David Copperfield
in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And that
amazes me most in you, Steerforth--that you should be contented with
such fitful uses of your powers.’
‘Contented?’ he answered, merrily. ‘I am never contented, except with
your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never learnt
the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of
these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad
apprenticeship, and now don’t care about it.---You know I have bought a
boat down here?’
‘What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth!’ I exclaimed,
stopping--for this was the first I had heard of it. ‘When you may never
care to come near the place again!’
‘I don’t know that,’ he returned. ‘I have taken a fancy to the place. At
all events,’ walking me briskly on, ‘I have bought a boat that was for
sale--a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she is--and Mr. Peggotty will
be master of her in my absence.’
‘Now I understand you, Steerforth!’ said I, exultingly. ‘You pretend
to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer
a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you.
My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your
generosity?’
‘Tush!’ he answered, turning red. ‘The less said, the better.’
‘Didn’t I know?’ cried I, ‘didn’t I say that there was not a joy, or
sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to
you?’
‘Aye, aye,’ he answered, ‘you told me all that. There let it rest. We
have said enough!’
Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light
of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker
pace than before.
‘She must be newly rigged,’ said Steerforth, ‘and I shall leave Littimer
behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. Did I tell
you Littimer had come down?’
‘No.’
‘Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother.’
As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though
he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him
and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which
I had found him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so.
‘Oh no!’ he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. ‘Nothing
of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine.’
‘The same as ever?’ said I.
‘The same as ever,’ said Steerforth. ‘Distant and quiet as the North
Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She’s the “Stormy
Petrel” now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels! I’ll have
her christened again.’
‘By what name?’ I asked.
‘The “Little Em’ly”.’
As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that
he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help
showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he
resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved.
‘But see here,’ he said, looking before us, ‘where the original little
Em’ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, he’s a true
knight. He never leaves her!’
Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural
ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He
was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal,
and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his
side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an
undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were,
to me, the best of good looks. I thought, as they came towards us, that
they were well matched even in that particular.
She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to
them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they
passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to
replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked
by herself. I thought all this very pretty and engaging, and Steerforth
seemed to think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light
of a young moon.
Suddenly there passed us--evidently following them--a young woman whose
approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she went by, and
thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked
bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to
have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing
in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing
their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the
sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer
to them than before.
‘That is a black shadow to be following the girl,’ said Steerforth,
standing still; ‘what does it mean?’
He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to Me.
‘She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,’ said I.
‘A beggar would be no novelty,’ said Steerforth; ‘but it is a strange
thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking,’ he said,
after a pause, ‘of something like it, when it came by. Where the Devil
did it come from, I wonder!’
‘From the shadow of this wall, I think,’ said I, as we emerged upon a
road on which a wall abutted.
‘It’s gone!’ he returned, looking over his shoulder. ‘And all ill go
with it. Now for our dinner!’
But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering
afar off, and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken
expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk; and only
seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us,
seated warm and merry, at table.
Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to
him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered
respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well,
he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he
seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: ‘You are very young,
sir; you are exceedingly young.’
We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the
table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me,
as I felt, he said to his master:
‘I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here.’
‘Who?’ cried Steerforth, much astonished.
‘Miss Mowcher, sir.’
‘Why, what on earth does she do here?’ said Steerforth.
‘It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me
that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir.
I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she
might have the honour of waiting on you after dinner, sir.’
‘Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy?’ inquired Steerforth.
I was obliged to confess--I felt ashamed, even of being at this
disadvantage before Littimer--that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly
unacquainted.
‘Then you shall know her,’ said Steerforth, ‘for she is one of the seven
wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in.’
I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as
Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and
positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the
subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation
until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting
over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and
Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced:
‘Miss Mowcher!’
I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at
the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her
appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round
a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty
or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey
eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a
finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled Steerforth, she was
obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it.
Her chin, which was what is called a double chin, was so fat that it
entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she
had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for
though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have
been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings
generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a
common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat.
This lady--dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and her
forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described; standing with
her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut
up, making an uncommonly knowing face--after ogling Steerforth for a few
moments, broke into a torrent of words.
‘What! My flower!’ she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him.
‘You’re there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you
do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I’ll be bound. Oh, you’re a
downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I’m another, ain’t I? Ha, ha,
ha! You’d have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn’t
have seen me here, wouldn’t you? Bless you, man alive, I’m everywhere.
I’m here and there, and where not, like the conjurer’s half-crown in the
lady’s handkercher. Talking of handkerchers--and talking of ladies--what
a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain’t you, my dear boy, over
one of my shoulders, and I don’t say which!’
Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw
back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of
the fire--making a kind of arbour of the dining table, which spread its
mahogany shelter above her head.
‘Oh my stars and what’s-their-names!’ she went on, clapping a hand on
each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, ‘I’m of too full
a habit, that’s the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives
me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket of
water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you’d think I was a
fine woman, wouldn’t you?’
‘I should think that, wherever I saw you,’ replied Steerforth.
‘Go along, you dog, do!’ cried the little creature, making a whisk at
him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, ‘and don’t
be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at Lady Mithers’s
last week--THERE’S a woman! How SHE wears!--and Mithers himself came
into the room where I was waiting for her--THERE’S a man! How HE wears!
and his wig too, for he’s had it these ten years--and he went on at
that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be
obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He’s a pleasant wretch, but he
wants principle.’
‘What were you doing for Lady Mithers?’ asked Steerforth.
‘That’s tellings, my blessed infant,’ she retorted, tapping her nose
again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of
supernatural intelligence. ‘Never YOU mind! You’d like to know whether
I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her
complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn’t you? And so you shall, my
darling--when I tell you! Do you know what my great grandfather’s name
was?’
‘No,’ said Steerforth.
‘It was Walker, my sweet pet,’ replied Miss Mowcher, ‘and he came of a
long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates from.’
I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher’s wink except Miss
Mowcher’s self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening