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room, with a piano and some lively furniture in red and green, and some

flowers. It seemed to be all old nooks and corners; and in every nook

and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or bookcase,

or seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such

another good corner in the room; until I looked at the next one, and

found it equal to it, if not better. On everything there was the same

air of retirement and cleanliness that marked the house outside.

Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, and a

girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her face,

I saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of the lady whose

picture had looked at me downstairs. It seemed to my imagination as

if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original remained a child.

Although her face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity

about it, and about her--a quiet, good, calm spirit--that I never have

forgotten; that I shall never forget. This was his little housekeeper,

his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield said. When I heard how he said it, and

saw how he held her hand, I guessed what the one motive of his life was.

She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side, with keys in it; and

she looked as staid and as discreet a housekeeper as the old house

could have. She listened to her father as he told her about me, with a

pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we

should go upstairs and see my room. We all went together, she before us:

and a glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes;

and the broad balustrade going all the way up to it.

I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a

stained glass window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But

I know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old

staircase, and wait for us, above, I thought of that window; and I

associated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield

ever afterwards.

My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me; and we

went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified. As she

would not hear of staying to dinner, lest she should by any chance fail

to arrive at home with the grey pony before dark; and as I apprehend Mr.

Wickfield knew her too well to argue any point with her; some lunch was

provided for her there, and Agnes went back to her governess, and Mr.

Wickfield to his office. So we were left to take leave of one another

without any restraint.

She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wickfield,

and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and

the best advice.

‘Trot,’ said my aunt in conclusion, ‘be a credit to yourself, to me, and

Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!’

I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her, again and again, and

send my love to Mr. Dick.

‘Never,’ said my aunt, ‘be mean in anything; never be false; never be

cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of

you.’

I promised, as well as I could, that I would not abuse her kindness or

forget her admonition.

‘The pony’s at the door,’ said my aunt, ‘and I am off! Stay here.’ With

these words she embraced me hastily, and went out of the room, shutting

the door after her. At first I was startled by so abrupt a departure,

and almost feared I had displeased her; but when I looked into the

street, and saw how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and drove away

without looking up, I understood her better and did not do her that

injustice.

By five o’clock, which was Mr. Wickfield’s dinner-hour, I had mustered

up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. The cloth was

only laid for us two; but Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before

dinner, went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I

doubted whether he could have dined without her.

We did not stay there, after dinner, but came upstairs into the

drawing-room again: in one snug corner of which, Agnes set glasses for

her father, and a decanter of port wine. I thought he would have missed

its usual flavour, if it had been put there for him by any other hands.

There he sat, taking his wine, and taking a good deal of it, for two

hours; while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and

me. He was, for the most part, gay and cheerful with us; but sometimes

his eyes rested on her, and he fell into a brooding state, and was

silent. She always observed this quickly, I thought, and always roused

him with a question or caress. Then he came out of his meditation, and

drank more wine.

Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after

it, as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her

in his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his

office. Then I went to bed too.

But in the course of the evening I had rambled down to the door, and a

little way along the street, that I might have another peep at the old

houses, and the grey Cathedral; and might think of my coming through

that old city on my journey, and of my passing the very house I lived

in, without knowing it. As I came back, I saw Uriah Heep shutting up

the office; and feeling friendly towards everybody, went in and spoke

to him, and at parting, gave him my hand. But oh, what a clammy hand his

was! as ghostly to the touch as to the sight! I rubbed mine afterwards,

to warm it, AND TO RUB HIS OFF.

It was such an uncomfortable hand, that, when I went to my room, it was

still cold and wet upon my memory. Leaning out of the window, and seeing

one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied it

was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry.

CHAPTER 16. I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE

Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went,

accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies--a grave

building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very

well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the

Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot--and

was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong.

Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron

rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the

great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of

the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like

sublimated skittles, for Time to play at. He was in his library (I mean

Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and

his hair not particularly well combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his

long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on

the hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of

a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and

tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad

to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which I didn’t know what to do

with, as it did nothing for itself.

But, sitting at work, not far from Doctor Strong, was a very pretty

young lady--whom he called Annie, and who was his daughter, I

supposed--who got me out of my difficulty by kneeling down to put Doctor

Strong’s shoes on, and button his gaiters, which she did with great

cheerfulness and quickness. When she had finished, and we were going

out to the schoolroom, I was much surprised to hear Mr. Wickfield,

in bidding her good morning, address her as ‘Mrs. Strong’; and I was

wondering could she be Doctor Strong’s son’s wife, or could she be Mrs.

Doctor Strong, when Doctor Strong himself unconsciously enlightened me.

‘By the by, Wickfield,’ he said, stopping in a passage with his hand on

my shoulder; ‘you have not found any suitable provision for my wife’s

cousin yet?’

‘No,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘No. Not yet.’

‘I could wish it done as soon as it can be done, Wickfield,’ said

Doctor Strong, ‘for Jack Maldon is needy, and idle; and of those two

bad things, worse things sometimes come. What does Doctor Watts say,’ he

added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation,

‘“Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.”’

‘Egad, Doctor,’ returned Mr. Wickfield, ‘if Doctor Watts knew mankind,

he might have written, with as much truth, “Satan finds some mischief

still, for busy hands to do.” The busy people achieve their full share

of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the people

been about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in getting

power, this century or two? No mischief?’

‘Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect,’ said

Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

‘Perhaps not,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘and you bring me back to the

question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able

to dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe,’ he said this with some

hesitation, ‘I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more

difficult.’

‘My motive,’ returned Doctor Strong, ‘is to make some suitable provision

for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of Annie’s.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Mr. Wickfield; ‘at home or abroad.’

‘Aye!’ replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasized those

words so much. ‘At home or abroad.’

‘Your own expression, you know,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘Or abroad.’

‘Surely,’ the Doctor answered. ‘Surely. One or other.’

‘One or other? Have you no choice?’ asked Mr. Wickfield.

‘No,’ returned the Doctor.

‘No?’ with astonishment.

‘Not the least.’

‘No motive,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘for meaning abroad, and not at home?’

‘No,’ returned the Doctor.

‘I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you,’ said Mr.

Wickfield. ‘It might have simplified my office very much, if I had known

it before. But I confess I entertained another impression.’

Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look,

which almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great

encouragement; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and there

was a simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when the

studious, pondering frost upon it was got through, very attractive and

hopeful to a young scholar like me. Repeating ‘no’, and ‘not the least’,

and other short assurances to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged

on before us, at a queer, uneven pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield,

looking grave, I observed, and shaking his head to himself, without

knowing that I saw him.

The schoolroom was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the

house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great

urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the

Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There

were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the

broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of

painted tin) have ever since, by association, been symbolical to me

of silence and retirement. About five-and-twenty boys were studiously

engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor

good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me.

‘A new boy, young gentlemen,’ said the Doctor; ‘Trotwood Copperfield.’

One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and

welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but

he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and

presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me

at my ease, if anything could.

It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys,

or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy

Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in my life. I was

so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have

no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age,

appearance, and condition as one of them, that I half believed it was an

imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy. I had become,

in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short or long it may have

been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew I was

awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them.

Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares

of my life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what

I knew, I knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school.

But, troubled as I was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning

too, I was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration,

that, in what I did know, I was much farther removed from my companions

than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they would think, if they

knew of my familiar acquaintance with the King’s Bench Prison? Was there

anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with

the Micawber family--all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers--in

spite of myself? Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through

Canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? What would they

say, who made so light of money, if they could know how I had scraped my

halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, or

my slices of pudding? How would it affect them, who were so innocent of

London life, and London streets, to discover how knowing I was (and was

ashamed to be) in some of the meanest phases of both? All this ran in

my head so much, on that first day at Doctor Strong’s, that I felt

distrustful of my slightest look and gesture; shrunk within myself

whensoever I was approached by one of my new schoolfellows; and hurried

off the minute school was over, afraid of committing myself in my

response to any friendly notice or advance.

But there was such an influence in Mr. Wickfield’s old house, that when

I knocked at it, with my new school-books under my arm, I began to feel

my uneasiness softening away. As I went up to my airy old room, the

grave shadow of the staircase seemed to fall upon my doubts and fears,