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for ages, to a bawling, splashing, link-lighted, umbrella-struggling,

hackney-coach-jostling, patten-clinking, muddy, miserable world.

I had emerged by another door, and stood in the street for a little

while, as if I really were a stranger upon earth: but the unceremonious

pushing and hustling that I received, soon recalled me to myself, and

put me in the road back to the hotel; whither I went, revolving the

glorious vision all the way; and where, after some porter and oysters,

I sat revolving it still, at past one o’clock, with my eyes on the

coffee-room fire.

I was so filled with the play, and with the past--for it was, in a

manner, like a shining transparency, through which I saw my earlier

life moving along--that I don’t know when the figure of a handsome

well-formed young man dressed with a tasteful easy negligence which I

have reason to remember very well, became a real presence to me. But

I recollect being conscious of his company without having noticed his

coming in--and my still sitting, musing, over the coffee-room fire.

At last I rose to go to bed, much to the relief of the sleepy waiter,

who had got the fidgets in his legs, and was twisting them, and hitting

them, and putting them through all kinds of contortions in his small

pantry. In going towards the door, I passed the person who had come in,

and saw him plainly. I turned directly, came back, and looked again. He

did not know me, but I knew him in a moment.

At another time I might have wanted the confidence or the decision to

speak to him, and might have put it off until next day, and might have

lost him. But, in the then condition of my mind, where the play was

still running high, his former protection of me appeared so deserving

of my gratitude, and my old love for him overflowed my breast so freshly

and spontaneously, that I went up to him at once, with a fast-beating

heart, and said:

‘Steerforth! won’t you speak to me?’

He looked at me--just as he used to look, sometimes--but I saw no

recognition in his face.

‘You don’t remember me, I am afraid,’ said I.

‘My God!’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘It’s little Copperfield!’

I grasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But for very

shame, and the fear that it might displease him, I could have held him

round the neck and cried.

‘I never, never, never was so glad! My dear Steerforth, I am so

overjoyed to see you!’

‘And I am rejoiced to see you, too!’ he said, shaking my hands heartily.

‘Why, Copperfield, old boy, don’t be overpowered!’ And yet he was glad,

too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in meeting him affected me.

I brushed away the tears that my utmost resolution had not been able to

keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down together,

side by side.

‘Why, how do you come to be here?’ said Steerforth, clapping me on the

shoulder.

‘I came here by the Canterbury coach, today. I have been adopted by

an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my

education there. How do YOU come to be here, Steerforth?’

‘Well, I am what they call an Oxford man,’ he returned; ‘that is to say,

I get bored to death down there, periodically--and I am on my way now to

my mother’s. You’re a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Copperfield. Just

what you used to be, now I look at you! Not altered in the least!’

‘I knew you immediately,’ I said; ‘but you are more easily remembered.’

He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his hair,

and said gaily:

‘Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mother lives a little way out of

town; and the roads being in a beastly condition, and our house tedious

enough, I remained here tonight instead of going on. I have not been in

town half-a-dozen hours, and those I have been dozing and grumbling away

at the play.’

‘I have been at the play, too,’ said I. ‘At Covent Garden. What a

delightful and magnificent entertainment, Steerforth!’

Steerforth laughed heartily.

‘My dear young Davy,’ he said, clapping me on the shoulder again, ‘you

are a very Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunrise, is not fresher

than you are. I have been at Covent Garden, too, and there never was a

more miserable business. Holloa, you sir!’

This was addressed to the waiter, who had been very attentive to our

recognition, at a distance, and now came forward deferentially.

‘Where have you put my friend, Mr. Copperfield?’ said Steerforth.

‘Beg your pardon, sir?’

‘Where does he sleep? What’s his number? You know what I mean,’ said

Steerforth.

‘Well, sir,’ said the waiter, with an apologetic air. ‘Mr. Copperfield

is at present in forty-four, sir.’

‘And what the devil do you mean,’ retorted Steerforth, ‘by putting Mr.

Copperfield into a little loft over a stable?’

‘Why, you see we wasn’t aware, sir,’ returned the waiter, still

apologetically, ‘as Mr. Copperfield was anyways particular. We can give

Mr. Copperfield seventy-two, sir, if it would be preferred. Next you,

sir.’

‘Of course it would be preferred,’ said Steerforth. ‘And do it at once.’

The waiter immediately withdrew to make the exchange. Steerforth, very

much amused at my having been put into forty-four, laughed again, and

clapped me on the shoulder again, and invited me to breakfast with him

next morning at ten o’clock--an invitation I was only too proud and

happy to accept. It being now pretty late, we took our candles and went

upstairs, where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door, and

where I found my new room a great improvement on my old one, it not

being at all musty, and having an immense four-post bedstead in it,

which was quite a little landed estate. Here, among pillows enough for

six, I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition, and dreamed of ancient

Rome, Steerforth, and friendship, until the early morning coaches,

rumbling out of the archway underneath, made me dream of thunder and the

gods.

CHAPTER 20. STEERFORTH’S HOME

When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o’clock, and informed

me that my shaving-water was outside, I felt severely the having no

occasion for it, and blushed in my bed. The suspicion that she laughed

too, when she said it, preyed upon my mind all the time I was dressing;

and gave me, I was conscious, a sneaking and guilty air when I passed

her on the staircase, as I was going down to breakfast. I was so

sensitively aware, indeed, of being younger than I could have wished,

that for some time I could not make up my mind to pass her at all, under

the ignoble circumstances of the case; but, hearing her there with

a broom, stood peeping out of window at King Charles on horseback,

surrounded by a maze of hackney-coaches, and looking anything but regal

in a drizzling rain and a dark-brown fog, until I was admonished by the

waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me.

It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me, but

in a snug private apartment, red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted, where

the fire burnt bright, and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table

covered with a clean cloth; and a cheerful miniature of the room, the

fire, the breakfast, Steerforth, and all, was shining in the little

round mirror over the sideboard. I was rather bashful at first,

Steerforth being so self-possessed, and elegant, and superior to me in

all respects (age included); but his easy patronage soon put that to

rights, and made me quite at home. I could not enough admire the change

he had wrought in the Golden Cross; or compare the dull forlorn state

I had held yesterday, with this morning’s comfort and this morning’s

entertainment. As to the waiter’s familiarity, it was quenched as if it

had never been. He attended on us, as I may say, in sackcloth and ashes.

‘Now, Copperfield,’ said Steerforth, when we were alone, ‘I should like

to hear what you are doing, and where you are going, and all about you.

I feel as if you were my property.’ Glowing with pleasure to find that

he had still this interest in me, I told him how my aunt had proposed

the little expedition that I had before me, and whither it tended.

‘As you are in no hurry, then,’ said Steerforth, ‘come home with me to

Highgate, and stay a day or two. You will be pleased with my mother--she

is a little vain and prosy about me, but that you can forgive her--and

she will be pleased with you.’

‘I should like to be as sure of that, as you are kind enough to say you

are,’ I answered, smiling.

‘Oh!’ said Steerforth, ‘everyone who likes me, has a claim on her that

is sure to be acknowledged.’

‘Then I think I shall be a favourite,’ said I.

‘Good!’ said Steerforth. ‘Come and prove it. We will go and see the

lions for an hour or two--it’s something to have a fresh fellow like you

to show them to, Copperfield--and then we’ll journey out to Highgate by

the coach.’

I could hardly believe but that I was in a dream, and that I should wake

presently in number forty-four, to the solitary box in the coffee-room

and the familiar waiter again. After I had written to my aunt and told

her of my fortunate meeting with my admired old schoolfellow, and my

acceptance of his invitation, we went out in a hackney-chariot, and saw

a Panorama and some other sights, and took a walk through the Museum,

where I could not help observing how much Steerforth knew, on an

infinite variety of subjects, and of how little account he seemed to

make his knowledge.

‘You’ll take a high degree at college, Steerforth,’ said I, ‘if you have

not done so already; and they will have good reason to be proud of you.’

‘I take a degree!’ cried Steerforth. ‘Not I! my dear Daisy--will you

mind my calling you Daisy?’

‘Not at all!’ said I.

‘That’s a good fellow! My dear Daisy,’ said Steerforth, laughing. ‘I

have not the least desire or intention to distinguish myself in that

way. I have done quite sufficient for my purpose. I find that I am heavy

company enough for myself as I am.’

‘But the fame--’ I was beginning.

‘You romantic Daisy!’ said Steerforth, laughing still more heartily:

‘why should I trouble myself, that a parcel of heavy-headed fellows may

gape and hold up their hands? Let them do it at some other man. There’s

fame for him, and he’s welcome to it.’

I was abashed at having made so great a mistake, and was glad to change

the subject. Fortunately it was not difficult to do, for Steerforth

could always pass from one subject to another with a carelessness and

lightness that were his own.

Lunch succeeded to our sight-seeing, and the short winter day wore away

so fast, that it was dusk when the stage-coach stopped with us at an

old brick house at Highgate on the summit of the hill. An elderly lady,

though not very far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and

a handsome face, was in the doorway as we alighted; and greeting

Steerforth as ‘My dearest James,’ folded him in her arms. To this lady

he presented me as his mother, and she gave me a stately welcome.

It was a genteel old-fashioned house, very quiet and orderly. From the

windows of my room I saw all London lying in the distance like a great

vapour, with here and there some lights twinkling through it. I had only

time, in dressing, to glance at the solid furniture, the framed pieces

of work (done, I supposed, by Steerforth’s mother when she was a girl),

and some pictures in crayons of ladies with powdered hair and bodices,

coming and going on the walls, as the newly-kindled fire crackled and

sputtered, when I was called to dinner.

There was a second lady in the dining-room, of a slight short figure,

dark, and not agreeable to look at, but with some appearance of good

looks too, who attracted my attention: perhaps because I had not

expected to see her; perhaps because I found myself sitting opposite

to her; perhaps because of something really remarkable in her. She had

black hair and eager black eyes, and was thin, and had a scar upon her

lip. It was an old scar--I should rather call it seam, for it was not

discoloured, and had healed years ago--which had once cut through her

mouth, downward towards the chin, but was now barely visible across

the table, except above and on her upper lip, the shape of which it had

altered. I concluded in my own mind that she was about thirty years

of age, and that she wished to be married. She was a little

dilapidated--like a house--with having been so long to let; yet had, as

I have said, an appearance of good looks. Her thinness seemed to be the

effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt

eyes.

She was introduced as Miss Dartle, and both Steerforth and his mother

called her Rosa. I found that she lived there, and had been for a long

time Mrs. Steerforth’s companion. It appeared to me that she never said

anything she wanted to say, outright; but hinted it, and made a great

deal more of it by this practice. For example, when Mrs. Steerforth

observed, more in jest than earnest, that she feared her son led but a

wild life at college, Miss Dartle put in thus:

‘Oh, really? You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for

information, but isn’t it always so? I thought that kind of life was

on all hands understood to be--eh?’ ‘It is education for a very grave

profession, if you mean that, Rosa,’ Mrs. Steerforth answered with some

coldness.

‘Oh! Yes! That’s very true,’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘But isn’t it,

though?--I want to be put right, if I am wrong--isn’t it, really?’

‘Really what?’ said Mrs. Steerforth.

‘Oh! You mean it’s not!’ returned Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I’m very glad to

hear it! Now, I know what to do! That’s the advantage of asking. I shall

never allow people to talk before me about wastefulness and profligacy,

and so forth, in connexion with that life, any more.’

‘And you will be right,’ said Mrs. Steerforth. ‘My son’s tutor is a

conscientious gentleman; and if I had not implicit reliance on my son, I

should have reliance on him.’

‘Should you?’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Dear me! Conscientious, is he? Really

conscientious, now?’

‘Yes, I am convinced of it,’ said Mrs. Steerforth.

‘How very nice!’ exclaimed Miss Dartle. ‘What a comfort! Really

conscientious? Then he’s not--but of course he can’t be, if he’s really