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change that’s come, in course of time, upon me, when you think it

likely. Well!’ he paused a moment, then went on. ‘You doen’t understand

how ‘tis that this here gentleman and me has wished to speak to you. You

doen’t understand what ‘tis we has afore us. Listen now!’

His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly, before him,

as if she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her passionate sorrow was

quite hushed and mute.

‘If you heerd,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘owt of what passed between Mas’r

Davy and me, th’ night when it snew so hard, you know as I have

been--wheer not--fur to seek my dear niece. My dear niece,’ he repeated

steadily. ‘Fur she’s more dear to me now, Martha, than she was dear

afore.’

She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet.

‘I have heerd her tell,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘as you was early left

fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough

seafaring-way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you’d had such

a friend, you’d have got into a way of being fond of him in course of

time, and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me.’

As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about her,

taking it up from the ground for that purpose.

‘Whereby,’ said he, ‘I know, both as she would go to the wureld’s

furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she would

fly to the wureld’s furdest end to keep off seeing me. For though she

ain’t no call to doubt my love, and doen’t--and doen’t,’ he repeated,

with a quiet assurance of the truth of what he said, ‘there’s shame

steps in, and keeps betwixt us.’

I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself,

new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in every feature

it presented.

‘According to our reckoning,’ he proceeded, ‘Mas’r Davy’s here, and

mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to

London. We believe--Mas’r Davy, me, and all of us--that you are as

innocent of everything that has befell her, as the unborn child. You’ve

spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. Bless her, I knew

she was! I knew she always was, to all. You’re thankful to her, and you

love her. Help us all you can to find her, and may Heaven reward you!’

She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were

doubtful of what he had said.

‘Will you trust me?’ she asked, in a low voice of astonishment.

‘Full and free!’ said Mr. Peggotty.

‘To speak to her, if I should ever find her; shelter her, if I have any

shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge, come to

you, and bring you to her?’ she asked hurriedly.

We both replied together, ‘Yes!’

She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote

herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would never

waver in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it, while there

was any chance of hope. If she were not true to it, might the object

she now had in life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its

passing away from her, leave her more forlorn and more despairing, if

that were possible, than she had been upon the river’s brink that night;

and then might all help, human and Divine, renounce her evermore!

She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but said

this to the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at the

gloomy water.

We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which I recounted

at length. She listened with great attention, and with a face that often

changed, but had the same purpose in all its varying expressions. Her

eyes occasionally filled with tears, but those she repressed. It seemed

as if her spirit were quite altered, and she could not be too quiet.

She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated with, if

occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I wrote our two

addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore out and gave to

her, and which she put in her poor bosom. I asked her where she lived

herself. She said, after a pause, in no place long. It were better not

to know.

Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already occurred

to myself, I took out my purse; but I could not prevail upon her to

accept any money, nor could I exact any promise from her that she would

do so at another time. I represented to her that Mr. Peggotty could

not be called, for one in his condition, poor; and that the idea of her

engaging in this search, while depending on her own resources, shocked

us both. She continued steadfast. In this particular, his influence

upon her was equally powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him but

remained inexorable.

‘There may be work to be got,’ she said. ‘I’ll try.’

‘At least take some assistance,’ I returned, ‘until you have tried.’

‘I could not do what I have promised, for money,’ she replied. ‘I could

not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to take away

your trust, to take away the object that you have given me, to take away

the only certain thing that saves me from the river.’

‘In the name of the great judge,’ said I, ‘before whom you and all of us

must stand at His dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We can all do

some good, if we will.’

She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she

answered:

‘It has been put into your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched creature

for repentance. I am afraid to think so; it seems too bold. If any good

should come of me, I might begin to hope; for nothing but harm has ever

come of my deeds yet. I am to be trusted, for the first time in a long

while, with my miserable life, on account of what you have given me to

try for. I know no more, and I can say no more.’

Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting out

her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there was some

healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. She had been

ill, probably for a long time. I observed, upon that closer opportunity

of observation, that she was worn and haggard, and that her sunken eyes

expressed privation and endurance.

We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same

direction, until we came back into the lighted and populous streets. I

had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that I then put it to

Mr. Peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting

her, to follow her any farther. He being of the same mind, and equally

reliant on her, we suffered her to take her own road, and took ours,

which was towards Highgate. He accompanied me a good part of the way;

and when we parted, with a prayer for the success of this fresh effort,

there was a new and thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no loss

to interpret.

It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate, and

was standing listening for the deep bell of St. Paul’s, the sound

of which I thought had been borne towards me among the multitude of

striking clocks, when I was rather surprised to see that the door of my

aunt’s cottage was open, and that a faint light in the entry was shining

out across the road.

Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms,

and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in

the distance, I went to speak to her. It was with very great surprise

that I saw a man standing in her little garden.

He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. I

stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up now,

though obscured; and I recognized the man whom I had once supposed to be

a delusion of Mr. Dick’s, and had once encountered with my aunt in the

streets of the city.

He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry

appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it were

the first time he had seen it. After stooping to put the bottle on the

ground, he looked up at the windows, and looked about; though with a

covert and impatient air, as if he was anxious to be gone.

The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt came

out. She was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I heard it

chink.

‘What’s the use of this?’ he demanded.

‘I can spare no more,’ returned my aunt.

‘Then I can’t go,’ said he. ‘Here! You may take it back!’

‘You bad man,’ returned my aunt, with great emotion; ‘how can you use me

so? But why do I ask? It is because you know how weak I am! What have

I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but to abandon you to

your deserts?’

‘And why don’t you abandon me to my deserts?’ said he.

‘You ask me why!’ returned my aunt. ‘What a heart you must have!’

He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at

length he said:

‘Is this all you mean to give me, then?’

‘It is all I CAN give you,’ said my aunt. ‘You know I have had losses,

and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so. Having got it, why

do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment, and seeing

what you have become?’

‘I have become shabby enough, if you mean that,’ he said. ‘I lead the

life of an owl.’

‘You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had,’ said my aunt.

‘You closed my heart against the whole world, years and years. You

treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and repent of it.

Don’t add new injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done

me!’

‘Aye!’ he returned. ‘It’s all very fine--Well! I must do the best I can,

for the present, I suppose.’

In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt’s indignant tears,

and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three quick steps,

as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and went in as he came

out. We eyed one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour.

‘Aunt,’ said I, hurriedly. ‘This man alarming you again! Let me speak to

him. Who is he?’

‘Child,’ returned my aunt, taking my arm, ‘come in, and don’t speak to

me for ten minutes.’

We sat down in her little parlour. My aunt retired behind the round

green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a chair, and

occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. Then she

came out, and took a seat beside me.

‘Trot,’ said my aunt, calmly, ‘it’s my husband.’

‘Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead!’

‘Dead to me,’ returned my aunt, ‘but living.’

I sat in silent amazement.

‘Betsey Trotwood don’t look a likely subject for the tender passion,’

said my aunt, composedly, ‘but the time was, Trot, when she believed in

that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, right well. When there

was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have given

him. He repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly breaking her

heart. So she put all that sort of sentiment, once and for ever, in a

grave, and filled it up, and flattened it down.’

‘My dear, good aunt!’

‘I left him,’ my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the back of

mine, ‘generously. I may say at this distance of time, Trot, that I left

him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that I might have effected

a separation on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon made ducks

and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another

woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he

is now, you see. But he was a fine-looking man when I married him,’ said

my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; ‘and

I believed him--I was a fool!--to be the soul of honour!’

She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head.

‘He is nothing to me now, Trot--less than nothing. But, sooner than have

him punished for his offences (as he would be if he prowled about in

this country), I give him more money than I can afford, at intervals

when he reappears, to go away. I was a fool when I married him; and I am

so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what

I once believed him to be, I wouldn’t have even this shadow of my idle

fancy hardly dealt with. For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman

was.’

My aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her dress.

‘There, my dear!’ she said. ‘Now you know the beginning, middle, and

end, and all about it. We won’t mention the subject to one another any

more; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. This is

my grumpy, frumpy story, and we’ll keep it to ourselves, Trot!’

CHAPTER 48. DOMESTIC

I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the

punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very

successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears,

notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of

my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has

always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any

good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the

faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this

reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise

I got, the more I tried to deserve.

It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other essentials

it is my written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. They

express themselves, and I leave them to themselves. When I refer to

them, incidentally, it is only as a part of my progress.

Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and

accident had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with confidence.

Without such assurance I should certainly have left it alone, and

bestowed my energy on some other endeavour. I should have tried to find

out what nature and accident really had made me, and to be that, and

nothing else. I had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere, so

prosperously, that when my new success was achieved, I considered myself

reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. One joyful night,

therefore, I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the