David Copperfield
can’t say, I am sure. We shall see.’
My spirits sank under these words, and I became very downcast and heavy
of heart. My aunt, without appearing to take much heed of me, put on a
coarse apron with a bib, which she took out of the press; washed up the
teacups with her own hands; and, when everything was washed and set in
the tray again, and the cloth folded and put on the top of the whole,
rang for Janet to remove it. She next swept up the crumbs with a little
broom (putting on a pair of gloves first), until there did not appear
to be one microscopic speck left on the carpet; next dusted and arranged
the room, which was dusted and arranged to a hair’s breadth already.
When all these tasks were performed to her satisfaction, she took off
the gloves and apron, folded them up, put them in the particular corner
of the press from which they had been taken, brought out her work-box
to her own table in the open window, and sat down, with the green fan
between her and the light, to work.
‘I wish you’d go upstairs,’ said my aunt, as she threaded her needle,
‘and give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and I’ll be glad to know how he
gets on with his Memorial.’
I rose with all alacrity, to acquit myself of this commission.
‘I suppose,’ said my aunt, eyeing me as narrowly as she had eyed the
needle in threading it, ‘you think Mr. Dick a short name, eh?’
‘I thought it was rather a short name, yesterday,’ I confessed.
‘You are not to suppose that he hasn’t got a longer name, if he chose
to use it,’ said my aunt, with a loftier air. ‘Babley--Mr. Richard
Babley--that’s the gentleman’s true name.’
I was going to suggest, with a modest sense of my youth and the
familiarity I had been already guilty of, that I had better give him the
full benefit of that name, when my aunt went on to say:
‘But don’t you call him by it, whatever you do. He can’t bear his name.
That’s a peculiarity of his. Though I don’t know that it’s much of a
peculiarity, either; for he has been ill-used enough, by some that bear
it, to have a mortal antipathy for it, Heaven knows. Mr. Dick is his
name here, and everywhere else, now--if he ever went anywhere else,
which he don’t. So take care, child, you don’t call him anything BUT Mr.
Dick.’
I promised to obey, and went upstairs with my message; thinking, as I
went, that if Mr. Dick had been working at his Memorial long, at the
same rate as I had seen him working at it, through the open door, when
I came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him
still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the
paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample leisure to observe the
large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript,
the number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed
to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed my
being present.
‘Ha! Phoebus!’ said Mr. Dick, laying down his pen. ‘How does the world
go? I’ll tell you what,’ he added, in a lower tone, ‘I shouldn’t wish it
to be mentioned, but it’s a--’ here he beckoned to me, and put his lips
close to my ear--‘it’s a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!’ said Mr. Dick,
taking snuff from a round box on the table, and laughing heartily.
Without presuming to give my opinion on this question, I delivered my
message.
‘Well,’ said Mr. Dick, in answer, ‘my compliments to her, and I--I
believe I have made a start. I think I have made a start,’ said Mr.
Dick, passing his hand among his grey hair, and casting anything but a
confident look at his manuscript. ‘You have been to school?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I answered; ‘for a short time.’
‘Do you recollect the date,’ said Mr. Dick, looking earnestly at me, and
taking up his pen to note it down, ‘when King Charles the First had his
head cut off?’ I said I believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred
and forty-nine.
‘Well,’ returned Mr. Dick, scratching his ear with his pen, and looking
dubiously at me. ‘So the books say; but I don’t see how that can be.
Because, if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made
that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it
was taken off, into mine?’
I was very much surprised by the inquiry; but could give no information
on this point.
‘It’s very strange,’ said Mr. Dick, with a despondent look upon his
papers, and with his hand among his hair again, ‘that I never can get
that quite right. I never can make that perfectly clear. But no matter,
no matter!’ he said cheerfully, and rousing himself, ‘there’s time
enough! My compliments to Miss Trotwood, I am getting on very well
indeed.’
I was going away, when he directed my attention to the kite.
‘What do you think of that for a kite?’ he said.
I answered that it was a beautiful one. I should think it must have been
as much as seven feet high.
‘I made it. We’ll go and fly it, you and I,’ said Mr. Dick. ‘Do you see
this?’
He showed me that it was covered with manuscript, very closely and
laboriously written; but so plainly, that as I looked along the lines,
I thought I saw some allusion to King Charles the First’s head again, in
one or two places.
‘There’s plenty of string,’ said Mr. Dick, ‘and when it flies high, it
takes the facts a long way. That’s my manner of diffusing ‘em. I don’t
know where they may come down. It’s according to circumstances, and the
wind, and so forth; but I take my chance of that.’
His face was so very mild and pleasant, and had something so reverend in
it, though it was hale and hearty, that I was not sure but that he was
having a good-humoured jest with me. So I laughed, and he laughed, and
we parted the best friends possible.
‘Well, child,’ said my aunt, when I went downstairs. ‘And what of Mr.
Dick, this morning?’
I informed her that he sent his compliments, and was getting on very
well indeed.
‘What do you think of him?’ said my aunt.
I had some shadowy idea of endeavouring to evade the question, by
replying that I thought him a very nice gentleman; but my aunt was
not to be so put off, for she laid her work down in her lap, and said,
folding her hands upon it:
‘Come! Your sister Betsey Trotwood would have told me what she thought
of anyone, directly. Be as like your sister as you can, and speak out!’
‘Is he--is Mr. Dick--I ask because I don’t know, aunt--is he at all out
of his mind, then?’ I stammered; for I felt I was on dangerous ground.
‘Not a morsel,’ said my aunt.
‘Oh, indeed!’ I observed faintly.
‘If there is anything in the world,’ said my aunt, with great decision
and force of manner, ‘that Mr. Dick is not, it’s that.’
I had nothing better to offer, than another timid, ‘Oh, indeed!’
‘He has been CALLED mad,’ said my aunt. ‘I have a selfish pleasure in
saying he has been called mad, or I should not have had the benefit of
his society and advice for these last ten years and upwards--in fact,
ever since your sister, Betsey Trotwood, disappointed me.’
‘So long as that?’ I said.
‘And nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad,’
pursued my aunt. ‘Mr. Dick is a sort of distant connexion of mine--it
doesn’t matter how; I needn’t enter into that. If it hadn’t been for me,
his own brother would have shut him up for life. That’s all.’
I am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt
strongly on the subject, I tried to look as if I felt strongly too.
‘A proud fool!’ said my aunt. ‘Because his brother was a little
eccentric--though he is not half so eccentric as a good many people--he
didn’t like to have him visible about his house, and sent him away to
some private asylum-place: though he had been left to his particular
care by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. And a
wise man he must have been to think so! Mad himself, no doubt.’
Again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, I endeavoured to look quite
convinced also.
‘So I stepped in,’ said my aunt, ‘and made him an offer. I said, “Your
brother’s sane--a great deal more sane than you are, or ever will be, it
is to be hoped. Let him have his little income, and come and live with
me. I am not afraid of him, I am not proud, I am ready to take care
of him, and shall not ill-treat him as some people (besides the
asylum-folks) have done.” After a good deal of squabbling,’ said my
aunt, ‘I got him; and he has been here ever since. He is the most
friendly and amenable creature in existence; and as for advice!--But
nobody knows what that man’s mind is, except myself.’
My aunt smoothed her dress and shook her head, as if she smoothed
defiance of the whole world out of the one, and shook it out of the
other.
‘He had a favourite sister,’ said my aunt, ‘a good creature, and very
kind to him. But she did what they all do--took a husband. And HE did
what they all do--made her wretched. It had such an effect upon the mind
of Mr. Dick (that’s not madness, I hope!) that, combined with his fear
of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into a
fever. That was before he came to me, but the recollection of it is
oppressive to him even now. Did he say anything to you about King
Charles the First, child?’
‘Yes, aunt.’
‘Ah!’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed.
‘That’s his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his illness
with great disturbance and agitation, naturally, and that’s the figure,
or the simile, or whatever it’s called, which he chooses to use. And why
shouldn’t he, if he thinks proper!’
I said: ‘Certainly, aunt.’
‘It’s not a business-like way of speaking,’ said my aunt, ‘nor a worldly
way. I am aware of that; and that’s the reason why I insist upon it,
that there shan’t be a word about it in his Memorial.’
‘Is it a Memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?’
‘Yes, child,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. ‘He is memorializing
the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other--one of those people,
at all events, who are paid to be memorialized--about his affairs. I
suppose it will go in, one of these days. He hasn’t been able to draw
it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing himself; but it
don’t signify; it keeps him employed.’
In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards
of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the
Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now.
‘I say again,’ said my aunt, ‘nobody knows what that man’s mind is
except myself; and he’s the most amenable and friendly creature in
existence. If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that! Franklin
used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, if I
am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous
object than anybody else.’
If I could have supposed that my aunt had recounted these particulars
for my especial behoof, and as a piece of confidence in me, I should
have felt very much distinguished, and should have augured favourably
from such a mark of her good opinion. But I could hardly help observing
that she had launched into them, chiefly because the question was raised
in her own mind, and with very little reference to me, though she had
addressed herself to me in the absence of anybody else.
At the same time, I must say that the generosity of her championship
of poor harmless Mr. Dick, not only inspired my young breast with
some selfish hope for myself, but warmed it unselfishly towards her.
I believe that I began to know that there was something about my aunt,
notwithstanding her many eccentricities and odd humours, to be honoured
and trusted in. Though she was just as sharp that day as on the day
before, and was in and out about the donkeys just as often, and was