The Personal History of David Copperfield

Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find out articles of furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy the goods at once, without this ceremony of inspection; for, when we go to see a kitchen fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for Jip, with little bells on the top, and prefers that. And it takes a long time to accustom Jip to his new residence, after we have bought it; whenever he goes in or out, he makes all the little bells ring, and is horribly frightened.

Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work immediately. Her department appears to be, to clean everything over and over again. She rubs everything that can be rubbed, until it shines, like her own honest forehead, with perpetual friction. And now it is, that I begin to see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night, and looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces. I never speak to him at such an hour. I know too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what he seeks, and what he dreads.

Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon me this afternoon in the Commons – where I still occasionally attend, for form’s sake, when I have time? The realisation of my boyish day-dreams is at hand. I am going to take out the license.

It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles contemplates it, as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. There are the names, in the sweet old visionary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow; and there, in the corner, is that Parental Institution, the Stamp Office, which is so benignantly interested in the various transactions of human life, looking down upon our Union; and there is the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected.

Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I can’t believe that it is going to be; and yet I can’t believe but that everyone I pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that I am to be married the day after to-morrow. The Surrogate knows me, when I go down to be sworn; and disposes of me easily, as if there were a Masonic understanding between us. Traddles is not at all wanted, but is in attendance as my general backer.

“I hope the next time you come here, my dear fellow,” I say to Traddles, “it will be on the same errand for yourself. And I hope it will be soon.”

“Thank you for your good wishes, my dear Copperfield,” he replies. “I hope so too. It’s a satisfaction to know that she’ll wait for me any length of time, and that she really is the dearest girl – ”

“When are you to meet her at the coach?” I ask.

“At seven,” says Traddles, looking at his plain old silver watch – the very watch he once took a wheel out of, at school, to make a water-mill. “That is about Miss Wickfield’s time, is it not?”

“A little earlier. Her time is half-past eight.”

“I assure you, my dear boy,” says Traddles, “I am almost as pleased as if I were going to be married myself, to think that this event is coming to such a happy termination. And really the great friendship and consideration of personally associating Sophy with the joyful occasion, and inviting her to be a bridesmaid in conjunction with Miss Wickfield, demands my warmest thanks. I am extremely sensible of it.”

I hear him, and shake hands with him; and we talk, and walk, and dine, and so on; but I don’t believe it. Nothing is real.

Sophy arrives at the house of Dora’s aunts, in due course. She has the most agreeable of faces, – not absolutely beautiful, but extraordinarily pleasant, – and is one of the most genial, unaffected, frank, engaging creatures I have ever seen. Traddles presents her to us with great pride; and rubs his hands for ten minutes by the clock, with every individual hair upon his head standing on tiptoe, when I congratulate him in a corner on his choice.

I have brought Agnes from the Canterbury coach, and her cheerful and beautiful face is among us for the second time. Agnes has a great liking for Traddles, and it is capital to see them meet, and to observe the glory of Traddles as he commends the dearest girl in the world to her acquaintance.

Still I don’t believe it. We have a delightful evening, and are supremely happy; but I don’t believe it yet. I can’t collect myself. I can’t check off my happiness as it takes place. I feel in a misty and unsettled kind of state; as if I had got up very early in the morning a week or two ago, and had never been to bed since. I can’t make out when yesterday was. I seem to have been carrying the licence about, in my pocket, many months.

Next day, too, when we all go in a flock to see the house – our house – Dora’s and mine – I am quite unable to regard myself as its master. I seem to be there, by permission of somebody else. I half expect the real master to come home presently, and say he is glad to see me. Such a beautiful little house as it is, with everything so bright and new; with the flowers on the carpets looking as if freshly gathered, and the green leaves on the paper as if they had just come out; with the spotless muslin curtains, and the blushing rose-coloured furniture, and Dora’s garden hat with the blue ribbon – do I remember, now, how I loved her in such another hat when I first knew her! – already hanging on its little peg; the guitar-case quite at home on its heels in a corner; and everybody tumbling over Jip’s Pagoda, which is much too big for the establishment.

Another happy evening, quite as unreal as all the rest of it, and I steal into the usual room before going away. Dora is not there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet. Miss Lavinia peeps in, and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long. She is rather long, notwithstanding; but by-and-by I hear a rustling at the door, and some one taps.

I say, “Come in!” but some one taps again.

I go to the door, wondering who it is; there, I meet a pair of bright eyes, and a blushing face; they are Dora’s eyes and face, and Miss Lavinia has dressed her in to-morrow’s dress, bonnet and all, for me to see. I take my little wife to my heart; and Miss Lavinia gives a little scream because I tumble the bonnet, and Dora laughs and cries at once, because I am so pleased; and I believe it less than ever.

“Do you think it pretty, Doady?” says Dora.

Pretty! I should rather think I did.

“And are you sure you like me very much?” says Dora.

The topic is fraught with such danger to the bonnet, that Miss Lavinia gives another little scream, and begs me to understand that Dora is only to be looked at, and on no account to be touched. So Dora stands in a delightful state of confusion for a minute or two, to be admired; and then takes off her bonnet – looking so natural without it! – and runs away with it in her hand; and comes dancing down again in her own familiar dress, and asks Jip if I have got a beautiful little wife, and whether he’ll forgive her for being married, and kneels down to make him stand upon the cookery-book, for the last time in her single life.

I go home, more incredulous than ever, to a lodging that I have hard by; and get up very early in the morning, to ride to the Highgate road and fetch my aunt.

I have never seen my aunt in such state. She is dressed in lavender-colored silk, and has a white bonnet on, and is amazing. Janet has dressed her, and is there to look at me. Peggotty is ready to go to church, intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery. Mr. Dick, who is to give my darling to me at the altar, has had his hair curled. Traddles, whom I have taken up by appointment at the turnpike, presents a dazzling combination of cream color and light blue; and both he and Mr. Dick have a general effect about them of being all gloves.

No doubt I see this, because I know it is so; but I am astray, and seem to see nothing. Nor do I believe anything whatever. Still, as we drive along in an open carriage, this fairy marriage is real enough to fill me with a sort of wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have no part in it, but are sweeping out the shops, and going to their daily occupations.

My aunt sits with my hand in hers all the way. When we stop a little way short of the church, to put down Peggotty, whom we have brought on the box, she gives it a squeeze, and me a kiss.

“God bless you, Trot! My own boy never could be dearer. I think of poor dear Baby this morning.”

“So do I. And of all I owe to you, dear aunt.”

“Tut, child!” says my aunt; and gives her hand in overflowing cordiality to Traddles, who then gives his to Mr. Dick, who then gives his to me, who then gives mine to Traddles, and then we come to the church door.

The church is calm enough, I am sure; but it might be a steam-power loom in full action, for any sedative effect it has on me. I am too far gone for that.

The rest is all a more or less incoherent dream.

A dream of their coming in with Dora; of the pew-opener arranging us, like a drill-serjeant, before the altar rails; of my wondering, even then, why pew-openers must always be the most disagreeable females procurable, and whether there is any religious dread of a disastrous infection of good-humour which renders it indispensable to set those vessels of vinegar upon the road to Heaven.

Of the clergyman and clerk appearing; of a few boatmen and some other people strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, strongly flavoring the church with rum; of the service beginning in a deep voice, and our all being very attentive.

Of Miss Lavinia, who acts as a semi-auxiliary bridesmaid, being the first to cry, and of her doing homage (as I take it) to the memory of Pidger, in sobs; of Miss Clarissa applying a smelling-bottle; of Agnes taking care of Dora; of my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as a model of sternness, with tears rolling down her face; of little Dora trembling very much, and making her responses in faint whispers.

Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora’s trembling less and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand; of the service being got through, quietly and gravely; of our all looking at each other in an April state of smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being hysterical in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa.

Of her soon cheering up again, and our signing the register all round. Of my going into the gallery for Peggotty to bring her to sign it; of Peggotty’s hugging me in a corner, and telling me she saw my own dear mother married; of its being over, and our going away.

Of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife upon my arm, through a mist of half-seen people, pulpits, monuments, pews, fonts, organs, and church windows, in which there flutter faint airs of association with my childish church at home, so long ago.

Of their whispering, as we pass, what a youthful couple we are, and what a pretty little wife she is. Of our all being so merry and talkative in the carriage going back. Of Sophy telling us that when she saw Traddles (whom I had entrusted with the licence) asked for it, she almost fainted, having been convinced that he would contrive to lose it, or to have his pocket picked. Of Agnes laughing gaily; and of Dora being so fond of Agnes that she will not be separated from her, but still keeps her hand.

Of there being a breakfast, with abundance of things, pretty and substantial, to eat and drink, whereof I partake, as I should do in any other dream, without the least perception of their flavor; eating and drinking, as I may say, nothing but love and marriage, and no more believing in the viands than in anything else.

Of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion, without having an idea of what I want to say, beyond such as may be comprehended in the full conviction that I haven’t said it. Of our being very sociably and simply happy (always in a dream though); and of Jip’s having wedding cake, and its not agreeing with him afterwards.

Of the pair of hired post-horses being ready, and of Dora’s going away to change her dress. Of my aunt and Miss Clarissa remaining with us; and our walking in the garden; and my aunt, who has made quite a speech at breakfast touching Dora’s aunts, being mightily amused with herself, but a little proud of it too.

Of Dora’s being ready, and of Miss Lavinia’s hovering about her, loth to lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation. Of Dora’s making a long series of surprised discoveries that she has forgotten all sorts of little things; and of everybody’s running everywhere to fetch them.

Of their all closing about Dora, when at last she begins to say good-bye, looking, with their bright colors and ribbons, like a bed of flowers. Of my darling being almost smothered among the flowers, and coming out, laughing and crying both together, to my jealous arms.

Of my wanting to carry Jip (who is to go along with us), and Dora’s saying no, that she must carry him, or else he’ll think she don’t like him any more, now she is married, and will break his heart. Of our going, arm in arm, and Dora stopping and looking back, and saying, “If I have ever been cross or ungrateful to anybody, don’t remember it!” and bursting into tears.

Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. Of her once more stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to Agnes, and giving Agnes, above all the others, her last kisses and farewells.

We drive away together, and I awake from the dream. I believe it at last. It is my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom I love so well!

“Are you happy now, you foolish boy?” says Dora, “and sure you don’t repent?”

I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.

CHAPTER XLIV.

OUR HOUSEKEEPING

It was a strange condition of things, the honey-moon being over, and the bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my own small house with Dora; quite thrown out of employment, as I may say, in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love.

It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there. It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of being alone with her. Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course – nobody’s business any more – all the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf, to rust – no one to please but one another – one another to please, for life.

When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at home! It was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know for certain that she put her hair in papers. It was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do it!

I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must have been Mrs. Crupp’s daughter in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with Mary Anne.

Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we engaged her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character, as large as a proclamation; and, according to this document, could do everything of a domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a great many things that I never did hear of. She was a woman in the prime of life; of a severe countenance; and subject (particularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the Life Guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else. His shell-jacket was as much too little for him as he was too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it need have been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides which, the walls were not thick, and whenever he passed the evening at our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the kitchen.

Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler; and that the deficient teaspoons were attributable to the dustman.

But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience, and were unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy, if she had had any; but she was a remorseless woman, and had none. She was the cause of our first little quarrel.

“My dearest life,” I said one day to Dora, “do you think Mary Anne has any idea of time?”

“Why, Doady?” inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her drawing.

“My love, because it’s five, and we were to have dined at four.”

Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it was too fast.

“On the contrary, my love,” said I, referring to my watch, “it’s a few minutes too slow.”

My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I couldn’t dine off that, though it was very agreeable.

“Don’t you think, my dear,” said I, “it would be better for you to remonstrate with Mary Anne?”

“Oh no, please! I couldn’t, Doady!” said Dora.

“Why not, my love?” I gently asked.

“Oh, because I am such a little goose,” said Dora, “and she knows I am!”

I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little.

“Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy’s forehead!” said Dora, and still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious, that quite delighted me in spite of myself.

“There’s a good child,” said Dora, “it makes its face so much prettier to laugh.”

“But, my love,” said I.

“No, no! please!” cried Dora, with a kiss, “don’t be a naughty Blue Beard! Don’t be serious!”

“My precious wife,” said I, “we must be serious sometimes. Come! Sit down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! There! Now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear;” what a little hand it was to hold, and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see! “You know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one’s dinner. Now, is it?”

“N – n – no!” replied Dora, faintly.

“My love, how you tremble!”

“Because I KNOW you’re going to scold me,” exclaimed Dora, in a piteous voice.

“My sweet, I am only going to reason.”

“Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!” exclaimed Dora, in despair. “I didn’t marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have told me so, you cruel boy!”

I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her curls from side to side, and said “You cruel, cruel boy!” so many times, that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back again.

“Dora, my darling!”

“No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married me, or else you wouldn’t reason with me!” returned Dora.

I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it gave me courage to be grave.

“Now, my own Dora,” said I, “you are very childish, and are talking nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, I was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry; to-day, I don’t dine at all – and I am afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast – and then the water didn’t boil. I don’t mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.”

“Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!” cried Dora.

“Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!”

“You said I wasn’t comfortable!” said Dora.

“I said the housekeeping was not comfortable.”

“It’s exactly the same thing!” cried Dora. And she evidently thought so, for she wept most grievously.

I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against the door. I sat down again, and said:

“I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must – you really must” (I was resolved not to give this up) – “accustom yourself to look after Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me.”

“I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,” sobbed Dora. “When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to surprise you.”

“And it was very kind of you, my own darling,” said I. “I felt it so much that I wouldn’t on any account have even mentioned that you bought a Salmon – which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound six – which was more than we can afford.”

“You enjoyed it very much,” sobbed Dora. “And you said I was a Mouse.”

“And I’ll say so again, my love,” I returned, “a thousand times!”

But I had wounded Dora’s soft little heart, and she was not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt as if I had said I don’t know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.

It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.

“Is anything the matter, aunt?” said I, alarmed.

“Nothing, Trot,” she replied. “Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. That’s all.”

I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as I sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I happened to meet my aunt’s eyes, which were resting on my face. There was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly.

“I assure you, aunt,” said I, “I have been quite unhappy myself all night, to think of Dora’s being so. But I had no other intention than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs.”

My aunt nodded encouragement.

“You must have patience, Trot,” said she.

“Of course. Heaven knows I don’t mean to be unreasonable, aunt!”

“No, no,” said my aunt. “But Little Blossom is a very tender little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her.”

I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my wife; and I was sure that she knew I did.

“Don’t you think, aunt,” said I, after some further contemplation of the fire, “that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for our mutual advantage, now and then?”

“Trot,” returned my aunt, with some emotion, “no! Don’t ask me such a thing!”

Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise.

“I look back on my life, child,” said my aunt, “and I think of some who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I judged harshly of other people’s mistakes in marriage, it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years. I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another some good, Trot, – at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come between us, at this time of day.”

“Division between us!” cried I.

“Child, child!” said my aunt, smoothing her dress, “how soon it might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn’t say. I want our pet to like me, and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home, in that second marriage; and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at!”

I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife.