Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head 'to whisper, but she would not hear a word.
"No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth--to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched fancy against his mother's claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude--claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no injury?"
Again Rosa Dartle tried to soothe her, again ineffectually.
"I say, Rosa, not a word! If he can stake his all upon the lightest object, I can stake my all upon a greater purpose. Let him go where he will, with the means that my love has secured to him! Does he think to reduce me by long absence? He knows his mother very little if he does. Let him put away his whim now, and he is welcome back. Let him not put her away now, and he never shall come near me, living or dying, while I can raise my hand to make a sign against it, unless, being rid of her for ever, he comes humbly to me and begs for my forgiveness. This is my right. This is the acknowledgment I will have. This is the separation that there is between us! And is this," she added, looking at her visitor with the proud intolerant air with which she had begun, "no injury?"
While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that I had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs, the same.
She now observed to me, aloud, resuming her former restraint, that it was useless to hear more, or to say more, and that she begged to put an end to the interview. She rose with an air of dignity to leave the room, when Mr. Peggotty signified that it was needless.
"Doen't fear me being any hindrance to you, I have no more to say, ma'am," he remarked as he moved towards the door. "I come heer with no hope, and I take away no hope. I have done what I thowt should be done, but I never looked fur any good to come of my stan'ning where I do. This has been too evil a house fur me and mine, fur me to be in my right senses and expect it."
With this, we departed, leaving her standing by her elbow-chair, a picture of a noble presence and a handsome face.
We had, on our way out, to cross a paved hall, with glass sides and roof, over which a vine was trained. Its leaves and shoots were green then, and, the day being sunny, a pair of glass doors leading to the garden were thrown open. Rosa Dartle, entering this way with a noiseless step, when we were close to them, addressed herself to me:
"You do well," she said, "indeed, to bring this fellow here!"
Such a concentration of rage and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into that face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited state of her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen before came into it as I looked at her, she absolutely lifted up her hand and struck it.
"This is a fellow," she said, "to champion and bring here, is he not? You are a true man!"
"Miss Dartle," I returned, "you are surely not so unjust as to condemn me?"
"Why do you bring division between these two mad creatures?" she returned. "Don't you know that they are both mad with their own self-will and pride?"
"Is it my doing?" I returned.
"Is it your doing!" she retorted. "Why do you bring this man here?"
"He is a deeply injured man, Miss Dartle," I replied. "You may not know it."
"I know that James Steerforth," she said, with her hand on her bosom, as if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, "has a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or care about this fellow, and his common niece?"
"Miss Dartle," I returned, "you deepen the injury. It is sufficient already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong."
"I do him no wrong," she returned. "They are a depraved, worthless set. I would have her whipped!"
Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door.
"Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame!" I said indignantly. "How can you bear to trample on his undeserved affliction!"
"I would trample on them all," she answered. "I would have his house pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed in rags, and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in judgment on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it! I detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would. If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn't part with it for Life itself."
The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of being raised, was lower than usual. No description I could give of her would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance of herself to her anger. I have seen passion in many forms, but I have never seen it in such a form as that.
When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that, having now discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant "to set out on his travels," that night. I asked him where he meant to go? He only answered, "I'm a-going, sir, to seek my niece."
We went back to the little lodging over the chandler's shop, and there I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had said to me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that morning. She knew no more than I did where he was going, but she thought he had some project shaped out in his mind.
I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three dined together off a beefsteak pie--which was one of the many good things for which Peggotty was famous --and which was curiously flavoured on this occasion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea, coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an hour or so near the window, without talking much, and then Mr. Peggotty got up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them on the table.
He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small sum on account of his legacy, barely enough, I should have thought, to keep him for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything befell him, and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us both "Good-bye!"
"All good attend you, dear old woman," he said, embracing Peggotty, "and you too, Mas'r Davy!" shaking hands with me. "I'm a-going to seek her, fur and wide. If she should come home while I'm away,--but ah, that ain't like to be!--or if I should bring her back, my meaning is that she and me shall live and die where no one can't reproach her. If any hurt should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, 'My unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!' "
He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which that by-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at the comer of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost him.
Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night, rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain, or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor pilgrim, and recalled the words:
"I'm a-going to see
k her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, 'My unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!' "
CHAPTER XXXIII
Blissful
ALL THIS TIME, I HAD GONE ON LOVING DORA, HARDER THAN ever. Her idea was my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to me, even for the loss of my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied others, the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora. The greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora high above the world. I don't think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what degree she was related to a higher order of beings, but I am quite sure I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any other young lady, with indignation and contempt.
If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through. Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking, to drown anybody in, and yet there would have remained enough within me, and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.
The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to take a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle of my childhood, to go "round and round the house, without ever touching the house," thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this incomprehensible conundrum was the moon. No matter what it was, I, the moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round and round the house and garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the palings, getting my chin, by dint of violent exertion, above the rusty nails on the top, blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling on the night, at intervals, to shield my Dora--I don't exactly know what from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great objection.
My love was so much on my mind, and it was so natural to me to confide in Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an evening with the old set of industrial implements, busily making the tour of my wardrobe, that I imparted to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my great secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, but I could not get her into my view of the case at all. She was audaciously prejudiced in my favour, and quite unable to understand why I should have any misgivings, or be low-spirited about it. "The young lady might think herself well off," she observed, "to have such a beau. And as to her Pa," she said, "what did the gentleman expect, for gracious sake!"
I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow's Proctorial gown and stiff cravat took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence for the man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my eyes every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam when he sat erect in Court among his papers, like a little lighthouse in a sea of stationery. And, by-the-by, it used to be uncommonly strange to me to consider. I remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old judges and doctors wouldn't have cared for Dora, if they had known her; how they wouldn't have gone out of their senses with rapture, if marriage with Dora had been proposed to them, how Dora might have sung and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led me to the verge of madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his road!
I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more tenderness or poetry in it, than the Bar of a public-house.
Taking the management of Peggotty's affairs into my own hands, with no little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with the Legacy Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got everything into an orderly train. We varied the legal character of these proceedings by going to see some perspiring Wax-work, in Fleet-street (melted, I shall hope, these twenty years), and by visiting Miss Linwood's Exhibition, which I remember as a Mausoleum of needlework, favourable to self-examination and repentance, and by inspecting the Tower of London, and going to the top of St. Paul's. All these wonders afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under existing circumstances, except, I think, St. Paul's, which, from her long attachment to her work-box, became a rival of the picture on the lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that work of art.
Peggotty's business, which was what we used to call "common-form business" in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the common-form business was), being settled, I took her down to the office one morning to pay her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tiffey said, to get a gentleman sworn for a marriage licence, but, as I knew he would be back directly, our place lying close to the Surrogate's, and to the Vicar-General's office too, I told Peggotty to wait.
We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate transactions, generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up when we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling of delicacy, we were always blithe and light-hearted with the licence clients. Therefore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow much recovered from the shock of Mr. Barkis's decease, and indeed he came in like a bridegroom.
But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in company with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His hair looked as thick, and was certainly as black, as ever, and his glance was as little to be trusted as of old.
"Ah, Copperfield?" said Mr. Spenlow. "You know this gentleman, I believe?"
I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognized him. He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together, but quickly decided what to do, and came up to me.
"I hope," he said, "that you are doing well?"
"It can hardly be interesting to you," said I. "Yes, if you wish to know."
We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty.
"And you," said he. "I am sorry to observe that you have lost your husband."
"It's not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. Murdstone," replied Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. "I am glad to hope that there is nobody to blame for this one--nobody to answer for it."
"Hal" said he, "that's a comfortable reflection. You have done your duty?"
"I have not worn anybody's life away," said Peggotty, "I am thankful to think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and frightened any sweet creetur to an early grave!"
He eyed her gloomily--remorsefully I thought--for an instant, and said, turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my face:
"We are not likely to encounter soon again, a source of satisfaction to us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. I do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority, exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good-will now. There is an antipathy between us--"
"An old one, I believe?" said I, interrupting him.
He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark eyes.
"It rankled. in your baby breast," he said. "It embittered the life of your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, yet; I hope you may correct yourself."
Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice, in a corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. Spenlow's room, and saying aloud, in his smoothest manner:
"Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow's profession are accustomed to family differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always arel" With that, he paid the money for his licence, and, receiving it neatly folded from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite wish for his happiness and the lady's, went out of the office.
I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon Peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature!) that we were not in a place for recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her peace. She was so unusually roused that I was glad to compound
for an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival in her mind of our old injuries, and to make the best I could of it, before Mr. Spenlow and the clerks.
Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between Mr. Murdstone and myself was, which I was glad of, for I could not bear to acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what I did of the history of my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if he thought anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader of the state party in our family, and that there was a rebel party commanded by somebody else--so I gathered, at least, from what he said, while we were waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty's bill of costs.
"Miss Trotwood," he remarked, "is very firm, no doubt, and not likely to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her character, and I may congratulate you, Copperfield, on being on the right side. Differences between relations are much to be deplored--but they are extremely general--and the great thing is, to be on the right side," meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest.
"Rather a good marriage this, I believe?" said Mr. Spenlow.
I explained that I knew nothing about it.
"Indeed!" he said. "Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone dropped--as a man frequently does on these occasions--and from what Miss Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good marriage."
"Do you mean that there is money, sir?" I asked.
"Yes," said Mr. Spenlow, "I understand there's money. Beauty too, I am told."
"Indeed! Is his new wife young?"
"Just of age," said Mr. Spenlow. "So lately, that I should think they had been waiting for that."
"Lord deliver her!" said Peggotty. So very emphatically and unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed, until Tiffey came in with the bill.
Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air--as if it were all Jorkins's doing--and handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh.