David Copperfield
hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly.
‘Dick,’ said my aunt, ‘attention!’
Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush.
‘Now, sir,’ said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves, ‘we
are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as YOU please.’
‘Madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘I trust you will shortly witness an
eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to mention
here that we have been in communication together?’
‘It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield,’ said Traddles, to whom I
looked in surprise. ‘Mr. Micawber has consulted me in reference to
what he has in contemplation; and I have advised him to the best of my
judgement.’
‘Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles,’ pursued Mr. Micawber, ‘what I
contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature.’
‘Highly so,’ said Traddles.
‘Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen,’ said Mr.
Micawber, ‘you will do me the favour to submit yourselves, for the
moment, to the direction of one who, however unworthy to be regarded in
any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature,
is still your fellow-man, though crushed out of his original form
by individual errors, and the accumulative force of a combination of
circumstances?’
‘We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘and will do
what you please.’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘your confidence is not, at
the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed a start
of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the present company,
inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of Wickfield and Heep, whose
Stipendiary I am.’
My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval.
‘I have no more,’ observed Mr. Micawber, ‘to say at present.’
With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a
comprehensive bow, and disappeared; his manner being extremely distant,
and his face extremely pale.
Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing upright
on the top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation; so I took
out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the five minutes. My
aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the like. When the time was
expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we all went out together to the
old house, without saying one word on the way.
We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the
ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The large
office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so well concealed
but that a foot or more of that instrument protruded from his bosom,
like a new kind of shirt-frill.
As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud:
‘How do you do, Mr. Micawber?’
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, gravely, ‘I hope I see you well?’
‘Is Miss Wickfield at home?’ said I.
‘Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever,’ he
returned; ‘but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to see old
friends. Will you walk in, sir?’
He preceded us to the dining-room--the first room I had entered in that
house--and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield’s former office,
said, in a sonorous voice:
‘Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and Mr.
Dixon!’
I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit
astonished him, evidently; not the less, I dare say, because it
astonished ourselves. He did not gather his eyebrows together, for he
had none worth mentioning; but he frowned to that degree that he almost
closed his small eyes, while the hurried raising of his grisly hand to
his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. This was only when we
were in the act of entering his room, and when I caught a glance at him
over my aunt’s shoulder. A moment afterwards, he was as fawning and as
humble as ever.
‘Well, I am sure,’ he said. ‘This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! To
have, as I may say, all friends round St. Paul’s at once, is a treat
unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you well, and--if I may
umbly express myself so--friendly towards them as is ever your friends,
whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, sir, I hope she’s getting on. We have
been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state,
lately, I do assure you.’
I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what else
to do.
‘Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was an umble
clerk, and held your pony; ain’t they?’ said Uriah, with his sickliest
smile. ‘But I am not changed, Miss Trotwood.’
‘Well, sir,’ returned my aunt, ‘to tell you the truth, I think you are
pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that’s any satisfaction
to you.’
‘Thank you, Miss Trotwood,’ said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly manner,
‘for your good opinion! Micawber, tell ‘em to let Miss Agnes know--and
mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she sees the present
company!’ said Uriah, setting chairs.
‘You are not busy, Mr. Heep?’ said Traddles, whose eye the cunning red
eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinized and evaded us.
‘No, Mr. Traddles,’ replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and
squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm between his bony knees. ‘Not
so much so as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not
easily satisfied, you know! Not but what myself and Micawber have our
hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr. Wickfield’s being
hardly fit for any occupation, sir. But it’s a pleasure as well as a
duty, I am sure, to work for him. You’ve not been intimate with Mr.
Wickfield, I think, Mr. Traddles? I believe I’ve only had the honour of
seeing you once myself?’
‘No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield,’ returned Traddles;
‘or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr. Heep.’
There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah look at
the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious expression. But,
seeing only Traddles, with his good-natured face, simple manner, and
hair on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole
body, but especially his throat:
‘I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as much
as we all do. His little failings would only have endeared him to you
the more. But if you would like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently
spoken of, I should refer you to Copperfield. The family is a subject
he’s very strong upon, if you never heard him.’
I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have
done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by Mr.
Micawber. She was not quite so self-possessed as usual, I thought; and
had evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. But her earnest cordiality,
and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler lustre for it.
I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of an
ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the meanwhile,
some slight sign passed between Mr. Micawber and Traddles; and Traddles,
unobserved except by me, went out.
‘Don’t wait, Micawber,’ said Uriah.
Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood erect
before the door, most unmistakably contemplating one of his fellow-men,
and that man his employer.
‘What are you waiting for?’ said Uriah. ‘Micawber! did you hear me tell
you not to wait?’
‘Yes!’ replied the immovable Mr. Micawber.
‘Then why DO you wait?’ said Uriah.
‘Because I--in short, choose,’ replied Mr. Micawber, with a burst.
Uriah’s cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still faintly
tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at Mr. Micawber
attentively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every
feature.
‘You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows,’ he said, with an
effort at a smile, ‘and I am afraid you’ll oblige me to get rid of you.
Go along! I’ll talk to you presently.’
‘If there is a scoundrel on this earth,’ said Mr. Micawber, suddenly
breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, ‘with whom I have already
talked too much, that scoundrel’s name is--HEEP!’
Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly round
upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face could
wear, he said, in a lower voice:
‘Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here by appointment! You are
playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take care.
You’ll make nothing of this. We understand each other, you and me.
There’s no love between us. You were always a puppy with a proud
stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my rise, do you?
None of your plots against me; I’ll counterplot you! Micawber, you be
off. I’ll talk to you presently.’
‘Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘there is a sudden change in this fellow, in
more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth in
one particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. Deal with
him as he deserves!’
‘You are a precious set of people, ain’t you?’ said Uriah, in the same
low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped from his
forehead, with his long lean hand, ‘to buy over my clerk, who is the
very scum of society,--as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know it,
before anyone had charity on you,--to defame me with his lies? Miss
Trotwood, you had better stop this; or I’ll stop your husband shorter
than will be pleasant to you. I won’t know your story professionally,
for nothing, old lady! Miss Wickfield, if you have any love for your
father, you had better not join that gang. I’ll ruin him, if you do.
Now, come! I have got some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before
it goes over you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don’t want to
be crushed. I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to
presently, you fool! while there’s time to retreat. Where’s mother?’ he
said, suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles,
and pulling down the bell-rope. ‘Fine doings in a person’s own house!’
‘Mrs. Heep is here, sir,’ said Traddles, returning with that worthy
mother of a worthy son. ‘I have taken the liberty of making myself known
to her.’
‘Who are you to make yourself known?’ retorted Uriah. ‘And what do you
want here?’
‘I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ said Traddles, in a
composed and business-like way. ‘And I have a power of attorney from him
in my pocket, to act for him in all matters.’
‘The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,’ said Uriah,
turning uglier than before, ‘and it has been got from him by fraud!’
‘Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,’ returned Traddles
quietly; ‘and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that question, if you
please, to Mr. Micawber.’
‘Ury--!’ Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture.
‘YOU hold your tongue, mother,’ he returned; ‘least said, soonest
mended.’
‘But, my Ury--’
‘Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?’
Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his
pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the
extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. The
suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was
useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer
with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done--all
this time being desperate too, and at his wits’ end for the means
of getting the better of us--though perfectly consistent with the
experience I had of him, at first took even me by surprise, who had
known him so long, and disliked him so heartily.
I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us,