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I could think of the past now, gravely, but not bitterly; and could

contemplate the future in a brave spirit. Home, in its best sense, was

for me no more. She in whom I might have inspired a dearer love, I had

taught to be my sister. She would marry, and would have new claimants on

her tenderness; and in doing it, would never know the love for her that

had grown up in my heart. It was right that I should pay the forfeit of

my headlong passion. What I reaped, I had sown.

I was thinking. And had I truly disciplined my heart to this, and could

I resolutely bear it, and calmly hold the place in her home which she

had calmly held in mine,--when I found my eyes resting on a countenance

that might have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my early

remembrances.

Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted in

the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the

shadow of an opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in years by this

time; but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that

I thought he looked at that moment just as he might have looked when he

sat in our parlour, waiting for me to be born.

Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had

never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with his

little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus at his

elbow. He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to

apologize to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it.

I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, ‘How do you do, Mr.

Chillip?’

He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger, and

replied, in his slow way, ‘I thank you, sir, you are very good. Thank

you, sir. I hope YOU are well.’

‘You don’t remember me?’ said I.

‘Well, sir,’ returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking his

head as he surveyed me, ‘I have a kind of an impression that something

in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but I couldn’t lay my hand

upon your name, really.’

‘And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself,’ I returned.

‘Did I indeed, sir?’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Is it possible that I had the

honour, sir, of officiating when--?’

‘Yes,’ said I.

‘Dear me!’ cried Mr. Chillip. ‘But no doubt you are a good deal changed

since then, sir?’

‘Probably,’ said I.

‘Well, sir,’ observed Mr. Chillip, ‘I hope you’ll excuse me, if I am

compelled to ask the favour of your name?’

On my telling him my name, he was really moved. He quite shook hands

with me--which was a violent proceeding for him, his usual course being

to slide a tepid little fish-slice, an inch or two in advance of his

hip, and evince the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with

it. Even now, he put his hand in his coat-pocket as soon as he could

disengage it, and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back.

‘Dear me, sir!’ said Mr. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one

side. ‘And it’s Mr. Copperfield, is it? Well, sir, I think I should have

known you, if I had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you.

There’s a strong resemblance between you and your poor father, sir.’

‘I never had the happiness of seeing my father,’ I observed.

‘Very true, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. ‘And very much

to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant, sir,’ said

Mr. Chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, ‘down in our part of

the country, of your fame. There must be great excitement here, sir,’

said Mr. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger.

‘You must find it a trying occupation, sir!’

‘What is your part of the country now?’ I asked, seating myself near

him.

‘I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmund’s, sir,’ said

Mr. Chillip. ‘Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little property in that

neighbourhood, under her father’s will, I bought a practice down there,

in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My daughter is

growing quite a tall lass now, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, giving his little

head another little shake. ‘Her mother let down two tucks in her frocks

only last week. Such is time, you see, sir!’

As the little man put his now empty glass to his lips, when he made this

reflection, I proposed to him to have it refilled, and I would keep him

company with another. ‘Well, sir,’ he returned, in his slow way, ‘it’s

more than I am accustomed to; but I can’t deny myself the pleasure

of your conversation. It seems but yesterday that I had the honour of

attending you in the measles. You came through them charmingly, sir!’

I acknowledged this compliment, and ordered the negus, which was soon

produced. ‘Quite an uncommon dissipation!’ said Mr. Chillip, stirring

it, ‘but I can’t resist so extraordinary an occasion. You have no

family, sir?’

I shook my head.

‘I was aware that you sustained a bereavement, sir, some time ago,’ said

Mr. Chillip. ‘I heard it from your father-in-law’s sister. Very decided

character there, sir?’

‘Why, yes,’ said I, ‘decided enough. Where did you see her, Mr.

Chillip?’

‘Are you not aware, sir,’ returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest

smile, ‘that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine?’

‘No,’ said I.

‘He is indeed, sir!’ said Mr. Chillip. ‘Married a young lady of that

part, with a very good little property, poor thing.---And this action

of the brain now, sir? Don’t you find it fatigue you?’ said Mr. Chillip,

looking at me like an admiring Robin.

I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. ‘I was aware of

his being married again. Do you attend the family?’ I asked.

‘Not regularly. I have been called in,’ he replied. ‘Strong

phrenological developments of the organ of firmness, in Mr. Murdstone

and his sister, sir.’

I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was emboldened

by that, and the negus together, to give his head several short shakes,

and thoughtfully exclaim, ‘Ah, dear me! We remember old times, Mr.

Copperfield!’

‘And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are they?’

said I.

‘Well, sir,’ replied Mr. Chillip, ‘a medical man, being so much in

families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his

profession. Still, I must say, they are very severe, sir: both as to

this life and the next.’

‘The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare say,’

I returned: ‘what are they doing as to this?’

Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it.

‘She was a charming woman, sir!’ he observed in a plaintive manner.

‘The present Mrs. Murdstone?’

‘A charming woman indeed, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip; ‘as amiable, I am sure,

as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip’s opinion is, that her spirit

has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but

melancholy mad. And the ladies,’ observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, ‘are

great observers, sir.’

‘I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould,

Heaven help her!’ said I. ‘And she has been.’

‘Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you,’ said

Mr. Chillip; ‘but she is quite a shadow now. Would it be considered

forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the

sister came to help, the brother and sister between them have nearly

reduced her to a state of imbecility?’

I told him I could easily believe it.

‘I have no hesitation in saying,’ said Mr. Chillip, fortifying himself

with another sip of negus, ‘between you and me, sir, that her mother

died of it--or that tyranny, gloom, and worry have made Mrs. Murdstone

nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, and

their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They go about with her, now,

more like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. That was

Mrs. Chillip’s remark to me, only last week. And I assure you, sir, the

ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillip herself is a great observer!’

‘Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in such

association) religious still?’ I inquired.

‘You anticipate, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite

red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. ‘One of Mrs.

Chillip’s most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip,’ he proceeded, in the

calmest and slowest manner, ‘quite electrified me, by pointing out

that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the Divine

Nature. You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir,

with the feather of a pen, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The

ladies are great observers, sir?’

‘Intuitively,’ said I, to his extreme delight.

‘I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir,’ he

rejoined. ‘It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical opinion,

I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it

is said,--in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip,--that the darker

tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine.’

‘I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right,’ said I.

‘Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say,’ pursued the meekest of little

men, much encouraged, ‘that what such people miscall their religion, is

a vent for their bad humours and arrogance. And do you know I must say,

sir,’ he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, ‘that I DON’T

find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament?’

‘I never found it either!’ said I.

‘In the meantime, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip, ‘they are much disliked;

and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them

to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in

our neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo a

continual punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own

hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding. Now, sir, about that

brain of yours, if you’ll excuse my returning to it. Don’t you expose it

to a good deal of excitement, sir?’

I found it not difficult, in the excitement of Mr. Chillip’s own brain,

under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic

to his own affairs, on which, for the next half-hour, he was quite

loquacious; giving me to understand, among other pieces of information,

that he was then at the Gray’s Inn Coffee-house to lay his professional

evidence before a Commission of Lunacy, touching the state of mind of a

patient who had become deranged from excessive drinking. ‘And I assure

you, sir,’ he said, ‘I am extremely nervous on such occasions. I could

not support being what is called Bullied, sir. It would quite unman

me. Do you know it was some time before I recovered the conduct of that

alarming lady, on the night of your birth, Mr. Copperfield?’

I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the Dragon of that night,

early in the morning; and that she was one of the most tender-hearted

and excellent of women, as he would know full well if he knew her

better. The mere notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her again,

appeared to terrify him. He replied with a small pale smile, ‘Is she so,

indeed, sir? Really?’ and almost immediately called for a candle, and

went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else. He did not

actually stagger under the negus; but I should think his placid little

pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had

done since the great night of my aunt’s disappointment, when she struck

at him with her bonnet.

Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next day on

the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt’s old parlour while

she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was received by her, and

Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open

arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily amused, when we began to

talk composedly, by my account of my meeting with Mr. Chillip, and of

his holding her in such dread remembrance; and both she and Peggotty

had a great deal to say about my poor mother’s second husband, and ‘that

murdering woman of a sister’,--on whom I think no pain or penalty would

have induced my aunt to bestow any Christian or Proper Name, or any

other designation.

CHAPTER 60. AGNES

My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. How

the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully;

how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on

account of those ‘pecuniary liabilities’, in reference to which he had

been so business-like as between man and man; how Janet, returning into

my aunt’s service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out

her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving

tavern-keeper; and how my aunt had finally set her seal on the same

great principle, by aiding and abetting the bride, and crowning the

marriage-ceremony with her presence; were among our topics--already

more or less familiar to me through the letters I had had. Mr. Dick,

as usual, was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly

occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and

kept King Charles the First at a respectful distance by that semblance

of employment; how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life

that he was free and happy, instead of pining in monotonous restraint;

and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully

know what he was.

‘And when, Trot,’ said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we sat

in our old way before the fire, ‘when are you going over to Canterbury?’

‘I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, aunt, unless you

will go with me?’

‘No!’ said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. ‘I mean to stay where I

am.’

Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury

today without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone but her.

She was pleased, but answered, ‘Tut, Trot; MY old bones would have

kept till tomorrow!’ and softly patted my hand again, as I sat looking

thoughtfully at the fire.

Thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes,