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three stole quietly out of the room, and came away.

‘That’s a settler for our military friend, at any rate,’ said my aunt,

on the way home. ‘I should sleep the better for that, if there was

nothing else to be glad of!’

‘She was quite overcome, I am afraid,’ said Mr. Dick, with great

commiseration.

‘What! Did you ever see a crocodile overcome?’ inquired my aunt.

‘I don’t think I ever saw a crocodile,’ returned Mr. Dick, mildly.

‘There never would have been anything the matter, if it hadn’t been for

that old Animal,’ said my aunt, with strong emphasis. ‘It’s very much

to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after

marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. They seem to think the

only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young

woman into the world--God bless my soul, as if she asked to be brought,

or wanted to come!--is full liberty to worry her out of it again. What

are you thinking of, Trot?’

I was thinking of all that had been said. My mind was still running on

some of the expressions used. ‘There can be no disparity in marriage

like unsuitability of mind and purpose.’ ‘The first mistaken impulse of

an undisciplined heart.’ ‘My love was founded on a rock.’ But we were at

home; and the trodden leaves were lying under-foot, and the autumn wind

was blowing.

CHAPTER 46. INTELLIGENCE

I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for

dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a

solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing--for my success

had steadily increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at

that time upon my first work of fiction--I came past Mrs. Steerforth’s

house. I had often passed it before, during my residence in that

neighbourhood, though never when I could choose another road. Howbeit,

it did sometimes happen that it was not easy to find another, without

making a long circuit; and so I had passed that way, upon the whole,

pretty often.

I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a

quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the best

rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned

windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very dismal,

close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. There was a covered

way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never used; and

there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the

only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look.

I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had

been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some

childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge

of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should

have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say.

As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could not

go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long

train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular evening that

I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies,

the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments

dimly seen and understood, the blending of experience and imagination,

incidental to the occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it

was more than commonly suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I walked

on, and a voice at my side made me start.

It was a woman’s voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs.

Steerforth’s little parlour-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in

her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to

the altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate

bows of sober brown.

‘If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak

to Miss Dartle?’

‘Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?’ I inquired.

‘Not tonight, sir, but it’s just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass a

night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I

saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her.’

I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how Mrs.

Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room

a good deal.

When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the

garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was

sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great

city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as

I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some

larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no

inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman.

She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I thought

her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had seen her last;

the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer.

Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last occasion;

and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to

conceal.

‘I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,’ said I, standing near

her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture

of invitation to sit down.

‘If you please,’ said she. ‘Pray has this girl been found?’

‘No.’

‘And yet she has run away!’

I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were

eager to load her with reproaches.

‘Run away?’ I repeated.

‘Yes! From him,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘If she is not found, perhaps

she never will be found. She may be dead!’

The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw expressed

in any other face that ever I have seen.

‘To wish her dead,’ said I, ‘may be the kindest wish that one of her own

sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened you so much,

Miss Dartle.’

She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another

scornful laugh, said:

‘The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends

of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish

to know what is known of her?’

‘Yes,’ said I.

She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards

a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a

kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, ‘Come here!’--as if she were

calling to some unclean beast.

‘You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this

place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?’ said she, looking over her shoulder

at me with the same expression.

I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, ‘Come

here!’ again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer,

who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his

position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which,

strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with

which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was

worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend.

‘Now,’ said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching

the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure

rather than pain. ‘Tell Mr. Copperfield about the flight.’

‘Mr. James and myself, ma’am--’

‘Don’t address yourself to me!’ she interrupted with a frown.

‘Mr. James and myself, sir--’

‘Nor to me, if you please,’ said I.

Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight

obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most

agreeable to him; and began again.

‘Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever

since she left Yarmouth under Mr. James’s protection. We have been in a

variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in

France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts.’

He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to

that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking

chords upon a dumb piano.

‘Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more

settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I have

been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and spoke the

languages; and wouldn’t have been known for the same country-person. I

noticed that she was much admired wherever we went.’

Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at her,

and slightly smile to himself.

‘Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress;

what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with

this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice.’

He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant

prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth.

Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the

other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with

his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a

little on one side:

‘The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being

occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr.

James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and

things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again.

The more restless he got, the worse she got; and I must say, for myself,

that I had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two. Still

matters were patched up here, and made good there, over and over again;

and altogether lasted, I am sure, for a longer time than anybody could

have expected.’

Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with

her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a

respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on:

‘At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and

reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of

Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to

the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in

charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all

concerned, he was’--here an interruption of the short cough--‘gone. But

Mr. James, I must say, certainly did behave extremely honourable; for

he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person,

who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as

good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular way:

her connexions being very common.’

He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that the

scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected in Miss

Dartle’s face.

‘This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do

anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore

harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone

so much on his account. Therefore I undertook the commission. The

young woman’s violence when she came to, after I broke the fact of his

departure, was beyond all expectations. She was quite mad, and had to

be held by force; or, if she couldn’t have got to a knife, or got to the

sea, she’d have beaten her head against the marble floor.’

Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in

her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered.

‘But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to me,’

said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands uneasily, ‘which anybody might

have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a kind

intention, then the young woman came out in her true colours. A more

outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct was surprisingly bad. She

had no more gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no more reason

in her, than a stock or a stone. If I hadn’t been upon my guard, I am

convinced she would have had my blood.’

‘I think the better of her for it,’ said I, indignantly.

Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, ‘Indeed, sir? But you’re

young!’ and resumed his narrative.

‘It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh

her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and

to shut her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out in the night;

forced the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up myself; dropped on

a vine that was trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to

my knowledge, since.’

‘She is dead, perhaps,’ said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she could

have spurned the body of the ruined girl.

‘She may have drowned herself, miss,’ returned Mr. Littimer, catching at

an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. ‘It’s very possible. Or,

she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen’s wives

and children. Being given to low company, she was very much in the

habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle, and sitting by their

boats. I have known her do it, when Mr. James has been away, whole days.

Mr. James was far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the

children she was a boatman’s daughter, and that in her own country, long

ago, she had roamed about the beach, like them.’

Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her sitting

on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was

innocent, listening to little voices such as might have called her

Mother had she been a poor man’s wife; and to the great voice of the

sea, with its eternal ‘Never more!’

‘When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle--’

‘Did I tell you not to speak to me?’ she said, with stern contempt.

‘You spoke to me, miss,’ he replied. ‘I beg your pardon. But it is my

service to obey.’

‘Do your service,’ she returned. ‘Finish your story, and go!’

‘When it was clear,’ he said, with infinite respectability and an

obedient bow, ‘that she was not to be found, I went to Mr. James, at the

place where it had been agreed that I should write to him, and informed

him of what had occurred. Words passed between us in consequence, and