering in and out every half hour or so, and taking another look at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky.
When I saw him going downstairs early in the morning (for, thank Heaven! he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was going away in this person. When I went out to the Commons, I charged Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, that my sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence.
CHAPTER XXVI
I Fall into Captitivity
I SAW NO MORE OF URIAH HEEP UNTIL THE DAY WHEN AGNES left town. I was at the coach-office to take leave of her and see her go, and there was he, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered, mulberry-coloured greatcoat perched up, in company with an umbrella like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while Agnes was, of course, inside, but what I underwent in my efforts to be friendly with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little recompense. At the coach-window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered about us without a moment's intermission, like a great vulture, gorging himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes, or Agnes said to me.
In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown me, I had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in reference to the partnership: "I did what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it was necessary for Papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made, I entreated him to make it." A miserable foreboding that she would yield to, and sustain herself by, the same feeling in reference to any sacrifice for his sake, had oppressed me ever since. I knew how she loved him. I knew what the devotion of her nature was. I knew from her own lips that she regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors and as owing him a great debt she ardently desired to pay. I had no consolation in seeing how different she was from this detestable Rufus with the mulberry-coloured greatcoat, for I felt that in the very difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and the sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay. All this, doubtless, he knew thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered well.
Yet, I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off, must destroy the happiness of Agnes, and I was so sure, from her manner, of its being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet, that I could as soon have injured her, as given her any warning of what impended. Thus it was that we parted without explanation, she waving her hand and smiling farewell from the coach-window, her evil genius writhing on the roof, as if he had her in his clutches and triumphed.
I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. When Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable as when I saw her going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this subject was sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. It became a part of my life, and as inseparable from my life as my own head.
I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness, for Steerforth was at Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the Commons, I was very much alone. I believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of Steerforth. I wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his, but I think I was glad, upon the whole, that he could not come to London just then. I suspect the truth to be that the influence of Agnes was upon me, undisturbed by the sight of him, and that it was the more powerful with me because she had so large a share in my thoughts and interest.
In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was articled to Spenlow and Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my house-rent and sundry collateral matters) from my aunt. My rooms were engaged for twelve months certain, and, though I still found them dreary of an evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee, which I seem, on looking back, to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my existence. At about this time, too, I made three discoveries: first, that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called "the spazzums," which was generally accompanied with inflammation of the nose, and required to be constantly treated with peppermint, secondly, that something peculiar in the temperature of my pantry made the brandy-bottles burst, thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much given to record that circumstance in fragments of English versification.
On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and going alone to the theatre at night. I went to see "The Stranger" as a Doctors' commons sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up that I hardly knew myself in my own glass
when I got home. Mr. Spenlow remarked, on this occasion, when we concluded our business, that he should have been happy to have seen me at his house at Norwood to celebrate our becoming connected, but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder, on account of the expected return of his daughter from finishing her education at Paris. But he intimated that when she came home he should hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that he was a widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgments.
Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week or two, he referred to this engagement, and said that if I would do him the favour to come down next Saturday, and stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy. Of course I said I would do him the favour, and he was to drive me down in his phaeton, and to bring me back.
When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of veneration to the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at Norwood was a sacred mystery. One of them informed me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow ate entirely off plate and china, and another hinted at champagne being constantly on draught, after the usual custom of table beer. The old clerk with the wig, whose name was Mr. Tiffey, had been down on business several times in the course of his career, and had on each occasion penetrated to the breakfast-parlour. He described it as an apartment of the most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drank brown East India sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink.
We had an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day--about excommunicating a baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate--and as the evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we finished. However, we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in no end of costs, and then the baker's proctor, and the judge, and the advocates on both sides (who were all nearly related) went out of town together, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton.
The phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses arched their necks and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to Doctors' Commons. There was a good deal of competition in the Commons on all points of display, and it turned out some very choice equipages then, though I always have considered, and always shall consider, that in my time the great article of competition there was starch, which I think was worn among the proctors to as great an extent as it is in the nature of man to bear.
We were very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some hints in reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest profession in the world, and must on no account be confounded with the profession of a solicitor, being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more exclusive, less mechanical, and more profitable. We took things much more easily in the Commons than they could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and that sets us, as a privileged class, apart. He said it was impossible to conceal the disagreeable fact that we were chiefly employed by solicitors, but he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretensions.
I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional business? He replied that a good case of a disputed will, where there was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was, perhaps, the best of all. In such a case, he said, not only were there very pretty pickings, in the way of arguments at every stage of the proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to the Delegates, and then to the Lords), but, the costs being pretty sure to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively and spirited manner, and expence was no consideration. Then he launched into a general eulogium on the Commons. What was to be particularly admired, he said, in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the most conveniently organized place in the world. It was the complete idea of snugness. It lay in a nut-shell. For example, you brought a divorce case, or a restitution case, into the Consistory. Very good. You tried it in the Consistory. You made a quiet little round game of it, among a family group, and you played it out at leisure. Suppose you were not satisfied with the Consistory, what did you do then? Why, you went into the Arches. What was the Arches? The same court, in the same room, with the same bar, and the same practitioners, but another judge, for there the Consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. Well, you played your round game out again. Still you were not satisfied. Very good. What did you do then? Why, you went to the Delegates. Who were the Delegates? Why, the Ecclesiastical Delegates were the advocates without any business, who had looked on at the round game when it was playing in both courts, and had seen the cards sbuffle, and cut, and played, and had talked to all the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges, to settle the matter to the satisfaction of everybody! Discontented people might talk of corruption in the Commons, closeness in the Commons, and the necessity of reforming the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow solemnly, in conclusion, but when the price of wheat per bushel had been highest, the Commons had been busiest, and a man might lay his hand upon his heart, and say this to the whole world, "Touch the Commons, and down comes the country!"
I listened to all this with attention, and though, I must say, I had my doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the Commons as Mr. Spenlow made out, I respectfully deferred to his opinion. That about the price of wheat per bushel, I modestly felt was too much for my strength, and quite settled the question. I have never, to this hour, got the better of that bushel of wheat. It has reappeared to annihilate me, all through my life, in connexion with all kinds of subjects. I don't know now, exactly, what it has to do with me, or what right it has to crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions, but whenever I see my old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders (as he always is, I observe), I give up a subject for lost.
This is a digression. I was not the man to touch the Commons, and bring down the country. I submissively expressed, by my silence, my acquiescence in all I had heard from my superior in years and knowledge, and we talked about "The Stranger" and the Drama, and the pair of horses, until we came to Mr. Spenlow's gate.
There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow's house, and, though that was not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully kept that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing season. "Here Miss Spenlow walks by herself," I thought. "Dear me!"
We went into the house, which was cheerfully lighted up, and into a hall where there were all sorts of hats, caps, greatcoats, plaids, gloves, whips, and walking-sticks. "Where is Miss Dora?" said Mr. Spenlow to the servant. "Dora!" I thought. "What a beautiful name!"
We turned into a room near at hand (I think it was the identical breakfast-room made memorable by the brown East Indian sherry), and I heard a voice say, "Mr. Copperfield, my daughter Dora, and my daughter Dora's confidential friend!" It was, no doubt, Mr. Spenlow's voice, but I didn't know it, and I didn't care whose it was. All was over in a moment I had fulfilled my destiny. I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distracdonl
She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don't know what she was--anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink, no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.
"I," observed a well-remembered voice, when I had bowed and murmured something, "have seen Mr. Copperfield before."
The speaker was-not Dora. No, the confidential friend, Miss Murdstone!
I don't think I was much astonished. To the best of my judgment, no capacity of astonishment was left in me. There was nothing worth mentioning in the material world, but Dora Spenlow, to be astonished about. I said, "How do you do, Miss Murdstone? I hope you are well." She answe
red, "Very well." I said, "How is Mr. Murdstone?" She replied, "My brother is robust, I am obliged to you."
Mr. Spenlow, who, I suppose, had been surprised to see us recognize each other, then put in his word.
"I am glad to find," he said, "Copperfield, that you and Miss Murdstone are already acquainted."
"Mr. Copperfield and myself," said Miss Murdstone, with severe composure, "are connexions. We were once slightly acquainted. It was in his childish days. Circumstances have separated us since. I should not have known him."
I replied that I should have known her, anywhere. Which was true enough.
"Miss Murdstone has had the goodness," said Mr. Spenlow to me, "to accept the omee--if I may so describe it--of my daughter Dora's confidential friend. My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector."
A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for purposes of protection as of assault. But, as I had none but passing thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly afterwards, and was thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner, that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to her companion and protector, when a bell rang, which Mr. Spenlow said was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to dress.
The idea of dressing one's self, or doing anything in the way of action, in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous. I could only sit down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the captivating, girlish, bright-eyed, lovely Dora. What a form she had, what a face she had, what a graceful, variable, enchanting manner!
The bell rang again so soon that I made a mere scramble of my dressing, instead of the careful operation I could have wished under the circumstances, and went downstairs. There was some company. Dora was talking to an old gentleman with a grey head. Grey as he was--and a great-grandfather into the bargain, for he said so--I was madly jealous of him.