The Personal History of David Copperfield

“We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber,” said I.

“Mr. Copperfield,” returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, “when I was an inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and punch his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no longer on those glorious terms!”

Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of Traddles on the other, and walked away between us.

“There are some landmarks,” observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly back over his shoulder, “on the road to the tomb, which, but for the impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such is the Bench in my chequered career.”

“Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber,” said Traddles.

“I am, sir,” interposed Mr. Micawber.

“I hope,” said Traddles, “it is not because you have conceived a dislike to the law – for I am a lawyer myself, you know.”

Mr. Micawber answered not a word.

“How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber?” said I, after a silence.

“My dear Copperfield,” returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state of much excitement, and turning pale, “if you ask after my employer as your friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as my friend, I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this – that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity.”

I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that roused him so much. “May I ask,” said I, “without any hazard of repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are?”

“Miss Wickfield,” said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, “is, as she always is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love and truth, and goodness! – Take me,” said Mr. Micawber, “down a turning, for, upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this!”

We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no means inspiriting.

“It is my fate,” said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel; “it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield, is a flight of arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you please, to walk the earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle my business in double-quick time.”

Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned – not knowing what might be lost, if we lost sight of him yet – that it would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out to Highgate, where a bed was at his service.

“You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber,” said I, “and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter reminiscences.”

“Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber,” said Traddles, prudently.

“Gentlemen,” returned Mr. Micawber, “do with me as you will! I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants – I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements.”

We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of starting; and arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties by the way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do for the best – so was Traddles, evidently. Mr. Micawber was for the most part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself, and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes.

We went to my aunt’s house rather than to mine, because of Dora’s not being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand, retired to the window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, had a mental wrestle with himself.

Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such person out, that he shook hands with Mr. Micawber, at least half-a-dozen times in five minutes. To Mr. Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on the part of a stranger, was so extremely touching, that he could only say, on the occasion of each successive shake, “My dear sir, you overpower me!” Which gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went at it again with greater vigor than before.

“The friendliness of this gentleman,” said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, “if you will allow me, ma’am, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabulary of our coarser national sports – floors me. To a man who is struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a reception is trying, I assure you.”

“My friend Mr. Dick,” replied my aunt, proudly, “is not a common man.”

“That I am convinced of,” said Mr. Micawber. “My dear sir!” for Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him again; “I am deeply sensible of your cordiality!”

“How do you find yourself?” said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look.

“Indifferent, my dear sir,” returned Mr. Micawber, sighing.

“You must keep up your spirits,” said Mr. Dick, “and make yourself as comfortable as possible.”

Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by finding Mr. Dick’s hand again within his own. “It has been my lot,” he observed, “to meet, in the diversified panorama of human existence, with an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as the present!”

At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a perfect fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes wide open, and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at Mr. Micawber, without so much as attempting to put in a word. My aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her wits than either of us; for she held him in conversation, and made it necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or not.

“You are a very old friend of my nephew’s, Mr. Micawber,” said my aunt. “I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before.”

“Madam,” returned Mr. Micawber, “I wish I had had the honor of knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you at present behold.”

“I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir,” said my aunt.

Mr. Micawber inclined his head. “They are as well, ma’am,” he desperately observed after a pause, “as Aliens and Outcasts can ever hope to be.”

“Lord bless you, sir!” exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. “What are you talking about?”

“The subsistence of my family, ma’am,” returned Mr. Micawber, “trembles in the balance. My employer – ”

Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the other appliances he used in making punch.

“Your employer, you know,” said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a gentle reminder.

“My good sir,” returned Mr. Micawber, “you recall me. I am obliged to you.” They shook hands again. “My employer, ma’am – Mr. Heep – once did me the favor to observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the country swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural feats, by playing the barrel-organ.”

Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, signified that these performances might be expected to take place after he was no more; then resumed his peeling with a desperate air.

My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion with which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at this point, but for the strange proceedings in which I saw him engaged; whereof his putting the lemon-peel into the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer-tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He clattered all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears.

“My dear Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief, “this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled mind, and self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the question.”

“Mr. Micawber,” said I, “what is the matter? Pray speak out. You are among friends.”

“Among friends, sir!” repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had reserved came breaking out of him. “Good heavens, it is principally because I am among friends that my state of mind is what it is. What is the matter, gentlemen? What is not the matter? Villany is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole atrocious mass is – Heep!”

My aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were possessed.

“The struggle is over!” said Mr. Micawber, violently gesticulating with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. “I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. I have been under a Taboo in that infernal scoundrel’s service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family, substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword to-morrow, and I’ll do it. With an appetite!”

I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we might come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and wouldn’t hear a word.

“I’ll put my hand in no man’s hand,” said Mr. Micawber, gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water, “until I have – blown to fragments – the – a – detestable – serpent – Heep! I’ll partake of no one’s hospitality, until I have – a – moved Mount Vesuvius – to eruption – on – a – the abandoned rascal – Heep! Refreshment – a – underneath this roof – particularly punch – would – a – choak me – unless – I had – previously – choaked the eyes – out of the head – a – of – interminable cheat, and liar – Heep! I – a – I’ll know nobody – and – a – say nothing – and – a – live nowhere – until I have crushed – to – a – undiscoverable atoms – the – transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer – Heep!”

I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber’s dying on the spot. The manner in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and, whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep, fought his way on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a vehemence little less than marvellous, was frightful; but now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us, with every possible color in his face that had no business there, and an endless procession of lumps following one another in hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being in the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me off, and wouldn’t hear a word.

“No, Copperfield! – No communication – a – until – Miss Wickfield – a – redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel – Heep!” (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when he felt it coming.) “Inviolable secret – a – from the whole world – a – no exceptions – this day week – a – at breakfast time – a – everybody present – including aunt – a – and extremely friendly gentleman – to be at the hotel at Canterbury – a – where – Mrs. Micawber and myself – Auld Lang Syne in chorus – and – a – will expose intolerable ruffian – Heep! No more to say – a – or listen to persuasion – go immediately – not capable – a – bear society – upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor – Heep!”

With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. Micawber rushed out of the house; leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and wonder, that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted; for while we were yet in the height of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he had called to write it: —

“Most secret and confidential

“My dear Sir,

“I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived than described.

“I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honor of uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the Immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed.

“The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where

“‘Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,’“ – With the plain Inscription,“Wilkins Micawber.”

CHAPTER L.

MR. PEGGOTTY’S DREAM COMES TRUE

By this time, some months had passed, since our interview on the bank of the river with Martha. I had never seen her since, but she had communicated with Mr. Peggotty on several occasions. Nothing had come of her zealous intervention; nor could I infer, from what he told me, that any clue had ever been obtained, for a moment, to Emily’s fate. I confess that I began to despair of her recovery, and gradually to sink deeper and deeper into the belief that she was dead.

His conviction remained unchanged. So far as I know – and I believe his honest heart was transparent to me – he never wavered again, in his solemn certainty of finding her. His patience never tired. And, although I trembled for the agony it might one day be to him to have his strong assurance shivered at a blow, there was something so religious in it, so affectingly expressive of its anchor being in the purest depths of his fine nature, that the respect and honor in which I held him were exalted every day.

His was not a lazy trustfulness that hoped, and did no more. He had been a man of sturdy action all his life, and he knew that in all things wherein he wanted help he must do his own part faithfully, and help himself. I have known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the old boat, and walk to Yarmouth. I have known him, on reading something in the newspaper that might apply to her, take up his stick, and go forth on a journey of three or four score miles. He made his way by sea to Naples, and back, after hearing the narrative to which Miss Dartle had assisted me. All his journeys were ruggedly performed; for he was always steadfast in a purpose of saving money for Emily’s sake, when she should be found. In all this long pursuit, I never heard him repine; I never heard him say he was fatigued, or out of heart.

Dora had often seen him since our marriage, and was quite fond of him. I fancy his figure before me now, standing near her sofa, with his rough cap in his hand, and the blue eyes of my child-wife raised, with a timid wonder, to his face. Sometimes of an evening, about twilight, when he came to talk with me, I would induce him to smoke his pipe in the garden, as we slowly paced to and fro together; and then, the picture of his deserted home, and the comfortable air it used to have in my childish eyes of an evening when the fire was burning, and the wind moaning round it, came most vividly into my mind.

One evening, at this hour, he told me that he had found Martha waiting near his lodging on the preceding night when he came out, and that she had asked him not to leave London on any account, until he should have seen her again.

“Did she tell you why?” I inquired.

“I asked her, Mas’r Davy,” he replied, “but it is but few words as she ever says, and she on’y got my promise and so went away.”

“Did she say when you might expect to see her again?” I demanded.

“No, Mas’r Davy,” he returned, drawing his hand thoughtfully down his face. “I asked that too; but it was more (she said) than she could tell.”

As I had long forborne to encourage him with hopes that hung on threads, I made no other comment on this information than that I supposed he would see her soon. Such speculations as it engendered within me I kept to myself, and those were faint enough.

I was walking alone in the garden, one evening, about a fortnight afterwards. I remember that evening well. It was the second in Mr. Micawber’s week of suspense. There had been rain all day, and there was a damp feeling in the air. The leaves were thick upon the trees, and heavy with wet; but the rain had ceased, though the sky was still dark; and the hopeful birds were singing cheerfully. As I walked to and fro in the garden, and the twilight began to close around me, their little voices were hushed; and that peculiar silence which belongs to such an evening in the country when the lightest trees are quite still, save for the occasional droppings from their boughs, prevailed.

There was a little green perspective of trellis-work and ivy at the side of our cottage, through which I could see, from the garden where I was walking, into the road before the house. I happened to turn my eyes towards this place, as I was thinking of many things; and I saw a figure beyond, dressed in a plain cloak. It was bending eagerly towards me, and beckoning.

“Martha!” said I, going to it.

“Can you come with me?” she inquired, in an agitated whisper. “I have been to him, and he is not at home. I wrote down where he was to come, and left it on his table with my own hand. They said he would not be out long. I have tidings for him. Can you come directly?”

My answer was, to pass out at the gate immediately. She made a hasty gesture with her hand, as if to entreat my patience and my silence, and turned towards London, whence, as her dress betokened, she had come expeditiously on foot.

I asked her if that were not our destination? On her motioning Yes, with the same hasty gesture as before, I stopped an empty coach that was coming by, and we got into it. When I asked her where the coachman was to drive, she answered “Anywhere near Golden Square! And quick!” – then shrunk into a corner, with one trembling hand before her face, and the other making the former gesture, as if she could not bear a voice.

Now much disturbed, and dazzled with conflicting gleams of hope and dread, I looked at her for some explanation. But, seeing how strongly she desired to remain quiet, and feeling that it was my own natural inclination too, at such a time, I did not attempt to break the silence. We proceeded without a word being spoken. Sometimes she glanced out of the window, as though she thought we were going slowly, though indeed we were going fast; but otherwise remained exactly as at first.

We alighted at one of the entrances to the Square she had mentioned, where I directed the coach to wait, not knowing but that we might have some occasion for it. She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets, of which there are several in that part, where the houses were once fair dwellings in the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms. Entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was like a tributary channel to the street.

The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were opened and people’s heads put out; and we passed other people on the stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, before we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. It was a broad panelled staircase, with massive balustrades of some dark wood; cornices above the doors, ornamented with carved fruit and flowers; and broad seats in the windows. But all these tokens of past grandeur were miserably decayed and dirty; rot, damp, and age, had weakened the flooring, which in many places was unsound and even unsafe. Some attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the other. Several of the back windows on the staircase had been darkened or wholly blocked up. In those that remained, there was scarcely any glass; and, through the crumbling frames by which the bad air seemed always to come in, and never to go out, I saw, through other glassless windows, into other houses in a similar condition, and looked giddily down into a wretched yard which was the common dust-heap of the mansion.

We proceeded to the top-story of the house. Two or three times, by the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it turned the handle and went in.

“What’s this!” said Martha, in a whisper. “She has gone into my room. I don’t know her!”

I knew her. I had recognised her with amazement, for Miss Dartle.

I said something to the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen before, in a few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done so, when we heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we stood, what she was saying. Martha, with an astonished look, repeated her former action, and softly led me up the stairs; and then, by a little back door which seemed to have no lock, and which she pushed open with a touch, into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof: little better than a cupboard. Between this, and the room she had called hers, there was a small door of communication, standing partly open. Here we stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on my lips. I could only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large; that there was a bed in it; and that there were some common pictures of ships upon the walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom we had heard her address. Certainly, my companion could not, for my position was the best.

A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha kept one hand on my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude.

“It matters little to me her not being at home,” said Rosa Dartle, haughtily, “I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see.”