David Copperfield
would do, if we were married, and I were to say I should like a nice
Irish stew, she replied that she would tell the servant to make it; and
then clapped her little hands together across my arm, and laughed in
such a charming manner that she was more delightful than ever.
Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was devoted,
was being put down in the corner for Jip to stand upon. But Dora was so
pleased, when she had trained him to stand upon it without offering to
come off, and at the same time to hold the pencil-case in his mouth,
that I was very glad I had bought it.
And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-painting, and the
songs about never leaving off dancing, Ta ra la! and were as happy as
the week was long. I occasionally wished I could venture to hint to Miss
Lavinia, that she treated the darling of my heart a little too much like
a plaything; and I sometimes awoke, as it were, wondering to find that
I had fallen into the general fault, and treated her like a plaything
too--but not often.
CHAPTER 42. MISCHIEF
I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript
is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous
short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of
responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have
already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a
patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me,
and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any
strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my
success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have
worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could
have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order,
and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one
object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon
its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit
of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine,
in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man
indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents
neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted
feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I
do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My
meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have
tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself
to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in
small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed
it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from
the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and
hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this
earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the
two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that
ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no
substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never
to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and
never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now,
to have been my golden rules.
How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes,
I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with a thankful
love.
She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor’s. Mr. Wickfield was
the Doctor’s old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with him, and
do him good. It had been matter of conversation with Agnes when she was
last in town, and this visit was the result. She and her father came
together. I was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged
to find a lodging in the neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic
complaint required change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in
such company. Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day, Uriah,
like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession.
‘You see, Master Copperfield,’ said he, as he forced himself upon my
company for a turn in the Doctor’s garden, ‘where a person loves, a
person is a little jealous--leastways, anxious to keep an eye on the
beloved one.’
‘Of whom are you jealous, now?’ said I.
‘Thanks to you, Master Copperfield,’ he returned, ‘of no one in
particular just at present--no male person, at least.’
‘Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?’
He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed.
‘Really, Master Copperfield,’ he said, ‘--I should say Mister, but I
know you’ll excuse the abit I’ve got into--you’re so insinuating, that
you draw me like a corkscrew! Well, I don’t mind telling you,’ putting
his fish-like hand on mine, ‘I’m not a lady’s man in general, sir, and I
never was, with Mrs. Strong.’
His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning.
‘What do you mean?’ said I.
‘Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield,’ he replied, with a dry
grin, ‘I mean, just at present, what I say.’
‘And what do you mean by your look?’ I retorted, quietly.
‘By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that’s sharp practice! What do I mean
by my look?’
‘Yes,’ said I. ‘By your look.’
He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his
nature to laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went
on to say, with his eyes cast downward--still scraping, very slowly:
‘When I was but an umble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was
for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was
for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far
beneath her, myself, to be noticed.’
‘Well?’ said I; ‘suppose you were!’
‘--And beneath him too,’ pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a
meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin.
‘Don’t you know the Doctor better,’ said I, ‘than to suppose him
conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?’
He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made
his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as
he answered:
‘Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I mean Mr.
Maldon!’
My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions on
that subject, all the Doctor’s happiness and peace, all the mingled
possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I
saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow’s twisting.
‘He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me
about,’ said Uriah. ‘One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was very meek
and umble--and I am. But I didn’t like that sort of thing--and I don’t!’
He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they
seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the
while.
‘She is one of your lovely women, she is,’ he pursued, when he had
slowly restored his face to its natural form; ‘and ready to be no friend
to such as me, I know. She’s just the person as would put my Agnes up
to higher sort of game. Now, I ain’t one of your lady’s men, Master
Copperfield; but I’ve had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We
umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking--and we look out of ‘em.’
I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in
his face, with poor success.
‘Now, I’m not a-going to let myself be run down, Copperfield,’ he
continued, raising that part of his countenance, where his red eyebrows
would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, ‘and I shall
do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I don’t approve of it.
I don’t mind acknowledging to you that I’ve got rather a grudging
disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain’t a-going, if I
know it, to run the risk of being plotted against.’
‘You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that
everybody else is doing the like, I think,’ said I.
‘Perhaps so, Master Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘But I’ve got a motive, as
my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. I mustn’t
be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can’t allow people in my
way. Really they must come out of the cart, Master Copperfield!’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said I.
‘Don’t you, though?’ he returned, with one of his jerks. ‘I’m astonished
at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick! I’ll try to be
plainer, another time.---Is that Mr. Maldon a-norseback, ringing at the
gate, sir?’
‘It looks like him,’ I replied, as carelessly as I could.
Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, and
doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. Not
a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour,
particularly by this concluding instance, that I turned away without any
ceremony; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a
scarecrow in want of support.
It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next evening
but one, which was a Sunday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. I had
arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was
expected to tea.
I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little
betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to
Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured
Dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks I knew so well; now
making up my mind that I should like her to look exactly as she looked
at such a time, and then doubting whether I should not prefer her
looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying myself
into a fever about it.
I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but
it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the
drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly
keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for her, now; and sure
enough I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old
door.
At first she wouldn’t come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes
by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken
to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never
been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she
was ten thousand times prettier yet.
Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was
‘too clever’. But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so
earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of
pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes’s neck,
and laid her innocent cheek against her face.
I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two sit
down together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking up
so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful
regard which Agnes cast upon her.
Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It was
the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut
and handed the sweet seed-cake--the little sisters had a bird-like
fondness for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked
on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and
we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another.
The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet
interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making
acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when