David Copperfield
‘I had, at one time, certainly,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘I--God forgive
me--I thought YOU had.’
‘No, no, no!’ returned the Doctor, in a tone of most pathetic grief.
‘I thought, at one time,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘that you wished to send
Maldon abroad to effect a desirable separation.’
‘No, no, no!’ returned the Doctor. ‘To give Annie pleasure, by making
some provision for the companion of her childhood. Nothing else.’
‘So I found,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘I couldn’t doubt it, when you told
me so. But I thought--I implore you to remember the narrow construction
which has been my besetting sin--that, in a case where there was so much
disparity in point of years--’
‘That’s the way to put it, you see, Master Copperfield!’ observed Uriah,
with fawning and offensive pity.
‘--a lady of such youth, and such attractions, however real her
respect for you, might have been influenced in marrying, by worldly
considerations only. I make no allowance for innumerable feelings
and circumstances that may have all tended to good. For Heaven’s sake
remember that!’
‘How kind he puts it!’ said Uriah, shaking his head.
‘Always observing her from one point of view,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘but
by all that is dear to you, my old friend, I entreat you to consider
what it was; I am forced to confess now, having no escape-’
‘No! There’s no way out of it, Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ observed Uriah,
‘when it’s got to this.’
‘--that I did,’ said Mr. Wickfield, glancing helplessly and distractedly
at his partner, ‘that I did doubt her, and think her wanting in her
duty to you; and that I did sometimes, if I must say all, feel averse
to Agnes being in such a familiar relation towards her, as to see what I
saw, or in my diseased theory fancied that I saw. I never mentioned
this to anyone. I never meant it to be known to anyone. And though it
is terrible to you to hear,’ said Mr. Wickfield, quite subdued, ‘if you
knew how terrible it is for me to tell, you would feel compassion for
me!’
The Doctor, in the perfect goodness of his nature, put out his hand. Mr.
Wickfield held it for a little while in his, with his head bowed down.
‘I am sure,’ said Uriah, writhing himself into the silence like a
Conger-eel, ‘that this is a subject full of unpleasantness to everybody.
But since we have got so far, I ought to take the liberty of mentioning
that Copperfield has noticed it too.’
I turned upon him, and asked him how he dared refer to me!
‘Oh! it’s very kind of you, Copperfield,’ returned Uriah, undulating all
over, ‘and we all know what an amiable character yours is; but you know
that the moment I spoke to you the other night, you knew what I meant.
You know you knew what I meant, Copperfield. Don’t deny it! You deny it
with the best intentions; but don’t do it, Copperfield.’
I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a moment,
and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances
was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked. It was of no use
raging. I could not undo that. Say what I would, I could not unsay it.
We were silent again, and remained so, until the Doctor rose and walked
twice or thrice across the room. Presently he returned to where his
chair stood; and, leaning on the back of it, and occasionally putting
his handkerchief to his eyes, with a simple honesty that did him more
honour, to my thinking, than any disguise he could have effected, said:
‘I have been much to blame. I believe I have been very much to blame.
I have exposed one whom I hold in my heart, to trials and aspersions--I
call them aspersions, even to have been conceived in anybody’s inmost
mind--of which she never, but for me, could have been the object.’
Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy.
‘Of which my Annie,’ said the Doctor, ‘never, but for me, could have
been the object. Gentlemen, I am old now, as you know; I do not feel,
tonight, that I have much to live for. But my life--my Life--upon the
truth and honour of the dear lady who has been the subject of this
conversation!’
I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realization of
the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could
have said this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the
plain old Doctor did.
‘But I am not prepared,’ he went on, ‘to deny--perhaps I may have been,
without knowing it, in some degree prepared to admit--that I may have
unwittingly ensnared that lady into an unhappy marriage. I am a man
quite unaccustomed to observe; and I cannot but believe that the
observation of several people, of different ages and positions, all too
plainly tending in one direction (and that so natural), is better than
mine.’
I had often admired, as I have elsewhere described, his benignant manner
towards his youthful wife; but the respectful tenderness he manifested
in every reference to her on this occasion, and the almost reverential
manner in which he put away from him the lightest doubt of her
integrity, exalted him, in my eyes, beyond description.
‘I married that lady,’ said the Doctor, ‘when she was extremely young. I
took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed. So far as it
was developed, it had been my happiness to form it. I knew her father
well. I knew her well. I had taught her what I could, for the love of
all her beautiful and virtuous qualities. If I did her wrong; as I fear
I did, in taking advantage (but I never meant it) of her gratitude and
her affection; I ask pardon of that lady, in my heart!’
He walked across the room, and came back to the same place; holding
the chair with a grasp that trembled, like his subdued voice, in its
earnestness.
‘I regarded myself as a refuge, for her, from the dangers and
vicissitudes of life. I persuaded myself that, unequal though we were in
years, she would live tranquilly and contentedly with me. I did not shut
out of my consideration the time when I should leave her free, and still
young and still beautiful, but with her judgement more matured--no,
gentlemen--upon my truth!’
His homely figure seemed to be lightened up by his fidelity and
generosity. Every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could
have imparted to it.
‘My life with this lady has been very happy. Until tonight, I have
had uninterrupted occasion to bless the day on which I did her great
injustice.’
His voice, more and more faltering in the utterance of these words,
stopped for a few moments; then he went on:
‘Once awakened from my dream--I have been a poor dreamer, in one way or
other, all my life--I see how natural it is that she should have some
regretful feeling towards her old companion and her equal. That she does
regard him with some innocent regret, with some blameless thoughts of
what might have been, but for me, is, I fear, too true. Much that I have
seen, but not noted, has come back upon me with new meaning, during
this last trying hour. But, beyond this, gentlemen, the dear lady’s name
never must be coupled with a word, a breath, of doubt.’
For a little while, his eye kindled and his voice was firm; for a little
while he was again silent. Presently, he proceeded as before:
‘It only remains for me, to bear the knowledge of the unhappiness I have
occasioned, as submissively as I can. It is she who should reproach; not
I. To save her from misconstruction, cruel misconstruction, that even my
friends have not been able to avoid, becomes my duty. The more retired
we live, the better I shall discharge it. And when the time comes--may
it come soon, if it be His merciful pleasure!--when my death shall
release her from constraint, I shall close my eyes upon her honoured
face, with unbounded confidence and love; and leave her, with no sorrow
then, to happier and brighter days.’
I could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness,
so adorned by, and so adorning, the perfect simplicity of his manner,
brought into my eyes. He had moved to the door, when he added:
‘Gentlemen, I have shown you my heart. I am sure you will respect it.
What we have said tonight is never to be said more. Wickfield, give me
an old friend’s arm upstairs!’
Mr. Wickfield hastened to him. Without interchanging a word they went
slowly out of the room together, Uriah looking after them.
‘Well, Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah, meekly turning to me. ‘The thing
hasn’t took quite the turn that might have been expected, for the old
Scholar--what an excellent man!--is as blind as a brickbat; but this
family’s out of the cart, I think!’
I needed but the sound of his voice to be so madly enraged as I never
was before, and never have been since.
‘You villain,’ said I, ‘what do you mean by entrapping me into your
schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we
had been in discussion together?’
As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy
exultation of his face, what I already so plainly knew; I mean that he
forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had
set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter; that I couldn’t bear
it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck
it with my open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if I had
burnt them.
He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connexion, looking at
each other. We stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see the
white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and
leave it a deeper red.
‘Copperfield,’ he said at length, in a breathless voice, ‘have you taken
leave of your senses?’
‘I have taken leave of you,’ said I, wresting my hand away. ‘You dog,
I’ll know no more of you.’
‘Won’t you?’ said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put his
hand there. ‘Perhaps you won’t be able to help it. Isn’t this ungrateful
of you, now?’
‘I have shown you often enough,’ said I, ‘that I despise you. I have
shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread your doing
your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?’
He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had
hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think
that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for
the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is no matter.
There was another long pause. His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to
take every shade of colour that could make eyes ugly.
‘Copperfield,’ he said, removing his hand from his cheek, ‘you have
always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at Mr.
Wickfield’s.’
‘You may think what you like,’ said I, still in a towering rage. ‘If it
is not true, so much the worthier you.’
‘And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!’ he rejoined.
I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going out to
bed, when he came between me and the door.
‘Copperfield,’ he said, ‘there must be two parties to a quarrel. I won’t
be one.’
‘You may go to the devil!’ said I.
‘Don’t say that!’ he replied. ‘I know you’ll be sorry afterwards. How
can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad spirit?
But I forgive you.’
‘You forgive me!’ I repeated disdainfully.
‘I do, and you can’t help yourself,’ replied Uriah. ‘To think of your
going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you! But there
can’t be a quarrel without two parties, and I won’t be one. I will be
a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know what you’ve got to
expect.’
The necessity of carrying on this dialogue (his part in which was
very slow; mine very quick) in a low tone, that the house might not be
disturbed at an unseasonable hour, did not improve my temper; though my