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conscientious. Well, I shall be quite happy in my opinion of him, from

this time. You can’t think how it elevates him in my opinion, to know

for certain that he’s really conscientious!’

Her own views of every question, and her correction of everything that

was said to which she was opposed, Miss Dartle insinuated in the same

way: sometimes, I could not conceal from myself, with great power,

though in contradiction even of Steerforth. An instance happened before

dinner was done. Mrs. Steerforth speaking to me about my intention

of going down into Suffolk, I said at hazard how glad I should be, if

Steerforth would only go there with me; and explaining to him that I was

going to see my old nurse, and Mr. Peggotty’s family, I reminded him of

the boatman whom he had seen at school.

‘Oh! That bluff fellow!’ said Steerforth. ‘He had a son with him, hadn’t

he?’

‘No. That was his nephew,’ I replied; ‘whom he adopted, though, as

a son. He has a very pretty little niece too, whom he adopted as a

daughter. In short, his house--or rather his boat, for he lives in one,

on dry land--is full of people who are objects of his generosity and

kindness. You would be delighted to see that household.’

‘Should I?’ said Steerforth. ‘Well, I think I should. I must see what

can be done. It would be worth a journey (not to mention the pleasure of

a journey with you, Daisy), to see that sort of people together, and to

make one of ‘em.’

My heart leaped with a new hope of pleasure. But it was in reference

to the tone in which he had spoken of ‘that sort of people’, that Miss

Dartle, whose sparkling eyes had been watchful of us, now broke in

again.

‘Oh, but, really? Do tell me. Are they, though?’ she said.

‘Are they what? And are who what?’ said Steerforth.

‘That sort of people.---Are they really animals and clods, and beings of

another order? I want to know SO much.’

‘Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,’ said

Steerforth, with indifference. ‘They are not to be expected to be

as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked, or hurt

easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say--some people contend

for that, at least; and I am sure I don’t want to contradict them--but

they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like

their coarse rough skins, they are not easily wounded.’

‘Really!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Well, I don’t know, now, when I have been

better pleased than to hear that. It’s so consoling! It’s such a delight

to know that, when they suffer, they don’t feel! Sometimes I have been

quite uneasy for that sort of people; but now I shall just dismiss the

idea of them, altogether. Live and learn. I had my doubts, I confess,

but now they’re cleared up. I didn’t know, and now I do know, and that

shows the advantage of asking--don’t it?’

I believed that Steerforth had said what he had, in jest, or to draw

Miss Dartle out; and I expected him to say as much when she was gone,

and we two were sitting before the fire. But he merely asked me what I

thought of her.

‘She is very clever, is she not?’ I asked.

‘Clever! She brings everything to a grindstone,’ said Steerforth, and

sharpens it, as she has sharpened her own face and figure these years

past. She has worn herself away by constant sharpening. She is all

edge.’

‘What a remarkable scar that is upon her lip!’ I said.

Steerforth’s face fell, and he paused a moment.

‘Why, the fact is,’ he returned, ‘I did that.’

‘By an unfortunate accident!’

‘No. I was a young boy, and she exasperated me, and I threw a hammer at

her. A promising young angel I must have been!’ I was deeply sorry to

have touched on such a painful theme, but that was useless now.

‘She has borne the mark ever since, as you see,’ said Steerforth; ‘and

she’ll bear it to her grave, if she ever rests in one--though I can

hardly believe she will ever rest anywhere. She was the motherless child

of a sort of cousin of my father’s. He died one day. My mother, who was

then a widow, brought her here to be company to her. She has a couple of

thousand pounds of her own, and saves the interest of it every year, to

add to the principal. There’s the history of Miss Rosa Dartle for you.’

‘And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?’ said I.

‘Humph!’ retorted Steerforth, looking at the fire. ‘Some brothers are

not loved over much; and some love--but help yourself, Copperfield!

We’ll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the

lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment

to me--the more shame for me!’ A moody smile that had overspread his

features cleared off as he said this merrily, and he was his own frank,

winning self again.

I could not help glancing at the scar with a painful interest when we

went in to tea. It was not long before I observed that it was the most

susceptible part of her face, and that, when she turned pale, that mark

altered first, and became a dull, lead-coloured streak, lengthening out

to its full extent, like a mark in invisible ink brought to the fire.

There was a little altercation between her and Steerforth about a cast

of the dice at back gammon--when I thought her, for one moment, in a

storm of rage; and then I saw it start forth like the old writing on the

wall.

It was no matter of wonder to me to find Mrs. Steerforth devoted to her

son. She seemed to be able to speak or think about nothing else. She

showed me his picture as an infant, in a locket, with some of his

baby-hair in it; she showed me his picture as he had been when I first

knew him; and she wore at her breast his picture as he was now. All the

letters he had ever written to her, she kept in a cabinet near her own

chair by the fire; and she would have read me some of them, and I should

have been very glad to hear them too, if he had not interposed, and

coaxed her out of the design.

‘It was at Mr. Creakle’s, my son tells me, that you first became

acquainted,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, as she and I were talking at one

table, while they played backgammon at another. ‘Indeed, I recollect his

speaking, at that time, of a pupil younger than himself who had taken

his fancy there; but your name, as you may suppose, has not lived in my

memory.’

‘He was very generous and noble to me in those days, I assure you,

ma’am,’ said I, ‘and I stood in need of such a friend. I should have

been quite crushed without him.’

‘He is always generous and noble,’ said Mrs. Steerforth, proudly.

I subscribed to this with all my heart, God knows. She knew I did; for

the stateliness of her manner already abated towards me, except when she

spoke in praise of him, and then her air was always lofty.

‘It was not a fit school generally for my son,’ said she; ‘far from it;

but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of

more importance even than that selection. My son’s high spirit made

it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its

superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found

such a man there.’

I knew that, knowing the fellow. And yet I did not despise him the more

for it, but thought it a redeeming quality in him if he could be allowed

any grace for not resisting one so irresistible as Steerforth.

‘My son’s great capacity was tempted on, there, by a feeling of

voluntary emulation and conscious pride,’ the fond lady went on to say.

‘He would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the

monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his

station. It was like himself.’

I echoed, with all my heart and soul, that it was like himself.

‘So my son took, of his own will, and on no compulsion, to the course

in which he can always, when it is his pleasure, outstrip every

competitor,’ she pursued. ‘My son informs me, Mr. Copperfield, that

you were quite devoted to him, and that when you met yesterday you made

yourself known to him with tears of joy. I should be an affected woman

if I made any pretence of being surprised by my son’s inspiring such

emotions; but I cannot be indifferent to anyone who is so sensible of

his merit, and I am very glad to see you here, and can assure you that

he feels an unusual friendship for you, and that you may rely on his

protection.’

Miss Dartle played backgammon as eagerly as she did everything else.

If I had seen her, first, at the board, I should have fancied that her

figure had got thin, and her eyes had got large, over that pursuit, and

no other in the world. But I am very much mistaken if she missed a

word of this, or lost a look of mine as I received it with the utmost

pleasure, and honoured by Mrs. Steerforth’s confidence, felt older than

I had done since I left Canterbury.

When the evening was pretty far spent, and a tray of glasses and

decanters came in, Steerforth promised, over the fire, that he would

seriously think of going down into the country with me. There was no

hurry, he said; a week hence would do; and his mother hospitably said

the same. While we were talking, he more than once called me Daisy;

which brought Miss Dartle out again.

‘But really, Mr. Copperfield,’ she asked, ‘is it a nickname? And

why does he give it you? Is it--eh?--because he thinks you young and

innocent? I am so stupid in these things.’

I coloured in replying that I believed it was.

‘Oh!’ said Miss Dartle. ‘Now I am glad to know that! I ask for

information, and I am glad to know it. He thinks you young and innocent;

and so you are his friend. Well, that’s quite delightful!’

She went to bed soon after this, and Mrs. Steerforth retired too.

Steerforth and I, after lingering for half-an-hour over the fire,

talking about Traddles and all the rest of them at old Salem House, went

upstairs together. Steerforth’s room was next to mine, and I went in to

look at it. It was a picture of comfort, full of easy-chairs, cushions

and footstools, worked by his mother’s hand, and with no sort of thing

omitted that could help to render it complete. Finally, her handsome

features looked down on her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if

it were even something to her that her likeness should watch him while

he slept.

I found the fire burning clear enough in my room by this time, and the

curtains drawn before the windows and round the bed, giving it a very

snug appearance. I sat down in a great chair upon the hearth to meditate

on my happiness; and had enjoyed the contemplation of it for some time,

when I found a likeness of Miss Dartle looking eagerly at me from above

the chimney-piece.

It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look. The

painter hadn’t made the scar, but I made it; and there it was, coming

and going; now confined to the upper lip as I had seen it at dinner, and

now showing the whole extent of the wound inflicted by the hammer, as I

had seen it when she was passionate.

I wondered peevishly why they couldn’t put her anywhere else instead

of quartering her on me. To get rid of her, I undressed quickly,

extinguished my light, and went to bed. But, as I fell asleep, I could

not forget that she was still there looking, ‘Is it really, though?

I want to know’; and when I awoke in the night, I found that I was

uneasily asking all sorts of people in my dreams whether it really was

or not--without knowing what I meant.

CHAPTER 21. LITTLE EM’LY

There was a servant in that house, a man who, I understood, was usually

with Steerforth, and had come into his service at the University, who

was in appearance a pattern of respectability. I believe there never

existed in his station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn,

soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at

hand when wanted, and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to

consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had

rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging

to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of

whispering the letter S so distinctly, that he seemed to use it

oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he had he made

respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, he would have made that

respectable. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability,

and walked secure in it. It would have been next to impossible to

suspect him of anything wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable.

Nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery, he was so highly

respectable. To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have

been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable

man. And of this, I noticed--the women-servants in the household were

so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and

generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire.

Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in every

other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. Even the

fact that no one knew his Christian name, seemed to form a part of his

respectability. Nothing could be objected against his surname, Littimer,

by which he was known. Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported;

but Littimer was perfectly respectable.

It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability

in the abstract, but I felt particularly young in this man’s presence.

How old he was himself, I could not guess--and that again went to his

credit on the same score; for in the calmness of respectability he might

have numbered fifty years as well as thirty.

Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me that

reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I undrew the

curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature

of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not

even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first

dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it

down like a baby.

I gave him good morning, and asked him what o’clock it was. He took

out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and