第 39 页

So it was settled. And then, and not till then, I said to Annie, “Annie,

Doctor Strong will not only be your husband, but he will represent your

late father: he will represent the head of our family, he will represent

the wisdom and station, and I may say the means, of our family; and will

be, in short, a Boon to it.” I used the word at the time, and I have

used it again, today. If I have any merit it is consistency.’

The daughter had sat quite silent and still during this speech, with her

eyes fixed on the ground; her cousin standing near her, and looking on

the ground too. She now said very softly, in a trembling voice:

‘Mama, I hope you have finished?’ ‘No, my dear Annie,’ returned the Old

Soldier, ‘I have not quite finished. Since you ask me, my love, I reply

that I have not. I complain that you really are a little unnatural

towards your own family; and, as it is of no use complaining to you. I

mean to complain to your husband. Now, my dear Doctor, do look at that

silly wife of yours.’

As the Doctor turned his kind face, with its smile of simplicity and

gentleness, towards her, she drooped her head more. I noticed that Mr.

Wickfield looked at her steadily.

‘When I happened to say to that naughty thing, the other day,’ pursued

her mother, shaking her head and her fan at her, playfully, ‘that there

was a family circumstance she might mention to you--indeed, I think, was

bound to mention--she said, that to mention it was to ask a favour;

and that, as you were too generous, and as for her to ask was always to

have, she wouldn’t.’

‘Annie, my dear,’ said the Doctor. ‘That was wrong. It robbed me of a

pleasure.’

‘Almost the very words I said to her!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘Now

really, another time, when I know what she would tell you but for this

reason, and won’t, I have a great mind, my dear Doctor, to tell you

myself.’

‘I shall be glad if you will,’ returned the Doctor.

‘Shall I?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Well, then, I will!’ said the Old Soldier. ‘That’s a bargain.’ And

having, I suppose, carried her point, she tapped the Doctor’s hand

several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and returned

triumphantly to her former station.

Some more company coming in, among whom were the two masters and Adams,

the talk became general; and it naturally turned on Mr. Jack Maldon, and

his voyage, and the country he was going to, and his various plans and

prospects. He was to leave that night, after supper, in a post-chaise,

for Gravesend; where the ship, in which he was to make the voyage, lay;

and was to be gone--unless he came home on leave, or for his health--I

don’t know how many years. I recollect it was settled by general

consent that India was quite a misrepresented country, and had nothing

objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a little heat in the warm

part of the day. For my own part, I looked on Mr. Jack Maldon as a

modern Sindbad, and pictured him the bosom friend of all the Rajahs in

the East, sitting under canopies, smoking curly golden pipes--a mile

long, if they could be straightened out.

Mrs. Strong was a very pretty singer: as I knew, who often heard her

singing by herself. But, whether she was afraid of singing before

people, or was out of voice that evening, it was certain that she

couldn’t sing at all. She tried a duet, once, with her cousin Maldon,

but could not so much as begin; and afterwards, when she tried to sing

by herself, although she began sweetly, her voice died away on a sudden,

and left her quite distressed, with her head hanging down over the keys.

The good Doctor said she was nervous, and, to relieve her, proposed a

round game at cards; of which he knew as much as of the art of playing

the trombone. But I remarked that the Old Soldier took him into custody

directly, for her partner; and instructed him, as the first preliminary

of initiation, to give her all the silver he had in his pocket.

We had a merry game, not made the less merry by the Doctor’s mistakes,

of which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite of the

watchfulness of the butterflies, and to their great aggravation. Mrs.

Strong had declined to play, on the ground of not feeling very well; and

her cousin Maldon had excused himself because he had some packing to

do. When he had done it, however, he returned, and they sat together,

talking, on the sofa. From time to time she came and looked over the

Doctor’s hand, and told him what to play. She was very pale, as she

bent over him, and I thought her finger trembled as she pointed out

the cards; but the Doctor was quite happy in her attention, and took no

notice of this, if it were so.

At supper, we were hardly so gay. Everyone appeared to feel that a

parting of that sort was an awkward thing, and that the nearer it

approached, the more awkward it was. Mr. Jack Maldon tried to be very

talkative, but was not at his ease, and made matters worse. And they

were not improved, as it appeared to me, by the Old Soldier: who

continually recalled passages of Mr. Jack Maldon’s youth.

The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was making everybody

happy, was well pleased, and had no suspicion but that we were all at

the utmost height of enjoyment.

‘Annie, my dear,’ said he, looking at his watch, and filling his glass,

‘it is past your cousin Jack’s time, and we must not detain him, since

time and tide--both concerned in this case--wait for no man. Mr. Jack

Maldon, you have a long voyage, and a strange country, before you; but

many men have had both, and many men will have both, to the end of time.

The winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thousands upon thousands

to fortune, and brought thousands upon thousands happily back.’

‘It’s an affecting thing,’ said Mrs. Markleham--‘however it’s viewed,

it’s affecting, to see a fine young man one has known from an infant,

going away to the other end of the world, leaving all he knows behind,

and not knowing what’s before him. A young man really well deserves

constant support and patronage,’ looking at the Doctor, ‘who makes such

sacrifices.’

‘Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon,’ pursued the Doctor,

‘and fast with all of us. Some of us can hardly expect, perhaps, in the

natural course of things, to greet you on your return. The next best

thing is to hope to do it, and that’s my case. I shall not weary you

with good advice. You have long had a good model before you, in your

cousin Annie. Imitate her virtues as nearly as you can.’

Mrs. Markleham fanned herself, and shook her head.

‘Farewell, Mr. Jack,’ said the Doctor, standing up; on which we all

stood up. ‘A prosperous voyage out, a thriving career abroad, and a

happy return home!’

We all drank the toast, and all shook hands with Mr. Jack Maldon; after

which he hastily took leave of the ladies who were there, and hurried

to the door, where he was received, as he got into the chaise, with a

tremendous broadside of cheers discharged by our boys, who had assembled

on the lawn for the purpose. Running in among them to swell the ranks,

I was very near the chaise when it rolled away; and I had a lively

impression made upon me, in the midst of the noise and dust, of having

seen Mr. Jack Maldon rattle past with an agitated face, and something

cherry-coloured in his hand.

After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for the Doctor’s

wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into the house, where I found

the guests all standing in a group about the Doctor, discussing how Mr.

Jack Maldon had gone away, and how he had borne it, and how he had

felt it, and all the rest of it. In the midst of these remarks, Mrs.

Markleham cried: ‘Where’s Annie?’

No Annie was there; and when they called to her, no Annie replied. But

all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, we

found her lying on the hall floor. There was great alarm at first, until

it was found that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was yielding

to the usual means of recovery; when the Doctor, who had lifted her

head upon his knee, put her curls aside with his hand, and said, looking

around:

‘Poor Annie! She’s so faithful and tender-hearted! It’s the parting from

her old playfellow and friend--her favourite cousin--that has done this.

Ah! It’s a pity! I am very sorry!’

When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we were all

standing about her, she arose with assistance: turning her head, as she

did so, to lay it on the Doctor’s shoulder--or to hide it, I don’t know

which. We went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the Doctor and

her mother; but she said, it seemed, that she was better than she had

been since morning, and that she would rather be brought among us; so

they brought her in, looking very white and weak, I thought, and sat her

on a sofa.

‘Annie, my dear,’ said her mother, doing something to her dress. ‘See

here! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find a ribbon; a

cherry-coloured ribbon?’

It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We all looked for it; I myself

looked everywhere, I am certain--but nobody could find it.

‘Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie?’ said her mother.

I wondered how I could have thought she looked white, or anything but

burning red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a little while

ago, she thought, but it was not worth looking for.

Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. She

entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still sought

for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took

their departure.

We walked very slowly home, Mr. Wickfield, Agnes, and I--Agnes and I

admiring the moonlight, and Mr. Wickfield scarcely raising his eyes from

the ground. When we, at last, reached our own door, Agnes discovered

that she had left her little reticule behind. Delighted to be of any

service to her, I ran back to fetch it.

I went into the supper-room where it had been left, which was deserted

and dark. But a door of communication between that and the Doctor’s

study, where there was a light, being open, I passed on there, to say

what I wanted, and to get a candle.

The Doctor was sitting in his easy-chair by the fireside, and his young

wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a complacent smile,

was reading aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory

out of that interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him. But

with such a face as I never saw. It was so beautiful in its form, it was

so ashy pale, it was so fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a

wild, sleep-walking, dreamy horror of I don’t know what. The eyes

were wide open, and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her

shoulders, and on her white dress, disordered by the want of the lost

ribbon. Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was

expressive, I cannot even say of what it is expressive to me now, rising

again before my older judgement. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride,

love, and trustfulness--I see them all; and in them all, I see that

horror of I don’t know what.

My entrance, and my saying what I wanted, roused her. It disturbed the

Doctor too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had taken from

the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying he

was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into reading on; and he would

have her go to bed.

But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay--to let

her feel assured (I heard her murmur some broken words to this effect)

that she was in his confidence that night. And, as she turned again

towards him, after glancing at me as I left the room and went out at the

door, I saw her cross her hands upon his knee, and look up at him with

the same face, something quieted, as he resumed his reading.

It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it a long time

afterwards; as I shall have occasion to narrate when the time comes.

CHAPTER 17. SOMEBODY TURNS UP

It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since I ran away; but, of

course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed at Dover,

and another, and a longer letter, containing all particulars fully

related, when my aunt took me formally under her protection. On my being

settled at Doctor Strong’s I wrote to her again, detailing my happy

condition and prospects. I never could have derived anything like the

pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick had given me, that I felt in

sending a gold half-guinea to Peggotty, per post, enclosed in this last

letter, to discharge the sum I had borrowed of her: in which epistle,

not before, I mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart.

To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly, if not as

concisely, as a merchant’s clerk. Her utmost powers of expression (which

were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write

what she felt on the subject of my journey. Four sides of incoherent and

interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots,

were inadequate to afford her any relief. But the blots were more

expressive to me than the best composition; for they showed me that

Peggotty had been crying all over the paper, and what could I have

desired more?

I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite

kindly to my aunt yet. The notice was too short after so long a

prepossession the other way. We never knew a person, she wrote; but to

think that Miss Betsey should seem to be so different from what she had

been thought to be, was a Moral!--that was her word. She was evidently

still afraid of Miss Betsey, for she sent her grateful duty to her but

timidly; and she was evidently afraid of me, too, and entertained the

probability of my running away again soon: if I might judge from the

repeated hints she threw out, that the coach-fare to Yarmouth was always

to be had of her for the asking.

She gave me one piece of intelligence which affected me very much,

namely, that there had been a sale of the furniture at our old home, and

that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were gone away, and the house was shut up,