David Copperfield
divorce-suit coming on, under an ingenious little statute (repealed
now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have seen several marriages
annulled), of which the merits were these. The husband, whose name was
Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his marriage licence as Thomas only;
suppressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as
comfortable as he expected. NOT finding himself as comfortable as he
expected, or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he
now came forward, by a friend, after being married a year or two, and
declared that his name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not
married at all. Which the Court confirmed, to his great satisfaction.
I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this,
and was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which
reconciles all anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He
said, Look at the world, there was good and evil in that; look at the
ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in THAT. It was all part of
a system. Very good. There you were!
I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora’s father that possibly
we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the
morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I
thought we might improve the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would
particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being
worthy of my gentlemanly character; but that he would be glad to hear
from me of what improvement I thought the Commons susceptible?
Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to us--for
our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, and
strolling past the Prerogative Office--I submitted that I thought the
Prerogative Office rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. Spenlow
inquired in what respect? I replied, with all due deference to his
experience (but with more deference, I am afraid, to his being Dora’s
father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the Registry of
that Court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects
within the immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries,
should be an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased
by the registrars for their Own private emolument, unsafe, not even
ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents
it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary
speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and
crammed the public’s wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other
object than to get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little
unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of profits amounting
to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits
of the deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to
spend a little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place for the
important documents which all classes of people were compelled to hand
over to them, whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little
unjust, that all the great offices in this great office should be
magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold
dark room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered
men, doing important services, in London. That perhaps it was a little
indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to
find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful
accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post
(and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a
staff in a cathedral, and what not),--while the public was put to the
inconvenience of which we had a specimen every afternoon when the office
was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous. That, perhaps,
in short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was
altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that
but for its being squeezed away in a corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard,
which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out,
and upside down, long ago.
Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then
argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what
was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt
that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the
office was not to be made better, who was the worse for it? Nobody. Who
was the better for it? All the Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good
predominated. It might not be a perfect system; nothing was perfect;
but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the
Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into
the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. He
considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found
them; and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I
deferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find
he was right, however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment,
but has done so in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not
too willingly) eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine
were set forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was
described as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half
more. What they have done with them since; whether they have lost many,
or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; I don’t
know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet
awhile.
I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here
it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this
conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged
into general topics. And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow
told me this day week was Dora’s birthday, and he would be glad if I
would come down and join a little picnic on the occasion. I went out of
my senses immediately; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt of
a little lace-edged sheet of note-paper, ‘Favoured by papa. To remind’;
and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage.
I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of preparation
for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought.
My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture.
I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a
delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a
declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottoes that
could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was in Covent Garden
Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired a
gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it
fresh, trotting down to Norwood.
I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to see
her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for
it, I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my
circumstances might have committed--because they came so very natural
to me. But oh! when I DID find the house, and DID dismount at the
garden-gate, and drag those stony-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora
sitting on a garden-seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was,
upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip
bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! There was a young lady with
her--comparatively stricken in years--almost twenty, I should say. Her
name was Miss Mills. And Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom friend
of Dora. Happy Miss Mills!
Jip was there, and Jip WOULD bark at me again. When I presented my
bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he had
the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might!
‘Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!’ said Dora.
I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of
words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them
so near HER. But I couldn’t manage it. She was too bewildering. To see
her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all
presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstasy. I wonder I
didn’t say, ‘Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!’
Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and
wouldn’t smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer
to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his
teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted,
and said, ‘My poor beautiful flowers!’ as compassionately, I thought, as
if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had!
‘You’ll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Dora, ‘that that
cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother’s
marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn’t that delightful?’
I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was
delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of
superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us.
‘She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw,’ said Dora. ‘You can’t
believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.’
‘Yes, I can, my dear!’ said Julia.
‘YOU can, perhaps, love,’ returned Dora, with her hand on Julia’s.
‘Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first.’
I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the course
of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I might refer that
wise benignity of manner which I had already noticed. I found, in
the course of the day, that this was the case: Miss Mills having been
unhappy in a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired
from the world on her awful stock of experience, but still to take a
calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves of youth.
But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him,
saying, ‘Look, papa, what beautiful flowers!’ And Miss Mills smiled
thoughtfully, as who should say, ‘Ye Mayflies, enjoy your brief
existence in the bright morning of life!’ And we all walked from the
lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready.
I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another.
There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the
guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was open; and
I rode behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking
towards me. She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and
wouldn’t allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should
crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself
with its fragrance. Our eyes at those times often met; and my great
astonishment is that I didn’t go over the head of my gallant grey into
the carriage.
There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe. I
have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me for riding
in it; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty
about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and asked me
what I thought of the prospect. I said it was delightful, and I dare
say it was; but it was all Dora to me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds
sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges
were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills understood me. Miss
Mills alone could enter into my feelings thoroughly.
I don’t know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as little
where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night
magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it up for ever when