David Copperfield
met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little way, and spoke to
her. In the latter case I was always very miserable afterwards, to think
that I had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no idea of the
extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was always
looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to Mr. Spenlow’s
house. I was always being disappointed, for I got none.
Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this
attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage
to write more explicitly even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr.
Spenlow’s house, ‘whose family,’ I added, ‘consists of one daughter’;--I
say Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that
early stage, she found it out. She came up to me one evening, when I
was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have
mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums
mixed with rhubarb, and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of
cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint;--or, if I had not
such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It
was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As
I had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in
the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that I might
have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to
take in my presence.
‘Cheer up, sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp. ‘I can’t abear to see you so, sir: I’m
a mother myself.’
I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I
smiled on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power.
‘Come, sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp. ‘Excuse me. I know what it is, sir.
There’s a lady in the case.’
‘Mrs. Crupp?’ I returned, reddening.
‘Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir!’ said Mrs. Crupp, nodding
encouragement. ‘Never say die, sir! If She don’t smile upon you,
there’s a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr.
Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir.’
Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull: firstly, no doubt, because
it was not my name; and secondly, I am inclined to think, in some
indistinct association with a washing-day.
‘What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs.
Crupp?’ said I.
‘Mr. Copperfull,’ said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, ‘I’m a
mother myself.’
For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom,
and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At
length she spoke again.
‘When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr.
Copperfull,’ said Mrs. Crupp, ‘my remark were, I had now found summun
I could care for. “Thank Ev’in!” were the expression, “I have now found
summun I can care for!”--You don’t eat enough, sir, nor yet drink.’
‘Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp?’ said I.
‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, ‘I’ve
laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman
may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself.
He may brush his hair too regular, or too un-regular. He may wear his
boots much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as
the young gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to
which extreme he may, sir, there’s a young lady in both of ‘em.’
Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had not an
inch of vantage-ground left.
‘It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself,’ said Mrs.
Crupp, ‘that fell in love--with a barmaid--and had his waistcoats took
in directly, though much swelled by drinking.’
‘Mrs. Crupp,’ said I, ‘I must beg you not to connect the young lady in
my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you please.’
‘Mr. Copperfull,’ returned Mrs. Crupp, ‘I’m a mother myself, and not
likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to
intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr.
Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good
heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something,
sir,’ said Mrs. Crupp, ‘if you was to take to skittles, now, which is
healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and do you good.’
With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the
brandy--which was all gone--thanked me with a majestic curtsey, and
retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, this
counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight
liberty on Mrs. Crupp’s part; but, at the same time, I was content
to receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a
warning in future to keep my secret better.
CHAPTER 27. TOMMY TRADDLES
It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp’s advice, and, perhaps,
for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the
sound of the word skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, next
day, to go and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was more
than out, and he lived in a little street near the Veterinary College
at Camden Town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who
lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought
live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private
apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the academic
grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old
schoolfellow.
I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have
wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to
have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of,
into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too,
on account of the cabbage-leaves. The refuse was not wholly vegetable
either, for I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet,
and an umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as I was looking
out for the number I wanted.
The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when I
lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded
gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike
all the other houses in the street--though they were all built on one
monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy
who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped
brick-and-mortar pothooks--reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the
afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly
yet.
‘Now,’ said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. ‘Has that there
little bill of mine been heerd on?’
‘Oh, master says he’ll attend to it immediate,’ was the reply.
‘Because,’ said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer,
and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of
somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant--an
impression which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the
passage--‘because that there little bill has been running so long, that
I begin to believe it’s run away altogether, and never won’t be heerd
of. Now, I’m not a going to stand it, you know!’ said the milkman, still
throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage.
As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by the by, there never
was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a
butcher or a brandy-merchant.
The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me,
from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended
to immediate.
‘I tell you what,’ said the milkman, looking hard at her for the first
time, and taking her by the chin, ‘are you fond of milk?’
‘Yes, I likes it,’ she replied. ‘Good,’ said the milkman. ‘Then you
won’t have none tomorrow. D’ye hear? Not a fragment of milk you won’t
have tomorrow.’
I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved by the prospect of having
any today. The milkman, after shaking his head at her darkly, released
her chin, and with anything rather than good-will opened his can, and
deposited the usual quantity in the family jug. This done, he went away,
muttering, and uttered the cry of his trade next door, in a vindictive
shriek.
‘Does Mr. Traddles live here?’ I then inquired.
A mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied ‘Yes.’ Upon which
the youthful servant replied ‘Yes.’
‘Is he at home?’ said I.
Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again the
servant echoed it. Upon this, I walked in, and in pursuance of the
servant’s directions walked upstairs; conscious, as I passed the
back parlour-door, that I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably
belonging to the mysterious voice.
When I got to the top of the stairs--the house was only a story high
above the ground floor--Traddles was on the landing to meet me. He was
delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to
his little room. It was in the front of the house, and extremely neat,
though sparely furnished. It was his only room, I saw; for there was a
sofa-bedstead in it, and his blacking-brushes and blacking were among
his books--on the top shelf, behind a dictionary. His table was covered
with papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat. I looked at
nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything, even to the prospect of
a church upon his china inkstand, as I sat down--and this, too, was a
faculty confirmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various ingenious
arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers,
and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth,
particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of the same
Traddles who used to make models of elephants’ dens in writing-paper to
put flies in; and to comfort himself under ill usage, with the memorable
works of art I have so often mentioned.
In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a large
white cloth. I could not make out what that was.
‘Traddles,’ said I, shaking hands with him again, after I had sat down,
‘I am delighted to see you.’
‘I am delighted to see YOU, Copperfield,’ he returned. ‘I am very glad
indeed to see you. It was because I was thoroughly glad to see you when
we met in Ely Place, and was sure you were thoroughly glad to see me,
that I gave you this address instead of my address at chambers.’ ‘Oh!
You have chambers?’ said I.
‘Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of a
clerk,’ returned Traddles. ‘Three others and myself unite to have a
set of chambers--to look business-like--and we quarter the clerk too.
Half-a-crown a week he costs me.’
His old simple character and good temper, and something of his old
unlucky fortune also, I thought, smiled at me in the smile with which he
made this explanation.
‘It’s not because I have the least pride, Copperfield, you understand,’
said Traddles, ‘that I don’t usually give my address here. It’s only on
account of those who come to me, who might not like to come here. For
myself, I am fighting my way on in the world against difficulties, and
it would be ridiculous if I made a pretence of doing anything else.’
‘You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed me?’ said I.
‘Why, yes,’ said Traddles, rubbing his hands slowly over one another. ‘I
am reading for the bar. The fact is, I have just begun to keep my terms,
after rather a long delay. It’s some time since I was articled, but the
payment of that hundred pounds was a great pull. A great pull!’ said