"I never had the happiness of seeing my father," I observed.
"Very true, sir," said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. "And very much to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant, sir," said Mr. Chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, "down in our part of the country, of your fame. There must be great excitement here, sir," said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger. "You must find it a trying occupation, sir!"
"What is your part of the country now?" I asked, seating myself near him.
"I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmund's, sir," said Mr. Chillip. "Mrs. Chillip coming into a little property in that neighbourhood, under her father's will, I bought a practice down there, in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My daughter is growing quite a tall lass now, sir," said Mr. Chillip, giving his little head another little shake. "Her mother let down two tucks in her frocks only last week. Such is time, you see, sir!"
As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made this reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would keep him company with another. "Well, sir," he returned, in his slow way, "it's more than I am accustomed to, but I can't deny myself the pleasure of your conversation. It seems but yesterday that I had the honour of attending you in the measles. You came through them charmingly, sirl"
I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was soon produced. "Quite an uncommon dissipation!" said Mr. Chillip, stirring it, "but I can't resist so extraordinary an occasion. You have no family, sir?"
I shook my head.
"I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago," said Mr. Chillip. "I heard it from your father-in-law's sister. Very decided character there, sir?"
"Why, yes," said I, "decided enough. Where did you see her, Mr. Chillip?"
"Are you not aware, sir," returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest smile, "that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?"
"No," said I.
"He is indeed, sir!" said Mr. Chillip. "Married a young lady of that part, with a very good little property, poor thing. --And this action of the brain now, sir? Don't you find it fatigue you?" said Mr. Chillip, looking at me like an admiring Robin.
I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. "I was aware of his being married again. Do you attend the family?" I asked.
"Not regularly. I have been called in," he replied. "Strong phrenological development of the organ of firmness, in Mr. Murdstone and his sister, sir."
I replied with such an expressive look that Mr. Chillip was emboldened by that, and the negus together, to give his head several short shakes, and thoughtfully exclaim, "Ah, dear me! We remember old times, Mr. Copperfield!"
"And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are they?" said I.
"Well, sir," replied Mr. Chillip, "a medical man, being so much in families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir, both as to this life and the next."
"The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare say," I returned, "what are they doing as to this?"
Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it.
"She was a charming woman, sir!" he observed in a plaintive manner.
"The present Mrs. Murdstone?"
"A charming woman indeed, sir," said Mr. Chillip, "as amiable, I am sure, as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip's opinion is that her spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but melancholy mad. And the ladies," observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, "are great observers, sir."
"I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould, Heaven help her!" said I. "And she has been."
"Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you," said Mr. Chillip, "but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be considered forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the sister came to help, the brother and sister between them have nearly reduced her to a state of imbecility."
I told him I could easily believe it.
"I have no hesitation in saying," said Mr. Chillip, fortifying himself with another sip of negus, "between you and me, sir, that her mother died of it--or that tyranny, gloom, and worry have made Mrs. Murdstone nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They go about with her, now, more like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. That was Mrs. Chillip's remark to me, only last week. And I assure you, sir, the ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillip herself is a great observer!"
"Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in such association) religious still?" I inquired.
"You anticipate, sir," said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. "One of Mrs. Chillip's most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip," he proceeded, in the calmest and slowest manner, "quite electrified me by pointing out that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the Divine Nature. You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir, with the feather of a pen, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The ladies are great observers, sirl"
"Intuitively," said I, to his extreme delight.
"I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir," he rejoined. "It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical opinion, I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it is said--in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip--that the darker tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine."
"I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right," said L
"Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say," pursued the meekest of little men, much encouraged, "that what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad-humours and arrogance. And do you know I must say, sir," he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, "that I don't find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament!"
"I never found it either!" said I.
"In the meantime, sir," said Mr. Chillip, "they are much disliked, and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in our neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo a continual punishment, for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now, sir, about that brain of yours, if you'll excuse my returning to it. Don't you expose it to a good deal of excitement, sir?"
I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip's own brain, under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic to his own affairs, on which, for the next half-hour, he was quite loquacious, giving me to understand, among other pieces of information, that he was then at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house to lay his professional evidence before a Commission of Lunacy, touching the state of mind of a patient who had become deranged from excessive drinking.
"And I assure you, sir," he said, "I am extremely nervous on such occasions. I could not support being what is called Bullied, sir. It would quite unman me. Do you know it was some time before I recovered the conduct of that alarming lady, on the night of your birth, Mr. Copperfield?"
I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that night, early in the morning, and that she was one of the most tender-hearted and excellent of women, as he would know full well if he knew her better. The mere notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her again, appeared to terrify him. He replied with a small pale smile, "Is she so, indeed, sir? Really?" and almost immediately called for a candle, and went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else. He did not actually stagger under the negus, but I should think his placid little pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had done since the great night of my aunt's disappointment, when she struck at him with her bonnet.
Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight, passed the next d
ay on the Dover coach, burst safe and sound into my aunt's old parlour while she was at tea (she wore spectacles now), and was received by her, and Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily amused, when we began to talk composedly, by my account of my meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of his holding her in such dread remembrance, and both she and Peggotty had a great deal to say about my poor mother's second husband, and "that murdering woman of a sister"--on whom I think no pain or penalty would have induced my aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper Name, or any other designation.
CHAPTER LX
Agnes
MY AUNT AND I, WHEN WE WERE LEFT ALONE, TALKED far into the night. How the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully, how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on account of those "pecuniary liabilities," in reference to which he had been so business-like as between man and man, how Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by enter ng into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper, and how my Aunt had finally set her seal on the same great principle, by tiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the marriage-ceremony with her presence, were among our topics--already more or less familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick, as usual, was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept King Charles the First at respectful distance by that semblance of employment, how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint, and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully know what he was.
"And when, Trot," said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we sat in our old way before the fire, "when are you going over to Canterbury?"
"I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, Aunt, unless you will go with me?"
"No!" said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. "I mean to tay where I am."
Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury today without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone but her.
She was pleased, but answered, "Tut, Trot, my old bones would have kept till tomorrow!" and softly patted my hand again, as I sat looking thoughtfully at the fire.
Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes, without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been occupied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less regrets. "Oh, Trot," I seemed to hear my aunt say once more, and I understood her better now--"Blind, blind, blind!"
We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I found that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had followed the current of my mind, for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful as it had been once.
"You will find her father a white-haired old man," said my aunt, "though a better man in all other respects--a reclaimed man. Neither will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys, and sorrows, with his one poor little inch-rule now. Trust me, child, such things must shrink very much, before they can be measured off in that way."
"Indeed they must," said I.
"You will find her," pursued my aunt, "as good, as beautiful, as earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew higher praise, Trot, I would bestow it on her."
There was no higher praise for her, no higher reproach for me. Oh, how had I strayed so far away!
"If she trains the young girls whom she has about her, to be like herself," said my aunt, earnest even to the Tilling of her eyes with tears, "Heaven knows, her life will be well employed! Useful and happy, as she said that day! How could she be otherwise than useful and happy!"
"Has Agnes any--" I was thinking aloud, rather than speaking.
"Well? Hey? Any what?" said my aunt, sharply.
"Any lover," said I.
"A score," cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. "She might have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been gone!"
"No doubt," said I. "No doubt. But has she any lover who is worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other."
My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand. Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said:
"I suspect she has an attachment, Trot."
"A prosperous one?" said I.
"Trot," returned my aunt gravely, "I can't say. I have no right to tell you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I suspect it."
She looked so attentively and anxiously at me (I even saw her tremble) that I felt now, more than ever, that she had followed my late thoughts. I summoned all the resolutions I had made, in all those many days and nights, and all those many conflicts of my heart.
"If it should be so," I began, "and I hope it is--"
"I don't know that it is," said my aunt curtly. "You must not be ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very slight, perhaps. I have no right to speak."
"If it should be so," I repeated, "Agnes will tell me at her own good time. A sister to whom I have confided so much, Aunt, will not be reluctant to confide in me."
My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine, as slowly as she had turned them upon me, and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By-and-by she put her other hand on my shoulder, and so we both sat, looking into the past, without saying another word, until we parted for the night.
I rode away, early in the morning, for the scene of my old school-days. I cannot say that I was yet quite happy in the hope that I was gaining a victory over myself, even in the prospect of so soon looking on her face again.
The well-remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the quiet streets, where every stone was a boy's book to me. I went on foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. I returned, and looking, as I passed, through the low window of the turret-room where first Uriah Heep, and afterwards Mr. Micawber, had been wont to sit, saw that it was a little parlour now, and that there was no office. Otherwise the staid old house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad, was there, and I was shown up the grave old staircase (cautioned of the steps I knew so well), into the unchanged drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read together, were on their shelves, and the desk where I had laboured at my lessons, many a night, stood yet at the same old comer of the table. All the little changes that had crept in when the Heeps were there, were changed again. Everything was as it used to be, in the happy time.
I stood in a window, and looked across the ancient street at the opposite houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet afternoons, when I first came there, and how I had used to speculate about the people who appeared at any of the windows, and had followed them with my eyes up and down stairs, while women went clicking along the pavement in pat-tens, and the dull rain fell in slanting lines, and poured out of the waterspout yonder, and flowed into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch the tramps, as they came into the town on those wet evenings, at dusk, and limped past, with their bundles drooping over their shoulders at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me, fraught, as then, with the smell of damp earth, and wet leaves and brier, and the sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey.
The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made me start and turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. She stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her in my arms.
"Agnes! my dear girl! I have come too suddenly upon you."
"No, no! I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood!"
"Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to me, to see you once again!"
I folded her to my heart, and, for a little while, we were both silent. Presently we
sat down, side by side, and her angel-face was turned upon me with the welcome I had dreamed of, waking and sleeping, for whole years.
She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good--I owed her so much gratitude, she was so dear to me, that I could find no utterance for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell her (as I had often done in letters) what an influence she had upon me, but all my efforts were in vain. My love and joy were dumb.
With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation, led me back to the time of our parting, spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited, in secret, many times, spoke to me tenderly of Dora's grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. How could I, when, blended with it all, was her dear self, the better angel of my life?
"And you, Agnes," I said, by-and-by. "Tell me of yourself. You have hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of time!"
"What should I tell?" she answered, with her radiant smile. "Papa is well. You see us here, quiet in our own home, our anxieties set at rest, our home restored to us, and knowing that, dear Trotwood, you know all."
"All, Agnes?" said I.
She looked at me, with some fluttering wonder in her face.
"Is there nothing else, Sister?" I said.
Her colour, which had just now faded, returned, and faded again. She smiled, with a quiet sadness, I thought, and shook her head.
I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at, for, sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I was to discipline my heart, and do my duty to her. I saw, however, that she was uneasy, and I let it pass.
"You have much to do, dear Agnes?"
"With my school?" said she, looking up again, in all her bright composure.
"Yes. It is laborious, is it not?"
"The labour is so pleasant," she returned, "that it is scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name."