David Copperfield
‘Yes! quite well, and very happy!’ said Dora. ‘But say you’ll let me
stop, and see you write.’
‘Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!’ I replied.
‘Are they bright, though?’ returned Dora, laughing. ‘I’m so glad they’re
bright.’ ‘Little Vanity!’ said I.
But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. I
knew that very well, before she told me so.
‘If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you write!’
said Dora. ‘Do you think them pretty?’
‘Very pretty.’
‘Then let me always stop and see you write.’
‘I am afraid that won’t improve their brightness, Dora.’
‘Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you’ll not forget me then, while
you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say something
very, very silly?---more than usual?’ inquired Dora, peeping over my
shoulder into my face.
‘What wonderful thing is that?’ said I.
‘Please let me hold the pens,’ said Dora. ‘I want to have something to
do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I hold the
pens?’
The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into my
eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards,
she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her
triumph in this connexion with my work, and her delight when I wanted a
new pen--which I very often feigned to do--suggested to me a new way of
pleasing my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretence of wanting a
page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The
preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the
bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she
took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if
he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless
she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it
to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round
the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear
to other men.
She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about
the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her slender
waist. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged were
locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Jip--but
Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a
good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping; and was as
merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house, for a joke.
So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me,
and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was ‘a cross old
thing’. I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone. She
courted Jip, though Jip never responded; listened, day after day, to the
guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked
the Incapables, though the temptation must have been severe; went
wonderful distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that
she found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed
her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in
a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house:
‘Where’s Little Blossom?’
CHAPTER 45. MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT’S PREDICTIONS
It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his
neighbourhood, I saw him frequently; and we all went to his house on two
or three occasions to dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in permanent
quarters under the Doctor’s roof. She was exactly the same as ever, and
the same immortal butterflies hovered over her cap.
Like some other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my life,
Mrs. Markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was.
She required a great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier,
pretended, in consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself
to her child. The Doctor’s desire that Annie should be entertained,
was therefore particularly acceptable to this excellent parent; who
expressed unqualified approval of his discretion.
I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor’s wound without
knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and
selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think she
confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his young
wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by so
strongly commending his design of lightening the load of her life.
‘My dear soul,’ she said to him one day when I was present, ‘you know
there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for Annie to be always shut
up here.’
The Doctor nodded his benevolent head. ‘When she comes to her mother’s
age,’ said Mrs. Markleham, with a flourish of her fan, ‘then it’ll be
another thing. You might put ME into a Jail, with genteel society and
a rubber, and I should never care to come out. But I am not Annie, you
know; and Annie is not her mother.’
‘Surely, surely,’ said the Doctor.
‘You are the best of creatures--no, I beg your pardon!’ for the Doctor
made a gesture of deprecation, ‘I must say before your face, as I always
say behind your back, you are the best of creatures; but of course you
don’t--now do you?---enter into the same pursuits and fancies as Annie?’
‘No,’ said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone.
‘No, of course not,’ retorted the Old Soldier. ‘Take your Dictionary,
for example. What a useful work a Dictionary is! What a necessary work!
The meanings of words! Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that sort,
we might have been at this present moment calling an Italian-iron,
a bedstead. But we can’t expect a Dictionary--especially when it’s
making--to interest Annie, can we?’
The Doctor shook his head.
‘And that’s why I so much approve,’ said Mrs. Markleham, tapping him
on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, ‘of your thoughtfulness. It shows
that you don’t expect, as many elderly people do expect, old heads on
young shoulders. You have studied Annie’s character, and you understand
it. That’s what I find so charming!’
Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some little
sense of pain, I thought, under the infliction of these compliments.
‘Therefore, my dear Doctor,’ said the Old Soldier, giving him several
affectionate taps, ‘you may command me, at all times and seasons. Now,
do understand that I am entirely at your service. I am ready to go with
Annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places; and you
shall never find that I am tired. Duty, my dear Doctor, before every
consideration in the universe!’
She was as good as her word. She was one of those people who can bear
a great deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance
in the cause. She seldom got hold of the newspaper (which she settled
herself down in the softest chair in the house to read through an
eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but she found out something that
she was certain Annie would like to see. It was in vain for Annie to
protest that she was weary of such things. Her mother’s remonstrance
always was, ‘Now, my dear Annie, I am sure you know better; and I must
tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the
kindness of Doctor Strong.’
This was usually said in the Doctor’s presence, and appeared to me to
constitute Annie’s principal inducement for withdrawing her objections
when she made any. But in general she resigned herself to her mother,
and went where the Old Soldier would.
It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Sometimes
my aunt and Dora were invited to do so, and accepted the invitation.
Sometimes Dora only was asked. The time had been, when I should have
been uneasy in her going; but reflection on what had passed that
former night in the Doctor’s study, had made a change in my mistrust. I
believed that the Doctor was right, and I had no worse suspicions.
My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with
me, and said she couldn’t make it out; she wished they were happier; she
didn’t think our military friend (so she always called the Old Soldier)
mended the matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion, ‘that
if our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give ‘em to
the chimney-sweepers for May-day, it would look like the beginning of
something sensible on her part.’
But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently an
idea in his head, she said; and if he could only once pen it up into a
corner, which was his great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in
some extraordinary manner.
Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy precisely
the same ground in reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed
neither to advance nor to recede. He appeared to have settled into his
original foundation, like a building; and I must confess that my faith
in his ever Moving, was not much greater than if he had been a building.
But one night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put his
head into the parlour, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone out
with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a
significant cough:
‘You couldn’t speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, Trotwood, I
am afraid?’
‘Certainly, Mr. Dick,’ said I; ‘come in!’
‘Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his nose,
after he had shaken hands with me. ‘Before I sit down, I wish to make an
observation. You know your aunt?’
‘A little,’ I replied.
‘She is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir!’
After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself
as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity
than usual, and looked at me.
‘Now, boy,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘I am going to put a question to you.’
‘As many as you please,’ said I.
‘What do you consider me, sir?’ asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms.
‘A dear old friend,’ said I. ‘Thank you, Trotwood,’ returned Mr. Dick,
laughing, and reaching across in high glee to shake hands with me. ‘But
I mean, boy,’ resuming his gravity, ‘what do you consider me in this
respect?’ touching his forehead.
I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word.
‘Weak?’ said Mr. Dick.
‘Well,’ I replied, dubiously. ‘Rather so.’
‘Exactly!’ cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. ‘That
is, Trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of you-know-who’s
head, and put it you know where, there was a--’ Mr. Dick made his two
hands revolve very fast about each other a great number of times, and
then brought them into collision, and rolled them over and over one
another, to express confusion. ‘There was that sort of thing done to me
somehow. Eh?’
I nodded at him, and he nodded back again.
‘In short, boy,’ said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, ‘I am
simple.’
I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me.
‘Yes, I am! She pretends I am not. She won’t hear of it; but I am. I
know I am. If she hadn’t stood my friend, sir, I should have been shut
up, to lead a dismal life these many years. But I’ll provide for her!
I never spend the copying money. I put it in a box. I have made a will.
I’ll leave it all to her. She shall be rich--noble!’
Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He then
folded it up with great care, pressed it smooth between his two hands,
put it in his pocket, and seemed to put my aunt away with it.
‘Now you are a scholar, Trotwood,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘You are a fine
scholar. You know what a learned man, what a great man, the Doctor is.
You know what honour he has always done me. Not proud in his wisdom.