David Copperfield
she was sensibly affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs.
Micawber’s heart, which had not been dunned out of it in all those many
years.
‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber,’ was my aunt’s first salutation after we
were seated. ‘Pray, have you thought about that emigration proposal of
mine?’
‘My dear madam,’ returned Mr. Micawber, ‘perhaps I cannot better express
the conclusion at which Mrs. Micawber, your humble servant, and I may
add our children, have jointly and severally arrived, than by borrowing
the language of an illustrious poet, to reply that our Boat is on the
shore, and our Bark is on the sea.’
‘That’s right,’ said my aunt. ‘I augur all sort of good from your
sensible decision.’
‘Madam, you do us a great deal of honour,’ he rejoined. He then referred
to a memorandum. ‘With respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling
us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have
reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose
my notes of hand--drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the
amounts respectively required by the various Acts of Parliament applying
to such securities--at eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months.
The proposition I originally submitted, was twelve, eighteen, and
twenty-four; but I am apprehensive that such an arrangement might not
allow sufficient time for the requisite amount of--Something--to turn
up. We might not,’ said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room as if it
represented several hundred acres of highly cultivated land, ‘on the
first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our harvest,
or we might not have got our harvest in. Labour, I believe, is sometimes
difficult to obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it
will be our lot to combat with the teeming soil.’
‘Arrange it in any way you please, sir,’ said my aunt.
‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible of
the very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What I wish
is, to be perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. Turning over,
as we are about to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back,
as we are now in the act of falling back, for a Spring of no common
magnitude; it is important to my sense of self-respect, besides being
an example to my son, that these arrangements should be concluded as
between man and man.’
I don’t know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase;
I don’t know that anybody ever does, or did; but he appeared to relish
it uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, ‘as between man
and man’.
‘I propose,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘Bills--a convenience to the mercantile
world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted to the Jews, who
appear to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them
ever since--because they are negotiable. But if a Bond, or any other
description of security, would be preferred, I should be happy to
execute any such instrument. As between man and man.’
My aunt observed, that in a case where both parties were willing to
agree to anything, she took it for granted there would be no difficulty
in settling this point. Mr. Micawber was of her opinion.
‘In reference to our domestic preparations, madam,’ said Mr. Micawber,
with some pride, ‘for meeting the destiny to which we are now understood
to be self-devoted, I beg to report them. My eldest daughter attends
at five every morning in a neighbouring establishment, to acquire
the process--if process it may be called--of milking cows. My younger
children are instructed to observe, as closely as circumstances will
permit, the habits of the pigs and poultry maintained in the poorer
parts of this city: a pursuit from which they have, on two occasions,
been brought home, within an inch of being run over. I have myself
directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking; and
my son Wilkins has issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle,
when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to
render any voluntary service in that direction--which I regret to say,
for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being generally warned,
with imprecations, to desist.’
‘All very right indeed,’ said my aunt, encouragingly. ‘Mrs. Micawber has
been busy, too, I have no doubt.’
‘My dear madam,’ returned Mrs. Micawber, with her business-like air.
‘I am free to confess that I have not been actively engaged in pursuits
immediately connected with cultivation or with stock, though well aware
that both will claim my attention on a foreign shore. Such opportunities
as I have been enabled to alienate from my domestic duties, I have
devoted to corresponding at some length with my family. For I own it
seems to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always
fell back on me, I suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might
address her discourse at starting, ‘that the time is come when the past
should be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by
the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take my family by the hand; when the
lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms with Mr.
Micawber.’
I said I thought so too.
‘This, at least, is the light, my dear Mr. Copperfield,’ pursued Mrs.
Micawber, ‘in which I view the subject. When I lived at home with my
papa and mama, my papa was accustomed to ask, when any point was under
discussion in our limited circle, “In what light does my Emma view the
subject?” That my papa was too partial, I know; still, on such a point
as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between Mr. Micawber and
my family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may
be.’
‘No doubt. Of course you have, ma’am,’ said my aunt.
‘Precisely so,’ assented Mrs. Micawber. ‘Now, I may be wrong in my
conclusions; it is very likely that I am, but my individual impression
is, that the gulf between my family and Mr. Micawber may be traced to an
apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr. Micawber would require
pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking,’ said Mrs. Micawber,
with an air of deep sagacity, ‘that there are members of my family who
have been apprehensive that Mr. Micawber would solicit them for their
names.---I do not mean to be conferred in Baptism upon our children,
but to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money
Market.’
The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this
discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to
astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, ‘Well, ma’am, upon the whole, I
shouldn’t wonder if you were right!’
‘Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary
shackles that have so long enthralled him,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘and of
commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range
for his abilities,--which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important; Mr.
Micawber’s abilities peculiarly requiring space,--it seems to me that
my family should signalize the occasion by coming forward. What I could
wish to see, would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at
a festive entertainment, to be given at my family’s expense; where Mr.
Micawber’s health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member
of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing his
views.’
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, ‘it may be better for me
to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views to that
assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature:
my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent
Snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians.’
‘Micawber,’ said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, ‘no! You have never
understood them, and they have never understood you.’
Mr. Micawber coughed.
‘They have never understood you, Micawber,’ said his wife. ‘They may
be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity their
misfortune.’
‘I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,’ said Mr. Micawber, relenting, ‘to
have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have
the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say is, that
I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favour me,--in
short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders; and that, upon the
whole, I would rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than
derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my
dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications--which
our joint experience renders most improbable--far be it from me to be a
barrier to your wishes.’
The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. Micawber
his arm, and glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before
Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to ourselves; which they
ceremoniously did.
‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, leaning back in his chair when
they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes
red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, ‘I don’t make any excuse for
troubling you with business, because I know you are deeply interested
in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope you are not
worn out?’
‘I am quite myself,’ said I, after a pause. ‘We have more cause to think
of my aunt than of anyone. You know how much she has done.’
‘Surely, surely,’ answered Traddles. ‘Who can forget it!’
‘But even that is not all,’ said I. ‘During the last fortnight, some new
trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of London every day.
Several times she has gone out early, and been absent until evening.
Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost
midnight before she came home. You know what her consideration for
others is. She will not tell me what has happened to distress her.’
My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable until
I had finished; when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, and
she put her hand on mine.
‘It’s nothing, Trot; it’s nothing. There will be no more of it. You
shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to these
affairs.’
‘I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say,’ Traddles began, ‘that
although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for
himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. I
never saw such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, he must
be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. The heat into
which he has been continually putting himself; and the distracted and
impetuous manner in which he has been diving, day and night, among
papers and books; to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has
written me between this house and Mr. Wickfield’s, and often across the
table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much more easily have
spoken; is quite extraordinary.’
‘Letters!’ cried my aunt. ‘I believe he dreams in letters!’
‘There’s Mr. Dick, too,’ said Traddles, ‘has been doing wonders! As soon
as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept in such
charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to Mr.
Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we
have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying,
and fetching, and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us.’
‘Dick is a very remarkable man,’ exclaimed my aunt; ‘and I always said
he was. Trot, you know it.’
‘I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield,’ pursued Traddles, at once with
great delicacy and with great earnestness, ‘that in your absence Mr.
Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus that had
fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions