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‘Oh! Before you come to that,’ said Traddles, a little disconcerted,

‘I am afraid I thought it discreet to omit (not being able to carry

everything before me) two points, in making this lawless adjustment--for

it’s perfectly lawless from beginning to end--of a difficult affair.

Those I.O.U.’s, and so forth, which Mr. Micawber gave him for the

advances he had--’

‘Well! They must be paid,’ said my aunt.

‘Yes, but I don’t know when they may be proceeded on, or where they

are,’ rejoined Traddles, opening his eyes; ‘and I anticipate, that,

between this time and his departure, Mr. Micawber will be constantly

arrested, or taken in execution.’

‘Then he must be constantly set free again, and taken out of execution,’

said my aunt. ‘What’s the amount altogether?’

‘Why, Mr. Micawber has entered the transactions--he calls them

transactions--with great form, in a book,’ rejoined Traddles, smiling;

‘and he makes the amount a hundred and three pounds, five.’

‘Now, what shall we give him, that sum included?’ said my aunt. ‘Agnes,

my dear, you and I can talk about division of it afterwards. What should

it be? Five hundred pounds?’

Upon this, Traddles and I both struck in at once. We both recommended

a small sum in money, and the payment, without stipulation to Mr.

Micawber, of the Uriah claims as they came in. We proposed that the

family should have their passage and their outfit, and a hundred pounds;

and that Mr. Micawber’s arrangement for the repayment of the advances

should be gravely entered into, as it might be wholesome for him

to suppose himself under that responsibility. To this, I added the

suggestion, that I should give some explanation of his character and

history to Mr. Peggotty, who I knew could be relied on; and that to Mr.

Peggotty should be quietly entrusted the discretion of advancing another

hundred. I further proposed to interest Mr. Micawber in Mr. Peggotty,

by confiding so much of Mr. Peggotty’s story to him as I might feel

justified in relating, or might think expedient; and to endeavour to

bring each of them to bear upon the other, for the common advantage. We

all entered warmly into these views; and I may mention at once, that the

principals themselves did so, shortly afterwards, with perfect good will

and harmony.

Seeing that Traddles now glanced anxiously at my aunt again, I reminded

him of the second and last point to which he had adverted.

‘You and your aunt will excuse me, Copperfield, if I touch upon a

painful theme, as I greatly fear I shall,’ said Traddles, hesitating;

‘but I think it necessary to bring it to your recollection. On the day

of Mr. Micawber’s memorable denunciation a threatening allusion was made

by Uriah Heep to your aunt’s--husband.’

My aunt, retaining her stiff position, and apparent composure, assented

with a nod.

‘Perhaps,’ observed Traddles, ‘it was mere purposeless impertinence?’

‘No,’ returned my aunt.

‘There was--pardon me--really such a person, and at all in his power?’

hinted Traddles.

‘Yes, my good friend,’ said my aunt.

Traddles, with a perceptible lengthening of his face, explained that he

had not been able to approach this subject; that it had shared the fate

of Mr. Micawber’s liabilities, in not being comprehended in the terms he

had made; that we were no longer of any authority with Uriah Heep; and

that if he could do us, or any of us, any injury or annoyance, no doubt

he would.

My aunt remained quiet; until again some stray tears found their way to

her cheeks. ‘You are quite right,’ she said. ‘It was very thoughtful to

mention it.’

‘Can I--or Copperfield--do anything?’ asked Traddles, gently.

‘Nothing,’ said my aunt. ‘I thank you many times. Trot, my dear, a vain

threat! Let us have Mr. and Mrs. Micawber back. And don’t any of you

speak to me!’ With that she smoothed her dress, and sat, with her

upright carriage, looking at the door.

‘Well, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber!’ said my aunt, when they entered. ‘We have

been discussing your emigration, with many apologies to you for keeping

you out of the room so long; and I’ll tell you what arrangements we

propose.’

These she explained to the unbounded satisfaction of the

family,--children and all being then present,--and so much to the

awakening of Mr. Micawber’s punctual habits in the opening stage of

all bill transactions, that he could not be dissuaded from immediately

rushing out, in the highest spirits, to buy the stamps for his notes of

hand. But, his joy received a sudden check; for within five minutes,

he returned in the custody of a sheriff ‘s officer, informing us, in

a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, being quite prepared for this

event, which was of course a proceeding of Uriah Heep’s, soon paid the

money; and in five minutes more Mr. Micawber was seated at the table,

filling up the stamps with an expression of perfect joy, which only

that congenial employment, or the making of punch, could impart in full

completeness to his shining face. To see him at work on the stamps, with

the relish of an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them

sideways, taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book,

and contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of their

precious value, was a sight indeed.

‘Now, the best thing you can do, sir, if you’ll allow me to advise

you,’ said my aunt, after silently observing him, ‘is to abjure that

occupation for evermore.’

‘Madam,’ replied Mr. Micawber, ‘it is my intention to register such a

vow on the virgin page of the future. Mrs. Micawber will attest it. I

trust,’ said Mr. Micawber, solemnly, ‘that my son Wilkins will ever bear

in mind, that he had infinitely better put his fist in the fire, than

use it to handle the serpents that have poisoned the life-blood of his

unhappy parent!’ Deeply affected, and changed in a moment to the image

of despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy

abhorrence (in which his late admiration of them was not quite subdued),

folded them up and put them in his pocket.

This closed the proceedings of the evening. We were weary with sorrow

and fatigue, and my aunt and I were to return to London on the morrow.

It was arranged that the Micawbers should follow us, after effecting a

sale of their goods to a broker; that Mr. Wickfield’s affairs should be

brought to a settlement, with all convenient speed, under the direction

of Traddles; and that Agnes should also come to London, pending those

arrangements. We passed the night at the old house, which, freed from

the presence of the Heeps, seemed purged of a disease; and I lay in my

old room, like a shipwrecked wanderer come home.

We went back next day to my aunt’s house--not to mine--and when she and

I sat alone, as of old, before going to bed, she said:

‘Trot, do you really wish to know what I have had upon my mind lately?’

‘Indeed I do, aunt. If there ever was a time when I felt unwilling that

you should have a sorrow or anxiety which I could not share, it is now.’

‘You have had sorrow enough, child,’ said my aunt, affectionately,

‘without the addition of my little miseries. I could have no other

motive, Trot, in keeping anything from you.’

‘I know that well,’ said I. ‘But tell me now.’

‘Would you ride with me a little way tomorrow morning?’ asked my aunt.

‘Of course.’

‘At nine,’ said she. ‘I’ll tell you then, my dear.’

At nine, accordingly, we went out in a little chariot, and drove to

London. We drove a long way through the streets, until we came to one of

the large hospitals. Standing hard by the building was a plain hearse.

The driver recognized my aunt, and, in obedience to a motion of her hand

at the window, drove slowly off; we following.

‘You understand it now, Trot,’ said my aunt. ‘He is gone!’

‘Did he die in the hospital?’

‘Yes.’

She sat immovable beside me; but, again I saw the stray tears on her

face.

‘He was there once before,’ said my aunt presently. ‘He was ailing a

long time--a shattered, broken man, these many years. When he knew his

state in this last illness, he asked them to send for me. He was sorry

then. Very sorry.’

‘You went, I know, aunt.’

‘I went. I was with him a good deal afterwards.’

‘He died the night before we went to Canterbury?’ said I. My aunt

nodded. ‘No one can harm him now,’ she said. ‘It was a vain threat.’

We drove away, out of town, to the churchyard at Hornsey. ‘Better here

than in the streets,’ said my aunt. ‘He was born here.’

We alighted; and followed the plain coffin to a corner I remember well,

where the service was read consigning it to the dust.

‘Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear,’ said my aunt, as we

walked back to the chariot, ‘I was married. God forgive us all!’ We took

our seats in silence; and so she sat beside me for a long time, holding

my hand. At length she suddenly burst into tears, and said:

‘He was a fine-looking man when I married him, Trot--and he was sadly

changed!’

It did not last long. After the relief of tears, she soon became

composed, and even cheerful. Her nerves were a little shaken, she said,

or she would not have given way to it. God forgive us all!

So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found the

following short note, which had arrived by that morning’s post from Mr.

Micawber:

‘Canterbury,

‘Friday.

‘My dear Madam, and Copperfield,

‘The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again

enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the eyes of

a drifting wretch whose Doom is sealed!

‘Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty’s High Court of King’s

Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP V. MICAWBER, and

the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff having legal

jurisdiction in this bailiwick.

‘Now’s the day, and now’s the hour,

See the front of battle lower,

See approach proud EDWARD’S power--

Chains and slavery!

‘Consigned to which, and to a speedy end (for mental torture is not

supportable beyond a certain point, and that point I feel I have

attained), my course is run. Bless you, bless you! Some future

traveller, visiting, from motives of curiosity, not unmingled, let us

hope, with sympathy, the place of confinement allotted to debtors in

this city, may, and I trust will, Ponder, as he traces on its wall,

inscribed with a rusty nail,

‘The obscure initials,

‘W. M.

‘P.S. I re-open this to say that our common friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles

(who has not yet left us, and is looking extremely well), has paid the

debt and costs, in the noble name of Miss Trotwood; and that myself and

family are at the height of earthly bliss.’

CHAPTER 55. TEMPEST

I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by

an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages,

that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing larger

and larger as I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing

its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days.

For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started up so

vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet

room, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though at lengthened

and uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have an association between it

and a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong as

any of which my mind is conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened,

I will try to write it down. I do not recall it, but see it done; for it

happens again before me.

The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, my

good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came up

to London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and the Micawbers

(they being very much together); but Emily I never saw.

One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with Peggotty

and her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She described to us how

tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly he

had borne himself. Most of all, of late, when she believed he was most

tried. It was a subject of which the affectionate creature never tired;

and our interest in hearing the many examples which she, who was so much

with him, had to relate, was equal to hers in relating them.

My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at Highgate; I

intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at Dover. We had

a temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, after this

evening’s conversation, reflecting on what had passed between Ham and

myself when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in the original purpose

I had formed, of leaving a letter for Emily when I should take leave of

her uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be better to write to

her now. She might desire, I thought, after receiving my communication,

to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to give

her the opportunity.

I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to her.

I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me to tell her

what I have already written in its place in these sheets. I faithfully

repeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the right.

Its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or any

man. I left it out, to be sent round in the morning; with a line to Mr.

Peggotty, requesting him to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak.

I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the sun

was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by the silent

presence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my sleep, as I suppose

we all do feel such things.

‘Trot, my dear,’ she said, when I opened my eyes, ‘I couldn’t make up my

mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come up?’

I replied yes, and he soon appeared.

‘Mas’r Davy,’ he said, when we had shaken hands, ‘I giv Em’ly your

letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask you