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or want of something never to be realized, of which I had been sensible.

But the thought came into my mind as a new reproach and new regret, when

I was left so sad and lonely in the world.

If, at that time, I had been much with her, I should, in the weakness of

my desolation, have betrayed this. It was what I remotely dreaded when I

was first impelled to stay away from England. I could not have borne

to lose the smallest portion of her sisterly affection; yet, in that

betrayal, I should have set a constraint between us hitherto unknown.

I could not forget that the feeling with which she now regarded me had

grown up in my own free choice and course. That if she had ever loved me

with another love--and I sometimes thought the time was when she might

have done so--I had cast it away. It was nothing, now, that I had

accustomed myself to think of her, when we were both mere children,

as one who was far removed from my wild fancies. I had bestowed my

passionate tenderness upon another object; and what I might have done,

I had not done; and what Agnes was to me, I and her own noble heart had

made her.

In the beginning of the change that gradually worked in me, when I

tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I

did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when I might

possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as

to marry her. But, as time wore on, this shadowy prospect faded, and

departed from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I should hold her

the more sacred; remembering the confidences I had reposed in her, her

knowledge of my errant heart, the sacrifice she must have made to be my

friend and sister, and the victory she had won. If she had never loved

me, could I believe that she would love me now?

I had always felt my weakness, in comparison with her constancy and

fortitude; and now I felt it more and more. Whatever I might have been

to her, or she to me, if I had been more worthy of her long ago, I was

not now, and she was not. The time was past. I had let it go by, and had

deservedly lost her.

That I suffered much in these contentions, that they filled me with

unhappiness and remorse, and yet that I had a sustaining sense that it

was required of me, in right and honour, to keep away from myself, with

shame, the thought of turning to the dear girl in the withering of my

hopes, from whom I had frivolously turned when they were bright and

fresh--which consideration was at the root of every thought I had

concerning her--is all equally true. I made no effort to conceal from

myself, now, that I loved her, that I was devoted to her; but I brought

the assurance home to myself, that it was now too late, and that our

long-subsisting relation must be undisturbed.

I had thought, much and often, of my Dora’s shadowing out to me what

might have happened, in those years that were destined not to try us;

I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much

realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished. The

very years she spoke of, were realities now, for my correction; and

would have been, one day, a little later perhaps, though we had parted

in our earliest folly. I endeavoured to convert what might have been

between myself and Agnes, into a means of making me more self-denying,

more resolved, more conscious of myself, and my defects and errors.

Thus, through the reflection that it might have been, I arrived at the

conviction that it could never be.

These, with their perplexities and inconsistencies, were the shifting

quicksands of my mind, from the time of my departure to the time of my

return home, three years afterwards. Three years had elapsed since the

sailing of the emigrant ship; when, at that same hour of sunset, and in

the same place, I stood on the deck of the packet vessel that brought me

home, looking on the rosy water where I had seen the image of that ship

reflected.

Three years. Long in the aggregate, though short as they went by. And

home was very dear to me, and Agnes too--but she was not mine--she was

never to be mine. She might have been, but that was past!

CHAPTER 59. RETURN

I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and raining,

and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a year. I

walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach;

and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were

like old friends to me, I could not but admit that they were very dingy

friends.

I have often remarked--I suppose everybody has--that one’s going away

from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it.

As I looked out of the coach window, and observed that an old house on

Fish-street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter, or

bricklayer, for a century, had been pulled down in my absence; and that

a neighbouring street, of time-honoured insalubrity and inconvenience,

was being drained and widened; I half expected to find St. Paul’s

Cathedral looking older.

For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My aunt

had long been re-established at Dover, and Traddles had begun to get

into some little practice at the Bar, in the very first term after my

departure. He had chambers in Gray’s Inn, now; and had told me, in his

last letters, that he was not without hopes of being soon united to the

dearest girl in the world.

They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning

so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of

taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill

and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and

silent, through the misty streets.

The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights, did something

for me; and when I alighted at the door of the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house,

I had recovered my spirits. It recalled, at first, that so-different

time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the

changes that had come to pass since then; but that was natural.

‘Do you know where Mr. Traddles lives in the Inn?’ I asked the waiter,

as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire.

‘Holborn Court, sir. Number two.’

‘Mr. Traddles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I believe?’

said I.

‘Well, sir,’ returned the waiter, ‘probably he has, sir; but I am not

aware of it myself.’

This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter

of more authority--a stout, potential old man, with a double chin,

in black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a

churchwarden’s pew, at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company

with a cash-box, a Directory, a Law-list, and other books and papers.

‘Mr. Traddles,’ said the spare waiter. ‘Number two in the Court.’

The potential waiter waved him away, and turned, gravely, to me.

‘I was inquiring,’ said I, ‘whether Mr. Traddles, at number two in the

Court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers?’

‘Never heard his name,’ said the waiter, in a rich husky voice.

I felt quite apologetic for Traddles.

‘He’s a young man, sure?’ said the portentous waiter, fixing his eyes

severely on me. ‘How long has he been in the Inn?’

‘Not above three years,’ said I.

The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his churchwarden’s pew for forty

years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He asked me what

I would have for dinner?

I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on

Traddles’s account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly ordered

a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his

obscurity.

As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking

that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he

was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive,

stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the

room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the

same manner when the chief waiter was a boy--if he ever was a boy,

which appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where I saw

myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps,

without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; and at the comfortable

green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes;

and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of

decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old

port wine below; and both England, and the law, appeared to me to be

very difficult indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bedroom

to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscoted

apartment (which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember),

and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable

gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly

frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth. I

came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the meal,

and the orderly silence of the place--which was bare of guests, the Long

Vacation not yet being over--were eloquent on the audacity of Traddles,

and his small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come.

I had seen nothing like this since I went away, and it quite dashed my

hopes for my friend. The chief waiter had had enough of me. He came near

me no more; but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long gaiters, to

meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come out of the cellar of its

own accord, for he gave no order. The second waiter informed me, in a

whisper, that this old gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the

Square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave

to his laundress’s daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had

a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more

than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers

by mortal vision. By this time, I quite gave Traddles up for lost; and

settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him.

Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I

dispatched my dinner, in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in

the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. Number

two in the Court was soon reached; and an inscription on the door-post

informing me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of chambers on the top

storey, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old staircase I found it to

be, feebly lighted on each landing by a club--headed little oil wick,

dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass.

In the course of my stumbling upstairs, I fancied I heard a pleasant

sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or

attorney’s clerk or barrister’s clerk, but of two or three merry girls.

Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole

where the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn had left a plank deficient,

I fell down with some noise, and when I recovered my footing all was

silent.

Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart

beat high when I found the outer door, which had Mr. TRADDLES painted on

it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing

else. I therefore knocked again.

A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very

much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it

legally, presented himself.

‘Is Mr. Traddles within?’ I said.

‘Yes, sir, but he’s engaged.’

‘I want to see him.’

After a moment’s survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me

in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first,

into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room;

where I came into the presence of my old friend (also out of breath),

seated at a table, and bending over papers.

‘Good God!’ cried Traddles, looking up. ‘It’s Copperfield!’ and rushed

into my arms, where I held him tight.

‘All well, my dear Traddles?’

‘All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!’

We cried with pleasure, both of us.

‘My dear fellow,’ said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his excitement,

which was a most unnecessary operation, ‘my dearest Copperfield, my

long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to see you! How

brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honour, I never was so

rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!’

I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to

speak, at first.

‘My dear fellow!’ said Traddles. ‘And grown so famous! My glorious

Copperfield! Good gracious me, WHEN did you come, WHERE have you come

from, WHAT have you been doing?’

Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had

clapped me into an easy-chair by the fire, all this time impetuously

stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with

the other, under some wild delusion that it was a great-coat. Without

putting down the poker, he now hugged me again; and I hugged him; and,

both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook

hands across the hearth.

‘To think,’ said Traddles, ‘that you should have been so nearly coming

home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the ceremony!’

‘What ceremony, my dear Traddles?’

‘Good gracious me!’ cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old way.

‘Didn’t you get my last letter?’

‘Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony.’

‘Why, my dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, sticking his hair upright

with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, ‘I am married!’

‘Married!’ I cried joyfully.

‘Lord bless me, yes!’ said Traddles--‘by the Reverend Horace--to

Sophy--down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she’s behind the window

curtain! Look here!’

To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same

instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And a

more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I believe

(as I could not help saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed